The discussion is flawed in its core.. its like putting a pair of 6 year olds togeter and make them discuss how good cars are based on pictures they see, no experience needed.. ..
they menton games but do not understand the game systems used by these games and try to have a semi scripted discussion about it.. blehhhhh
The discussion is flawed in its core.. its like putting a pair of 6 year olds togeter and make them discuss how good cars are based on pictures they see, no experience needed.. ..
they menton games but do not understand the game systems used by these games and try to have a semi scripted discussion about it.. blehhhhh
I didn't even read the discussion lol. After reading this I'm glad I didn't.
The discussion is flawed in its core.. its like putting a pair of 6 year olds togeter and make them discuss how good cars are based on pictures they see, no experience needed.. ..
they menton games but do not understand the game systems used by these games and try to have a semi scripted discussion about it.. blehhhhh
I didn't even read the discussion lol. After reading this I'm glad I didn't.
Nevermind the thread title alone is old school troll bait, too...
i think that for the most part I get a better "community" experienced with the non instanced, or zoned but not instanced games (for instance eve has zones, technically, but not instances of the same zone, while Darkfall has no instances at all and very few zones)
however some games make instancing work. DDO springs to mind as a game based on a certain personal experience where you kinda need instances. the storyline part of the gw1 games, too. whether or not they're mmorpgs is a better debate.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
i think that for the most part I get a better "community" experienced with the non instanced, or zoned but not instanced games (for instance eve has zones, technically, but not instances of the same zone, while Darkfall has no instances at all and very few zones)
however some games make instancing work. DDO springs to mind as a game based on a certain personal experience where you kinda need instances. the storyline part of the gw1 games, too. whether or not they're mmorpgs is a better debate.
The differences, in my opinion, are that DDO and games like it are not true MMO's. They are online multiplayer hub games.
I think its mostly to keep server load down that they make instances. . Old gamers sure remember zone crashes when to many players was at the same spot or the lag that made it a nightmare to pass trough a city..
i Believe creating a Mmorpg with a World that doesnt have any instances is possible ..and i believe it would be the game i would like to play most. Its all about size diversity and max population. surely it wont support 1 million players but it doesnt have to.....since 5000online at once on a server is huge enough to be called mmorpg to me and that should be more then possible. All you need to do is create enough Spots that are interesting for alot of lvl ranges so ppls can spread out / want to spread out. Not just one best spot. Everything should have its drawbacks or good points. Different servers are kind of ok to me they dont count as an instance as long as you cant switch between them easily theyre ecosystems / own parralell worlds. But instancing feels like cheating to me. And ppls that have cheated in games might know you loose your interest quickly once you cheated and got it all.
It's been done already, the game was called Vanguard.
The discussion is flawed in its core.. its like putting a pair of 6 year olds togeter and make them discuss how good cars are based on pictures they see, no experience needed.. ..
they menton games but do not understand the game systems used by these games and try to have a semi scripted discussion about it.. blehhhhh
Problem is most discussions on this forum are flawed in that respect. You have one group who wants casual fun, largely comprised of people who've never experienced anything different, and another camp that wants to play games where stuff like atmosphere and realism are important.
They should just create a secondary forum for single players mmorpgs for topics like this and be done with it.
A fault of this article is that it bundled both quest instances and server instances in the same discussion, and these are totally different issues. I think that discussing server instances dilutes the discussion. That really is a technical issue, and its implication are very different from giving each player/group their own instance.
I'm a fan of City of Heroes, and I liked most of the design decisions it had. If I'm doing missions it makes sense that I or my group will be alone doing them, not bunching with a large number of characters in that place, waiting for the boss to spawn after someone else killed it. That for me is both annoying and an immersion killer.
What the CoH devs implemented near the end, where players were in the same map but saw different things, that was an interesting take, but having people suddenly disappear as they passed some line was a problem.
Im totally against instances myself, only possible instancing i would possible consider is housing although i would like to see player city housing areas where guilds can run them or somthing.
Originally posted by danwest58 This is a BS discussion. Instances are not bad for MMOs. People who say o its bad for MMOs never spent hours trying to find a spot to farm. In UO there was 1 Shadow Wyrm room, me and a few friends controlled it for hours on end and kept other players from farming this room. Problem is in todays MMO world where we have millions of players not just 1 or 2 million you cannot have open world content like this. You need to instance the content and make people do it as a group. If ever the MMOs go back to the days of UO with open world dungeons were people have to compete for Monsters I am done. I know how many hours I kept people from being able to do stuff and I also been kept from doing stuff. Instances resolved this issue. Talking how its bad is BS better discussion is talk about how developers made AOE farm instances so dam easy vs having instances that required about 45 minutes to an hour to complete and group coordination. When you talk about that let me know thats a real issue.
Generally I agree with you, but I adamantly disagree on this.
The fact that there are million of more players is irrelevant. Millions of players means dozens if not hundreds of servers. Contested content was part of virtual worlds. If there was only 1 shadow wyrm room, perhaps there should be more, but instancing it and removing the contested aspect is not a solution.
In an mmorpg, developers have the option of increasing content, spreading out content, or creating more servers. Those are all better solutions than instancing.
I find it funny that players consider the grandaddy of all instancing schemes, servers, to not be instancing. All you have to do is look at MMOs with megaserver tech like TSW and ESO to understand that logical fallacy. ESO is considered to be heavily instanced because it creates versions of areas, i.e. obvious instances, on the fly as needed and then dissolves them when not needed.
A traditional server based MMO creates those instances and they're permanent. Or permanentish since all of them except maybe WOW end up merging those sooner or later when the population gets too low.
Agreed. Servers are basically instances of the entire game. It's even worse than multiple instances on one server, since you cannot travel between servers.
With megaservers, like in GW2 or ESO, there is at least the possibility of players converging as an entire community, instead of being segregated. Even WoW has "cross-realm" technology, and it has done wonders for their lesser populated servers.
It's actually better than instanced copies of the world, like it is in Swtor when you're on the fleet, because it blends people together, working automatically behind the scenes, which is really amazing when you think about it.
Done wonders in that it destroyed local communities and increased the feeling that you were merely a face in a crowd?
We have very different definitions of what is better. I personally can't see how never seeing the same people in a place stands to make a more appealing virtual world.
Upon google searching "cross server destroyed WoW", I found its a common opinion.
Wait, so you're complaining about a "massive" population sharing the environment, because it destroys communities?
You can't have it both ways. The environment is either shared with a "massively" playerbase, or it's instanced with "local" communities.
Just look at real life, and you'll see that it's "instanced", whether it's a sports venue, a club, neighborhoods, or a restaurant. Multiple copies of each environment.
Agreed. Servers are basically instances of the entire game. It's even worse than multiple instances on one server, since you cannot travel between servers.
With megaservers, like in GW2 or ESO, there is at least the possibility of players converging as an entire community, instead of being segregated. Even WoW has "cross-realm" technology, and it has done wonders for their lesser populated servers.
It's actually better than instanced copies of the world, like it is in Swtor when you're on the fleet, because it blends people together, working automatically behind the scenes, which is really amazing when you think about it.
Done wonders in that it destroyed local communities and increased the feeling that you were merely a face in a crowd?
We have very different definitions of what is better. I personally can't see how never seeing the same people in a place stands to make a more appealing virtual world.
Upon google searching "cross server destroyed WoW", I found its a common opinion.
Wait, so you're complaining about a "massive" population sharing the environment, because it destroys communities?
You can't have it both ways. The environment is either shared with a "massively" playerbase, or it's instanced with "local" communities.
Just look at real life, and you'll see that it's "instanced", whether it's a sports venue, a club, neighborhoods, or a restaurant. Multiple copies of each environment.
Except if people in that area go to that place, they will enter the same place, not a copy that segregates them from the actual community. Thats much different.
The problem is not a massive population, its a population larger than what the world was built to hold. You have thousands of people in a world created for thousands of people. Every one of those people are in a real place in the world, not separate from anyone else except by location. When you cross server you are adding random people from different worlds into one world so that there is no consistency. Its like going to your job, and there being different people you've never met working there. Then going to your friends house and finding your friend doesn't live there. Its really not that complicated.
Wait, so you're complaining about a "massive" population sharing the environment, because it destroys communities?
You can't have it both ways. The environment is either shared with a "massively" playerbase, or it's instanced with "local" communities.
Just look at real life, and you'll see that it's "instanced", whether it's a sports venue, a club, neighborhoods, or a restaurant. Multiple copies of each environment.
Except if people in that area go to that place, they will enter the same place, not a copy that segregates them from the actual community. Thats much different.
The problem is not a massive population, its a population larger than what the world was built to hold. You have thousands of people in a world created for thousands of people. Every one of those people are in a real place in the world, not separate from anyone else except by location. When you cross server you are adding random people from different worlds into one world so that there is no consistency. Its like going to your job, and there being different people you've never met working there. Then going to your friends house and finding your friend doesn't live there. Its really not that complicated.
Okay, my analogy wasn't perfect, so i'll concede on that.
The problem with your statement, is that you want a consistent population in one area. It's just not going to happen. Populations flux with concurrent users, throughout all it's zones/world.
If one zone is full of noobs within the week of a launched MMO, then it's overcrowded, but a year later, it's not going to be so crowded anymore. When the majority of your playerbase is max level, they congregate at a hub.
Developers try to solve the problem of less populated zones, because people complain that it's an empty solo environment, so when they do introduce something to fix it, it's destroying server communities (aka instances).
You're complaining about a world not being able to sustain it's population, but the hub/capital needs to be compromised, in terms of gameplay. If the capital is a realistic simulator-based city, then it's going to take literally hours just to travel in it (just like in real life), or do anything productive. It's supposed to be a "game", not a simulator.
Don't get me wrong, because i understand where you're coming from, but the majority would rather have a game, not a simulator. Developers have to make compromises when dealing with arbitrarily large data, due to coding and hardware limitations.
I think instancing is important for certain parts of quests, although I do find it amusing when there are 10 people jumping around behind the NPC in my cutscenes
@danwest58 Your "problem" with non instanced games duzn't hold up in today's market. I'm guessing your played in wussy Trammel where you could just chain kill mobs and no one could do anything about it. Pre-Trammel UO you try to hog a mob and eventually people would band together and run you off. But in today's games that's not even necessary either. All they have to do is flag as having dun damage to the mob before you finish it off and they loot too. Ta-daa! No need for instances.
I cant stand instancing, I hate it so much. There is no place for that in MMORPG's :!!!!!!!
Thats why WoW is still played and loved so much, its the only MMORPG with a real WORLD.
They might suck at everything else but they created the best worlds in this genre.
What's the population limit of a WOW server instance? They seem to have a whole shitpile of those.
Within the server itself, aren't phased areas where you only see the people fighting through your own "before" phase instance and then see a whole different set of people after you finish, instances? Are dungeons and raids and PVP scenarios not instanced?
There hasn't been an MMO with zero instances in a long, long time. Even DAoC had one very large instance inside theiir server instance: Darkness Falls.
I agree, they really killed the Open world with all the phasing. Thats why i stopped playing long time ago, i gave WoW a try again with WoD, and its even worse. The world is just an empty shit with 1000 phases. Its so ugly. You go thru quests once and then you are done with it. Nothing there. NOTHING.
But im ok with instances for Dungeons and PvP ofcouse. I understand they have to use them there. Could be done much better, tho. They could use phasing for Dungeons and PvP zones. Like you just walk in there without loading or something dunno.
But for the world itself. Huge NO. No phasing, no instancing, loading. All kills immersion big time.
I am not a fan of instances in any shape beyond having different servers without transfer.
I was lucky enough to have played MMOs during their inception before instancing heck before PvP or PvE were even defined playstyles. The worlds were finite which supported cooperation and competition all all levels of play, looking for Housing locations, adventuring in Dungeons, gathering resources,etc...
Instancing dilutes the immersion and story of the world by mixing a single player game into a shared world and frequently imbalances things by providing players with an alternate location to gain XP and resources avoiding competition and diluting the finite aspects of the Open World.
Nothing wrong with some aspects of mmo life being instanced for example for all it's problems NWO does a great job with instances they don't feel intrusive into the experience and they feel like part of the world. So you can have instancing with teleport mechanics and it not feel like it's the only thing to do there should always be a balance between instancing and real world.
Teleport mechanics don't make me feel like instances are out of place it's actually when you have to travel manually to the instance to enter the door and try to form a group manually (ahem GW2) that it becomes tedious and a deal breaker for me. It's not a good thing to go backwards in design.
So while I agree with some we need more open world stuff, if instances are done correctly the experience isn't bad, if they are done poorly they become a tedious chore and no one likes them.
Comments
The discussion is flawed in its core.. its like putting a pair of 6 year olds togeter and make them discuss how good cars are based on pictures they see, no experience needed.. ..
they menton games but do not understand the game systems used by these games and try to have a semi scripted discussion about it.. blehhhhh
I didn't even read the discussion lol. After reading this I'm glad I didn't.
Nevermind the thread title alone is old school troll bait, too...
i think that for the most part I get a better "community" experienced with the non instanced, or zoned but not instanced games (for instance eve has zones, technically, but not instances of the same zone, while Darkfall has no instances at all and very few zones)
however some games make instancing work. DDO springs to mind as a game based on a certain personal experience where you kinda need instances. the storyline part of the gw1 games, too. whether or not they're mmorpgs is a better debate.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
The differences, in my opinion, are that DDO and games like it are not true MMO's. They are online multiplayer hub games.
It's been done already, the game was called Vanguard.Problem is most discussions on this forum are flawed in that respect. You have one group who wants casual fun, largely comprised of people who've never experienced anything different, and another camp that wants to play games where stuff like atmosphere and realism are important.
They should just create a secondary forum for single players mmorpgs for topics like this and be done with it.
A fault of this article is that it bundled both quest instances and server instances in the same discussion, and these are totally different issues. I think that discussing server instances dilutes the discussion. That really is a technical issue, and its implication are very different from giving each player/group their own instance.
I'm a fan of City of Heroes, and I liked most of the design decisions it had. If I'm doing missions it makes sense that I or my group will be alone doing them, not bunching with a large number of characters in that place, waiting for the boss to spawn after someone else killed it. That for me is both annoying and an immersion killer.
What the CoH devs implemented near the end, where players were in the same map but saw different things, that was an interesting take, but having people suddenly disappear as they passed some line was a problem.
Wait, so you're complaining about a "massive" population sharing the environment, because it destroys communities?
You can't have it both ways. The environment is either shared with a "massively" playerbase, or it's instanced with "local" communities.
Just look at real life, and you'll see that it's "instanced", whether it's a sports venue, a club, neighborhoods, or a restaurant. Multiple copies of each environment.
Except if people in that area go to that place, they will enter the same place, not a copy that segregates them from the actual community. Thats much different.
The problem is not a massive population, its a population larger than what the world was built to hold. You have thousands of people in a world created for thousands of people. Every one of those people are in a real place in the world, not separate from anyone else except by location. When you cross server you are adding random people from different worlds into one world so that there is no consistency. Its like going to your job, and there being different people you've never met working there. Then going to your friends house and finding your friend doesn't live there. Its really not that complicated.
Okay, my analogy wasn't perfect, so i'll concede on that.
The problem with your statement, is that you want a consistent population in one area. It's just not going to happen. Populations flux with concurrent users, throughout all it's zones/world.
If one zone is full of noobs within the week of a launched MMO, then it's overcrowded, but a year later, it's not going to be so crowded anymore. When the majority of your playerbase is max level, they congregate at a hub.
Developers try to solve the problem of less populated zones, because people complain that it's an empty solo environment, so when they do introduce something to fix it, it's destroying server communities (aka instances).
You're complaining about a world not being able to sustain it's population, but the hub/capital needs to be compromised, in terms of gameplay. If the capital is a realistic simulator-based city, then it's going to take literally hours just to travel in it (just like in real life), or do anything productive. It's supposed to be a "game", not a simulator.
Don't get me wrong, because i understand where you're coming from, but the majority would rather have a game, not a simulator. Developers have to make compromises when dealing with arbitrarily large data, due to coding and hardware limitations.
Waiting for:
The Repopulation
Albion Online
I dont really enjoy instanced MMOs.. they just feel like small lobby games in the end.
Its seamless open worlds for me or nothing.
I agree, they really killed the Open world with all the phasing. Thats why i stopped playing long time ago, i gave WoW a try again with WoD, and its even worse. The world is just an empty shit with 1000 phases. Its so ugly. You go thru quests once and then you are done with it. Nothing there. NOTHING.
But im ok with instances for Dungeons and PvP ofcouse. I understand they have to use them there. Could be done much better, tho. They could use phasing for Dungeons and PvP zones. Like you just walk in there without loading or something dunno.
But for the world itself. Huge NO. No phasing, no instancing, loading. All kills immersion big time.
I am not a fan of instances in any shape beyond having different servers without transfer.
I was lucky enough to have played MMOs during their inception before instancing heck before PvP or PvE were even defined playstyles. The worlds were finite which supported cooperation and competition all all levels of play, looking for Housing locations, adventuring in Dungeons, gathering resources,etc...
Instancing dilutes the immersion and story of the world by mixing a single player game into a shared world and frequently imbalances things by providing players with an alternate location to gain XP and resources avoiding competition and diluting the finite aspects of the Open World.
Nothing wrong with some aspects of mmo life being instanced for example for all it's problems NWO does a great job with instances they don't feel intrusive into the experience and they feel like part of the world. So you can have instancing with teleport mechanics and it not feel like it's the only thing to do there should always be a balance between instancing and real world.
Teleport mechanics don't make me feel like instances are out of place it's actually when you have to travel manually to the instance to enter the door and try to form a group manually (ahem GW2) that it becomes tedious and a deal breaker for me. It's not a good thing to go backwards in design.
So while I agree with some we need more open world stuff, if instances are done correctly the experience isn't bad, if they are done poorly they become a tedious chore and no one likes them.