So instead of the Deadmines being a place to be tackled by you and four friends, it should become a morass of players wandering hither and yon with competing groups camping Van Cleef, waiting for him to appear so that he can be immediately killed? That is somehow more realistic? Belief in that is somehow easier to suspend?

I came from EQ and recall fondly evenings in open dungeons and interesting social interactions that occurred. But I also remember more often such places being over-camped messes that my friends and I would end up walking away from after a very unsatisfactory evening.

The thing with WoW is that it is frequently about content on demand. My regular group, none of whom has the unlimited free time of youth any more, can set a time, log on, and be assured that we’ll be able to attempt the content we have planned on without it becoming a wash because five other groups are already there fighting over who gets the next spawn.

And, frankly, having come from AD&D before EQ, the idea of “people congregating in a dungeon” seems to be somewhat backwards. People congregate in towns. Then they take off in small groups to find adventure. If you got to a dungeon and found a couple dozen other adventurers there competing for the same loot it would be tough to explain why you went their in the first place or how there could be any loot left in such a popular location.

Well, that might be interesting to role play once, as a change of pace. I knew one DM who could have made that work. But it would hardly make for a staple, a regular mode of adventure, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Fundamentally it’s why I’m bored of leveling up alts via quests in WoW yet I could do it all day long in EQ2 via open dungeons because everytime the experience is unique and different.

Well said. I’m glad someone has decided to revisit the subject of open dungeons and instanced dungeons.

In reality instanced content is the bread and butter of WoW; it is their premium content. Everything else in WoW is fluff compared to instancing.

Instancing makes no sense within the lore framework of Azeroth. It requires far too much of a suspension of disbelief to work in my opinion. It is the equivalent of the Looking Glass of Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. It is the Achilles Heel of WoW which can’t be explained away. Just how is it that Van Cleef died 498 times today on my server? Or even more ridiculous, how was it that Onyxia was vanquished 17 times today on my server?

Blizzard must think we are fools if our brains are so soft and filled with mush that we accept this preposterous lie of instancing.

It’s done far more damage to MMOs then it has solved problems. The competitive nature of gaming has been removed because of it. Competition for scarce resources is worthwhile because it creates conflict and drama among players. Where some see a customer service problem I see a great opportunity for engaging gameplay.

Without drama and conflict the social nature of people congregating in dungeons has also been removed.

Don’t like your instance? Easy, just step outside and “reset” it. What a shameful and despicable feature to have in a virtual world.

MMOs have become like vending machines today. All predicated on the misguided notion of giving the customer what they want with the result being a litany of dumbed-down gameplay such as WoW.

With WoW, you are not in a world at all — you just think you are. In a real virtual world things persist. The only thing that persists in Azeroth are the mass hallucinations and gullibility of it’s inhabitants.

The bigger the dungeon, the better. I like the risk of exploring and pushing deeper in the dungeon knowing things are going to get tougher and having a sense that stuff is reappearing behind you - it’s almost like a trapped sensation, you feel you have to do it right or die because fleeing stops being an option when you’re that far in.

I think that was a cost to instancing. The dungeons got smaller when they no longer needed to support multiple groups.

VG had some pretty good dungeons too, you just had to find them and stick around long enough to get to them. My personal favorites were Trengal Keep, Greystone, Vol Tuniel and Nuisbe Necropolis. The elf one that was all stilts and platforms was neat, but pathing was really bugged.

Even if you want to cooperate, you have problems in grouping together. Say max group size is 6, and two groups of 4 meet each other. How do you cooperate? In theory you could share spawns like some did back in EQ, but that’s not as efficient. The best option would be to allow both groups to work together somehow.

Private instances are part of the whole “I prefer to solo” mindset of current MMO games. It’s just faster and easier to go into an instance and tackle things yourself or with friends. You can go at yoru own pace instead of being harried by someone else wanting to “play through”. But, then you lose all the positive social interactions that keep these games fun in the long run.

Love the idea of huge dungeons with triggered spawns, Myrix