Quote:
Originally Posted by Daywolf
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Yeah, well instancing is done for two reasons, which you will find in all modern mmo's. 1. it's casual. The whole instant gratification thing, appealing to console players [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
2. well less of an issue now with big developers, but it's easier on server bandwidth. When you have open areas, the more players you add to the zone the more bandwidth usage goes up exponentially. It's cheaper now, but still a heavier load on servers, it can be, increasing lag. Creating instancing is scalable, unlike big populated zones that... I don't think are spliitible as of yet.. other than like chat systems by channels and such that can load elsewhere. I mean there are tricks to doing so, but still it becomes less of an authentic MMO experience.
EQ2 was all instanced, really annoying. I think it was originally a 100 player cap to any open zone, then it would just instance another to fill. That also makes zones easier to develop, costing less money for development, though we didn't pay less money for them :/
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There is another reason... to reduce guild fighting and thus reduce GM/Guide dependence. Throw all the raids into an instance and you have settled basically all of the end game bickering going on between guilds. Everyone that can handle the content gets a shot at it. In the end that lets more people have access to the content but the actual impetus of instanced zones was because there were too many hard core players on the servers and not enough content to keep them happy.
Certainly not classic, but it makes limited guide personnel stretch further and eliminates a huge point of conflict for the end game. Obviously instances won't happen here but given the limited personnel here, they could be put to good use.