The Pinnacle of Everquest (In your opinion)

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Daldaen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This. LDoN was great to have a good-old classic dungeon crawl where you generally don't know where you are going or the camps/named etc. Felt more explorish, until you learned each of the 5 maps per 5 areas.

I really don't get the hate on instancing, see every raid dispute and camp dispute ever. People on the internet don't play nice.

Well come on dudebro not everybody has to be the same. I don't like instancing, so you going to hang me? However, listen to me, I agree with you that LDONs were more explorish because they were lightly random - which also puts everyone on more equal footing. LDON's were also tailored for a single group, as opposed to the more chaotic situation where a dungeon is designed for 50+ people of varying level trying to do 6+ groups, even as some of them are soloing or doing god knows what. And of course not having to fight for spawns was popularly liked. This is why instances became so popular. They were the answer to the problems apparently plaguing the open world.

Hear me out. I can't tell you exactly why instancing turned/turns me off. I think it's because it feels so controlled. The open world is more unplanned, mostly because designers can't know for sure what other players are going to do. Players are the ultimate AI who'll use every tool available to manipulate the world and other players. Designers on their best days can only do so much to clamp down on what players do. And here is where the beauty occurs! In all this unplanned mess magic happens, and the magic happens because of the mystery of the human mind which still continues to defy complete explanation. Yes, other players can hurt us either through mechanics or words or their actions, but they can also inspire us and give us some of the most memorable moments we'll ever experience. And those moments will be completely unique to us. They were not created by designers. No money was spent. These magical moments occur on their own.

I just prefer to play in the open world. To ahve the chance to see someoen else when I'm adventuring. I want that possibility, even if I have to pay for it by experiencing some negative things. Note that as soon as a game adds instancing, more and more players will use it and the open world becomes less populated. Players get hooked on instancing because there's less adversity. Soon, the game designers will abandon the open world and spend their resources on instancing. This is why I do not trust even small amounts of instancing in an open world.

If 98 MMO's all have instancing, I want at least 2 which do not have any. I don't care if 50 of them have only a small amount of instancing. I want 1 or 2 which don't have any at all.