Profile: Almuderas
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• • Instances, Instances and even more Instances!

  • Originally posted by demo3210
    

    Instancing in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game is a MAJOR turnoff for me, personally.  I feel like MMORPGS were specifically designed to be linked with everyone else in the world all at the same time.  This is really kind of the beautfy of MMORPGS, at least to me.  An alternate world that you can actually be someone and have an effect on that world you were just in.  And that world you were just in may or may not have changed the next time you logged in, but you knew that once you logged back in it was the same exact world you just left however long ago it was.

    I thoroughly enjoyed Star Wars Galaxies sandbox method.  It may have lacked a lot of content in terms of questing, mission variety, etc. but you still could seamlessly travel through vastly large planets to cities as well as player cities.  The fact that this was so, added to the immersion of the world and made you feel like when you logged in you were actually in an alternate world and you had an effect in the world wherever you went.  It was like you were an integral part of it.  It was an amazing thing (until NGE that is).

    Instancing is kind of why Guild Wars always turned me off, granted it was free/month and a great game overall, which kind of made it more okay in my opinion.  Great game...just instancing is once again, a turnoff to me.

    I really do feel like instancing defeats some of the purpose of a true MMORPG.  It's basically like Diablo II where you just join a server to play for a little bit not feeling like you altered the world at all or in any way.  Nothing you did would ever change the world you logged back into.  (I am not saying in DII you were supposed to fell that way though) It was just a very self-indulgent game as it should be since it is in essence, a single player game.  But that set-up was completely okay to me because Diablo was one of the first of its kind and not specifically designed for an MMORPG concept; even though it accomplished its online counterpart quite successfully.

    Instancing just breaks up the entire game as whole.  You log in and every time you go anywhere or i guess 'zone', if you will, you have to pick which numbered world you want in, like Tabula Rasa.  So it makes you feel distant from everyone else playing and almost like you live in your own little world and you don't matter too significantly as far as the game world is concerned. 

    The only aspect that instancing shines in, is in the technical department.  Clearly hardware is an EXTREME issue with AOC and considering the depth of the graphics and software, I suppose there would be no other way around it without downgrading something of which more than likely would have been graphical appeal.   So does that mean that AOC is ahead of its time in terms of hardware specifications?  Maybe a little bit as far as the average pc gaming rig goes this year.  That can be a good thing as well as a bad thing.  Maybe in the future, once technology becomes more developed they'll lower the amount of instancing in the game, who knows?  I must say though, graphics are NEVER everything in a game; at least they shouldn't be.  There was a time when graphics would make a significant difference to me, but now, I think that is kind of a narrow minded way of thinking in a sense.  I would take a lower grade graphically developed game that was thoroughly accomplished in everything else versus a game with insane graphics and rather underdeveloped other aspects any day of the week.  

    I'm not going to let the fact that there is instancing be the sole reason I don't get into AOC.  There are many other more important factors than just this aspect solely such as....well, fun!  If it's fun enough, you bet I'll be right there with the rest of you as I'm sure many many others will be.  But if there was some sort of scale, -1 to AOC for instancing because sandbox is just simply better in terms of gameplay.  Maybe it won't be in the final version lol.

    Very well put post; I agree. Instancing in an MMORPG isn't an instant game over for me, but it's definetily something that takes away tons of immersive points (which to me = fun). I mean it's acceptable in a game like Guild Wars because theirs no monthly fee. It's also a different type of game. And, in reference to Anarch Online, the instancing done there was for missions. The regular world and the cities were all accessable by everyone and everyone was in the same world. I'm correct, yes? My memory might be a little fuzzy, but I don't recall AO having different instanced world zones. That game was great; it used instances in the right way, and it also had a vibrant and interesting world to run around in... AoC should have that in my opinion.

  • Posted: 5/10/08 9:59 PM
    Age of Conan
• • good game with one HUGE problem.....

  • It just seems "un-mmorpg" like to me. In particular the 'massive' part. I play these games because I don't mind the interaction, whether it be favorable or unfavorable, that I encounter. That's part of the fun. It's what makes it different from just another online game. /sigh

  • Posted: 5/10/08 6:35 PM
    Age of Conan
• • Instances, Instances and even more Instances!

  • Just reading about this makes me cringe. I was thinking of setting up a new PC when I got home from school to try this game, and even though I read tons of unfavorable things about the game, I was still going to give it a try. But... instancing zones including cities? I mean, that stops you from meeting tons of people you otherwise would have met, and it's just plain un-immersive.

    Why go through all the effort trying to immerse players in a "world of Conan" with great graphics, wandering NPC's that talk and interact, interesting quests and storylines... and then take the carpet down from below everything with this instance crap? I havn't played the game yet, but come on. How could this be? If I am in a capital city, I want everyone else who is in that city to be there. It lets me gauge my server, and the people on it. If it's all instanced then it might as well be a single player game with multiplayer option we're talking about. And don't compare with Guild Wars; that's a non-monthly fee PvP based game. Age of Conan is supposed to be an immersive world which let's you live in Hyboria.

    Ahhhhh, this is really bad. I was excited about this game; I never knew a suprise like this would rear its' head. Just plain dumb.

  • Posted: 5/10/08 6:26 PM
    Age of Conan
• • Bodyguards, mercenaries, or good samaritans?

  • I'm not playing this game at the moment because I currently only own a Mac, but I've been following it for a while and also been reading these forums.

    I remember somewhere the devs saying that hiring yourself out as a mercenary or bodyguard would be important. Now with the open beta server having FFA, has anyone seen examples of people hiring themselves out to protect their hiree's, or maybe just a group of people clinging together protecting other people from PKer's? Perhaps a guild who's aim that is?

    I'm just interested in seeing if that is actually coming to fruition at the moment or not.

    Cheers

  • Posted: 5/10/08 2:03 PM
    Age of Conan
• • Poll: You played beta, are you cancelling your pre-order?

  • Look, I'm reading this as a precursor to see if whether or not I should invest in this game come release day. Negative opinions, and also positive opinions, when backed up by evidence are totally welcomed. So, keep them coming. What I'm really worried about is it seemed a lot of people arn't looking past the lag/bugs and enjoying the game's mechanics; and they also arn't being immersed. That's more of a teltale sign to me about the a game than bugs or lag.

    Also, most of the people who seem to have favorable opinions about this game are just giving short one-liners, often with dumb language and acting like children. I'd rather not be playing with these people. I'd rather play with someone who wrote a compelling and thoughtful review of the game; and it seems like the majority of those people arn't liking it....

    So where should I go from here? You tell me. It doesn't look good.

  • Posted: 5/07/08 1:22 AM
    Age of Conan