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Poll and talk. D&D Online is Instanced, In other words a pay to play version of Guild Wars
Mandy
Member Posts: 132
I don't know how many of you know that D&D Online is like Guild wars. It is instanced. So its going to be a pay to play sersion of Guild Wars.
Don't get me wrong Guild Wars was a nice game, but I really didn't like how it was instanced.
Guild Wars being no monthly fees makes it ok since its Instanced. That is How D&D Online is as well but its with a monthly fee.
To make clear Guild Wars is not a MMORPG, D&D Online is not a MMORPG either.
A MMORPG is Games like Anarchy-Online, Lineage2, EQ2, in a MMORPG when you leave town you can run into other players out on the world with out having to team wit them to be on the same map. You can go around any place and find other real players not just in towns.
Anyways It was a real Dispointing to see thats how this game is Instanced. Yucky.
Comments
"It is easier to be cruel than wise. The road to wisdom is long and difficult... so most people just turn out to be assholes" Feng (Christopher Walken)
Please note: this is D&D Online- not GW online, so the poll is not out of place here.
I am disappointed in it being 100% instanced. I am not against instance zones when they make sense, for example story based instance where a god banishes only you and your group, or something like that, but other than that I prefer to play MMOs with many others, other wise why play one at all?
There's an excellent essay on this subject and the technology/myths located here: http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2917&fansite_id=118
-W.
I wouldnt pay to play it but /shrugs
Its not the only game out there and if DnD is your wish check out NwN2.
Im not against Instancing like was in Anarchy-Online it was instanced with ONLY missions when you got to you're mission point and went in only people that received a team mission key or only people you gave a mission key copy to could come in, that was ok.
Another thing I liked about Anarchy-Online for places like shopps and static missions such as the (the subway, Steps of maddness and others like it) and other zones that were not in the main world. They had group sectors what is if one is to full you will go to the next and you can keep rezoning and getting different ones. or if you're teamed you will get the same group sector.
With group sectors you and a friend could of went in the same shop door and if 1 was to full you might go in 1 and you're friend in a nother and it would be different people in each one. but you could rezone and either team or go in and out until you got the right one.
As of yet I think Anarchy-Online has the best designed skill system and world and zone system.
Please note: this is D&D Online- not GW online, so the poll is not out of place here.
I am disappointed in it being 100% instanced. I am not against instance zones when they make sense, for example story based instance where a god banishes only you and your group, or something like that, but other than that I prefer to play MMOs with many others, other wise why play one at all?
There's an excellent essay on this subject and the technology/myths located here: http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=2917&fansite_id=118
I voted no to the poll because I hate GW but I love DDO, and beyond the fact that they both use instancing they are really nothing alike. GW used their instancing in the crappiest possible way. They made 30 or 40 missions that were just carbon copies of each other in generic background settings. All that was involved in them is kill kill kill stuff till the mission is done. It was some of the most uninspired gameplay I've seen in a long time, and I bought the collectors edition.
DDO uses instancing completely differently from GW. There are many different quest types as well as many different ways of completing them, they most of them are going to be from 1 to 3 hours long so it won't be a case of sitting there for 8 hours for one mission. Also they are going to have outdoor common areas called danger zones that you don't have to be in a party to enter and complete.
It's not like having open public areas is even an advantage anyways. All it means is they fill it with tons of filler mobs to grind levels on, and I could care less about running into random strangers, 9 times out of 10 you just go back and forth kill stealing each other cause your bored as fuck of grinding. If I want to deal with that I'll play Eve-Online where I can just gank the fucker if he's pissing me off.
Yes but Instanced is instaced. Nothing can change that. in Instanced games you can't meet other people out in the wrold as you are on Quests and missions. You can't meet other players out in the wrold as you go through it looking around. You can't go join a friend or have a firend come join you as you are out adventuring or looking around the world. You would have to go back and team up firs then restart the adventure or looking.
it doesn't matter that D&D Online has different quest then guild wars or that the D&D quest will be longer. the point is its all instanced. It like Guild Wars is not a MMORPG.
No thanks to Instanced Games, like this.
Thats a pretty broad statement. I havent done the beta yet, and I may not play for entirely different reasons. But instances allow for an actual NARRATIVE in your adventures, and a feeling that you are part of a story. Not just killing a Goblin Buttscratcher because you have a quest for Goblin Nostrils.
I played GW and their instances were HORRIBLE. I went from lvl 7 to 13 killing the same 8 mobs OVER AND OVER. And the story... pee-ew!
CoH did a better job with their instances and was a good first step towards what instanced games can be. Although still mostly just grinding with a skeletal story... but thats CRPGs for you. If you want to make 200 hours or so of content, you cant handcraft each adventure.
The concern about people playing D&D in a solitary mode is a valid one, but then, most MMORPGs that come out now have ways of playing solo if you want. Unless the designers are rock stupid. For myself, I like to hop on for an hour after I get home, then get off and make dinner and do the dumb stuff I gotta do. Like touch the puppet head. And there are a lot of people like me.
Smart games allow people to make progress solo, but increase the rewards in groups. As for slowing the advancement so people didnt cap fast... I dunno.
One of the reasons I left CoH was that the grind got really horrid around lvl 30. You had to do 20 or so missions to level, and at half an hour to an hour each, thats a LOT of killing Council and CoT. And you didnt see new enemies very often at that point.
So I dont know how DDO will address this. Its a dangerous trap.
The basic problem is that you need enough content to keep it from getting repetitive. WoW has raised the bar pretty high in terms of how much content they had at ship. You may not like the level of challenge, particularly in groups, but with 2 million subscribers, they seem to have a pretty good plan.
Any game, particularly a fantasy MMORPG, while have to measure up against that yardstick.
Ultimately, I guess it'll come down to what we get for a monthly fee that GW doesn't provide now. As far as I'm aware, our monthly fee pays for:
- 4000 player servers (with a soft cap of 1000 players at a time) to provide a more intimate experience
- Much more (non-repetitive) PvE content - GW's PvE provided 100-150 hours at most assuming one didn't replay every mission with every character class to unlock every skill. DDO will (or at least better) provide at least triple that amount of content with initial purpose - but it should be alot more
- Monthly updates (per Turbine fashion) that adds new content that takes more than 30 seconds to completely consume
- Quality customer support
- no paid expansion pack plans until at least a year and then some after release
If they don't give all of this (especially the second one), then there is more than enough reason to dismiss this game as merely a pay-to-play GW with a name to get the suckers/fans to drop as much cash as possible on it. Guess we'll just have to wait and see, because frankly, I doubt even the most experienced beta testers can tell us if Turbine is providing all the above.
Here's to hoping.
*shrugs*
Certainly I agree that point #2 is the critical one. Also whether the gameplay experience is enjoyable.
For myself, I liked the introductory portion of GW (well enough) but after that, I really hated the 2nd phase. I dislike forced grouping and found the PvE experience to be the worst I've ever played, bar none. But I gather I'm in the minority. I think they are making a mistake in making the beta pay to sign up, as it guarantees they will get mostly fanboys. But perhaps even the fanboys will give them honest, constructive criticism.
Whether they will listen to it is another story entirely.
WOW is mostly 8-17 year olds. Its community is one of the worse I've ever seen. Wow graphics are very bad, very cartoonie and childish.
WoW is far from good.
One thing about RP'ing in DDO:
the city will provide an area for players to meet and greet and to Role play, something that doesnt happen well in WoW in my experience, lets give it chance to prove itself hey?
as for it being instanced, at least when you are fighting there shouldnt be any lag or worrying about someone coming along and grabbing that chest you have just spent 30 mins clearing the mobs around.
Well, since it has 2 million subscribers, its doing something right. The rest of your comments dont reflect my experiences with the game.
And I think DDO (or any of the other new releases) would be very happy to have 1/4 its success. Of course we can hope DDO will have equally widespread appeal. Part of that will be 'fun factor' and innovation. They are billing themselves as a nearly FPS game in terms of gameplay. That would certainly be a change of pace.
I'll pay for it as DDO and GW are similar just as day and night are.
Instanced/non-Instanced is one of a thousand categories you can put a MMORPG in. And not the most important.
Tusken Raiders - Your Italian Guild on Star Wars: The Old Republic
No you meet them in taverns and other common places where players gather, or in the danger zones which you won't have to be in a group to take part in, or through the LFG options they will provide. Being able to see some random player passing by while you're sitting there grinding mindless mobs for cash or xp to reach that next level does not a MMORPG make. Being an MMO does not imply persistance or open areas, it merely means that there are a large number of people on one common server. Hell if you want to get all anal about it the only current MMO that doesn't use instancing of some form is Eve-Online as they are the only game to sport a single server for all their players.
DDO is using instancing to do things that standard MMO's can't do. They are going to add more interactivity and playstyles to the genre and instancing is the ONLY way to do it properly. Yes you will not have the ability to have massive gatherings of players in one area if you so choose but since when has that ever done anything important other than create massive lag in MMO's, besides when used in PVP and in most games that is just pointless zerging anyway. I for one am glad DDO will be free of that crap.
massively multiplayer - yes
online - of course
role-playing game - no question
looks like an mmorpg to me. instancing is a concept used in the game, not a different category. frankly i think it's possibly the best innovation mmorpgs have seen to date. once i'm on a mission, the only people i want to see are the others in my group
Does this mean Diablo, Mechwarrior, Battlefield 1942 and the like are also MMORPGs? They all allow players to meet thousands of other players in a chat system (albiet a text based one as opposed to a 3D one), choose your group members and enter into the game world with only those who are in your group. Therefore I, too, could argue the same outcomes:
Massively Multiplayer - yes
online - of course
role-playing games - no question.
But I'm sure most would agree none of the games I mentioned (or others of the same type) are remotely MMORPGs.
-W.
I wouldn't play if it was like GW. That game got boring fast.
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Fuego
Level 21 Gnomish Mage
Casador
Level 19 Night Elf Hunter
Silvermoon server
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Well, since it has 2 million subscribers, its doing something right. The rest of your comments dont reflect my experiences with the game.
And I think DDO (or any of the other new releases) would be very happy to have 1/4 its success. Of course we can hope DDO will have equally widespread appeal. Part of that will be 'fun factor' and innovation. They are billing themselves as a nearly FPS game in terms of gameplay. That would certainly be a change of pace.
Well WOW's 2 million subscribers is made up of 80% 8-17 year olds. what Blizzard did right was make a game kids can play and enjoy and whatever else. WOW isn't much of a adult game.
No you meet them in taverns and other common places where players gather, or in the danger zones which you won't have to be in a group to take part in, or through the LFG options they will provide. Being able to see some random player passing by while you're sitting there grinding mindless mobs for cash or xp to reach that next level does not a MMORPG make. Being an MMO does not imply persistance or open areas, it merely means that there are a large number of people on one common server. Hell if you want to get all anal about it the only current MMO that doesn't use instancing of some form is Eve-Online as they are the only game to sport a single server for all their players.
DDO is using instancing to do things that standard MMO's can't do. They are going to add more interactivity and playstyles to the genre and instancing is the ONLY way to do it properly. Yes you will not have the ability to have massive gatherings of players in one area if you so choose but since when has that ever done anything important other than create massive lag in MMO's, besides when used in PVP and in most games that is just pointless zerging anyway. I for one am glad DDO will be free of that crap.
Yes Taverns and other gathering places = towns and mission zones in Guild Wars. Instanced is instanced. Instanced as D&D online is. That is the kind of instancing Guild Wars is.
You all will see. I would bet all of you who think its going to be great will change you're minds after you try it. Also Turbine is making is. Turbine doesn't make good games.
No its not Massively Multiplayer. Yes alot of people can play. but true Massively Multiplayer is where everyone shairs the same world not a instanced world. You can have instanced missions with a none instanced world. you can do like Funcom did and in donguns and other places that are not a part of the main world. have group sectors what is a shop or static mission that is the same but a different group number. This happens when one is full or has enough people to think it needs a nother.
100% instanced is 100% stupid.
No its not Massively Multiplayer. Yes alot of people can play. but true Massively Multiplayer is where everyone shairs the same world not a instanced world. You can have instanced missions with a none instanced world. you can do like Funcom did and in donguns and other places that are not a part of the main world. have group sectors what is a shop or static mission that is the same but a different group number. This happens when one is full or has enough people to think it needs a nother.
100% instanced is 100% stupid.
Seriously, WHO CARES about the exact definition ? The point is: you can play the game with your friends/clanmates and have fun. That's good enough for me.
The essence of D&D is exactly that - having adventures with your friends. The comparison with GW is not valid, as in GW NOBODY gave a damn about quests/instances. They were there to let you level up to the top and finally take part in PvP....
Mandy we understand you dont like instanceing ....we get it, yelling at eveyone who has an opinion other than yours is not a good way to get your point across. lets wait and see how this goes before we damn it to instanced hell. Guild Wars is the worst case of instanceing and someone is bound to get it right sooner or later. D&D is not about massive encounters, and instancing is the best way to preserve the core of what D&D is all about. Im glad they are useing it to cut down on lag and overcrowding. Do you remember what an mmo without instanced dungeons was like??? trians and people KS'ing mobs. They have stated that the city and "danger zones" will NOT be instanced. So lets just sit back and see what they come up with, hell they may surprise you.
P.S sounds like to me you never played D&D PnP. i could be wrong and missed that in the Instance bashing, but for us who did...we seem to like what they are doing and look forward to it.
I HAVE played it retread, I was in the first stress test and am gonna be there with bells on for the second one. And FYI a MMO requires that the game world be hosted on a group of servers in a central location which all players connect to. So no BF 1942 and the numerous other FPS's with server browsers do not qualify.
P.S. there is nothing wrong with instancing taverns and common meeting areas, it avoids the whole Lagrimmar effect m'kay.