Racial Abilities

Originally Posted by Alaris

Well, the main thing in persistent areas is that density will vary a lot! You need to implement your game to either (a) find ways to disperse your population more evenly, or (b) adapt content to population density.

Yeah. So far, every game has been all about (a). It's time for some (b).

Originally Posted by Alaris

I would like to refer you to a previous post of mine...

Indeed. And that's why I say bosses and such should be in instances. Of course, having a lot of people talking to the same quest-giving NPC is hardly going to be a problem.

Originally Posted by Alaris

I have to adopt an attitude of wait and see. I think if anyone can do a good job at it, it's ANet.

We all have to adopt that attitude. Probably all the stuff we say in this thread - well, maybe not all of it, but a lot of it - has probably been put on some suggestion table at ANet offices many times over, been talked about, thought about, beaten down, accepted, brainstormed over, found unfitting, or maybe found really really good. Basically they have already made their choices about grand design, and speaking from experience, some of those choices are correct, some are not - I just hope they'll be able to realize which are which, and correct them before release day.

Originally Posted by Wethospu

High cast-time and easily interrupted (any damage, whether blocked or not) should be enough to deal with teleporting.

Good enough. But think about it - quadruple damage actually means dealing over 1k damage if somebody's a wuss

Directly teleporting to a friend might be problematic (like get behind enemy lines and "spawn" huge amount of allies).

In World PvP I don't have a huge problem with this. Again, long cast time and double damage with a huge animation. Also immobilize the target being teleported to and the guys teleporting. Think level up animation only then for 10 seconds - if it still isn't noticeable enough just automatically ping any guys being summoned to on the radar. If you can't get the freebie kill that's because the teleport is happening too far away to be a threat or you're being bad.
(And you should obviously be able to refuse someone teleporting to you in case they're actually somebody you don't know/hate who just added you to their friendslist. Have the request pop up in chat.)

on-topic.

Over-rated.

Originally Posted by Alaris

Well, the main thing in persistent areas is that density will vary a lot! You need to implement your game to either (a) find ways to disperse your population more evenly, or (b) adapt content to population density.

Have all quests in instanced areas, in persistent areas have "events" that change depending on how many people are participating in the event and how well they did.

Example: a group of rogue magicians are in a castle and you are supposed to assault it. A group of thirty people assault it and break into the castle. The people make it to the center/ basement of the fortress, there is a portal to the underworld/rift/mists mobs are spawning at the portal at a rate dependent on how fast the group killed the other mobs. Your characters force their way through the portal into an instance that is again a difficulty balanced to the group.(at this point the group could even be split into halfs or thirds or the player's chosen party.)

Originally Posted by Ender the MM

Have all quests in instanced areas, in persistent areas have "events" that change depending on how many people are participating in the event and how well they did.

Another way to do it...

Aim persistent content towards having fun playing with self-adapting content, and aim instanced content towards achievements.

For example, instances would be boss hunts, missions, storyline, etc. This actually controls unlocks, progression, and most titles. I'd design at least 75% of content as instanced, most of which you cannot easily avoid at least on your first character (if you want to skip content after your first character, I have no probs with that).

Persistent areas would be exploration, ganging up on newbs monsters, having a dragon attack at high pop densities, taking / defending forts, population control, running resources... You get points for doing something useful, and you get more points for doing it where it's needed most. Again, dragons would deal with abuses. I'd design that content to change and adapt to players, to make it a constantly changing content... especially in mid-game onwards (newbs need stability).

Ok getting back on-topic, go post here.

just have the world persistent and the towns as instances, they can always make missions/events like they did in EotN, your own instance.

Originally Posted by sorudo

just have the world persistent and the towns as instances, they can always make missions/events like they did in EotN, your own instance.

What? Your post made no sense