New Instanced Zones Thread

Is this only on Progression Servers? Or do normal servers also do /pickzone if the zone is full?

It is when you have the bodies to do it. Bodies and time.

There are many times as many people as ever before. Rare is an odd word to use on anything that can be farmed. Eventually there is a glut, but while there is population increase there should also be item drop increases.

There is also less play time than classic EQ had before moving on to the next expansion, so increasing the drop rate is also fine.

Frankly, I don't care about the economy anyway since I would rather be able to get my own items, and the instances certainly help with that. In any case, "Rare" means a sellers market, good drop rate means we arrive at buyers market much faster. If it happens to be about half way through the classic era, that's about right.

Exploit Concern -Is it possible to exploit this? What's to keep big guild's like TL form having a LGUK Farm Day? bringing in 90 players, overloading zones and spawning new instances while leaving a few behind in each to farm the items they want. Even in normal guk only has 56 players, all they have to do is bring 64+, zone in, create a new instance, everyone moves to 2, spawns a 3rd instance, and then everyone can move to 4, etc. Then they can leave behind a player in each instance to reserve it. Once they have spawned the desired number of instances, they send a group or so back to each one.

Possible? --> Peak Times Spawns multiple Instances, then dwindle to a small number of players in each instance as time goes on. None of them go away because 10-20 stayed in each. Then you can have people farming pickzones and running through different zones clearing multiple of the same spawn. For example, 6 guks were spawned during a weekend peak time. As the week rolls around, instead of 60 in each zone, you have maintained 15-20. You have now have 6 instances of Guk running for extended periods of time well beyond what was needed for the pickzones.


Higher Tier Concern -I also think instancing the upper tier zones was a mistake (SRO, etc, Go for it). You are already opening Lockjaw, that will help ragefire overpopulation. But now your further adding pickzone. Your dividing the population, then dividing it again.

You also have to remember this is the beginning of the server. There is always a higher population at the beginning of a server. There is always a higher population at the start of an expansion relative to the end of that expansion. As time goes on, the population will dwindle, which will be further divided in half with Lockjaw.

Social Group Play- This is also going to make people even more finicky than they are. Something goes wrong, people don't really stick together like they use to and give it a few more tries. Back in the day, groups were more resilent because it was hard to form a group and get a camp. Now days, If a group wipes, people will often just take off. If a group is not getting as many mobs as they'd like, people may just take off. This behavior is going to increase more with pickzones. Because now people can just take off from that group and look for greener grass in the current zone or the new pickzones.

Less Travel And Small Interactions- . I couldn't find a group in guk about 5-6 times, so I gated out twice, walked out a few times, and got a port out twice. This forced me to run over to Lavastorm or other areas and check those places. When I finally found a place, it made it all the better. When I walked out of Guk, I buffed a few groups on my way out, which otherwise would not have happened. These small time interactions help make the world more vibrant. O SWEET that enchanter just buffed us, badass lets rock! Another example would be getting to Guk- I now walk through a pickzone with only a few players in it. I never see anybody. I thought it was cool to see everybody leveling in upper guk as I ran to lower Guk.

Now I don't have to leave guk. I can simply sit drift between pickzones until I find a group or a solo camp. The two people who got paid for a port never get paid. The groups I Buffed never get buffed. It may not be a major change, but all of these little interactions never occur with too much instancing.

That Special Feeling And Vibrant World - If it get's to the point where there are 3-4 instances in guk and only 20 players in each (created at peak times and reserved with smaller numbers), you lose the vibrancy of the world. A rare camp should feel good to get. Not, o its camped here, lets pickzone 2, ahhh camped here, ok pickzone 3, ok its open here, lets go.
Just getting that rare camp makes you feel special. Heck, I even felt special when I got a throne room Crushbone group. Now it will be less so.

I have gotten one group in Lower Guk, and tried a number of times. So what, I dealt with it. I'd rather have an overcrowded world than a deserted one. Having so many players can be frustrating at times, but it can also be more rewarding. Now I finally have this camp I wanted- awesome! Having people around is what makes an MMO an MMO. Having nobody around is what makes a Vulak. You want to have zones at least somewhat full.

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Ayep cause many inquiring minds would like to know.

I just want to add my voice to the chorus of people praising this change. Instances for these zones will mean I'll finally get to experience some of the crowded content. Thanks!!

You can ignore his entire post as he doesn't even know how it really works. GG

According to Holly's tweet 4 hours ago... "Caps vary based on the number of NPCs in a zone." I doubt they will get anymore specific than that.

With the number of players on the prog servers, in 1 month you can have 10 instances of Lguk and none of them will feel "empty"

Its soo hard for the bot armies to get a monk to FD through /pickzone and have the mage army swoop in whenever mobs spawn they want.

Its soo hard to get an instance open one day and leave a char online in there so that the next day there could be 25 people in zone and 2+ instances still.

Anything that increases meaningful loot and plat drops hurts the economy, period. No argument against it. More makes this worse less to a point, it never increases the value because there are 5x more of an item than there should be. Thats bad period.

Giving people mroe access to plat just makes your 200p meaningless and now you need 20k again(see p99 if you dont believe me there is living proof that will happen)

I really wish instancing stopped after level 30. The crowds thin out at a point there and loot becomes a bigger part of the game. This was a way overreaction and a drastic change of the original eq experience.

So no immersion...just handed whatever you want. No competition...MMO's are being ruined by instant gratification now.

This is amazing; thanks for listening DGB! Honestly, I am really impressed!

I do think instancing Lguk was very questionable. Everything else on the list seems fine to me, but lguk seems like it will be abused pretty badly.

If it is just about giving people places to EXP then they already instanced OOT and that is a profoundly better place to EXP from 35-50 than both Solb and Lguk.

/petition to removed Lguk from instances!

Isnt it a much better feeling when you FINALLY get a camp that youve been wanting and finalliy got the item? Now you can..for the most part just go where you want get what you want. Easy mode.

The only zones that need instancing are the ones with the dragons.. nobody is going to care about the low level dungeons a few weeks from now. Why exclude SolB and Permafrost? If anything those should have been first.

Then youre basically changing the game at this point.

He obviously isn't correct about the 90 players since you would need 90*63 players to get instance 64.
Other than that though, he makes some pretty good points.

Yes. To be completely vague, the number of adventurers in a zone required before it spawns a new version of itself varies and was determined based roughly on the amount of combatable content in each zone. As far as the actual numbers, we'd rather not divulge the details. If anything is clearly over or undercrowded, please let us know!

I'm waiting for that new Panda expansion to come out.