I still want to know if there is going to be Instance in this game

[Kellir]

I hate Instance with a passion and I hope to never see it any any game ever again.

[busbydaniel]

Totally agree, I hate instances too, the worst thing they could do is make beaming down to a planet an instance. I would take my STO disk and do a wheelspin on it in my Ford Fiesta if they do that.

[staticblue]

I am pretty sure when you beam down to a planet you will load into an instance. I would hope that space in not instanced. I would guess the use of Transwarp would take you to a loading screen though. I reallly hope space is seemless. I can deal with loading when beaming.

CoX is heavily instanced though. The city is divide into zonesand Cryptic is using the same engine for STO. My guess is different star clusters will be zones.

[AbaddonIX]

Missions will probably be instanced,counting on the size of the galaxy.Wouldnt it be kind of anoying when you are told you have a very secret and important assignment to recover a alien artifact and then you beam down to the planet and 100 other people have the same assignment.

[Kellir]

Wouldnt it be kind of annoying when you are told you have a very secret and important assignment to recover a alien artifact and then you beam down to the planet and 100 other people have the same assignment.

Or better yet, 100 other people are there to steal the artifact. I know that happened a couple of times in TNG.

[AbaddonIX]

Or better yet, 100 other people are there to steal the artifact. I know that happened a couple of times in TNG.

Your asumption is based on the fact that the mission area will be huge wich is flawed since I doubt STO will ever be released if they do huge zones for missions.

Most MMOGs need instanced to function,or it will ruin all immersion.

[Bazil]

It is also flawed because they wouldn't be fighting you for it, they would be standing in line for the mob to spawn or some non-immersive thing like that.

[Kellir]

Most MMOGs need instanced to function,or it will ruin all immersion.

I had lots of immersion in AC1 and DAoC. I do not remember a bunch of Instances in those game.

[severius]

I think some instancing will be inevitable. I imagine all ship interiors and holodecks will be instanced. I also would imagine that some quest planets will have to be instanced. Nothing would break immersion more than going on some mission to a far away planet and trying to solve the problem diplomatically while 3 other captains are there laying waste to whatever aliens might inhabit the planet.

[Cryptic_Fan_101]

I had lots of immersion in AC1 and DAoC. I do not remember a bunch of Instances in those game.

How often in either AC1 or DAoC did you explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, or boldly go where no man has gone before?

Your irrational hatred for instances is just that: irrational.

If Cryptic intends some content for small groups or even solo players, there's absolutely no justification to make it accessible to every Joe Blow on the server.

P.S.: And unless I'm mistaken, DAoC pioneered private instancing with Catacombs.

[Kellir]

How often in either AC1 or DAoC did you explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, or boldly go where no man has gone before?

umm, AC1 and DAoC were both strange new worlds when the games first started. They both had strange new life and new civilizations, and I did go to place that only the Creators had been to before.

Your irrational hatred for instances is just that: irrational.

I beg to differ. It is logical. Instance keeps things simple. I prefer them to be complex. Otherwise I would play Tic-Tac-Toe and not play MMORPGs.

And unless I'm mistaken, DAoC pioneered private instancing with Catacombs.

I remember seeing other groups in the Catacombs. I even joined a few if most of my group left. Sometimes I even went in Solo hoping to find a group that could use me.

[Dext]

I hate Instance with a passion and I hope to never see it any any game ever again.

All the Planets will be but as for space dont know yet.

[Cryptic_Fan_101]

umm, AC1 and DAoC were both strange new worlds when the games first started.

And a month later you were bumping into other players all over the place... unless your server was a ghost town (which really isn't indicative of a very popular game).

I beg to differ. It is logical. Instance keeps things simple. I prefer them to be complex. Otherwise I would play Tic-Tac-Toe and not play MMORPGs.

The only thing I see here that's simple is your argument.

Inviting ten people over for dinner when you only have enough food (or for that matter, chairs to sit on) for two people isn't complex. It's stupid.

I remember seeing other groups in the Catacombs. I even joined a few if most of my group left. Sometimes I even went in Solo hoping to find a group that could use me.

Are you denying there was any private instancing whatsoever in DAoC? (http://www.camelotherald.com/article.php?id=130)

[ArchBuck]

Much of what will determine "instances" is the power of the servers and the power of the game engine... not to mention the size of the game and the setup of the game.

By the setup I am talking about the missions... if they are extensive multiplayer missions I would imagine many of them to be instanced.


Edit: The larger the universe made, the fewer instances are needed to ensure less players stepping on other player's feet.

[keozen]

Instancing is required in MMOs nowadays to some extent, simple as that.

I remember playing SWG back in the day and having particular places in the game, in some caves, etc where you were 100% guaranteed to see someone sat camping no matter what time of day it was. It may have been because there was a good drop or spawn there or some other reason.

That & the other reasons people keep mentioning. Planets will be instanced I'm willing to bet, as will ship interiors.

Instances aren't a bad thing in of themselves, they just need to be done well.

[Sealance]

Boldly going where everyones gone before...

[JB]

It's going to feel pretty weird accepting a mission to explore and chart a mysterious new system only to warp in and see 5 or 6 other ships doing the exact same thing as you while a member of the opposite faction griefs you with his much larger and more powerful ship. Kinda breaks the immersion don't you think?

Depending on the zone and nature of the mission I think in some cases it would be necessary to have instances. If you're in an area that according to the lore is populated than I see no reason to use instances whether there are missions there or not. Lets be realistic here, if this game is moderately successful there won't be any undiscovered systems a few weeks after the game is released. By then everyone will have explored every system, so why not instance them to make it feel new to every player? I'm not saying all missions or all systems or sectors should be instanced, just the ones classified as undiscovered.

[Hseeker]

I wonder what will hapen when you beam into a planet and sundenly a ship of your enemy faction starts blowing at your ship in space.
Unless the ship disapears while your on the planet, that would be weird :)

[LivingHellfire]

I can't deal with non-instanced content when it's the majority.

I'm the "hero" of my own story, but I have to wait in line to kill the one boss guy? I have to wait while two or three other groups kill him while I watch?

How dangerous is this guy, honest? He cant' be that dangerous. Moreover, just exactly how important and "heroic" can I possibly be when I'm just the latest in a production line of death?

What about that "item" that we have to get from the "place"? If I have to wait for it to spawn every time, how "heroic" and "important" does that make me feel, that I have to watch as it gets looted over and over and returned to the quest give while I wait my turn?

How am I supposed to feel like I'm actually doing something special and that I AM someone special when I have to wait around for others to complete their ultra-special-awesome-save-the-universe quest before I get my "turn"?

Screw that... every example of a non-instanced gameplay that isn't a part of the over-all meta-experience (such as travel through shared zones or scouring a region for a rare, but still available material, etc...) is an instant immersion breaker.

INstances all the way, please.

[KidBang]

Yeah, big fan of instancing. Got really annoyed playing WoW when I'd try to do a mission only to find out that the guy I was supposed to kill was already dead...but if I waited long anough, he'd be alive again for me to chop off his head again. uhm...WTF??? CoX is pretty much primarily instanced missions and I love that.

[slycherrychunks]

Boldly going where everyones gone before...Took the words right out of my mouth.

The only other soultion would be to make the game world so utterly massive that its actually difficult to run into someone else whilst out exploring the great unknown.

[Cryptic_Fan_101]

The only other soultion would be to make the game world so utterly massive that its actually difficult to run into someone else whilst out exploring the great unknown.

Which I can almost guarantee you would amount to the same people griping that the game world is too large.

[Kellir]

It's going to feel pretty weird accepting a mission to explore and chart a mysterious new system only to warp in and see 5 or 6 other ships doing the exact same thing as you while a member of the opposite faction griefs you with his much larger and more powerful ship.

Umm, it's a combat game. How could that be grief? Use your brains. Take some friends if you know there is a chance that you will be attacked. Or, better yet, DON"T GO THERE!!!

Got really annoyed playing WoW when I'd try to do a mission only to find out that the guy I was supposed to kill was already dead...but if I waited long anough, he'd be alive again for me to chop off his head again. uhm...WTF???

WOW was a joke. There is nothing like being lead by the nose from place to place just like every other player in the game. I would hope this game would be better than that.

Boldly going where everyones gone before...

Boldly go where the game guarantees that I can win.
Boldly go where there is no risk.
Boldly go where I am being lead by my nose.
Boldly cry in the forums if the game is not easy.

oh ya, a bunch of boldly in that type of game.

May as well play Guild Wars.

[LivingHellfire]

Boldly go where the game guarantees that I can win.
Boldly go where there is no risk.
Boldly go where I am being lead by my nose.
Boldly cry in the forums if the game is not easy.

oh ya, a bunch of boldly in that type of game.

May as well play Guild Wars.

You havne't even played the game... why are you making these assumptions?

Are you saying that if the game is instance-heavy that it will be a case of being "led around by the nose"?

What kind of "risk" are you proposing?

I'm getting the feeling that you're of the ":hard-core" mindset... I don't really think you're going to find much joy in the newest generation of MMOs. The zeitgeist is very much shifting to a more casual friendly environment in the industry and anyone paying attention to the news, announcements and recent game releases over the last two years can see it happening literally while we wait.

Regardless of whether or not we have a different opinon on the matter, the hard reality is that your'e pre-judging a game that's over two years away from release, based on assumptions that you've made and the postings of a few strangers on the internet.

[busbydaniel]

Totally disagree with a lot of posts I have heard here, everyone is basing there opinions on current MMO's such as WOW and LOTRO. STO is not going to be like those from what I have heard so far. For a starters combat is not going to be as important as it is in WOW or LOTRO also, the galaxy is going to be so massive that the chance of you bumping into others is hopefully remote, however I want the chance of bumping in to the enemy faction or another Federation starship. How many times did they bump into the Klingons when exploring in the original series.

For me instances take you away from the rest of world and take the realism out of the game. In TNG do you see them popping into an instance away from everything. No!!!

Instance work well with WOW and LOTRO and these types of MMO, STO Im really hoping not.

[JKMurphy]

what are you people complaining about, this is looking to be the single most advanced star trek game ever and all you lot can do is demand it not have instances, you should just be grate full they have desided to make another game of such high quality. I know I am.

[Kellir]

Regardless of whether or not we have a different opinon on the matter, the hard reality is that your'e pre-judging a game that's over two years away from release, based on assumptions that you've made and the postings of a few strangers on the internet.

Wrong. All I did was to ask if there was going to be instance AND to state that I do no like game that have it. Then others jumped in and started defending Instances. I gave replies to those statements. I NEVER passed any judgment on this game.'

I will pass judgment after I have played the Beta.

[LivingHellfire]

Wrong. All I did was to ask if there was going to be instance AND to state that I do no like game that have it. Then other jumped in and started defending Instances. I gave replies to those statements. I NEVER passed any judgment on this game.'

I pass judgment after I have played the Beta.

Well, it seems very clear to me that you consider any game that has instances and other features you don't like to fit into those categories you described about being led around by the nose and so forth. In other words, you seem to consider the game to be a total wash if it includes features that you don't happen to like.

Is it possible that perhaps this is merely a case of you not liking those features, not necessarily that they're "bad" or whatever and that for you, personally, instances are a thing that you avoid?

[Kahul_Bane]

If you want to see what Cryptic likes, just jump in to a free trial of COH/COV...

I am just hoping that this game is very different from that, including the way they use instances.

[JB]

Umm, it's a combat game. How could that be grief? Use your brains. Take some friends if you know there is a chance that you will be attacked. Or, better yet, DON"T GO THERE!!!

It's not a combat game. There will be combat in the game but if you're expecting it to be sole focus of the game I'm afraid you'll probably be greatly disappointed. The game will have many different missions that do not involve combat but exploration, discovery and diplomacy. I for one would not like going on a mission involving discovering new systems and civilizations and find other people running around doing the exact same thing. Kind of cheapens the whole experience of exploration don't you think? I'm not saying the whole game should be like this, obviously it wouldn't much of an MMO if you were alone most of the time, I'm just saying that there exist certain missions types that would be better as instances.



Boldly go where the game guarantees that I can win.
Boldly go where there is no risk.
Boldly go where I am being lead by my nose.
Boldly cry in the forums if the game is not easy.

oh ya, a bunch of boldly in that type of game.

May as well play Guild Wars.

Oh please, that's such a blatant strawman it's not even worth addressing. Something tells me that the game you want to play is not the game the majority of gamers want to play and is not the game Cyptic wants to make.

How about you go cry in the forums when Cryptic doesn't fulfill all your demands?

[Cryptic_Fan_101]

Umm, it's a combat game. How could that be grief? Use your brains. Take some friends if you know there is a chance that you will be attacked. Or, better yet, DON"T GO THERE!!!

Here's an idea: if the game does have instances, and you don't like them, DON"T GO THERE!!! See how that works?

WOW was a joke. There is nothing like being lead by the nose from place to place just like every other player in the game. I would hope this game would be better than that.

Exactly what MMO doesn't present you with an opportunity to be led around by the nose from place to place if that's what you're looking for? I've yet to play one, whether it was pre-CU SWG, EVE Online, or even the free-to-play Korean grinders.

Boldly go where the game guarantees that I can win.
Boldly go where there is no risk.
Boldly go where I am being lead by my nose.
Boldly cry in the forums if the game is not easy.

Boldly go with "some friends" where the game guarantees that I can win.
Boldly go with "some friends" where there is no risk.
Boldly go with "some friends" where I am being lead by my nose.
Boldly cry in the forums if the game is not easy. (Hmm... imagine, that one is universal!)

Boldly go where I can trivialize challenge with sheer numbers!

Where's the risk or difficulty (or fun for that matter) in entering an area where the friendlies grossly outnumber the hostiles?

[Aogos]

If you want to see what Cryptic likes, just jump in to a free trial of COH/COV...

I am just hoping that this game is very different from that, including the way they use instances.

They need to cater for huge numbers of players each eager to be the first to explore a system/planet. The only way that's going to be possible after the first few days the server is open, is by heavy use of instances.

Eg You find a new signal on the map, go there, and viola, a new planet made up of set of random components from set tables, similar to CoX mission creator. I'm guessing that on this map, your discovery is recorded, rather than forgotten though, so A.N.Other can go there too.

Like you say, Cryptic likes instances, but I feel they make good use of them in CoX.

[DurMan667]

Space will not be instanced. You can see that in the trailer and assume it from all of the random help given throuought the various series. Heck, they even intersepted an ambassador at Warp 9!

Now, mission-based planets MAY be instanced. That I cannot be sure about. But would they instance Earth? Kronos? Golorndin Core?

Okay, probably Golorndin Core, but that's beside the point.

[KidBang]

Yeah, I'm talking about instancing missions, not space. Be kind of dumb to instance space, at that point it's a one player game. But for planet beam downs, it makes more sense to instance them.

[Aogos]

Be kind of dumb to instance space, at that point it's a one player game.

Urrmm why would instancing parts of space make it a one player game? Instances are used in all manner of ways theses days. For example D&D online use instances/zone for all the public places, EVE online uses instances/zone for each solar system.

[KidBang]

I meant space as a whole. Yeah, there should be areas of space that are instanced for mission/exploration purposes, but on a whole, space should allow people to encounter other players.

[Arbalister]

I had lots of immersion in AC1 and DAoC. I do not remember a bunch of Instances in those game.

Bet you remember standing in line behind 50 other AC1 players, to get this months new quest item, after having followed the trail of people running from clue to clue, though.

On patch days you didn't even have to read the clues, just follow the endless stream of bodies.

You must remember standing in line for your turn to pop the chest for the greenmire armour...

That's what instancing changes - when you are sent on a mission to explore a newly discovered system, with a pre-warp culture, won't it be nice to *not* be there with aliens from every species in the game?

[Hero2Zero]

Actually the concept of the game makes it very amenable to instanced zones without having to break suspension of disbelief. The concepts of warp travel would be boring time where your forced to do almost nothing. I mean the idea is you are in an area of subspace where outside reality can't get to you easily. Thats a forced separation from the game world anyway. Why not just have "warp travel" fill the gap of instance loading? Same goes for matter transport to another location.

I think the OP is a bit carried away with the idea that space should be one big place. That's not practical in any game that our technology can support. If he believes it is he is misinformed on the current state of technology. We don't have 14 "gigaquads" of storage for a complete simulation of the 100 billion or so stars in the galaxy, let alone the trillions of planets that would be involved. LOL.

[Arbalister]

Urrmm why would instancing parts of space make it a one player game? Instances are used in all manner of ways theses days. For example D&D online use instances/zone for all the public places, EVE online uses instances/zone for each solar system.

I meant space as a whole. Yeah, there should be areas of space that are instanced for mission/exploration purposes, but on a whole, space should allow people to encounter other players.


There's another side to this, too.

Space is big. :-)

Consider - the primary mission of the Enterprise was "to go where no man has gone before..." Kirk's crew, certainly, and to perhaps a lesser degree, Picard's, would have been on mission patriols that took them far from any reliable lines of communication. That's why starship captains were given such a level of autonomy - they were on their own, outside of the influence of Starfleet. Out on a 5 year mission it *was* a one player game. The only places this wasn't necessarily true was in/around established bases, and in/around post-warp planets, or where exploration on the fringe of Federation space took them into the territories of other major players.

It *could* be argued that "Space" should be very limited entry instances - not specifically exclusive to one player, but perhaps exclusive to one player per race. So you *could* encounter someone of a non-aligned race, but wouldn't be tripping over every single Federation vessel in the Fleet. There could even be a 'reinforcement' ability to let you pull in a limited number of nearby aligned ships.

Just a thought on the other side of the issue. :)

[lumin]

People have said that you would lose immersion if you went on a secret mission to find other players on the planets. But aren't you losing immersion anyway if you see a bunch of spaceships parked around the planet, but find nobody else when you beam down?

[KidBang]

Not really. Planet's are big. You can just assume the people are someplace else on the planet ;)

[LivingHellfire]

People have said that you would lose immersion if you went on a secret mission to find other players on the planets. But aren't you losing immersion anyway if you see a bunch of spaceships parked around the planet, but find nobody else when you beam down?

Not if it's the system that's instanced and not the planet.

[lumin]

It *could* be argued that "Space" should be very limited entry instances - not specifically exclusive to one player, but perhaps exclusive to one player per race. So you *could* encounter someone of a non-aligned race, but wouldn't be tripping over every single Federation vessel in the Fleet. There could even be a 'reinforcement' ability to let you pull in a limited number of nearby aligned ships.


I just think it is a serious cop-out to not making a huge galaxy and instead making the galaxy instanced so it "feels" like nobody is around. If the galaxy is "infinite" like theyv'e said, why do we need instances? Even 10 million players online at once is still a tiny spec to the size of space.

[LivingHellfire]

I just think it is a serious cop-out to not making a huge galaxy and instead making the galaxy instanced so it "feels" like nobody is around. If the galaxy is "infinite" like theyv'e said, why do we need instances? Even 10 million players online at once is still a tiny spec to the size of space.

How large do you expect it to be? The universe might be infinite, but resources are not and they can't simply design a universe big enough that you can fly around forever never meeting anyone.

[Cryptic_Fan_101]

Your "secret mission" is to find other players on the planets, but find nobody else when you beam down?

I'd say you've got bigger problems than immersion concerns. :D

[Cryptic_Fan_101]

I just think it is a serious cop-out to not making a huge galaxy and instead making the galaxy instanced so it "feels" like nobody is around. If the galaxy is "infinite" like theyv'e said, why do we need instances? Even 10 million players online at once is still a tiny spec to the size of space.

If space is so radically vast that the chances of bumping into another player is effectively moot, then what's the difference?

[KidBang]

Yeah, that's just crazy. Even assuming a conservative population of 100K, are you really expecting them to somehow have programmed 100K different locations, so no one ever overlaps, or at least overlapping is a little limited. That's beyond impossible. Would be nice, but not even remotely possible. There's immersion, and then reality.

[TorgSmith]

Just to expand on the comments of those saying the universe will be limited. Until they can create a program that can auto generate content, individual people will have to model all the content. This includes space objects, terrain, buildings, characters, clothing, items, and the list goes on. I have heard no announcement that they had some kind of auto content generation system and I am willing to bet that any company that had such a thing would be bragging about it. I would expect to see some kind of limit to the content released for the game.

[Brenelael]

Yes there will be instancing in this game but how much is anyone's guess at this point. Best answer anyone can give right there. ;)

Bren

[lumin]

How large do you expect it to be? The universe might be infinite, but resources are not and they can't simply design a universe big enough that you can fly around forever never meeting anyone.

Then Cryptic needs to tell the truth instead of saying we will have an "infinite" universe. Sure, I don't that that literally. To me that word means, "so big that players won't be able to discover it all any time soon". Like Spore, or Noctis (billions of stars).

I'm saying that there is no need for them to claim to have an "infinitie" universe if they are, in the end, just going to use instanced space instead.

[lumin]

Yeah, that's just crazy. Even assuming a conservative population of 100K, are you really expecting them to somehow have programmed 100K different locations, so no one ever overlaps, or at least overlapping is a little limited. That's beyond impossible. Would be nice, but not even remotely possible. There's immersion, and then reality.

What do you mean, impossible? Check out Noctis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctis). The universe in that game has more stars than the milky way galaxy. It can be done. Sure, most of the worlds were pretty boring, but this game was made by some freelancing Italian kid with no salary. I think Cryptic could do much better in filling out these worlds with a larger pool of resources.

Besides, it has been hinted very strongly that the races players create will be used to flesh out the universe. So that's one less thing Cryptic would need to create.

[KidBang]

I've never played Noctis, but I can't imagine it accounts for missions, NPC's, things like that. We're not just talking about areas to explore here.

[lumin]

I've never played Noctis, but I can't imagine it accounts for missions, NPC's, things like that. We're not just talking about areas to explore here.

Well I think the intelligent NPCs would be created from the races players create when they start the game, so that probably would be mainly solved.

Missions would be a big problem. Unless they have some new technology up their sleeve for this, I would guess that most of the "strange new worlds" would have to be rather generic where you could land, explore, talk to NPCs, and fight critters.

I think this issue could be solved by making it a mission to just "discover" worlds and make peace with life-forms. Maybe there would be some kind of diplomacy system that would allow your crew to converse with random life that you find. If you are able to make peace, it would log it into the starfleet database as a success, and you and your crew would be given experience for your success.