Bosses, spawns and quests - persistent?

Phasing as per how Blizzard does it has been used in other games as well. It's a version of soft instancing - the split condition doesn't have to be a certain amount of players, it can be anything.

The main issue with it is that it, if done wrong (Blizzard doesn't, apparently), as a friend of mine put it, "looks ****ing stupid". For example, if a certain boss is present for character A (who is fighting him) but not for character B, then from the viewpoint of character B, it would seem that character A is fighting... air.

Social interaction can also become awkward: Imagine you have a quest about saving a village from a zombie horde. Let's say phase 1 is a zombie-free village with a quest-giving NPC, phase 2 is village overrun by zombies, phase 3 is once again a zombie-free village without the quest NPC but with a statue of yourself as the saviour of the village. Naturally, it starts out at phase 1, becomes phase 2 after you take the quest and leave for a while and then come back (you might be sent to a nearby town to "ask for help" or some other excuse), and phase 3 once the quest is over.

You ask someone in town for help with saving the village from zombies. He agrees, and you rush to the village. Oh, no! The zombies are already all over the place (phase 2) - you rush in and start attacking them. Your newfound friend, on the other hand, stands around looking confused. He doesn't have the quest (phase 1. or, worse, he already finished it: phase 3), so he don't see the zombies. Or, even worse, as soon as you enter the phased area, he's not in your party anymore.

This isn't to say that phasing or soft instancing is a bad idea. It's not. In fact, it's a great idea, and it's the future of MMOs, I think. But it does require a lot of careful thought and hand-crafting.

I'd like to mention something else. Instancing doesn't mean a loading screen. It's entirely possible to pre-load an instance and then just allow the player to seamlessly enter a portal or something - well, it doesn't even need to look like a portal.

Originally Posted by Gmr Leon

Because unlike in GW, GW2 will, from all that we've read so far, be persistent. There has been no hint, as far as I know, of instancing.

No no... there will be a lot of instancing in GW. Some people mistake "adding persistence" with "remove instances". However, they already said that GW2 will make heavy uses of instances.

Which makes sense, because GW is very story-dependent, and it's very important to be an important part of the story without instancing.

That, and the fact that players tend to prefer instances anyway, even if they enjoy persistent areas too. Like me for example. Or most WoW players I talked to.

Originally Posted by Akirai Annuvil

What I'm suggesting (very bare bones):

Simple monsters, quests and mini bosses - Persistent
Spawn points for monsters+mini bosses - Hard instances, walk or run to their location in the persistent world, perform certain emotes/patrol
Serious quest objectives - Hard instances
Simple event - Persistent
Serious event - Soft instances

Sounds good.

Originally Posted by raspberry jam

Phasing as per how Blizzard does it has been used in other games as well. The main issue with it is that it, if done wrong (...)

Instancing doesn't mean a loading screen.

Agreed on both counts.

In Diablo 1, there was some phasing... as in your friends could pre-clear a level, and then upon entering you'd have a few "personal" demons to dispatch. It was ackward.

Apparently, in WoW, phasing works because once you are done with the phasing quest, you can't go back. So the situation of ppl having different quests doesn't happen. However, you can only do that for one-way progression, in which case you might as well use instancing... aside for the fact that phasing may be easier to program in a game like WoW.

Originally Posted by Alaris

No no... there will be a lot of instancing in GW. Some people mistake "adding persistence" with "remove instances". However, they already said that GW2 will make heavy uses of instances.

Persistent and Instanced; best of both worlds

* Find existing friends and make new ones in a persistent, fully-populated world, more like those in conventional MMOs. Persistent areas are a part of the world where everybody gets to come together and share gamespace.
* Guild Wars 2 will have different servers (known as “Worlds”) like many other games.
* Easily transfer between servers.
* Your story will take place through a combination of instanced and persistent areas. Be prepared for some things, especially with narrative, that you haven’t seen before in an MMO.
* Instancing is used for quests, dungeons, and raids – especially high-end adventuring.
* The existence or lack of a persistent world is totally unrelated to the running expenses which are needed to maintain an online game.
* Players are not going to be player-killing you as you’re trying to complete a quest; PvP has always been consensual in Guild Wars.