What is your view of GW2 having a non-instanced explorable world?

I love the persistent world idea SO MUCH. As great as instances are (and they will STILL be there) The lack of community and unified world feel really hurts GW. I am so looking forward to this..

The lack of 100% instancing is the only reason I'm not completely stoked about GW2. I play GW and not any other MMO because of the instancing.

If I fire up a virtual world, I want it to revolve around me. If most everything that happens is determined by other people's actions and largely out of my control, it just feels random and less fun.

Maybe Anet will find a way to mitigate the most annoying parts of instancing, or a small enough percentage of the world will be persistent, such that the game isn't ruined. I love GW too much to not at least TRY GW2 and see.

How about this:

-Towns/Outposts act like they do now
-Leaving an outpost to an explorable connects you to a non-instanced area (like a town works now). You can switch between instances of an explorable.
-Other players fade in from a distance (depending on the amount of players in the explorable - e.g if you're in a busy explorable, you'll only see people in compass range, but if you're in a quiet area, you can see people (or their name tags) from very far away. This could work by the explorable scaling - e.g at busy times, the area is divided geographically into more zones which are invisible and seamless, and when it's quieter, the zones reduce to just one for the whole explorable.
-Anything which is purely storyline-based (e.g quests, missions etc) is set in instanced areas. This should comprise of half the game's content at least. Anything which does not directly let people progress in the storyline should be non-instanced (except dungeons).
-Anything repeatable, like defending borders between rival races, dragon attacks, etc etc, are all in non-instanced areas.
-Parties are formed dynamically outside towns. Simply click on another person and if they accept, you're in a party. This solves kill-stealing from repeatable quests, as parties will be quicker to kill bosses than solitary players. Anyone who contributed damage/hexes/shouts/healing in the radius of the boss is eligible for a drop (and exp), which is then allocated to that person if they're lucky.
-Dynamic henchmen implemented in these areas. Rather than choosing a H/H party, nearby allies (e.g in Istan it would be Sunspear Scouts) would come and help depending on the busyness of the area. If these die, they will not respawn for a while.

Thoughts?

I like instancing.

I like the general idea of a big persistent world, but in reality the world isn't big enough.
I hated, in Everquest 2, to have to wait for mobs to respawn so I could kill them. I hated having random people milling around talking about Justin Timberlake or selling stuff when I was in a supposedly epic battle against some Lord of Slightly Evil.
I like, in Guildwars, that I can play the way I want at the pace I want without random higher-level passers-by killing my mobs while shouting "OMG NOOB!".
I also like, in Guildwars, that there are no servers. I don't have to decide on which server to play on, and stay there forever.

Frankly I don't see the appeal of persistence over instance, unless we're talking pvp-anywhere.

Persistence is a deal breaker for me. All you have to do is turn on local chat in any major city to understand why I think being forced to play with these people would be an unpleasant experience.

Frankly, I could do without the whole "collect x naga hides" or "get the head of x" quests. That seems to be the most bone of contention in Persistant areas with camping, loot stealing, etc.

One possible downside of Persistant areas is the respawning... I've already been killed in WoW by hanging in an area too long, and having a mob respawn around me.... oops!

I like the idea of NPCs helping in a fight, although not necessarily in your party. Maybe you could even ask one to "join" you for a limited time / radius.

Anyway, a lot of ideas of how this could work, and I'm really excited about seeing how Anet will implement persistant areas, esp after seeing the pros and cons by playing WoW.

If they do it right, you won't be forced to do anything.

People say they want persistant areas so they can meet and game with other people. Hell 95% of the people I've meet in PUGS are folks that are now on my ignore list or people I hope to never run into again. Let me make my own instance and pick the folks I want to game with and not force a situation on me.

Personally I can hear the arguing and name calling now. "You dolt that was my smite crawler I'm /reporting you for KSing me." lol That will be just one of the issues. All you have to do is take a look at Wintersday and the running after presents in Lions Arch or Kamadan. I've never heard so much screaming and QQing over someone getting a present you were standing there waiting for the spawn. (I love doin that myself haha). You do not OWN anything in this game and that's the way it's going to be in GW2 in the non-instanced areas and I'm damn sure going to take my fair share of whatever loot, mobs that spawn either by nook crook or dare. lol But, yes the QQing will commence the very first day I betcha. As long as you go into the game realizing you don't own anything and it's fair game for everyone you won't get so frustrated and angry. I know I don't (as I steal your presentes before your very eyes, gotta love cable connections)

There are ways to fix most of the problems with non-instanced areas. You don't have to play with the other people there.

It is about time. Persistent world with instanced dungeons and missions ftw!
Some of the reasons why alot of people left Guild Wars was the level cap issue and lack of persistent world. I'm happy to see both are being addressed in Guild Wars 2.

As long as you can map travel. Having to walk for an hour or 2 isn't my idea of fun.

From what I have read it sounds like dungeons/missions will be instanced while the rest of the world will be persistant, Thumbs up to that idea imo

Persistent world would mean GW losses it's casual player friendly tag.

I hope that they mix it, and make it so that missions as we have them now are instanced, towns are a seperate area, and explorable areas are persistant.

I'm really quite excited about the prospect of a persistant world, I would love to be able to just walk out and meet my friends at the beach. However, as many have said, I would still like to be able to farm or play by myself sometimes.

Though, here's an idea, how about as a way to keep drops from being stolen, they are customized like they are now? The system is already in place to prevent people from stealing your loot, all they need to do is keep it.

But, will gain a whole new world of participants from games like WOW, EQ, DAOC, AO, AC and the rest. So, the sacrifice of a few carebear casuals won't mean anything to them as they will get more sales out of those that enjoy persistant worlds and no monthly fee.

I really don't want to deal with this. People do like stealing loot--hey, that's their role, that's their character, that's their playstyle, fine, but THAT playstyle directly affects MY playstyle. That's when the game becomes unfun.
If I'm in PvE, I want it to STAY PvE,
not become PvE and PvEveryoneWhoFeelsLikeStealingMyLootOrKillingMeBec auseI'mNoobierOrBecauseHeHasFasterInternetConnecti on.

I tried WoW, very briefly, and did not like the presence of people. Turning off local chat helped, but I found the intrusion of dancing undead mages kind of annoying.
I did like the fact that my friend very easily found me, that we could party up--but Instancing's got that too.
Many of the advantages posted, seem to me to still be doable in instances--meetups, quick PuGs, etc. The overwhelming advantage to persistence is a sense of a large world, a sense that your actions have consequence in the world. Would I like to see that? Sure. Would I give up the peace that GW and its instances currently give me in trade for that? Nah.

I guess the happy compromise I'd accept: MOSTLY instanced quest areas and explorable areas; Persistent cities, as we have; and several or many persistent LARGE (i.e. the size of all of Vabbi, or all of the Shiverpeaks, etc...) explorable areas. I would even accept questing in these areas, so long as those quests are not fully dependent on the mobs around (i.e. go talk to this NPC located in the butt-end of a giant persistent area loaded with critters...)...You could even create multiple "districts" of this area (like with towns and cities and outposts) to load groups into--so I couldn't walk into a persistent area with NO baddies to kill, since they've all been killed by the hundreds of people ahead of me?--but this might defeat the whole idea of persistence.
So....I'd like it both ways, I suppose. But please don't take my instances!

Yes because taking 1000 hours to get enough gold for max armor is casual friendly.

Eh, what? It costs 7,500 gold to get max armor.

You can get that by doing all the Cantha starter missions and selling everything that drops.

But, back to Malice's point:

How do Persistant areas = less casual?

I consider myself as casual player, and I enjoy WoW's instances. If anything, it's easier to solo areas, because people are around to help out.

i think the problem with guild wars its game that thinks its casual played by a player base that i recon have put in thousands of hours play
pleanty to do if you are casual not a lot if your not cant wait for guildwars 2

depends what you mean by non instanced.

in Nostale, you have a non instanced map
But there are many seperate maps,
Would this be one Huge Map, with a couple seperate maps
And then a couple instanced maps

Generally Persistant areas mean grind
Things like he who plays the game most, grinds to level 70/99/255 first