MMORPGs better find a better answer than instances, because games like Destiny do a far better job with instanced content than any of the top MMORPGs on the market today.
Why would I sit around in an instance hitting tab-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3, loot-rinse-repeat, when I could play a game like Destiny that's far more engaging moment-to-moment? Or Risk of Rain? Or DRG? Or, on the PvP side: Hunt: Showdown, Dark and Darker, Apex/Fortnite/any other PvP game that creates map instances per match?
It's only a matter of time before we get fantasy games like Destiny that will make a WoW or FFXIV dungeon experience feel like the equivalent of a game of 3D minesweeper. Instancing means your MMORPG content is no different than those other games. I don't think MMORPG devs want to go head to head with folks like Bungie, but if instancing is the best answer they can come up with for managing the massively multiplayer part of their game, it's exactly where they'll increasingly be. How has that worked out so far for the genre? Who even notices the MMORPG genre (the true MMORPG genre, not the bloviated definition that includes every multiplayer game ever made) in the industry at large, beyond we few and the few sites who still focus there? Hell, even FFXIV and WoW mostly pass their players back and forth between one another like two dogs sharing the same gnawing bone.
MMORPGs better find a better answer than instances, because games like Destiny do a far better job with instanced content than any of the top MMORPGs on the market today.
Why would I sit around in an instance hitting tab-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3, loot-rinse-repeat, when I could play a game like Destiny that's far more engaging moment-to-moment? Or Risk of Rain? Or DRG? Or, on the PvP side: Hunt: Showdown, Dark and Darker, Apex/Fortnite/any other PvP game that creates map instances per match?
It's only a matter of time before we get fantasy games like Destiny that will make a WoW or FFXIV dungeon experience feel like the equivalent of a game of 3D minesweeper. Instancing means your MMORPG content is no different than those other games. I don't think MMORPG devs want to go head to head with folks like Bungie, but if instancing is the best answer they can come up with for managing the massively multiplayer part of their game, it's exactly where they'll increasingly be. How has that worked out so far for the genre? Who even notices the MMORPG genre (the true MMORPG genre, not the bloviated definition that includes every multiplayer game ever made) in the industry at large, beyond we few and the few sites who still focus there? Hell, even FFXIV and WoW mostly pass their players back and forth between one another like two dogs sharing the same gnawing bone.
Weird you say instances is hurting MMO popularity, when its completely opposite. MMO's with instances is what made this genre popular. If you remove all the MMO's that have instances from the market, could you even call MMO's a genre at that point? Its population would be so small I doubt it would be relevant enough to call it anything.
Because some MMO's have simple and repeating content that is not an instance issue.
I know for a fact that most of the old "open world" MMO's had spawn points were the exact mob would spawn from that point every single time. It was completely repeatable without much variance at all.
Kind of like going to an Italian restaurant and having a fly land on your plate, then trying to associate flys to only Italian restaurants.
Funny how many people have no concept of root cause analysis at all.
It could be, but I would refer to Warframe again for how it also demonstrably does not have to be. Instanced content does not define the limit of challenge presented by said content, nor does it mean you have to use a hero-centric narrative or structure.
I would point out again that open world games don't really shy away from those being problems either. WoW can use as many open zones as it wants, but it follows a very individually focused narrative.
Huh? I don't know hardly anything about Warframe, but it's listed as a Multi-Player game. Don't take that "you're the hero" comment so literally. When players "win" they are the hero, and if they all do the same thing and they all "win" at those same things, that's what I'm talking about.
WoW is an "open world"? They have open zones, but those zones are each for a specific "division" of the player base. That's hardly an "Open World." As far as "individually focused narrative" (in WoW), I understand what you mean there but that's not in the context of being able to create a somewhat unique character experience. Most of the game play is about repetitive content, and not individually focused.
This is beginning to feel like you're just diving into any semantics you can. And not for any clear purpose.
If people aren't "winning" at the content in a game, then the devs probably need to assess the difficulty curve before everyone leaves the game. Not saying titles need to be "easy mode", but people engage in games for a variety of purposes that often circles around not perpetually failing at stuff. That has nothing to do with being a hero, just satisfaction.
And dunno how quibbly you aim to get on defining an open world. Most old MMOs still partitioned content in some manner. The amount of truly coherent single-environment titles is very limited.
Creating a "somewhat unique player experience" again seems to be a tangential subject that applies as an issue in any context.
Also dunno what you mean about WoW with that last claim. From my experience majority of the game is soloable content and intentionally so, with rather particular and finite group content focused mostly in the endgame.
MMORPGs better find a better answer than instances, because games like Destiny do a far better job with instanced content than any of the top MMORPGs on the market today.
Why would I sit around in an instance hitting tab-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3, loot-rinse-repeat, when I could play a game like Destiny that's far more engaging moment-to-moment? Or Risk of Rain? Or DRG? Or, on the PvP side: Hunt: Showdown, Dark and Darker, Apex/Fortnite/any other PvP game that creates map instances per match?
It's only a matter of time before we get fantasy games like Destiny that will make a WoW or FFXIV dungeon experience feel like the equivalent of a game of 3D minesweeper. Instancing means your MMORPG content is no different than those other games. I don't think MMORPG devs want to go head to head with folks like Bungie, but if instancing is the best answer they can come up with for managing the massively multiplayer part of their game, it's exactly where they'll increasingly be. How has that worked out so far for the genre? Who even notices the MMORPG genre (the true MMORPG genre, not the bloviated definition that includes every multiplayer game ever made) in the industry at large, beyond we few and the few sites who still focus there? Hell, even FFXIV and WoW mostly pass their players back and forth between one another like two dogs sharing the same gnawing bone.
Weird you say instances is hurting MMO popularity, when its completely opposite. MMO's with instances is what made this genre popular. If you remove all the MMO's that have instances from the market, could you even call MMO's a genre at that point? Its population would be so small I doubt it would be relevant enough to call it anything.
Because some MMO's have simple and repeating content that is not an instance issue.
I know for a fact that most of the old "open world" MMO's had spawn points were the exact mob would spawn from that point every single time. It was completely repeatable without much variance at all.
Kind of like going to an Italian restaurant and having a fly land on your plate, then trying to associate flys to only Italian restaurants.
Funny how many people have no concept of root cause analysis at all.
First of all, you should stop with the stupid passive-aggressive swipes like the one in your last sentence I've seen you do it to multiple people, and that shit just makes you look petty as fuck and not worth reading.
The only way the MMORPG genre even imagines keeping pace with the growth of the overall industry is when you include titles like MOBAs and Battle Royales. Your raid and dungeon instances are literally irrelevant in terms of keeping MMORPGs growing at even a comparable rate to the overall industry. They do nothing to stem the tide. That the older, vanilla open world paradigm isn't better provides zero argumentative evidence that continuing to lean into instancing is a positive for a genre that's increasingly becoming so irrelevant it's invisible.
MMORPGs better find a better answer than instances, because games like Destiny do a far better job with instanced content than any of the top MMORPGs on the market today.
Why would I sit around in an instance hitting tab-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3, loot-rinse-repeat, when I could play a game like Destiny that's far more engaging moment-to-moment? Or Risk of Rain? Or DRG? Or, on the PvP side: Hunt: Showdown, Dark and Darker, Apex/Fortnite/any other PvP game that creates map instances per match?
It's only a matter of time before we get fantasy games like Destiny that will make a WoW or FFXIV dungeon experience feel like the equivalent of a game of 3D minesweeper. Instancing means your MMORPG content is no different than those other games. I don't think MMORPG devs want to go head to head with folks like Bungie, but if instancing is the best answer they can come up with for managing the massively multiplayer part of their game, it's exactly where they'll increasingly be. How has that worked out so far for the genre? Who even notices the MMORPG genre (the true MMORPG genre, not the bloviated definition that includes every multiplayer game ever made) in the industry at large, beyond we few and the few sites who still focus there? Hell, even FFXIV and WoW mostly pass their players back and forth between one another like two dogs sharing the same gnawing bone.
Weird you say instances is hurting MMO popularity, when its completely opposite. MMO's with instances is what made this genre popular. If you remove all the MMO's that have instances from the market, could you even call MMO's a genre at that point? Its population would be so small I doubt it would be relevant enough to call it anything.
Because some MMO's have simple and repeating content that is not an instance issue.
I know for a fact that most of the old "open world" MMO's had spawn points were the exact mob would spawn from that point every single time. It was completely repeatable without much variance at all.
Kind of like going to an Italian restaurant and having a fly land on your plate, then trying to associate flys to only Italian restaurants.
Funny how many people have no concept of root cause analysis at all.
First of all, you should stop with the stupid passive-aggressive swipes like the one in your last sentence I've seen you do it to multiple people, and that shit just makes you look petty as fuck and not worth reading.
Just fyi, if someone is openly swiping at someone, then thats just aggressive behavior. Passive-aggressive would be to do things indirectly where you wouldnt know if it was aggressive or not.
Although I would just say my posts are just plain debating and driving my point of view.
It could be, but I would refer to Warframe again for how it also demonstrably does not have to be. Instanced content does not define the limit of challenge presented by said content, nor does it mean you have to use a hero-centric narrative or structure.
I would point out again that open world games don't really shy away from those being problems either. WoW can use as many open zones as it wants, but it follows a very individually focused narrative.
Huh? I don't know hardly anything about Warframe, but it's listed as a Multi-Player game. Don't take that "you're the hero" comment so literally. When players "win" they are the hero, and if they all do the same thing and they all "win" at those same things, that's what I'm talking about.
WoW is an "open world"? They have open zones, but those zones are each for a specific "division" of the player base. That's hardly an "Open World." As far as "individually focused narrative" (in WoW), I understand what you mean there but that's not in the context of being able to create a somewhat unique character experience. Most of the game play is about repetitive content, and not individually focused.
This is beginning to feel like you're just diving into any semantics you can. And not for any clear purpose.
If people aren't "winning" at the content in a game, then the devs probably need to assess the difficulty curve before everyone leaves the game. Not saying titles need to be "easy mode", but people engage in games for a variety of purposes that often circles around not perpetually failing at stuff. That has nothing to do with being a hero, just satisfaction.
And dunno how quibbly you aim to get on defining an open world. Most old MMOs still partitioned content in some manner. The amount of truly coherent single-environment titles is very limited.
Creating a "somewhat unique player experience" again seems to be a tangential subject that applies as an issue in any context.
Also dunno what you mean about WoW with that last claim. From my experience majority of the game is soloable content and intentionally so, with rather particular and finite group content focused mostly in the endgame.
What it feels like to me is that you've been spinning your comments to turn things away from the context.
Examples in this here post...
- - Heroes. In most games with level grinding quests, including Instanced content, it's all the exact same content. Players can read up on them and find out exactly how to "win" it. Even if the game adds some varied content availability within that structure, it's still predetermined and fixed, so that if a PLayer runs the same Quest several times, they will run each varied instance. It's still fixed, and you can still read all about it before experiencing it. So all the "heroes" (i.e. Player Characters) do the same things as "everyone else." (Expecting your own quibbles here.)
- - "Most old MMOs still partitioned content in some manner. The amount of truly coherent single-environment titles is very limited."
Isn't that the point I've been making? UO had no fixed quests and no instances. (They added a few quests and "Dailies" later on, to lackluster reviews.) UO also had the Sandboxiness that no other game has matched, but that's not related to quests and Instances. Since then, the concept of Worldly has gone south.
That's what Players expected, and thus wanted, at the time due to the D&D formula that they were used to. But now, they are tired of it. They see where it's led, non-Worldly games. They didn't know this would be the case and now they do, and they dream, and they are making their way to the door for not getting their dreams answered.
- - "Creating a "somewhat unique player experience" again seems to be a tangential subject that applies as an issue in any context."
Oh come on. In the fixed quests worlds (and divisions by level groupings), Player experience is all the same. In a Worldly game, it's different. Players can spend their time in their favorite Dungeon, decorate their homes, design their own characters by Skills, or concentrate of anything they want to, including in groups or Guilds. And I want to see MMORPGs make the experience even more different by adding things like Wandering MOBs that might take over Dungeons from the standard MOBs of said Dungeons. And then might change the setup and furnishings, even build new walls, set different traps, put treasure chests in different places (my "Dungeon AI" idea, briefly mentioned earlier in this thread), so that the world changes. And so, Player experiences can be even more "somewhat unique."
- - "Also dunno what you mean about WoW with that last claim. From my experience majority of the game is soloable content and intentionally so, with rather particular and finite group content focused mostly in the endgame."
Here's my last comment...
Amaranthar: WoW is an "open world"? They have open zones, but those zones are each for a specific "division" of the player base. That's hardly an "Open World."
As far as "individually focused narrative" (in WoW), I understand what you mean there but that's not in the context of being able to create a somewhat unique character experience. Most of the game play is about repetitive content, and not individually focused.
With that, what do you not understand about WoW's divided world, with zones for level groupings? Division on a grand scale. Otherwise and on top of that, the game takes players down a yellow brick road, start to finish. The rest, about uniqueness, was answered just above that.
And I'm sorry you and me are not seeing eye to eye.
I t is unfortunate. It also complicates things in that your argument is becoming less coherent as well.
Like your first part with heroes. You basically describe how the problem is agnostic to open world or instances. It's a problem unto it's own, and can be solved for either application of open world and/or instances. So it's not really a problem to be levying against instances.
Your UO argument is similarly kind of just part of my point. You're bringing up one example in argument to favor open world. How is that different from me pointing out how an instanced game like Warframe has solved for the criticisms you'd previously levied? This emphasizes that the problem is again in choice of supporting systems less so that if you've built your game as a single mass versus a partitioned one.
I'm not sure the they you speak to beyond the you on that end. I like open world to, but I do not see it as a be all end all either.
Your entire argument around quests and "worldly" game versus fixed quest worlds, this is emphasized further. I could again point to how Warframe actually has a mechanic for this with the corpus, grineer, and infested factions having territory conflicts, and how that changes tilesets so that you have to deal with different mob types, traps, etc. This on top of nemesis bosses owning territory or tau enemies showing up.
And it lends to the problem that's been stated before. Even with a fully open world design you aren't expressly escaping leveled zone content. The zones themselves isn't what's dictated that, it's the game devs that decided the given region will house mobs of a specific type and tier.
It's why your solution hinges on mechanics, like your suggested dungeon AI, that does not itself work solely in an open world format. It's a mechanic that can be applied many places, and in some ways is reflected in some heavily instanced games like Warframe already.
You don't want to class WoW as open world? Fine. Region locked and scaled content isn't something defined by zones by itself, so not really changing anything by trying to quibble that away. WoW even demonstrates this with many zones having a leveled progression ac ross the zones themselves, creating a recurring microcosm demonstrating how within the context of a single environment content cand and often is still level scaled and gated. That's a problem of progression.
It's just confusing because I've been seeing the criticism revolve around trying to justify pen world and say instances are problem, but then pointing to problems that exist for open world as well as the evidence.
Just not really sure what the position is. I get favoring open world and not favoring instancing of content, but the laundry list of reasons isn't exactly supporting the position. Its a lot of surrounding mechanics and features that affect games broadly regardless of if said game is more open or instanced.
I guess to clarify my own opinion on the subject, I prefer open world design, but I also see mechanical issues.
I've come mostly to understand that my preference isn't specifically for open world or for instancing, it's for "seamless" game experiences. Games that do their best to make a cohesive experience and minimize the elements that may mechanically interrupt play.
To that end, I've actually come to think of instancing and partitioned content as being very valuable, but specifically when it's handled in a different way than slapping load screens onto content shipping you from lobby to match and back.
Namely leveraging stream loading content and partitioning the overworld from interiors, but building interiors so that they can;
1) Be partitioned into further chunks for the game to manage loading in parts as well as for allowing both fixed or seeding of randomized layouts.
2) Be loaded in separate world space from the overworld content, and using screen space projection to stitch the scene together, allowing for interiors to offer a different dimension and scale than they would be traditionally limited to.
This part being done to allow for "munchkin" worlds to be more effective. Think of Bethesda titles and how their interior spaces are always larger than their overworld can accommodate.
3) Be set up so that the first chunk of the interior is tagged to an exterior cell so that it is loaded in and primed the same way any exterior cell would be, and unloaded the same if you just pass it on by. But if you enter the interior space it uses a trigger volume to tell the game to load further chunks of the interior, while using that initially loaded chunk you're exploring as a buffer to allow it time to load further parts.
Also serves as a flag to unload the most distant exterior cells, culling overall load on the game as you go in order to help manage memory and processing power.
The shorthand is, building world spaces that accommodate effective gameplay, as well as immersive user experience, by prioritizing the perception of the game world. IE, not how it mechanically truly exists, but how it gets presented to the user. A seamless user experience does not necessarily mean a truly seamless game world.
MMORPGs better find a better answer than instances, because games like Destiny do a far better job with instanced content than any of the top MMORPGs on the market today.
Why would I sit around in an instance hitting tab-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3, loot-rinse-repeat, when I could play a game like Destiny that's far more engaging moment-to-moment? Or Risk of Rain? Or DRG? Or, on the PvP side: Hunt: Showdown, Dark and Darker, Apex/Fortnite/any other PvP game that creates map instances per match?
It's only a matter of time before we get fantasy games like Destiny that will make a WoW or FFXIV dungeon experience feel like the equivalent of a game of 3D minesweeper. Instancing means your MMORPG content is no different than those other games. I don't think MMORPG devs want to go head to head with folks like Bungie, but if instancing is the best answer they can come up with for managing the massively multiplayer part of their game, it's exactly where they'll increasingly be. How has that worked out so far for the genre? Who even notices the MMORPG genre (the true MMORPG genre, not the bloviated definition that includes every multiplayer game ever made) in the industry at large, beyond we few and the few sites who still focus there? Hell, even FFXIV and WoW mostly pass their players back and forth between one another like two dogs sharing the same gnawing bone.
Weird you say instances is hurting MMO popularity, when its completely opposite. MMO's with instances is what made this genre popular. If you remove all the MMO's that have instances from the market, could you even call MMO's a genre at that point? Its population would be so small I doubt it would be relevant enough to call it anything.
Because some MMO's have simple and repeating content that is not an instance issue.
I know for a fact that most of the old "open world" MMO's had spawn points were the exact mob would spawn from that point every single time. It was completely repeatable without much variance at all.
Kind of like going to an Italian restaurant and having a fly land on your plate, then trying to associate flys to only Italian restaurants.
Funny how many people have no concept of root cause analysis at all.
First of all, you should stop with the stupid passive-aggressive swipes like the one in your last sentence I've seen you do it to multiple people, and that shit just makes you look petty as fuck and not worth reading.
Just fyi, if someone is openly swiping at someone, then thats just aggressive behavior. Passive-aggressive would be to do things indirectly where you wouldnt know if it was aggressive or not.
Although I would just say my posts are just plain debating and driving my point of view.
Usually folks are less haughty about being an asshole, but here you are.
And since your response was completely worthless in terms of the topic, I see no need to waste my time with your posts further. That's why this site has an ignore function.
Usually folks are less haughty about being an asshole, but here you are.
And since your response was completely worthless in terms of the topic, I see no need to waste my time with your posts further. That's why this site has an ignore function.
I love it when people say exactly what needs to be said. You nailed it!
MMORPGs better find a better answer than instances, because games like Destiny do a far better job with instanced content than any of the top MMORPGs on the market today.
Why would I sit around in an instance hitting tab-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3, loot-rinse-repeat, when I could play a game like Destiny that's far more engaging moment-to-moment? Or Risk of Rain? Or DRG? Or, on the PvP side: Hunt: Showdown, Dark and Darker, Apex/Fortnite/any other PvP game that creates map instances per match?
It's only a matter of time before we get fantasy games like Destiny that will make a WoW or FFXIV dungeon experience feel like the equivalent of a game of 3D minesweeper. Instancing means your MMORPG content is no different than those other games. I don't think MMORPG devs want to go head to head with folks like Bungie, but if instancing is the best answer they can come up with for managing the massively multiplayer part of their game, it's exactly where they'll increasingly be. How has that worked out so far for the genre? Who even notices the MMORPG genre (the true MMORPG genre, not the bloviated definition that includes every multiplayer game ever made) in the industry at large, beyond we few and the few sites who still focus there? Hell, even FFXIV and WoW mostly pass their players back and forth between one another like two dogs sharing the same gnawing bone.
Weird you say instances is hurting MMO popularity, when its completely opposite. MMO's with instances is what made this genre popular. If you remove all the MMO's that have instances from the market, could you even call MMO's a genre at that point? Its population would be so small I doubt it would be relevant enough to call it anything.
Because some MMO's have simple and repeating content that is not an instance issue.
I know for a fact that most of the old "open world" MMO's had spawn points were the exact mob would spawn from that point every single time. It was completely repeatable without much variance at all.
Kind of like going to an Italian restaurant and having a fly land on your plate, then trying to associate flys to only Italian restaurants.
Funny how many people have no concept of root cause analysis at all.
First of all, you should stop with the stupid passive-aggressive swipes like the one in your last sentence I've seen you do it to multiple people, and that shit just makes you look petty as fuck and not worth reading.
Just fyi, if someone is openly swiping at someone, then thats just aggressive behavior. Passive-aggressive would be to do things indirectly where you wouldnt know if it was aggressive or not.
Although I would just say my posts are just plain debating and driving my point of view.
Usually folks are less haughty about being an asshole, but here you are.
And since your response was completely worthless in terms of the topic, I see no need to waste my time with your posts further. That's why this site has an ignore function.
Funny how you have attacked me twice while trying to accuse me of attacking. Hypocritical much? You were wrong in all your attempts at using simple definitions. So you got your feeling hurt over my point of view and want to lash out by accusing others of what you instead are doing?
Thats fine, I will continue to use logical reasoning while you go ahead and use your feelings to make agruements.
edit: After thinking about it, what you just said you plan to do is classic passive aggressive behavior. I was being honest, and you are projecting your own default behavior onto others, just saying.
Just not really sure what the position is. I get favoring open world and not favoring instancing of content, but the laundry list of reasons isn't exactly supporting the position. Its a lot of surrounding mechanics and features that affect games broadly regardless of if said game is more open or instanced.
I guess to clarify my own opinion on the subject, I prefer open world design, but I also see mechanical issues.
I've come mostly to understand that my preference isn't specifically for open world or for instancing, it's for "seamless" game experiences. Games that do their best to make a cohesive experience and minimize the elements that may mechanically interrupt play.
To that end, I've actually come to think of instancing and partitioned content as being very valuable, but specifically when it's handled in a different way than slapping load screens onto content shipping you from lobby to match and back.
Namely leveraging stream loading content and partitioning the overworld from interiors, but building interiors so that they can;
1) Be partitioned into further chunks for the game to manage loading in parts as well as for allowing both fixed or seeding of randomized layouts.
2) Be loaded in separate world space from the overworld content, and using screen space projection to stitch the scene together, allowing for interiors to offer a different dimension and scale than they would be traditionally limited to.
This part being done to allow for "munchkin" worlds to be more effective. Think of Bethesda titles and how their interior spaces are always larger than their overworld can accommodate.
3) Be set up so that the first chunk of the interior is tagged to an exterior cell so that it is loaded in and primed the same way any exterior cell would be, and unloaded the same if you just pass it on by. But if you enter the interior space it uses a trigger volume to tell the game to load further chunks of the interior, while using that initially loaded chunk you're exploring as a buffer to allow it time to load further parts.
Also serves as a flag to unload the most distant exterior cells, culling overall load on the game as you go in order to help manage memory and processing power.
The shorthand is, building world spaces that accommodate effective gameplay, as well as immersive user experience, by prioritizing the perception of the game world. IE, not how it mechanically truly exists, but how it gets presented to the user. A seamless user experience does not necessarily mean a truly seamless game world.
I don't want to rag on your ideas any more. I've stated my thinking, and that's that.
If you're making this game, I'm sure that there are plenty of Gamers who will like it, if the game is done well.
Comments
Why would I sit around in an instance hitting tab-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3, loot-rinse-repeat, when I could play a game like Destiny that's far more engaging moment-to-moment? Or Risk of Rain? Or DRG? Or, on the PvP side: Hunt: Showdown, Dark and Darker, Apex/Fortnite/any other PvP game that creates map instances per match?
It's only a matter of time before we get fantasy games like Destiny that will make a WoW or FFXIV dungeon experience feel like the equivalent of a game of 3D minesweeper. Instancing means your MMORPG content is no different than those other games. I don't think MMORPG devs want to go head to head with folks like Bungie, but if instancing is the best answer they can come up with for managing the massively multiplayer part of their game, it's exactly where they'll increasingly be. How has that worked out so far for the genre? Who even notices the MMORPG genre (the true MMORPG genre, not the bloviated definition that includes every multiplayer game ever made) in the industry at large, beyond we few and the few sites who still focus there? Hell, even FFXIV and WoW mostly pass their players back and forth between one another like two dogs sharing the same gnawing bone.
Because some MMO's have simple and repeating content that is not an instance issue.
I know for a fact that most of the old "open world" MMO's had spawn points were the exact mob would spawn from that point every single time. It was completely repeatable without much variance at all.
Kind of like going to an Italian restaurant and having a fly land on your plate, then trying to associate flys to only Italian restaurants.
Funny how many people have no concept of root cause analysis at all.
If people aren't "winning" at the content in a game, then the devs probably need to assess the difficulty curve before everyone leaves the game. Not saying titles need to be "easy mode", but people engage in games for a variety of purposes that often circles around not perpetually failing at stuff. That has nothing to do with being a hero, just satisfaction.
And dunno how quibbly you aim to get on defining an open world. Most old MMOs still partitioned content in some manner. The amount of truly coherent single-environment titles is very limited.
Creating a "somewhat unique player experience" again seems to be a tangential subject that applies as an issue in any context.
Also dunno what you mean about WoW with that last claim. From my experience majority of the game is soloable content and intentionally so, with rather particular and finite group content focused mostly in the endgame.
The only way the MMORPG genre even imagines keeping pace with the growth of the overall industry is when you include titles like MOBAs and Battle Royales. Your raid and dungeon instances are literally irrelevant in terms of keeping MMORPGs growing at even a comparable rate to the overall industry. They do nothing to stem the tide. That the older, vanilla open world paradigm isn't better provides zero argumentative evidence that continuing to lean into instancing is a positive for a genre that's increasingly becoming so irrelevant it's invisible.
Although I would just say my posts are just plain debating and driving my point of view.
Examples in this here post...
- - Heroes. In most games with level grinding quests, including Instanced content, it's all the exact same content. Players can read up on them and find out exactly how to "win" it. Even if the game adds some varied content availability within that structure, it's still predetermined and fixed, so that if a PLayer runs the same Quest several times, they will run each varied instance. It's still fixed, and you can still read all about it before experiencing it.
So all the "heroes" (i.e. Player Characters) do the same things as "everyone else."
(Expecting your own quibbles here.)
- - "Most old MMOs still partitioned content in some manner. The amount of truly coherent single-environment titles is very limited."
Isn't that the point I've been making? UO had no fixed quests and no instances. (They added a few quests and "Dailies" later on, to lackluster reviews.)
UO also had the Sandboxiness that no other game has matched, but that's not related to quests and Instances.
Since then, the concept of Worldly has gone south.
That's what Players expected, and thus wanted, at the time due to the D&D formula that they were used to.
But now, they are tired of it. They see where it's led, non-Worldly games. They didn't know this would be the case and now they do, and they dream, and they are making their way to the door for not getting their dreams answered.
- - "Creating a "somewhat unique player experience" again seems to be a tangential subject that applies as an issue in any context."
Oh come on. In the fixed quests worlds (and divisions by level groupings), Player experience is all the same.
In a Worldly game, it's different.
Players can spend their time in their favorite Dungeon, decorate their homes, design their own characters by Skills, or concentrate of anything they want to, including in groups or Guilds.
And I want to see MMORPGs make the experience even more different by adding things like Wandering MOBs that might take over Dungeons from the standard MOBs of said Dungeons. And then might change the setup and furnishings, even build new walls, set different traps, put treasure chests in different places (my "Dungeon AI" idea, briefly mentioned earlier in this thread), so that the world changes.
And so, Player experiences can be even more "somewhat unique."
- - "Also dunno what you mean about WoW with that last claim. From my experience majority of the game is soloable content and intentionally so, with rather particular and finite group content focused mostly in the endgame."
WoW is an "open world"? They have open zones, but those zones are each for a specific "division" of the player base. That's hardly an "Open World."
With that, what do you not understand about WoW's divided world, with zones for level groupings? Division on a grand scale.
Otherwise and on top of that, the game takes players down a yellow brick road, start to finish.
The rest, about uniqueness, was answered just above that.
And I'm sorry you and me are not seeing eye to eye.
Once upon a time....
Like your first part with heroes. You basically describe how the problem is agnostic to open world or instances. It's a problem unto it's own, and can be solved for either application of open world and/or instances. So it's not really a problem to be levying against instances.
Your UO argument is similarly kind of just part of my point. You're bringing up one example in argument to favor open world. How is that different from me pointing out how an instanced game like Warframe has solved for the criticisms you'd previously levied? This emphasizes that the problem is again in choice of supporting systems less so that if you've built your game as a single mass versus a partitioned one.
I'm not sure the they you speak to beyond the you on that end. I like open world to, but I do not see it as a be all end all either.
Your entire argument around quests and "worldly" game versus fixed quest worlds, this is emphasized further. I could again point to how Warframe actually has a mechanic for this with the corpus, grineer, and infested factions having territory conflicts, and how that changes tilesets so that you have to deal with different mob types, traps, etc. This on top of nemesis bosses owning territory or tau enemies showing up.
And it lends to the problem that's been stated before. Even with a fully open world design you aren't expressly escaping leveled zone content. The zones themselves isn't what's dictated that, it's the game devs that decided the given region will house mobs of a specific type and tier.
It's why your solution hinges on mechanics, like your suggested dungeon AI, that does not itself work solely in an open world format. It's a mechanic that can be applied many places, and in some ways is reflected in some heavily instanced games like Warframe already.
You don't want to class WoW as open world? Fine. Region locked and scaled content isn't something defined by zones by itself, so not really changing anything by trying to quibble that away. WoW even demonstrates this with many zones having a leveled progression ac ross the zones themselves, creating a recurring microcosm demonstrating how within the context of a single environment content cand and often is still level scaled and gated. That's a problem of progression.
It's just confusing because I've been seeing the criticism revolve around trying to justify pen world and say instances are problem, but then pointing to problems that exist for open world as well as the evidence.
I guess to clarify my own opinion on the subject, I prefer open world design, but I also see mechanical issues.
I've come mostly to understand that my preference isn't specifically for open world or for instancing, it's for "seamless" game experiences. Games that do their best to make a cohesive experience and minimize the elements that may mechanically interrupt play.
To that end, I've actually come to think of instancing and partitioned content as being very valuable, but specifically when it's handled in a different way than slapping load screens onto content shipping you from lobby to match and back.
Namely leveraging stream loading content and partitioning the overworld from interiors, but building interiors so that they can;
1) Be partitioned into further chunks for the game to manage loading in parts as well as for allowing both fixed or seeding of randomized layouts.
2) Be loaded in separate world space from the overworld content, and using screen space projection to stitch the scene together, allowing for interiors to offer a different dimension and scale than they would be traditionally limited to.
This part being done to allow for "munchkin" worlds to be more effective. Think of Bethesda titles and how their interior spaces are always larger than their overworld can accommodate.
3) Be set up so that the first chunk of the interior is tagged to an exterior cell so that it is loaded in and primed the same way any exterior cell would be, and unloaded the same if you just pass it on by. But if you enter the interior space it uses a trigger volume to tell the game to load further chunks of the interior, while using that initially loaded chunk you're exploring as a buffer to allow it time to load further parts.
Also serves as a flag to unload the most distant exterior cells, culling overall load on the game as you go in order to help manage memory and processing power.
The shorthand is, building world spaces that accommodate effective gameplay, as well as immersive user experience, by prioritizing the perception of the game world. IE, not how it mechanically truly exists, but how it gets presented to the user. A seamless user experience does not necessarily mean a truly seamless game world.
And since your response was completely worthless in terms of the topic, I see no need to waste my time with your posts further. That's why this site has an ignore function.
They wanted to attack "all the time."
Perhaps Blizzard should have put in mechanics to dissuade that behavior "if" that behavior wasn't what they wanted to happen.
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
Thats fine, I will continue to use logical reasoning while you go ahead and use your feelings to make agruements.
edit: After thinking about it, what you just said you plan to do is classic passive aggressive behavior. I was being honest, and you are projecting your own default behavior onto others, just saying.
If you're making this game, I'm sure that there are plenty of Gamers who will like it, if the game is done well.
Once upon a time....