Age of Conan

I was pettty excited about this game, at least until another poster mentioned instancing.

If I understood him correctly, anytime you enter a zone you get the option to choose zone 1, zone 2, zone 3, etc. If a zone is full of players (no idea of the cap), then you have to enter another zone.

You can still chat with everyone in that zone, but you wont physically see them because they might be in another instance of that zone.

EQ2 did this crap and I quit immediately. There was some forest near a starter town in EQ2, once I tried to enter it and loading screen asks me which instance did I want. It felt like I was playing inside a small box with 12 other people.

If your in a group of say 8 players and you all try to enter a zone together but it only has room for 6, two of you get left out. Lame.

Can someone please explain to me why a so-called 3rd generation MMO has to resort to this ? A second generation MMO - Star Wars Galaxies, 5 yrs old didnt have to settle for this instancing junk. In fact that entire game (minus a few instances later added) was 100% in-game. Housing was even in-game.

LOTR also has a lot of loading into zones but at least everyone is in the same one (Minus the housing)

I pay to play in a MMO, not a multiplayer box. This is a real turnoff for me and has me rethinking my purchase. Course I suppose thats why Funcom has its NDA still in place with only mere hours left till early launch.

I hope this instancing junk is only for a few zones

If you couldn't stand EQ2's instancing you will absolutely HATE AoC's.  It's much worse.  Sorry.

no, you don't get a pop up window asking which zone you want to enter.

If you are in a group, all of you enter the same zone.

Instancing is a bit on the heavy side in the n00b areas of the game to help with the lag of lots of people being in the same place at the same time.

Once you are out in the open world, you will see a tremendous difference.

It's very similar to AO in it's zoning / instancing. Not surprising really, since it's Funcom.

Without some kind of instancing in Tortage (n00b island) the game would likely be unplayable.

It is a necessary evil, until we all have nasa computers and internet2.

if this is true,then it really sux,and its kinda weird that this board aint thread spammed with cons of aoc

Originally posted by admriker4

I was pettty excited about this game, at least until another poster mentioned instancing.

If I understood him correctly, anytime you enter a zone you get the option to choose zone 1, zone 2, zone 3, etc. If a zone is full of players (no idea of the cap), then you have to enter another zone.

You can still chat with everyone in that zone, but you wont physically see them because they might be in another instance of that zone.

EQ2 did this crap and I quit immediately. There was some forest near a starter town in EQ2, once I tried to enter it and loading screen asks me which instance did I want. It felt like I was playing inside a small box with 12 other people.

If your in a group of say 8 players and you all try to enter a zone together but it only has room for 6, two of you get left out. Lame. This is not true. The game doesnt split your group, never. EQ2 dont do it, AoC dont do it, never a zone based game will split a group.

Can someone please explain to me why a so-called 3rd generation MMO has to resort to this ? A second generation MMO - Star Wars Galaxies, 5 yrs old didnt have to settle for this instancing junk. In fact that entire game (minus a few instances later added) was 100% in-game. Housing was even in-game.

LOTR also has a lot of loading into zones but at least everyone is in the same one (Minus the housing)

I pay to play in a MMO, not a multiplayer box. This is a real turnoff for me and has me rethinking my purchase. Course I suppose thats why Funcom has its NDA still in place with only mere hours left till early launch.

I hope this instancing junk is only for a few zones

As for the rest. Is a matter of opinion. I only wanted to make you notice an error.

Originally posted by Xorxhs

if this is true,then it really sux,and its kinda weird that this board aint thread spammed with cons of aoc

There are complain threads everyday about the cons of AoC, and if you look back a few pages, 70% of the threads are of these type.

well i suppose it depends on the size. Are we talking 30 people, 300, or 3,000 per instance ?

I still dont understand how Star Wars Galaxies could have no instances and zoning in it. Its graphics were state of the art at launch and had at the time hundreds of thousands of players on. I didnt have to choose an instance or wait for a loading screen anytime i entered the cantina. And the best part, my house was in-game as well.

MMO's feel much much smaller to me when Im not actually playing with a mass of people

Actually the loading time is getting alot better now.  I wouldn't worry to much about it if I were you.  Now take it from me as the Doomsayer for months that Im starting to see the potentials that could make AOC - not just huge but massive.   OFC Funcom has huge amount of work to do and slightest mistake in first week could ruin it all. 

What I can promise you is that you will not find better looking - more realistic  and in many ways - fun game to play for the next year or so.   Games like assins creed and the witcher meet the MMO comunity and big things can happen.   And dont forget that those games had loading screens to =)

As long as the direct gameplay is not suffering cause of the grapichs - then the game will be a hit.   Im now running the game in top res and highest quality and still getting around 20-45 fps in Tortage but up to 80 fps in less crowded places.   And the performance is alot better. 

Still - alot to be done but this is actually for the first time in the last 3-4 months that I can see it click.

As for instancing - thats both good and bad.

There is normal mode (solo) and epic mode (grouping).  It gives you more variety than all current MMOs put together.  And... it will actually reduce the annoying part of spending alot of time doing quests - just because all the others are doing them to. 

Originally posted by Xorxhs

if this is true,then it really sux,and its kinda weird that this board aint thread spammed with cons of aoc

Anyone with a realistic understanding of PC limitations knows this.

The graphic quality of AoC has to be seen to be believed....it's beyond amazing. You can't have 2000+ people in one starting area and have it be playable. It's just not realistically feasable.

Originally posted by alakram

Originally posted by admriker4

I was pettty excited about this game, at least until another poster mentioned instancing.

If I understood him correctly, anytime you enter a zone you get the option to choose zone 1, zone 2, zone 3, etc. If a zone is full of players (no idea of the cap), then you have to enter another zone.

You can still chat with everyone in that zone, but you wont physically see them because they might be in another instance of that zone.

EQ2 did this crap and I quit immediately. There was some forest near a starter town in EQ2, once I tried to enter it and loading screen asks me which instance did I want. It felt like I was playing inside a small box with 12 other people.

If your in a group of say 8 players and you all try to enter a zone together but it only has room for 6, two of you get left out. Lame. This is not true. The game doesnt split your group, never. EQ2 dont do it, AoC dont do it, never a zone based game will split a group.

Can someone please explain to me why a so-called 3rd generation MMO has to resort to this ? A second generation MMO - Star Wars Galaxies, 5 yrs old didnt have to settle for this instancing junk. In fact that entire game (minus a few instances later added) was 100% in-game. Housing was even in-game.

LOTR also has a lot of loading into zones but at least everyone is in the same one (Minus the housing)

I pay to play in a MMO, not a multiplayer box. This is a real turnoff