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Instancing
nate1980
Member UncommonPosts: 2,072
After experiencing instancing in all its incarnations, there's one type I can't stand and will keep me from playing a game, and that's instancing where there are multiple copies of the same zone. Anyone know if this game will have this?
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It's personal preference of course and I respect it. Having said that, why would they not have it, especially at launch. It makes absolutely no sence not to have such a system, especially considering that PvP seems to be handled only in certain designated zones.
Some of the best MMORPG's don't and didn't have it: DAoC, EQ, SWG, WoW...
The first three you mentioned are quite old, when the MMO population was rather small. WoW is heavily instanced and unlike other MMOs that utilise the system, if you're not in the same questline, you can't switch to where your friends are. They call their system phasing, in case you never heard about it.
Yes I still remember fairly well how fun it was trying to finish a "kill the boss mob" quest in WoW at launch, with about 25 other players at the same area, trying to finish the very same quest.
Sadly, TSW is a quest-based game and this kind of instancing is necessary to avoid massive frustration. If you don't like it, wait for Guild Wars 2. I hear they have solved this age-old problem by simply scaling the "quests" (events in GW2 language) according to the amount of players participating and removing the need to actually "tag" the monsters to gain rewards.
So is this your way of saying "yes, the game will have that kind of instancing"?
I'm not talking about that.
If you've played SWTOR, then you know what I mean. It had multiple instances of the same planet, so you'd only have at max 170 or so people on the same planet before it created planet2.
Yes, i think the game will have that sort of instancing to some degree, especially in the start when everyone will be in the same region. Hopefully it will be to a lesser degree when the population spreads. Also the regions (which constists of several zones) are really big and seamless. The 1 warzone it launches with does not have multiple copies of itself, but the battlegrounds will.
EDIT: The player cities won't have multiple copies of themselves.
Honestly I have no idea if it'll have or not. I do however expect it to have it. It's a feature (and not a problem) and it's extremely useful, especially during launch period.
Well, whether it's a feature or a problem depends largely on the size of the maps. If you make the maps too small, like the single game size of SW:TOR, you can expect these kind of problems constantly. If the maps are of fairly big size, you can expect this problem only at launch.
On another note, since we're on the subject. Would you prefer as few servers as possible by of course utilising instancing or even perhaps one giant server or multiple little servers but no instancing at all? I'm saying that because, unlike space, there so many people you can put in a segment of a map, before it become ultra conjested and not fun for those in it.
Funcom invented instancing and AoC was the first MMO where I saw the type of instancing you are talking about so my guess is that TSW will have it too.
I remember hating it in AoC but I saw it as a necessary evil, it's a tech issue, with top-notch graphics that Funcom uses in their games there has to be a cap on how many players your PC can handle in the same zone before it starts melting heh.
Immersion takes a hit yes but then the graphics need to make up for it I guess.
Vanguard had no instancing and while open world is awesome in theory it was the main reason why the game tanked imo, high-end computers of the time couldn't handle it and even today it still runs choppy.
I think LOTRO did the best job when it comes to open non- instanced world that looks great and can run on many systems but then again, character models and animations suffered from it, those really sucked and were sub-par from the rest of the game.
Basically, we can't have it all.
I care about your gaming 'problems' and teenage anxieties, just not today.
The regions will be much bigger than the zones in AoC (1 region consists of many playgrounds).
GAH! An icy chill went dowm my spine as I read this and understood what you were getting at. Reading the thread title alone was enough really. I hope to goodness that whatever instancing is used that is nothing like Star Wars the Old Republic point motherfucking blank dude..
Lots of games do instancing in some way I dare say a good majority if I wouldn't be crossing the troll line. They just do them in different and more seamless ways that what is currently being employed in the most recent MMO release of "noteworthiness". The instancing in that game is horrid; it may be so bad because the game is just shit really and the world is as souless as your latest baby snatcher..
OH MY GOODNESS! Please do not be instancing be the downfall of this game.. I'll except anything esle right now excpet for the world feeling like ...................................................................................................................................
PM before you report at least or you could just block.
None of those MMOs were huge sellers at launch. And if there is one that definitely could have used it, it was WoW, who had such a horrible launch that they had to refund missed play time due to server crashes.
You can't compare older MMOs during a time when MMOs weren't very popular and weren't concerned about having smooth launches with the MMOs of today, where a bad launch can kill your game. If sharding for the purposes of allowing people to play relatively lag-free during launch is used, I have no issues with it. If it is done on a permanent basis, then yes, that would be a major turn-off.
Obviously, you did only read the thread title because you certainly missed the entire point of his post. He's not talking about instancing---he's talking about sharding, which is when there are multiple copies of each zone. Please try to keep up before you go on a rant. Thanks.
Actually yeah they did and they do. They just call them "servers". And before you tell "oh no, a server is not the same thing!", seriously dude, it is.
If i am standing in the zone "New York" at coordinates 281/354 and my friend is standing in the same zone, at the same coordinates - it doesn't matter if it's a different "phase" or "instance" or "server", the fact is that my friend and i are NOT in the same place, we're in different copies of the same place.
The only major MMO that doesn't have this is EVE.
And if you think that there is a better alternative, i'd really love to hear how you would handle having the entire 1,000,000 people of the launch day population all standing in line to talke to the same NPC - i mean, technology / screen-rendering issues aside - it would be simply retarded to have 1 million bodies in one place crowding to kill the same mob or to talk to the same NPC.
For better or worse - at the moment - the best answer is to make multiple copies of the world. You can call that process whatever you like - instancing, phasing, sharding, servering - whatever. The point is that you make multiple copies of the same exact area and you stick different people into the different copies so that they could all enjoy the associated gameplay.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
i was just commentin in another post on how bad phasing is for mmos because it splits the players from the rest of the pack. WoW's quest designer said it was a mistake in Cataclysm although it was the only way to add Catas story to the game ( i expect less phasing in pandaria
). Its not bad to have phasing for a personal story, but for the rest of the gameplay i think it hurts the multiplayer aspect.
What you mean is called sharding/phasing. Every popular game uses some kind of system like that.
No dude, it isn't. All the best MMOs had open world environments with NO instancing. That was what made the MMO genre unique. MMOs with heavy instancing aren't even MMOs anymore. A SERVER is not the same as instancing any way you want to spin it.
If instancing and servers were the same thing they wouldn't have two different names.
You mean every Wow clone pseudo MMO does. None of the good MMOs do it.
There were just as many people in older MMOs as there are now. More, usually. The difference is those games were actually made by talented people who knew how to spread out the population. Darkfall is a brand new MMO and has absolutely NO instancing. You can get hundreds of people in the same zone.
I played AoC for about 18 months and actually never had a problem with the different instances of the same zone on a single server. I really misliked AoC's use of a zone for the starting area, a zone for tortage, a zone for every house you could enter in tortage, etc. I have played TSW and they fixed that issue. All the houses I have entered have been in the same zone.
Btw, TSW was going to be one "server" (like in a wow server) for the whole population, but that didn't work out with how they wanted the PvP, so the divided the world into several virtual servers. The details can be found in this really good interview: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=29140
I have talked to a developer mentioning that they were working on an improvement that would reduce the load time when you go between zones by allowing several zones to be held in memory at once. I don't know if they will have this technology finished by launch though. This could maybe have made the game behave a bit more like WoW where you can seamlessly go between zones on the same continent.
Btw, I think technically, TSW could have a lot of people in the same zone, but it might be capped to what makes a good gaming experience when it comes to questing.
I'd rather have 1 server or as few as possible with the use of multiple instances if the areas become to congested. However, every game I've played with this feature has done the opposite; they used as many servers as possible AND used instances. It just broke up the community.
I remember how fun the early games were with massive amounts of people running around in the same area. I guess I'd rather have lower quality graphics and a large non-instanced world. I was going to make a thread about this over a month ago but forgot. Basically, I think developers are making a mistake creating high end graphical games if they have to use heavy instancing to make the game playable with massive amounts of people in one area.
The original MMORPG's laid the foundation and defined the genre, so I'd love to see the genre stick to it, not redefine it. Games that use the instanced technology I spoke of cuts out the Massive portion of MMORPG and leaves us with MORPG. Doesn't mean the game can't be fun, but playing with others online is what brought me to MMORPG's in 2002. Otherwise I'd just go play a Co-op game if I only want a few people on the screen.
Actually, They have had it in Anarchy Online for quite some time now. The "Noob Island" starter zone is set up this way, You can start a new toon with Orgmates at the same time and try to level together, but you wont see each other until you go inside the building, you have to team there and run out together to be in the same instance.
Given it's in Anarchy and Age of Conan, I'd have to agree that it's most likely going to be in TSW.
Ok, let's do this, let's say you and I make plans to meet up in TSW, we'll pick a common time and a common location. We'll agree to meet there 6 months from today without talking to each prior to.
When it comes time to meet and we both show up at the exact same location, at the right time which scenario do you think is the most likely:
1. We'll see each other there.
2. We'll not see each other there because chances are, we're on different servers.
3. We'll not see each other there because chances are, we're on the same server, but in different phases.
And as a player what difference does it make to you whether it's #2 or #3? You say there is a difference.. to me, the only difference is that we're in different "phases" we can still play together, but if we're on different servers, we cannot. If anything, that makes phasing the lesser evil or the two. from an immersion perspective, it's exactly the same thing - there is a copy of the world that shouldn't be there
You say "all the best MMOs" blah blah blah. First of all, this is bullshit, because even older MMOs - like AO - had instancing. Second of, just because older MMOs didn't have something, doesn't make THAT the reason they were good. "All the best" MMOs were also built for under 10,000 players (or under 50,000). So i guess studios should stop pumping all this money into trying to produce MMOs for the masses, eh?
Don't get me wrong, i'm all in favour of a 100% uninstanced world with a single server where ALL the players could play together in the same world. I'm 100% for it. I just don't see you or anyone else offer a good solution for how to implement that for 1 million people.
You want a live example, look at SWTOR. SWTOR's phasing is never used. They've split up their game into so many servers that you never get more than 20 people in a zone. Fantastic! This - according to you - is the mark of a great MMO! But honestly, it blows goats - it feels empty and lifeless. If you don't believe me, try it out. I'd much rather have 5 phases of 300 people each than 50 servers where there is only 1 phase with 20 people in it - it just makes for better community and gameplay.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO