Originally posted by Swoogie SWOOGIE MCDOOGIE I hate it, well that seems a bit extreme but I really dont like it. For those of you who played EQ back then, imagine if Karnor's Castle was instance. That would have been a terrible zone. Why dont we see non-instanced dungeons anymore? I understand that instancing has its uses for CERTAIN things. Like if your doing a quest and there is a timeline and what not, that makes sense. I mean look at these games today. I hate going into a dungeon and only having my party there.
Instancing is needed when the number of players begins to match or exceed the amount of content to support those players. Perhaps you don't remeber the days where you could literally walk to Trakanon's lair from the entrance of Old Sebilis. The days when even the entire live side of Lower Guk was camped. No instancing is just as bad as full instancing.
A developer is also foolish to create a huge number of instanced zones as it becomes difficult to go to the instance you want as players start to finish them up. Basically it is very disadvantagous to not be with the pack. Large zones, with "easy" travel, and with new instances of the large zone being created when the population gets to a certain level is probably a good balance.
Sure it is a great feeling for those that get to the camp but it is crushing for players enjoyment for those that need to wait sometimes hours to get to do something that they want to do.
More content is also a good answer. Maybe someday...
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
I agree and hate instancing as well. When I play an MMO, I want to feel like I'm in a persistent world with thousands of other players all playing at the same time. When I look across the landscape I want to be able to have a far clip pane sky line. Instancing and battlegrounds disgust me.
Mis-matches and lag disgust me. I want (semi) fair fights and smooth frame rates.
Most players don't want PvE and PvP to be mixed.
Now, what I could see being fun is having the PvE instance gated by a PvP instance in some way. Have a PvP cavern with a portal to the dungeon at the end.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Perhaps you don't remeber the days where you could literally walk to Trakanon's lair from the entrance of Old Sebilis. The days when even the entire live side of Lower Guk was camped. No instancing is just as bad as full instancing.
I fondly remember those days in seb and guk and would gladly trade them for what we have today. There is a place for instancing in MMOs but it is overly done.
As someone else mentioned earlier, you can't have joy without disappointment. I used to be saddened when I went to my favorite camp and found another group or two already there, but I had multiple choices at that time. I could leave and go to one of many other dungeons and camp something else, or I could interact with the community members there and work my way into one of their groups. If I didnt get to camp the mob I wanted at that time, it just made it that much more enjoyable when I was able to get it later on.
Even games with instancing are learning that giving everything to the player right now is bad for the life of the game. In WoW you can run your group through any dungeon you want, any time day or night without anyone else bothering you....once a day. I'll gladly trade waiting in line with another group to camp a mob, over getting a group together, spending 20 minutes clearing the entire dungeon then getting locked out until the following day or following week for raid bosses.
It boils down to the instance consistently delivering solid, fun gameplay.
World dungeons don't really have a lot to offer.
For starters, they're pretty bland. They have to be: they're in the world. Existing in a persistant world automatically imposes several harsh limitations on the types of things the developer can do with characters and monsters in that space.
Also, camping mobs is retarded. As far as player interaction goes, there's a very high chance other players will harm your fun (camped bosses) and only a small chance of them adding to your fun (world PVP, which is so frequently vastly imbalanced as to not be enjoyable the vast majority of the time.)
This thread got me thinking again about how I still don't see games match Guild Wars' scripted dungeon content. GW put you and your party at the heart of a storyline and had a much higher quality bar than other games at the time. It was really ahead of its time, because games to this day struggle to provide that sort of experience (and it's likely a tragic result of how much backlash GW got over instancing.)
But I'm a guy who prefers gameplay over simulation. I'm in it for a fun game, and whether a game is immersive or believable is secondary (still important, but secondary.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
How about the fun of fighting the other guilds for control of the dungeon. THAT is fun.
Not when your guild is out-manned and out-geared, and the gear you need is in that dungeon.
But that's really what you open dungeon fans want - to deny content to those not in your tribe/guild/faction. It's just griefing on a mass scale.
That's when you ally with other guilds and squash the superior guild under your boot. Then guess what...you are socializing and creating your own content.
How about the fun of fighting the other guilds for control of the dungeon. THAT is fun.
Not when your guild is out-manned and out-geared, and the gear you need is in that dungeon.
But that's really what you open dungeon fans want - to deny content to those not in your tribe/guild/faction. It's just griefing on a mass scale.
That's when you ally with other guilds and squash the superior guild under your boot. Then guess what...you are socializing and creating your own content.
Arguing over who gets to be next in line in a videogame isn't content. Its nerds arguing over extremely stupid crap. It was embarrassing watching my roommate do it. I felt so sorry for him.
How about the fun of fighting the other guilds for control of the dungeon. THAT is fun.
Not when your guild is out-manned and out-geared, and the gear you need is in that dungeon.
But that's really what you open dungeon fans want - to deny content to those not in your tribe/guild/faction. It's just griefing on a mass scale.
This is the problem, like you said, "...and the gear you need is in that dungeon." Your objective is to collect the coolest, most shiniest things in the story book MMO. Our objective, our being the competitive bunch, want a world where we can go to war and not worry about spending hours of our time trying to get the +20 Boots of Lulz and Sweetness.
When developers make these games revolve around high end gear, PvP can not co exist in this world without crushing peoples dreams whose sole reason for playing is to PvE. You don't want risk, you don't want to lose your gear, you don't want to join a guild and try to defend yourselves. So I don't even know why this is a discussion, PvP will become a niche genre. Players will choose to either play the same ol' story book games, or will play games like EVE, DF, MO and any other future game that captures the massive amounts of people wanting a game with strife and consequences.
So instancing should not be in a game where the goal is to crush other players, unless the name of the game is Guild Wars, or something similar. Its just to bad because how cool would it have been to play as Orcs in LotRO and do battle with a group of Rivendale elves in Rivendale-real time! Don't log in or you may find yourself in the middle of an Orc raid!
World dungeons don't have to suck, the developers suck. I wish Bethesda would put a team together and with all of that lore make a solid MMO to live up to the Elder Scrolls expectations.
The MMO world just needs to evolve a bit more and I think some really cool things will happen in the future.
"I want to play with the people I choose, not be subject to the asshattery of every retard on the server who has nothing better to do than annoy other people."
^^THIS is the WIN statement in favor of instanced content.
Instances-1
Asshats-0
Fixed
And repaired.....
I fail to see why wanting to NOT be annoyed by some other Asshat and their stupidity makes me a Carebear but...pfft whatever champ, you da' man
People who only seem to derive pleasure from ruining the gaming time and fun of others never cease to amaze me as a subset of culture. They are the REAL problem with MMOs overall and, oddly enough, are the exact reason the Genre is heading in the precise direction they rail against on a daily basis.
Because then they can't grief anyone anymore, lol...
I'm all for open pvp, full loot etc... However, I see nothing wrong with instancing in certain areas of a game.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I hate it, well that seems a bit extreme but I really dont like it. For those of you who played EQ back then, imagine if Karnor's Castle was instance. That would have been a terrible zone. Why dont we see non-instanced dungeons anymore? I understand that instancing has its uses for CERTAIN things. Like if your doing a quest and there is a timeline and what not, that makes sense. I mean look at these games today. I hate going into a dungeon and only having my party there.
Now the flamers will say that instances help us from not having to camp spawns and instead we all get our of zone and the mob is already spawned for us! bah to that. I think that is dungeons/castles whatever were made with "named" mobs all over that had decent respawn rates with not to many place holders, then it would work.
please explain the popularity AMONG players for instancing. I know that devs love it because it uses up less bandwidth on thier servers or w/e
Thanks!
SWOOGIE MCDOOGIE
Easy... to avoid things like this....
/shout TRAIN INC!!!! MOVE OR DIE!!!!
or
/shout lvl 45 Cleric LFG PST (and then waiting up to an hour in a player-made queue because of lack of viable areas to level.)
or
Camping special items that are highly contested for, and an uberguild decides to train you into oblivion so they can get your spot.
But yeah, mainly CAMPING... camping... and more camping... which may take away from the whole "realism" of everyone being in the same place... I thought it was equally unrealistic that the mobs magically "pop" back into existence.
Don't get me wrong... in the day classic EQ was fun in some aspects... but no... not the camping part... or the boat part either, hated that goddamned boat.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
Don't get me wrong... in the day classic EQ was fun in some aspects... but no... not the camping part... or the boat part either, hated that goddamned boat.
But it was so much fun when people would fall off the boat and have to swim for a hour due to no fault of their own!
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
A lot of players today do not want to play MMOs of yesteryear, they want a single-player game with a chat room. These players cannot stand for anyone else to have an impact on their world. Instancing allows them to escape into their own little world where only they make the decisions. Just look at the games that involve heavy instancing and will see some of the worst communities of any online game.
I really do not think so, I played DDO and GW, both involve heavy instancing and I must say that community in DDO is far from bad, quite opposite.
This is the problem, like you said, "...and the gear you need is in that dungeon." Your objective is to collect the coolest, most shiniest things in the story book MMO. Our objective, our being the competitive bunch, want a world where we can go to war and not worry about spending hours of our time trying to get the +20 Boots of Lulz and Sweetness.
When developers make these games revolve around high end gear, PvP can not co exist in this world without crushing peoples dreams whose sole reason for playing is to PvE. You don't want risk, you don't want to lose your gear, you don't want to join a guild and try to defend yourselves. So I don't even know why this is a discussion, PvP will become a niche genre. Players will choose to either play the same ol' story book games, or will play games like EVE, DF, MO and any other future game that captures the massive amounts of people wanting a game with strife and consequences.
So instancing should not be in a game where the goal is to crush other players, unless the name of the game is Guild Wars, or something similar. Its just to bad because how cool would it have been to play as Orcs in LotRO and do battle with a group of Rivendale elves in Rivendale-real time! Don't log in or you may find yourself in the middle of an Orc raid!
I love PvP and I am a competitive player. FFA PvP is not competitive. Its a jungle - anything can happen. Usually it boils down to gank, zerg, camp, grief and general asshattery. None of those are appealing to me. I don't want to crush people who can't stand a chance to fight back nor do I want to be the player being crushed. See where I'm going? Sure FFA PvP can be fun but it also brings a lot of negative qualities to the game.
Instances usually are the best quality, PvE content in the game. It is a trade off if you don't want any instancing.
Then again there hasn't been any good FFA PvPs out there. Eve is mediocre at best but ever so slowly improving. DF is just plain ridiculous. MO might be fun. I'm not talking about how good of a FFA PvP-game the game is but rather how good they are compared to other games, not just MMOs.
It would be fun if there would be a system that would make fighting for dungeons meaninful. But as it is. It is only for disrupting other people's game play. Same goes for high death penalty. In a FPS-game the death penalty might just be a short wait. This wait is important however because it makes killing meaningful. If you kill the enemy, you'll have a short window to capture a control point -> win the game. The time waiting while you're dead has a meaning. Punishing for death is not fun if you're not a gambler.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by bongo123 Instances are prefect for MMOs and are here to stay, they make games enjoyable and if you dont like the so called "easy mode" why dont you just get outside and try real life, im sure you'll find it hardcore enough
Very well put.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Originally posted by Craggur This is the problem, like you said, "...and the gear you need is in that dungeon." Your objective is to collect the coolest, most shiniest things in the story book MMO. Our objective, our being the competitive bunch, want a world where we can go to war and not worry about spending hours of our time trying to get the +20 Boots of Lulz and Sweetness. When developers make these games revolve around high end gear, PvP can not co exist in this world without crushing peoples dreams whose sole reason for playing is to PvE. You don't want risk, you don't want to lose your gear, you don't want to join a guild and try to defend yourselves. So I don't even know why this is a discussion, PvP will become a niche genre. Players will choose to either play the same ol' story book games, or will play games like EVE, DF, MO and any other future game that captures the massive amounts of people wanting a game with strife and consequences. So instancing should not be in a game where the goal is to crush other players, unless the name of the game is Guild Wars, or something similar. Its just to bad because how cool would it have been to play as Orcs in LotRO and do battle with a group of Rivendale elves in Rivendale-real time! Don't log in or you may find yourself in the middle of an Orc raid!
I love PvP and I am a competitive player. FFA PvP is not competitive. Its a jungle - anything can happen. Usually it boils down to gank, zerg, camp, grief and general asshattery. None of those are appealing to me. I don't want to crush people who can't stand a chance to fight back nor do I want to be the player being crushed. See where I'm going? Sure FFA PvP can be fun but it also brings a lot of negative qualities to the game.
Instances usually are the best quality, PvE content in the game. It is a trade off if you don't want any instancing.
Then again there hasn't been any good FFA PvPs out there. Eve is mediocre at best but ever so slowly improving. DF is just plain ridiculous. MO might be fun. I'm not talking about how good of a FFA PvP-game the game is but rather how good they are compared to other games, not just MMOs.
It would be fun if there would be a system that would make fighting for dungeons meaninful. But as it is. It is only for disrupting other people's game play. Same goes for high death penalty. In a FPS-game the death penalty might just be a short wait. This wait is important however because it makes killing meaningful. If you kill the enemy, you'll have a short window to capture a control point -> win the game. The time waiting while you're dead has a meaning. Punishing for death is not fun if you're not a gambler.
Excellent post, and absolutely right.
I enjoy competitive PVP too, and have long ago learned to stop complaining about how terrible PVP was in MMORPGs (as I gradually realized that truly great PVP can't coexist with certain PVE-centric MMORPG mechanics.)
I still think someday we'll see a fun PVP-only game with MMORPG-style combat, zero PVE, and Planetside-style lateral progression. But for now that game doesn't exist and I continue to get my good PVP from FPSes (used to get it from RTSes too, but something about working as a professional RTS game balancer seems to have burned me out on them.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by Kurai3 Originally posted by TdogSkal
"I want everything handed to me with little or no effort" sums up your "reasons" pretty well. I dislike instancing, it makes the game world feel smaller. It makes it feel like I am playing a "game" instead of playing in another world. After all that is why I play MMOs, to get away from the real world and get lost in a fantasy world. (does not have to be a fantasy setting)
Hard work is for Real life, I'd prefer if it stayed the hell out of my video games.
"Work hard, play hard"? No way! "Work if they make you, play like a wuss!"
Since when is wanting to enjoy an evening exploring a dungeon with a close group of mates in a graphically rich environment with a compelling and scripted story that if played right results in everyone walking out with some loot and a good nights gaming considered "Carebear".. i mean seriously WTF!? is wrong with some of you people.. oh i played EQ back in the day and had to camp some boss with like 50 other dicks from 3am to 8am... im so hardcore... fuck off, games are meant to be fun,
NWN, BG, Diablo1&2 are all games that offer what you are describing here. I don't believe those games are carebear, they were all quite fun for a short time.
From your language, grammar and the general tone of your post you appear to have issues playing well with others. For someone like yourself, playing in an instanced world with the few friends that can tolerate you is probably better for everyone. Some of us who like to be a part of a community, feel that instancing works against that community feeling.
Originally posted by Swoogie please explain the popularity AMONG players for instancing. I know that devs love it because it uses up less bandwidth on thier servers or w/e
Thanks!
SWOOGIE MCDOOGIE
I think there is a certain type of gamer who has substantial real-life responsibilities. I personally fall into this category.
What this means is you might have only one or two hours blocked out for gaming at a time, precious hours in your day that you look forward to before the wife calls you to bed. What an instance gives a player such as this, is a controlled enviornment with no surprises. For example, it sucks to spend those few gaming hours being spawned camped. Or having to fight over a mob. Or basically having your game experience negatively impacted by another player. In an instance, you determine who you play with. It's as simple as that.
Originally posted by Swoogie please explain the popularity AMONG players for instancing. I know that devs love it because it uses up less bandwidth on thier servers or w/e
Thanks!
SWOOGIE MCDOOGIE
I think there is a certain type of gamer who has substantial real-life responsibilities. I personally fall into this category.
What this means is you might have only one or two hours blocked out for gaming at a time, precious hours in your day that you look forward to before the wife calls you to bed. What an instance gives a player such as this, is a controlled enviornment with no surprises. For example, it sucks to spend those few gaming hours being spawned camped. Or having to fight over a mob. Or basically having your game experience negatively impacted by another player. In an instance, you determine who you play with. It's as simple as that.
Exactly. Not all of us are single 30 or 40 yr olds still living with their parents with no responsiblity or lives. We're not still students either who also have plenty of time to do whatever they want. I have but a few hrs at night after dinner and that has to be shared with my wife sometimes. I also can't stay up until 2am and expect to function the next day=) If I have 2 hrs to play a game, I don't want any of that time wasted waiting around or doing anything I don't want to do. And certainly I don't want it disrupted by A$$hats who can play 10 hrs a day and have no concept of what responsibility means.
Some of us actually grow up. And if anyone proclaims "use your time more wisely", they have no clue what working 8-9 hrs a day, owning a house, marriage and kids means=) If you say give up on MMOs, MMOs are made for me now=) hehe. You can go find another game to play.
Perhaps you don't remeber the days where you could literally walk to Trakanon's lair from the entrance of Old Sebilis. The days when even the entire live side of Lower Guk was camped. No instancing is just as bad as full instancing.
I fondly remember those days in seb and guk and would gladly trade them for what we have today. There is a place for instancing in MMOs but it is overly done.
Nope. I hate those days. I remember spending 6 hrs of lower guk doing mostly NOTHING and chat. And we got NOTHING out of it. If I want to chat for 6 hours, i go on MSN. There is NO GAME there. Quit soon afterwards.
Today's instance dungeon is 1000x better. The genre is never going to go back to those horrible days.
As you can see, not everyone likes instancing. Many people like instances and many people do not. What's important here is that different games come out and cater to the different people. The worst thing that could happen is if all of the new games come out the same but with a different skin.
I dont like Instances either. Open dungeons and enviroments are what massive MULTIPLAYER ONLINE games are supposed to be about. I think alot of gamers like the instances so much because they can just go in and get rare items anytime without anyone else competing with them. I loved EQ and it was the reason i started playing online games. I liked seeing people in a dungeon and meeting new people through lfg to help u or for u to help. Now people just talk to the people who they know and play the game as a clique and thats it. They love to show u the resul tho when they get out of their little game in a game. They didnt have to wait at all, it was just instant gratification. Then they come out and type /1 and link along with look at what dropped. Anyway I dont think games are going to go back to open enviroments like that so i guess I will quit crying and do the instances! lol
Comments
Instancing is needed when the number of players begins to match or exceed the amount of content to support those players. Perhaps you don't remeber the days where you could literally walk to Trakanon's lair from the entrance of Old Sebilis. The days when even the entire live side of Lower Guk was camped. No instancing is just as bad as full instancing.
A developer is also foolish to create a huge number of instanced zones as it becomes difficult to go to the instance you want as players start to finish them up. Basically it is very disadvantagous to not be with the pack. Large zones, with "easy" travel, and with new instances of the large zone being created when the population gets to a certain level is probably a good balance.
Sure it is a great feeling for those that get to the camp but it is crushing for players enjoyment for those that need to wait sometimes hours to get to do something that they want to do.
More content is also a good answer. Maybe someday...
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Mis-matches and lag disgust me. I want (semi) fair fights and smooth frame rates.
Most players don't want PvE and PvP to be mixed.
Now, what I could see being fun is having the PvE instance gated by a PvP instance in some way. Have a PvP cavern with a portal to the dungeon at the end.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Not when your guild is out-manned and out-geared, and the gear you need is in that dungeon.
But that's really what you open dungeon fans want - to deny content to those not in your tribe/guild/faction. It's just griefing on a mass scale.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I fondly remember those days in seb and guk and would gladly trade them for what we have today. There is a place for instancing in MMOs but it is overly done.
As someone else mentioned earlier, you can't have joy without disappointment. I used to be saddened when I went to my favorite camp and found another group or two already there, but I had multiple choices at that time. I could leave and go to one of many other dungeons and camp something else, or I could interact with the community members there and work my way into one of their groups. If I didnt get to camp the mob I wanted at that time, it just made it that much more enjoyable when I was able to get it later on.
Even games with instancing are learning that giving everything to the player right now is bad for the life of the game. In WoW you can run your group through any dungeon you want, any time day or night without anyone else bothering you....once a day. I'll gladly trade waiting in line with another group to camp a mob, over getting a group together, spending 20 minutes clearing the entire dungeon then getting locked out until the following day or following week for raid bosses.
It boils down to the instance consistently delivering solid, fun gameplay.
World dungeons don't really have a lot to offer.
For starters, they're pretty bland. They have to be: they're in the world. Existing in a persistant world automatically imposes several harsh limitations on the types of things the developer can do with characters and monsters in that space.
Also, camping mobs is retarded. As far as player interaction goes, there's a very high chance other players will harm your fun (camped bosses) and only a small chance of them adding to your fun (world PVP, which is so frequently vastly imbalanced as to not be enjoyable the vast majority of the time.)
This thread got me thinking again about how I still don't see games match Guild Wars' scripted dungeon content. GW put you and your party at the heart of a storyline and had a much higher quality bar than other games at the time. It was really ahead of its time, because games to this day struggle to provide that sort of experience (and it's likely a tragic result of how much backlash GW got over instancing.)
But I'm a guy who prefers gameplay over simulation. I'm in it for a fun game, and whether a game is immersive or believable is secondary (still important, but secondary.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Not when your guild is out-manned and out-geared, and the gear you need is in that dungeon.
But that's really what you open dungeon fans want - to deny content to those not in your tribe/guild/faction. It's just griefing on a mass scale.
That's when you ally with other guilds and squash the superior guild under your boot. Then guess what...you are socializing and creating your own content.
Not when your guild is out-manned and out-geared, and the gear you need is in that dungeon.
But that's really what you open dungeon fans want - to deny content to those not in your tribe/guild/faction. It's just griefing on a mass scale.
That's when you ally with other guilds and squash the superior guild under your boot. Then guess what...you are socializing and creating your own content.
Arguing over who gets to be next in line in a videogame isn't content. Its nerds arguing over extremely stupid crap. It was embarrassing watching my roommate do it. I felt so sorry for him.
Not when your guild is out-manned and out-geared, and the gear you need is in that dungeon.
But that's really what you open dungeon fans want - to deny content to those not in your tribe/guild/faction. It's just griefing on a mass scale.
This is the problem, like you said, "...and the gear you need is in that dungeon." Your objective is to collect the coolest, most shiniest things in the story book MMO. Our objective, our being the competitive bunch, want a world where we can go to war and not worry about spending hours of our time trying to get the +20 Boots of Lulz and Sweetness.
When developers make these games revolve around high end gear, PvP can not co exist in this world without crushing peoples dreams whose sole reason for playing is to PvE. You don't want risk, you don't want to lose your gear, you don't want to join a guild and try to defend yourselves. So I don't even know why this is a discussion, PvP will become a niche genre. Players will choose to either play the same ol' story book games, or will play games like EVE, DF, MO and any other future game that captures the massive amounts of people wanting a game with strife and consequences.
So instancing should not be in a game where the goal is to crush other players, unless the name of the game is Guild Wars, or something similar. Its just to bad because how cool would it have been to play as Orcs in LotRO and do battle with a group of Rivendale elves in Rivendale - real time! Don't log in or you may find yourself in the middle of an Orc raid!
Play a role! Shadowclan
World dungeons don't have to suck, the developers suck. I wish Bethesda would put a team together and with all of that lore make a solid MMO to live up to the Elder Scrolls expectations.
The MMO world just needs to evolve a bit more and I think some really cool things will happen in the future.
Play a role! Shadowclan
^^THIS is the WIN statement in favor of instanced content.
Instances-1
Asshats-0
Fixed
And repaired.....
I fail to see why wanting to NOT be annoyed by some other Asshat and their stupidity makes me a Carebear but...pfft whatever champ, you da' man
People who only seem to derive pleasure from ruining the gaming time and fun of others never cease to amaze me as a subset of culture. They are the REAL problem with MMOs overall and, oddly enough, are the exact reason the Genre is heading in the precise direction they rail against on a daily basis.
Because then they can't grief anyone anymore, lol...
I'm all for open pvp, full loot etc... However, I see nothing wrong with instancing in certain areas of a game.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Easy... to avoid things like this....
/shout TRAIN INC!!!! MOVE OR DIE!!!!
or
/shout lvl 45 Cleric LFG PST (and then waiting up to an hour in a player-made queue because of lack of viable areas to level.)
or
Camping special items that are highly contested for, and an uberguild decides to train you into oblivion so they can get your spot.
But yeah, mainly CAMPING... camping... and more camping... which may take away from the whole "realism" of everyone being in the same place... I thought it was equally unrealistic that the mobs magically "pop" back into existence.
Don't get me wrong... in the day classic EQ was fun in some aspects... but no... not the camping part... or the boat part either, hated that goddamned boat.
"There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."
But it was so much fun when people would fall off the boat and have to swim for a hour due to no fault of their own!
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
I think a mix of instanced dungeons and non instanced like EQ2 is the perfect solution.
To instance all the stuff kinda turns the game very close to Guildwars and while GW is fun it would be a lot better with open zones.
So if you don't like instanced dungeons don't go there, the same for open. Problem solved.
I really do not think so, I played DDO and GW, both involve heavy instancing and I must say that community in DDO is far from bad, quite opposite.
And GW has quite good community as well.
This is the problem, like you said, "...and the gear you need is in that dungeon." Your objective is to collect the coolest, most shiniest things in the story book MMO. Our objective, our being the competitive bunch, want a world where we can go to war and not worry about spending hours of our time trying to get the +20 Boots of Lulz and Sweetness.
When developers make these games revolve around high end gear, PvP can not co exist in this world without crushing peoples dreams whose sole reason for playing is to PvE. You don't want risk, you don't want to lose your gear, you don't want to join a guild and try to defend yourselves. So I don't even know why this is a discussion, PvP will become a niche genre. Players will choose to either play the same ol' story book games, or will play games like EVE, DF, MO and any other future game that captures the massive amounts of people wanting a game with strife and consequences.
So instancing should not be in a game where the goal is to crush other players, unless the name of the game is Guild Wars, or something similar. Its just to bad because how cool would it have been to play as Orcs in LotRO and do battle with a group of Rivendale elves in Rivendale - real time! Don't log in or you may find yourself in the middle of an Orc raid!
I love PvP and I am a competitive player. FFA PvP is not competitive. Its a jungle - anything can happen. Usually it boils down to gank, zerg, camp, grief and general asshattery. None of those are appealing to me. I don't want to crush people who can't stand a chance to fight back nor do I want to be the player being crushed. See where I'm going? Sure FFA PvP can be fun but it also brings a lot of negative qualities to the game.
Instances usually are the best quality, PvE content in the game. It is a trade off if you don't want any instancing.
Then again there hasn't been any good FFA PvPs out there. Eve is mediocre at best but ever so slowly improving. DF is just plain ridiculous. MO might be fun. I'm not talking about how good of a FFA PvP-game the game is but rather how good they are compared to other games, not just MMOs.
It would be fun if there would be a system that would make fighting for dungeons meaninful. But as it is. It is only for disrupting other people's game play. Same goes for high death penalty. In a FPS-game the death penalty might just be a short wait. This wait is important however because it makes killing meaningful. If you kill the enemy, you'll have a short window to capture a control point -> win the game. The time waiting while you're dead has a meaning. Punishing for death is not fun if you're not a gambler.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Very well put.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I love PvP and I am a competitive player. FFA PvP is not competitive. Its a jungle - anything can happen. Usually it boils down to gank, zerg, camp, grief and general asshattery. None of those are appealing to me. I don't want to crush people who can't stand a chance to fight back nor do I want to be the player being crushed. See where I'm going? Sure FFA PvP can be fun but it also brings a lot of negative qualities to the game.
Instances usually are the best quality, PvE content in the game. It is a trade off if you don't want any instancing.
Then again there hasn't been any good FFA PvPs out there. Eve is mediocre at best but ever so slowly improving. DF is just plain ridiculous. MO might be fun. I'm not talking about how good of a FFA PvP-game the game is but rather how good they are compared to other games, not just MMOs.
It would be fun if there would be a system that would make fighting for dungeons meaninful. But as it is. It is only for disrupting other people's game play. Same goes for high death penalty. In a FPS-game the death penalty might just be a short wait. This wait is important however because it makes killing meaningful. If you kill the enemy, you'll have a short window to capture a control point -> win the game. The time waiting while you're dead has a meaning. Punishing for death is not fun if you're not a gambler.
Excellent post, and absolutely right.
I enjoy competitive PVP too, and have long ago learned to stop complaining about how terrible PVP was in MMORPGs (as I gradually realized that truly great PVP can't coexist with certain PVE-centric MMORPG mechanics.)
I still think someday we'll see a fun PVP-only game with MMORPG-style combat, zero PVE, and Planetside-style lateral progression. But for now that game doesn't exist and I continue to get my good PVP from FPSes (used to get it from RTSes too, but something about working as a professional RTS game balancer seems to have burned me out on them.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Hard work is for Real life, I'd prefer if it stayed the hell out of my video games.
"Work hard, play hard"? No way! "Work if they make you, play like a wuss!"
NWN, BG, Diablo1&2 are all games that offer what you are describing here. I don't believe those games are carebear, they were all quite fun for a short time.
From your language, grammar and the general tone of your post you appear to have issues playing well with others. For someone like yourself, playing in an instanced world with the few friends that can tolerate you is probably better for everyone. Some of us who like to be a part of a community, feel that instancing works against that community feeling.
I think there is a certain type of gamer who has substantial real-life responsibilities. I personally fall into this category.
What this means is you might have only one or two hours blocked out for gaming at a time, precious hours in your day that you look forward to before the wife calls you to bed. What an instance gives a player such as this, is a controlled enviornment with no surprises. For example, it sucks to spend those few gaming hours being spawned camped. Or having to fight over a mob. Or basically having your game experience negatively impacted by another player. In an instance, you determine who you play with. It's as simple as that.
I think there is a certain type of gamer who has substantial real-life responsibilities. I personally fall into this category.
What this means is you might have only one or two hours blocked out for gaming at a time, precious hours in your day that you look forward to before the wife calls you to bed. What an instance gives a player such as this, is a controlled enviornment with no surprises. For example, it sucks to spend those few gaming hours being spawned camped. Or having to fight over a mob. Or basically having your game experience negatively impacted by another player. In an instance, you determine who you play with. It's as simple as that.
Exactly. Not all of us are single 30 or 40 yr olds still living with their parents with no responsiblity or lives. We're not still students either who also have plenty of time to do whatever they want. I have but a few hrs at night after dinner and that has to be shared with my wife sometimes. I also can't stay up until 2am and expect to function the next day=) If I have 2 hrs to play a game, I don't want any of that time wasted waiting around or doing anything I don't want to do. And certainly I don't want it disrupted by A$$hats who can play 10 hrs a day and have no concept of what responsibility means.
Some of us actually grow up. And if anyone proclaims "use your time more wisely", they have no clue what working 8-9 hrs a day, owning a house, marriage and kids means=) If you say give up on MMOs, MMOs are made for me now=) hehe. You can go find another game to play.
I fondly remember those days in seb and guk and would gladly trade them for what we have today. There is a place for instancing in MMOs but it is overly done.
Nope. I hate those days. I remember spending 6 hrs of lower guk doing mostly NOTHING and chat. And we got NOTHING out of it. If I want to chat for 6 hours, i go on MSN. There is NO GAME there. Quit soon afterwards.
Today's instance dungeon is 1000x better. The genre is never going to go back to those horrible days.
"Why does everyone love instancing?"
After seeing years of endless posts of rage against instances on these forums, a question like this simply seems bizarre.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
As you can see, not everyone likes instancing. Many people like instances and many people do not. What's important here is that different games come out and cater to the different people. The worst thing that could happen is if all of the new games come out the same but with a different skin.
I dont like Instances either. Open dungeons and enviroments are what massive MULTIPLAYER ONLINE games are supposed to be about. I think alot of gamers like the instances so much because they can just go in and get rare items anytime without anyone else competing with them. I loved EQ and it was the reason i started playing online games. I liked seeing people in a dungeon and meeting new people through lfg to help u or for u to help. Now people just talk to the people who they know and play the game as a clique and thats it. They love to show u the resul tho when they get out of their little game in a game. They didnt have to wait at all, it was just instant gratification. Then they come out and type /1 and link along with look at what dropped. Anyway I dont think games are going to go back to open enviroments like that so i guess I will quit crying and do the instances! lol