Zone Instancing

[Kagatob]

I don't know if this is the correct thread to post this in, but the question I've been asking myself as of late, is do you really want to add any kind of instancing to EQ EMU at all? Even the largest servers only have around 150 people on them at peak times, and their communities, while thriving now, are certainly fragile with such a small (when compared to live) player base.
Instancing is certainly not good for those types of communities as not being in normal zones helping and interacting with each other you would start to get the WoW effect on the community.
If you've never played WoW ask someone who does, this question.
"Besides in the auction hall, when was the last time you've talked to someone outside of your guild?"

Just my 2 cp.

[ChaosSlayer]

even on 50 men server instancign has its uses.
for exmaple i like to have Time B to be only doable once a week. (to enforce item rarity), but this means that only 1 raid total can ever do it. and if server has say 5 guilds - you not gona see your turn in in less than a month.

if i increse Time repop rate by once a day - which ever guild plays at earlier hours- can do Time EVERY DAY, and then you never gona get a chance to raid it, until every single twink and their dog in their guild has every single drop

thats where instancing comes in friendly. each guild can have their own once a week run

WHile i myself prefer to keep loot zones contested, when it comes to doign quest/progression raids -repop timers suck when you have to wait a week to do a progression flagging

[Kagatob]

Originally Posted by ChaosSlayer

even on 50 men server instancign has its uses.
for exmaple i like to have Time B to be only doable once a week. (to enforce item rarity), but this means that only 1 raid total can ever do it. and if server has say 5 guilds - you not gona see your turn in in less than a month.

if i increse Time repop rate by once a day - which ever guild plays at earlier hours- can do Time EVERY DAY, and then you never gona get a chance to raid it, until every single twink and their dog in their guild has every single drop

thats where instancing comes in friendly. each guild can have their own once a week run

WHile i myself prefer to keep loot zones contested, when it comes to doign quest/progression raids -repop timers suck when you have to wait a week to do a progression flagging

I can understand that for progression and big events like PoTime, I was talking more about people grinding their AAs, Leveling and spending 90% of their time in said instances to do such things. When LDoN released on live, the decrease in community was palpable.
Besides, who says you can't simply inforce that everyone who is able to go to Time gets a chance just by saying, ok you had your shot, next guild please.

[ChaosSlayer]

Originally Posted by Kagatob

I can understand that for progression and big events like PoTime, I was talking more about people grinding their AAs, Leveling and spending 90% of their time in said instances to do such things. When LDoN released on live, the decrease in community was palpable.
Besides, who says you can't simply inforce that everyone who is able to go to Time gets a chance just by saying, ok you had your shot, next guild please.

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)

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

[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.