Brad McQuaid On Instancing

heartless_ writes "The man behind Everquest and now Vanguard:Saga of Heroes has responded to a Gamergod.com article about chasing that old loving feeling from MMORPGs of the past. He goes off on a long dissertation on Instancing in Massively Multiplayer Roleplaying Games. From the articles 'Let's start with the old school: perhaps the designers are big time original D&D players (or at least AD&D - that's what I played - hey I'm not that old). D&D wasn't massively multiplayer - it was you, your group, and the DM. No one would argue that setup created some great times, great experiences, and great memories. I sure have them. And if that is what you think back on mostly, what you cherish, what you are trying to re-create, then having multiple groups around is a problem.'"

Comments

Instancing and $15/mo

[Anonymous Coward]

Why pay $15/mo for an mmorpg when you spend large amounts of time in instances? Minimally Multiplayer rpgs let me play alone and with a small group of friends over the internets; isn't the monthly fee supposed to be in part to support server infrastructure that does things you couldn't just do with one computer and a non-dedicated server?

Re:Instancing and $15/mo

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you answered your own question. instancing was introduced by some games as a way to provide that catered more details game play thats difficult to do in wide open unscripted areas. It also provides a way for you and your friends to have fun without getting ganked, or harassed by the other morons in the game. Yout get a nice private, scripted, no interference, game play with you and your closests friends.

of course some games take it too far, or dont use it enough. but honestly tryint to complete quests and run around and mine and kill stuff isnt much fun when 500 other people get in your way constantly or bicker senselessly on global chat, or gank your kill or you. not everyone finds that fun.

so a balance between the general population and instanced areas seems to be key. something WoW actually did reasonably well (although there are still some annoying left over EQ'isms like waiting in line to gank the one monster thats the only one thats drops a certain item).

and yeah passing is nice and fast in WoW, but now the problem with WoW is the economy is destroyed and everyone is level 60. suddenly its not as much fun as it use to be.

sorry i digress, but at any rate, instancing has its usefullness and can really enrich your gaming experience, but like anything else it needs to be used wisely.

You can tell Brad doesnt care about PvP.

[L7_]

You can't have a pvp game that uses instances. Some of the best PvP ive ever been exposed to was the dungeon resource xp spots in Asheron's Call on Darktide. Same with the dungeon's in UO: its where people fought, because thier fights were to control resources. It was competitive, and you couldn't famr gold/xp at the best spots without earning that right.

The fact that all PvP is now done in instances in WoW has IMHO really hurt the game (other than the required 40 man instances eek!), since players no longer get to fight over and use persistance resources that everyone could access. The arenas in STV and DM are nice, as well as the huge outdoor raid boss fights, but not near the types of fights that occur over persistant areas in other games, as players dont need to hold/use the areas after killing the boss or opening the chest.

Re:You can tell Brad doesnt care about PvP.

[LincolnQ]

Well, ganking isn't real PvP. I mean, it is PvP, but it's not really fun most of the time. Sure, occasionally you'll run into an equally matched opponent in the world and fight them, and it will be fun. And the grandparent did mention the pvp arenas in STV and DM, which are clearly awesome. So yeah, there is PvP in WoW outside of instances. But it's not really compelling, and you can't rely on it being actually fun.

Compare to Shadowbane, a game based around PvP. Mostly there were big castle sieges, which were tremendously fun because you were defending something you personally cared about -- your own guild's city. There were also bosses with valuable runes, and we would fight other players for the right to keep the rune. And then there were groups of gankers who would go around killing leveling groups, and you had to always be ready to defend yourself against the gankers whenever they might appear. Now that's PvP that you can care about.

On topic, on topic, hmm... Oh yeah, instancing. Shadowbane didn't have instancing and it was great. WoW had instancing and it was only okay (didn't provide me with nearly the fun factor of a non-instanced persistent world). Guild Wars is all instanced... and I like it a lot, but it's the "counter-strike" aspect of its PvP that's fun, rather than the traditional MMO feel. I'm not currently in a guild so I don't really do the bigger, more organized groups in Tombs, but I do the 4v4 random arena and it's loads of fun. I think instancing takes away from the "awesome, I can DO something" feel of the world.