Say NO to instanced Guild housing or instanced repeatable content.

[Tyncale]

AKA: where is everyone?!

Imo there are 2 large reasons for the emptying out of the game-environment that you see in so many MMO's:

• In your average Themepark MMO the maturing playerbase always ends up in the higher end content/areas;

• Instancing of repeatable content, and instanced Guild housing.

The first point will hopefully be adressed becuase PFO is a skill-based sandbox with no specific endgame that is tied to levels.

The second point: I know instancing can be a wonderful tool to deliver high quality content for specific purposes/players, but in certain implementations it carries a great risk of emptying out the gameworld.

• Instanced Guild housing, especially when these deliver all sorts of utilities: Guilds will hole up in here, preparing for battle, using utilities, chatting.

• Repeatable instanced content, like dungeons or missions.

I have not heard much yet about how GW will go about housing for Chartered Companies but I hope these will be open structures, so that anyone can actually witness the gathering, as long as they are welcome in that settlement in the first place off course. If not then I fear that settlements will soon be nothing more then empty scenery where groups of players will be hiding in their instanced Guildhouses or Crafthouses or Tradehouses.

Instanced content can be a killer too, especially if it is easily repeatable and very beneficial to the player. Now the dungeon-spawning(and discovering) system that GW has talked about looks interesting, but if the spawnrate is frequent, if they are easily found and if they give a nice reward, then I can already see where half of the players will be...in some instanced dungeon.

I see people(and devs!) talking in posts about towns and townlife and bar-brawls and players travelling on roads, and it makes me giddy like everyone else: but very doubtfull too wether GW can make their world so that there are in fact "well traveled roads", like Lee Hammock mentioned in the thread about fast travel......

In fact the only game where I would still encounter players travelling the roads a year after release was Everquest, since it did not have instanced content or instant travel(exept for ports from Druids and Wizards) at that time yet.

I would LOVE to see that return.

[JDNYC]

Check the blog and the power point video Ryan did. Housing is still far future, so we don't know about that. But we do know about settlements. Guild Charter just gives you a spot to build a settlement. You have to build it and then keep it. No instances as far as I'm aware of.

[Eta D'Lore]

I miss the West Commons Tunnel for trading lol... In EQII there were hundreds of OTHERz guild/player instances that I never knew existed nor did I see. I'm currently playing (DayZ) that is not instanced it is smaller im sure but it flows seemlessly their devs handled it by only spawning mobs/minions/creatures when players are within a certain range. Not saying this is a fix all but it is a step in the right direction... I don't mind a 5 minute load time if it means no instances ;p But I understand we have to work with what we got. Gluck making your mark GW!

-My2Cents
Customize, customize, customize =Win/Win

[Southraven]

It hasn't been made clear how they will handle "randomly appearing" dungeons but it would be likely that they would be instances of some kind. Given they are meant to be somewhat transient things, I'm not quite sure they would fit into the classical definition of a themepark instance. You certainly wouldn't be just sitting about in town waiting for a queue to pop like some other games.

As for housing/guild housing, while not much has been stated about it, it strikes me as one of the more ambitious aspects of the game, since what has been mentioned seemed to imply not just houses, but whole fortresses and sprawling cityscapes for bigger guilds built by concerted player efforts.

I think we'll be ok, it's early days but the released information sounds promising.

[Tyveil]

I don't think there will be instances of anything, hopefully that is the case. A port to housing may be used to split server load but would not load into it's own instance.

[Tyncale]

Yes, the dynamic nature of the PFO dungeons and the fact that they have to be discovered hopefully will make the big difference with a regular instanced dungeon, since at least players will have to go out in the world and find it everytime.

Another thing that makes me hopeful is the fact that there is just the single server. This will make it easier to control the "population density" since you do not have to resort to draconian (and irrevocable) solutions like merging servers. The phased enrollment of players also ties into this off course. If they see that population is thinning too much, they can slow down the release of extra hexes, things like that. With a single server you have the entire player-base at your disposal to bring back balance to the world.

[JDNYC]

Well we know that the tavern can be taken away from you even after spending 5 grand on it, if you don't pay the upkeep. I would say the other stuff is probably fair game too.

[Carbunkle Squirrelbane]

Tyncale wrote:

In fact the only game where I would still encounter players travelling the roads a year after release was Everquest, since it did not have instanced content or instant travel(exept for ports from Druids and Wizards) at that time yet.

The NWN Richterm perpetual worlds had a lot of traffic on the roads.

However on Richterm servers instant travel was limited and generally one way. You walked to the destination of interest (for mining rare gems and ore for example) and then if you had the ability could port home. The exception was you could port out to an individual in the field who was in your own guild, however that individual still had to walk there.

[Uthreth Baelcoressitas]

I seem to remember Stephen Cheney once saying that they would try not to instance dungeons but that they will see how they're limited by the tech.

[Marlagram]

EVE have partially instanced content - targets of security missions in pocket regions of space, but this had not ruined the game.
Travel and hauling goods is not an instant click. You get a mission, you travel to the place, got some encounters, win them and haul loot back. All this can happen on one or two hexes (in PFO terms).
EVE's "appearing dungeons" must be found prior to exploration. And they despawn after use - only to respawn 10-20 minutes later - on the "hex" 20-30 hexes away. (actually, about two constellations away). Without fast travel there is no way to grind something repeatedly.
I hope Goblinworks will implement similar system. Or maybe even something better?

[Dakcenturi]

Instanced dungeons I would be ok with, but I agree player housing and guild buildings etc should not be instanced.

In Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) they had non-instanced housing and guild halls etc. Of course, they allowed players to set permissions on who could and could not enter, but if it was open to anyone then anyone could go into it.

[Dorje Sylas]

EVE also used semi-instansed temporary dungeons for player PvE missions. The reason for the semi is that they could still be found by other people who had the right skills and equipment to "scan" for other ships and ship wreckage. Which were the same skills needed to find randomly occurring non-Player generated areas of interest, which includes things like gas clouds and other high value resource.

In PFO I could see this being some offshoot of the Surveil Skills, and another big reason why I want PETS! Hawks and other birds or even land based animals could easily substitute for EVE Probes when it comes to 'searching' an area for hidden things.

[Drewber]

I personally hope there will be no instancing at all (except maybe dungeons/raids). Instancing is just a way to limit people with who they can play with. I think GW2 did a good job with keeping their world not instanced and open(except for the personal storylines, but it made sense for that to be instanced)

[Marthian]

Tyncale wrote:

AKA: where is everyone?!

Imo there are 2 large reasons for the emptying out of the game-environment that you see in so many MMO's:

• In your average Themepark MMO the maturing playerbase always ends up in the higher end content/areas;

• Instancing of repeatable content, and instanced Guild housing.

The first point will hopefully be adressed becuase PFO is a skill-based sandbox with no specific endgame that is tied to levels.

The second point: I know instancing can be a wonderful tool to deliver high quality content for specific purposes/players, but in certain implementations it carries a great risk of emptying out the gameworld.

• Instanced Guild housing, especially when these deliver all sorts of utilities: Guilds will hole up in here, preparing for battle, using utilities, chatting.

• Repeatable instanced content, like dungeons or missions.

I have not heard much yet about how GW will go about housing for Chartered Companies but I hope these will be open structures, so that anyone can actually witness the gathering, as long as they are welcome in that settlement in the first place off course. If not then I fear that settlements will soon be nothing more then empty scenery where groups of players will be hiding in their instanced Guildhouses or Crafthouses or Tradehouses.

Instanced content can be a killer too, especially if it is easily repeatable and very beneficial to the player. Now the dungeon-spawning(and discovering) system that GW has talked about looks interesting, but if the spawnrate is frequent, if they are easily found and if they give a nice reward, then I can already see where half of the players will be...in some instanced dungeon.

I see people(and devs!) talking in posts about towns and townlife and bar-brawls and players travelling on roads, and it makes me giddy like everyone else: but very doubtfull too wether GW can make their world so that there are in fact "well traveled roads", like Lee Hammock mentioned in the thread...

*I doubt there will be higher end content/areas. Settlements aren't going to be "Everyone around this town is level 70" (I know there isn't levels.), they will be the home for all variety of skilled people from low skills to high skills. At worst, dungeons, mines, and other resource areas will cause people to be gone for a few hours.

*It sounds like it will be pretty hard to do repeatable content. While dungeons are instanced (to an extent, other people can come in and aid or ruin you), they are randomized, so one day it may be in hex 15,21 and the next it's 42,32 (and I believe you will have to find them.) Guild housing, not sure. I'm kind of hoping it's just a meeting place, and nothing more, and even so, outside members can come in too (although they could get in trouble depending on the openness.)

I'm also expecting that the buildings such as smiths, markets, and the like will be outside and open to the public.

[Tyncale]

In the blog about dungeons it is already said that the larger type of dungeons will allow several parties in at the same time, so that looks like a return to the good old open-world dungeon (as in Everquest) which I like.

I am more afraid of the bite-sized, smaller instances that are just for one group: if these are plenty, easily found/spotted and have a good reward, then this could become "grind" content where half of the playerbase will be at. But considering the way it is setup, I think it could be easily tweaked by GW. And there is always the added danger of roaming player-bandits, throwing up a natural hurdle to this sort of grinding.

Edit: also what you said, Marthian. The dynamic nature of the lairs and dungeons will help a lot against them becoming grindy content that will hole up a large percentage of the players.

[Misere]

The only instancing I would like to see in the future is housing of some sort. I really enjoyed eq2 type customizable housing and the swg way of using things for trophies in their houses. Dungeons, imo, should be open to whoever can find the entrance and survive inside.

[Dorje Sylas]

Tyncale, seriously go look at how EVE handles this. EVE is hardly empty because of their PvE "space dungeon" raiding. My only major gripe about EVE PvE is that it was really hard to from impromptu groups due to Trust issues, which was due to EVEs setting and meta. Everything else can work in context of PFO. It was just the Trust issue of not knowing if a player/character was a plant that was out to backstab and assist in griefing that made it inferior.

[Tyveil]

Tyncale wrote:

In the blog about dungeons it is already said that the larger type of dungeons will allow several parties in at the same time, so that looks like a return to the good old open-world dungeon (as in Everquest) which I like.

I am more afraid of the bite-sized, smaller instances that are just for one group: if these are plenty, easily found/spotted and have a good reward, then this could become "grind" content where half of the playerbase will be at. But considering the way it is setup, I think it could be easily tweaked by GW. And there is always the added danger of roaming player-bandits, throwing up a natural hurdle to this sort of grinding.

If dungeons end up too populated, players can move on and find other ones. Could open up some interesting possibilities with players vying for control of certain dungeons. As long as they're not unique/required content, which I think GW will stay away from, then it's a non-issue. Instancing is never required, it was a horrible mechanic that fixes a problem created by theme-park linear content.

[Tyncale]

Dorje, good to hear that about Eve. I tried to check out Eve a few times in the past but never made it past the tutorial: humongous learningcurve. Also much more a Fantasy fan then an SF fan.

But the game has always intrigued me (reading about it) and the fact that PFO (and Ryan) are Eve-inspired is actually one of the reasons I became interested in PFO.

PFO *has* to take a HUGE step away from the current crop of Fantasy MMO's, else I will have wasted my money for sure.

[Dorje Sylas]

Oh it will. If it can avoid some of the backstabbery BS and innate (almost encouraged) griefing that plagues EVE, it will. Since the Devs are going to take a hard stand on griefing from the start they're already one=upping EVE in my book.

Deadspace a.k.a player spawned instances for NPC quest dungeons.

How to do Probing in EVE, or how to find people in Deadspaces and warp/travel to them. Useful in Low Sec (full PvP space) for actually hunting mission runners. Or in High Sec for finding a "dungeon" that is being run and "looting/stealing" all the stuff they've left on the bodies.

How EVE NPC missions/quests work for people who've never played EVE.

[Drakhan Valane]

Tyncale wrote:

Dorje, good to hear that about Eve. I tried to check out Eve a few times in the past but never made it past the tutorial: humongous learningcurve. Also much more a Fantasy fan then an SF fan.

EVE's Learning Curve

[Tyncale]

Drakhan Valane wrote:

Tyncale wrote:

Dorje, good to hear that about Eve. I tried to check out Eve a few times in the past but never made it past the tutorial: humongous learningcurve. Also much more a Fantasy fan then an SF fan.

EVE's Learning Curve

Haha, yes, that's about right. :)