Dana Massey Asks Why Not? Instancing
It's become a dirty word to some, but is instancing in MMOs really the boogieman it's been made out to be?
“Instancing” has become a dirty word in some segments of the MMO community. It’s easy to understand why. By its very definition, it limits the number of players in what is supposed to be a massive, shared experience. Yet, on the other hand, for game designers, instancing – when used correctly – is a powerful tool that allows them to create more dramatic, meaningful gameplay experiences. So, today, I wonder why games cannot have the best of both worlds and use instancing, without making it into a single-player game?
When it comes to instancing, I honestly believe the fan objections are far more about an ideal than a reality. Sometimes, we get caught up in what an MMO is supposed to be and limit things that would make them better or more fun based on that ideal.
On MMORPG.com, we define an MMO as a game that has large, shared common spaces of several hundred players, persistent characters, and some kind of advancement system.
It opens up a slippery slope when it comes to listing games on our site. Take Global Agenda, which won our Best of Show at E3. Every time we post about it, one persistent forum poster reminds us that, to him at least, it’s not an MMO. Yet, we list it. The reason is that at its core, it fits our criteria. There are large common areas, and players control persistent characters that do grow and change over time. The argument comes down to instancing. In Global Agenda, almost all the content is in small, instanced areas. It’s like a wagon wheel. Everyone “lives” at the center then goes out to enjoy content with small groups. There is no massively multiplayer gameplay, for all intents and purposes.
How is that different from a game with no instancing at all though? Say you go on a dungeon crawl in a game with no instancing. You still form a self contained group and run down that rabbit hole. The only difference is that other people may be there ahead of you. This creates other problems like kill stealing, which many MMOs have cleaned up by locking monsters to the group fighting it first. The irony then being that once you lock the content to a group, it’s basically them in an instance others can see.
Now, granted, this eliminates the heroism factor. Some of my best online experiences are being saved or saving a life in a Dark Age of Camelot dungeon. But is that little piece of refreshingly human gameplay worth the other problems?
Let’s take golf for example. Do you think real world golf courses wouldn’t love real world instancing? It would allow them to get as many groups on the course as want to be there and no one would need to wait for that slow trio a head of them to play out their hole.
In some ways, MMO dungeons can become like crowded golf courses. One group moves through in search of the Golden Pants of Hoarding +3, while another follows behind, killing things for XP as they wait their turn.
Now of course, some people like throwing beer caps at that slow trio in front of them on the golf course. So I don’t argue that open dungeons should be abolished, just that there needs to be both in a well rounded game.
With instancing, this golf-course like phenomenon goes away entirely.
And the above are just the practical reasons instancing, when used judiciously, can improve the MMO experience.
The real advantage of instancing is the ability to then improve that dungeon in more than just efficiency. Instancing allows for a more mutable environment. Characters can set off traps that lock doors, collapse walls, or take divergent paths through the content in an instance in a way that is impossible in a shared space.
Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa actually did a remarkably good job of this, in theory at least. The creator of the most famous sandbox, shared-space MMO (Ultima Online) became an instancing convert. He wanted to tell epic stories like he used to do in the earlier single-player Ultima series and instancing allowed him to do it. Every Tabula Rasa demo included some epic, cinematic dungeon crawl with environment changing events.
Tabula Rasa may have tanked spectacularly, but I would say that had more to do with the game’s lack of general content, odd storyline and setting than any ideals Garriott had about instancing.
Recently, I traveled to Edmonton to see Bioware’s Dragon Age and touched on that in a blog update about choice and how MMO designers could learn a thing or two.
But really, it’s about more than choice. It’s a core problem with MMO dungeons. In every MMO dungeon, people go in for a specific goal. They want to get a piece of equipment, slay a specific boss mob, or grind out the XP. In games like Dragon Age, you head into the dungeon because that’s what your character needs to do to save the world. You do the same thing, but you don’t pay attention to experience points, just progress.
Instancing would allow more emotionally impactful stories to be told in these dungeons. I realize that in an MMO, everyone cannot be the hero of the story. But you can be the hero of that particular situation.
A smattering of deep, hand-crafted, story-driven and instanced dungeon crawls in major MMOs would give people the ability to get together with their friends and recreate those LAN parties we all tried to do in Baldur’s Gate.
And if they came with proper and significant rewards that equaled the time investment people spent, they’d even be a big part of the advancement experience and the game in general.
I am not saying every MMO has to be a sea of instanced content. The fact is, sometimes MMOs and RPGs don’t totally work together. There are times when it’s great to take advantage of the openness of an MMO, but storytelling just isn’t one of those times. So, give people the option to do these quests and really have a fun time.
It’s also time for fans to give up on everything needing to be so black and white or intellectually pure. If a traditional fantasy MMO has a bunch of instanced gameplay added on, does that make it any less of an MMO?
It could also open up some fascinating new end-game options.
Too often, MMO endgames are just about PvP or raiding with no in between. Developers seek infinite content, which is understandable, but what if they also tacked on a story driven end-game?
Single player RPGs prove that people will participate in epic, hand-crafted fantasy adventures purely for the entertainment of doing it. Once the designers were able to assume max level characters, they could create some pretty tough and dramatic content for small groups to work their way through.
And just like Baldur’s Gate, where party members come and go in different stages, so too could an MMO’s content. One day I may play with Jon, one day with Garrett. It still moves forward.
If paired with other forms of less finite content, it would alleviate endgame boredom, keep people around longer and maybe even add more replayability as people want to unlock the different campaigns.
I believe there is room out there for many different kinds of gameplay. Instancing is one thing that should be a positive, not negative in an MMO. Like any other tool, though, it’s just about the developer’s ability to use it correctly.
As fans, though, we need to broaden our horizons and stop arguing absolutes. Instancing unto itself is a great tool, one of many out there. There is nothing anti-social about it.
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Interesting topic. I feel instancing has become less of a dirty word since World of Warcraft heavily used it. I remember before WoW it was a very good thing to use as little instancing as possible, for example Lineage 2 didn't use instancing at all until very recently. It's way around were portals that led you into a room where only your group could go.
On that note I believe there are several types of branches of MMO's.
One is the PvE game which really isn't hindered by instancing. People who love the PvE content need the instancing to feel like they really matter and that they've done something epic. There is little challenge to doing an open world boss because anyone can come and zerg it up.
Another is the Open World PvP game where players can freely kill one another anywhere anytime. Many games have restrictions on this such as not allowing it in town and penalties for killing players. These games don't work with instancing because instancing is a way to level up and hide from PvP threats. These games rely on open world raids for their content, moreso to gather players at a location to PvP and win the raid.
Then there are shades of gray. It's all up to your preference, if you want an MMO to be similar to a single player experience then your game requires a lot of instancing. If you want your game to be more about a living breathing world where you can interact with the environment then there are also those games. There is a game for almost everyone right now.
The reason it's a dirty word is because of how horribly it keeps getting used. I am fine with dungeons being instances, I am not in the least bit ok with the game world being zoned and instanced. I want to be able to run from one side of the world to the other, and when I leave a city and then come back I don't want there to be a completly different set of players there because I'm in a different instance of that city now. That is what I hate.
It's even worse when a game has PvP so a person zones out and back in and is no longer being attacked because he's in a new instance that his attacker only has a random chance of getting in.
Instancing for dungeons is fine, it eliminates having to wait on other groups to finish and stuff to respawn for your group to have to go through. It prevents griefing of someone else running up and killing the boss or grabbing the item you worked all the way through to get. But instancing is not ok for the world as a whole.
I agree with most of the points here, except I think games should contain a mixture of instanced dungeons and open world encounters that players actively fight for.
All instancing isn't bad, but AOC was the poster child of how not to implement instances.
I agree with this response for the most part. The people that completely shun the idea of instancing must of never played DAoC or Ultima Online. Nothing like hugging a corner of the dungeon to try and keep 2 or 3 respawn spots to yourself so your character can progress at a decent pace ;)
However, I think that instancing can also be utilized in creative ways such as allowing players (or volunteer Game Masters) to design their own mini dungeons. It could be useful for Live Event ideas as well and it definitely provides a more personalized experience to the player without actually having to clear space within the permanent world. I think the idea of instancing has been more of a blessing than a curse. Even games like Guild Wars have created a successful game on the entire idea of instancing. It will be near impossible to provide personalized experience for every player within an MMO without instancing. I can't imagine an MMO without it ;)
Going to have to hold up AoC also as how not to instance. EVERYTHING was instanced in AoC. Literally no matter where you were in the game, it would instance if the population for that area went over a certain number. Back at launch when populations were high, it was ridiculous. One of the most common things seen in global chat was: "Where are you?" because nobody understood at that point how instanced it was nor how convoluted it could be to get a group of players together in the same instance.
Funcom solved the problem in an interesting way: The made the game fail so that there weren't enough players around to trigger the instancing. I understand due to the low populations, its not much of an issue anymore.
I have to agree instancing is necessary in today's MMO's mainly to prevent a griefer or camper from ruining others experiences. You just can't expect everyone in an MMO to play nice, so instancing removes much of that problem.
While UO dungeons, which were not instanced, could be very scary as you could run into reds at any time, there was always the problem of bosses being camped. Griefing was not so much a problem as you always had the option to deal with them. I think some instancing of even parts of UO dungeons would have helped that game.
The problem we were presented with in AoC was they really over did instancing which was obviously disliked by many. So it behoves a developer to use instancing judiciously.
As to Global Agenda, yes I realize it meets MMORPG's criteria and I need to shut up about it. Is instancing in the manner they are doing ok? I think that the game will do quite well as the design seems to fit the gameplay well.
What I really don't like is the way some games instance everything including towns. You want to play with your friend you have to move to their instance or vice versa. That was one of the things that I really disliked about Swords of the New World but they also had significant problems with kill stealing too.
Instancing is here to stay until game developers come up with other ways to control those whose primary intent is to ruin the gameplay of others.
Was a nice article to read
I still feel Tabula Rasa did it really good job with instancing, still a shame the game never grow to be a MMORPG as in the end it was more of just another multiplayer games as it lacked what I personaly feel makes a online game a MMORPG and thats more then just combat action.
I dont look at instancing as a bad thing... It should be used more to create content - both single player and for groups. Ok - you might not change the world but heck- if the world changed every time someone sneesed - then there would be no stability.
There is one terrible thing about instancing tho... LOADING SCREENS. If you want to see very bad job of instancing - then do a AOC trial and see how Tortage is split into 1000000s of instances that all bring loading screens. If you have a fast computer you might acutally see 8 loading screens in a minute !! Now - thats NOT how to make a game.
Dragon Age is not out yet - lets not get carried away about how good that game is. But if you are telling me that there are 100 diffrent paths from step one -' and then 100 OTHER paths from step 2... then .... You are lying. Now... if one or two members in your party go mad or you piss off some NPC.... that has been done before in NWN... I dont see DAO as something other than dressed up version of it... with longer cutscenes. BTW those dont make for more enjoyable GAMEPLAY ...
I'm not sure if you actually, truly agree with what you wrote, but speaking of MMOs and their definition, instancing as the crutch it is being used as today by developers on the whole was no where near a part of the definition of an MMO when this genre started. When the MMO genre was born, in specific the graphical MMO, these games were conceived as online worlds. The idea of little cordoned off areas where only a group could go and to generate an instance for each group that consumed that content just wasn't there. Meridian 59 didn't have them. Ultima Online didn't. Asheron's Call didn't. They were all wide open worlds and they did just fine. Sony (who I'm just starting to believe is the MMO anti-christ because it seems they are at the center for occurrences that just...well, suck) came about as close to "instances" by creating the heavily zoned world of EQ.
Instances aren't the way, in my opinion. They are a very poor, lack of imagination in game-play design band-aid. There's the whine by developers that it helps make specialized content. Maybe, but a big part of the MMO concept at it's birth was getting the player immersed in another world. Loading screens aren't immersive. No way anyone can spin that to make that way either.
You want to prevent kill stealing/interference for special content? Try using a "reverse-lock". Once an action triggers the event have the main and/or related mobs be able to engage players that are in a defined area at that moment. Those same players are the only ones that can get rewarded for the content. Anyone wandering in after can aid or work against the locked players. That maybe not the greatest of ideas, but it's a ton more appealing to me than a loading screen.
I would like to see instancing replaced with a highly trained live teams. This world has thousands upon thousands of really good pencil & paper Dungeon and Game Masters. People who know how to give a fair and balanced game-play moment on the fly. Marry these types up with a good set of "live team tools" as discussed in that other article and we begin down a much better path, I think.
Instancing sucks. It takes more from the table than it gives back. Basically, instances guarantees uninterrupted access to content at a tremendous sacrifice to immersion.
Making a case for instancing is like making a case for permadeath; it just begs "Why?"
And don't get me started on phasing....
My fave game of all time is Diablo 2 and its expansion. The game is inf act instancing. Or I like to call it server based. up to 8 people per a game, and always a unique experience of spawns and drops. Sure the main monsters will spawn in the main area. But in general it allowed each go to be something new.
Ok, so if you complain about slow people ahead of you, then I'm going to complain about patience. How come we don't have patience anymore? MMO's are about social experiences as well. Maybe the devs should make more than 1 dungeon for level ranges, and make then all unique but equal. Games that make many places to quest, but make one of those areas uber to the rest then yeah, it's going to be crowded. If your going to spend millions on an MMO why complain about resources when your already spending enough; might as well keep taking out loans or finding investors. Or just don't get into the market at all, it's risky business.
Forcing people to wait as part of the game is just silly, it's a game, not a job. As for the dungeons and areas, what games lack that? Wow had dungeons with overlapping ranges and many choices for where to level. War had less dungeons, but you had three choices on where to quest. Which games are these that funnel you into one area?
I don't dislike the idea of instances I dislike how they have been used. Instead of being a tool to help spread people out thus giving more people a better online experience (no one enjoys fighting over every spawn like happen post trammel) they have become micro raids. The way they have been used takes away all forms of randomness. You need X items go to Y dungeon and kill Z boss.
While instancing does solve some problems and creates content on demand developers also use it as a crutch. The dungeons of EQ needed to support a lot of players and groups at the same time, those dungeons were huge with multiple entrances and pathways. WoW on the other hand suffers the hallway syndrome, the quality and size of the dungeons just isn't there. So while you solve the problems of not enough content by making unlimited numbers of intanced copies the thing that suffers the most is dungeon quality. I would much rather play an MMO light on instancing.
You could list the pros and cons:
Instance Pros:
Content on demand
Less content required since devs can just copy it
No outside interference (racing, leapfrogging)
No camping
Solves overpopulation
Instance Cons:
Segments the world into pockets, less zone chat and community building
Dungeon quality suffers since it's not ment for huge amounts of players, the hallway syndrome
Immersion suffers since there are no public dungeons, your wagon wheel effect
Let's devs get away with one small dungeon instead of many big ones
You could probably add to that list and might not see what I outline as a pro or con as such but IMHO instances are not used to their full potential with custom encounters and scripts. They are just a cop out for not being able to make huge, multi level, diverse dungeons in multitude.
A heavily instanced "MMORPG" is nothing more than a multiplayer RPG with a graphic lobby. DDO isn't going F2P because it's run by a charity organization; the only reason they called that thing an MMO in the first place is so they could justify charging a monthly fee for it. Your whole argument is full of holes.
The reason is that at its core, it fits our criteria. There are large common areas, and players control persistent characters that do grow and change over time.
If we followed that logic we could lump pretty much every multiplayer game in existence that offers some kind of character progression system into this genre.
Is COD4/CODWAW/CODwhatever an MMOFPS? Sure it is. There are large common areas, and players control persistent characters that do grow and change over time. Is Diablo 2 an MMORPG? Sure it is. There are large common areas, and players control persistent characters that do grow and change over time. The only difference is, the large common areas are presented in a chat/text form (take battle.net for example) rather than a graphical one. Besides, I'm pretty sure one could find a few text lobby gems in your game list.
I don't have a problem with any those games. I like both -- Massively Multiplayer Online Games as well simple multiplayer Role-Playing Games and First Person Shooters, but let's call them what they really are.
As fans, though, we need to broaden our horizons and stop arguing absolutes.
Good point. For starters, we could stop comparing MMORPG's to single player RPG's. Yes, they're both RPG's, but as far as I'm aware, "role-playing game" isn't a synonym for "a game where you go on dangerous dungeon crawls in order to slay the dragon, save the world, and become a hero".
Take Ultima Online for example; the game didn't have quests, it didn't tell you what to do -- it was a persistent world with no instances, a true MMORPG.
MMORPG's were nothing like single player RPG's, they're still not (in spite of many people, including you, doing their best to de-evolve the whole genre), and they never will be, as it just doesn't make sense to let thousands of players enter the same virtual world, and have each and every one of them sent on the exact same mission to individually save the virtual world they live in from great evil and peril, which, of course, all of them will be rewarded for with the exact same title and the exact same epic sword.
Oh, and just fyi, SWTOR is going to flop.
As much as the folks who hate instanced content don't like it, at best you will see a perfect mix (as stated in the article). Classic MMOs almost never used instancing, but also it resulted in: KSing, greifing, insane world spawn timers, and lag (usually when you want it least). Lag is envitable, but add a big mob & dozens of people...and its most likely going to happen (regardless). Its great to have an immersive area where people can interact with any content, anywhere, at anytime - even locked, some of those issues can rise their ugly head and its an unreasonable request for the genre - if you want everything else to be perfect.
We'd love for devs to be perfect and make perfect claiming systems, and allow for players to help other groups fight world spawns, but at the end of the day the amount of work to put that in...can be done in less than half time in an instance and the server weight is far less, hence they go with the cheaper & easier way -> instancing.
I applaud the article, as it was well written & it has good intentions. People need to be realistic or by all means bust out your own servers & code up "full immersion" - its just not reasonable for businesses, no matter how much you think or want it to be - they want profit not immersion, and instancing is the answer. Focus on making better instancing & give up on complete open world...unless you want a small player base.
And drop the "Is it an MMO" debacle. Think of it like art & literature. If millions agree its good, even if you hate it...guess what, your wrong. If its close, even with exception, if people agree or consider it an MMO en masse...ah well, pick a new fight :)
Without instancing, popular dungeons become mob deserts. They play like newbie zones in relatively new or retooled MMOs where everyone stands around frustrated waiting for the spawn and the life expectancy of a mob is 5 seconds or less. Queuing up for the named mob is also just stupid. The mob is so dangerous he needs to be killed, but here's his corpse already at my feet, and I have to wait for him to come back to life, get killed a few times more by the ten guys in front of me, so I can finally get a chance to kill him and get credit for it.
One solution is to drastically increase the respawn rate. This means one mistake by anyone in the area has everyone sprinting for the exit like in EQ's BlackBurrow (TRAIN!!!!!!!). whee. This leads to having to use pulling techniques to separate groups of mobs. Doesn't really cure the problem, just treats a symptom.
The problem is that in an MMO world, players can outnumber even the friendly NPCs. Each player wants to be a hero or part of the hero's group. It just doesn't work in popular areas.
Instancing is the only way to get a feeling of actually encountering content in a way that doesn't make you feel like you're part of some cattle call.
it's all in excecution. Look at CO, LoTRO, and CoX all use instanceing to great immersion.
In CoX indoor mission,s task forces, and the like are all instanced, its your team vs the bad guys.
In CO they did away with "Shards" and instanced the world. Their could be 10 versions of the tutorial running each with 50 people in them. Then you move onto Either Crysis Desert or Crysis Canada, another "instance" shanrd which you have to "save" to move onto "real Canada" or "Real desert" and then once you hit 14 its back to Millinium city (non totorial) you get a real sense of progression.
in LoTRO all the dungons are instanced, some even gated until you finish X quest. whichj lets them run cutscenens to help with imersion.
hehe, I was wondering if you'd know I was talking about you :) Seriously though, that's fine. You have your opinion and present it respectfully each time, that's all we ask for ;)
This so totally made me laugh. "Instancing sacrifices immersion." What? Are you kidding?
How immersive is it if another group of players rumbles up and kills that epic villain you have so painstakingly worked your way up to? So, you then have to wait for him to "respawn"? Puh-lease!
Instancing is vital to immersion, in my opinion. More than that, the option to solo content in an instance is crucial to immersion. Ever make your way through some epic dungeon only to have a complete jerk in your party turn the entire experience into a miserable experience for one and all?
I love grouping and persistence; don't get me wrong. But I wish more MMOs would offer SP-RPG instance options for players who like me, actually care about the story. The STORY.
As a general rule I prefer (i) playing solo + AI + instances for story and (ii) playing in a group + instances and/or persistent environments when I just want to goof around and have fun or tackle something I cannot accomplish on my own.
Nothing destroys -- DESTROYS -- immersion and story-telling for me faster than some idiot in my party (or even some idiot just running by in a persistent world) with a "Noobs-R-Us" moron avatar name and a stupid, jerkface attitude to match.
What I'd like to see MMOs offer is "Player Modes". Enter a special instanced area (like, for example, player housing) and select your preferred mode that particular day:
--Mode 1: Persistent world/Dungeons & Instances scaled for player groups of 5
--Mode 2: Persistent world/Dungeons & Instances scaled for a group of 5 players and/or AI/henchmen (as in Guild Wars)
--Mode 3: Persistent world/Dungeons & Instances scaled for 1 player
If LotRO or WoW were set up this way, I would go back to either of those games. This is roughly how DDO is structured. The problem with DDO is that there is no real persistence, which is a bad thing, imo, and also the game is just not that great. But the concept of offering players OPTIONS for completing instanced content -- solo, solo plus AI, or group -- in DDO is really excellent.
hehe, I was wondering if you'd know I was talking about you :) Seriously though, that's fine. You have your opinion and present it respectfully each time, that's all we ask for ;)
also Guild Wars (2) is heavily instanced (we think)
I quite agree with most of that. Instancing needs to be used for dungeons as it allows a much deeper story to be told, and also keeps griefers/gankers from ruining others experiences. Those are the REAL "anti social" elements that every game has, and who have to be dealt with in one fashion or another.
Phasing(as Blizzards Wrath of the Lich King uses it) is also a very powerful approach to telling an ongoing story. Given the various advantages to be had, one must hold suspect the motivations of those who are obsessively against instancing. One approach to ganking/griefing that I would LOVE to see implimented would be an extended form of the ignore list. That being if you have someone on your ignore list, they are not even rendered on your client and can have no influence on you what so ever.
Instancing is also a very useful way of allocating cluster resources, and thus reducing lag to the players involved. Guild Wars does that rather well with their districts. Social interaction is all well and good, but it doesn't have to be "massive" to be enjoyable.
The very best dungeon experiences I had were in public dungeons with contested camps in Everquest (EQ1). The presence of other players actually was sometimes a relief, especially if you were deep inside the dungeon, lost, and fearful of having to make a perilous "corpse run" to get your gear back if you died.
Such dungeons were truly sinister and you were careful in rounding every corner. And if you ever got lost, your heart sank.
The thing about immersion is it makes you feel, be it good, bad, in-between. And sometimes to experience true exhiliration or satisfaction you must balance that with occasional frustration.
These newer toothless instanced MMO's are pretty weak in the immersion department, and I suspect supporters of such designs would be just as happy playing Oblivion offline, or have never had the experience of playing a richly immersive MMO back around 1999 - 2000.
I think its hard to make an argument against instancing using older games such as Ultima Online where instancing was actually before its time. With the MMORPG genre becoming more of a bigger thing with more players playing it day by day, instancing almost becomes necessary to cater to the amounts of players without compromising their experience by having players collide on each other in non-instanced areas.
Sometimes I have a hard time completing quests in WoW and those are just quests, imagine the World if we all only had 1 version of each dungeon to share and how many people will be stepping all over each others feet. I don't solely believe that instancing should be the end-all be-all within a whole MMO but it definitely helps when satisfying such large amounts of people. Really, the only current game I can think of right now that doesn't use instancing (as far as I know) is EVE Online, but then again its purely an outer space game and there's enough outer space out there to provide room for all the players at any given moment (aside from Jita).
One question for people against instancing I would like to present is, if you absolutely CANNOT use instancing to cater to thousands of players at once, then what other alternatives are out there that can sufficiently do this? Would be best to provide more current examples of what has worked since the MMO genre is a far different world than what it used to be with Asheron's Call, DAoC, Ultima Online etc. etc.
I think instancing is being abused by some and taken to higher levels by others.
Originally I believe instancing was created for gameplay reasons. It stopped the PK, kill stealing and spawn camping. For that I commend it and think it should be used in any highly involved spot that is going to funnel a lot of competing players through it.
Then developers figured out they could use it for story. A great thing in my book.
But then developers also figured out they could use it as a way to work around network infrastructure issues and graphical performance. Why is AoC instanced EVERYWHERE? It's so they don't have too many people on your screen slowing your machine down. And it's so they don't have too many people on one server slowing their machine down. Frankly, it kills immersion when taken to that level and for me it's not worth the shiny graphics trade off.
Now they are taking it further with phasing. And for that I once again commend them. Make it seamless and make it advance gameplay without obviously breaking immersion.
I want to see more of that.
The very best dungeon experiences I had were in public dungeons with contested camps in Everquest (EQ1). The presence of other players actually was sometimes a relief, especially if you were deep inside the dungeon, lost, and fearful of having to make a perilous "corpse run" to get your gear back if you died.
Such dungeons were truly sinister and you were careful in rounding every corner. And if you ever got lost, your heart sank.
The thing about immersion is it makes you feel, be it good, bad, in-between. And sometimes to experience true exhiliration or satisfaction you must balance that with occasional frustration.
These newer toothless instanced MMO's are pretty weak in the immersion department, and I suspect supporters of such designs would be just as happy playing Oblivion offline, or have never had the experience of playing a richly immersive MMO back around 1999 - 2000.
How does waiting in line to kill a quest mob add to immersion?... ^^ How does having your quest mob stolen add to immersion? I've played these games since UO. I MUCH prefer the current approach to the old style. I remember having to keep two or three complete sets of armor and weapons in my vault in Asherons call(One) just to have ANY chance of getting my good set back, after a wipe. Thankfully, most games have moved beyond such an approach. Oblivion was fun(once they patched it enough to keep it from crashing...). I have no problems with *some* aspects of social interaction. But some of the others need to remain in the dust bin of game history where they so richly belong.
Instancing is one of those polarizing things that you never can really get a read on. Is that saying it sucks because he's secretly a greifer? Is that guy saying its great because he's a sociopath? In reality its a good and a bad thing. Dark Age wasn't my first MMO but definitely the one I stuck with longest. My biggest reason for liking instances is the problems that other players cause you. The poster above that claimed reverse-whatever would alleviate the problem has never played an MMO with public dungeons. The exact same thing happens all the time. Group one goes in and another group comes in some time after. While the first group kills off the hordes of mobs on the way to the epic baddy, the second group just coasts behind them. At some point the second group rushes forward attacking the main mob getting the 'link' and the game only lets the lazy people get credit. This always worked in Darkness Falls in DAOC because the group that would be taking the risks can easily be caught fighting enough mobs so that trying to also rush ahead to get the epic mob will always result in suicide.
I just had to quote this because I'm still laughing at it.
Anyway, I agree with what others have said, instancing is fine for "dungeons", "buildings", or whatever structure has quests/missions that you need to complete. in fact, I prefer it nowadays. With the MMO population now mainstream, there are just too many a**hats that spoil the fun for most of us who just want to play and enjoy a game without someone coming along to KS us, or loot something that we needed. However, I do have to say that I have some very fond memories of the beginning days of non-instanced EQ dungeons (LGuk and OS come to mind). Nothing like saving someone who never expected you to show up, or giving someone an unexpected hand deep inside a dungeon who needs it.
But times have changed from the days when one person doing something wrong to many would have consequences. Now, there are practically no repercussions to doing anything wrong in the MMO society. So instancing solves that problem rather nicely. However, I would agree that the main, outside world should have no instancing at all. That bothers me a lot. I don't want to see 50 zones of City Block1 thru 50. In my opinion, that just kind of takes something away from the social aspect of it when you do what to interact with others.
All I know is that so far, there's far too much queuing in CO, even with the repeated zones they spawn, that does allow for a lot of jerky behavior by people who have no business playing any game with a social element. I much prefer the CoX model where anything worth doing outdoors is not so "special" that you see people waiting in line to do it over and over again. Sure, people will want to take down a large mob, and many teams will gang up and get a share of the xp and the badge and such, but that's just a fun diversion, not the core of the game. The core is me and whatever team I join going up against the forces of evil (or good) to accomplish some set goals, and no maladjusted ten year old or embittered thirty-something is going to mess that up. When I get to the main game of CO proper, I sincerely hope that it follows the CoX model more closely than the WoW model, because for me, immersion is found in instances, not in the main world where people are allowed to spread levels of dysfunctional behavior in broadcast chat that would get them pummeled mercilessly in real life.
All this talk about instancing effecting immersion is interesting. Personally any world that requires heavy instancing to maintain immersion is poorly designed to begin with and is more of a theme park ride where youre being led by the nose everywhere, just like everyone before you and everyone after you. I wish more games would follow EVE's example and create a world where there is no single quest or item everyone "must" have or a single area path that your character must follow as they develop. To me immersion is being able to play a game the way a character I create and shape would do so. In a well designed game, using targeted small instances helps with this. If the game requires much more than that, its probably not a game Im going to play because i dont like its base design is simply not what im looking for in a game and therefore it doesnt effect me.
Instancing prevents a player's actions from having an effect on a world, so the sandbox crowd is against it. At the same time, the Themepark crowd also like world events, so they like both instances and non-instanced boss fights, etc. I personally don't care that much one way or the other if the instance is presented in a logical way and fun way.
Would be best to provide more current examples of what has worked since the MMO genre is a far different world than what it used to be with Asheron's Call, DAoC, Ultima Online etc. etc.
The technology is rapidly advancing, and yet the games are getting more simplistic and dumbed down every year. Sure, sometimes the graphics are nice, but eyecandy isn't going to keep people subscribing for years. In my opinion, every MMORPG should feature a seamless, persistent world where people from all around the world meet and interact in different ways, since that is what the first MMORPG's used to be.
What's worrying is that nowadays there's so many people who, instead of living a virtual life, meeting and interacting with people, want to lock themselves in isolated rooms and go on some single player or multiplayer adventures with a bunch of people they know and accept. They don't want to play MMORPG's, they want simple multiplayer RPG's, and that is what they're getting (AOC, DDO etc.) Then they have something to whine about, usually lack of endgame, but you can't avoid running out of content in a game that is just a multiplayer extension of a single player RPG.
UO, EQ, AC defined the characteristics of this genre, you don't redefine it to better fit a bunch of hybrid games that don't really fit this or any of the other already existing ones, you make a new one. For instance, NCSoft calls Guild Wars a CORPG (or at least used to when the game was about to release), which stands for Competitive Online Role-Playing Game. Why is it listed here?
Why is AoC instanced EVERYWHERE?
Because FunCom does a piss poor job at developing MMORPG's, that's why. They weaseled their way out of making a true MMORPG by creating a bunch of rooms (zones) and multiplying these rooms to accomodate as many people as necessary (districts). It wouldn't be much of a problem if AOC was a pure PVE game, but since they also have PVP servers, making it possible for someone to simply avoid their enemy by going to a different district of the same zone/area or hide in an instance no one else can enter is simply absurd. Server and client performance was just an excuse, as, despite all the limitations, the client performance was still abysmal, and the districts often lagged and randomly crashed.
multiple edits: tags.
You do realize that about 2/3 of Eve's player base stays in high sec, and never leaves, don't you? ^^ Theme park games are the current focus of various companies, because thats what appeals to the mass market demographics. Instancing is a tool. Just like any tool it can be misapplied. But people who go on(and on...) about the "massive" aspect of MMO's, either have little experience with what results in sand box type games...Or are part of the problem. ^^ Gankers/griefers will be with us always. That being the case, games need to take actions to minimize the impact such people have on the rest of the player base.
You do realize that about 2/3 of Eve's player base stays in high sec, and never leaves, don't you? ^^ Theme park games are the current focus of various companies, because thats what appeals to the mass market demographics. Instancing is a tool. Just like any tool it can be misapplied. But people who go on(and on...) about the "massive" aspect of MMO's, either have little experience with what results in sand box type games...Or are part of the problem. ^^ Gankers/griefers will be with us always. That being the case, games need to take actions to minimize the impact such people have on the rest of the player base.
I could be wrong, but it sounds like you're trying to negate the previous poster when you say "You do realize that about 2/3 of Eve's player base stays in high sec, and never leaves, don't you?" But I don't see how.
I'm not a hardcore gamer but I really don't like instancing much in MMOs.
I think using instances is a cheap fix for poor game design and/or current software limitations. Almost all issues related to "needing" an instance such as overcrowding, griefing, kill stealing etc could be fixed by better game design.
I think if a game has instancing it should have some different title then mmo. I personally despise them and will seek out a game that does not have them or limits them. Even with all of its problem Vanguard is the best guys like me can do right now.
Instancing is great for those that want everything now now now, or don't really want a long term meaningful game experience. Instancing players are there to play a game. Its all about the fun and the fast reward. That's not a bad thing. If that what you want then I say go for it. By having instaces you will avoid all of the problem that all of the previous posters have listed. Instancing really does work to that end. What I am saying is that for alot of us the "problems" listed before add to the meaningful game experience that instance players are trying to avoid.
For all of the old school EQ guys out there think about it. The first time you saw someone with an epic weapon did you think oh wow that's an accomplishment, that guy knows what he is doing. Or did you think wow he must have just killed X mob a few hundred times to get that, and walked on. A lot of instancing games are just rinse and repeat scenarios. Keep running the instance till you item drops, or until you collect x number or tokens or coins or whatever. Having it instanced means no waiting instant repeat. Having a spawned mob in an open world makes every attempt meaningful and exciting. You will be more careful when you know you cant try again for an hour or a week. Some instances have lockout timers. That takes away the randomness of having mobs with variable respawn timers. You know you are locked out of the instance for 3 hours, but in a persistant world that dragon you need might respawn in 30 minutes or might be 3 days.
Things are more meaningful to players like me when we feel like they are rare or hard to get/accomplish. If it means waiting a week for a camp to open up or a few hours for a respawn, or any of those "problems" listed then that makes it all the better. I think even to day one would have more bragging rights by saying they were on a Sleeper raid in EQ then any 5 accomplishments in a game like WoW. The Sleeper can only be awakened once. what would happen if a mob was put in a an instanced game like WoW and the thing could only be done once? We all know what would happen. I'm not saying the whole game should be one time actions but the fact that something like that would be seen as game breaking to a lot of people is just another "problem" that would add to a meaningful game experience.
I just wish one company would make one game for the guys like me. then we would fade away and stop bothering all of the rest of you. Sadly those days are over. Today no one has time to play a game like that. now everyone wants it all on demand. Played EQ for 5 years and never made it to level cap. Best game time I ever had. Everything pales in comparison. Honestly instancing has killed it more for me then the other issues I have with games today like spoon fed experience, instant travel, and GPS maps. Sad when a game doesn't really start until you hit the level cap.
Some people say its a game not a job. Well I might be old fashioned but I tend to enjoy things more when I have worked for them. Gimmie a game that's hard work over a welfare game any day.
Coldsteel6d, have you tried Darkfall? It seems to be what you are speaking of. Also Mortal Online may also suit you. Both are full loot PK games with some sand box elements. I personally despise such gankfest games, but they do appeal to a certain limited demographic.
A little off topic but I've heard this said a number of times from EVE players and I don't understand it. I've tried EVE for months and what you could do in the game seemed to break down to this:
Which is all well and good. But here's the thing, here's what I can do in LotRo or Wow:
It seems pretty similar. The only difference is that the "theme park" games have a plot to entice should I wish (which is why most entertainment is popular; movies, books, plays, etc.) whereas the "sandbox" games leave me with no real suggestions for something entertaining. I guess that's why most of the popular sandbox games are PvP... because there really is nothing else engaging in them.
So it seems what many are really saying is "I want world PvP with nothing in the way."
Or, maybe I'm just not cut from that cloth and can't get it. Same way I don't quite understand girls and never will ;)
Agree.
In the end this is all about personal preferences. My personal preferences would be:
1) Open world where each part is one single zone (whether EQ style or chunked). If too many players in the same area causes too much lag then the (a) the world is designed wrong and/or (b) the game's graphics need to be lower quality.
2) Big open chaotic dungeons.
3) Each big open dungeon with a smaller instanced dungeon accessed past the hardest part of the open dungeon with the biggest boss.
4) Mixture of mob-grinding and solo quests with at least some of the quests class specific and some of the class specific quests having small instances for class-specific flavor e.g thief skills or healer quests involving healing.
5) The possibility of player-created DM story quests - maybe instanced.
I judge a game by one criteria - fun.
You can have fun games with instancing, and not fun games without it.
The real issue is gamers judging a game on something like this even before they play it and not based on fun. Just another reason I wouldn't want to make a game for the MMORPG crowd.
Interesting article and interesting feedback.
Instancing and instanced 'worlds' are an issue I think MMORPG.com should look at seriously IMHO.
As the article says, instancing can be a useful tool for storytelling.
So, that suggests to me that the argument is for appropriate use of instancing?
And here is where we (MMORPG.com members) perhaps need to review the definition of an MMORPG?
Recent design trends seem to suggest designers are relying more and more on instancing - my question is: do they need to?
At what point does your game stop being an MMO and become an "online game with a multiplayer option"?
There are a number of recent threads on this very topic here on MMORPG.com (see below)
The article refers to the "Wagon Wheel" design.
This creates something I refer to as the "Graphical Lobby Game"
That is a game where the entire game is made up of a series of instances - to the point where the game world is essentually only a waiting area (or graphical lobby) where players wait to go into an instance.
PotBS was a good example of this.
PotBS (Graphical Lobby Game)
Main World (chat only - no trade) = The Main Lobby
Sea Battle instances (PvP)
Towns (chat and trade - no Av Com) = The Secondary Lobbies
Fencing instances (PvP)
Mission instances
And to be fair - if this sort of design still qualifies as an MMO then why don't games like FARM TOWN also qualify as MMOs?
That is an issue I raised here:
FARM TOWN vs. MMORPG.com (http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/247530/page/1)
And to be honest I was a bit disappointed that it seems that FARM TOWN does apparently count as an MMO based on the rules on MMORPG.com and based on peoples' current understanding of what the term means.
Farm Town, for those that don't know is just a series of instances.
In many cases I think instancing is being used not because it is required (for storytelling or other reasons) but just because it's easier. In other words, it has become a crutch for lazy (or untalented) design teams. Can't think of a way to tie the different elements of your game together? = Just use instancing!
My personal view on this is that the MMORPG.com community needs to review what an MMO is based on current industry trends and technological capabilities and limitations. From that the rules of what games should be listed on MMORPG.com in future need to be reviewed.
Part of the requirements should be "Is instancing really required in this case?".
Where the answer is "Maybe not, but it was the easiest way to do it." then perhaps the games status as an MMO needs review?
Related threads:
An attempt to define "instance"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/246307/page/1
What's so bad about instancing?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/246215/page/1
Global Agenda, Huxley Online, CrimeCraft are NOT MMOs!!!
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/240096
What defines a true MMO?
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/240346/page/1
MMORPG - small instanced zones or huge and seamless world
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/237825/page/1
My definition of a Graphical Lobby Game
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2898536#2898536
Your Solultion To The "Zerg"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/246723/page/1
I'll never be a fan of instancing, since its against the massive part of MMOs. You can make open stuff dramatic and whatever too, the developers just didnt try it yet.
I agree with a lot of people in saying, instancing = poor game design.
I would like to also add, grievance and help in non instanced game is very important for building a community.
I have a few friends still from my EQ1 days where I met them purely in game by helping each other.
I am afraid the community side is often overlooked by the annoyance and grievance issues with non instanced games.
MMO are suppose to be massively multiplayer online, as in people of all ages and sizes thrown together in a big world, not a single player game where you can invite friends to play occasionally.
Instancing makes a game world to me, feel very artifical and more like a game than a virutal existance.
I am sure WoW and Xbox live have made me the minority here but there is a generation of players who still cry out for this.
Yea they would suit me except I don't really go for PvP unless it means something, like DAOC. The RvR with 3 factions is great. So PvP is not something I am hunting for. I don't think I even mentioned it in my post as a matter of fact. I am not looking for a "gankfest" game. I am looking for a meaningful experience. I think you are trying to lump me into the same group as all of the guys that love games like Darkfall and the old UO.
PvP is cool but once again if its fast and easy like in WAR scenarios then its not fun to me. I want to work at taking a keep or fortress. I want to have the risk of playing for a hours and in the end maybe my guys win, maybe we are repulsed. Either way instancing and PvP = weak and pointless.
I have a new definition for a single-player game. A single-player game is an extremely instanced MMO, where each player has his own instance of the whole game. The MMO is so extremely instanced that you don't even need an internet connection for playing it, you can just play it on your disconnected computer or console.
For all of you who hate instancing as I do, check out this MMOG called Dawntide. www.dawntide.net/
and what the developers think about instancing. forums.dawntide.net/showthread.php
Q: Will there be instancing?
"Instances are the devil's work. Why, scarcity of resources is the source of most fun in history! Imagine all the fun wars and history we would've missed out on with instancing in real life." -Zodium
Its funny that even when asking this before, no one seemed to respond. In regards to all the arguments against instancing, no one has even tried to present another alternative to actually catering to a large mass of players in terms of game play experience without having the players collide on each other or wait in lines etc. Wouldn't that in itself take away from the "immersion" that the people against instancing are trying to use? It sounds counter intuitive. You can't just create a super large world and expect your whole player base to fit within this world. It just doesn't work especially if you are trying to develop a game to cater to many people and trying to meet a deadline on top of that.
Instancing is practical on both ends and because its being used for the most part in theme parks right now, does NOT mean it cannot be used for more creative or persistent purposes. People against instancing want to argue that developers lack imagination and are being "lazy" but at the same time those same people cannot even see other potential in instancing outside of the ways its being used today. Those same people can only say how bad instancing is, but cannot seem to produce an alternative to provide an equal (or close to equal) game experience to the amount of players in a massive multiplayer game (maybe 1 tried in this thread total).
Its one thing to just say how bad instancing is, but can you honestly say you wouldn't use it as a developer? If you honestly think you wouldn't, then what other alternatives would you consider to provide pleasant game experience to many players that are playing your game at once without them colliding on each other or stepping on each others feet? (and I'm not talking about preventing griefing etc. just plain old waiting lines or sitting in the corners of dungeons to hog as many spawn points as possible)
EDIT: I would like to see someone that actually has played in a dungeon during UO, DAOC and similar times to honestly try to argue against this after playing endless hours of just sitting in corners of dungeons and fighting other players just for respawn areas. In UO's case, even fighting for the loot after you kill a hostile.
I think we need to straighten out the definitions and terminology. I suggest the following definitions:
SP - single-player: we all know what that is
MO - multiplayer online: you have a text-chat lobby and instances
MMO - massive multiplayer online: the same as MO but with an extended lobby:
- 3D lobby with avatars
- persistent lobby and avatars
- you can develop avatars (levels, XP points, honor points, achievements ...)
- marketplace
- classes
- professions
- quests (simple and large story driven quests)
- static environment (whatever the players do the world is still the same)
PMMO - pure massive multiplayer online:
- one unified and persistent virtual world (not divided into lobby and instances)
- no levels, XP points, honor points, achievements ...
- no classes
- no proffessions
- just skills which you can develop only with using them and it is impossible to develop all of the skills in a reasonable time for example in 100 years
- no quests
- players can influence the environment (building and destroying cities, roads, dams ...)
- players can permanently influence the behavior of the NPC (humanoids and animals)
- no stories, just a historical background until the moment the game starts and from that moment on the players create the stories and the contemporary history
The best answer to you post is content. In EQ you only waited for a camp or spawn if you wanted to. there was enough to do that you could do something else. But if you were hell bent on getting your JBoots and wanted then today, then you you waited for the camp. Me personally, I would go to Kwdgw or DSP, or Sol, or any of the other hundreds of places. There was always so much to do that you could always have fun, unless you wanted to wait. then that was available to you as well. Same goes for any well made game. Content allows for the hardcore spawn campers and the instant action crowd.
Instancing cuts out the competitive guys that want to spend "countless hours just sitting in corners" waiting for a spawned mob. Some people want to go through that to get the best stuff, those same people dont want to see other casual players having the same stuff for less work.
Maybe I'm just a masochist, but I actually miss trains and camp checks. I liked going to a dungeon zone and knowing there would be people there to possibly group with instead of spending 30 min LFG in the city, then spending the next hour waiting for everyone to get to the instance. And the trains just added more risk, which is a good thing in my opinion. Keeps you on your toes.
I think dev's could save players a lot of grief simply by separately categorizing heavily intanced vs open games. Perhaps a heavily instanced game could be classifed as an MSORPG (Massively Single Player Online Roleplaying Game). And more open games would be the standard MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game).
That would work for me and would help to narrow down choices when scoping out future games to play.
A little off topic but I've heard this said a number of times from EVE players and I don't understand it. I've tried EVE for months and what you could do in the game seemed to break down to this:
Which is all well and good. But here's the thing, here's what I can do in LotRo or Wow:
It seems pretty similar. The only difference is that the "theme park" games have a plot to entice should I wish (which is why most entertainment is popular; movies, books, plays, etc.) whereas the "sandbox" games leave me with no real suggestions for something entertaining. I guess that's why most of the popular sandbox games are PvP... because there really is nothing else engaging in them.
So it seems what many are really saying is "I want world PvP with nothing in the way."
Or, maybe I'm just not cut from that cloth and can't get it. Same way I don't quite understand girls and never will ;)
You can't simply name dynamics and then say they're equal. The ocean and a pond both have 'water' but that doesn't mean they're equal. The things you compare tend to have much more depth in EvE than in LoTRO. As far as a having a storyline to entice, the primary singular characteristic of an MMO is the other players. EvE allows a much MUCH deeper experience than LoTRO because the players interact with each other, instead of all the players interacting against the game. Anyone one of those dynamics in EvE is deep enough to be the entirety of the game for a player, IF that player so wishes. Players are free to entice each other, develop their own storylines, plots, etc...
Thats what sandboxers look for as opposed to themeparkers, imo.
We're trying to create a persistent universe in Force of Arms, not only a world but multiple worlds in which things are going on simultaneously...a big feat to say the least.....we've been asked this same instancing or no instancing questions ourselves....
For the most part, instancing can have a purpose, but in our universe I believe that the case for use of one would be far and wide between...with enough content and outside influence to drive story I believe there should be no need for an particular instance to kill x boss...especially when in our world...if x boss is killed he is gone...gone for good...however that brings up a new set of circumstances for us...how is it persistent in how the next players would get to do content like that...in our case...they'll still be able to but not quite exactly the "same" content...their goal to kill x boss in dungeon or whatever would have a different tailored set of circumstances...we're looking at doing some things with AI which should remove static boss mobs as we know them today from the environment of mmo's...but still give the player a good content rich experience.
Now there are times when instanting would NEED to be in place...of the few quests that exist in the sandbox universe, certain things to help the player along with story and content will need to be provided. for and thats where instancing comes in for us...to warp you out of the world, to tailor a specific story or content piece to you (sometimes by GM sometimes through what we call 'real quests)..where you will need to go someplace, overcome obstacles (mobs or evnironment or both) and then reach your goal to further that content, story piece for you. For instance, you run across a small clump of stone and dirt debris randomly within the world...you decide to investigate it a little further (if you decide to totally up to you)...
While digging around you uncover a stone inscription buried deep in the ruins...you extract it and then take it to the local scientist for study..who may or may not be able to decipher the meaning of it...maybe need to take it to more then one guy to get a 2nd opinion on it...then you get information that tells you that something ancient was distrubed/buried to keep others from accessing to much power...this gives you a clue to another clue..another place to go find more information and so on...until you reach a point where You must enter a certain location that you've discovered personally and investigate what's there..ruins, outpost, archeological dig, mob hive etc...this location contains something of value that you have to search out...value could be knowledge, recipe, equipment who knows...what it is...this is tailored to your experience...and so on...
These are the types of things we're trying to start doing in while keeping the one single universe/world open to as much user created content (player cities/outposts/defense bases/mine facilities etc) as possible all the while encouraging faction against faction (corp against corp) pvp/pve as well as "end game" for all including crafter types...
It's a tough one..but instances can be used for good...i just think they're over used today, and especially in how they're implemented to provide quick content...
I think Dana raised an interesting issue and I have enjoyed reading people's opinions here pro and con instancing.
As developers continue to "blur" the lines in MMOs this way and that, it's going to be harder and harder to define what an MMORPG actually is. My own definition is quite broad: I see an "MMORPG" as an online RPG game that has a large simultaneous player base.
But I'd be happy to drop the first "M" altogether, as it is often confusing to people. Some say the "massive" applies to the game world (it does not, actually). The problem is that the "massively" applies to the number of players, and what people quibble about is whether those players all are really "sharing" the same (persistent) space or are in fact all split up into separate instances.
Guild Wars is certainly structured like that. I would still call it an MMORPG, but I can see why many would not.
I think new acronyms are needed, or else we just need to drop the first "M" since it's so highly debatable.
So, how about we just describe these games as "MORPGs" and add "highly persistent" or "extensively instanced" if a distinction needs to be made?
I did notice this on the Guild Wars 2 website FAQ:
"Will Guild Wars 2 be an MMO?
Yes. Guild Wars 2 provides a massive, online persistent world."
Maybe we can just relax and agree that the "massive" has to mean that an online RPG has a massive, online persistent world and just take a chill pill as to whether the MMO also uses a lot of instancing or not?
If we use this definition, of course, then DDO, Guild Wars 1, and a number of other online games can no longer be considered "true" MMORPGs, and I'm fine with that.
Instancing of "dungeons" is a very different thing then sharding a world. All mmos use some form of sharding with the partial exception of EVE (but see Jita for where reality collides with this). The general division is between those games that divide up people into servers and those that divide peoiple into instances. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage of shard based games is that on the meta level all the players are in the same world.
Server based sharding advantages:
Disadvantages:
Shard based instancing advantages:
Disadvantages:
Which way you go depends on your design goals. I don't understand players having such a strong feeling about an underlying structure like this though, the actual game experience is what really matters.
Ultimately, who cares. To be blunt here, what's it matter what we really call these games. An MMO built upon instancing everything and an MMO with absolutely NO instances are both trying to accomplish the same goals here. This is why games have different names, we shouldn't have to release a new name for every different feature utilized in all sorts of MMORPG's. To take a different example, Left4Dead and Team Fortress are both shooters, but two very different kinds of shooters but we still genre both of them into FPS. This whole genre naming thing is fairly redundant, not on topic with this thread and probably as bad as arguing the definition of marriage in the government. Ultimately, who cares what we call it, it can be called Gigantic RPG with Many Players if thats what you want to call it, the games under the MMO genre have the same overall goals they are shooting for and the argument with names is fairly ridiculous. We do not need to depend on the name of the genre of a particular MMO to provide just a little bit more information but many times more complexity, do your research, it takes 5 minutes to get the jist of a game, hence renaming the genre is unnecessary and counterintuitive.
In regards to instancing (the topic of this thread), I think someone above posted in regards to EQ and providing enough content to keep everybody occupied. There are many players that are playing this game and most likely will shoot for the same content, is it fair for everyone to wait 30-60 minutes to get access to a particular busy area? This will appear to be at a disadvantage to the more casual players that log on for lets say only 30-60 minutes at a time. They'll sit there, maybe or maybe not get access to that one thing for a total of 0-30 minutes and then log off for other reasons (maybe a busy guy). I would say thats unfair from a character development perspective and instancing is rather convenient in sharing the content with many. Now, I wouldn't say its impossible to share the content in a world without instances, but its safe to say there will be difficulty in sharing the same content if there was no instances. People will shoot for the same content given enough players and it would take too much time from a company/investor perspective to create enough content to spread a large amount of people out enough at once (depending on game design). The only other solution behind this I can see is creating many services with smaller populations but then again, its a matter of resources to create so many small worlds to fit the large amount of players overall. There's a reason many games utilize instancing and I think it goes beyond being "lazy" (it does not mean that is the case), but we are looking at a handful of people trying to provide content to tens and hundreds of thousands (in WoW's case millions).
Instancing isn't the answer. Anything that takes the user out of the experience isn't the answer. Phasing is the best device I've seen so far that allows players to be in the same area doing different things.
Instancing has its place. I liked instancing in Anarchy Online with the random missions. It made sense in that case. You left the main game world and entered an instance for a mission. I despise instancing in WoW and CoX. Why? Because of the nature of it. How many people are fragging the exact same boss or running the same exact mission as you? It leaves it all feeling pointless. It is even worse in WoW in general (CoX with AE) with you farming the same dungeon/mission over and over.
If you took something like AO's missions (to be honest, I have no idea what they are like now not having played in years) - added in some sort of factional element to work them into the story - then you would have the sense of story progression that is not as linear and certainly not as repetitive as we get in most games.
Sure, there is the desire to be part of the big picture - the big story - but at the end of the day, when you have raided the same dungeon for weeks (while others are doing the same) - what is the point to it?
With the combination of random instanced missions for character growth, live events for the progression of the big story, and a little tweaking here and there - there might be a game that does not leave you feeling like a hamster running on a wheel looking out at a fish swimming in circles in its tank.
Maybe...
I agree (as you can see by my earlier post) that most dungeons should be instanced. But I would like to say that not only were the trains in BlackBurrow about the only thing I found fun and exciting in EQ (trying to hold off as many of them as you could so weaker players could get out, or to try and be the hero of killing them off) but it was one of the few times in MMOs that I actually felt danger. I can't think of a modern MMO where I ever was nervous in a dungeon that everything could go wrong and I could die. That is in part due to instancing, part due to modern day easy mode MMOs, and in part due to nothing happening when you die now.
I miss the days of danger.
For those that prefer a unified world where people are running into each other all the time, I have to wonder why, exactly. I mean, sure, if the population was comprised of mainly decent people who would go out of their way to help one another, sure, but more often than not you find people who jump in and just start blasting whatever is in front of them, with little regard to who is fighting what, and with no sense of what the proper way to behave is when interacting with others, either in or out of combat. In a game world, there are far too few repercussions for people who behave poorly, so there is no reason for these people to behave otherwise. The people who end up having the "best" time are those who basically play like other people aren't even there. They do whatever they want and most of the time aren't even called on it, because as long as they don't go out of their way to piss someone off, most people won't bother to report it because it just eats into time they could otherwise spend playing the game they paid the same amount for as the asshat who doesn't give a damn about anyone else. It won't matter if the person is banned or not, because the customer service reps never discuss the actions taken against griefers, so you never feel truly vindicated, even if you are. I am sure I wouldn't mind a seamless world without instancing if people behaved better, if it didn't feel like I was being led by the nose from one plot point to the next, and if I didn't have to sit around so long waiting for that special spawn or glowie to refresh. Instancing happens on MY time, and that's why I enjoy it. I'm not messing up someone else's agenda, and they aren't messing up mine. I do a few instanced missions, and sure, others do the same ones, but so what? If I take down a named mob in the game, some other group is going to do the same damned thing in however many minutes it takes for him to respawn. What's the difference? Nobody affects the WoW environment in a meaningful way any more than the CoX environment. I much prefer opting into random zone raids that are epic and huge once in awhile at MY option than being led to a huge battle by a string of missions that I pretty much MUST do to level up in a reasonable time period. Also, one thing I REALLY enjoy is that in instanced games, I can opt to solo any time and make good progress. With non-instanced games, I might be stuck waiting for a mob to respawn, or for a team to let me in so I can take down this huge plot point mob that I need to advance to the next story line or area.
Again, I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that I've given both a fair shake and find that I'd rather be able to remove the human element entirely at my discretion via instancing than be locked into a world where I'm at the mercy of the young, the socially-maladjusted, and the cruel.
Everquest's problem wasn't the open content it was rare mobs dropping rare loot - the combination of which created bottlenecks. If you have a dungeon where one mob drops three items, a common, uncommon and rare drop and that mob is itself a rare spawn with place holders then you do get a lot of the problems people mention. However if...
1) Those three items were split up between three named mobs who always dropped their particular item.
2) The named mobs were flagged and only dropped their special items once per player.
3) The special items were no-drop.
Then there'd be no incentive for players to kill them more than once and no incentive for farmers.
I'd also say situations where players are fighting over mobs just for levelling is bad world design. Either there's not enough dungeons for the level range or more likely there are more dungeons but for some reason people all congregate in just one. In EQ terms i think that latter case was mostly due to things like the ease of travel, access and binding.
When it comes to things like trains and bad behaviour it's definitely true those big open dungeons make griefing easier and i think that's a fair reason for liking instances but personally i used to love the sense of danger you got from having to dodge trains now and then so the occasional griefing was worth it to me. But that's obviously a personal thing.
I think instancing can really enhance or destroy a game depending on how it is implemented. There are ways it can be done that can make an MMO much much better. Instances must make the existing world MORE fun. They should NEVER make a player feel as though they are forcefully separated from their fellow players. Obviously when you go into a dungeon with your friends, you don't feel separated because they are with you. The worst thing ever is when you feel you are separated from your friends IN THE SAME ZONE as them... It doesn't make any sense and it completely destroys the immersion.
In my opinion it SHOULD be done this way:
1. Instanced dungeons as seen in WoW. However, I feel that SOME dungeons should not be instanced. There needs to be both in my opinion.
2. Instanced raids. Again, I think SOME of the raids should be open-world content.
3. Instanced solo-content. This hasn't really been done yet and I think it could really enhance some class-specific content. Imagine difficult epic instanced areas where your character is the sole hero and the objective must be completed just to advance your character.
4. Developers should do their very best to make instancing as invisible as possible. WoW's new phasing technology is a perfect example of this. You can enter instanced areas in that game and never even realize you left the main open world.
Instancing should NEVER be done this way:
1. Instanced cities.
2. Instance open world zones.
Any game that instances world zones or cities instantly kills my feeling of immersion. No matter what they do at that point, its gone... I've lost interest in the game. As in Age of Conan...
Tell me something: Why are you screaming at me for articulately explaining what I dislike about MMOs? I don't think it would take you or anyone else of average intelligence any great amount of time to figure out there are far more things offered by MMOs than the things I dislike. I think I'd focus more on why you feel it's appropriate to scream at people who don't share your ideas than for me to explain what I enjoy about the MMOs I play.
Let me explain it this way. I love Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. But what I dislike about the game is that it is a war game and a FPS. I don't think it would take anyone of average intelligence any great amount of time to figure out there are far more things offered by COD 4 than the things I dislike. So Infinity Ward please let COD 5 be not a war game and not a FPS but put some elves, magic and sword fighting into the game.
And sorry about screaming, I apologize :)
You do know that its traditional to mix /'s in with that many ?'s?
Perhaps, as several have said, there are *aspects* of MMO's(of what ever definition) that don't exist in single player games? People do add to games. But they also tend to bring negative elements to them as well. In the old days one had to simply deal with that. Games as well as their audiences have moved on since then. I personally would not wish to return to that past.
Haha. That made my day.
Good article Massey. When used correctly, I think we'd all look forward to some of the epic story-lines and "power" instancing could place into the hands of the individual or small group of adventurers. Developers just need to realize when they should use it. IMO, it's used best if no one ever even notices it because it flows so well.
One thing that Blizzard did with Classic WoW was put in pre-instance areas. Like deadmines. It added to the immersion of the area and gave an introduction to what the actual deadmines instance was. You could pickup groups there to do the quests and actual instance or run just around the pre-instance.
Instances are here to stay now because the MMO game, now has a huge following (compartiavly speaking from back in the M59/UO/NWN days)
Those "old" games we remember fondly, EQ / UO / ETC, had small populations, hence REPUTATION actually mattered. Sure there was kill stealing and queue jumping etc. All of these things had repucussions, your name was known for doing such, as was your guilds.
It was also pretty unheard of to get a name change or server transfer. So your rep stuck with you. Heck I had to jump through hoops (including an in-game chat with a GM) to get a transfer in EQ. These days you can just pay a few bucks and bam transfer to a new server. Reputation just does not seem to matter as much in the "modorn" age of MMO's.
Do I miss the old yells of "camp check"? Sure on some days .. but seeing the way that gaming is going (more mainstream and more-so with alot of games aiming at the consol market) I am glad for instances and not having to deal with certian personality types.
To me, as an "older" gamer, it seems manner's are lacking in alot of the newer players. I dont blame them really, I blame the way games have evolved to make reputations worthless. Most people will point to WoW and say that this is the root of poor game-play. WoW being "main-stream" and focusing heavy on instances and worst still the easy ability to name change / server transfer is a factor for sure, its a trend with society as a whole though and MMO's are just reflecting that. We could get into a debate about how society is falling .. but thats not a topic for MMO forums really :p
Bottom line, Instancing is here to stay. People are, a general rule, are not very nice. The anonimity of the internet brings out the worst in people as there are no repucussions for thier actions and modorn gaming just relects that. Rather than try to change people, the industry just trys to limit how much people can irritate each other. Smart move if you want to keep making money.
That said, all of your arguments are silly and invalid, because most of you are probably not very nice, and your opinions are therefore hard to gauge on a level of how much you actually care, or how much you're trying to troll the forums.
Instancing is just a technique, a way of doing something, you could have an "instance" in a dungeon where the 'name variable' changes on some monster to reflect a choice you made in a quest chain four levels ago, some guy you betrayed to the council (the other option being to tell them you did something bad yourself), who has now joined the rebels that you are killing right now in a dungeon. See? Bam! Storyline, choices, actions being reflected in future gameplay!
The "instancing" would allow this player, or this group of players (multiple enemy NPC characters?) to reflect on their previous gaming experience and go "yeah right, so he joined up with these rebels, huh?" or something along those lines, without affecting other players or their particular "enemy NPC" names.
There are little things you can do with instancing, not just lock out a group into a zone, but customise it to suit their game or story, not that we've really seen any of it yet, but I imagine that's the sort of thing we may be seeing in SWTOR.
Blah! I just wanted to give a small joke about how people suck, but you guys made me rant! Gah!
Totally agree and this is why I stayed with CoX for so long. I'd love to see them increase the number of instance maps and add some new, non-city, zones but being able to progress through a mission at my own pace was very far from counter immersive. It also worked just as well with groups.
I suspect it's why CoX generally had such a pleasant community, so much less of the jerkish kill stealing anger!
Careful it's strapping a bomb to itself as you type and seeking out your place of work, in order to kill the largest amount of unbelievers, who shall burn in hell !
'Hell is other people' not entirely true just the loony, uncompromising ones.
What a great article!
After seeing the SWTOR private demo on Gamescom, I'd say it's gonna be heavily instanced in order to tell the story they want, ate least for the first levels.
If Warhammer had instanced RVR lakes, it would have been a powerhouse. Now, it's just another 300k entry into a flooded market of near misses.
And by the by, the author sounds like he's describing the SWTOR that I seem to be imagining.
Warhammer had instanced scenarios. There were instanced RvR lakes. Instead of laying siege to a big fortress you just captured the flag. That is one of the main arguments for an instance right? Fast and easy to get into. If they added a walled fort to an instance there would have been calls for murder. People would have complained that they couldn't get in 5 scenario runs in an hour any more.
So what is the difference in how Warhammer is and what you claim it should have been? What did they not add that you wanted to see? Personally I quit it because the instancing took people out of the open world RvR.
Warhammer had instanced scenarios. There were instanced RvR lakes. Instead of laying siege to a big fortress you just captured the flag. That is one of the main arguments for an instance right? Fast and easy to get into. If they added a walled fort to an instance there would have been calls for murder. People would have complained that they couldn't get in 5 scenario runs in an hour any more.
So what is the difference in how Warhammer is and what you claim it should have been? What did they not add that you wanted to see? Personally I quit it because the instancing took people out of the open world RvR.
No. There's a flaw in the logic of you open world, instance haters. Instanced PVP does not take people out of open world PVP.
Crappy open world PVP keeps people from participating in open world PVP.
Instanced lakes means that when you run into a lake from the "open world" you are loaded into a player population load balanced instance. Instead, we got a RVR that was determined only by which faction had more players.
When I started WAR at launch I was on a low population (but balanced server). My small to medium sized guild made a living taking keeps with 6-10 players until the Destro faction responded. Then we could hold a keep for hours against a slightly larger force. Other players from both faction would trickle in until either we lost the keep or the attackers got frustrated and left.
It was epic.
After the server merge and our guild reaching T4, no such luck. We couldn't even make it through a single keep lord before the zerg arrrived. Then, suddenly outnumber 3 or 4 to 1 we would get wiped in less than a minute.
EVERY TIME.
If the lakes were player population load balanced I'd still be playing. In two faction, static server, open world RVR, I suggest that it is theoretically impossible for the developer to guarentee a fair gaming environment because of server to server population imbalances.
Would you play checkers against somebody that only allowed you half your pieces? Chess if you only got the king side pieces? Maybe you would enjoy the challenge, but there's a reason that those game have survived and we both left WAR.
No. There's a flaw in the logic of you open world, instance haters. Instanced PVP does not take people out of open world PVP.
Crappy open world PVP keeps people from participating in open world PVP.
Instanced lakes means that when you run into a lake from the "open world" you are loaded into a player population load balanced instance. Instead, we got a RVR that was determined only by which faction had more players.
When I started WAR at launch I was on a low population (but balanced server). My small to medium sized guild made a living taking keeps with 6-10 players until the Destro faction responded. Then we could hold a keep for hours against a slightly larger force. Other players from both faction would trickle in until either we lost the keep or the attackers got frustrated and left.
It was epic.
After the server merge and our guild reaching T4, no such luck. We couldn't even make it through a single keep lord before the zerg arrrived. Then, suddenly outnumber 3 or 4 to 1 we would get wiped in less than a minute.
EVERY TIME.
If the lakes were player population load balanced I'd still be playing. In two faction, static server, open world RVR, I suggest that it is theoretically impossible for the developer to guarentee a fair gaming environment because of server to server population imbalances.
Would you play checkers against somebody that only allowed you half your pieces? Chess if you only got the king side pieces? Maybe you would enjoy the challenge, but there's a reason that those game have survived and we both left WAR.
Sounds like the other side was just better organized and prepared. They got the most, the fastest, to the best place. Sometimes things are not balanced, Sometimes things are not fair. At 4 to 1 odds yea you are probably just screwed when you are not defending but you know what? If there were no instanced scenarios available to players then you might have made up alot of that disparity. At any given time in WAR 75-90% of RvR action is scenario based in my opinion. No one comes out unless there is a major event going on. Dump instances and you can have multiple keep raids going on end that will cut back the advantage of the side with more people. They cant be everywhere at once and they wont be divided evenly.
If numbers were all that mattered in anything then during the cold war the Soviets and China would have rolled us up inside of 5 years. There is something to be said for skill and thoughtfulness. Don't use we were outnumbered as an excuse. Plenty of time in DAOC I was on an under pop server fighting against overwhelming odds and had fun and was successful. Not always and not even most of the time. But we were never automatically out of the fight because of numerical inferiority.
And as far as the Chess analogy, I do play that way. Its a much better way to improve yourself then by playing fair, why? Cuss life ain't always fair. Best way to train for it is to handicap yourself. It's makes a win 100 times more satisfying then just winning a standard game. Try it sometime. If ya keep losing you can always quit....
Sounds like the other side was just better organized and prepared. They got the most, the fastest, to the best place. Sometimes things are not balanced, Sometimes things are not fair. At 4 to 1 odds yea you are probably just screwed when you are not defending but you know what? If there were no instanced scenarios available to players then you might have made up alot of that disparity. At any given time in WAR 75-90% of RvR action is scenario based in my opinion. No one comes out unless there is a major event going on. Dump instances and you can have multiple keep raids going on end that will cut back the advantage of the side with more people. They cant be everywhere at once and they wont be divided evenly.
If numbers were all that mattered in anything then during the cold war the Soviets and China would have rolled us up inside of 5 years. There is something to be said for skill and thoughtfulness. Don't use we were outnumbered as an excuse. Plenty of time in DAOC I was on an under pop server fighting against overwhelming odds and had fun and was successful. Not always and not even most of the time. But we were never automatically out of the fight because of numerical inferiority.
And as far as the Chess analogy, I do play that way. Its a much better way to improve yourself then by playing fair, why? Cuss life ain't always fair. Best way to train for it is to handicap yourself. It's makes a win 100 times more satisfying then just winning a standard game. Try it sometime. If ya keep losing you can always quit....
/sarcasm
Your comparison of a game with rules to the real world is apt.
/endsarcasm
Games are not life. Games are games. People like games that are fair.
Wish in one hand and poop in the other. Instancing is here to stay.
People like instanced PVP because it is balanced within the game mechanics. The past is gone. There is no going back. You will not get what you want except in a niche market game full of elitist gankers like yourself.
I said very plainly that I enjoyed hours and hours of epic battles against slightly larger foe using strategy and defensive positions in WAR. When it comes to numbers of 24 vs 96 or 100 v 300, the higher number teams advantage increase exponentially in a zerg fest.
Let me give you a concrete example. If my team has 20 players and the other team has 80 players, even if we kill them 2 to 1, once our 20 players die and run back from the GY, we have killed only 40 players on the other team. They still have 40 players there who have yet to go down.
DAOC was a three faction game. Your argument does not apply to a two faction system like WAR.
The "orginization" argument is weak attempt at a personal attack that illustrates your complete lack of comprehension of reality. The imbalance was in WAR was evident and well documented. You had but to connect to the login server to see MEDIUM vs HIGH or FULL population to know who was going to hold the keeps. And it did not simply break down to my personal experience or my groups lack of organization. The underpopulated side NEVER held and significant number of real world RVR objectives. The underpopulated side NEVER advanced through the endgame PVP raid encounters. Not just on my server, but on every server. It wasn't only Order getting crushed by Destro on every server. There were servers where Order had the higher population as well. They had daily raids on Destro's main fortress. Destro never made it to the fortress on those servers, as Order never made it to Destro fortress on my server.
Save your lack of logic and personal attacks from somebody who cares about your opinion. You sir are an MMO dinosaur. Instanced everything is the way of the future.
Wow, such anger.
I merely stated a possible solution to your problem, remove the instancing. This will in effect force people to play together in an open world RvR system. As long as people have an easy out to get their quick fix of fast PvP action they won't spend time to go out and do some serious keep taking. At least a majority wont. That was one possible solution. Even at 4 to one odds if there are enough total players in the game world (one world) the guys with the most still cant defend everywhere equally. Human nature will show that guilds and friends will not evenly divide up for equal defense. Even if they do there are ways to outflank, feignt, and fool them with misdirection. This gives the attacker some advantage as they will be mobile while the defenders will remain mostly static. The attacker will also be able to pick the place of battle. these are facts in both gaming and real world conflict.
Now you can whine, complain, and quit, as you had. Or you can overcome this challenge that is in your path. So what I would really like to hear instead of someone calling me a ganker or an elitest is a possible solution to the problem you started out with. Do you have any ideas except for make everything an instance. Since I think that might go against the original problem just a little bit. You can play WAR as a pure instance game all the way to level cap bud. Nothing is stopping you from running instances all the way. might get boring after a while but all instances eventually do.