[Opinion] EQ Next - Game Changers/Breakers

[Kiwaukee]

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

Honestly, you're setting yourself up for failure if you think that a big box SOE MMO is not going to have instancing.

Please describe how you would accommodate 1 million+ subscriptions w/o the virtual real estate provided by instancing. All popular or near popular MMOs contain instanced dungeons, or even instanced zones at large.

The scale of gameplay cannot be contained to static zones that crash if there are 150+ people in them. The population is just too spread out. With the prevalent technology we have all information about the game will be catalogued and readily available within days of its discovery. If people have to wait to get to a singular spawn that only occurs once every 30 minutes, they will rightfully think that is bad game design.

I absolutely think there is a place for static zones and a server community. I just don't see why an instance is evil - given the circumstances I described. A bundled adventure that you have to form a group for yourself, that has to be traveled to. It doesn't mean there can't be zones like unrest, it just means that there can't ONLY be zones like unrest.

How many unrest zones do you need for a server whose population is 30,000?

Original EQ worked fine with similar circumstances and less technology by limiting server populations. Limit the server population to 5000 and have 200 servers. Encourage players to create characters on low population servers using common methods (Preferred servers, free transfers, etc.).

Couple that with the innate diversity within the game (characters of different races level in different areas and each have different options within a given level range) and you have a functional system that can operate without fracturing the community.

That's the driving point behind non-instanced gameplay - people would rather have a real community and wait 30 minutes for a spawn or move to another camp because their target is occupied than instantly get what they're looking for and never care about the people they play with. Your focus is too narrow - you're assuming people will only enjoy the game if they don't have to wait for things, and that's simply not true. Having to wait or having to work for things in games like EQ was what made each upgrade and each group a true accomplishment. Ask people who play here what they think about WoW as it stands currently, and most of them will tell you that it's turned into a kiddie game where you're spoon fed pixels.

No thanks. I like my pixels at the top of a mountain, not right outside my front door.

EDIT: Making a game that's instantly gratifying in the manner described is only asking to be in direct competition with WoW, and no one in their right mind wants to do that. People who play WoW (or are addicted) will likely never leave it for a similar experience for any extended amount of time because of the investment that they have in their characters. WoW, while watered down, is still fun sometimes. People won't just quit for a similar game. You have to have a marked difference in your content and play style to draw players out of the MMO market and retain them. Non-instanced, competition for content can be that difference for EQN.

[August]

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

Original EQ worked fine with similar circumstances and less technology by limiting server populations. Limit the server population to 5000 and have 200 servers. Encourage players to create characters on low population servers using common methods (Preferred servers, free transfers, etc.).

Couple that with the innate diversity within the game (characters of different races level in different areas and each have different options within a given level range) and you have a functional system that can operate without fracturing the community.

That's the driving point behind non-instanced gameplay - people would rather have a real community and wait 30 minutes for a spawn or move to another camp because their target is occupied than instantly get what they're looking for and never care about the people they play with. Your focus is too narrow - you're assuming people will only enjoy the game if they don't have to wait for things, and that's simply not true. Having to wait or having to work for things in games like EQ was what made each upgrade and each group a true accomplishment. Ask people who play here what they think about WoW as it stands currently, and most of them will tell you that it's turned into a kiddie game where you're spoon fed pixels.

No thanks. I like my pixels at the top of a mountain, not right outside my front door.

I don't understand why you think that having 'instances' causes your entire gameplay is non-instanced.

As to my focus, it's anything but narrow. You cannot limit an MMO launch to 5k people. The amount of uptake and then submission relapse is huge on new releases. If you start with 5k people per server, it may end up with only 1k active people. Increase this cap but don't increase the game world, and people are constantly fighting over resources (quest mobs, drops, camps) and people quit out of frustration. There is a very fine balance between world size and population that I feel the majority of people don't put into consideration.

And please stop bringing up WoW in its current incarnation. I don't like it and I don't participate it, and I'm not advocating that system at all if you read what I write.

[Kiwaukee]

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

I don't understand why you think that having 'instances' causes your entire gameplay is non-instanced.

As to my focus, it's anything but narrow. You cannot limit an MMO launch to 5k people. The amount of uptake and then submission relapse is huge on new releases. If you start with 5k people per server, it may end up with only 1k active people. Increase this cap but don't increase the game world, and people are constantly fighting over resources (quest mobs, drops, camps) and people quit out of frustration. There is a very fine balance between world size and population that I feel the majority of people don't put into consideration.

And please stop bringing up WoW in its current incarnation. I don't like it and I don't participate it, and I'm not advocating that system at all if you read what I write.

I don't understand your first sentence, but if you're trying to say that my perspective is that instances are evil and that there should be absolutely zero of them, that's not correct.

And of course I didn't mean that servers should be limited to exactly 5k people on release, it was just a number that I threw out there to show that server population can be controlled as a means to promote un-instanced content. Obviously, more people will be playing in the first few weeks than over the life of the game, but that's the same for any MMO. You shouldn't build your entire game to try to work around the fact that the low level zones will be a disaster for a month or two. That's part of the process. Once the levels begin to bell curve out, population will stabilize.

Build your servers with an ideal peak population that fits the size of your open world. The first week or two will be nuts, and every server will feel like Orc Hill or the Newbie Log would feel if P99 wiped and rerolled tomorrow. After a while, it would settle. Yes, some people would quit because they get frustrated with the early overcrowding, but that's just part of the process.

Some instances would be fine, but you'd have to limit them. I personally enjoyed the LDoN instances because they encouraged repeat runs for progress and had some element of randomness to them. The format promoted grouping with the same people and developing a system of progression through each dungeon type. That's the type of instancing that works FOR the community of the game without taking a huge chunk out of the competition element, and that's the type of stuff I'm talking about.

[stormlord]

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

Honestly, you're setting yourself up for failure if you think that a big box SOE MMO is not going to have instancing.

Please describe how you would accommodate 1 million+ subscriptions w/o the virtual real estate provided by instancing. All popular or near popular MMOs contain instanced dungeons, or even instanced zones at large.

The scale of gameplay cannot be contained to static zones that crash if there are 150+ people in them. The population is just too spread out. With the prevalent technology we have all information about the game will be catalogued and readily available within days of its discovery. If people have to wait to get to a singular spawn that only occurs once every 30 minutes, they will rightfully think that is bad game design.

I absolutely think there is a place for static zones and a server community. I just don't see why an instance is evil - given the circumstances I described. A bundled adventure that you have to form a group for yourself, that has to be traveled to. It doesn't mean there can't be zones like unrest, it just means that there can't ONLY be zones like unrest.

How many unrest zones do you need for a server whose population is 30,000?

No point in tryign to convicne people who do not like isntancing.

But I agree that there's very very high chance of instancing in EQN.

Just don't start pounding your chest and acting superior.

I wish people would just realize there's a difference in opinion and leave it alone. The past 15 years of arguing back and forth is never productive. It's like a husband and wife that can't divorce or something.

I was arguing a whole lot back on live. That was b4 I realized there were options out there. I felt like the game I had liked was being smashed and remade into some circus show. I didn't realize back then how many games are available. There're tons. I tended to stick to a couple games, I didn't explore a lot.

[Millburn]

I want to see an auction house you have to interface with both from a game menu perspective but also from a community perspective. The idea that I have in my head right now is that you have very few auction houses or trade hubs in the world but in those areas you are limited to posting only a few items at a time for menu searching. If you want to sell more you hang out in the zone and hawk your wares like the good old EC days. I feel like this is a good compromise of convenience and community.

[Rooj]

I'm serious - I would rather have training, overpopulation, lack of camps and available content, and even long camps instead of instances.

[Rhaj]

I will never play a game that has instancing at its core. Thats why I couldn't stand most "modern" MMORPGs.

[t0lkien]

Here's the thing though - removing the "down" side of open world also removes the positive, deep side. They two are sides of the same coin. Same with a punitive death penalty, and a slow progression curve. You can't make things easier and less painful, and keep the immensity of the reward.

Also, you lose the inevitable moments of synchronicity that happen when players are forced into community that could never be planned for or designed. That is the beauty of open world MMOs. I hated aspects of the endgame cluster on live, but I loved what accompanied it. You don't get that love without that hate. This informed guild structures, and the entire meta game that was the community. Instances reduce and inevitably kill all that. It creates a smaller experience.

I understand a lot of people prefer that, but I also understand we are talking about different games. I won't commit to a game that has any type of instancing for these and many other reasons that have to do with inevitable design impact. It's like avoiding certain openings in chess because they lead to certain types of middle and endgame. You may not be able to see that during the opening, but it's inevitable and logically inescapable. A seemingly innocuous pawn move during the first 10 moves can lose you the game 30 moves later. Instancing may not be immediately obviously bad, but the results of it are IMO. And that can be seen in all the games that have implemented it.

P.S. LDoN was crap for me, and I actually quit the game for a long time after it. The augmentation system accompanying it was also ugly, inelegantly complex, and game changing in a bad way (and clearly implemented to force players to play longer, and farm instances, not because it increased the fun aspect i.e. it was an SOE-ism that the original designers would never have considered).... but that's another discussion.

P.P.S. I'm still waiting on a link showing 40k active connections per WoW server.

[Kagatob]

I like to compare instancing as a gaming mechanic to cell-shading as a graphical medium.
Both were quick cheap fixes that became essentially the standard for a while before a better solution was created, but boy did things suck during the transition.

[Millburn]

I thought Wind Waker and XIII were pretty awesome actually.