Guild Wars is listed as being developed by NC soft on their website and Guild Wars is obscenely instanced, so I don't feel embarrassed at all. Would you say that COX, published by NCsoft , is also only 10% instanced because CoX has way too much instancing for my taste? Every freaking mission was instanced.
GW is developed by Arenanet, and cox was done by Cryptic. NC sponsored these games cause they are doing well sales wise, not cause they like the games with instances.
Instances are there for a pair of reasons in games:
1) The graphic load isn't configured properly, so there's too much lag if you gather many people together in the same spot.
2) The world is small, so in order to make servers more profitable, they make instances, instead of making new servers, advoiding people hunting in the same spot cause they lack of mobs.
3) Gameplay requires it, either cause you're already fighting a mob which is there just for your quest and shoulnd't be killed by others, cause the mob you're fighting requires way too much focus, so you don't have to bother with more people since you arrived first, or cause you're watching a cutscene or a quest guidelines, and you can't move while doing that and have the risk of getting killed, between many other examples
4) The game is cheaper than usual, and they save money from there by making instances which are handled by your computers instead of needing a server to do so.
Now, with Aion we can say that:
1) NCsoft as devs already have the key to gather massive ammounts of people, see L2 as reference where 400+ people could fight for a siege without lagging my screen in max graphics (high end pc).
2) The engine they are using, crytek, it's one of the best area generators engine you'll ever see, worlds will be enormous, see also L2 as reference here, they are using unreal engine and their world is amazingly big also.
3) Gameplay will require it in Aion for a 10% of things, now, play L2 and tell me it is instanced, well, L2 has also instances on the points where Aion devs said Aion would have, excepting cut scenes since L2 doesnt have any.
4) Game won't be cheaper than usual, it won't be like GW b2p, it will be p2p, at least korea NC already confirmed it will be p2p there, I think I read somewhere that Aion's initial budget was 200M $, now, that's not what I'd call a cheap game.
But, if you're here just so you can advertise TcoS or troll against NCsoft or aion, then tell me so I won't bother anymore.
Too much instancing. I don't play MMOGs to be in a private world.
Honestly the fact that this thread and post is here in the Aion forum is just insulting. It's not only insulting to me but it's insulting to the entire fan base who have actually taken an iota of their time to gather just a smidgen of information before they open their mouth and insert their foot. Had you have done that you would know that your statement has no bearing whatsoever on Aion and simply does not belong in this forum.
I honestly hope that the forum mods take this thread off completely.
Considering all the general threads here at MMORPG.com all you had to do was sift through a few and you'd have gotten an answer (had you asked one in the first place) about how Aion is being developed (persistant or instanced). Not to mention it's common decency to ask a person before you decide to take a crap on their lawn.
how do you take offense to a comment about a game? you do realize it IS a game right? like when your character sprouts wings, guess what? your not.
----------------------------- IVE PLAYED WOW AND LIKED IT SO IM A FANBOI PLZ FLAME MY THREADS CUZ I MIGHT MENTION WOW
Some of the folks on this forum who follow this game are wound way too tight. You are "insulted" by someone asking a question (regardless of how he asked it) and demand he do his "research" before asking. If you don't like his questions, feel free to ignore them. No reason to bash him repeatedly. Here, I've done almost no research, but I'll answer the question. Looks like about 90% will be open world, with some key dungeons being instanced. See.... that wasn't hard.
I wouldn't mind if a person was asking: "Is Aion 100% instance-free?" instead of blurting out "It's going to have too much instancing". I'd rather not just sit around and let misleading information spread like wildfire. Apparently, the OP did his homework and could've just stated his opinion: "10% of the world being instanced is just too much of a problem for me" and I would've just ignored it.
Instances are there for a reason. If there were no problems with everything being 100% persistently open to the public, then no one would be using instances.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
I don't think anyone really wants to play an mmo where theres a limit to the amount of people you can see and "interact" with.
However, we're all aware of the effects of latency and the speeds of our rigs. So an amount of instancing is needed. Wow i think had instancing almost perfectly. Two huge main worlds, seamless travel over them for the most part and instances when you needed to enter an area which without instances would make play unbearable.
Remember Steamfont Mountains in Everquest? Near the Cauldron there were open areas where you could have 50-100 people all camping 20 mobs. People screaming about kill stealers and everything else. Instancing removes this. Remember the lag in Black Burrows when there was a gnoll train? Instancing removes this. However there is a bad side as well, the gnoll trains in BB in EQ1 were immence fun and having alot of people commonly in one dungeon allows for alot more Fun and Interaction. With people defending you and jumping in to resurrect you or take on one of the two mobs you were fighting..
It is this aspect of instancing that i hate the loss of most. BB was an instance, but it allowed 200 people to interact. Whereas any instance in wow, allowed 5 people to interact. And its the lack of people that makes the game feel more like a single player than an mmo.
I'd like to see a single big world, with dungeon instances that could be both general population and team population instances. I'd like to see trains of gnolls again and to see random joes jumping in to help each other out. It is the essence of roleplaying to me. Pure instances for 1 team only is just not.
Life is about Living, Sleep is about Dreaming, Games are about Strategy!
There were no instances in EQ. Everything was handled as zones. While some of EQ was fun because of that, some of it was horrible because of it. Nothing like have the 300 person guild come in and blow the camps of 20 or 30 parties, just cause they could. Nothing like taking your small to medium guild on a raid and have the uber guild come in right as the boss spawns and out damage you for the loot simply because they had more people and better gear and because they could. Instancing stops all that. If those guilds want to play that way, they can no longer go to pve only games and do it. They have to get into games with pvp aspects where if they choose to jump a camped boss, they have to deal with the boss and the guild that was camping him at the same time.
To those who are falsely saying NCsoft did not design Guild Wars, clearly one of the most instanced games to date, here is a copy of the link from NCsoft's website showing equal development credit.
I still would like the NCsoft rep to answer my question about the instanced content percentage of Aion vs COX, which would give me a clear idea of how much 10% really equates to, because COX has too much instancing for me.
To those who are falsely saying NCsoft did not design Guild Wars, clearly one of the most instanced games to date, here is a copy of the link from NCsoft's website showing equal development credit. I still would like the NCsoft rep to answer my question about the instanced content percentage of Aion vs COX, which would give me a clear idea of how much 10% really equates to, because COX has too much instancing for me.
Do you understand the differences between publisher and developer? 20th Century fox is a publisher, who puts the money there in order to either create or mantain the game, while the small studios are the ones making the movies using fox's money, so no, it's not equal development credit, it clearly states the deveolper is ArenaNet, a company that was acquired by NC AFTER they released GW.
Also, GW is B2P cause they use instances, they don't have high mantainance costs thanks to that so it's just another game with another target, Aion is not B2P, being P2P they can afford servers like L2, comparing Aion with GW is way more wrong than comparing it to L2, dev and format wise, so take that example if you're gonna talk about the games NC created.
Anyways Ayase already stated the 9:1 ratio between seamless and instanced, so we are beating a dead horse in here.
I just want a reference for what that 9:1 ratio translates to compared to CoX. If CoX is also considered a 9:1 ratio then I know that is too much instancing.
To those who are falsely saying NCsoft did not design Guild Wars, clearly one of the most instanced games to date, here is a copy of the link from NCsoft's website showing equal development credit. I still would like the NCsoft rep to answer my question about the instanced content percentage of Aion vs COX, which would give me a clear idea of how much 10% really equates to, because COX has too much instancing for me.
It's called NCsoft ArenaNet because ArenaNet is a private company that is a subsidiary of NCsoft, nothing more. ArenaNet has nothing to do with NCsoft Seoul. So no, NCsoft did not design or develop Guild Wars. They published it.
I may never understand this irrational hatred some people apparently have for instancing. I just don't get it.
It's like you're complaining there isn't enough kill-stealing, ninja-looting, and camping, not to mention lag, in online games.
And I don't understand people who embrace instancing since it ruins the MMOG experience. You are just playing a multiplayer version of a single box game if all you want to do is hang out with the same group of friends, remove any possibility of interaction with other players good and bad, and have guaranteed access to items without healthy competition.
Newsflash: Killstealing is not an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of "first person/group to strike owns the mob." Ninjalooting is not possible if the developer has applied intelligent design of limiting looting rights to the person/group which got credit for the kill. Camping is less of an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of not limiting specific drops to a specific mob.
Valuable loot should be distributed amongst the loot tables of many mobs of the same difficulty and simply made rare, thus maintaining scarcity, preserving the value and desirability, and reducing camping issues and the need for long spawn timers. However, removing all aspects of healthy competition for resources would be a mistake and only pleases the ADD entitlement kids.
Ohh yeah lag. I always wonder why EvE Online can handle over 50k players on one server and no one else in the industry can figure it out. Maybe intelligent design applied by artists, programmers, and server engineers is required. Call CCP for a clue.
EvE Online has very limited textures to load per-frame unlike say WoW, FFXI, L2, and even L1 as just some examples. That's the main reason why it is easy for them to have so many on one server and have very little difficulty.
You're right... it comes down to game design and EvE is EXTREMELY simple as far as textures go. We could even call it elementary. EvE is a bad example for the sake of your argument for anyone who knows what I'm talking about. Might try finding a different game other than EvE. One that is actually comparable to some of those you're arguing against.
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And I don't understand people who embrace instancing since it ruins the MMOG experience. You are just playing a multiplayer version of a single box game if all you want to do is hang out with the same group of friends, remove any possibility of interaction with other players good and bad, and have guaranteed access to items without healthy competition.
Newsflash: Killstealing is not an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of "first person/group to strike owns the mob." Ninjalooting is not possible if the developer has applied intelligent design of limiting looting rights to the person/group which got credit for the kill. Camping is less of an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of not limiting specific drops to a specific mob. Valuable loot should be distributed amongst the loot tables of many mobs of the same difficulty and simply made rare, thus maintaining scarcity, preserving the value and desirability, and reducing camping issues and the need for long spawn timers. However, removing all aspects of healthy competition for resources would be a mistake and only pleases the ADD entitlement kids. Ohh yeah lag. I always wonder why EvE Online can handle over 50k players on one server and no one else in the industry can figure it out. Maybe intelligent design applied by artists, programmers, and server engineers is required. Call CCP for a clue.
There's no such thing as "healthy competition" when majority of dungeon dwellers are gold farmers camping everything 24-7-365. An instance increases the difficulty of obtaining rare items. Otherwise you'll have 100's of people clearing out the entire dungeons, allowing anyone to run straight to the key mobs. Increasing the number of mobs will only give reason to invite more farmers.
Until these issues are resolved, public dungeons serve no purpose other than frustrating players. Having frustrated players will result in loss of customers, for a campany who's main goal is to make money rather not see that happen.
Considering how much you despise instances, how about thinking up a solution that would make public dungeons 100% perfect for all players and submit it to NCSoft.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
I still would like the NCsoft rep to answer my question about the instanced content percentage of Aion vs COX, which would give me a clear idea of how much 10% really equates to, because COX has too much instancing for me.
I haven't myself played through all of CoX, but from my experience and understanding, CoH and CoV rely quite heavily on mission instances. In that sense, Aion and CoX are in no way comparable.
--- Sebastian Streiffert Community Representative - Aion
Follow my twitter! aion_ayase * In order to cover my back, things I write are of course subject to change.
I still would like the NCsoft rep to answer my question about the instanced content percentage of Aion vs COX, which would give me a clear idea of how much 10% really equates to, because COX has too much instancing for me.
I haven't myself played through all of CoX, but from my experience and understanding, CoH and CoV rely quite heavily on mission instances. In that sense, Aion and CoX are in no way comparable.
Thank you.
Hopefully I will get a chance to beta test Aion and experience the game firsthand.
Yes the newly acquired CoX by NcSoft does have a lot of instancing. But NCsoft's flagship games (Lineage 1 and 2) have very little if any instancing.
When someone talks about instancing the first game and company that pops to mind is definately not NCsoft and any of their games.
I think NCSOFT needs to incorporate more instancing IMVHO to keep up with their competitors who have a lot more instancing in their games and is late to the party so to say.
I may never understand this irrational hatred some people apparently have for instancing. I just don't get it.
It's like you're complaining there isn't enough kill-stealing, ninja-looting, and camping, not to mention lag, in online games.
And I don't understand people who embrace instancing since it ruins the MMOG experience. You are just playing a multiplayer version of a single box game if all you want to do is hang out with the same group of friends, remove any possibility of interaction with other players good and bad, and have guaranteed access to items without healthy competition.
Newsflash: Killstealing is not an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of "first person/group to strike owns the mob." Ninjalooting is not possible if the developer has applied intelligent design of limiting looting rights to the person/group which got credit for the kill. Camping is less of an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of not limiting specific drops to a specific mob.
Valuable loot should be distributed amongst the loot tables of many mobs of the same difficulty and simply made rare, thus maintaining scarcity, preserving the value and desirability, and reducing camping issues and the need for long spawn timers. However, removing all aspects of healthy competition for resources would be a mistake and only pleases the ADD entitlement kids.
Ohh yeah lag. I always wonder why EvE Online can handle over 50k players on one server and no one else in the industry can figure it out. Maybe intelligent design applied by artists, programmers, and server engineers is required. Call CCP for a clue.
Wow, you sure like your hyperbole. I don't know what game you're talking about, but it isn't City of Heroes.
I play with different people all the time — often people I've never met before. Though yes, when given the opportunity, I do like to hang out with friends/guildmates. And believe it or not, it's a pretty large group. Silly me, I didn't realize that was "ruining" the MMOG experience.
And guaranteed access to items without "healthy" competition? Um, again, I don't know what game you're talking about, but it isn't City of Heroes.
The "loot" in that game — salvage and recipes — is entirely random. If I want access to it, I've got the same opportunity as everyone else, or I use the auction house and bid on it... like everyone else. I'm not certain how "healthy" it is, but I assure you it's quite competitive.
Oh and newsflash? Ever play EVE Online? If you think lag isn't an issue in CCP's game, I suggest you spend a little time in Jita. Tell me how that works out.
I still would like the NCsoft rep to answer my question about the instanced content percentage of Aion vs COX, which would give me a clear idea of how much 10% really equates to, because COX has too much instancing for me.
I haven't myself played through all of CoX, but from my experience and understanding, CoH and CoV rely quite heavily on mission instances. In that sense, Aion and CoX are in no way comparable.
Thank you.
Hopefully I will get a chance to beta test Aion and experience the game firsthand.
10% is next to nothing. And after playing COX you couldnt figure that out? I mean COX is obviously no where near 10% .....its highly instanced. Research? Maybe you should do some, like learn the difference between a publisher and a developer in the future.
I like it the way it is. Wouldn't it be contradicting if you can hang out with the other race like if they aren't an enemy?
I guess we'll have to fight to gain acces to the ennemy's areas, with is the most logical. So if you wanne see the other side, I guess you'll have to fight for it or make another character.
anyway if we compare for exemple with linéage ][ .. most of the world in L2 is persistent.. witch has some + and some - :
has for Raidboss for exemple.. everybody can raid on this boss.. this is great, only probleme.. you have so many guilds who want to kill this boss but is only one.. so once he's killed than you have to wait the next pop.. means also that lot of popzone camps appears IG!!
good point on this ... the way a PVE event can become a PVP if you re underattak from others.
also we can take the instanced world from WoW (blizzard), WoW as the main world in persistent... only Raid instances!! this is great also cause you can concentrate on your boss.. with high level strategic fights... all guilds can try to progress as far as they can in this instances.
black point.. no interaction with other guilds or aother player.. no way to freepvp inside instances..
GW is for exemple to much instanced..!! but htis is not ncsoft dev!
imo, the way to have a 90% persistent world is great.. the objectif is to PVP.. and this will give the way to do it... also interesting to get Raidbosses.. to get some pve event also..
the 10% instanced world.. is made if we follows the devs.. to get some quests for the background story in Aion... i would love to see also instance with high strategics bosses.. with some rewards usefull for the fortress sieges and all pvp events.
this type of instance could be interesting in many ways.. the way to get pvp rewards.. the way to raid with the guild.. the way to not wait for the repop from a boss, the way to fight between the guild from same faction for the first down server..!!!
this is my idea about the instances.. i think it could be intereseting to get both systeme IG... with pvp in persistent world and pve in instanced world!!
There are some problems with Asian MMO's in general...
-They focus to heavily on pve and not on pvp.
- Character creation and uniqueness in general is rare, 1 in 4 characters is a clone and all classes usually wind up with the same item sets.
-Instead of polishing existing content they worry about rushing out new content (aka world expansion and raising level caps).
- Translations are emotionless and dull, while not bad grammar wise they usually sound like they were translated by R2D2. Its very obvious they use contracted companies to bulk translate text in most of them.
- Servers should not be in asia, it gives English players an unfair ping disadvantage.
- They need to cater more to the U.S. market if they except any type of success sales wise. Americans and asians don't necessarily like the same things. All these MMO's are all to obviously targeting an asian crowd and all they did in the English versions was change the text.
- More than anything on earth I hate "click to move" any MMO that does not support WASD or at least the arrow keys had no chance of me buying it. I know asians like it but I absolutely loathe it.
There are some problems with Asian MMO's in general... -They focus to heavily on pve and not on pvp. - Character creation and uniqueness in general is rare, 1 in 4 characters is a clone and all classes usually wind up with the same item sets. -Instead of polishing existing content they worry about rushing out new content (aka world expansion and raising level caps). - Translations are emotionless and dull, while not bad grammar wise they usually sound like they were translated by R2D2. Its very obvious they use contracted companies to bulk translate text in most of them. - Servers should not be in asia, it gives English players an unfair ping disadvantage. - They need to cater more to the U.S. market if they except any type of success sales wise. Americans and asians don't necessarily like the same things. All these MMO's are all to obviously targeting an asian crowd and all they did in the English versions was change the text. - More than anything on earth I hate "click to move" any MMO that does not support WASD or at least the arrow keys had no chance of me buying it. I know asians like it but I absolutely loathe it.
Im really hoping these are not present in Aion
Too many incorrect things.
Asian MMO's in general focus to much on PVE instead of PVP? Then you have clearly missed the point of these games because asian mmorpg's are known to focus on PVP, not PVE.
Asian MMORPG's are currently being very succesful, and american versions of Asian games are hosted in the US, not Asia.
My take on this is that instancing must be done "just right". There really shouldn't be any hard ratio on the amount of instancing but instead instancing should be judge based on "What should have been an instance and what should not have been an instance." For example, a boss fight based after a long storyline quest series should be instanced for a private party, while a general dungeon for XP/Loot should not be instanced altho spawning a fresh instance when a dungeon gets "full" could be part of the option. Although I think there should be some variety of dungeon (as in more than 1) within a specific level range that has specific themes to it and dungeons with overlapping level range is good too. The key to a successful game is balancing these points between fun/accessibility and challenge.
There are some problems with Asian MMO's in general... -They focus to heavily on pve and not on pvp. there are rarely any mmorpgs that don't. - Character creation and uniqueness in general is rare, 1 in 4 characters is a clone and all classes usually wind up with the same item sets. only true for the free to play mass market, also the most popular american mmorpg (wow) has close to no options at all in this area (as do practically all others, changes besides the head are very rare, aion will have it though). -Instead of polishing existing content they worry about rushing out new content (aka world expansion and raising level caps). every mmorpg does that. - Translations are emotionless and dull, while not bad grammar wise they usually sound like they were translated by R2D2. Its very obvious they use contracted companies to bulk translate text in most of them. same for american mmorpgs translated to german/french. - Servers should not be in asia, it gives English players an unfair ping disadvantage. they aren't. - They need to cater more to the U.S. market if they except any type of success sales wise. Americans and asians don't necessarily like the same things. All these MMO's are all to obviously targeting an asian crowd and all they did in the English versions was change the text. that is what aion is doing and everyone who knew anything about it would know that. - More than anything on earth I hate "click to move" any MMO that does not support WASD or at least the arrow keys had no chance of me buying it. I know asians like it but I absolutely loathe it. again, aion will be wasd first and foremost, as it is not a cheap f2p mass product.
Ohh yeah lag. I always wonder why EvE Online can handle over 50k players on one server and no one else in the industry can figure it out. Maybe intelligent design applied by artists, programmers, and server engineers is required. Call CCP for a clue.
Eve lagged when I played.
The Eve server goes down for maintenance EVERY day for 1 hour.
Eve is constant zoning everytime you dock or change systems.
While Eve works fine, it is hardly an example of a state of the art server.
Comments
GW is developed by Arenanet, and cox was done by Cryptic. NC sponsored these games cause they are doing well sales wise, not cause they like the games with instances.
Instances are there for a pair of reasons in games:
1) The graphic load isn't configured properly, so there's too much lag if you gather many people together in the same spot.
2) The world is small, so in order to make servers more profitable, they make instances, instead of making new servers, advoiding people hunting in the same spot cause they lack of mobs.
3) Gameplay requires it, either cause you're already fighting a mob which is there just for your quest and shoulnd't be killed by others, cause the mob you're fighting requires way too much focus, so you don't have to bother with more people since you arrived first, or cause you're watching a cutscene or a quest guidelines, and you can't move while doing that and have the risk of getting killed, between many other examples
4) The game is cheaper than usual, and they save money from there by making instances which are handled by your computers instead of needing a server to do so.
Now, with Aion we can say that:
1) NCsoft as devs already have the key to gather massive ammounts of people, see L2 as reference where 400+ people could fight for a siege without lagging my screen in max graphics (high end pc).
2) The engine they are using, crytek, it's one of the best area generators engine you'll ever see, worlds will be enormous, see also L2 as reference here, they are using unreal engine and their world is amazingly big also.
3) Gameplay will require it in Aion for a 10% of things, now, play L2 and tell me it is instanced, well, L2 has also instances on the points where Aion devs said Aion would have, excepting cut scenes since L2 doesnt have any.
4) Game won't be cheaper than usual, it won't be like GW b2p, it will be p2p, at least korea NC already confirmed it will be p2p there, I think I read somewhere that Aion's initial budget was 200M $, now, that's not what I'd call a cheap game.
But, if you're here just so you can advertise TcoS or troll against NCsoft or aion, then tell me so I won't bother anymore.
Honestly the fact that this thread and post is here in the Aion forum is just insulting. It's not only insulting to me but it's insulting to the entire fan base who have actually taken an iota of their time to gather just a smidgen of information before they open their mouth and insert their foot. Had you have done that you would know that your statement has no bearing whatsoever on Aion and simply does not belong in this forum.
I honestly hope that the forum mods take this thread off completely.
Considering all the general threads here at MMORPG.com all you had to do was sift through a few and you'd have gotten an answer (had you asked one in the first place) about how Aion is being developed (persistant or instanced). Not to mention it's common decency to ask a person before you decide to take a crap on their lawn.
how do you take offense to a comment about a game? you do realize it IS a game right? like when your character sprouts wings, guess what? your not.
-----------------------------
IVE PLAYED WOW AND LIKED IT SO IM A FANBOI PLZ FLAME MY THREADS CUZ I MIGHT MENTION WOW
I wouldn't mind if a person was asking: "Is Aion 100% instance-free?" instead of blurting out "It's going to have too much instancing". I'd rather not just sit around and let misleading information spread like wildfire. Apparently, the OP did his homework and could've just stated his opinion: "10% of the world being instanced is just too much of a problem for me" and I would've just ignored it.
Instances are there for a reason. If there were no problems with everything being 100% persistently open to the public, then no one would be using instances.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
I don't think anyone really wants to play an mmo where theres a limit to the amount of people you can see and "interact" with.
However, we're all aware of the effects of latency and the speeds of our rigs. So an amount of instancing is needed. Wow i think had instancing almost perfectly. Two huge main worlds, seamless travel over them for the most part and instances when you needed to enter an area which without instances would make play unbearable.
Remember Steamfont Mountains in Everquest? Near the Cauldron there were open areas where you could have 50-100 people all camping 20 mobs. People screaming about kill stealers and everything else. Instancing removes this. Remember the lag in Black Burrows when there was a gnoll train? Instancing removes this. However there is a bad side as well, the gnoll trains in BB in EQ1 were immence fun and having alot of people commonly in one dungeon allows for alot more Fun and Interaction. With people defending you and jumping in to resurrect you or take on one of the two mobs you were fighting..
It is this aspect of instancing that i hate the loss of most. BB was an instance, but it allowed 200 people to interact. Whereas any instance in wow, allowed 5 people to interact. And its the lack of people that makes the game feel more like a single player than an mmo.
I'd like to see a single big world, with dungeon instances that could be both general population and team population instances. I'd like to see trains of gnolls again and to see random joes jumping in to help each other out. It is the essence of roleplaying to me. Pure instances for 1 team only is just not.
Life is about Living, Sleep is about Dreaming, Games are about Strategy!
There were no instances in EQ. Everything was handled as zones. While some of EQ was fun because of that, some of it was horrible because of it. Nothing like have the 300 person guild come in and blow the camps of 20 or 30 parties, just cause they could. Nothing like taking your small to medium guild on a raid and have the uber guild come in right as the boss spawns and out damage you for the loot simply because they had more people and better gear and because they could. Instancing stops all that. If those guilds want to play that way, they can no longer go to pve only games and do it. They have to get into games with pvp aspects where if they choose to jump a camped boss, they have to deal with the boss and the guild that was camping him at the same time.
To those who are falsely saying NCsoft did not design Guild Wars, clearly one of the most instanced games to date, here is a copy of the link from NCsoft's website showing equal development credit.
I still would like the NCsoft rep to answer my question about the instanced content percentage of Aion vs COX, which would give me a clear idea of how much 10% really equates to, because COX has too much instancing for me.
Do you understand the differences between publisher and developer? 20th Century fox is a publisher, who puts the money there in order to either create or mantain the game, while the small studios are the ones making the movies using fox's money, so no, it's not equal development credit, it clearly states the deveolper is ArenaNet, a company that was acquired by NC AFTER they released GW.
Also, GW is B2P cause they use instances, they don't have high mantainance costs thanks to that so it's just another game with another target, Aion is not B2P, being P2P they can afford servers like L2, comparing Aion with GW is way more wrong than comparing it to L2, dev and format wise, so take that example if you're gonna talk about the games NC created.
Anyways Ayase already stated the 9:1 ratio between seamless and instanced, so we are beating a dead horse in here.
I just want a reference for what that 9:1 ratio translates to compared to CoX. If CoX is also considered a 9:1 ratio then I know that is too much instancing.
I may never understand this irrational hatred some people apparently have for instancing. I just don't get it.
It's like you're complaining there isn't enough kill-stealing, ninja-looting, and camping, not to mention lag, in online games.
It's called NCsoft ArenaNet because ArenaNet is a private company that is a subsidiary of NCsoft, nothing more. ArenaNet has nothing to do with NCsoft Seoul. So no, NCsoft did not design or develop Guild Wars. They published it.
And I don't understand people who embrace instancing since it ruins the MMOG experience. You are just playing a multiplayer version of a single box game if all you want to do is hang out with the same group of friends, remove any possibility of interaction with other players good and bad, and have guaranteed access to items without healthy competition.
Newsflash: Killstealing is not an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of "first person/group to strike owns the mob." Ninjalooting is not possible if the developer has applied intelligent design of limiting looting rights to the person/group which got credit for the kill. Camping is less of an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of not limiting specific drops to a specific mob.
Valuable loot should be distributed amongst the loot tables of many mobs of the same difficulty and simply made rare, thus maintaining scarcity, preserving the value and desirability, and reducing camping issues and the need for long spawn timers. However, removing all aspects of healthy competition for resources would be a mistake and only pleases the ADD entitlement kids.
Ohh yeah lag. I always wonder why EvE Online can handle over 50k players on one server and no one else in the industry can figure it out. Maybe intelligent design applied by artists, programmers, and server engineers is required. Call CCP for a clue.
EvE Online has very limited textures to load per-frame unlike say WoW, FFXI, L2, and even L1 as just some examples. That's the main reason why it is easy for them to have so many on one server and have very little difficulty.
You're right... it comes down to game design and EvE is EXTREMELY simple as far as textures go. We could even call it elementary. EvE is a bad example for the sake of your argument for anyone who knows what I'm talking about. Might try finding a different game other than EvE. One that is actually comparable to some of those you're arguing against.
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There's no such thing as "healthy competition" when majority of dungeon dwellers are gold farmers camping everything 24-7-365. An instance increases the difficulty of obtaining rare items. Otherwise you'll have 100's of people clearing out the entire dungeons, allowing anyone to run straight to the key mobs. Increasing the number of mobs will only give reason to invite more farmers.
Until these issues are resolved, public dungeons serve no purpose other than frustrating players. Having frustrated players will result in loss of customers, for a campany who's main goal is to make money rather not see that happen.
Considering how much you despise instances, how about thinking up a solution that would make public dungeons 100% perfect for all players and submit it to NCSoft.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
I haven't myself played through all of CoX, but from my experience and understanding, CoH and CoV rely quite heavily on mission instances. In that sense, Aion and CoX are in no way comparable.
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I haven't myself played through all of CoX, but from my experience and understanding, CoH and CoV rely quite heavily on mission instances. In that sense, Aion and CoX are in no way comparable.
Thank you.Hopefully I will get a chance to beta test Aion and experience the game firsthand.
Samuraisword
You obviously are new to MMORPG's.
Yes the newly acquired CoX by NcSoft does have a lot of instancing. But NCsoft's flagship games (Lineage 1 and 2) have very little if any instancing.
When someone talks about instancing the first game and company that pops to mind is definately not NCsoft and any of their games.
I think NCSOFT needs to incorporate more instancing IMVHO to keep up with their competitors who have a lot more instancing in their games and is late to the party so to say.
And I don't understand people who embrace instancing since it ruins the MMOG experience. You are just playing a multiplayer version of a single box game if all you want to do is hang out with the same group of friends, remove any possibility of interaction with other players good and bad, and have guaranteed access to items without healthy competition.
Newsflash: Killstealing is not an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of "first person/group to strike owns the mob." Ninjalooting is not possible if the developer has applied intelligent design of limiting looting rights to the person/group which got credit for the kill. Camping is less of an issue if the developer has applied intelligent design of not limiting specific drops to a specific mob.
Valuable loot should be distributed amongst the loot tables of many mobs of the same difficulty and simply made rare, thus maintaining scarcity, preserving the value and desirability, and reducing camping issues and the need for long spawn timers. However, removing all aspects of healthy competition for resources would be a mistake and only pleases the ADD entitlement kids.
Ohh yeah lag. I always wonder why EvE Online can handle over 50k players on one server and no one else in the industry can figure it out. Maybe intelligent design applied by artists, programmers, and server engineers is required. Call CCP for a clue.
Wow, you sure like your hyperbole. I don't know what game you're talking about, but it isn't City of Heroes.
I play with different people all the time — often people I've never met before. Though yes, when given the opportunity, I do like to hang out with friends/guildmates. And believe it or not, it's a pretty large group. Silly me, I didn't realize that was "ruining" the MMOG experience.
And guaranteed access to items without "healthy" competition? Um, again, I don't know what game you're talking about, but it isn't City of Heroes.
The "loot" in that game — salvage and recipes — is entirely random. If I want access to it, I've got the same opportunity as everyone else, or I use the auction house and bid on it... like everyone else. I'm not certain how "healthy" it is, but I assure you it's quite competitive.
Oh and newsflash? Ever play EVE Online? If you think lag isn't an issue in CCP's game, I suggest you spend a little time in Jita. Tell me how that works out.
I haven't myself played through all of CoX, but from my experience and understanding, CoH and CoV rely quite heavily on mission instances. In that sense, Aion and CoX are in no way comparable.
Thank you.Hopefully I will get a chance to beta test Aion and experience the game firsthand.
10% is next to nothing. And after playing COX you couldnt figure that out? I mean COX is obviously no where near 10% .....its highly instanced. Research? Maybe you should do some, like learn the difference between a publisher and a developer in the future.
I like it the way it is. Wouldn't it be contradicting if you can hang out with the other race like if they aren't an enemy?
I guess we'll have to fight to gain acces to the ennemy's areas, with is the most logical.
So if you wanne see the other side, I guess you'll have to fight for it or make another character.
Eaglix
10% instanced.. this is not so much !
anyway if we compare for exemple with linéage ][ .. most of the world in L2 is persistent.. witch has some + and some - :
has for Raidboss for exemple.. everybody can raid on this boss.. this is great, only probleme.. you have so many guilds who want to kill this boss but is only one.. so once he's killed than you have to wait the next pop.. means also that lot of popzone camps appears IG!!
good point on this ... the way a PVE event can become a PVP if you re underattak from others.
also we can take the instanced world from WoW (blizzard), WoW as the main world in persistent... only Raid instances!! this is great also cause you can concentrate on your boss.. with high level strategic fights... all guilds can try to progress as far as they can in this instances.
black point.. no interaction with other guilds or aother player.. no way to freepvp inside instances..
GW is for exemple to much instanced..!! but htis is not ncsoft dev!
imo, the way to have a 90% persistent world is great.. the objectif is to PVP.. and this will give the way to do it... also interesting to get Raidbosses.. to get some pve event also..
the 10% instanced world.. is made if we follows the devs.. to get some quests for the background story in Aion... i would love to see also instance with high strategics bosses.. with some rewards usefull for the fortress sieges and all pvp events.
this type of instance could be interesting in many ways.. the way to get pvp rewards.. the way to raid with the guild.. the way to not wait for the repop from a boss, the way to fight between the guild from same faction for the first down server..!!!
this is my idea about the instances.. i think it could be intereseting to get both systeme IG... with pvp in persistent world and pve in instanced world!!
There are some problems with Asian MMO's in general...
-They focus to heavily on pve and not on pvp.
- Character creation and uniqueness in general is rare, 1 in 4 characters is a clone and all classes usually wind up with the same item sets.
-Instead of polishing existing content they worry about rushing out new content (aka world expansion and raising level caps).
- Translations are emotionless and dull, while not bad grammar wise they usually sound like they were translated by R2D2. Its very obvious they use contracted companies to bulk translate text in most of them.
- Servers should not be in asia, it gives English players an unfair ping disadvantage.
- They need to cater more to the U.S. market if they except any type of success sales wise. Americans and asians don't necessarily like the same things. All these MMO's are all to obviously targeting an asian crowd and all they did in the English versions was change the text.
- More than anything on earth I hate "click to move" any MMO that does not support WASD or at least the arrow keys had no chance of me buying it. I know asians like it but I absolutely loathe it.
Im really hoping these are not present in Aion
Asian MMO's in general focus to much on PVE instead of PVP? Then you have clearly missed the point of these games because asian mmorpg's are known to focus on PVP, not PVE.
Asian MMORPG's are currently being very succesful, and american versions of Asian games are hosted in the US, not Asia.
My take on this is that instancing must be done "just right". There really shouldn't be any hard ratio on the amount of instancing but instead instancing should be judge based on "What should have been an instance and what should not have been an instance." For example, a boss fight based after a long storyline quest series should be instanced for a private party, while a general dungeon for XP/Loot should not be instanced altho spawning a fresh instance when a dungeon gets "full" could be part of the option. Although I think there should be some variety of dungeon (as in more than 1) within a specific level range that has specific themes to it and dungeons with overlapping level range is good too. The key to a successful game is balancing these points between fun/accessibility and challenge.
The Eve server goes down for maintenance EVERY day for 1 hour.
Eve is constant zoning everytime you dock or change systems.
While Eve works fine, it is hardly an example of a state of the art server.