Zone Instancing

[Kagatob]

Originally Posted by ChaosSlayer

actualy LDON when first released brought more people togther than any other EQ feature =)
simple cuase it given people tool to easily find group to XP and get garanteed rewards via time invested=points earned system (since eq before that UTERLY sucked on loot specialy for non raiders)

This is completely untrue, half of the entire existing EQ player base left between LDON and GoD. I felt these effects because I wasn't one of them, though in retrospect I wish I was because that year and a half that I kept playing was the worst experience I've ever had in EQ.

Originally Posted by ChaosSlayer

Important point to note that myself I don't see a need for instancing at low levels. Instancing would be used for most group quest/raid purposes, where you woudl do the dungeon, get to the end, kill the boss, and get an option to try an ultra-hard sub-level. Now this kind of thing should be instanced

As far as raid rotation go - that don't realy works very well on small servers.
Did not worked very well on live either. When my guild was coming up on elementals and VT we faced a situation where 5 upper guilds who were at that level for a while (over a year) looked at us and said "who said you can come and raid here? Yeah we a rotation but that does not mean we let you into it". And there simply nothing you could do about it, but pick up a scraps

When Time B was on rotation it was a nightmare, europian guilds would on regular bases storm in early in the morning, wipe it clean, and there is nothign you can do to stop them since in US no one raids till 6-9pm
And same thing would repeat every week

When I said rotation I meant developer/GM enforced rotation, not discussion between the guilds.

[ChaosSlayer]

Originally Posted by Kagatob

This is completely untrue, half of the entire existing EQ player base left between LDON and GoD. I felt these effects because I wasn't one of them, though in retrospect I wish I was because that year and a half that I kept playing was the worst experience I've ever had in EQ.
.

umm i totaly disagree. LDOn is when casual player gaming was on its climax. It was easiest time in my 5 years with eq to find a casual XP/loot group in under 15 min wihout having to run across the world just to get soemwhere and have group fall appart 15 min later.
People started leaving after Eq2/WoW was realesed year later. Eq1 droped 50% in population during October/November 2004

When I said rotation I meant developer/GM enforced rotation, not discussion between the guilds.

well thats up to a server gm, but I would hate to the one to continusly have to listen to 1 guild accusing another of rotation violation, traning, ks, leap froging, etc on dayly bases. There gona be 2 dozens people saying one thing and 2 dozens people saying the opposite.

I much rather stick them into instance than to sit and enforce play nice policy 24/7

[MNWatchdog]

Originally Posted by Kagatob

This is completely untrue, half of the entire existing EQ player base left between LDON and GoD. I felt these effects because I wasn't one of them, though in retrospect I wish I was because that year and a half that I kept playing was the worst experience I've ever had in EQ.



When I said rotation I meant developer/GM enforced rotation, not discussion between the guilds.

They left not because of LDON, they left because of the constant needing to key up to access parts of the server you payed for, but couldn't get into UNLESS you were in a uber guild and happened to be on at the right time(s) to get keyed.

You miss a night and everyone progresses without you for days or weeks without you.

Sure, you could slip a FEW unkeyed people in the keyed zones, but if you happen to not get there early enough or a needed class shows, you sat around on your ass.

Then there's the 72 person raid/zone limits. You gotta have large guild sizes to be have reliable numbers to raid, but then there's nights when everyone logs on and again, you sit on your ass excluded.

It's one of the reasons I quit. I got tired of sitting out while the rest of my guild raided.

[Andrew80k]

Originally Posted by MNWatchdog

They left not because of LDON, they left because of the constant needing to key up to access parts of the server you payed for, but couldn't get into UNLESS you were in a uber guild and happened to be on at the right time(s) to get keyed.

You miss a night and everyone progresses without you for days or weeks without you.

Sure, you could slip a FEW unkeyed people in the keyed zones, but if you happen to not get there early enough or a needed class shows, you sat around on your ass.

Then there's the 72 person raid/zone limits. You gotta have large guild sizes to be have reliable numbers to raid, but then there's nights when everyone logs on and again, you sit on your ass excluded.

It's one of the reasons I quit. I got tired of sitting out while the rest of my guild raided.

Totally agree. LDoN was great and I spent lots of time there. And most folks that I played with liked it as well. Problem was GoD. It was TERRIBLE. Poorly implemented and the zones were so much more difficult and the itemization was awful. It took me forever to get a good enough group together to get Qvic access because you had to have the right group it seemed like. It wasn't much fun. Of course EQ2 and WoW came out that was sort of the perfect storm and people left in droves.

[ChaosSlayer]

Originally Posted by Andrew80k

Totally agree. LDoN was great and I spent lots of time there. And most folks that I played with liked it as well. Problem was GoD. It was TERRIBLE. Poorly implemented and the zones were so much more difficult and the itemization was awful. It took me forever to get a good enough group together to get Qvic access because you had to have the right group it seemed like. It wasn't much fun. Of course EQ2 and WoW came out that was sort of the perfect storm and people left in droves.

I honestly liked GoD =)
I liked the theme and the thrill
The problem was that content and DIFICULY was designed with lev 70 in mind
The dev group that was handling content was not aware till very last moment that there is no level cap increase planed

As result GoD monsters (past Qumini) were all dumped down 5 level to become 62-70 instead of 67-75, but they all retained their insane hp and insane dps, so taking 5 levels off wasn't much of a fix at all

Raiding there of course was out of the quetsion for my guild - to go past Qumini you need to be allready WELL Elementaly geared, and we were rigth about stack at Ralos Zek =)

OoW tried to fix the gaps in GoD essentialy and win peopel back with epics 1.5 and 2.0, but then Eq2/WoW hit liek a truck and thats prety much where fun has ended

[trevius]

I think the thing that is being overlooked is that instancing in the emulator is just 1 more feature that can be used by admins to make cool new things. Anything that adds more options and variety to the emulator is a good thing. Sure, instancing every zone isn't really a good idea in the emulator, but having the option to do so is nice. I can already imagine a couple of great reasons to have instancing in the emu. One would be for end zones that are overpopulated. On custom servers, quality content takes a while to create, so some zones may be too over-saturated with players. Not only does this cause way too much competition between players, but it can also cause performance issues. At least on my server, if there are more than 20 players all raiding a zone at once, it risks a zone crash. I have seen as many as 30 in a zone, but it crashed after a short time. With instancing, you could set a cap on the zones for how many people can be in them (in the zones table) and then create new instances where needed. Another use for instancing would be for zones that are designed for a max number of 1 to 6 players or so. If a raid would trivialize the content, then you might use this type of limiting. With instancing, you could potentially still allow others to play in that zone without having to wait in line for the people currently in there to leave.

I am actually working on a new player limited and time limited zone access script for a zone on my server. I will post it in the custom section when it is all done. I don't plan to use instancing for it just yet, but it is really cool to know that the option is there. I don't think instancing should be used as widely as it was in EQ2 or anything, but I do think it will be a nice option to the emulator. And, I love having options

Oh, and I quit live around that same era. Though, my reason for quiting was due to almost all of the best guildies I had played with for years were gone. Also, I didn't like the fact that I had to work my ass off for like 10 hours every day for maybe 2 or 3 pieces of loot per month. Progression that slow is just ridiculous. And just when you start to get caught up to where you feel uber again, they release another expansion and make all of your hard earned gear obsolete.

[Andrew80k]

Originally Posted by trevius

Another use for instancing would be for zones that are designed for a max number of 1 to 6 players or so. If a raid would trivialize the content, then you might use this type of limiting. With instancing, you could potentially still allow others to play in that zone without having to wait in line for the people currently in there to leave.

This is the feature that I'm interested in for instancing. Scripted content, coupled with the task system is very interesting to me, along with limiting the number of people so the content remains difficult. Being able to adjust the content on the fly for levels would be really cool too.

Originally Posted by trevius

Oh, and I quit live around that same era. Though, my reason for quiting was due to almost all of the best guildies I had played with for years were gone. Also, I didn't like the fact that I had to work my ass off for like 10 hours every day for maybe 2 or 3 pieces of loot per month. Progression that slow is just ridiculous. And just when you start to get caught up to where you feel uber again, they release another expansion and make all of your hard earned gear obsolete.

This has always been my complaint with EQ. Casual players just can't keep up.

[trevius]

LOL, 10 hours every day is casual? :P

Actually my reason for not being at the top all of the time was because I loved my guild and it was considered a family raiding guild. We still raided every day, but it wasn't really mandatory like some hardcore guilds. We also didn't use DKP. I could have joined the top guild at any time, but they were mostly just asses. Though, my guild was 2nd or 3rd on the server for most of the time we were there. We were also one of the longest lasting guilds (just recently broke up), mainly due to the awesome people in it.

Sorry to derail the thread a bit. I am excited to try out this instancing code when I get some time. Hopefully in the next few days I will try adding and compiling it and I will report back on my findings

[Kagatob]

All I can say is that after LDON the community outside of each individual guild and the bazaar practically ceased to exist and EverQuest didn't feel like EverQuest to me anymore. And I blame it on the instancing.