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How Bad is the Instancing
ryanmarshall
Member Posts: 58
Seriously sitting on the fence about buying this game over the issue of instancing. Although Id prefer no instancing except for dungeons etc I understand why they may have had to put them in and can live with them up to a certain point. Pretty much comes down to this. Geographically how large are the instances? Are they similar to a WOW region? How bad is the load timing between instances?(major issue) Generally how many instances are running at a time? (although it wont really effect players you always feel like you are missing out on something when u see 30 other instances running) What is the maximum player count per instance? There are a few other concerns such as locating friends or instancing breaking up groups (I'm sure this isn't a problem). How are these handled? I know this is an issue putting many "would be players" on the fence, so enlighten us all please.
Comments
don't confuse instances with zones.
You would probably never even know that there were multiple iterations of a zone, really. There are SO many people around, everywhere you go.
Load screens for me on an old machine are never longer than say, 8 seconds. Once again, I have an old machine.
You can change "instances" of whatever zone you are in at will, via a little button up by your radar. So if your zone is overcrowded, and there are too many people camping the spawn you need, you can just switch to one that's less populated.
"Instancing" is more obvious and common at the beginning of the game, where overcrowding tends to be more of a problem, and the zones are much smaller. Once out in the mainland, you could potentially play for hours without ever seeing a loading screen.
There are both private instaced dungeons, and "social" dungeons, which function similar to the main zones in the game...I.E., another instance is only created when the zone is "full"....and "full" is a lot of people.
Honestly, trolls harp on the instancing system, but if it were not in place, the game would be uncomfortably over-crowded. You'd end up waiting in line for hours for a boss spawn. You wouldn't be able to move.