Quote:
Originally Posted by fischsemmel
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Instances are an absolutely freaking horrible idea.
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I don't agree, but in p1999's case, I do.
Instances do not fit in the open world scheme that was classic eq.
More end game encounters is probably what's needed. It just requires more work than instances. But new content is never a bad thing! Instances can be a bad thing if they're over-used because it's not new.
A lockout timer for individual characters and a quicker spawn rate might work. If you've killed a particular endgame dragon, for example, and your lockout timer is still active, you cannot get credit for its kill or loot it. So you can't do a ninja steal, nor can you loot in someone else's place. An additional measure might be to prevent any attacks on the target for which you have a locket timer active. Further measures can be looked at as the situation becomes clearer. This would virtually eliminate guilds camping a target just for a few members who don't have the locket timer active. This also makes it easier to schedule raids because players don't have to fight their own natural impulse to kill a endgame target (in order to satisfy a server schedule). For example, if we just killed Inny and he quickly spawns again and we're able to get him, a server schedule that prohibits us from doing so feels weak. A lockout timer, on the other hand, doesn't have any give, so it won't feel weak. The quicker spawn rate is necessary to keep the population satisfied.
I think that server schedules are themselves a weak solution to a big problem. First, they're a potential sign that content is not meeting the needs of players. I say potential because a game might intend raids to only be a small part of the full game. But if players feel such a need to create server schedules, this hints that they're not content with raiding being a small part of the game, but it could also mean that the rest of the game does not meet its design goals. Second, they force players to work together in a way that's not welcome. Lockout timers can restrict the traffic and remove the need for the player community to do it themselves. This is critical. Players should not have to measure their game, that's the responsibility of the game itself. For example, if warriors are short on the server and players are supposed to know this in order to make more warriors to compensate, this is just bad management of the game. If warriors are short then this can be solved entirely on the development side. Forcing players to pick up the slack is making them do the developer's job.
I made a post about raiding on p1999 a little while back:
http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...&postcount=162