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

To those complaining about walking in wow....please tell me you knew about the "auto-run" button so that everytime you moved, you were running, not walking?

Just because I cant really be bothered to make a new reply to the same reply thats been used several times already im just going to paste an old response.

And also


Dont make the mistake of thinking that just because someone doesnt want to play with some random player they dont want to play with anyone at all.


***edit***

I think they are refering to the fact you cant just map travel to the area you want. You are required to walk all the way there. Now even if it only takes 5-10 mins, thats 5-10 mins.

Now while its something that can be easily overcome, map travel could still be available (or a teleport spell, portal etc) its still an option that it may be designed that way on purpose.

That won't bother me as long as they add the option to PK people without stiff penalties like in Lineage2, you could PK but then you turned red and also had the chance to drop equipment if someone ganked you ^^.

As long as they put in some sort of a rapid transit (Mass Effect reference) allowing you to move from town to town without having to walk all the way there, im fine with it.

By rapid transit, if you have never played mass effect, I mean that there is some form of transportation in the game, like a train, that you can board. Then it goes to a loading screen, and all of a sudden your character will jump out of the train when it reaches the predetermined destination.

This idea could be a good money sink for GW 2 as well. They could make it cost 100g to ride the train, or you could purchase a card that gives free rapid transport for 6 months for 10k a piece...

This way, I wont have to walk to every town that I want to visit. Having mounts, like in WoW, would be kool too.

In fact, I'm adding this to the game suggestions... lol

Post
and response...

I think Mordakai is correct here and that you are greatly underestimating ArenaNet. You are also highlighting the (potential) negatives of persistence and discounting the positives (yes, there are positives!).

Having played WoW pretty extensively, I can say that sharing your explorable online world with other players isn't nearly so horrible as all that. Most of the time, I would hardly see anyone when out in some WoW hinterland (and not just in The Hinterlands, either ). When I did, more often than not it made no difference at all OR it was actually helpful, as the other player and I would team up to get something done.

Yes, there was kill stealing and occasional queueing up to kill some boss or other, which is very annoying. But ArenaNet has said specifically that this will not be a problem in GW2. How they are going to circumvent those issues is anybody's guess.

One of the things I have heard (I don't recall where I read this, though) is that there will be "population control" for persistent areas in much the way the districts are handled now, so that even though explorable areas will be persistent, they won't be swarming with other players either -- and it may even be that you can select your district in much the way I now usually select "International" when I don't want to be in a crowded outpost. That's just conjecture, of course. But if you have district options for persistent areas (the towns and outposts) in GW1, it seems more than feasible that there might be a similar option/feature in GW2.

Personally, I think the addition of persistence in GW2 has major possibilities for improving the game, and I am looking forward to it. Of all the features coming in GW2, this is one of the most promising, in my opinion.

The difference, tmr, is that you want to play an MMOG, and I don't. I'm just looking for a fun action RPG that I can play solo or with friends. GW1 was that, GW2 clearly won't be.

You definitely got me there!

I think it will be interesting to see what kind of beastie GW2 actually turns out to be.

Hmm, well I just posted this in another tread and I'm only guessing here, but It might be that we'll be getting a very large persistent world with an option to enter any/all of it as a private instance if we so choose, for missions quests etc. I'm thinking Arena Net has some pretty sophisticated tech planned for GW2. One of the reasons so much is still under raps.

It's split into DISTRICTS.

Why do you say that when you know that GW2 will be split 50/50? There will still be many instanced areas of the games (the PC gamer said about 50/50) and they pointed out that KS & camping will still not be an issue. I honestly don't think it will be a big issue. Wouldn't you like to be able to join a guildie that is half was through a mission/quest whatever?

Although this is purely speculation and imaginative invention on my part, I am looking forward to a semi-persistent world, especially if it works out as I see fit.

I have no idea the feasibility/efficiency of this system, but it works in my head .

1.) You are in a town/output akin to the current model, accessible by Map Travel (MT makes GW awesome imho).

2.) The persistence/instance nature of the world is done in what I will call layers.

A.) There is the core, first layer town, where there are no baddies, no non-holiday or special event persistent events (like the dragon example), and no "World PvP" events (speculation since I have no idea how that would work in the theory). This is where jovial times are had and merchanting, storage, crafting, etc etc are located. More or less it is similar to what we have now. This is what you can map travel too.

B.) Second layer is the persistent zone, immediately outside (non-portal access) of the town boundaries. It is indicated somehow by either a physical marker/wall/bridge/something obvious that you have left the relative safety of the town and entered a live zone. Here is where the persistent model takes place. Quests can be done, people can be assisted, skills trained, events conquered, and of course things killed . PvP events can happen here (again I will mention these assuming they will happen this way), all the fun stuff of a persistent zone.

C.) The third layer is instanced play. One thing to note is that although my "chart" is circular, that is just a very rough model, and only made because I have no skill whatsoever in creating fancy models and the such. Especially at work . Each layer is not just another circumference on the model, but also includes the smaller zones. For example, the "safe" zone of town could become instanced in a specialized quest, becoming the 3rd layer in essence (ala the Nightfall quests in Lions Arch), and an instanced layer 2 (persistent zone) becoming layer 4. This layer extends to the whole model, plus the "outer" fringes that can ONLY be accessed as instance by portals either found in town or in the persistent zone, or by transportation via quest or event (bringing up the possibility of instanced events in addition to persistence events), and would be the final layer, layer 5. The outer layer model will ONLY be instanced, and can be freely accessed by portal/some other method to be determined, similar to how the current model in GW works. The other instanced situations (as in layers 1 and 2 becoming layers 3 and 4, aka Town and Persistent Zone becoming instanced) by quest/mission/event/etc, as those two zones are naturally persistent and their instanced version are different in essence (removal of merches etc for Town, removal of normal activity in the zone). This would be very much like the access to NF quest in Lions Arch for the town/outpost zone, and the mission zone structure of Nightfall for the persistent zone.

Model:


As you can see it is EXCEEDINGLY simple and I hope not every "area" would look like this. Basically, this is a theory mockup of if GW consisted of just one zone of one city lol. Very basic, not to mention crappily done in Paint.

Green is Layer 1: Town (Persistant)
Layer 3: Instanced Town (Limited Access)

Orange is Layer 2: Persistant Zone (Persistant)
Layer 4: Instanced World Zone (Limited Access)

Red is Layer 5: Instanced Area Zone (Free Access via portal system)

To me this system is logical because it easily combines an instance and persistent system while creating immersion and keeping player collision problems at a relative minimum. Quests could very well be mostly in Layer 5, which allows a player to trek through persistent zones to get to certain Layer 5 zones. In my mind, the Layer 5 instance zones are like a player going into an unpopulated area where he would less likely come across other players, whereas the persistent zone would be more of a high-traffic area immediately outside of a city.

Some Layer 5 zones would be harder to get to, some incredibly easy (as in the current GW model), and some only accessible through another instanced zone (like getting to the more remote zones in GW such as The Falls). Some Layer 5 zones would interconnect (say enter Zone 1 from persistent world portal location, and a portal (or some other mechanism for this separate than normal instanced portals) can connect from Zone 1 to Zone 2 etc etc. These instanced zones could also be used to connect to other persistent zones and towns/outposts. Other Towns/outposts might also be connected together purely by persistent zones as well to keep things mixed up.

Various things would need to be tried with this, but I think it would allow an amazing amount of various play styles to exist, and keep most GW fans current and potential very happy. This of course is my estimate, and this entire Layer deal might only make sense to me lol.

Actually it will

There going to be World Vs. World PvP

However ANet have already stated that we'll be able to freely move between Worlds/Servers like we can in Guild Wars now

Yep, my guess exactly. See my posts on pseudo instancing and instancing layers in the Suggestion Forum: Guild Wars 2 Suggestion thread. Starting around page 32 to the end.

I've been trying to second-guess the evolution of GW1 to GW2 based on what GW1 has currently done, and what it could do on steroids. I have been loading up ideas and concepts on how a persistent world could, in fact, have a far more Robust Instanced system than is currently seen GW1. Not only would it be the best of both worlds, it would be Better than Both worlds, More robust persistent environment, as well as instancing never seen before in an MMO.

If my guesses are remotely correct, and Arena Net can do even half of what could be done with Layering and Pseudo Instancing. GW2 will floor the MMO industry and turn it on it's ear. It's likely why we've not heard a peep out of them for some time, they're not going to commit until they're committed.

It's why I keep claiming that Blizzards next MMO will be a GW clone.

Camping what?

There's nothing stopping ArenaNet from putting all the interesting stuff (in terms of drops) in the instanced areas.

Sounds like we are of the same mind . Conceptually its a little bit more complicated to understand, but functionally I see it working exceedingly well, dependant on a few programming things of course. I have no idea HOW it could be implemented, since my programming knowledge is limited to the EE field and such, but if it CAN be done I would love to see it implemented. Would provide the best of both worlds while keeping with a standard of persistence that would allow both pro-instance people and pro-persistence people to be joyous.

In my mind, a weakness of the system would be the persistent zones, because who would go there. Well thats where you put the randomness of mobs, event quests, etc etc to be. The instance zones would be more prolific quests unrelated to the world as a whole and of course story progression, with further out exploration being done "out in the instance zones" as a whole. At first the whole system seems cold and mechanical, but I think thats only because I have been relating it to "layers" and "instances", instead of "epics", "land", or "deep woods/desert".

I hope ANet really creates something unique for GW2 that is enjoyable by both the community as an entity and for a player as the self. Really Zen stuff lol.

EDIT: ADDENDUM:

I also have no offers of solutions to persistent problems such as KSing, camping, and the such in the persistent layers, but I will let the people who are paid to figure that out.

Excuse me, but you don't think it's possible to design a persistant world without those drawbacks?

What if GW2 doesn't have silly "kill x of y quests to collect z"?

We have no idea how the structure of GW2 will even work, it seems silly to me that Anet would implement the very things they saw were wrong with persistant MMORPGs in the first place!

Having one huge district of a town would be a disaster. There are already some big towns like LA, where after 2.5 years of having GW, still can't find my way around it. Also there'd be too much nonsense in the chat windows.

WoW has even bigger towns than GW.

They get around the problem by having guards having a list of NPCs, and then flagging the mini-map of where to go.

Plus, unlike Guild Wars towns which seem overcrowded even with districts, in WoW people tend to space out. And for the places that are crowded (Banks, Auction Halls) it works, because you WANT those places to look busy. Plus, it's not like you can't easily click on the Banker...

Lots of "if(instanced) then ..." where appropriate. Et cetera.

If you can describe it in concrete terms it can be programmed pretty easily; the stuff that gets difficult are the abstract things (e.g. programming a computer to recognise objects from shape and colour).

The other problem is how it fits in to the existing program, which is where I can see most of the issues arising ... but it's not really too hard to do. The question is whether it fits into ArenaNet's vision.

Oh, and by the way, I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard's next MMO is fairly similar to Guild Wars in some ways; there'll be differences though. I expect it to have a bigger emphasis on gear where GW has never focussed on that; also, it would more than likely still be subscription-based. Unless they intend to do a Diablo MMO, in which case all bets are off (because previous releases never were subscription-based either)...

I'd be suprised if Blizzard's next MMO was not based somehow on StarCraft.

I know, I know, space-themed MMOs have not been sucessful yet. But then, people thought EQ was the last word in MMOs until WoW showed up.

Two words: EVE Online.

and what beautiful words they are when put together that way

Isn't the purpose of having a persistent world is to interact with other people and existing friends ? One of the main reasons why many turned away from GW because it was instanced and people today still gripe about it. Especially since we got heroes the game can be completely finished with you,heroes and hench. PUGS are a thing of the past now and so is the social activity.

Guild Wars 2 as someone else stated in the post will attract more gamers who play persistent world games such as WOW,EQ series,Lineage series and all have been majorly successful because it was a good game with good social activity that people liked. Some just need to be more openminded and yes Guild Wars 2 will be more profitable than GW1 because it will have so much more to offer to all kinds of players.

No matter how many people wish to compare this to WoW I think it will be something so different that untill we get a chance at the Beta we just can't fully understand how things will work or how they will affect each of our different playing styles.

All I experienced in non-instanced games was:

- Kill steal
- Boss Camp
- Mob lure
- Player Killing and/or Ganking

And thats what I expect to see in GW2.

I left non-instanced games over GW for the motives above. Thats why maybe I never leave GW1, and will stick here to end of servers.

Depends, I think there was talk of special events that were world changing in the persistent environment. If they have some sort of bleed-over, or pseudo instancing, then even if your in a private instance you'll be able to phase into the action of a Persistent World Event. Or PvP instanced event etc.

Just because you are in a private instance will not exclude you seeing or joining into another "Layer" when a global event begins. Instanced Layers could be handled is many ways. Exclusive to the player, but layered across several other instances. They could even provide some sort of LFG mechanic that auto layers players looking for others within similar instance layers. This way you don't have to hang around town looking for others, you can start the mission, and possibly meet up with others from other layers that are at the same stage of a quest chain or mission, if you party up, then the layers merge. Giving you zero chance of running into an over camped boss, or hunting ground, but with the ability of finding a few others to journey with. If you want to go it solo, then just don't use the LFG funtion.

The dynamics of such a system are limitless.

I had my pout about Magbane but I really feel how it was treating Monks.

Actually it WON'T:

1st: We were not talking about PvP. You can't complain about the presence of other people if you are in PvP. So what you were talking about doesn't even apply. Never mind the fact that the World PvP takes place in the mist, not the persistent "overworld".

2nd: Servers implies (because of the physical limitation) the inability to leave. ie: that's why Ouchie was complaining about camping. Regardless of whether WoW & other games have server moving services Anet already said there would be no "servers"

3rd: Anet as already explained in a recent article the Worlds as working the same as the current districts in towns.

That my friend is the single biggest reason why I started to play GW and was tremendously disappointed.

BUT GW was done so nicely, and made the best of what is had as a foundation that I kept playing it and still love it to this day.

My point now is this (lol), GW2 will most likely address that with the Mist and/or other features they are developing. And I for one will be much pleased.

I just hope they make it very fun and avoid as much the campers/ninja's problems that non instanced areas introduce usually.

regards
Farkas

exactly. keep instances. I dont wanna have to deal with other people all the time.

The only Reason Why I never really got into guild wars (Apart from my first day getting scamed and there for forever being scared with a small hate for the game) Was the fact that the entire world felt empty all the time. I found it pointless to need interenet to play a game where you were on your own more than 90% of the time you leveld. People Didn't even want to help you level in GW. Every one just wanted to do things with Henchmen or on their own for some odd reason. I hated that thus why I returned to wow and sold my Guild wars discs. I am really looking forward to GW2. An open world is just what GW needs to catch up with the big mmorpg's out there. That and an Auction house.

My biggest worry is if with the new big world the cost of keeping the servers up increases their for they decide to add a cash shop where Eventually some of the best stuff in the game can't be obtained without purchesing from that cash shop. That would absolutely kill guild wars imo. If they were to do that they might as well charge you a subscription fee instead. I really fear that this will happen and am REALLY hoping it does not.

Has been stated in a previous interview that persistant areas will have on going and dynamic quest strings. It is possible that any mobs we encounter in persistant areas will belong to those quests and not the typicial mob spawns we see in every other MMORPG. Which leaves instanced areas for those that wish to farm and for bosses to inhabit.
Jeff Strain has stated GW2 will be a much differant game than most of the MMOs out there. Such things as camping, KSing and loot stealing will not happen in GW2. Anet are full aware of this and Gaile stated that such things will not be part of the game. Do not expect things to be as they are in other games.
I am excited about what Anet has in store for us.

One of the main reasons I like GW is because I don't have to fight asshats for spots I like to farm or in other mmorpg's, "train." God I would hate it if GW2 was non-instanced. I know the deal is to make GW2 somewhat non-instanced but just please don't take it too far, 'kay? TYVM

i dont mind but then again one of my favourite things about gw is the instanced zones. I like to go out on my own sometimes into explorable areas and not feel intimidated by others about my random build.
Still sounds cool with the mix of both instance and persistant worlds
Mounts would be good and asura portals. ill guess that Asuras will start near the oladstead and get the moa birds outside

Moa bird mounts would be fun. Final Fantasy anyone?

LOTRO does persistent worlds right. You do not have to interact with anyone if you do not want to, they aren't kill stealing as once you hit a monster it's assigned to you till it's dead/reset. Camping won't do much as if Anet handles drops the way they should, any drop that would be camped would be cheapend to an amount where you could buy it easily.

Griefing in LOTRO is almost non existent (it's there but not often for me, from what I've seen). But most of the fears that have been stated here are pretty much obsolete I think.

Oh and about map travel, it'd be easy..just have a teleporter in each town that can port you to places for a small fee. Also mounts would be great too, sort of like mini's you can ride. Maybe get special mounts for birthday presents and at a certain level. Also, make jump have a use, have some quests that need to use Jump like in Perfect World, that'd be cool too.

But yeah I'm all for persistent worlds.

From what I've read the world in general would be persistant but dungeons would remain instanced, the same for mission perhaps.

There is no reason to expect a change in drop assignments, save perhaps the length of time they remain bound to a certain player, which prevents loot stealing.

If they have some form of map travel, say a telleporter you pay X amount of gold too send you to any other telleporter you have already reached by foot, then travel time is not an issue.

GW has shifted towards patrols of mobs rather than groups just standing still, so its a good bet they will be mobile, ie no mob camping, in GW2. Monsters might spawn in a city full of monsters, something no small group could survive venturing into, or would be hidden with the mobs moving to differnt areas at different times.

I think the main focus of GW2 would be to merge the current cities with the nearby surrounding maps, not with the entire world.

The advanges of having merchants and traders on the world map have already been made clear to most everyone.

Lord of the Rings Online mitigates most of those things very effectively with a few very simple measures:

1. You cannot steal kills.

Once a mob is bound to you, it's bound to you. This actually can help produce a BETTER experience. Just the other day I was farming some enemies when a lower level guy with about 1/4 of his life left came frantically running around a corner with a whole bunch of enemies, one of them elite, in tow. I ran into them as he turned the corner, nailed them with an AoE which focused their attention, and managed to save him. It was a very rewarding experience because he was very grateful to not lose all of his progress to that point just because of a bad pull. He also got all the drops, including the quest item he needed.

2. You can camp bosses all you like, but it's pointless because they don't usually drop anything better than normal enemies. There are some signatures and elites that drop items that are worth farming, but those guys normally aren't required for any quests.

3. This can be a problem, but a healthy community attitude goes a long way to fix it. You'll often find level-capped players farming an area you need. Most of them, however, are happy to let you tag along with them so they can continue farming and you get the benefit of whatever quest items/enemies you needed. This is because, unlike the GW community, the LOTRO community seems to be mostly mature and reasonable.

4. Don't play on PvP servers and you don't have that problem.

LOTRO has its issues, but it is a very good example of how an intelligently designed world and quest system and a mature player base can create a very pleasurable persistent world experience.

1. "Kill stealing." Maybe it's different in LOTRO, but you can still "kill steal" in WoW -- say, you work your way up to a boss and then have someone else come along and "tap it", so that's it's bound to them, not you. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me from your description like kill stealing (the way most people mean it) is still quite possible in LOTRO.

2. "Camping bosses" usually refers to waiting to kill a boss you need for a quest or a quest drop. In WoW, camping bosses happens all the time. It sounds like it is still theoretically possible in LOTRO as well. In some cases, several parties/players in WoW can camp the same boss and then compete over who gets to "tap" said boss for their group first. It gets really nasty at times.

I just wanted to state what my understanding of these two terms has always been. For any quest boss in a persistent area, I think these two issues are going to be a problem. If, however, GW2 restricts quest bosses to instanced areas, the problem goes away.

Ive played games using this feature and again its still open to problems.

You have players run round tagging each mob then running on to the next. Now even when its only bound to them for 20-30 seconds thats still enough time for them to run round in circles and keep most mobs in a certain area bound to them.

i couldnt be any happier because instances suck elephant balls!