Guild Wars 2

When I originally watched the manifesto, it gave me a warm feeling that developers specifically Arena net may be coming round creating more interactive worlds that brought players together in an open playable environment, this inspired me. While the game is still very young it has been clear that instanced content seems to be the priority, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it’s easier to create, manage and control, but detracts away from my perception of what an MMO is.

Key aspects of this instancing can be seen throughout the game, players commute in a single city and spend much of their time “Looking for a group” to enter an instanced area that incentivises players to repeat the same content, many of the open world zones are rarely visited by many players, this could be due to low population or player reward factors dependent to the location.

As has been describe, developers are currently improving and developing the instanced areas of the game which will further detract from the open world aspects and dynamic events.

I feels there’s several issues to this, one of which may be the inability to resolve issues in the open world, including dynamic events and the number of players impacting on these events. This may be the defining factor; by producing more instanced content, less bugs within a controlled instance provides better game play for all players, consistent rewards, less environment manipulation and less negative feedback.

While I liked, and I’m impressed by the instanced content in story modes or the first time, the repetitive nature of the content can be seen, and active requirements isolating players have risen (specifically fractals), I personally feel that the open world content is where the guildwars 2 does shine, no encounter is ever the same due to the combat mechanisms, number of players and event locality, but it seems to me that this is being neglected.

Advancements in the dynamic event architecture does not seem to have progressed with the release of the lost shores or within the original content “only minor changes”, and leaves me wondering if chain events have not been working out to well pushing an emphasis in current development towards work more on instancing and less on the MMO.

EvilExE.3460:

Key aspects of this instancing can be seen throughout the game, players commute in a single city and spend much of their time “Looking for a group” to enter an instanced area that incentivises players to repeat the same content, many of the open world zones are rarely visited by many players, this could be due to low population or player reward factors dependent to the location.

I don’t want to imply that I approve of this system but….

Please point me in the direction of the MMO this does not describe perfectly?

I’ve said it before in the “GW1 isn’t an MMO it’s a lobby based multiplayer RPG” debate. WoW is a one big kitten lobby while you wait for raids (the real game) which are totally instanced.

It’s an MMO. I’m unaware of any modern MMO that does not have instanced content. Instanced means there there is multiple of something like a dungeon. Not everyone is on the same dungeon even when all those people are from the same server.

Seems like that title is horribly wrong for the premise of your posts content though. It seems like your more worried whether the instanced parts of the game will overwhelm the open area content.

Honestly it will. Because as we all saw during Lost Shore GW2 can’t handle a ton of people in open areas. It just can’t. There not spending time fixing bugs, there not spending time improving the game.

They for some reason are spending time on adding content. It’s baffling.

GW2 is less instanced than GW1.

Volomon.9147:

Honestly it will. Because as we all saw during Lost Shore GW2 can’t handle a ton of people in open areas.

I think it was more of a design and technical issue based on the number of players localised to a specific area. (tbh i think this was a metrics test)

And well, i feel thats the lesser of 2 evils, instanced open world zones with player caps are a far better soloution than purely instanced areas, i also think if they worked on the technology a bit more and increased zone size they would get more people in a zone, allowing for a radial culling system and multiple data servers.

Open world dungeons with multiple levels, that would be cool.

EvilExE.3460:

Volomon.9147:

Honestly it will. Because as we all saw during Lost Shore GW2 can’t handle a ton of people in open areas.

I think it was more of a design and technical issue based on the number of players localised to a specific area. (tbh i think this was a metrics test)

And well, i feel thats the lesser of 2 evils, instanced open world zones with player caps are a far better soloution than purely instanced areas, i also think if they worked on the technology a bit more and increased zone size they would get more people in a zone, allowing for a radial culling system and multiple data servers.

Open world dungeons with multiple levels, that would be cool.

I don’t see why they would do a metrics test, when they had one for closed and one for open. Don’t we already have multiple instance open zones called Overflow? Or are you talking about sectional world zones like in WoW? I personally don’t find it matters to me. In a game like WOW it’s exactly the same thing as what you see in GW2 they just separate the zones with invisible barriers rather than the gates GW2 uses.

They just have the money to buffer in the background and load the new content as your walking into a new area or zone. GW2 takes the old approach: Loading Screen.

Instancing has a negative effect on a game’s community. I don’t know why developers refuse to see that. They seem more inclined to take the easy way out when developing content by simply making it instanced instead of large enough and detailed enough for a lot of people.

Either way instanced or not I would like to see more content that involves more players. With difficulties that don’t revolve around knock-downs, knock-backs, stuns and every other form of control.

as i said in my post “farming and dead zones” i love the multi player dynamic event and offered suggestions to make the world better for those of us who do. i dont like dungeons i would rather farm dynamic events and run dungeons when i need a break kind of like a treat. noone cares what your wearing in DE’s and we all work together and it dont matter when someone gets dc’d or leaves as in fractals of the mists where if someone gets dc’d or leaves on the 3rd instance your screwed and have to start completely from the first instance again.

Unspecified.9142:

EvilExE.3460:

Key aspects of this instancing can be seen throughout the game, players commute in a single city and spend much of their time “Looking for a group” to enter an instanced area that incentivises players to repeat the same content, many of the open world zones are rarely visited by many players, this could be due to low population or player reward factors dependent to the location.

I don’t want to imply that I approve of this system but….

Please point me in the direction of the MMO this does not describe perfectly?

I’ve said it before in the “GW1 isn’t an MMO it’s a lobby based multiplayer RPG” debate. WoW is a one big kitten lobby while you wait for raids (the real game) which are totally instanced.

If you want that completely uninstanced experienced, you have to go old school. I’d recommend one to anyone looking, but these forums probably have an anti-advertising policy on them. You won’t find such a thing in a game made during the post-WoW era.

I wouldn’t say GW2 is becoming more instanced, I’d say it is instanced. I don’t think it’s entirely unexpected to anyone who played GW1. It’s not necessarily a bad thing if done correctly, and quite honestly, I’d say DDO does instances better. I really wish Arena Net would take a leaf out of DDO’s book when it comes to designing instances.

Unfortunately, instanced gameplay is what Themeparks are all about. GW2 was a happy little hybrid- Sandbox/themepark that seemed to make it’s playerbase happy in the middle. However, it is now trying to focus more on becoming a classical Themepark MMO. I guess they decided the sandbox portion wasn’t making enough money, and wanted to try to scoop up the WoW crowd. :-\

You will see a lot more instanced content. That’s the natural progression for themepark MMOs. If you are looking for a game where people spend more time in an open world than holed up in their own little 5-40 man zones, you are looking in the wrong place.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Instancing has a negative effect on a game’s community. I don’t know why developers refuse to see that. They seem more inclined to take the easy way out when developing content by simply making it instanced instead of large enough and detailed enough for a lot of people.

I could easily make an argument the other way . GW1 was entirely instanced and had the friendliest community i ever saw in an MMO .

Adine.2184:

arcaneclarity.5283:

Instancing has a negative effect on a game’s community. I don’t know why developers refuse to see that. They seem more inclined to take the easy way out when developing content by simply making it instanced instead of large enough and detailed enough for a lot of people.

I could easily make an argument the other way . GW1 was entirely instanced and had the friendliest community i ever saw in an MMO .

the instance these people are taking about are the dungeons. not the personal world gw1 offered us. and yes gw1 had an awsome community because it was designed to please every aspect of game play we wanted so we were happy to help each other achieve our goals. instead of ridiculing each other about how crappy our gear was instead we ridicued each other about our skill set up and helped each other get the right skills with temps.

arcaneclarity.5283:

Instancing has a negative effect on a game’s community. I don’t know why developers refuse to see that. They seem more inclined to take the easy way out when developing content by simply making it instanced instead of large enough and detailed enough for a lot of people.

You truly do not know how good players have it with instances? Look at a game like FF11 there where events Dynamis and later on Einherjar these where instances like but not a true your own zone it was a zone that only one group could have for a given time and no other group could get in at the time. It took an community effort to get times right for the major LS to know when it was ok for them to go in and not to go in and if any ONE person went in before the LS could start and tag it as there own the LS would have to wait for that ONE PERSON to run out of time. You have no idea what hell it is to deal with a non instanced system.
Look at it this way what if say fractal would only let one group in at a time so you will have a waiting list or a spam fest. Well if you got the list you will need to know what other 4 your running with what time is good for everyone and how long it will take you (longer you take the longer others must wait and over all making it worst for every one). Now with all of that small things changes times being 5 mins late to an event destroys everyone else planes all because ONE PERSON was late.

GW2 is maybe less instance then GW1 or WoW but playerbase 90% still occupied inside of those instance and only care what they can get there as reward.

GW2 these days open world almost empty, instance full, for the well know farmbug and treadmill desease:P

evasionmoon.1345:

GW2 is maybe less instance then GW1 or WoW but playerbase 90% still occupied inside of those instance and only care what they can get there as reward.

GW2 these days open world almost empty, instance full, for the well know farmbug and treadmill desease:P

And having ppl farming nearly bot like is a community? I think i would take a 5 man group that is talking to each other over brainless farming zombly hordes.
BTW no treadmill in GW2 you must stop trying to lie to yourself and others.

Watching the manifesto and believing what it said was your mistake. Trust me though, you were hardly the only one.

Bluestone.7106:

GW2 is less instanced than GW1.

That should go without saying. It was supposed to be the defining difference between the two, but GW2 seems to be getting more and more like GW1.

This is what I mean, when I say that the direction they’re going in just doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t play MMOs to do instances, and they seem to be going that route more and more, leaving the open world deserted and pointless.

Being instanced or not is not a factor that determines it being an MMO.

It’s number of players playing with each other and/or interacting with the same copy of the world at the same time.

When tracking where’s and who’s everyone starts becoming difficulty, then the game is “massive multiplayer”.
WoW raids were massive, and all shared areas in GW2 are massive.

It doesn’t matter if your perception of an MMO includes things like open world and RPG themes. MMO just means that a massive amount of players play with each other at the same time.
This includes many games, from open world MMORPGs like Everquest, to text-based MUDs, to browser games like OGame.

Many people confuse “open world” with MMO, to the point of calling games like Gothic or The Elder Scrolls “single player MMO”, because many 3D MMOs happen to be open world too.
By definition, there can’t be such a thing as “single player MMO”.
It’s like calling all motor vehicles “train” because trains have wheels like cars and cars have motors.
Even if some people would get it, it’s still nonsensical and they should stop doing that, because it’s confusing for those who don’t get it, and spreads a misconceived term and improper usage of terms.

People also confuse open world/free roam games with ‘sandbox’.
In a sandbox game, you can alter the world and rarely have any objectives, in a free roam game, there’s objectives, but you are free to do things at your own pace, and the world changes mainly depening on story progression, not by your direct action with tools to change the world.

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Watching the manifesto and believing what it said was your mistake. Trust me though, you were hardly the only one.

This.

I´m still here only because of the work of Daniel “Count” Dociu and his team.

I think instances or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that what we are given works.
So far i found event in hi zones extremely buggy and instances working better. If they need instances to make this game work, then so be it. I’d rather see a good instance then a crappy event. Especially the worst ones like the temples in Malchor and cursed shores. Those are real bad and poorly done.

Bluestone.7106:

GW2 is less instanced than GW1.

Pretty much exactly what I was going to say. Guild Wars 1 was like…. 90% instanced (because really, none of the game/story actually took place in the towns).

While people still care about their character ‘story’ (I personally don’t) we will always have instanced content because people don’t want random people screwing up their game world since story stuff tends to develop the character and it’s personal world.

I look forward to a time when games can be advanced/complex enough to support fully persistant and ever changing environments in a smooth and refined way without the need for hand-holding through quests and storyline.

I feel GW2 is a step in the right direction steering away from the traditional quest system. Still not perfect but I look forward to what this prompts other developers to do.

Dinny.5310:

Bluestone.7106:

GW2 is less instanced than GW1.

Pretty much exactly what I was going to say. Guild Wars 1 was like…. 90% instanced (because really, none of the game/story actually took place in the towns).

Be that as it may, people are now spending all their time in instances and completely ignoring the persistent world.

GW1 was more instanced but people are spending their time in instances in GW2 just the same.

That’s part of what the OP is saying I think. Even though GW2 isn’t as instanced, people aren’t in the persistent areas cause, well, there’s lesser rewards than FotM and the difference is huge. The whole idea of the world changing because of player action was a big deal….well, there’s nobody left to watch it. I know an exaggeration but there’s not many people left there if I have to believe all the other posts complaining of empty zones…

Gehenna.3625:

The whole idea of the world changing because of player action was a big deal….well, there’s nobody left to watch it. I know an exaggeration but there’s not many people left there if I have to believe all the other posts complaining of empty zones…

It doesn’t really change though. It bounces back and forth between specific preset settings. It is a nice concept and hopefully develops further in future games but this small step is not enough to pull people away from the more rewarding and controlled instanced content.

Bluestone.7106:

Gehenna.3625:

The whole idea of the world changing because of player action was a big deal….well, there’s nobody left to watch it. I know an exaggeration but there’s not many people left there if I have to believe all the other posts complaining of empty zones…

It doesn’t really change though. It bounces back and forth between specific preset settings. It is a nice concept and hopefully develops further in future games but this small step is not enough to pull people away from the more rewarding and controlled instanced content.

Well, it was just an example of what they wanted to do with the game but became something that most people apparently have abandoned for a single dungeon.

You could ask yourself the question of how much people appreciate the end result of years of work when the idea of new stats on a couple of gear pieces is enough to pull people into a dungeon that was brought too quickly compared to years of work into a persistent world with a lot of new ideas that really need a redesign to actually work.

It’s fun the first time around completing and doing puzzles. After that….it seems the effort doesn’t match the output when it comes to the persistent world.

I much enjoyed the open world events and just wondering the land. Now the land is barren and its not even fun. There is next to no reward to exploring either. All there is is endless grinding of fractals or dungeons.

The only thing I really like any more is WvW.

Gehenna.3625:

You could ask yourself the question of how much people appreciate the end result of years of work when the idea of new stats on a couple of gear pieces is enough to pull people into a dungeon that was brought too quickly compared to years of work into a persistent world with a lot of new ideas that really need a redesign to actually work.

Yes, people are overemphasising gear in GW2, an old habit from past MMOs I think. Not a trap I have fallen into thankfully

Gehenna.3625:

It’s fun the first time around completing and doing puzzles. After that….it seems the effort doesn’t match the output when it comes to the persistent world.

Personally, i have 2 characters at 100% world completion and am well on my way with my other 5 characters. Enjoying every step on every character.

Cybil Song.2359:

I think instances or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that what we are given works.
So far i found event in hi zones extremely buggy and instances working better. If they need instances to make this game work, then so be it. I’d rather see a good instance then a crappy event. Especially the worst ones like the temples in Malchor and cursed shores. Those are real bad and poorly done.

I disagree, and consider the open world part of the game to be the best. It works better in this game than any other MMO I’ve played, in years. At least, it used to, before endgame turned it into an instance grind.

So, I also disagree that whether or not the game is instanced is irrelevant. It might seem that way to you, but it does make the game feel less like an MMO. That might not matter to everyone, but for some of us, that is extremely important.

The open world is the whole reason I play MMOs, really.