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Instancing
Acaeus
Member Posts: 193
In the other thread we discussed Item Decay, kiting and the just 2 cities issue.
We didn't cover one of the biggest changes announced by the DEVs which is Instancing.
As far as I understand Instancing is one of a few known solutions for the (over) camping problem. Another is the one implemented by DAoC which is random area spawns and/or random mob carrying the quest/rare item.
With a quick search I found Billus8 opinion. Well, I don't agree a 100% cause I don't care too much about waiting hours for a rare spawn or even getting in line for the camp itself. But hes got a point concerning the heart of MMORPGs, which is interacting with other chars 100% of the time, even inside a Dungeon or even getting trained and then complaining about it. Personally I believe DAoC solution to be a better one.
So isn't instancing an entire dungeon, precisely the reason why Guild Wars is being criticized for ?
Heres Billus8 opinion:
Actually, camping was a good thing (in my opinion) in EQ1. Camping meant that between spawns there was nothing to do but socialize with your group and that made the game come to life. Also, there was nothing more exciting that having to be on your toes in a dungeon shared with others who might mess up and pull a train. Sharing dungeons is cool. Instanced dungeons or constant fighting is not cool. I've played many MMORPG's and have found EQ to be the one with the "magical feel" to it. I hope the new game has some degree of camping. I wish it would have trains.
So what do you think about instancing ?
Thank you .
Comments
I agree with him 100% actully.
The sense of community that was created by dungeon camping with not just your group, but the zone chatter itself was amusing.
When LDoN came out, the novelty of EQ wore off for me. While instancing didnt kill the game directly for me, it had a huge impact on my desire to play. Before instancing and the POP port system, EQ was fun because you had that chatter going back and forth on long exp grinds. Now, if you dont have a guild with a healthy chat system going, you're dependent on the other members of a group for entertainment.
The best groups I remember werent the "uber-robot" groups but the groups where it didnt feel like it was taking forever to grind out that bubble of exp. Sometimes that came from discussion inside of the group. Most of the time it came from /ooc chatter in the zone.
Let's face it, MMORPG's are SOCIAL games. Take the social out of the equation, and you might as well play a single player game offline.
~kae
~kae
off topic persay:
I remember back when I was around the lvls 38-42, camping outside the Castle. I can't recall the name, possibly Kunark Castle.
5-8 Groups would be sitting along the hill, while someone pulled chickens and whatnots to the party to kill.
All the groups would ofcourse complain about who's pull once in a while, but all in all, we rarely used Group chat. It was so much more interactive chatting with everyone in ear shot while tanking away at a certian mob.
EQ is by far the best MMO I have ever played. it was a social game. Whereas these MMO's now are based on power strugles, best gear, highest lvl, etc.
I highly doubt that EQ2 will be even close to the original EQ social community, however, I do think that it will be better played then these other MMOs.
Just my two plat.
-Dakkanon
Paradigm, an Accretia Clan
_____________________________
"I'm not suffering from insanity, I'm enjoying it every moment of it"
The castle you're talking about is Karnor's in the Dreadlands, but pulling chickens to the hill was the Overthere, where the ships came in from Anatoica.
Anyway, as for isntancing, I don't think that it's going to cause much trouble at all because a majority of the zones won't be instanced. They have said that only a select few for raids (in which you will have all of the choices of monsters in a zone for you choosing), story progressions (in which you must be the ones to get to a certain mob or item, in which KS'ing would prove to be way too frustrating and frequent), housing (because every player owning their own home would ruin landscape), and newbie areas (only sometimes I think, and since during launch of new servers has EVERYONE in the same few zones, it's a horrible thing not even being able to kill a_moss_snake_01). With instancing being used in only these specific times, I think that it will be a lot more successful then making any dungeon instance-able (even a word?). If you could instance anywhere it could ruin the economy too since people could just keep going in for the same enemy with some "uber loot"
Just my thoughts...
My bad forgot LDoN aready uses instancing. Well I retired my Shaman right after LDoN came out. Remember the sole reason why i cancelled my account was cause of the overwhelming number of expansions Sony was releasing atm... well thats another story...
Maybe he and you are 100% right but I think EQ had overcamping way too much. yes you could always go to another zone and do pretty much the same thing. But once in a while I'd like to go to a particular zone to hunt a particular mob, either for an item or just for fun, and it would be camped every time.
I'm still not sure how instancing will be implemented in EQ2.
1. Will each group have an individual copy of the zone/dungeon ?
2. There will be a couple of instances of a (for example) dungeon and every time a player logs in he will be put in one of the instances. So he will still see other players but just the ones that are in the same instance.
How about communication ? "I'm in XYZ dungeon where are you ?"
"I'm there too"...
Will you have to get out of the instanced dungeon to be able to add a player to the group ?
1. Will each group have an individual copy of the zone/dungeon ?
No, they are pocket zones. They are individual to the world but not like LDoN for EQ. Other groups will be able to walk into the same dungeon.
I think that answers all the rest. These pocket zones are nothing like LDoN. They are only instanced to the world. Each player will be able to walk in the same dungeon.
IMO the way Crestguard has explained it, it seems that this might be the BEST of both worlds!~
If instancing just makes up the portion that you describe Crestguard, then BRING IT ON!
_________________________
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Oscar Wilde
_________________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
- John Wooden
I am not a fan of instancing, generally, for the reasons you mention. (You can all thank your lucky stars that this isn't going to turn into one of those Neschria LDoN Rants(tm)... this time.)
When you camp something for a long time and it finally drops, isn't that a good feeling? It feels like a major triumph. That's part of what made EQ addictive for so many people for so long, I think. Would it be as much fun if you can't tell the whole zone about it and collect your WTGs and Gratz? I dunno. Isn't zone-wide banter about the ups and downs of the zone part and parcel of what makes EQ what it is? Will EQ2 suffer for lack of it if they go too far away from that?
Whatever. As pretty as it is, I don't know if I will be around in EQ2 to care.
~*~
neschria
Bludgeoner of Bunnies
...
This is where I draw the line: __________________.
Again, neschria, there will be pleanty of zones like that. But camping might not really be the fad this time. Because along with camping, roaming is an idea where you continually move about the zone, because along with specific spot spawning mob's there will be a number of randomly place npc's throughout the zone that an spawn at random times (hopelly not the random 9 - 48 hours either).
Another thing I forgot to mention about how instancing is schedualed to work. You can't really farm stuff from instanced zones since each one has a timer on it, and once your character enters the zone you can't come back until your timer makes it's way back to zero. And the timer won't start ticking until you leave. So if someone went on a dragon raid, they could do it, but their raid group then can't go again until all of them are reset and able to go again. This might make planning of raids more important since you will need to have everyone back at the start of their timers.
Another thing, I heard someone in each raid group might need to do certain things to meet some requirements before going on raids. I'm not sure if this means a permenant key, or a key that has to be quested for in order to start the raid every time. There hasn't been a whole lot of info on this, and since it hasn't been tested much due to public closed beta not going, we'll have to wait and see.
I am pretty sure that the newbie instanced areas so far have been described as the following: (feel free to correct me if im wrong)
1. the tutorial ship that goes to the newbie island is instanced (for OBVIOUS reasons.... how in the hell could you have a few hundred toons on a ship trying to learn the same crap simultaneously)
2. the newbie island that you show up at when you get off the ship is NOT instanced. From what I have read its fairly big and you can advance at least a few levels here and choose your archetype.
3. there may be instanced missions or zones attached to the island that you can complete b4 moving on to freeport or qeynos.
so IMO you can't just generalize and say that newbie instanced zones are bad. From what it sounds like i think its gonna be pretty dope.
_________________________
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Oscar Wilde
_________________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
- John Wooden
Forgive me for not being clear. I definately forgot a big thing about that. All of the instancing except the newbie areas are the same. The members of your group or people you invite are the only ones there. So it will range from you alone (in your house) to a whole raid group for a story progression or a real raid.
When it comes to the newbie zones they are semi-instanced, in the sense that they will make multiple versions to spread the flow. So instead of having 300 people all racing for snakes, they can split it into three of the same zone to spread out the people and prevent it from being overcrowded. I definately forgot to mention that, and I'm sorry.
Yes, the ship is instanced, as you are the only one who can do specific things on it (like kill that one gobline, etc).
I was just saying that I don't like instancing pretty much across the board. I don't like restrictions on who can come and go as you have to rework strategy for a particular encounter. That combined with the wretched time sink of trying to put together groups for instanced content makes it a monumental pain in the butt, as far as I am concerned.
So, whether or not they have old style content is irrelevant if some content is going to be instanced.
To each his own, right?
~*~
neschria
Bludgeoner of Bunnies
...
This is where I draw the line: __________________.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/everquest2/preview_6100988.html
There is a small bit in the video where he talks about most places being competitive spawns and he talks like instancing is more limited.
Thanks for clearing that up for me Crestguard.
Instancing in the manner you describe is alot more digestible then the LDoN instancing I was under the impression that was going into the game.
Either way, I'm looking forward to playing EQ2 knowing it's not the "EQLive" we grew up with with an open mind and I hope that EQ2 is even greater with the creamy EQLive goodness still intact and the bad EQLive left out.
~kae
~kae
I didnt mind sitting up a camp with a group to hunt a certain area. For example setting up a spot in Kunark zones and such. The bad part was that there were certain area and or mobs that gave better exp. This led to mass amounts of gathering in an area with not enough mobs to support them, or a really good spot never being opened. Take for example the SMR in LGuk. Before the later expansions it was camped 24/7. I loved siting in a group camp hunting mobs in an area becuase we talked, learned things, and enjoyed the game either while recovering mana, or waiting on the spawns.
So I like and dislike camping, just depends on the situation and location. I think that quest items that will be sought after alot should be "instanced" ( random on random mobs) just to help stop the lines. Then again im not a designer of games and I dont have all the feedback to really say what way it should be. It really dont matter though becuase im playing EQ2 no matter what.