Instanced Zones...or what?

[Tagrun]

What do you all like? What do you want to see?

I corrected the poll after reading Blackguard's post, and him being the ultimate power around here it was done! I also agree, but terminology is always thrown around loosely.

[Naeya]

I voted for instanced zones, and let me explain my reasoning since the poll didn't specify the extent of instancing use.

I prefer to have large open world areas with contact with other players. I also like "open" instances that are just smaller zones or dungeons where you can compete with others. However, I do believe in having some "private" instances for small or large groups. It helps with group playability. The only problem I guess with those would be farmers.

[Blackguard]

I think the poll needs more explanation. I do like instancing when used in the appropriate situation. I don't like instancing like it's used in City of Heroes or Guild Wars (but I forgive GW for it because they don't charge a monthly fee). They way the options are laid out makes it seem like you may be misusing the word "instance," and it should instead say "zone."

Instances are essentially copies of zones that are shared by a select number of players (in most games, this is limited to a single player, a group, or a raid. In some they are simply multiple copies of the same large zone, shared by many). Zones are what EverQuest and EverQuest II use for the bulk of their locations (you have to load between zones, but there's usually only one version of the zone at any given time).

[jason]

I would be willing to accept any design if it is the right design for the rest of the game.

One of the things I hated most about EverQuest was that they fell into the idea and business model that once a zone was in game you almost never touched it. Once in a while they would change or revamp a zone, but since their business model was built on releasing new expansions with all new content, the end result was a world with hundreds of zones where players only utilized dozens of them at a time. Imagine going to Boston and finding the town half empty because New York was just released and most people moved over there. Now go to Philadelphia, which was three expansions ago, and finding it a veritable ghost town.

The other thing I disliked about the layout of the game was its fairly linear progression that things were more dangerous the further you got from "town". Raid zones were always far away, at least until they did Planes of Power, an entire expansion built on the concept of removing travel from the game, from the Plane of Knowledge and its port stones to the Plane of Tranquility and its keyed raid zone entrances.

I'd love to see games mix it up... you put in a town, and outside that town is a zone, the zone is shared by everyone, maybe its huge, but inside the town you also put in a "raid" where your raid leader talks to an NPC and flags his raid for the "Defend the town" raid, and when the raid members leave town they don't go into the shared zone, but instead go into an instance of that zone, or if the zone was huge just a section of that zone made as an instance to support the raid. Then, three expansions later you decide to implement an "Escort the king to Other Town" raid which uses the same outdoor zone, again as an instance, but this time the raid has to escort the king and his caravan to the other town at the far end of the zone, defending the king from waves of attackers.

I think games need to get more creative with their use of "space" and game/art assets. Designing a whole chunk of land to be used once in only one way just seems like a gigantic waste of effort.

[chas]

I chose "instances."

I do share some of Blackguard's concerns regarding City of Heroes' over-use of instanced missions, but I find the benefits of those instances to make for much more enjoyable gameplay than the shared dungeons I experienced in Everquest 2.

I'd prefer a system that better balances the two: Give me more instances in Everquest 2 or more shared mission maps in City of Heroes.

In City of Heroes, all the city zones are much like Blackguard explainst the zones in Everquest. The difference is that virtually every mission (quest) sends you to a door that creates an instance of a map that only you and your team experience.

The benefits are many: the map's population scales to your team's size and level range. There is no training. There's no killstealing. There's no suddenly having to end your quest because your team's ill-equipped for the mob next door.
There's also no chance encounter, no random run-by-helper, and no chance for chatter that could lead to a new friend or a lead-in to a new community.

City of Heroes does offer more traiditional "shared zone" missions, but these quickly suffer. Hunt 20 "Skulls" gang members in Kings' row. You're level 7. You'll find bad guys from level 5 to 9 there. Most will be either too easy or too difficult. You lose that mob perfectly catered to your team's needs, but you gain the opportunity for a chance encounter... as long as the other player takes the time to stop as he's running to HIS instanced mission.

[Draegan]

Basically it boils down to this for me.

The world should be seamless.
Important PVE sections should be instanced.
Important PVP sections should not be instanced.

[Teljair]

Thats one thing I like about Lineage 2, no zoning. Even the villages.

[chas]

Basically it boils down to this for me.

The world should be seamless.

Probably a topic for a better area, but "Why?" Why "should (it) be"?

I'm curious. I know why I used to think it should be, but I'm becoming more of a zone person for many of the same reasons I'd originally been a zoner. Curious to hear other people's thoughts.

[Draegan]

Basically it boils down to this for me.

The world should be seamless.

Probably a topic for a better area, but "Why?" Why "should (it) be"?

I'm curious. I know why I used to think it should be, but I'm becoming more of a zone person for many of the same reasons I'd originally been a zoner. Curious to hear other people's thoughts.

I like seamless worlds. Gives me more of a sense of where everything is. Also, you can get flying mounts.

[Nybling]

Basically it boils down to this for me.

The world should be seamless.
Important PVE sections should be instanced.
Important PVP sections should not be instanced.

I wanted to add something to this yesterday but didn't get a chance. To me, I think WoW's dungeons were perfectly instanced, and on top of that there are two solid questing areas that I feel they did really well too: Stromgarde in Arathi Highlands and Jintha'alor in Hinterlands (although this area is about 500x better for Horde than it is with Alliance). I loved getting a group and tearing through these areas to do the quests and it was fun to compete with other groups too. I've heard some people in the past complain about Jintha, but I think it was *perfect*.

Seamless world is good too, it was one thing that sorta bugged me about EQ2 was having to "zone-in" so much. Loved the atmospheres, but having to zone-in to each zone was just a bit annoying.

[jason]

I don't mind zones... hell, instances are zones... I only mind if the zones themselves are small so that zoning happens many times in rapid succession. Cities, if separate zones, should always be one zone. Example... Qeynos in EQ1... Qeynos North and Qeynos South were small zones, they could have easily been one zone, as they were if you were banking and tradeskilling, you zoned a ton... the Catacombs under Qeynos was fine as a separate zone, but even then it was a stretch. EQ1 again... Freeport being 3 zones was bordering on outright ridiculousness, zone zone zone zone zone zone zone... ugh. But using WoW as an example, I'd have no problem with zoning out of Ironforge or Stormwind, or even the occasional zone outdoors (which they do have, WoW is not seemless since you can't swim from one continent to the other, you have to ride the boat and zone).

Yeah, zones break immersion, but frankly having immersion broken every once in a while so your eyes come off the screen and you realize how much time you've just spent in game is a good thing, in my opinion.

[Nybling]

I don't mind zones... hell, instances are zones... I only mind if the zones themselves are small so that zoning happens many times in rapid succession. Cities, if separate zones, should always be one zone. Example... Qeynos in EQ1... Qeynos North and Qeynos South were small zones, they could have easily been one zone, as they were if you were banking and tradeskilling, you zoned a ton... the Catacombs under Qeynos was fine as a separate zone, but even then it was a stretch. EQ1 again... Freeport being 3 zones was bordering on outright ridiculousness, zone zone zone zone zone zone zone... ugh. But using WoW as an example, I'd have no problem with zoning out of Ironforge or Stormwind, or even the occasional zone outdoors (which they do have, WoW is not seemless since you can't swim from one continent to the other, you have to ride the boat and zone).

Yeah, zones break immersion, but frankly having immersion broken every once in a while so your eyes come off the screen and you realize how much time you've just spent in game is a good thing, in my opinion.

Yes, you do "zone" between continents in WoW, but WoW is seamless as each continent goes. You can fly from Booty Bay to Light's Hope Chapel without zoning. Hell, you could fly there on a flying mount had Blizzard not taken about a billion programming shortcuts to save resources when designing Azeroth. Vanguard claimed to be seamless but really it was about as seamless as EQ1. "chunking", "chunking, "chunking". That is annoying as all hell.

[Blackguard]

WoW is overland-seamless. You still have to zone into instances. Will you always have to physically load instanced zones? Well, we'll see what technology brings.

[Tsavo]

Wow hit the sweet spot in all regards on this issue. Seamless world + instanced dungeons/areas is the cat's pajamas.

[MindTwist]

I do not think that any raid dungeon should be instanced. I think that there should be player (guild) competition for all raid targets. Raid targets should drop the rarest and most powerful items and there should not be an unlimited amount of copies of these raid targets. No one wants to see everyone running around with the exact same ubersword of death.

I think that group-based dungeons should be instanced. In EverQuest 1, I didn't like the fact that all the popular dungeons were overcrowded (hello Velks) and that there was really no such thing as dungeon-crawling. There was no such thing as dungeon-crawling because there were groups camped out throughout all the good zones killing mobs as soon as they spawned. You never really got to explore and crawl through the dungeon because mob population was so low and player population was so high. All you did was grab a camp in a dungeon and kill all mobs in that area as soon as they spawned. That diminishes the dungeon experience, I believe.