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Instancing - the good the bad and the misunderstood
tedrion
Member UncommonPosts: 6
Many great MMO's are on the horizon such as Vanguard SOH and several others that are attempting to meet the desires of what we term "hardcore gamers".
What the heck is a hardcore gamer? It used to be someone who played more than someone else. Now we have games that are trying to drive out casual gamers entirely to cater to these hardcore gamers, and other games that are trying to placate both.
Well wait a minute.
That definition no longer fits! Now the difference between Hardcore gamers and Casual gamers isn't Time spent in the game. A hardcore gamer is someone who's in a guild of about 50 people that raid 3-6 days a week (pvp or pve) getting the best gear in the game, and have a blast doing it (or bored silly with tedium..but they still have uber gear).
A casual gamer can still play the exact same hours...if not more, but doesn't raid. That person just doesn't qualify to get into one of those guilds (there isn't room, etc...lots of reasons..pick one of many). So he/she spends thier time doing quests, exploring, chatting, auctioning, crafting, or also...bring bored with tedium. But thier gear isn't even close to being as good. They can only get into pickup groups for smaller events. (yes..i'm using world of warcraft as a base, because its the best live reference currently in retail.)
That's right...time isn't a factor. Now, lets take Vanguard Saga of Heroes. So far it sounds like they are doing something smart..like Blizzard, instead of reinventing the wheel to be a rocket, they are just making a wheel that has good treads, rims, etc. Building off what works. Nothing "NEW AND INNOVATING!!!" Because that risk kills games (or makes them, but kills them more often than not).
NO INSTANCING
What?!? Okay so many of you are cheering at this. Finally, back to the days when you could bump shoulders with your fellow adventurers and say hello again. Thank goodness. And back to the days when you waited 3 days for Nagefen to spawn, so Fires of Heaven could storm in and Kill Steal them from you again...what? Oh your guild isn't uber enough to take him from them? Sorry, get better? Oh? What? They camp the dungeons with the gear you need to beat them? They farm all the places you want to farm? Cry more noob...
Its got pros and cons. I like the idea of open dungeons, but waiting on natorious/boss mobs to spawn is never a good thing. The door to these big bads should be an instance. It should be an "event". I like that warcrafts dungeons are full events, that nobody can interupt. You don't just rush in and spam the boss with your attacks. It takes timing, intelligence, and knowledge as the boss uses the environment of the dungeon to wreck your army. We can thank Furor (Fires of Heaven much?) for pushing the end game back into EQism though...thankfully Burning Crusade will be putting things back in line (we hope...we shall see).
Back...to Vanguard...so spend days camping boss..no instancing. They want "challenge". Not every character "deserves" to just be handed things like "housing". Of that I completely agree. EQII just hands you an apartment..and then you pay a meager rent.
Vanguards method of making this more of a challenge, is by pulling a Horizons/Asheron's Call and setting up Land Plots! You have to find a land plot, and a crafter (if you aren't one yourself) and have a house/domain built! So you need to earn your way up the scale. Great...so player A and player B get all the same stuff, and meet all the same requirements, on the same footing, it no longer comes down to challenge. It comes down to "first come first serve" because they ran out of land plots. No matter how big they make the world...its what it will come down to. Every game that has ever done non-instance housing has ran into this problem. EVERY GAME. its great...don't get me wrong...but why say "we want players to earn thier house" instead of saying "we want limited housing"...which is what they are really doing. Making it a challenge is simply giving it requirements.
Saying "To have a house you must be "level X, have item X, and done quest X,Y, and Z (in that order), gotten reputation with order X, and purchased a deed with municiple council of city X" or whatever. ...that's a challenge. ...then adding to that...you need to find a land plot to have your own tower (which is kewl!!!) has nothing to do with making it a challenge. Now its ...race you there. A year down the line, its going to be a stalking fest. Or the devs will be doing patches where they have to say things like "we'll be opening more land plots in zone X" and players will be camping the login server to rush the new pioneer zone... Geeze...
But this "mentality" supposedly caters to the "hardcore" gamers. Okay...sure. whatever helps you sleep at night.
Summary:
Fully instanced dungeons don't ruin communities if the rest of the game is open and freely transfersed. Look at City of Heroes/Villains and Dungeons and Dragons Online which have great group finding tools.
The more "instances" in a game though, the more unstable the population is though. The less reliable the gamers are. They tend to play, and leave and come back over and over again. There is very little long term commitment. Nothing to drive them through the long haul. Guild Wars is a great example of this.
What really makes or breaks a game though is content, and story. Whether your dungeons are instanced or public is meaningless. When EQ first game out, you had Lady Vox and Lord Nagafen. Warcraft had Onyxia, and Molten Core. 1 guild could each take on Vox (and get all of 4 items maybe)...it took months to a year for a guilds to gear themselves in that game. Now in Warcraft due to instancing, every guild could fight Onyxia and Ragnaros and gear themselves up over just a few months. This makes the illusion of tedium happen much faster because the developers couldn't keep up with the demand for more content, and the raids weren't the same as the earlier game.
End games in MMOs shouldn'd be drastically different than the climb or ascension to the top. When you play your class to the end game, that should be an effective training session to prepare you for how you are going to play your class. Not just warcraft, but many games completely change the way characters are played, and portrayed in end games of MMO's. ...but that is a rant/post for another day. (or in five minutes, but another topic)
What the heck is a hardcore gamer? It used to be someone who played more than someone else. Now we have games that are trying to drive out casual gamers entirely to cater to these hardcore gamers, and other games that are trying to placate both.
Well wait a minute.
That definition no longer fits! Now the difference between Hardcore gamers and Casual gamers isn't Time spent in the game. A hardcore gamer is someone who's in a guild of about 50 people that raid 3-6 days a week (pvp or pve) getting the best gear in the game, and have a blast doing it (or bored silly with tedium..but they still have uber gear).
A casual gamer can still play the exact same hours...if not more, but doesn't raid. That person just doesn't qualify to get into one of those guilds (there isn't room, etc...lots of reasons..pick one of many). So he/she spends thier time doing quests, exploring, chatting, auctioning, crafting, or also...bring bored with tedium. But thier gear isn't even close to being as good. They can only get into pickup groups for smaller events. (yes..i'm using world of warcraft as a base, because its the best live reference currently in retail.)
That's right...time isn't a factor. Now, lets take Vanguard Saga of Heroes. So far it sounds like they are doing something smart..like Blizzard, instead of reinventing the wheel to be a rocket, they are just making a wheel that has good treads, rims, etc. Building off what works. Nothing "NEW AND INNOVATING!!!" Because that risk kills games (or makes them, but kills them more often than not).
NO INSTANCING
What?!? Okay so many of you are cheering at this. Finally, back to the days when you could bump shoulders with your fellow adventurers and say hello again. Thank goodness. And back to the days when you waited 3 days for Nagefen to spawn, so Fires of Heaven could storm in and Kill Steal them from you again...what? Oh your guild isn't uber enough to take him from them? Sorry, get better? Oh? What? They camp the dungeons with the gear you need to beat them? They farm all the places you want to farm? Cry more noob...
Its got pros and cons. I like the idea of open dungeons, but waiting on natorious/boss mobs to spawn is never a good thing. The door to these big bads should be an instance. It should be an "event". I like that warcrafts dungeons are full events, that nobody can interupt. You don't just rush in and spam the boss with your attacks. It takes timing, intelligence, and knowledge as the boss uses the environment of the dungeon to wreck your army. We can thank Furor (Fires of Heaven much?) for pushing the end game back into EQism though...thankfully Burning Crusade will be putting things back in line (we hope...we shall see).
Back...to Vanguard...so spend days camping boss..no instancing. They want "challenge". Not every character "deserves" to just be handed things like "housing". Of that I completely agree. EQII just hands you an apartment..and then you pay a meager rent.
Vanguards method of making this more of a challenge, is by pulling a Horizons/Asheron's Call and setting up Land Plots! You have to find a land plot, and a crafter (if you aren't one yourself) and have a house/domain built! So you need to earn your way up the scale. Great...so player A and player B get all the same stuff, and meet all the same requirements, on the same footing, it no longer comes down to challenge. It comes down to "first come first serve" because they ran out of land plots. No matter how big they make the world...its what it will come down to. Every game that has ever done non-instance housing has ran into this problem. EVERY GAME. its great...don't get me wrong...but why say "we want players to earn thier house" instead of saying "we want limited housing"...which is what they are really doing. Making it a challenge is simply giving it requirements.
Saying "To have a house you must be "level X, have item X, and done quest X,Y, and Z (in that order), gotten reputation with order X, and purchased a deed with municiple council of city X" or whatever. ...that's a challenge. ...then adding to that...you need to find a land plot to have your own tower (which is kewl!!!) has nothing to do with making it a challenge. Now its ...race you there. A year down the line, its going to be a stalking fest. Or the devs will be doing patches where they have to say things like "we'll be opening more land plots in zone X" and players will be camping the login server to rush the new pioneer zone... Geeze...
But this "mentality" supposedly caters to the "hardcore" gamers. Okay...sure. whatever helps you sleep at night.
Summary:
Fully instanced dungeons don't ruin communities if the rest of the game is open and freely transfersed. Look at City of Heroes/Villains and Dungeons and Dragons Online which have great group finding tools.
The more "instances" in a game though, the more unstable the population is though. The less reliable the gamers are. They tend to play, and leave and come back over and over again. There is very little long term commitment. Nothing to drive them through the long haul. Guild Wars is a great example of this.
What really makes or breaks a game though is content, and story. Whether your dungeons are instanced or public is meaningless. When EQ first game out, you had Lady Vox and Lord Nagafen. Warcraft had Onyxia, and Molten Core. 1 guild could each take on Vox (and get all of 4 items maybe)...it took months to a year for a guilds to gear themselves in that game. Now in Warcraft due to instancing, every guild could fight Onyxia and Ragnaros and gear themselves up over just a few months. This makes the illusion of tedium happen much faster because the developers couldn't keep up with the demand for more content, and the raids weren't the same as the earlier game.
End games in MMOs shouldn'd be drastically different than the climb or ascension to the top. When you play your class to the end game, that should be an effective training session to prepare you for how you are going to play your class. Not just warcraft, but many games completely change the way characters are played, and portrayed in end games of MMO's. ...but that is a rant/post for another day. (or in five minutes, but another topic)
"Magic isn't an addiction. It is power, and the weak are consumed by it."
Comments
"Magic isn't an addiction. It is power, and the weak are consumed by it."
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Hello there, adventurer!
That all depends on how instancing is implemented
a lot of people think of Guild Wars, in which every single thing was instanced, absolutely nowhere you went outside the cities involved interacting with other players, unless they were already in your team. The mobs were always in the same spot, and reacted to you in the same way.
As to myself, I feel that there should be two important areas that are instanced
* Player houses
* Static dungeons, instancing in this case allows for multiple teams in at once, just not 60 of them.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
Hardcore gamer = sad knobber who takes himself too seriously.
I enjoy instancing, I like team activities and about 5-10 players is the size I prefer.
The first half of the post can be summed up into one game ...
Lineage 2 .. raid boss competition ... against farmers =/ .. how bad can you get ....
and any actuall .. 100% non instanced game with open PVP ..
BTW .... here's some flamebait ... if you support instancing you are a carebear
thanks .....
What the heck is with that ?! Why even play a mmorpg in that case ?
Its incredible so many people want to play these games in their own little world....
anyone who voted for 'all instanced' should avoid mmorpgs and stick to diablo2 and guild wars.
Yea i dislike instancing too its just so artificial. Thats one of the reasons i enjoy playing eve, because it has no such thing as an instanced zone. Instead what ammounts to dungeoopns in eve is just hard to reach for those who dont enter it via the acceleration gates. However it is still possable to enter a dungeon [or as we call them deadspace regions] with the use of scanner probes.
The fact of the matter is that games like WoW or guildwars use instances far too much they are just a way of solving online gaming problems the easy way. Want to create a story spawn a dungeon that takes 4 hours to do instead of creating a real plot
Good write up Tedrion and I agree with most of what you said in regards to the subject.
While I certainly see the benefits to instancing I have to wonder at the cost of including this option in a developement for a game. EQ2 for example, made a dire mistake when they went with instancing almost every single zone in game. It was bad enough, for me anyways, that you'd travel for all of 5 minutes then have to enter a new zone (rinse and repeat, but each of those zones had some 2, 3, 4 and sometimes 5 seperate zone. If I was on my way to meet a friend, it ruined the immersion for me to have to ask what zone they were in.
DDO is also a prime example for me as to how instancing can get entirely out of hand.
But as you mention, there is an added benefit to instancing, such as not having to compete for certain mobs and events which can certainly be a frustration for those that do not have time to camp an area for 12 hours on end.
So I again, I can see how instancing can be used to help the player base but I have wonder, what are we (as gamers) willing to give up in terms of game quality to gain ease of play for a % of the players of the game.
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Alternatively they provide intresting and better programmed adventures for groups of people which have not already been completed by someone else, and where the good drops are not being camped.
Allowing all who visit the same crack of the whip and preventing item farmers and gold farmers from monopolising the economy or impairing other players access to the gear they need to advance further and at an enjoyable pace..
They don't drain the system resources of the server, so adventures can include more monsters and denser concentrations. Using more advanced AI etc etc etc. Or larger lag free PvP arenas with different gametypes.
They are also easy to add in at a later stage providing a good source of content upgrades over the life of an MMO.
Instances are a technological improvement from the bad old days of MMO's.
.
Although I like to play in a server of thousands and interact socially with many types of people, I don't actually want to team up with 1,000 of them at the same time. 5-10 is enough for me. I like to bump into them in town or at the trading station. The odd wilderness encounter can be intresting, but it is hardly the mainstay of the game. 90% of the time I play with the same bunch of people only.
Pick up groups are generally frowned upon, randomly met types tend to be a prize pain more often than a fun interlude. I've had some enjoyable roadside encounters in WoW. The open PvP crowd liven things up and add atmosphere. It is not a pre-requisite for me enjoying the game however.
First of all, the OP has a completely misguided view about what makes up a casual vs a hardcore gamer. The difference is 100% time based, a hardcore gamer can play for long hours, nearly every day. A casual gamer plays less often or for shorter periods of time.
What type of content these people explore is almost totally game dependant. The hardcore gamer almost inevitably goes for the content that yields the maximum rewards, whatever the rewards may be in that game or for that person.
Instancing is a useful tool in certain situations, and can impact what casual and hardcore players choose to do, but its directly related. In my thinking, Instancing is good but only if its used with a specific goal in mind. If it isnt used for a specific reason it shouldnt be used at all.
Some cases where instancing is a valuable tool:
Immersion Despite many peoples claims, Instancing has a very important and valid role to play in generating immersion. While the world is shared and its important to see other people moving around the world, there are places that should feel remote and dangerous. Places that should feel like you are the only ones there.
How would LoTR have looked while they were in The Mines of Moria they saw four other groups on the same quest and 3 high level characters running through killing Balrogs to complete some other old quest? In my opinion it would not have felt scary or remote in the least. It would have felt like a grind rather then an adventure, and certainly would not have been immersive.
Complex quests A well designed instance can allow you to have complex quests and storylines that are difficult or impossible to reproduce in other ways. Vanguard tries to get around this somewhat but it will still fall short of what you could potentially do in an instance.
For example, how do you have a quest where the scout climbs a wall, sneaks into the guard tower, kills the guard at the gate and unlocks the door from the inside so the rest of the group can enter? Sure you could do something sort of like this, but how do you deal with the fact some other group has killed the guard or unlocked the door? The presence of other people means there are going to be some problems that just dont need to be solved since the other people in the dungeon have already dealt with them.
Scheduling Instancing can allow to schedule a specific raid or boss ahead of time. Without instancing that raid or boss becomes the exclusive property of the people who can log in 7 days a week and spend 16 hours a day waiting for it to appear. You cant get a group of people together for next Wednesday at 7:00PM because you dont know if the boss will be up, and if it is the people who were waiting on it will probably be the ones who get to kill it. (I.E. it becomes almost impossible to raid or explore certain content unless you are playing some very long hours. Any casual player need not apply for this type of game.)
There are some ways to accomplish all of these things without instance, but variety is good. There is not nor should there be only one type of solution to these issues in a game. So, just as instancing shouldnt be the only solution developers look to, it shouldnt be completely ignored either. Ultimately its all about balance and variety.
I think that instancing has its uses but its not for every game. The OP talked about casual vs hardcore players. Im going to put forward the idea of hardcore MMO's and casual MMO's. The former is a game that maximizes player interaction - the MM sandbox so to speak. The latter is a game where you get to play among many other people but with limited interaction (typical PvE based game like WoW or EQ). Which leads me to:
Instancing is detrimental to hardcore MMO's but can be positive tool for casual (PvE) MMO's.
As for content and story making or breaking the game, I think that is innacurate. Again it depends on the game design. Some casual MMO's can be like a super mulitplayer version of Neverwinter Nights; in those cases yes, story and content is all there is. On the other hand hardcore MMO's can be successful by creating a framework that the players can build upon themselves through interaction. Instancing creates social barriers, so I would not say that it has a meaningless impact on a game's success.
My post (although long winded) is Pro Instancing, but with the implication that instancing should be "balanced" to compliment the player experience, and not in a way that impacts community.
Dungeons and Dragons Online may seem like it has too much instancing, but that would be because the game doesn't really have a "explorable world". You can't really compare it to a typical MMO. The goal the designers were going for was to take 5 players and put them into an amazing dungeon. It would kind of spoil that experience if the dungeons were open and 25-50 people crammed themselves in those dungeons and conquered your puzzle when you were in the middle of trying to solve it. This is heavy integration of instancing, but the only way to get the feel they are trying to portray for thier game.
Guild Wars, although not a monthly subscription game, is a Massively Online RPG with heavy PVP elements. The out door elements to this game are completely instanced. The only place you can socialize with other players are at the towns. The social element of this game is so damaged because of over instancing that they have had to promote thier NPC grouping system with thier latest expansion in PVP. This is Excessively Heavy integration of instancing, that would be unnecessary if they used a subscription service to afford the servers capable of running an open world. Its the price paid for a free MMO. (I think the term is..you get what you pay for)
World of Warcraft has fully public out door zones, public cities, and the only zone barriers are to elite dungeons, raids and bridging between contininents and PVP battlegrounds/arenas. Instancing is light and only takes up about 5-10% of the game at most. The instances are built to make the dungeons an experience for your group specifically...up until the end game, this experience is fun and exilerating for the players. In the end game, when entire guilds are forced to gather 20-40 members to conquer the largest dungeons the game has to offer, it begins to become overly tedious. Leave it to Blizzard to realize their mistakes though. Burning Crusade looks like it may correct this mistake. We shall see.
I'm not saying "100% Open Worlds" are bad...they aren't, but there are things that you cannot do in them. There are levels of immersion you will never have with them. Your worlds will never be as realistic as you want them to be when 100% of the intelligent population of the world are all adventurers like yourself. You aren't special in that environment...you are floating on a sea of equality and tedium. Join the mediocre ranks of your horde and storm the gates of your castle and lay low its gates if that is what is fun for you. I have fun with my 5 friends delving the ancient secrets of the makers and defeating their ancient guardians...without chinese gold farmers kill stealing me, or PKers griefing me.
If you are in an instanced dungeon, and your groups practice is to "bypass content" then that is your group's flay...play the game, or exploit it at your whim...blame the devs if you wish for not putting in safe guards, but remember, you are the one who choses to play the way you do..nobody forces you to play that way.
"Magic isn't an addiction. It is power, and the weak are consumed by it."
...you named a few others...content...rewards. Those are available with time (although important) not as much as a factor any longer. The "best of the best" must still be hard core, but a casual gamer can rise to ranks never seen before. Veterans in games are now being titled by "how many months your account has been active" not "how much stuff you've done".
Even some games go as far as to say,"You made the effort to get 1 character to the maximum level, to help bypass the tedium or grind, you can make a new character at a higher level, or you get access to a more powerful character archetype now".
These rewards have little to do with being hardcore. And yet, there still seems to be this strange line drawn where hardcore gamers try to grind every casual gamer in their path into the mud. (As harsh as that statement is...its very true.)
As for your comment on instancing.....absolutely right on!!!!
"Magic isn't an addiction. It is power, and the weak are consumed by it."
Most MMO players have their point of reference established in the single player RPG genre. There you are handed the role of the hero and are central to the story. Whereas in a hardcore MMO you are just another member of the population... until you take the initiative and your actions dictate otherwise (ie you become a great leader or an infamous criminal). Unfortunately since the Everclone model is the predominant one for current MMO's, players new to the genre have limited opportunity to try the 100% open experience.
Bottom line is that you have your own preference for an MMO experience and other people have their own. I cannot fathom how one game can be made to accomodate all player types. Like a regular passenger car, a sports car, and a race car. You have the two extremes and the hybrid sports car that is in the middle. It is a little of both but will never be as good as the others in their own application. Consequently I think it becomes mandatory to segment the target player base when discussing this stuff.
First of all, excellent post lomiller. The whole thing can be QFT
Second, DDO. As mentioned above, DDO is a prime example of instance overload. DDO is basically a persistent non-combat zone. All the action happens in instances, and the persistent part is nothing but a graphical chat room where you can buy items and pick up quests. /me resists the urge to rant
There is a fine line between instancing and waiting in line for a boss mob to respawn. I think that in the not-so-distant-future this will be solved by procedurally generated quests and user created content. Of course, it may take a while, as most MMO'ers seem content with the same old cookie cutter crap that helped make WOW such a huge success. God i hate that game
Why would raiding define a hardcore player? The essence of being hardcore is being extremely dedicated and willing to sacrifice in order to succeed. In games where raiding doesnt entail this type of sacrifice or dedication there is no reason to consider it hardcore.
hard-core?
adjective
Its true raiding doesnt require that same type of dedication in many newer games. All that means is that its not necessarily a hardcore playstyle in these games. It could, but depending on how its approached, but it doesnt have to be.
When CoH first came out (not sure if this is still the case) the Hardcore players were almost exclusivly solo players trying to get to max level as quickly as possible. They were no less dedicated and willing to sacrifice huge blocks of time to reach their goals, the only difference is how they spent their time and reward they recieved.
I think we are on the same page here. I'm just using the wrong words to explain what i'm getting at on my view point there. Many hardcore gamers seem to be hung up on "I spend more time than you...casual gamers don't spend as much time in the game as I do." ..at least that is what "I" get bombarded with constantly (wow, asheron's call 1&2, shadowbane, EQ, etc..it was all the same scream)...
As MMOs develop..its no longer the "amount" of time that is mattering. Its what people are doing with it that is mattering more. There are some players that are very much defined as "hardcore"..in fact in PVP this line is heavily definable. In PVE oriented games though, its not as easy to define a hardcore gamer vs a casual gamer anymore. You have Casual gamers with the same gear, and same rewards.
Warcraft was the first game to put many of them on this level playing field...
1. Many players got to the end game within 3-6 months.
2. End game content can only be conquered once a week.
3. Most of the end game conquered once mastered only takes 2-3 hours to defeat (on average).
I found then that the only restrictions where that most servers had only about 3-4 guilds per faction that were organized enough to get 40 people together to run these events. Space is limited..so once a guild has all its slots and alternate slots full, thats it. Pick up raids ...well...um...words can't describe. You should just try one yourself. hahaha!!!
Getting back on topic..I agree with you (I think), but I think we are looking at different sides of the same coin.
"Magic isn't an addiction. It is power, and the weak are consumed by it."
An MMO with no instanced dungeons is an MMO I don't want to be a part of.
There is no difficulty with the dungeons. Doing a quest in a dungeon that spawns a lot of tough mobs would be nothing if those mobs were then killed by people not in your group. And the bosses with the best loot would be just a "who can tag it first" contest. Whoo-freakin-hoo. Can't tell you how many times I by myself or in a small group was able to do a hard quest in a dungeon by fighting nothing or just the quest mob in games like FF11 of EQ because there were a bunch of people in the dungeon killing stuff.
Online games that are completely instanced like PSU, DDO and GW aren't even MMOs so their instance model doen't count.
Most of the instance based material was boss encounters tied into your mission lines, there was world bosses, but for the main storyline quest encounters that progressed YOUR character through plot (or in the case of summoner class given summon) were in fact instanced, the dugeon itself was completely open..
I think they hit on the money there, open content unless it's an boss encounter that progressed your character in a set way, thats how instances IMO 'should' be used
Bring on the WARRRRGGHH!
The OP has a good point that WoW has made the line blurry between casual and hardcore. Its not defined by time or skill necessarily. You can have an extremely dedicated player playing 18 hrs a day, every day, highly skilled. But if those 18hrs are not during primetime, that person will never ever have high end equipment.
Reaons for this are many, a few main examples are:
Bind on pickup items
Difficult 40 man instances
Bind on pickup items. This makes it so that items cannot be transferred to players. So no matter how much money, or what someone has that they can trade, they can never ever ever get these items unless they have thier character in the raid.
All good items are in the 40 man difficult instances - Key words here are Difficult and 40 man are together, because if it wasnt difficult then you could just put a pickup group together during off peak hours. If it wasnt 40 man, then any highly skilled person could complete it regardless of hours. Being how you need both 40 people and high geared/skilled, its almost impossible to schedule these except for during primetime. Worse these instances take 3hrs to 6hrs to complete at one sitting without breaks. If you cant commit yourself to that you are out of luck.
What I think makes WoW tick alot of people off is that their is nothing substancial to do in the game after reaching 60 that does not involve 40 man raiding instances.
So either you are involved in these instances or you are bored to death, really no middle ground. Even hardcore gamers get bored, because what do they do if there is no scheduled raid? Just sit on thier thumbs? Way to much emphasis on 40 man raiding instances in the end game.
While I agree with some of what you said I think there are a few points you are missing on bringing out.
1. Not all of the best items are available only in 40 man raids. The best PVE items are but if PVP is your goal then the best PVP items are available through getting PVP ranks and BG (Battleground) reputations. You can do this with groups premade groups or random groups via teh que.
2. The raids don't have to be completed in one sitting. With them being instanced you are saved to the instance and can return another day. Unlike in EQ (minus Plane of Time) where you needed to clear all the way to the end boss and kill the end boss with in a time period or suffer respawns.
Active:
LOTRO
Retired:
GuildWars,WoW,EQ,SWG, AO, COV, EQ2