PETITION - Instancing + New Characters

Before I begin, I would like to point out that i am writing this in rather
a rush, there for my spelling etc will be bad!. I also realize some of you
may not agree with what i am about to say however please be kind in regards
to your comments, there is no need for flaming.


I for one, was really looking forward to guildwars, and at first I fell in love with the game, however (and i am sure allot of people will agree here), the game is loseing allot of players (and rapidly). An example of this, is myself and eight of my friends at uni all started playing GW around the same time, and we loved it, and now i am the only one left who plays the game, the same thing happened at an internet cafe I go to every friday night, there were about 40 people (give or take) that used to play the game non-stop, and now only myself and three other people from there play the game. The reason behind this you may ask? the answer is simple. Instancing! hence why all those players have moved over to world of warcraft.


However, please, please! do not get me wrong, I think guildwars is an amazing game, and I think you developers did a really great job, the game looks beautiful and runs really smooth. However, I feel that the game is lacking on two major major areas (if you look around on the internet, you will realize i am far from the only person who shares these beliefs).

The game has instancing! (great for somethings i will admit), but it ruins the game, many many people would much rather to be able to walk out of a town, and walk through forests etc and meet people!!!! thats half the fun in playing such a game, yet, rather it feels like your playing a single player game. People in GW hardly ever see each other more then once, know one gets to know anybody compared to other games such as WoW and EQ2, however GW would be a thousand times better then WoW if they removed instancing!!!

All of those people who would actualy like to be able to travel the world of GW and meet people and interact, please let the developers know!


and secondly, the skins of characters, people like to look Unique, they want there really expensive peace of armour to warn people off (when they run into someone in the world *hint hint Instancing*). However, GW only has a few basic Skins, infact, some of the beginner Skins look exactly the same as some really strong, expensive armour (think of diablo2, how many different looking weapons etc were in that game), I believe that would make the game a HELL of allot better.

Thirdly - when people make new characters, its Soooo annoying to have to do all the quests over and over again, make the game more fun! if you reach level 17 with your normal character, then you should be able to make a new character with equal level.


I really hope you all support what I have just said, and I would really appreciate it if the developers took notice of this (as i have seen in many other games when people suggest things the developers dont even bother to reply).


Anyway, like I said, I think its a great game, It just needs some changes to make it the most popular game in the world - by far.

I support the petition for Removing Instancing in guildwars.

Name: Luke Yeomans
Country: Australia
Ingame-Character: Merlins Ghost

I find this petition to require about 2 years of man-hours of development work as it changes the basic game design. I cannot support something like that so I can hear "lol, n00b' in the Salt Flats.

I DO NOT support this petition for Removing Instancing in guildwars.
Here is why:
-It increases server load. This increases cost. The amount of money spen supporting this is taken from devloping new content. Games with a monthly fee can do this because they have the steady income.
-Depending on how done it increases ganking of low level players.
-Makes you have to wait for mod respawing if you want to cap skills and whatnot.

Agreed Emperor.
As another poster stated, it would be nice to have some Instance areas besides towns that everyone could "hang out" and fight enemies or each other if they so desired. However, more server space and load take up more cost.

No I don't support this, I know what you mean it's fun in other games, but GW is a haven for those who don't want to put up with CONSTANT bs, right now we only have to hear it in towns. One of the greatest things I enjoy about this game is walking out of a town and being alone, me and the monsters, me going at my own pace, not having anyone "kill stealing" or taking my drops, just me accomplishing what I want to accomplish. No "I think I'm going to be funny and drag this group of mobs into that other guy to piss him off", I don't have to put up with that here. Getting rid of instancing would introduce kill steailng, spawn-camping of mobs, not to mention an entire rework of the system that would take...forever. I don't want to have a bunch of kids run in and screw me over when I'm fighting, I don't want them to finish off the kills and get the loot I was working for, I don't want to here "lol stfu noob" when I'm doing a quest. Instancing is a good thing, and while it IS fun to be able to communicate with people more, getting rid of instancing isn't the way to do it.

Maybe make "zones" within towns? How about towns so large they have more than one instance to them? Now THAT would be cool, to have major cities with different "streets" or "plazas" or something all that were instanced and people could literally explore the TOWN not just some tiny village or something, cities and towns are much bigger and should be bigger.

I do agree I want more options to look different though.

And...well yeah, I do hate having to go through it all again but just "starting" at lvl 17 doesn't make sense either.

Its quite simple, and the above posters mentioned it. Taking instancing of zones out = more server load which = more lag which = the need for multiple server farms which = everyone NOT being able to play together on the same "server".

Not a good idea, nope not one bit....at least in my eyes.
Instancing is great, not only for the server load, but also for the ability to interact in a small group. There is no kill stealing, or (forgot the term) some uber l33t player killing the boss you were hunting. The last thing I want when I'm calling a lvl 24 boss as the target of choice for my party is for the call to get lost in all the spams of "WTS: 1-2 bow - it pwns" and "yo mama is ----" In a group of 4, 6, or 8, you have the ability to find out in a short period of time, who's contributing, who you like, who you want to play with more, and who you hope never to see again.

Secondly, yes, I would love to customize my character more. Armor, face, hair, etc.

Thirdly (is that a word, oh well) - no way mano, just because someone managed to hack and slash their w/mo to lvl 17 doesn't mean they have a clue how to manage debuffs and energy drain as a N/Me at lvl 17.
On a tangent of this point, it would be nice if different primary classes had different approaches to the missions. Like North wall mission, if the leader is a R/x the partys mission is to scout out the char, if the leader is a w/x you're to kill 6 patrols who're coming close to the wall, etc. Same mission layout, even similar cut sceens, but different 'objectives'.

The thing that lost so many people is that we were beta'ers we were used to cramming all the GW into two days that we could, I would go to bed Monday morning after beta weekend at 3am CST bleary eyed, hungry, and smelling bad. Many took to the full game at this speed, didn't stop to smell the pixels and finished every last smidgen of content within a week. This wasn't limited to beta people either, there's only so many time's you can stop the char invasion and push back the undead before it gets repetative. So new and different content is the answer....and will be out this summer.

Not to mention that there are a bazillion other mmo's that cater the non-instanced need perfectly.

Besides, there is very little positive player interaction in non-instanced games. It usually consists of either conversations, trade or pvp. Very few mmo's actually make full use of their non-instanced nature, and limit player freedoms.

Regarding Instancing
--------------------
I can understand the arguement but coming from a player who refuses to pay monthly for a game, I have to agree with EmperorTippy. Instancing is much less annoying than paying monthly for a great game.

Regarding Skins
---------------
100% behind you on this one but do not fear. I feel confident that the developers have every intention of addressing this issue with the release of their expansions. The free one this summer should be just what we need to revive the GW community, if only for a short period of time until the next release =]

Regarding New Characters
-------------------------
LOL, you smokin dope? Instancing and Skins I can understand but starting a new char at lvl 20 in PvE? Talk about reducing replayability. At least when you go through all the missions with new builds, you are forced to learn a new playing style. I've never stepped foot in a PvP arena because I believe in learning each classes strenths and weaknesses before facing off against other humans. Admittedly, I'm a little slower doing this than others but hey...I've got a life and a family outside the box. I gotta pay attention to those things too =]

I support the petition for Removing Instancing in guildwars.

Name: Alice Sowell
Country: USA
Ingame-Character: Knives The Bunny

I support this as it is what is making me want to move back to World of Warcraft, which really I would rather not do. I need some form of interaction that isn't mass spam of stupidity in town, It's really lonely and getting a group in town is not pleasant.

/not signed.

Killstealers, noobs following you and aggroing mobs... no thanks.

Besides, changing this one thing wouldn't be easy, infact it would undermine the whole game design and it would probably be easier to create a game from scratch!

GW is fine.

Hey elemental, join a guild. That will solve your problems. You get to meet a lot of people and you can all meet at the guild hall or go do quests together and stuff like that.

This would also ruin some quests, because you don't have to kill any mobs to go where you need to go. Also, there is no reason to be leveling on mobs without doing quests. Lvl 20 is easy to reach, trust me. The killstealing will return too. And the last thing, is that there will be so many low levels in droknars, because lots of people will be attacking around there.

Guys. you like GW? So why do you want to make it just like any other MMORPG?
They're all like that. No MMORPG has instancing. Find another one. Don't come force me and the others who bought GW for instancing too to have no home whatsoever.

Yes there might be many people who think like you do. But have you thought about how many people think the exact opposite and bought guild wars for that very reason?!

ANet has already handled drop stealing. And I imagine they could implement a system that would prevent kill stealing (the party you're in has to do at least 51% of the damage to said creature to get XP credit, something like that, it's have to be tested/tweaked.)

I think the real problem would be the spawning and camping. There are SO MANY people, that having free for all areas would allow all these people to be in, say, North Kryta, and you have 1000 people all in there trying to kill Ettins. You'd be lucky to get a kill an hour if you were less than level 20. At the very least you should be requesting a modification to instancing which would allow a certain number of people to be in the area at one time. Think about the farming spots? They'd be 50000 people all waiting for the next griffon to respawn. OOOhh, sign me up for that!

You would also effectively kill the mission system.

Bottom line, if you want that, go play WoW. We don't mind. I play GW BECAUSE of the instancing. I imagine a lot of others do to.

I doubt you can remove instancing from GW, that's an entire rework of the game.

I give it a month, then you might have your alternative . Instancing is here and i see games being designed exclusively around this concept, it's just a matter of getting the balance right between what goes on in the "hubs" [outposts in GW terms] and what goes on in the "instance".

A more viable suggestion is to expand the current hubs. Ability to customize and interact better IN a hub, ability to gain some "ownership" IN a hub.I even recall somewhere reading having "outpost clothing" vs "adventuring clothing" which you wear in the instances vs hubs...stuff like that.

Heck even ability "break into" an instance [with permission of course] will be a more viable direction. Removing instancing? I doubt it.

/never signed! this was the main eyecatcher when i was looking for a new game to play " wow really? i can wander around and NOT meet people??" i was shocked, gave the rest of the game features a good going over, and i was sold! not to mention i belive instancing is the main reason we dont have to pay monthly. IF they were to remove this feature? you can bet id drop this game like a cheating girlfriend :P

Kill Steal
When u fight a monster, there should be a sign that only you can kill that monster. the sign "sigil" lasts for so many minutes. if someone tries to kill steal, they are struck by lightnin from the gods.
whats the fun of playing online if u dont want to talk to any 1? sure theres som immatures out there, they'r people too. we need a better ignore system.
like !All, shouts, require energy.

I made a suggestion somewhere previously, which I'm too lazy to to search for, but it involved this:

First, what I think of instancing. It has its pros and its cons. It's enjoyable because of the social atmosphere it creates (which GW currently lacks). In other games, when I played as a healer, I'd randomly cast enchantments or heals to other lower-level characters out of the goodness of my heart, lol. I'd also stand around and watch others fight sometimes, /cheer-ing them on and /clap-ing when they defeated a monster (or /cry-ing when they died lol --- which brings me to also ask ArenaNet, why we don't have /cry?). However, the above-mentioned and generally-hated kill-stealing and lag are some of the major cons. Additionally, we'd also have to wait around for re-spawns (because we share the same monsters), and the game would focus a lot more on finding safe camping spots, rather than moving through the map. It's a totally different game style than what we have now, and would require lots of re-coding.

Personally, I love the personal maps, but I admit, it gets lonely out there, especially when you're going solo, or your only company is Dunham, lol.

--------------

My previous suggestion involved adding "Instanced Districts", perhaps 2-3 at max, on certain areas.. and setting a limit as to how many people can actually be in that district. Example, if you were in an outpost, you could switch from between numbered Home Districts, as well as International Districts (usually about two of these). Include a third option, Instanced Districts.. with each district only allowing 15-20 people. Then, upon walking out into an explorable area, you'll be in an instanced district with whoever else. But mehhh.. after thinking about it again, I realized, this wouldn't work, because the maps are meant to be walked through, not camped.

So, instead I offer a different suggestion. Perhaps with the second chapter or a future update, they could open a new area or two that are instanced.. it could follow the above description of having both personal map & instanced maps available.

--------------

This is a lot of coding though, and so I'm not strongly supporting this, nor am I shooting down the idea. I think they need to work on fixing some other things, and implementing suggestions that won't require a full re-designing of the game structure.

What they could focus on, is allowing the current common areas (towns & outposts) to feel more interactive, rather than a place to just sell & prep to fight. We need more social interaction in this game, more ways to make the game feel less artificial than it does now.

via districts you can create the illusion of removed instances. Instead of allowing only 1 party in an instance, allow up to 5 or 10 parties in an instance... keeping those who are in similar instances locked to each other so they zone to the same "district"

u want to stop the spam? put an energy requirement on !All.
we dont want to be lonely. no instance wouldnt have more lag then a party of 8.

whats the deal with only 2/party in pre-sear? that needs to be raised to 3-4.
when ur a noob u need more help.

This game's most advertised feature (second only to the "NO FEE!" thing, perhaps) was the fact that "every time you're on an adventure, you and your friends get your own copy of the map, so you don't have to worry about quest queues, kill stealing, etc, etc, etc, yadda, yadda, yadda...", a.k.a. instancing.

Why would you buy this game, and then make a petition that basically says "Please, strip this game of its most advertised feature, that which most radically sets it apart from the competition. Please give this game the same features as every other game instead."

Seems to me you should've just informed youself better and bought WoW in the first place.

I love playing other online games and meeting people while adventuring and bumping into people more than once and all that. That's not what this game is for, though.

Just a question in regards to your statement. The instancing is making you want to go back to WoW, but you'd rather not? I don't understand. Would you rather have Guild Wars become a WoW clone? I'd rather it didn't. I've never actually played WoW, never wanted to, but I HAVE played enough other MMOG's and MMORPG's to know that having a mass environment stinks (in my opinion).

Without instancing you have to deal with the following (as examples):
- Kill Stealing
- Spawn Camping
- Grief Players (that doesn't really belong with kill stealing, because a griefer can be a totally different animal... and I mean that pretty literally)

I'm sure other people could come up with more, but those are the most prevalent that I've dealt with in other games.

Yes, it can get lonely some times, if you play by yourself all the time, but you can still make friends in this game the same as WoW. Whispers DO work no matter where in the game two people are. I'm a member of a really decent guild, but I also have friends outside that guild. If I adventure alone, it's because I have made the choice to pretty much.

/not signed

PS: In regards to the character skins... I agree with that. Additional skins would be nice during character creation. As for the armor that would mark you as being "elite", that's already in game. It's called Ascension or Obsidian armor.

Thanks for listening

i disagree because i hear one of the worst things about WOW is kill stealing and other such stuff. plus, if the server cost more, wouldnt we have to start paying to play the game? thats the only reason i havent bought WOw yet...

keep instancing

Ok for instancing I would die if you take out instancing or whatever (Meaning I want no newbs following me pissing me off killing me when i almost finished the game since a newb decides to pull some 30 hydras to me. I love instancing) There is only 2 problems about it that bug me
1. I think They need like shops or markets you pay a certain about to lay your items out you set a price out on them and you go afk for a little
2. I think they should set up little pubs. I mean you can already have dwarven beer and if you buy one you get very wobbly and you character moves like jellow. And They bartenders you ask and the bartender always is drying the glasses with a rag.
3. One more thing I think they should even have like maybe betting on different stuff.

Now please stop making these MMORPGs to go out of business because they waisted all of their money on silly things like trying to let modem users play a not instancing game without getting lagged out 24/7 wow what is just alone in the easy high millions. And i think those three things will satify everyone.

1. I don't think that instancing should be taken away. Mob respawning and spawn camping would make FoW and UW awful places to go. If you want to interact, get a group in town (if you don't like the bad "community" or the spamming in towns, then you have to realize it would spread outside of them).
2. There's always 15k armor. Frankly, I don't really care what my character looks like. More variety in equipment would be nice, but only if it isn't solely cosmetic.
3. No.

Gotta agree with what I see as the majority here... changing GW the way you propose is a bad idea... if you truely want to meet people join a guild...

I can't believe how many people want to talk to others but are SO adamant about NOT joining a guild...

definately /notsigned

Obviously there are issues with the solution. But let's attack the problem for awhile instead of the (perhaps flawed) solution.

The problem is that Tyria is a lonely lonely place.

Reiterating (i think) my last post. What if we had 4 party instances instead of 1 party instances. Upon entry you could choose a shared instance or a private instance. You could request to join the instance of an ally or enemy by using the "/request instance -playername" command or ask someone to join you in the instance by using the "/invite instance -playername" command.

If this could ever be expanded into a MMORPG then perhaps spawn camping could be eliminated by having a proximity marker... say far enough away that you would hit at least 4 other spawn points on route...

Camping
you're standing in that patch wher u just killed that band of grawl? a sand worm smells blood & knocks u down. i dont see camping as much of a problem.

Lonelymake Tyria not so lonely. i know u can make friends out there.
u jus saw a ranger take down a horde of charr by himself. maybe u want to invite him to party.

Agro'd mobs
only go after the ones that aggro'd it. not som innocent bystander

What the original poster fails to realize in that instancing is the ONLY reason Guildwars is free.

Period.

Other people have astutely pointed out that removing instancing would require a ton of work. Let's be honest here... it would require a TOTAL rewrite of the game in nearly all aspects.

I have played persistant world MMORPGs, I have paid for them, and I have vowed never to do so again. This is not because persistant world is bad but it's because it requires so very much bandwidth/server power to achieve and that generally means a monthly fee on any game in which the user base is going to expand to the size of a GW, WOW, Star Wars, or EQ. Coming from the days of modem to modem Doom, Duke3d, and Heretic and then experiencing free TCP/IP play on games like Quake and Half-Life I simply feel like internet gaming is not something one should pay for, and that's obviously not just me. I will gladly sacrafice persistant world to be able to play a superb instance based Co-op RPG like Guildwars.

I realize that this poster is motivate by his love for the game and his concern about players migrating to other MMORPGs, but hey don't worry so much! Areanet and NCSoft already got theirs when those people purchased Guildwars and the business plan on a game of this type is simply built around getting that initial $50 purchase. A game like WOW probably hasn't even came close to breaking even due to the fact that the serves cost a ton to maintain and they're built on a profit-over-time plan.

Those who really liked Guildwars will fire it up again after the new areas open in August and if they really liked the game they'll buy the full expansion when it comes out.

Your motivations were noble in starting this petition I just think that you weren't informed enough on the design and innerworkings of Guildwars. Expanded instancing might be a path the developers could go down, but let's not try to make this game something it isn't... let's not try to make it WOW.

The camping thing is interesting. Don't just have a single type of monster in one area, have monsters that roam from area to area looking for something to kill.

Aggro doesn't make any sense, though. "Hmm. That ranger just lured us, so we're going to completely ignore this monk and kill the one that came after us! Afterwards, we're going to sit down and have tea, still completely ignoring the monk!"

But I like GW just the way it was. Even if they just increased it so you could have 2 parties in a single area, instead of 1.

While it would be fun to see other people out and about sometimes, the downsides, in my opinion, would make it not worth the time or effort. Maybe if there was a switch for the party leader so they could go into an instanced / not instanced area (only have one non instanced area per region, plus one for international district), but that itself would require lots of changes, making things respawn, patrol, et cetera... Plus people would just lure as much as possible to the entance so when you entered you would be slaughtered.. though making everything patrol would fix that for the most part. But then you have to make decisions about PKing, redo the respawn system somewhat, plus the lag from so many other players. It's generally not worth it, though at best maybe you can hope to see it in a future expansion.

And it's going to be any different by removing instancing? The same stupid spammers who are in town now will still be there, and now be able to spam the entire world with instancing removed.

Remember people, why you dislike WoW and the others is BECAUSE there is no instancing. Remove it from GW, and it will end up being exactly the same as all the others.

************************************************** *******

See above response. Plus, this is why there are Guild Halls and the PvP arenas. Certainly, more can be done with both, and I believe greater variety is in the works for future updates and chapters.


I agree with you on this point. More individuality and personality needs to be included in the character creation and item variety at this point. Being able to have a completely unique character is the essence of an RPG.

This idea really makes no sense. The game would have no replayability if you were able to take a max level character through the Pre-Searing and early Post-Searing missions. Plus, the main draw of this game is not power, per se, but the ability to put together a good character "build" - i.e. combining a skill set with attribute point distribution, and a good strategy. The only way to do this is to start each new build from scratch and learn how the different skills and attributes will affect the strategy needed to play that character through the game world and in the arenas.

To see a perfect example of what I am talking about, creat a PvP only character that has a different Profession and build than your current character, then compete in the arenas. I am betting that you do not last the first round of combat because you have no idea what the strengths and weaknesses of that build are, because you did not play that build from scratch.

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
http://www.realmillenniumgroup.com/guild.html
Truth * Knowledge * Peace

It's nice to see all the bad ideas for changing the game in one place.

Bad Ideas:
1) Remove instancing. Impossible. That would be like asking for a car that could teleport. This game IS instancing.

2) A marketplace where you could leave items for sale. Impossible. There are tens of thousands of people playing the game, and asking for this reverts to problem 1). You can't interact with everyone. Period. Not even through a proxy.

one of the main reasons I bought this game was because of instancing.

/not signed

BAD IDEA!

Instancing is what makes the game what it is. If you want something else please by all means go play EQ2, WoW, or some other MMORPG. There are MANY, MANY people that played WoW first and left it for GW. They left for the very reason that things were instanced.

As for variations... part of the strategy of the game is people NOT having unique looking armor... your opponent has to guess what level it is... ofcourse in the end arenas we all know what it is. Sure variation is nice, but again LOTS of people don't want to grind for the most uber elite head piece.

If you want variation perhaps they can make all dye 25g and allow you to use it on specific areas of your armor.

Yeah, isn't it amazing that people state all sorts of reasons for leaving or hating other MMORPG's then come here and want the exact same things implemented? The problem is that none of these people can put two and two together. The reasons that GW is superior to the others is because of the differences such as instancing. Removing those differences will change the very core of the game - it's impossible to have what GW has now without the other stuff, otherwise it becomes a clone of all the other MMORPGs out there.

I agree with having a set price for dye, but I think you misunderstand what those of us desiring this change mean. First of all, having unique armor would increase the challenge of an opponent guessing what level it is - if they've never seen it before, how could they possibly know how good it is, or what it's weakness is? I don't want to grind for items either, but doing some grinding is part of what an RPG is (and always has been), but I don't see the need to make this a grindfest - it's quite easy to give us more options when initially creating the character, and to open up more options in the game through crafters, traders, and merchants. No need for grinding at all.

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
http://www.realmillenniumgroup.com/guild.html
Truth * Knowledge * Peace

ROFL, erm you cannot take instancing out of GW. The whole game is based around it.
If you don't like instances, go play another game, like WOW, or EQ2 etc.

I hate MMORPGs. I like GW. Instancing rocks, I don't need the crap that comes along with MMORPGs.

I can't speak for alot of people...but for myelf, I won't joing a guild until 1 of 2 things happens.

1. they remove the need to have a cape to buy a guild hall...so that guilds can have the OPTION to not have a cape.
2. they give the player the ability to turn the capes on and off.


The cape model is one of the elements of this game that SCREAMS recycled engine to me. It's an AWFUL model...it doesn't flow right with character movement. It's, for me, literally the worst feature of this game. The 4 polygon cape just isn't cutting it.


/notsigned.....don't really want killstealing, noob bashing, ganking, item theft, etc etc etc all the bullshit that goes on in WoW