Instances destroyed EQ

[mimixownzall]

Instances is just lazy developement.

Instead of creating multiple large static dungeons, they come out with 3 or 4 instances that take 10 mins to breeze through.

Then you get douchebag tanks or healers who go to the first boss... it doesn't drop what they want, so they disband leaving the group without key positions. They go requeue and join in less than 30 seconds while the DPS wait 20+ minutes to get another group.

It's fucking retarded.

Instances also killed world PvP, which is the funnest PvP.

I could live with instances if they would allow you to join existing ones kinda like EQ2 in the beginning (only played first few months of EQ2). If it would give me a list of instances occupied by opposing factions and let me join it, that would be bad ass. A TRUE PVP server.

[Lyzard]

Originally Posted by greatdane [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It killed the spirit of Everquest. It's a game designed for a big population inhabiting the same world, which is why dungeons often have half a dozen or more "camps", i.e spots that can occupy a whole group. That's what EQ was all about: the life and dynamic of the server, the community and relationships you formed with others, and the fact that your behaviour actually mattered because it had an influence on others. This fostered a much more tolerable community than found in more modern MMORPGs where instances and cross-server groups remove any chance of consequences, leading to the increasingly widespread trend of people doing whatever the hell they want and acting like total imbeciles. You wouldn't get away with that in EQ, but the invention of instances was the first step towards gaming communities that have now become unbearable.

Couldnt agree more... Everquest was my first MMO back when I was like 13 years old and i've played many other MMO's since. (Guild Wars, SW, Star Trek and mainly WoW) The problem IMO was that SOE (post Velious) and all other MMO's thereafter focused on making their games "solo" friendly... by introducing instances anyone could log on at any point in the day no matter whether you have 20 minutes or 24 hours to play the game and still get something done. This is fine although they failed to interpret the points that made Everquest such an amazing game.

Instead of building new relationships with people and later looking them up to form groups which lead to creating new guilds of genuine friends you could enter a queue of thousands of people whom you have never met or will probably never ever see again, group, get the instance done and leave.
What's more is that while you are in said group no one types a single word to one another as the game is too fast to blink, there are hundreds of abilties/spells to use/cast without any downtime, and if you did happen to get some chat out of someone it's usually to flame another member of the group for "taking too long" or "being a n00bz0r".

They essentially turned the MMORPG into a single player online game...

with all that said...

THANK THE LORD FOR P1999 I loved EQ so so much back in the day and after many many years of playing through the declining drool that falls into the category of "MMORPG" I can honestly say that I appreciate P1999 even more for it.

Keep up the awesome job, and again... Thankyou [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[mitic]

instanced zones have been created just for all those whiners not being able to compete with hardcore guilds. and as we can see in this forums lately, they where not completely wrong with that.

[Uaellaen]

Originally Posted by mitic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

instanced zones have been created just for all those whiners not being able to compete with hardcore guilds. and as we can see in this forums lately, they where not completely wrong with that.

just because it shuts up the whiners doesnt mean it wasnt wrong ...

if a 3 year old sees its parents drink alcohol / smoke / do any other "cool things" only adults can do (a group they do not belong to, but want to be in) and it starts crying throwing tantrums etc. its not the right way to let them get drunk you know ...

instances killed alot of the "achievements" or rather the feeling to have something accomplished ... for that you actualy NEED to "work" some to even get that feeling ...

also killer the competing wich again added a feeling of accomplishment when you "won" and as already mentitioned the community since now you could basicly get away with everything ...

its like the special olympics, everyone always wins YAY!

[Vohl]

I think that the greatest failure of EQ was the inability to attract new players after awhile, due to outdated graphics and overly-complicated character advancement. While these were hardly an issue for any of us, prospective new players will judge a book by its cover. Once new player population cut down to a trickle, the server populations started to disperse, over time making pickup groups hard to find and reducing social interplay between players.

[Bubbles]

Originally Posted by mitic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

pop books and instances ruined eq

funny tho, everyone pissed here about 2 guild taking all the dragons on p99 but then noone wants instnced anyways! haha

Considering what a small % of people post (or even read) the forums, we don't even know what the vast majority of people want anyways. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Samoht]

you guys seem to ignore one major factor in the decision to use instancing: population

if a static zone is only capable of supporting 3 or 4 groups of casual EXPers, then what happens with the server population is at a point where 7 or 8 groups need to EXP there?

think velks from velious. it's the premier EXP zone for the expansion 55-60, and yet can only support 5 EXP groups max. what happens on p99 when everybody floods that zone and you get 50+ people in there competing over spawns and arguing over loot?

i remember playing the guild wars stress test weekend between betas for wow, and the way they solved this problem was by giving zones a population cap before a new version of the zone was instanced, but you could freely switch between the two depending on where you needed to be. imagine velks is at 40 pop, you zone in as 41, but instead it sends you to your own instance where you're number 1. you realise that your group is in the other instance, and you switch over. the population goes up to 41 and after zoning, you run up to your camp. the next people that zone in are in a group, and now they're the only ones in their own zone.

[Nytewind TP]

Instances were needed in LDoN, but yes other than that I hate Instances. Instances in EQ2 were just F'ing lame. They instancted normal zones.

[Demetrium]

Originally Posted by Samoht [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

you guys seem to ignore one major factor in the decision to use instancing: population

if a static zone is only capable of supporting 3 or 4 groups of casual EXPers, then what happens with the server population is at a point where 7 or 8 groups need to EXP there?

think velks from velious. it's the premier EXP zone for the expansion 55-60, and yet can only support 5 EXP groups max. what happens on p99 when everybody floods that zone and you get 50+ people in there competing over spawns and arguing over loot?

i remember playing the guild wars stress test weekend between betas for wow, and the way they solved this problem was by giving zones a population cap before a new version of the zone was instanced, but you could freely switch between the two depending on where you needed to be. imagine velks is at 40 pop, you zone in as 41, but instead it sends you to your own instance where you're number 1. you realise that your group is in the other instance, and you switch over. the population goes up to 41 and after zoning, you run up to your camp. the next people that zone in are in a group, and now they're the only ones in their own zone.

Velks was the "premier EXP zone" because people made it that way. Servers have always had population caps; Velious did not increase this cap and furthermore added another dungeon where you could level from 55-60. Additionally more "mains" would be 60 by now so you'd have yet another 55-60 dungeon for a theoretically smaller-than-before 55-59 population. There was absolutely nothing stopping you from leveling in Charasis, Chardok, etc. You can argue the loot was better in Velks, but it's not like it mudflated Kunark loot to garbage. You could always farm cash other places if you wanted to anyhow.

Your described problem is a product of a lazy population more than anything else and I see it all the time on this server. People would rather go to their one spot they know than explore than move and find something better. I don't know how many times I've been at a camp on P99 that can sustain 1-2 players at a high XP rate and seen 5+ people all sit there fighting for spawns. It becomes wildly inefficient for everyone involved when the last three people to show up could easily find different open camps.

[mokfarg]

Originally Posted by mimixownzall [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Instances is just lazy developement.

Instead of creating multiple large static dungeons, they come out with 3 or 4 instances that take 10 mins to breeze through.

Then you get douchebag tanks or healers who go to the first boss... it doesn't drop what they want, so they disband leaving the group without key positions. They go requeue and join in less than 30 seconds while the DPS wait 20+ minutes to get another group.

It's fucking retarded.

Instances also killed world PvP, which is the funnest PvP.

I could live with instances if they would allow you to join existing ones kinda like EQ2 in the beginning (only played first few months of EQ2). If it would give me a list of instances occupied by opposing factions and let me join it, that would be bad ass. A TRUE PVP server.

What you mentioned really has nothing to do with instances though. I played WoW when there was no expansions and I went from beginning to end, nothing but dungeons. This was before the dungeons finder tool. You had to walk to the instance and shout for a group.

The dungeon finder tool is what made the symptoms you described. Back in 2004, I ran dungeons and everyone stayed to the end mainly and everyone had a good time. Also at that time crowd control still existed.