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How instancing ruins MMORPGs
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WoW's biggest advantage is that it's still around. Your MMO of the past has gone to dust.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
WoW's biggest advantage is that it's still around. Your MMO of the past has gone to dust.
Yeah, an MMO that any newbie can succeed in will be popular, what a shocker.
"It would be meaningless to engage in PvP with other guilds on your server. There is no rivalry, there is no contention over raid content, because all of the raid content is instanced."
I played on Laughing Skull in WoW. It's a PvP server. You're wrong on all accounts. If the only reason you think PvP is for is over camping contested mobs, then you need to understand that your idea of what PvP is... is far from what many PvP'ers think.
And your reference to EQ PvP is just as laughable. Oh yeah... INSTANCING is ruining PvP. Remember ZONES? Yeah that made so much more fucking sense. Oh look, here's an invisible wall that I can't see what is on the other side, I'm going to enter! *LOADING... PLEASE WAIT* Oh shit, I'm dead before I load because there was a group camping zoners on the other side. Yup, zones were so much more advanced than instances... and 56k modems are still king.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
The OP started talking about PvE content, but predictably, slipped into arguing that PvP suffers from instancing.
I'll agree with the OP in one sense: A PvP focused MMO shouldn't have instancing. It should be completely seamless. Great PvP arises when there's conflict over world resources. It gives you a reason to fight other than for superfluous points. I think many people on this forum will agree to that.
However, the OP makes reference to EQ which is primarily a PvE game. PvP was a complete afterthought, the majority of people playing were on PvE servers. They had no recourse other than to try to tag a mob first if there was another group camping the same spawn. For PvE purposes, instances are a great boon. Fighting over spawns or waiting for a mob to spawn can range from being downright boring to frustrating.
Sitting in one spot for hours on end, waiting for a monster to pop out of thin air is not fun. Anyone who thinks it is, is clearly letting nostalgia cloud their judgement.
The biggest reason is because it is no longer a MMO,you are confined to your group,that is basically turning the game into a single player co op,nothing better than what Guild Wars has to offer.
We have enough single players games,there is tons of them,a MMO is suppose to be a unique experience with REAL players not a game pretending to be a MMO,but plays like a single player game or a co op game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
By the OP's definition of PvP, games like counter strike offer zero PvP because its basically wow-arenas playstyle. The OP needs to go play darkfall and stop making pathetic threads about how WoW stole his icecream. thats what I think.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
instanceing solves the problem that EQ had. 20 groups standing around the same mob trying to finish a Quest.
Im all for instanceing. Makes Gameplay easier and Smoother
You are just making an excuse ,in that the game is not for you in those cases.You have to remeber if it is an MMO you are SUPPOSE to be interacting with others,if not you are not playing the game as it is designed ,so you are in essence wasting your time anyhow.
Your description of what you want in game is exactly what a single player game is.You pop it into your console and play,no waiting for other players ,you probably have little travel because the game is totally linear.If you have a wide open game involving other players ,of course it is going to be a time consuming thing,that is it's design.If that design does not meet your standards,then like i said you do not belong in a MMO.
It is basically just like the real world going to work with other people,the difference is not everyone is going to be there at 7 am all ready to work together.However we all know this,so when you dive into a MMO,you SHOULD know exactly what to expect,and it won't be a single player game or a MMO pretending to be a MMO.
I give a REAL simple analogy,i don't join a hockey league and complain i cannot play everyday,i know full well what i am getting into before i join.Would it be right for me to start saying the league should cater to my preferences ?Of course not,it is designed to work with lots of players and must be organized to do so.This is no different than meeting people in a game and organizing to meet up at certain times to play the game,it is exactly the same.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I have a friend that played EQ, and correct me if Im wrong, but didnt people back in those days complained about the very same thing the OP wants to bring back now?
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
100% Correct
I have played EQ for many many years, and I have to agree with the OP to a degree. The competition and bottlenecking were important aspects to the game. It actually made the gear you had an important part of who your character was. I tried wow, but it was WAY too easy. To me there was no sense of accomplishment. If I had more time I would surely go back to a game like that. The raids in EQ absolutely destroy anything wow has ever done.... period. But to the OP, I played eq from launch till a few months ago, and I feel like I gotta remind you.... EQ did go to instanced dungeons man. Ldons, Creators, Txevu,Tacvi,Anguish, etc. It had a good mix towards the end and noone complained. The thing I would like to see is more key quests, etc. I liked the fact in EQ that it took hours and hours to get a raid keyed for Ssra, anguish, etc.... bring it back! And mages working on rep for Ntov! We need more stuff like that tbh.... wow is waaaaaaaay too dumbed down. I honestly feel like its for special kids...
This is obviously a reference to WoW... again... How does doing instances with random people not create a social aspect? I know whenever I did instances I made friends with people that were good, if you had a really good group I would do not one but many runs. Add the people to my friends list and be in contact with them from then on.
Lineage 2 was totally open no instances, the only time I met people at first was doing cruma tower which is pretty much the same as instancing, we had to get a group and kill mobs for hours.
I really don't see the logic in this post other than a flame against games with instances which you clearly don't like so imo don't play those games.
It's a just GAME vs. WORLD debate. You're probably going to fall on one side or the other and the two side will never agree. And NO, you can't have it both ways in one game. You either comit to the idea of keeping the world open or you go with instances and scripted, private encounters.
I'm not a grouping fanatic, I actually solo most of the time. But, I prefer WORLDS over GAMES. If I want to play a game, I'm going with another genre, probably FPS. Other genres just have better controls, better combat, and more of a challenge. I come to MMOs for a persistant, massive, world. So no, I really don't see the point in scripted instances. They're not immersive, they're not fun, and they're completely static. Of course, that's just my opinion.
The point though, is that the more instances you add, the less players you have in the actual game world. At a certain point, you don't really have an MMORPG any more, you have Diablo 2.
Yeah but whats immersive about you going deep into a cave to fight a fearsome dragon, only to see 50 people already there taping their foot waiting to tag the beast before you can?
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
Yeah but whats immersive about you going deep into a cave to fight a fearsome dragon, only to see 50 people already there taping their foot waiting to tag the beast before you can?
Because for one, it actually feels like a world populated by other players...rather than a sterile environment that exists only to make me "feel" like a hero.
This really is just another argument of Hardcore vs Casual mmos. Most of the games that have steered clear of instances completely have been hardcore games, requiring hours of play at a time and not being friendly to those who took longer to learn or played without a large group of friends.
I think instancing has its place, especially in games tailored to a wider audience. Those who are slower, or less "skilled" in a game can still place all the content and not effect the "elite" people who know every niche of the game. I like a good mix, although i have noticed that instanced pvp kills some of the fun, you should all remember tarren mill back in the day. WAR came closest to doing what you want, having the public quests for good loot, and having the objective based open world pvp system. The game was and is still buggy, sad because it did many things very well.
Ah that timeless question. Does time played equals skill?
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
Instancing in my opinion is like MMORPG AIDS.
No instancing and as few zones as possible, let's have real MMORPGs not CORPGs!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Yeah but whats immersive about you going deep into a cave to fight a fearsome dragon, only to see 50 people already there taping their foot waiting to tag the beast before you can?
Because for one, it actually feels like a world populated by other players...rather than a sterile environment that exists only to make me "feel" like a hero.
Of course for many people 'feeling like a hero' is what makes a game immersive. If you have to think of other 'players' instead of other 'characters' then your immersion is broken. Camping spawn points, or having to wait in line for a boss spawn is a massive immersion breaker.
You are just making an excuse ,in that the game is not for you in those cases.You have to remeber if it is an MMO you are SUPPOSE to be interacting with others,if not you are not playing the game as it is designed ,so you are in essence wasting your time anyhow.
Your description of what you want in game is exactly what a single player game is.You pop it into your console and play,no waiting for other players ,you probably have little travel because the game is totally linear.If you have a wide open game involving other players ,of course it is going to be a time consuming thing,that is it's design.If that design does not meet your standards,then like i said you do not belong in a MMO.
It is basically just like the real world going to work with other people,the difference is not everyone is going to be there at 7 am all ready to work together.However we all know this,so when you dive into a MMO,you SHOULD know exactly what to expect,and it won't be a single player game or a MMO pretending to be a MMO.
I give a REAL simple analogy,i don't join a hockey league and complain i cannot play everyday,i know full well what i am getting into before i join.Would it be right for me to start saying the league should cater to my preferences ?Of course not,it is designed to work with lots of players and must be organized to do so.This is no different than meeting people in a game and organizing to meet up at certain times to play the game,it is exactly the same.
Not at all. WOW, GW, and COX gave me that instant-action, jump-in-and-teamplay gameplay that I wanted, without fully losing the other myriad of benefits of being an MMO game.
It's a min-max sort of equation. Instancing adds a huge list of pros, with only a small con (and one sidestepped with /ignore...and if I was easily offended, I could /leave general too.) None of this has to with whether the game is linear (no themepark MMORPG is anything close to the sort of linear experience you get from watching TV.)
What players enjoy creates the games that get made. EQ came at a time when the genre was new, and so it didn't utterly fail when it had very waiting-heavy gameplay. WOW had waiting-lite gameplay, and that was one of the factors that caused its success (it was a big one for me, who had tried many MMORPGs before it and never found one worth paying the sub fee for past the first month.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Instances good in thought terrible in execution.
UO post trammel: fighting for every spawn and fighting for every camping spot did not create a good community. So the idea of separating groups of people into different instances of the same place is a good idea.
WoW instances: basically micro raids. Instead of being a tool to help distribute the population instances have become forced micro raids that make the community focus more on who can help me achieve the phat loot vs playing for fun.
Now I see what he wants. He just wants to go around ganking people. This has more to do with him not be able to go around killing random people than people being in instances. World pvp= fail unless set up like DAoC, I mean do really expect any developer to make a game that encourages a minority of your playerbase to run off everyone. If that was true Darkfall would be one o the most popular games around.
Instancing is perfect for me who don't like this type of content. It is a nice way to give loot to those who are only after that. That let's me have the world content more for me & my kind; no boss camping, area farming etc etc. Which in turns means less grief.
So no, instancing is NOT ruining MMORPG's. In fact, instancing is a great asset to MMORPG's.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
I thought that was the best part of the game.
That's what made it interesting for me. Solo quest grinding in WoW, or jumping in and out of zerg like groups to finish off a quest chain seems rather boring by comparison.
Train!
Run!
Yeah but whats immersive about you going deep into a cave to fight a fearsome dragon, only to see 50 people already there taping their foot waiting to tag the beast before you can?
I think an option I could suggest here would be to have a larger open world populated with multiple encounters that run along the same lines. Say, for instance, you have your dragon in a cave. There are many people who want to fight a dragon in a cave (solo or group). Possible rewards for beating a dragon aside, if you have multiple "dragon in a cave" scenarios strategically placed over the larger game world, would that not help alleviate the problem of camping, as well as help foster a unique experience for you and/or your group?
I'm not saying to go overboard with a single encounter and make you able to do it anywhere, but an I think archetype of event, tailored to different world regions, would add the variety of encounters based on an archetype and give them a unique quality.
On the subject of contention, though, if I and my merry band approach a "dragon cave" and another group is there already and firmly states they are not leaving, I like having the option of either going back the way we came or attacking the opposing group for territory rights. We just have to develop bit of player diplomacy in the community. =P