They have this in several games, it's actually a good feature, it prevent overcrowding leading to performance issues. Many mmo's have this feature, COH for example.
I think the problem is maybe some of the ppl reading about zoning have no idea what it means and automatically think they will be "zoning"every 2 mins,which isnt the case,maybe once they try the game and get a feel for the zoning they wont mind it at all.
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
I think the problem is maybe some of the ppl reading about zoning have no idea what it means and automatically think they will be "zoning"every 2 mins,which isnt the case,maybe once they try the game and get a feel for the zoning they wont mind it at all.
I like this feature. With collision detection being useful to block access to important places letting too many people in would be like a real life arena, too crowded to get anywhere.
i dont mind the "zoning" feature. Its the different instances that bugged me, but some of the posters mentioned the collision physics or w.e and it kinda made sense after that.
Playing: EVE Online Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2 KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
It just seems "un-mmorpg" like to me. In particular the 'massive' part. I play these games because I don't mind the interaction, whether it be favorable or unfavorable, that I encounter. That's part of the fun. It's what makes it different from just another online game. /sigh
Back when the two big ones were UO and EQ, I was a UO player. Therefore I am not extremely comfortable with zones, but I have known AoC would have them for the years I have followed AoC and so I have gotten used to the idea. In fact, I am happy to see them if they are what help balance the high-end graphics and the overall performance of the game. What worries me is all this talk about instances. I have never been a fan of them, but I knew that certain Quests and Raids would take place in them. I also learned to live with the Player City locations being instanced, and even saw some major social benefit from it as long as each instance includes 3 or 4 different player cities in it. Hell, I'll even shrug off the small chance you could enter a new zone at the same time as another player and find yourself in an entirely difference instance, but only if it is a small chance.
Someone immediately replied that once the game goes live and we spread out on the servers we should probably only expect to see this with the major cities and during big events. If this is the way that it will really work I have no problem, but I really hate the idea of there being a zone cap of anything less than 60, or 100 for larger zones. From my experiences, I doubt I'd come across too many alternate Zone Instances if the caps were this high.
In the end, I'll do what I have been doing all along and trust Funcom to do this right. I don't see how they'd have trouble keeping the Zone Caps this high, and even if I come across an alternate instance, I figure they'll have something in place so that not only do groups or guild mates end up in the same one, but players you are currently hostile with(Engaged in PvP with) are flagged to follow you to the same instance.
I hate the idea of instancing in an MMORPG, I detest it being used outside of Raiding, and I find it to be damn near Sacrilege for them to be used on a wider scale. But, I think Funcom gets it.
In my opinion this is a great idea. This way they can have lower number of servers making each server tha tmuch more alive. And wont be as likely to fall victim to release rush then server death. This way if 20000 people are on the same server and each zone is instanced 20 times then when 5000 people quit unlike other games where a server would die there would still be 15k people on the server. So to me this just makes it where there will always be more action to find, always more people to pvp or pve with, and no matter how the population rises or falls the population should always be fairly healthy feeling because less people on just fewer instances. So I like this idea and think other games would benefit from said system to avoid having to merge and shutdown dead servers.
being a 3 year EQ2 vet, the zoning and instancing doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it is a way they are able to drop their system requirements some without compromising on the video quality. Without the instancing, the zones would have either have to be much smaller to meet the requirements or the requirements would have to be shot through the roof (ie, only those with Q9700, 8gb ram, Vista 64, (2)nVidia 9800GTX2s in SLI) to be able to play it.
The game works like many other MMOGs in that once a zone gets to a certain capacity in players, it creates a duplicate of itself. Right now there are several instances for the zones folks are in because the zones are so overloaded with players. As the game is released and the populations spread out, the only place you'll see it happen is in Tortage or other zones during large events.
They don't call it it Age of Clonecraft for nothing.
Shannia you are quickly becomming the worst poster on this site,you hate the game,that is clear to see but why oh why do you feel the need to post the same crap every day?
To the OP yes there is zonning,In many posts by the devs they have said this would have to be so as they wanted to have the graphic's they wanted and they had to set the game this way,they had to give and take with something's and this is one of them,dont be mislead into believing you will have to zone every 200mtrs etc but yes you will have some loading screens when you travel larger distance's.
All this depends on your point of view(also your system)if this will be a major problem,I mean you could end up being in the same zone all night and never see a load screen or if you do maybe it will be quite fast,time will tell.
but, that last "miracle patch" reduced graphic quality, right?
something sounds wrong.
reduced graphic quality for some, improved it for most. There are two sides to every coin, don't forget the other.
being a 3 year EQ2 vet, the zoning and instancing doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it is a way they are able to drop their system requirements some without compromising on the video quality. Without the instancing, the zones would have either have to be much smaller to meet the requirements or the requirements would have to be shot through the roof (ie, only those with Q9700, 8gb ram, Vista 64, (2)nVidia 9800GTX2s in SLI) to be able to play it. I think they made the better choice.
Seems like a valid compromise to me, and will just be a bit different for folks who've never played a game designed like this.
Sure, we'd all like a large seemless world, but not really practical based on decision to go with a higher graphical standard.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
being a 3 year EQ2 vet, the zoning and instancing doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it is a way they are able to drop their system requirements some without compromising on the video quality. Without the instancing, the zones would have either have to be much smaller to meet the requirements or the requirements would have to be shot through the roof (ie, only those with Q9700, 8gb ram, Vista 64, (2)nVidia 9800GTX2s in SLI) to be able to play it. I think they made the better choice.
Seems like a valid compromise to me, and will just be a bit different for folks who've never played a game designed like this.
Sure, we'd all like a large seemless world, but not really practical based on decision to go with a higher graphical standard.
Not just the graphics, but the combat system and collision detection. Try and name one currently released MMO trying to utilize and push those boundries all at the same time. It seems like a very valid compromise for me.
Yes, the collision detection is far beyond what ANY other game has done. Others have promised it, but none to this point have delivered it. It should really allow for more tactical battles where you have to come up with strategies on how to get around NPC/PCs to accomplish your goals.
But that feature comes at a HUGE price, the calculations of collision detection are extremely processor hungry, expecially for moving objects and without some way of effectively paring those off, it would kill even the most powerful processor. AoC uses a simpler zone process rather than add an additional processor killing function to calculate who it should be calculated against.
Comments
They have this in several games, it's actually a good feature, it prevent overcrowding leading to performance issues. Many mmo's have this feature, COH for example.
I think the problem is maybe some of the ppl reading about zoning have no idea what it means and automatically think they will be "zoning"every 2 mins,which isnt the case,maybe once they try the game and get a feel for the zoning they wont mind it at all.
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/235780/page/8
Ahh yeah.. maybe. It's really not a big deal lol
I like this feature. With collision detection being useful to block access to important places letting too many people in would be like a real life arena, too crowded to get anywhere.
i dont mind the "zoning" feature. Its the different instances that bugged me, but some of the posters mentioned the collision physics or w.e and it kinda made sense after that.
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
It just seems "un-mmorpg" like to me. In particular the 'massive' part. I play these games because I don't mind the interaction, whether it be favorable or unfavorable, that I encounter. That's part of the fun. It's what makes it different from just another online game. /sigh
Back when the two big ones were UO and EQ, I was a UO player. Therefore I am not extremely comfortable with zones, but I have known AoC would have them for the years I have followed AoC and so I have gotten used to the idea. In fact, I am happy to see them if they are what help balance the high-end graphics and the overall performance of the game. What worries me is all this talk about instances. I have never been a fan of them, but I knew that certain Quests and Raids would take place in them. I also learned to live with the Player City locations being instanced, and even saw some major social benefit from it as long as each instance includes 3 or 4 different player cities in it. Hell, I'll even shrug off the small chance you could enter a new zone at the same time as another player and find yourself in an entirely difference instance, but only if it is a small chance.
Someone immediately replied that once the game goes live and we spread out on the servers we should probably only expect to see this with the major cities and during big events. If this is the way that it will really work I have no problem, but I really hate the idea of there being a zone cap of anything less than 60, or 100 for larger zones. From my experiences, I doubt I'd come across too many alternate Zone Instances if the caps were this high.
In the end, I'll do what I have been doing all along and trust Funcom to do this right. I don't see how they'd have trouble keeping the Zone Caps this high, and even if I come across an alternate instance, I figure they'll have something in place so that not only do groups or guild mates end up in the same one, but players you are currently hostile with(Engaged in PvP with) are flagged to follow you to the same instance.
I hate the idea of instancing in an MMORPG, I detest it being used outside of Raiding, and I find it to be damn near Sacrilege for them to be used on a wider scale. But, I think Funcom gets it.
In my opinion this is a great idea. This way they can have lower number of servers making each server tha tmuch more alive. And wont be as likely to fall victim to release rush then server death. This way if 20000 people are on the same server and each zone is instanced 20 times then when 5000 people quit unlike other games where a server would die there would still be 15k people on the server. So to me this just makes it where there will always be more action to find, always more people to pvp or pve with, and no matter how the population rises or falls the population should always be fairly healthy feeling because less people on just fewer instances. So I like this idea and think other games would benefit from said system to avoid having to merge and shutdown dead servers.
there are still hundreds of players in each zone/instance...how many players in your current MMO that isnt instance based do you interact with?
jeessuss
being a 3 year EQ2 vet, the zoning and instancing doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it is a way they are able to drop their system requirements some without compromising on the video quality. Without the instancing, the zones would have either have to be much smaller to meet the requirements or the requirements would have to be shot through the roof (ie, only those with Q9700, 8gb ram, Vista 64, (2)nVidia 9800GTX2s in SLI) to be able to play it.
I think they made the better choice.
They don't call it it Age of Clonecraft for nothing.
Shannia you are quickly becomming the worst poster on this site,you hate the game,that is clear to see but why oh why do you feel the need to post the same crap every day?
To the OP yes there is zonning,In many posts by the devs they have said this would have to be so as they wanted to have the graphic's they wanted and they had to set the game this way,they had to give and take with something's and this is one of them,dont be mislead into believing you will have to zone every 200mtrs etc but yes you will have some loading screens when you travel larger distance's.
All this depends on your point of view(also your system)if this will be a major problem,I mean you could end up being in the same zone all night and never see a load screen or if you do maybe it will be quite fast,time will tell.
but, that last "miracle patch" reduced graphic quality, right?
something sounds wrong.
reduced graphic quality for some, improved it for most. There are two sides to every coin, don't forget the other.
Seems like a valid compromise to me, and will just be a bit different for folks who've never played a game designed like this.
Sure, we'd all like a large seemless world, but not really practical based on decision to go with a higher graphical standard.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Seems like a valid compromise to me, and will just be a bit different for folks who've never played a game designed like this.
Sure, we'd all like a large seemless world, but not really practical based on decision to go with a higher graphical standard.
Not just the graphics, but the combat system and collision detection. Try and name one currently released MMO trying to utilize and push those boundries all at the same time. It seems like a very valid compromise for me.
Yes, the collision detection is far beyond what ANY other game has done. Others have promised it, but none to this point have delivered it. It should really allow for more tactical battles where you have to come up with strategies on how to get around NPC/PCs to accomplish your goals.
But that feature comes at a HUGE price, the calculations of collision detection are extremely processor hungry, expecially for moving objects and without some way of effectively paring those off, it would kill even the most powerful processor. AoC uses a simpler zone process rather than add an additional processor killing function to calculate who it should be calculated against.