Helps people avoid KS'ing, and decreses camp time, also serves a good purpose for reducing area lag. (AO uses static inst duns for missions but quest caves and areas are single zone)..
DOWNS:
Makes it a pain in the ass to meet up with others if your trying to get into the same zone. Huge pain in the ass for raids in what not.
**ADDED FOR SVEN**
It's when a dung or mish has multiple zones that will only allow a limited amount a players before spawning another zone to avoid over crowding player in 1 zone. (IE: Sketch's cavern currently has 20 players in it, so to avoid lag & camping time and petitions sent to GM's the server spawns "sketch's cavern zone 2" and the next 20 people use that zone till it's full and then a 3rd spawns. Just a pain in the ass to meet up with buddies if thier in Zone 1.. You gotta wait for someone to leave )
Of course I speaking mainly with refrence to AO since it's the only game I can think of that I've played with ints.
Thats one way of doing instancing... Guild wars, Tabula Rasa, and (RIP) UXO havee private instanced zones, where no one but the original group can join. Meeting up with buddies was fine since all 3 games allow(ed) teleporting to a friend.
yea, team mates could enter zone in AO, so the trick was if someone wanted into same zone send out someone, team the extra and let them in and in the cases where u couldn;t get and engineer to warp them in It was fun to overcrowd zones
I didin't know what the pole meant, I didin't know what i was saying yay or nay to, just said instancing? but i voted nay, hopefully that meant i hated it.
I completely hate instancing, Guild Wars was HORRIBLE, i hated that game, its like playing diablo 2, i just hate how they put 20 people in one zone and have 10 of the same zones.. just ruins it, I don't want to have to explain, ok.. you gotta go to this town, uh.. what instance, instance 2, ok.. so go to that town and instance 2... has to be the lamest thing ever invented, soon as everquest started doing that i canceled my account.
I will never play a MMORPG that has instancing, why? cause instancing is no Massively multiplayer, that is why i play MMORPG's, get rid of the bs.
Well games like GW, WoW, EQ2 and CoH are heavily instantiated while games like Lineage 2 are completely void of instantiated zones.
They take radically different approach to game concept.
Instanciation lovers have their own market, and non-instanciated zone lovers also have their own market.
They are two different types of players: those who wants to avoid confrontation and have limited patience, the others who enjoys confrontation and competition and are willing to wait for such encounter.
You would be surprised to see that there is large market for each type of gamers.
As for me I fall into the later category. I will say as far as games that lacks and avoid confrontational approach are better suited for single player game and should not be tried as MMO game.
But that's just me. I tend to tilt toward MMOG = Massive Confrontation Concept.
Notice I didn't say MMORPG. For me the concept of MMOG and RPG doesn't go along that well.
Originally posted by QuickSloth How is this any better than spawning? If this were the case once the monsters were killed from the battlefield, everyone would camp the fortress where the mobs come out. Now the battlefield is totally empty and just a big waste of space.
heh no doubt...now weve turned every mmo into gauntlet
I myself enjoyed GW, because I could go on a mission and not have some griefing, flaming idiot come along and kill-steal, or loot-steal.
Plus, the missions were hard, even the one that allowed 8 people. If people had had the ability to go into that zone all by themselves, the sheer number of people would have overwhelmed the monsters and the Stone Summit mission would have been pathetic: i.e., walk past all the monsters, which, even as they are are respawning, are being mobbed by the waiting players.
With instancing, it seemed like a real accomplishment to make it to the boss in that mission, because things had been tough. It made the Monk class worthwhile.
AND- I could choose what type of goobers I was teaming up with.
As well, the PvP missions would have been severely whacked out if they hadn't been instanced.
I played L2 for a while, and it had no instancing. Trying to get the one boss monster in the top of the Elven fortress was ridiculous. There was someone who had declared themselves the ref, and called out people's names when it was their turn to fight the monster. (Which only respawned so many hours, or every hour.)
I'm sorry, but just killing time by killing the 532nd Walking Rabid Rat while waiting for a spawn that doesn't give that much XP, or just sitting or standing around waiting, doesn't do it for me.
Originally posted by Genjing Thats one way of doing instancing... Guild wars, Tabula Rasa, and (RIP) UXO havee private instanced zones, where no one but the original group can join. Meeting up with buddies was fine since all 3 games allow(ed) teleporting to a friend.
Oh, thanks! :] Yeah, I don't like the sound of that!
Now thats a Post i can totally agree with as to why instancing is important
But i REALLY !! like the idea of just say some 1 in your group left the game early in GW and now your down to 3 ppl and you know u need help and you know a friend is waiting to play the same mission then u can invite the person into that game to help you instead of having to finish it with 3 group members.
They can't make the worlds large enough so that people can go far enough out that they are alone. In real life, if you and a group of people go off searching deep in some woods somewhere and find a cave (ie. deep in the Amazon), you are not going to run into a bunch of other people while you are there. Just isn't going to happen. Instancing allows for this piece of realism.
Two.
Camping spawns suck. Instancing will allow you and/or your group to actually go on a dungeon crawl. You can start at the beginning slowly working your way through the cave killing monsters as you go. You can't sit and wait for the same monster to spawn over and over, and as you go deeper into the cave, the ones you killed are not spawning behind you to block you from getting out.
I think it is going to be a great tool for the developers. As long as they don't do something stupid, like let you walk out of the dungeon and back in again to get a fresh instance. There has to be a limit of some sort, like you have to be on a certain quest, and when you leave the dungeon, your quest ends and your chance of gettig a new instance is gone until you begin the quest again (and the guy giving out the quest better not be standing just outside the entrance ).
You can either choose Multiplayer or Single Player (instancing) game.
Instancing is for those who can't (or just choose not to) deal with griefers, server overcrowding, trainers, farmers, campers, or PvP. It tends to be beneficial to those with time constraints and a more casual style.
I did like the advens in Lost Dungeons of Norrath although I am not a big fan of instancing. If the instancing is "quest" or "mission" only I am for it. If you are on a server with 10k players and every time you go to complete the quest of "Bring Back the Queen's Silk Underwear" some guy is already nailing her it can be irritating .
Originally posted by LilFunaho Am I the only one that thinks instancing is the stupidest creation known to MMORPG's? Yea yea I know it makes it easier on everyone having their own little zone where their group can go and level up, but I'm not a complete and total wuss. I want competition and I definitely do not want the game to cater to my every want and need. Every MMORPG I've played so far with instancing has seriously dissapointed me. Any other thoughts on this?
I voted no and am doing so thinking that your poll question is "Should instancing be banned?" like the thread title. Your question "Instancing?" in the actually poll could be read many ways I would reword the poll question...just a suggestion
That said my "NO" vote to "Should Instancing be banned?" is due to a few reasons.
First, I agree that a heavily instanced MMORPG is lame in my opinion. You might as well play a single player RPG if you want all your content to myself. I even found the instancing in LDoN (EQ's instanced expansion) very boring. I would rather have contact with all the people playing the MMORPG, that is what massive multiplayer games are all about.
But....instancing does have some great uses when used sparingly. Using instanced areas (not whole dungeons) for "boss" or "end" mobs can really help with the camping and KSing issue that many games experience. This is one place where I think EQ 2 is really getting it right (I HOPE hehe). Nothing worse then doing a long quest just to have another raid or group snag your kill from you, especially in cases where you have committed 50-100 or more real life hours trying to complete such a task. I had it happen once and was pretty upset (putting it lightly). Anyway, being a game, I think instancing should be used sparingly to avoid such problems as games are suppose to be fun 99% of the time
Beta'd: Neocron, Planetside, ShadowBane, Horizons, City of Heros, Saga of Ryzom, Lineage II
yep, most MMO's would have to be stupid to use too much instancing. I know for a fact that WoW is mostly instanced only in the dungeons, and not even in some of those.
I personally like it, to an extent. SWG uses it for their Corellian Corvetter missions for example. Your team is on the ship, and only your team. AO's instancing which has been mentioned was ok. Usually your team got in the same instance fine. Speaking of AO, there were several times that I both praised and cursed instancing. For those who play/played AO, you probably know of the parties that are fairly common. A good party at Reets Retreat can yield quite a few players. I believe the limit was once set to 100 per instance or something, which I loved. Saved the lag, saved my fps. But thats only when I'm in that zone. If I was in the other zone, I was like "Where the hell is everyone?!" It kinda sucked to not get to be there. Happened more than once for me...
But anyways, yay for instancing some things, nay for the whole game :P
Instancing is another attempt at trying to include the extreme types of online gamers with the masses of normal players. GW seems to taking instancing to an extreme with the quest areas, PvP areas AND the multiplayer towns all instanced.
Instancing allows the general online gaming public to avoid the extreme anti-social ragebrats who apparently never learned any play-well-with-others skills. Instancing also allows the extreme carebears to play thier single player version of the game and only venture into the actual multiplayer portions of the world occationally. Like another poster said, instancing allows a group the full challange of clearing a dungeon or adventure area from top to bottom and end to end entirely on their own. No more "get out of my camp/zone!" whines or dealing with pricks who just came to hunt low level or low health players.
This works out well for the majority of typical online gamers and the isolationists who want the single player version of the online game. Of course the ragebrats lose out because their field of targets to torment have been given the power to avoid them. 2 out of 3 ain't bad!
-Myth- ___________________________________________________ Illusion masquerading as metaphor in the guise of legend
-Myth- ___________________________________________________ Illusion masquerading as metaphor in the guise of legend
I really agree! I mean, what's the point of the game if you have a little clubhouse of your own to retreat from monsters and other players? It could almost count as "an unfair advantage over other players" or even the game!
I think it should be used everywhere, but in a different manner.
Instead of having everyone have an individual (or just a single group) instance of a dungeon, they should work it where you stuff a certain number of people per instance. For example, in a dungeon you'd have say 25-50 max per dungeon instance. City Of Heroes has this kinda worked out with their cities, once a city becomes overpopulated you have to choose another of the several instances (which are persistent) available to go to. This way you could avoid too much overpopulating, and solo'rs would be happy if you offered a option to have just a single instance available for yourself rather than joining one with people already in it, and you could set an option where a group could enter a single instance by itself. That would make everyone happy except for the griefers. (Although I'm sure to be proven wrong on that point, there are always people you can't please and idiots)
If you think instancing is 100% moronic, then your obviously a moron for paying $10-15 a month and actually enjoying getting griefed with spawns and having your time wasted. Keep instancing in some areas, its the lifeblood of quests in today's modern technology limits.
I'd like to say that I think no instancing at all is a bit extreme. In some cases it should be available for certain quests or epic encounters. I, by no means, mean every quest or epic ecounter, just certain ones in certain situations. It should be RARE to have an instanced zone.
I think instancing is bad for 2 reasons.
First off, it ruins the economy of an MMORPG. How? Let me explain.
Take EQ for example. When the game was first released, certain dungeon would be overcrowded at time and people could not get groups in those specific dungeons (like Lower Guk). This dungeon was a popular hunting zone because of the rare item drops that were here. Now let's see what would happen if they added instancing. Let's say they added 5 more LGuk copies to accomodate all the people that wanted to camp the good spawns. Now you have 5x the number of rare (not rare anymore) items in the game. On top of that you have 5x the amount of exp being given to the players with 5x the amounts of cash going out. Non-instancing prevented this huge influx of rare items into the game and also acts as a bottleneck for exp distribution and gold distribution. I don't know a single game where there was so much overcrowding that there was not a single place to fight at to gain exp. I do know that people whine because they don't get the easiest dungeon spawns or the most accesible, so they demand instancing.
Secondly, it takes the MM out of MMORPG. You don't like dealing with people? Go play Diablo. In MMORPGs you have to deal with people, and that's that. It seems to me like game companies are trying to solve a difficult problem with an easy solution.
"I don't really like having competition for my spawns, and I want to have the best hunting spot whenever I am online." Insert Instancing here - problem solved (? Well you know, I don't really like leveling either, why not just make me start out max level? And that whole gold earning thing...give me infinite gold too.
Every instanced zone makes the player-base reach the level limit that must faster. Every instanced zone makes an influx of higher end items into the game making the standard for a characters gear go up.
I have yet to see a game where my 10 gold that can buy me a dagger now, cannot buy me a magical long sword of awesomeness 1 year later. Your gold SHOULD have more value 1 year from now, but it should not be that drastic of a change. Instancing adds to this problem with its increased influx of all things contributing to this.
In my opinion, life is much easier with instancing, but I didn't pay 50 bucks and another 12/month to have a picnic. Give me a challenge.
Killer 73% Explorer 60% Achiever 46% Socializer 20%
___________________ Killer 73% Explorer 60% Achiever 46% Socializer 20%
Ok... for the economy, make it so that this NM that drops the item, doesn't always drop it OR drops it at a lower rate the more people are instanced in its zone OR make it randomly not show up at all. Economies can easily balanced by changing rates. And instead of making a lack of monsters the main way to slow down exp/ gold earning, why don't they increase the challenge of mobs by making them tougher or smarter? Make situations where you'll have to retreat to higher ground or fight strategically (and i don't mean selecting what skill you want to use).
Second, competing/dealing with others over mobs and camp sites are like looking for a parking spot. Challenging, yes. Fun? NO.
Your assumptions are based on how Everquest would be if it had more instanced zones; which is a very limited way of thinking.
I think Instancing is a good idea, that way you don't waste countless hours waiting for something to spawn, only to go to the bathroom and watch it be slain by some wandering jerk. I See where you're getting at with "not wanting your every need catered for", but what Blizzard (and other companies using instancing) is trying to do is save time. They are building a game so that players won't need to spend 10 hours a day (time most people don't have) to do anything. They are just trying to make a game that is fun, and won't wholey consume your life.
Even though WoW will consume mine. Anyone catch that "Blizzard owns your soul" line on the agreement?
Comments
サ ー ス ベ ン
It's got it's ups and it's downs,
UP:
Helps people avoid KS'ing, and decreses camp time, also serves a good purpose for reducing area lag. (AO uses static inst duns for missions but quest caves and areas are single zone)..
DOWNS:
Makes it a pain in the ass to meet up with others if your trying to get into the same zone. Huge pain in the ass for raids in what not.
**ADDED FOR SVEN**
It's when a dung or mish has multiple zones that will only allow a limited amount a players before spawning another zone to avoid over crowding player in 1 zone. (IE: Sketch's cavern currently has 20 players in it, so to avoid lag & camping time and petitions sent to GM's the server spawns "sketch's cavern zone 2" and the next 20 people use that zone till it's full and then a 3rd spawns. Just a pain in the ass to meet up with buddies if thier in Zone 1.. You gotta wait for someone to leave
)
Of course I speaking mainly with refrence to AO since it's the only game I can think of that I've played with ints.
Thats one way of doing instancing... Guild wars, Tabula Rasa, and (RIP) UXO havee private instanced zones, where no one but the original group can join. Meeting up with buddies was fine since all 3 games allow(ed) teleporting to a friend.
I didin't know what the pole meant, I didin't know what i was saying yay or nay to, just said instancing? but i voted nay, hopefully that meant i hated it.
I completely hate instancing, Guild Wars was HORRIBLE, i hated that game, its like playing diablo 2, i just hate how they put 20 people in one zone and have 10 of the same zones.. just ruins it, I don't want to have to explain, ok.. you gotta go to this town, uh.. what instance, instance 2, ok.. so go to that town and instance 2... has to be the lamest thing ever invented, soon as everquest started doing that i canceled my account.
I will never play a MMORPG that has instancing, why? cause instancing is no Massively multiplayer, that is why i play MMORPG's, get rid of the bs.
http://www.shawkmachinima.tk/
Instancing is the lazy way to solve a problem.
Well games like GW, WoW, EQ2 and CoH are heavily instantiated while games like Lineage 2 are completely void of instantiated zones.
They take radically different approach to game concept.
Instanciation lovers have their own market, and non-instanciated zone lovers also have their own market.
They are two different types of players: those who wants to avoid confrontation and have limited patience, the others who enjoys confrontation and competition and are willing to wait for such encounter.
You would be surprised to see that there is large market for each type of gamers.
As for me I fall into the later category. I will say as far as games that lacks and avoid confrontational approach are better suited for single player game and should not be tried as MMO game.
But that's just me. I tend to tilt toward MMOG = Massive Confrontation Concept.
Notice I didn't say MMORPG. For me the concept of MMOG and RPG doesn't go along that well.
I myself enjoyed GW, because I could go on a mission and not have some griefing, flaming idiot come along and kill-steal, or loot-steal.
Plus, the missions were hard, even the one that allowed 8 people. If people had had the ability to go into that zone all by themselves, the sheer number of people would have overwhelmed the monsters and the Stone Summit mission would have been pathetic: i.e., walk past all the monsters, which, even as they are are respawning, are being mobbed by the waiting players.
With instancing, it seemed like a real accomplishment to make it to the boss in that mission, because things had been tough. It made the Monk class worthwhile.
AND- I could choose what type of goobers I was teaming up with.
As well, the PvP missions would have been severely whacked out if they hadn't been instanced.
I played L2 for a while, and it had no instancing. Trying to get the one boss monster in the top of the Elven fortress was ridiculous. There was someone who had declared themselves the ref, and called out people's names when it was their turn to fight the monster. (Which only respawned so many hours, or every hour.)
I'm sorry, but just killing time by killing the 532nd Walking Rabid Rat while waiting for a spawn that doesn't give that much XP, or just sitting or standing around waiting, doesn't do it for me.
Oh, thanks! :] Yeah, I don't like the sound of that!
サ ー ス ベ ン
Now thats a Post i can totally agree with as to why instancing is important
But i REALLY !! like the idea of just say some 1 in your group left the game early in GW and now your down to 3 ppl and you know u need help and you know a friend is waiting to play the same mission then u can invite the person into that game to help you instead of having to finish it with 3 group members.
GW Alpha Member
Legion of Exile
Instancing is a good thing for two reasons...
One.
They can't make the worlds large enough so that people can go far enough out that they are alone. In real life, if you and a group of people go off searching deep in some woods somewhere and find a cave (ie. deep in the Amazon), you are not going to run into a bunch of other people while you are there. Just isn't going to happen. Instancing allows for this piece of realism.
Two.
Camping spawns suck. Instancing will allow you and/or your group to actually go on a dungeon crawl. You can start at the beginning slowly working your way through the cave killing monsters as you go. You can't sit and wait for the same monster to spawn over and over, and as you go deeper into the cave, the ones you killed are not spawning behind you to block you from getting out.
I think it is going to be a great tool for the developers. As long as they don't do something stupid, like let you walk out of the dungeon and back in again to get a fresh instance. There has to be a limit of some sort, like you have to be on a certain quest, and when you leave the dungeon, your quest ends and your chance of gettig a new instance is gone until you begin the quest again (and the guy giving out the quest better not be standing just outside the entrance
Instancing reminds me of the game select screen.
You can either choose Multiplayer or Single Player (instancing) game.
Instancing is for those who can't (or just choose not to) deal with griefers, server overcrowding, trainers, farmers, campers, or PvP. It tends to be beneficial to those with time constraints and a more casual style.
I did like the advens in Lost Dungeons of Norrath although I am not a big fan of instancing. If the instancing is "quest" or "mission" only I am for it. If you are on a server with 10k players and every time you go to complete the quest of "Bring Back the Queen's Silk Underwear" some guy is already nailing her it can be irritating
.
I voted no and am doing so thinking that your poll question is "Should instancing be banned?" like the thread title. Your question "Instancing?" in the actually poll could be read many ways
I would reword the poll question...just a suggestion 
That said my "NO" vote to "Should Instancing be banned?" is due to a few reasons.
First, I agree that a heavily instanced MMORPG is lame in my opinion. You might as well play a single player RPG if you want all your content to myself. I even found the instancing in LDoN (EQ's instanced expansion) very boring. I would rather have contact with all the people playing the MMORPG, that is what massive multiplayer games are all about.
But....instancing does have some great uses when used sparingly. Using instanced areas (not whole dungeons) for "boss" or "end" mobs can really help with the camping and KSing issue that many games experience. This is one place where I think EQ 2 is really getting it right (I HOPE hehe). Nothing worse then doing a long quest just to have another raid or group snag your kill from you, especially in cases where you have committed 50-100 or more real life hours trying to complete such a task. I had it happen once and was pretty upset (putting it lightly). Anyway, being a game, I think instancing should be used sparingly to avoid such problems as games are suppose to be fun 99% of the time
Beta'd: Neocron, Planetside, ShadowBane, Horizons, City of Heros, Saga of Ryzom, Lineage II
Played: EQ, Shadowbane, DAoC, SWG, Anarchy Online, Asherson's Call 2. Earth and Beyond
Playing: City of Heros, EQ
Beta'd: Neocron, Planetside, ShadowBane, Horizons, City of Heros, Saga of Ryzom, Lineage II, WoW Stress Test
Played: EQ, Shadowbane, DAoC, SWG, Anarchy Online, Asherson's Call 2. Earth and Beyond, City of Heros, EQ
Playing: WAITING FOR WOW and EQ 2
yep, most MMO's would have to be stupid to use too much instancing. I know for a fact that WoW is mostly instanced only in the dungeons, and not even in some of those.
I personally like it, to an extent. SWG uses it for their Corellian Corvetter missions for example. Your team is on the ship, and only your team. AO's instancing which has been mentioned was ok. Usually your team got in the same instance fine. Speaking of AO, there were several times that I both praised and cursed instancing. For those who play/played AO, you probably know of the parties that are fairly common. A good party at Reets Retreat can yield quite a few players. I believe the limit was once set to 100 per instance or something, which I loved. Saved the lag, saved my fps. But thats only when I'm in that zone. If I was in the other zone, I was like "Where the hell is everyone?!" It kinda sucked to not get to be there. Happened more than once for me...
But anyways, yay for instancing some things, nay for the whole game :P
That which does not kill you only makes you stronger.
Instancing is another attempt at trying to include the extreme types of online gamers with the masses of normal players. GW seems to taking instancing to an extreme with the quest areas, PvP areas AND the multiplayer towns all instanced.
Instancing allows the general online gaming public to avoid the extreme anti-social ragebrats who apparently never learned any play-well-with-others skills. Instancing also allows the extreme carebears to play thier single player version of the game and only venture into the actual multiplayer portions of the world occationally. Like another poster said, instancing allows a group the full challange of clearing a dungeon or adventure area from top to bottom and end to end entirely on their own. No more "get out of my camp/zone!" whines or dealing with pricks who just came to hunt low level or low health players.
This works out well for the majority of typical online gamers and the isolationists who want the single player version of the online game. Of course the ragebrats lose out because their field of targets to torment have been given the power to avoid them. 2 out of 3 ain't bad!
-Myth-
___________________________________________________
Illusion masquerading as metaphor in the guise of legend
-Myth-
___________________________________________________
Illusion masquerading as metaphor in the guise of legend
I really agree! I mean, what's the point of the game if you have a little clubhouse of your own to retreat from monsters and other players? It could almost count as "an unfair advantage over other players" or even the game!
I think it should be used everywhere, but in a different manner.
Instead of having everyone have an individual (or just a single group) instance of a dungeon, they should work it where you stuff a certain number of people per instance. For example, in a dungeon you'd have say 25-50 max per dungeon instance. City Of Heroes has this kinda worked out with their cities, once a city becomes overpopulated you have to choose another of the several instances (which are persistent) available to go to. This way you could avoid too much overpopulating, and solo'rs would be happy if you offered a option to have just a single instance available for yourself rather than joining one with people already in it, and you could set an option where a group could enter a single instance by itself. That would make everyone happy except for the griefers. (Although I'm sure to be proven wrong on that point, there are always people you can't please and idiots)
I'd like to say that I think no instancing at all is a bit extreme. In some cases it should be available for certain quests or epic encounters. I, by no means, mean every quest or epic ecounter, just certain ones in certain situations. It should be RARE to have an instanced zone.
I think instancing is bad for 2 reasons.
First off, it ruins the economy of an MMORPG. How? Let me explain.
Take EQ for example. When the game was first released, certain dungeon would be overcrowded at time and people could not get groups in those specific dungeons (like Lower Guk). This dungeon was a popular hunting zone because of the rare item drops that were here. Now let's see what would happen if they added instancing. Let's say they added 5 more LGuk copies to accomodate all the people that wanted to camp the good spawns. Now you have 5x the number of rare (not rare anymore) items in the game. On top of that you have 5x the amount of exp being given to the players with 5x the amounts of cash going out. Non-instancing prevented this huge influx of rare items into the game and also acts as a bottleneck for exp distribution and gold distribution. I don't know a single game where there was so much overcrowding that there was not a single place to fight at to gain exp. I do know that people whine because they don't get the easiest dungeon spawns or the most accesible, so they demand instancing.
Secondly, it takes the MM out of MMORPG. You don't like dealing with people? Go play Diablo. In MMORPGs you have to deal with people, and that's that. It seems to me like game companies are trying to solve a difficult problem with an easy solution.
"I don't really like having competition for my spawns, and I want to have the best hunting spot whenever I am online." Insert Instancing here - problem solved (?
Well you know, I don't really like leveling either, why not just make me start out max level? And that whole gold earning thing...give me infinite gold too.
Every instanced zone makes the player-base reach the level limit that must faster.
Every instanced zone makes an influx of higher end items into the game making the standard for a characters gear go up.
I have yet to see a game where my 10 gold that can buy me a dagger now, cannot buy me a magical long sword of awesomeness 1 year later. Your gold SHOULD have more value 1 year from now, but it should not be that drastic of a change. Instancing adds to this problem with its increased influx of all things contributing to this.
In my opinion, life is much easier with instancing, but I didn't pay 50 bucks and another 12/month to have a picnic. Give me a challenge.
Killer 73%
Explorer 60%
Achiever 46%
Socializer 20%
___________________
Killer 73%
Explorer 60%
Achiever 46%
Socializer 20%
Ok... for the economy, make it so that this NM that drops the item, doesn't always drop it OR drops it at a lower rate the more people are instanced in its zone OR make it randomly not show up at all. Economies can easily balanced by changing rates. And instead of making a lack of monsters the main way to slow down exp/ gold earning, why don't they increase the challenge of mobs by making them tougher or smarter? Make situations where you'll have to retreat to higher ground or fight strategically (and i don't mean selecting what skill you want to use).
Second, competing/dealing with others over mobs and camp sites are like looking for a parking spot. Challenging, yes. Fun? NO.
Your assumptions are based on how Everquest would be if it had more instanced zones; which is a very limited way of thinking.
I think Instancing is a good idea, that way you don't waste countless hours waiting for something to spawn, only to go to the bathroom and watch it be slain by some wandering jerk. I See where you're getting at with "not wanting your every need catered for", but what Blizzard (and other companies using instancing) is trying to do is save time. They are building a game so that players won't need to spend 10 hours a day (time most people don't have) to do anything. They are just trying to make a game that is fun, and won't wholey consume your life.
Even though WoW will consume mine.
Anyone catch that "Blizzard owns your soul" line on the agreement?