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Open world vs instanced

raelishraelish Member Posts: 0 Arc User
ive been watching videos about this game for quite some time and i was curious about this because its one of my main factors of mmo's. does anyone know if the main world will be open like tera or instanced like vindictus/raiderz. because i noticed in the foundry preview video from gamescom the woman said that the main city was persistent world, that having been said leads me to believe the game will function much like guild wars.vindictus. any info on this would be greatly appreciated.
Post edited by raelish on
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    quetumquetum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    The entire game by definition is instanced, but the overworld is very much public and open. In other words, everyone plays on the same "realm" or "server", but heavy traffic public areas are created and destroyed to handle the volume of players there. As far as I know, you can "teleport" between any of these public instances to meet up with friends.

    The dungeons or delves and foundry content are private instances for you and your party only. Those are the areas that resemble instances much like WoW does it. (If you played that game.)
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    raelishraelish Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    so theres no open persistent world like perfect world?
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    vindiconvindicon Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    raelish wrote: »
    iinstanced like vindictus/raiderz.

    Raiderz is an open world game. The only instanced parts are the dungeons. In Vindictus there is nothing but dungeons...

    And as far as I've heard, the game will function as open world in the main areas, and instanced in the dungeons. Exactly like Perfect World and Raiderz, or 95% of the rest of MMORPGs for that matter, albeit probably with a slightly bigger focus on instances. But we still have been shown little other than a single dungeon, so noone really knows yet.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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    ambisinisterrambisinisterr Member, Neverwinter Moderator Posts: 10,462 Community Moderator
    edited August 2012
    **My definition of instanced is a unique location for limited players and open world is a general area for unlimited players so my post runs on this definition**

    From what I read it's going to be something in the way of both if not at first then hopefully later on after launch.
    Although they are not sure at this point how much support they can give towards individual persistent realms they do hope to give as much support as possible.

    At launch at least there will an open world developed by Cryptic to all which instanced areas/dungeons can be accessed.
    At some point they plan to expand to allow UGC area's to be intance yet open world and lead to their own instanced areas.

    Basically, from what I've gathered, they hope to have their open world lead to player's open worlds.


    **If you define instances as locations with loading screens between them...possibly in Cryptic's Open World but since cryptomopolis has stated in another thread that there will be no height map editor at launch that UGC content will almost assuredly not be without load screens, open world by my definition or not or not.**
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    macabrivsmacabrivs Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 417 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2012
    From what i understand there will be open world areas but i think they will work as instances, what i mean is that i believe the open world wont work like WoW for example, to move from diferent areas u will probably have to load the game not like others MMO's where its one simple big presistence world with many areas where u can travel without a single load.

    As for instances i believe they will be mostly dungeons, delves, foundry missions and probably some game events.
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    raelishraelish Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    my thing isnt loading screens i have no problem with zone loading, what i mean is if i walk out the front gate of the city and get the loading screen will i be by myself in a unique instance or will i see other players? thats what im asking, i know there will be dungeons and i know the diff between instances and open world . im just curious if anyone knows or not.
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    viledeeds77#8676 viledeeds77 Member Posts: 393 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    We could get a better feel of things if, after the game shows season is over or after PAX, they let us play the Demo for say a weekend? I say this for two reasons.....

    1. I really wanna get my hands on this game

    2. It would give us alot of answers to questions we keep rehashing every month or two...
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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    ambisinisterrambisinisterr Member, Neverwinter Moderator Posts: 10,462 Community Moderator
    edited August 2012
    You will be able to see other players through a lot of the game. I don't think they will be designing the game similar to DDO where the opening zone is the only open world.

    I think instanced areas will mainly be dungeons, large quests or UGC.

    As for playing the game demo...I don't think we'll be getting our hands on the game until the Beta starts. What they are displaying at the game shows is still infantile and carefully dumbed down. Most of our questions wouldn't be answered if we went to the game shows so even if they released their game show demo I don't think many if any of the more common questions would be answered.
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    macabrivsmacabrivs Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 417 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2012
    raelish wrote: »
    my thing isnt loading screens i have no problem with zone loading, what i mean is if i walk out the front gate of the city and get the loading screen will i be by myself in a unique instance or will i see other players? thats what im asking, i know there will be dungeons and i know the diff between instances and open world . im just curious if anyone knows or not.

    Yup, u will definly be able to see other players in open world areas.
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    raelishraelish Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    good good, i hate the feeling of an empty world ya know.
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    lyfebanelyfebane Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 312 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2012
    One the vids i saw was clearing part of the city of, i think, orcs. This was explained as an open world area which, if had been online environement, would have had more players there doing the same thing that could group/help etc.
    The city itself is huge and I think has quite a few areas where its open world and has mobs to kill. I would not be supprised to find areas outside the citry the same. Likely there will be instanced dungeons of these areas.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] I am not evil, I am just cursed.
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    devoteoftempusdevoteoftempus Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 473 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2012
    lyfebane wrote: »
    One the vids i saw was clearing part of the city of, i think, orcs. This was explained as an open world area which, if had been online environement, would have had more players there doing the same thing that could group/help etc.
    The city itself is huge and I think has quite a few areas where its open world and has mobs to kill. I would not be supprised to find areas outside the citry the same. Likely there will be instanced dungeons of these areas.

    Beat me to it. I hope that quests and dungeon delves are the only ones instanced.

    What I hope they do have though, which was discussed in another thread, is a truly exploration feel to the open world. What I mean by that is that there are caves and lairs throughout the wilderness that one can explore. A mini dungeon so to speak, which is much harder than the wilderness but not as hard as a dungeon delve, where soloing is not a good ideal but a full fledged balanced party is not required. Sorta like elite areas that WoW had where a group of 2-3 could do perfectly fine. I remember in a NWN2 Balder's Gate PW where they had the glibbering cave near that first inn in BG (Friendly Arm Inn?) that was a multiple level that connected to some ruins in another map which I loved the mechanics of and on numerous occasions would come across others and would group with total strangers. An experience that is severely lacking in MMOs these days as everything is soloed cept dungeon instances.
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    macabrivsmacabrivs Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 417 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2012
    Beat me to it. I hope that quests and dungeon delves are the only ones instanced.

    What I hope they do have though, which was discussed in another thread, is a truly exploration feel to the open world. What I mean by that is that there are caves and lairs throughout the wilderness that one can explore. A mini dungeon so to speak, which is much harder than the wilderness but not as hard as a dungeon delve, where soloing is not a good ideal but a full fledged balanced party is not required. Sorta like elite areas that WoW had where a group of 2-3 could do perfectly fine. I remember in a NWN2 Balder's Gate PW where they had the glibbering cave near that first inn in BG (Friendly Arm Inn?) that was a multiple level that connected to some ruins in another map which I loved the mechanics of and on numerous occasions would come across others and would group with total strangers. An experience that is severely lacking in MMOs these days as everything is soloed cept dungeon instances.

    I would love to see that aswell, that reminds me how dungeons work back in ultima online but to be honest i dont have big hopes for that to happen in neverwinter. I know all the videos we saw are just demos but unfortenly i think exploration wont be a big thing in neverwinter.

    Like i said earlier i dont even think we will have a presistence world like WoW, beside all as been said about a fully presistence world by devs i think neverwinter will be like DDO but the wilderness will be open area for everyone.

    Ofc im just speculating and i rly hope im wrong
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    ambisinisterrambisinisterr Member, Neverwinter Moderator Posts: 10,462 Community Moderator
    edited August 2012
    macabrivs wrote: »
    Like i said earlier i dont even think we will have a presistence world like WoW, beside all as been said about a fully presistence world by devs i think neverwinter will be like DDO but the wilderness will be open area for everyone.

    Well it depends on your definition of a persistent world. We will almost assuredly have loading screens. We won't be able to walk from Neverwinter to the edge of Luskan as one smooth piece of terrain more than likely and it will be segmented out to smaller maps.

    However the only difference between Neverwinter and other large persistent world MMO's will be the fact most, if not all, of the dungeons and quests will be instance based. And honestly that's not a bad thing to me.
    One of the worst aspects of any MMO is the boss grinding or experience grinding which promotes nothing other than a competition between players rather than polite interaction.

    I don't know, personally I hated fighitng over spots and my personality was always one to share if somebody wanted to come in. But often times I found they were there to oust me because sharing cost them too much experience/drops. I'll be glad to see a lot of instances...as long as there's also a fair amount of open world areas too which I don't find to be the case on DDO.
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    bitterwinterbitterwinter Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Does anyone know what area around Neverwinter will be included with the game at launch? I know Neverwinter Woods is mentioned but not sure how far outside of Neverwinter we'd be able to go to? My hope is that this becomes popular enough to enable us to see more of Faerun!
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    nimlohnimloh Member Posts: 177 Bounty Hunter
    edited August 2012
    Does anyone know what area around Neverwinter will be included with the game at launch? I know Neverwinter Woods is mentioned but not sure how far outside of Neverwinter we'd be able to go to? My hope is that this becomes popular enough to enable us to see more of Faerun!

    We don't have a definitive answer yet, though it's safe to say it will be limited. I have heard the Sword Mts invoked by devs. Of course NW forest and Mt Hotenow.

    We probably won't see south of the Sword Mts and probably will not see as north as Luskan. I'm really just speculating.

    And yes, we're all hoping that success will see the devs expand across Faerun!
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    zebularzebular Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 15,270 Community Moderator
    edited August 2012
    nimloh wrote: »
    And yes, we're all hoping that success will see the devs expand across Faerun!
    Indeed!

    In addition to the rest of Faerun, I would like to also one day see areas added such as the Shining South, Kara-Tur and mayhap even some planeswalking... Sigil!

    It is probably safe to assume that other regions will be accessible via the Foundry through UGCs. I already have begun to imagine a Campaign of adventures that will be based on Mystra's current state and the lore surrounding that, which will take players not only around specific places in Faerun, such as Candlekeep, Baldur's Gate, Silverymoon and Myth Drannor -- but also as far south as Halruaa and even a trek in time.

    Additionally, I see myself making UGCs based upon a lot of the current Realms' deities - for my Campaign has been a high level campaign for many years now, dealing with the Gods has become second nature to me. I'd like to explore that through adventures in this wondrous game.

    So, as far as official content for more areas - I am sure things will come in time. As for UGC, I am sure we'll be traveling all over Realmspace and beyond.
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    ausdoerrtausdoerrt Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    However the only difference between Neverwinter and other large persistent world MMO's will be the fact most, if not all, of the dungeons and quests will be instance based. And honestly that's not a bad thing to me.

    I wouldn't be so sure about that, remember the Gamescom presentation? After the instanced quest, the guy was running around a "public area" killing orcs, and Craig mentioned that he's doing a quest to free some prisoners etc. I am curious to see how they'll handle that with the large amount of people an MMO typically has, but it does look like we'll definitely see some open-world quests as well.

    One of the worst aspects of any MMO is the boss grinding or experience grinding which promotes nothing other than a competition between players rather than polite interaction.

    Yes and no, this depends entirely on how the party system works with regards to loot and XP splitting. Hopefully, there's also no BS like last-hitting or first-hitting to get the loot/XP when not in party. Something fully instanced like DDO is also full of grind (except, here it is run X dungeon a bazillion times as fast as possible), and has its share of loot drama.

    So, hopefully they have a) a sensible party and loot distribution system and b) the UGC will take care of the cringeworthy grind of having to repeat the same content over and over and over again.
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    kullskakullska Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Okay, I'm going to try to explain how I understand the open world vs instance system to work. Most areas will be considered "open world", as in you will travel along and see other players not in your party. I am pretty sure these open areas will have load screens in between them. Should too many characters be present in that particular area, the server will spawn another "instance" on that map. Think CO or CoH, if you travel to Atlas Park and there are a ton of toons there you might see an Atlas Park2 or Atlas Park3 option to zone into. In CO when these additional mirrored zones spawn you can easily travel between them (i.e. move from Atlas Park2 to Atlas Park3) in order to meet up with friends or even avoid the masses.

    Most quests (probably not all) will probably direct you to a gate/door/portal/etc. where the server will spawn a private instanced dungeon/delve/etc for you and your party to complete the quest in. I may go so far as to assume some public quests that would occur in the open world areas. I don't know how those will work exactly. Maybe similar to WAR or RIFT in that if you enter the area the quest is occuring you will auto-magically be teamed up with others accomplishing the quest.

    Most of this is speculation based off of my experience in other games derived from the descriptions given by the devs.
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    gillrmngillrmn Member Posts: 7,800 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    kullska wrote: »
    ...

    Most of this is speculation based off of my experience in other games derived from the descriptions given by the devs.

    Actually, you don't need to read a lot to check out how open areas Vs instances would be like. Just download CO by cryptic and play it. The NW would be almost the same reagding instances Vs open world.
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    kullskakullska Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Hey gillrmn!

    Yeah, I've played CO (got a lifetime subscription) so I am actually familiar with how it works. The actual speculation was on the public quest areas. There hasn't been a whole lot of information that I have seen regarding quests that take place outside of private instanced quests. I could see public quest pools being available but I'm not sure that they would incorporate questing in public "open world" areas.
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    gillrmngillrmn Member Posts: 7,800 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    kullska wrote: »
    Hey gillrmn!

    Yeah, I've played CO (got a lifetime subscription) so I am actually familiar with how it works. The actual speculation was on the public quest areas. There hasn't been a whole lot of information that I have seen regarding quests that take place outside of private instanced quests. I could see public quest pools being available but I'm not sure that they would incorporate questing in public "open world" areas.

    Its going to be similar where you have to fight for most of the spawns, but the quests are going to be from dungeons and sewers accessible from these open areas.

    You will have to fight more common monsters in public areas. Instances are for quests and to progress storyline only. However, foundry missions won't be in public areas for now, but I think it is on their things to do list, or perhaps things they want to do list.
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    kullskakullska Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    gillrmn wrote: »
    Its going to be similar where you have to fight for most of the spawns, but the quests are going to be from dungeons and sewers accessible from these open areas.

    See, now I was under the impression Cryptic was trying to avoid folks having to camp for spawn X and that was why they were favoring quests with instance doors. Going to have to go back through the news releases now.
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    vindiconvindicon Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    kullska wrote: »
    The actual speculation was on the public quest areas. There hasn't been a whole lot of information that I have seen regarding quests that take place outside of private instanced quests. I could see public quest pools being available but I'm not sure that they would incorporate questing in public "open world" areas.

    In the latest alpha presentation video, the beginning area was featured. They also confirmed that it's an open world area, which means that, most probably, most other non-dungeon areas will be open as well. So, they certainly do have open world areas with quests and mobs.


    As for spawncamping.... that simply doesn't exist if the game's spawning numbers and cooldowns were carefully thought out beforehand, except for the very first days after the servers open (due to the huge amount of players). Players spread out fast enough that mob spawncamping dies out after a few hours while boss spawncamping dies a couple days in max. That is why beginner areas in MMORPGs traditionally have tons of mobs with near-instant respawns, and why important beginner bosses are often instanced.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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    aesclealaescleal Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Public quest areas are great. And zones are great too so long as they all patch together to become a large playable world. So, Cryptic can easily play out GM events where hordes attack this gate or that, or NPC brawls break out and players can be pulled into the fray. I for one am excited about the potential. If we compare this scenario to DDO... well I like this idea.
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    ambisinisterrambisinisterr Member, Neverwinter Moderator Posts: 10,462 Community Moderator
    edited August 2012
    ausdoerrt,

    I think you misunderstood me a bit.
    Its going to be similar where you have to fight for most of the spawns, but the quests are going to be from dungeons and sewers accessible from these open areas.

    This is how I feel as well. However what I define as "common" spawns don't include most boss monsters or things you would generally camp. I expect that maybe some bosses might be open but the vast majority of things players would feel compelled to compete for would be instanced.
    I'm hoping for a decent mixture. From what I saw we shouldn't be expecting DDO's horrible isolation environment outside of dungeons and quests.
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    raelishraelish Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Yeah i dont mind a channel system if the given zone is too full, i just dont want every outdoor zone to be instanced like guild wars. i play mmo's to see other players around me killing things as well, and i know the videos we have seen are not a very good indicator considering they are tech demos and theres only like 2-3 ppl logged in at said event just to show off the systems in the game so theres no chance to catch other players running around. i suppose we shall all find out come CBT, which is hopefully soon =) guess ill have to find my neverwinter diamond and reinstall it to get back into the lore of it before launch =)
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    ambisinisterrambisinisterr Member, Neverwinter Moderator Posts: 10,462 Community Moderator
    edited August 2012
    Exactly raelish!

    And cryptic has all but announced that we will be seeing players over most of the world killing common spawns at E3 2012. ~3:10 in that video The Squez stated that the zone he was fighting in was a persistent zone and other players would be in there as well.
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    raelishraelish Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    vindicon wrote: »
    In the latest alpha presentation video, the beginning area was featured. They also confirmed that it's an open world area, which means that, most probably, most other non-dungeon areas will be open as well. So, they certainly do have open world areas with quests and mobs.


    As for spawncamping.... that simply doesn't exist if the game's spawning numbers and cooldowns were carefully thought out beforehand, except for the very first days after the servers open (due to the huge amount of players). Players spread out fast enough that mob spawncamping dies out after a few hours while boss spawncamping dies a couple days in max. That is why beginner areas in MMORPGs traditionally have tons of mobs with near-instant respawns, and why important beginner bosses are often instanced.


    that video makes this game look even more amazing and he said the game is an open world mmo and there are quests in the open world, it answered my original question, thanks alot for this post bro. very informative. =)))


    best part is, hes not playing a rogue!!!! which 90% of developers do when playing a tech demo!!
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    iamtruthseekeriamtruthseeker Member, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Based on what was said on E3 as well as how the later MMO's handle it (eg RIFT) it's highly likely the open world quests will be triggered by anybody who has the quest and is in the area by any players who are making the objective.


    What's not understood at times is open world quests are the ones that are the "clear out" or "set up" quests more often than not making group participation possible via co-op instead of "kill Beezo yourself" requiring camping. Even when you have a "slayer" quest in "outdoor" options, it would be handled like the DDO "exploration zones" (even though it's instanced for them) where if you're in the area and have the quest, you get credit if somebody triggers the objective.


    The stop the villain or retrieve the goblet quests will be done in the instanced quests instead, where that not having to camp makes sense.

    Of course, I could be wrong on this and we could go back to the EQ/WoW camp spawn mess, but I truly hope experience and successful previous methods mentioned above are continued.


    Oh, and this discussion has made me update the New Users FAQ:
    Is the game Instanced or Open world? I keep hearing it's one than it's the other!

    That's because it's both! Quests and monsters will wander around their zones of the open world where a large number of people can participate with each other, but dungeons, special missions, and end-of-story-arc delves will be instanced for up to (and only) five players as per a typical Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons adventuring party.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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