I'm one of those who tunes out whenever someone starts talking about instancing because instancing has taken away one of my favorite activities. I really don't care that XX million players may like instancing when something I used to enjoy is no longer an option because of it.
Part of the problem with instances is that they can fly in the face of different playstyles.
By that I mean, the pvp crowd wants to be able to fight over bosses and territory and doesn't want wartags to hide in instances.
The pve crowd might want to be able to join in a raid boss or encounter. I know, I know, believe it or not some games don't have limits on players who can become involved.
Instances can be a boon in story driven encounters as having players come by shouting "hi bob" while you are trying to be immersed does break any sense of immersion from players that value that type of thing.
And by that I mean that there are players who dont' get the sense of world immersion and just experience the game as one interactive chat room.
It becomes too many different types of players in one space all requiring different things.
I like the suggestion of having huge "dungeons" where multiple parties can do multiple raids though I would also suggest that unless it's a pvp game, griefing could also be prevalent.
Another reason for instances.
There are of course ways around that but some point they could beceom very artificial feeling.
I'm 50/50 on instances. I love them in storied encounters where I can concnetrate without having jerks ruin "the moment". However, with them I wouldn't have been able to jump in and give a hand during Vanguard dungeon a few nights ago.
So in some cases they can be stifling.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Instances should be used, but used right. What do I mean by that?
First, instances should be used where, immersion wise, it makes sense. Instances should be used in spots where it would be immersion breaking to find lots of players running around at the same time.
If lots of players are immersion breaking, you really should consider what you are doing with your MMO. If any part of your MMO is designed in such a way that alot of players in the same spot is immersion breaking then you as a developer have failed. Not counting chat spam and other disruptive behaviour ofcourse. Thats how i see it. Now ofcourse alot of players and developers think they want to play an MMORPG when in reality they only want to play a single player RPG with a multiplayer option. An MMO shoulnd't have that option, it should be mandatory.
Part of the problem with instances is that they can fly in the face of different playstyles.
By that I mean, the pvp crowd wants to be able to fight over bosses and territory and doesn't want wartags to hide in instances.
The pve crowd might want to be able to join in a raid boss or encounter. I know, I know, believe it or not some games don't have limits on players who can become involved.
Instances can be a boon in story driven encounters as having players come by shouting "hi bob" while you are trying to be immersed does break any sense of immersion from players that value that type of thing.
And by that I mean that there are players who dont' get the sense of world immersion and just experience the game as one interactive chat room.
It becomes too many different types of players in one space all requiring different things.
I like the suggestion of having huge "dungeons" where multiple parties can do multiple raids though I would also suggest that unless it's a pvp game, griefing could also be prevalent.
Another reason for instances.
There are of course ways around that but some point they could beceom very artificial feeling.
I'm 50/50 on instances. I love them in storied encounters where I can concnetrate without having jerks ruin "the moment". However, with them I wouldn't have been able to jump in and give a hand during Vanguard dungeon a few nights ago.
So in some cases they can be stifling.
Shared dungeons and boss-timers are just plain fail, no matter how you put it.
EQ(2) had these and there were entire guilds dedicated to camp spawns and farm bosses, even demanding a "fee" if you wanted to slay the boss.
When I was talking about instancing I meant world-instancing, not dungeon instancing. Since dungeon instancing is just a PITA for anybody playing the game. Why?
- It's a PvE experience, you're there for the boss, not for the PvP/competetive-play.
- It's a PvE experience, you're there for coop-play, not raidVraid play.
Unlike EvE where you join the world knowing full well that you're entering a dog-eat-dog world where everyone wishes you cancer and all your ISK are belong to them (you can just deal with it and start out presuming everybody hates you so you better start of hating everybody else).
Demanding spawn stealing/camping (and non-instanced dungeons are exactly this, they're not more realistic [RESPAWN anyone], nor more challenging, nor more immersive [on the contrary]) in a PvE game is just a masked attempt to promote PvP.
I have yet to find likeminded people who see the potential in a sandbox-PvE game. I myself think it would be awesome: Creating content for people to beat cooperatively.
It's not an MMO unless I can camp, grief, show off, and lag out everyone on the server, particularly those I have absolutely no intention of ever socializing or playing with.
Instances can be a boon in story driven encounters as having players come by shouting "hi bob" while you are trying to be immersed does break any sense of immersion from players that value that type of thing.
Well instancing for me kills immersion preety easily. Beign artifically separated from open game world during for example quest break world immersion for me ,but I guess that depends on individual.
Worst thing though is instances + dungeon finder , it changes mmorpg into big chat room where everyone at max level stand in a city waiting for teleport to instance. Totally immersion breaking for me. Might as well just turn game into lobby + mission rooms. Will really be not much diffrence.
Instances can be a boon in story driven encounters as having players come by shouting "hi bob" while you are trying to be immersed does break any sense of immersion from players that value that type of thing.
Well instancing for me kills immersion preety easily. Beign artifically separated from open game world during for example quest break world immersion for me ,but I guess that depends on individual.
A question for you then. Does being naturally separated from the rest of the world also break immersion for you? For example, there's a pentagram chamber in the west wing of the castle. Activating it releases a swarm of demons and their demon lord, but in order to do so, you first must close the gate to the castle's west wing, which can't be opened from the outside. You're still in the same world and the same building as a bunch of other people, but there is a literal barrier preventing them from going where you are and fighting what you are fighting. Does this break immersion?
I think another good example would be that of a trap which teleports you to a random place in the zone, perhaps even a place that cannot be reached by any other means. Other people cannot go to where you are even by deliberately falling into the trap. Does this break immersion?
There are other ways to separate players too, like a citadel in the clouds that can't be reached without a flying mount, or a deadly astral plane where the mobs are strong enough that you can't survive without 30 max level players. These are all ways of placing either a literal or figurative barrier between you and the rest of the world, one that you know other people cannot possibly pass through and come to you. Do these barriers break immersion?
I suspect your answer for each of these is "no", so I ask why? What is it about an instanced zone that is more jarring than another kind of barrier that is equally impenetrable such as a castle's gate or an uncrossable expanse of sky?
I am not against limited instances, but in general dungeons, I do not like it.
I liked pre-LDoN EQ more than post-LDoN.
Instancing for some raids is ok, but general dungeons, no. I think that is a decent compromise...Heck even if a game was 50/50 on dungeons, that would be great imo.
I miss places like Karnors Castle in EQ. Yeah it could be a pain, but it made it more exciting also.
Instances can be a boon in story driven encounters as having players come by shouting "hi bob" while you are trying to be immersed does break any sense of immersion from players that value that type of thing.
Well instancing for me kills immersion preety easily. Beign artifically separated from open game world during for example quest break world immersion for me ,but I guess that depends on individual.
Worst thing though is instances + dungeon finder , it changes mmorpg into big chat room where everyone at max level stand in a city waiting for teleport to instance. Totally immersion breaking for me. Might as well just turn game into lobby + mission rooms. Will really be not much diffrence.
I think the "depends on the individual" is the important bit.
I am curious how you find it not immersion breaking when you are roaming through your first encounter with a "dungeon" , carefully making your way through, careful to see what is coming ahead in the darkness, when suddenly a group runs by and starts shouting "hey Sulaa, how's it hanging/we just gonna run by cya's later/hey you got any pots we can buy off you", etc.
That completely negates any mystery to the encounter/area being dangerous, it completley negates any sense of what you are about to experiene because the group running through is going to reveal what is up ahead, and it completely negates any sense of the moment because the party running through has essentially broken the moment with talk that has nothing to do with what you could have been experiencing.
So to use a Lord of the Rings example: Frodo and party is making it's way through when they see a distant light. They enter into a chamber and find a scene of carnage and a tomb. Suddenly, the drums start sounding and hordes of goblins start descending upoin the room, you and your party brace yourselves for the attack, you take your positions, you shout out quick strategies, the goblins descend and "w00t, hey Sulaa, how's it hanging, we hotchat later!/heya Sulaa, I've got those mats you wanted, I can mail them later, let's party later too!..." etc.
I imagine your answer is that the parties of other players are what is of more interest.
In which case my original point stands in that it comes down to having too many players of different playstyles all jammed into one game which is trying to cater to everyone. Your statement then becomes more important as it depends on the player and what they value.
Nothign wrong with that and completely no judgement there. As I mentioned, Vanguard (and my former lIneage 2) allowed for player interaction when it mattered. However, there is no sense of story or place or suspense.
Here is yahtzee's review of fear 3. It might seem off topic but he addresses a bit where fear 3, a horror shooter, allows for co-op and why co-op doesn't work in a horror game. I suspect the same goes for mmo's when atmosphere is trying to be created as well as a sense of place:
Instances should be used, but used right. What do I mean by that?
First, instances should be used where, immersion wise, it makes sense. Instances should be used in spots where it would be immersion breaking to find lots of players running around at the same time.
If lots of players are immersion breaking, you really should consider what you are doing with your MMO. If any part of your MMO is designed in such a way that alot of players in the same spot is immersion breaking then you as a developer have failed. Not counting chat spam and other disruptive behaviour ofcourse. Thats how i see it. Now ofcourse alot of players and developers think they want to play an MMORPG when in reality they only want to play a single player RPG with a multiplayer option. An MMO shoulnd't have that option, it should be mandatory.
I disagree. There are always going to be some spots (big or small) where there should be a lack of population. Nobody is saying that they should be everywhere, or even overwhelming in scope. Just that they exist. Very few game designs can really be accomplished if you fail to include ANY places where it doesn't make sense for alot of people to exist at once.
In fantasy games, remove any NPC enemy Settlement type places (Blackburrow, Crushbone)
Both open instance and closed instance are needed in a game now a day.and both need their raid pve an pvp but in open instance you get open pvp instead of closed pvp likein av(wow)
Instances should be used, but used right. What do I mean by that?
First, instances should be used where, immersion wise, it makes sense. Instances should be used in spots where it would be immersion breaking to find lots of players running around at the same time.
If lots of players are immersion breaking, you really should consider what you are doing with your MMO. If any part of your MMO is designed in such a way that alot of players in the same spot is immersion breaking then you as a developer have failed. Not counting chat spam and other disruptive behaviour ofcourse. Thats how i see it. Now ofcourse alot of players and developers think they want to play an MMORPG when in reality they only want to play a single player RPG with a multiplayer option. An MMO shoulnd't have that option, it should be mandatory.
I disagree. There are always going to be some spots (big or small) where there should be a lack of population. Nobody is saying that they should be everywhere, or even overwhelming in scope. Just that they exist. Very few game designs can really be accomplished if you fail to include ANY places where it doesn't make sense for alot of people to exist at once.
In fantasy games, remove any NPC enemy Settlement type places (Blackburrow, Crushbone)
Forget about any concept of a cyberpunk game.
Supers games cannot have Bad Guy Lairs
etc.
^This is excatly how instancing needs to be used.
These games are meant to be heroic, especially at later levels, you can't have heroic if everyone shares the entire world together.
Cities should be persistent (aside from indoor quests), travel paths should be persistent, social areas should be persistent, common (meaning common types of mobs, wolves, spiders, orcs, gnolls) hunting grounds should be persistent.
The lair of the gnoll chief should be an instance, the city under attack should be an instance. Things that are meant to give you a sense of "heroic" action should be instances (and non-reaptable if immersion really is your goal). Not simply because of greifing or spawn camping, but also for the simple fact that it is logical.
One of the main reasons my initial post in this thread brough up STO is because you can't do a Star Trek game where everyone is "boldly going" to the same planet as everyone else. It doesn't fit the genre and the setting insists on that kind of privacy. It breaks my immersion much, much more to see the Gnoll chief respawn than it does to be alone in a cave with group while killing him.
I loved EQ played it for a long time and still go back occasionally, but the non-instanced boss fights or "special areas" about the game were not immersive, nor was it "content" having to wait in line to kill something. It was old tech and it has been rightfully replaced.
Instances should be used, but used right. What do I mean by that?
First, instances should be used where, immersion wise, it makes sense. Instances should be used in spots where it would be immersion breaking to find lots of players running around at the same time.
If lots of players are immersion breaking, you really should consider what you are doing with your MMO. If any part of your MMO is designed in such a way that alot of players in the same spot is immersion breaking then you as a developer have failed. Not counting chat spam and other disruptive behaviour ofcourse. Thats how i see it. Now ofcourse alot of players and developers think they want to play an MMORPG when in reality they only want to play a single player RPG with a multiplayer option. An MMO shoulnd't have that option, it should be mandatory.
I disagree. There are always going to be some spots (big or small) where there should be a lack of population. Nobody is saying that they should be everywhere, or even overwhelming in scope. Just that they exist. Very few game designs can really be accomplished if you fail to include ANY places where it doesn't make sense for alot of people to exist at once.
In fantasy games, remove any NPC enemy Settlement type places (Blackburrow, Crushbone)
Forget about any concept of a cyberpunk game.
Supers games cannot have Bad Guy Lairs
etc.
^This is excatly how instancing needs to be used.
These games are meant to be heroic, especially at later levels, you can't have heroic if everyone shares the entire world together.
Cities should be persistent (aside from indoor quests), travel paths should be persistent, social areas should be persistent, common (meaning common types of mobs, wolves, spiders, orcs, gnolls) hunting grounds should be persistent.
The lair of the gnoll chief should be an instance, the city under attack should be an instance. Things that are meant to give you a sense of "heroic" action should be instances (and non-reaptable if immersion really is your goal). Not simply because of greifing or spawn camping, but also for the simple fact that it is logical.
One of the main reasons my initial post in this thread brough up STO is because you can't do a Star Trek game where everyone is "boldly going" to the same planet as everyone else. It doesn't fit the genre and the setting insists on that kind of privacy. It breaks my immersion much, much more to see the Gnoll chief respawn than it does to be alone in a cave with group while killing him.
I loved EQ played it for a long time and still go back occasionally, but the non-instanced boss fights or "special areas" about the game were not immersive, nor was it "content" having to wait in line to kill something. It was old tech and it has been rightfully replaced.
I don't disagree. I have an opinion of STO, but its not fit for mixed company
I definitely believe that Instancing has been over used, and simply used wrong in many games. The idea of instancing to solve lag issues is IMO a design flaw. Champions online, Conan, and even EQ2 have fallen into this trap. Its bad design for much of the same reasons that people have been spouting off.
CITIES SHOULD BE POPULATED. It should be possible to run into people in the big wide world. Instancing for Instancings sake is simply bad design.
I definitely believe that Instancing has been over used, and simply used wrong in many games. The idea of instancing to solve lag issues is IMO a design flaw. Champions online, Conan, and even EQ2 have fallen into this trap. Its bad design for much of the same reasons that people have been spouting off.
CITIES SHOULD BE POPULATED. It should be possible to run into people in the big wide world. Instancing for Instancings sake is simply bad design.
I disagree. In fact, I'd take it a step further and say mere instancing doesn't go far enough.
If I don't want to see or be seen by anyone, I should have that option.
Additionally, if I've determined another player to be a jerk, nuisance, or simply someone I'd rather not share my gaming universe with, the ability to press a button and effectively forever vanquish them from existence would be ideal.
Multiplayer gaming is wonderful when it benefits me and enriches my experience. When it doesn't, no argument is gonna persuade me I should just grin and bear it for the sake of someone else's "immersion" or rigid definition of an acronym. I'm not playing a video game to provide some nerd with charity.
If that makes me selfish and/or anti-social, so be it. It's my free time & entertainment dollar. Sue me.
Instances should be used, but used right. What do I mean by that?
First, instances should be used where, immersion wise, it makes sense. Instances should be used in spots where it would be immersion breaking to find lots of players running around at the same time.
If lots of players are immersion breaking, you really should consider what you are doing with your MMO. If any part of your MMO is designed in such a way that alot of players in the same spot is immersion breaking then you as a developer have failed. Not counting chat spam and other disruptive behaviour ofcourse. Thats how i see it. Now ofcourse alot of players and developers think they want to play an MMORPG when in reality they only want to play a single player RPG with a multiplayer option. An MMO shoulnd't have that option, it should be mandatory.
I disagree. There are always going to be some spots (big or small) where there should be a lack of population. Nobody is saying that they should be everywhere, or even overwhelming in scope. Just that they exist. Very few game designs can really be accomplished if you fail to include ANY places where it doesn't make sense for alot of people to exist at once.
In fantasy games, remove any NPC enemy Settlement type places (Blackburrow, Crushbone)
Forget about any concept of a cyberpunk game.
Supers games cannot have Bad Guy Lairs
etc.
^This is excatly how instancing needs to be used.
These games are meant to be heroic, especially at later levels, you can't have heroic if everyone shares the entire world together.
Cities should be persistent (aside from indoor quests), travel paths should be persistent, social areas should be persistent, common (meaning common types of mobs, wolves, spiders, orcs, gnolls) hunting grounds should be persistent.
The lair of the gnoll chief should be an instance, the city under attack should be an instance. Things that are meant to give you a sense of "heroic" action should be instances (and non-reaptable if immersion really is your goal). Not simply because of greifing or spawn camping, but also for the simple fact that it is logical.
One of the main reasons my initial post in this thread brough up STO is because you can't do a Star Trek game where everyone is "boldly going" to the same planet as everyone else. It doesn't fit the genre and the setting insists on that kind of privacy. It breaks my immersion much, much more to see the Gnoll chief respawn than it does to be alone in a cave with group while killing him.
I loved EQ played it for a long time and still go back occasionally, but the non-instanced boss fights or "special areas" about the game were not immersive, nor was it "content" having to wait in line to kill something. It was old tech and it has been rightfully replaced.
I believe that a game design where you are The Hero is only good for single player games. What you are suggesting is that when fighting the gnoll chief in his cave you are The Hero, but when you leave and go to the city you are simply one of the many Heroes in the world. How is this logical? In a world where there are thousands just like you, how is it logical to make you be The Hero?
I don't disagree. I have an opinion of STO, but its not fit for mixed company
I definitely believe that Instancing has been over used, and simply used wrong in many games. The idea of instancing to solve lag issues is IMO a design flaw. Champions online, Conan, and even EQ2 have fallen into this trap. Its bad design for much of the same reasons that people have been spouting off.
CITIES SHOULD BE POPULATED. It should be possible to run into people in the big wide world. Instancing for Instancings sake is simply bad design.
Just like earth is not flat, instances are not a design flaw and your opinion doesn't change that. Several games that use instances have more complicated and responsive gameplay than games that don't use them. If you ever want to have an MMO with responsive controls, fluid gameplay and complicated game elements like physics, you have to use instances. Instances make it possible.
You can see just how unresposive a game can get when you look at Battlefield Bad Company 2. It has many complicated elements and it is a first-person shooter. At close range encounters, you shouldn't even aim directly at the guy but rather anticipate lag and aim for where he could be a heartbeat from now. With just 32-64 people you can see the difference between it and Quake, Unreal Tournament, Warsow or some other much "sharper", responsive FPS game.
Why could GW have skills with the sole purpose of interrupting enemy skill use? What made active blocking possible in DDO? Every game element that demands reaction times, needs to be resposive aswell. Both DDO and GW1 are largely based on instances.
If your game is entirely based on...
dicerolls,
action queues,
semi-turn-based or turn-based combat
without direct control over your character and
no collision detection
...then I'd imagine you can have hundreds of players fighting at the same time in the same area. But if you want more than that, that maximum number of players per battle is going to shrink ...fast.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
People seem to love to throw around words like 'immersion'. I don't play an MMORPG to be immersed in a fantasy world. I don't play it for the story, I don't play it to role play. I don't play it so I can be stuck away from the general community when I zone into a dungeon. Instances were added out of lazyiness of the developers. It is a lot easier to design a tiny dungeon that five people can play over and over by themselves than to design a giant dungeon, large enough for a a lot of people. One of the key appeals of an MMO is the massive multiplayer part of it. Anything that takes you out of the massive world is bad design. If I wanted to travel through a dungeon with four other people, I could just play NWN or Diablo or some other single player game that allows online play.
Imagine if Lord of the Rings took place in an non-instanced MMO:
"Sorry, Mr. Frodo, you can't throw the ring into the fires of Mount Doom yet! Another Ringbearer got here first, and now you have to wait 20 minutes for Gollum to respawn."
I think the issue here is that MMOs have taken up with the RPG storyline concept of the player being the main hero of the game. Why are there 150,000 Mister Frodos in the first place?
If MMOs were virtual worlds, which in most cases they are not, this wouldn't happen.
exactly. if you're gonna insist on making a massively multiplayer game based on principles that only work right in single player games (every player is a-hero/frodo, and all of them can supposedly be the only ones to kill some specific bad guy), then it makes sense that this stupid decision will bring about other stupid decisions. like making the game so dependent on BEING singleplayer/small-scale game much of the time.
just like a liar has to keep on lying to support their twisted logic.
instancing WAS NOT a fix. it was an inevitable bandage to TRY to smooth over the same stupid path that people are determinedly going down.
there is a WHOLE other path tho!
the other option that nobody seems to recognize is that MAYBE, just MAYBE they should be going down an entirely different path altogether. and build the game on a sensible/sustainable world thats not built on 'unique' characters who keep dying (and therefore a situation is 'solved') then coming back again for every other hero to have the same chance to do that 'unique' thing, and to bring about that world saving 'solution'.
that's fundamentally crappy design that will NEVER work properly in a massively multiplayer game.
so the solution is to take away the MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER part rather than freakin' design the game with that in mind from the beginning? 8) it's madness.
Have said it before and will say it again. MMORPG's are a dying breed. They are being morphed into glorified console games for the Post-WoW masses that are CLUELESS to what they are suppose to be, and why what they are suppose to be makes it a different genre from console gaming. WAKE UP! (queue Rage Against the Machine song)
Instancing KILLS community if overdone...which, almost every company does now. Some is ok....but cripes! It also kills open world feel. Sigh....
/dons flame retardant suit and assumes fetal position.
One thing I find funny is that the OP is all about "Right time, Right Place", and most of the arguments against instancing is using the afore mentioned "Cup of salt" concept of "But breaking people apart in cities is asinine, therefore instancing is bad".
Some times I have to wonder if many of these arguments are pre-planned knee jerk reactions for whenever certain key words come up.
If instancing would actually be a dirty word, there would be no games that have it.
As they ALL, really almost ALL have it - its definitely not dirty at all.
I'm playing one of the few MMOs without instancing - Vanguard - and I absolutely love it. Games like GW where you are in your own instance the moment you leave town are extremely annoying. The whole sense of being in a virtual reality is gone.
So yeah, instancing is something I really hate, but its not going to be a dirty word any soon.
If instancing would actually be a dirty word, there would be no games that have it.
As they ALL, really almost ALL have it - its definitely not dirty at all.
I'm playing one of the few MMOs without instancing - Vanguard - and I absolutely love it. Games like GW where you are in your own instance the moment you leave town are extremely annoying. The whole sense of being in a virtual reality is gone.
So yeah, instancing is something I really hate, but its not going to be a dirty word any soon.
The problem is that you tried playing GW as an MMO. Its closer to diablo2 than an MMO. The towns are lobbies. Its not rocket surgery.
If instancing would actually be a dirty word, there would be no games that have it.
As they ALL, really almost ALL have it - its definitely not dirty at all.
I'm playing one of the few MMOs without instancing - Vanguard - and I absolutely love it. Games like GW where you are in your own instance the moment you leave town are extremely annoying. The whole sense of being in a virtual reality is gone.
So yeah, instancing is something I really hate, but its not going to be a dirty word any soon.
The problem is that you tried playing GW as an MMO. Its closer to diablo2 than an MMO. The towns are lobbies. Its not rocket surgery.
So what ? Many people categorize GW as a MMO. I just choose it because its the most drastic example in this respect. WoW, the most successful MMO, has instanced dungeons as well.
Comments
I'm one of those who tunes out whenever someone starts talking about instancing because instancing has taken away one of my favorite activities. I really don't care that XX million players may like instancing when something I used to enjoy is no longer an option because of it.
In an instanced game, what is the purpose of centralized servers?
Part of the problem with instances is that they can fly in the face of different playstyles.
By that I mean, the pvp crowd wants to be able to fight over bosses and territory and doesn't want wartags to hide in instances.
The pve crowd might want to be able to join in a raid boss or encounter. I know, I know, believe it or not some games don't have limits on players who can become involved.
Instances can be a boon in story driven encounters as having players come by shouting "hi bob" while you are trying to be immersed does break any sense of immersion from players that value that type of thing.
And by that I mean that there are players who dont' get the sense of world immersion and just experience the game as one interactive chat room.
It becomes too many different types of players in one space all requiring different things.
I like the suggestion of having huge "dungeons" where multiple parties can do multiple raids though I would also suggest that unless it's a pvp game, griefing could also be prevalent.
Another reason for instances.
There are of course ways around that but some point they could beceom very artificial feeling.
I'm 50/50 on instances. I love them in storied encounters where I can concnetrate without having jerks ruin "the moment". However, with them I wouldn't have been able to jump in and give a hand during Vanguard dungeon a few nights ago.
So in some cases they can be stifling.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
If lots of players are immersion breaking, you really should consider what you are doing with your MMO. If any part of your MMO is designed in such a way that alot of players in the same spot is immersion breaking then you as a developer have failed. Not counting chat spam and other disruptive behaviour ofcourse. Thats how i see it. Now ofcourse alot of players and developers think they want to play an MMORPG when in reality they only want to play a single player RPG with a multiplayer option. An MMO shoulnd't have that option, it should be mandatory.
Shared dungeons and boss-timers are just plain fail, no matter how you put it.
EQ(2) had these and there were entire guilds dedicated to camp spawns and farm bosses, even demanding a "fee" if you wanted to slay the boss.
When I was talking about instancing I meant world-instancing, not dungeon instancing. Since dungeon instancing is just a PITA for anybody playing the game. Why?
- It's a PvE experience, you're there for the boss, not for the PvP/competetive-play.
- It's a PvE experience, you're there for coop-play, not raidVraid play.
Unlike EvE where you join the world knowing full well that you're entering a dog-eat-dog world where everyone wishes you cancer and all your ISK are belong to them (you can just deal with it and start out presuming everybody hates you so you better start of hating everybody else).
Demanding spawn stealing/camping (and non-instanced dungeons are exactly this, they're not more realistic [RESPAWN anyone], nor more challenging, nor more immersive [on the contrary]) in a PvE game is just a masked attempt to promote PvP.
I have yet to find likeminded people who see the potential in a sandbox-PvE game. I myself think it would be awesome: Creating content for people to beat cooperatively.
M
Instancing is the future, learn to live with it or find another game.
It's not an MMO unless I can camp, grief, show off, and lag out everyone on the server, particularly those I have absolutely no intention of ever socializing or playing with.
Well instancing for me kills immersion preety easily. Beign artifically separated from open game world during for example quest break world immersion for me ,but I guess that depends on individual.
Worst thing though is instances + dungeon finder , it changes mmorpg into big chat room where everyone at max level stand in a city waiting for teleport to instance. Totally immersion breaking for me. Might as well just turn game into lobby + mission rooms. Will really be not much diffrence.
A question for you then. Does being naturally separated from the rest of the world also break immersion for you? For example, there's a pentagram chamber in the west wing of the castle. Activating it releases a swarm of demons and their demon lord, but in order to do so, you first must close the gate to the castle's west wing, which can't be opened from the outside. You're still in the same world and the same building as a bunch of other people, but there is a literal barrier preventing them from going where you are and fighting what you are fighting. Does this break immersion?
I think another good example would be that of a trap which teleports you to a random place in the zone, perhaps even a place that cannot be reached by any other means. Other people cannot go to where you are even by deliberately falling into the trap. Does this break immersion?
There are other ways to separate players too, like a citadel in the clouds that can't be reached without a flying mount, or a deadly astral plane where the mobs are strong enough that you can't survive without 30 max level players. These are all ways of placing either a literal or figurative barrier between you and the rest of the world, one that you know other people cannot possibly pass through and come to you. Do these barriers break immersion?
I suspect your answer for each of these is "no", so I ask why? What is it about an instanced zone that is more jarring than another kind of barrier that is equally impenetrable such as a castle's gate or an uncrossable expanse of sky?
I am not against limited instances, but in general dungeons, I do not like it.
I liked pre-LDoN EQ more than post-LDoN.
Instancing for some raids is ok, but general dungeons, no. I think that is a decent compromise...Heck even if a game was 50/50 on dungeons, that would be great imo.
I miss places like Karnors Castle in EQ. Yeah it could be a pain, but it made it more exciting also.
I think the "depends on the individual" is the important bit.
I am curious how you find it not immersion breaking when you are roaming through your first encounter with a "dungeon" , carefully making your way through, careful to see what is coming ahead in the darkness, when suddenly a group runs by and starts shouting "hey Sulaa, how's it hanging/we just gonna run by cya's later/hey you got any pots we can buy off you", etc.
That completely negates any mystery to the encounter/area being dangerous, it completley negates any sense of what you are about to experiene because the group running through is going to reveal what is up ahead, and it completely negates any sense of the moment because the party running through has essentially broken the moment with talk that has nothing to do with what you could have been experiencing.
So to use a Lord of the Rings example: Frodo and party is making it's way through when they see a distant light. They enter into a chamber and find a scene of carnage and a tomb. Suddenly, the drums start sounding and hordes of goblins start descending upoin the room, you and your party brace yourselves for the attack, you take your positions, you shout out quick strategies, the goblins descend and "w00t, hey Sulaa, how's it hanging, we hotchat later!/heya Sulaa, I've got those mats you wanted, I can mail them later, let's party later too!..." etc.
I imagine your answer is that the parties of other players are what is of more interest.
In which case my original point stands in that it comes down to having too many players of different playstyles all jammed into one game which is trying to cater to everyone. Your statement then becomes more important as it depends on the player and what they value.
Nothign wrong with that and completely no judgement there. As I mentioned, Vanguard (and my former lIneage 2) allowed for player interaction when it mattered. However, there is no sense of story or place or suspense.
Here is yahtzee's review of fear 3. It might seem off topic but he addresses a bit where fear 3, a horror shooter, allows for co-op and why co-op doesn't work in a horror game. I suspect the same goes for mmo's when atmosphere is trying to be created as well as a sense of place:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/3724-FEAR-3
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I disagree. There are always going to be some spots (big or small) where there should be a lack of population. Nobody is saying that they should be everywhere, or even overwhelming in scope. Just that they exist. Very few game designs can really be accomplished if you fail to include ANY places where it doesn't make sense for alot of people to exist at once.
In fantasy games, remove any NPC enemy Settlement type places (Blackburrow, Crushbone)
Forget about any concept of a cyberpunk game.
Supers games cannot have Bad Guy Lairs
etc.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
^This is excatly how instancing needs to be used.
These games are meant to be heroic, especially at later levels, you can't have heroic if everyone shares the entire world together.
Cities should be persistent (aside from indoor quests), travel paths should be persistent, social areas should be persistent, common (meaning common types of mobs, wolves, spiders, orcs, gnolls) hunting grounds should be persistent.
The lair of the gnoll chief should be an instance, the city under attack should be an instance. Things that are meant to give you a sense of "heroic" action should be instances (and non-reaptable if immersion really is your goal). Not simply because of greifing or spawn camping, but also for the simple fact that it is logical.
One of the main reasons my initial post in this thread brough up STO is because you can't do a Star Trek game where everyone is "boldly going" to the same planet as everyone else. It doesn't fit the genre and the setting insists on that kind of privacy. It breaks my immersion much, much more to see the Gnoll chief respawn than it does to be alone in a cave with group while killing him.
I loved EQ played it for a long time and still go back occasionally, but the non-instanced boss fights or "special areas" about the game were not immersive, nor was it "content" having to wait in line to kill something. It was old tech and it has been rightfully replaced.
I don't disagree. I have an opinion of STO, but its not fit for mixed company
I definitely believe that Instancing has been over used, and simply used wrong in many games. The idea of instancing to solve lag issues is IMO a design flaw. Champions online, Conan, and even EQ2 have fallen into this trap. Its bad design for much of the same reasons that people have been spouting off.
CITIES SHOULD BE POPULATED. It should be possible to run into people in the big wide world. Instancing for Instancings sake is simply bad design.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
I disagree. In fact, I'd take it a step further and say mere instancing doesn't go far enough.
If I don't want to see or be seen by anyone, I should have that option.
Additionally, if I've determined another player to be a jerk, nuisance, or simply someone I'd rather not share my gaming universe with, the ability to press a button and effectively forever vanquish them from existence would be ideal.
Multiplayer gaming is wonderful when it benefits me and enriches my experience. When it doesn't, no argument is gonna persuade me I should just grin and bear it for the sake of someone else's "immersion" or rigid definition of an acronym. I'm not playing a video game to provide some nerd with charity.
If that makes me selfish and/or anti-social, so be it. It's my free time & entertainment dollar. Sue me.
I believe that a game design where you are The Hero is only good for single player games. What you are suggesting is that when fighting the gnoll chief in his cave you are The Hero, but when you leave and go to the city you are simply one of the many Heroes in the world. How is this logical? In a world where there are thousands just like you, how is it logical to make you be The Hero?
Just like earth is not flat, instances are not a design flaw and your opinion doesn't change that. Several games that use instances have more complicated and responsive gameplay than games that don't use them. If you ever want to have an MMO with responsive controls, fluid gameplay and complicated game elements like physics, you have to use instances. Instances make it possible.
You can see just how unresposive a game can get when you look at Battlefield Bad Company 2. It has many complicated elements and it is a first-person shooter. At close range encounters, you shouldn't even aim directly at the guy but rather anticipate lag and aim for where he could be a heartbeat from now. With just 32-64 people you can see the difference between it and Quake, Unreal Tournament, Warsow or some other much "sharper", responsive FPS game.
Why could GW have skills with the sole purpose of interrupting enemy skill use? What made active blocking possible in DDO? Every game element that demands reaction times, needs to be resposive aswell. Both DDO and GW1 are largely based on instances.
If your game is entirely based on...
dicerolls,
action queues,
semi-turn-based or turn-based combat
without direct control over your character and
no collision detection
...then I'd imagine you can have hundreds of players fighting at the same time in the same area. But if you want more than that, that maximum number of players per battle is going to shrink ...fast.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
People seem to love to throw around words like 'immersion'. I don't play an MMORPG to be immersed in a fantasy world. I don't play it for the story, I don't play it to role play. I don't play it so I can be stuck away from the general community when I zone into a dungeon. Instances were added out of lazyiness of the developers. It is a lot easier to design a tiny dungeon that five people can play over and over by themselves than to design a giant dungeon, large enough for a a lot of people. One of the key appeals of an MMO is the massive multiplayer part of it. Anything that takes you out of the massive world is bad design. If I wanted to travel through a dungeon with four other people, I could just play NWN or Diablo or some other single player game that allows online play.
exactly. if you're gonna insist on making a massively multiplayer game based on principles that only work right in single player games (every player is a-hero/frodo, and all of them can supposedly be the only ones to kill some specific bad guy), then it makes sense that this stupid decision will bring about other stupid decisions. like making the game so dependent on BEING singleplayer/small-scale game much of the time.
just like a liar has to keep on lying to support their twisted logic.
instancing WAS NOT a fix. it was an inevitable bandage to TRY to smooth over the same stupid path that people are determinedly going down.
there is a WHOLE other path tho!
the other option that nobody seems to recognize is that MAYBE, just MAYBE they should be going down an entirely different path altogether. and build the game on a sensible/sustainable world thats not built on 'unique' characters who keep dying (and therefore a situation is 'solved') then coming back again for every other hero to have the same chance to do that 'unique' thing, and to bring about that world saving 'solution'.
that's fundamentally crappy design that will NEVER work properly in a massively multiplayer game.
so the solution is to take away the MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER part rather than freakin' design the game with that in mind from the beginning? 8) it's madness.
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Have said it before and will say it again. MMORPG's are a dying breed. They are being morphed into glorified console games for the Post-WoW masses that are CLUELESS to what they are suppose to be, and why what they are suppose to be makes it a different genre from console gaming. WAKE UP! (queue Rage Against the Machine song)
Instancing KILLS community if overdone...which, almost every company does now. Some is ok....but cripes! It also kills open world feel. Sigh....
/dons flame retardant suit and assumes fetal position.
"pre-planned" & "knee jerk" are opposites.
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HAHAHAHAHAHA
Funniest thread title ever !
If instancing would actually be a dirty word, there would be no games that have it.
As they ALL, really almost ALL have it - its definitely not dirty at all.
I'm playing one of the few MMOs without instancing - Vanguard - and I absolutely love it. Games like GW where you are in your own instance the moment you leave town are extremely annoying. The whole sense of being in a virtual reality is gone.
So yeah, instancing is something I really hate, but its not going to be a dirty word any soon.
The problem is that you tried playing GW as an MMO. Its closer to diablo2 than an MMO. The towns are lobbies. Its not rocket surgery.
So what ? Many people categorize GW as a MMO. I just choose it because its the most drastic example in this respect. WoW, the most successful MMO, has instanced dungeons as well.