Instances - Why They Kill Immersion in MMOS: A Perspective

There has been a lot of heated discussion lately on several MMORPG boards that I read regularly on the topic of the instancing mechanic used in MMOs. An instance as referred to in online gaming is a mechanic that the developers use to control lag and player population in a given area within a game world. Because the largest cause of lag in online games is the actual players due to the basic fact that every person with a character is on a different internet connection, each character looks different, has different gear and clothing, may be on a mount, or 100 other possibilities - the system has to draw every single detail of each player, taking resources away from the server and creating lag.

Another function of instancing is to control spawn camping in larger dungeons or other areas. This is done so that more players can have a better chance of finding and killing the named boss, instead of 1 or 2 players ruining the experience for others by camping and even botting it. Some games have taken this to the extreme by creating individual instances of each quest so that each party has their own fresh copy of the adventure that only they are allowed into. Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach all use this mechanic. The planet of Kashyyk in Star Wars Galaxies was the first in that game to use instances of individual high level quest areas.

So, what the servers do is create a "copy" of the game world, or a particular area, when the population reaches a set number of predetermined players, and puts it into a separate cluster within the server. Sort of like a mini-server within the server. When this happens, it requires the player's client to "load" into that mini-server, causing the player to encounter a loading screen. This can be done in several ways: 1) when a player walks up to a portal of some sort, such as a door, cave entrance or similar, or 2) using a drop down window in the client, the player may choose an instance at will. Method 2 is used heavily so that you can somewhat easily re-group with a friend if you get separated. Usually if you are grouped into a party, you will all jump into the same instance without the need to hunt and find each other.

For those of us players that enjoy and appreciate the roleplay aspects of these games, or just want a seamless game world where we can pretty much go anywhere we want without hitting an invisible wall, or having to jump through a portal to get to the next area (Everquest 2 is a great example of this) or every time we want to enter a building, we have to load into it (Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online are good examples of this), or basically ANY time we encounter a "Now Loading" type screen it completely breaks any sense of game immersion. Instead of feeling like you are your character walking around in the lush landscape it seems more and more like you are in a single player role-playing game.

And the size of instanced areas is getting smaller too, therefore the quantity of instanced zones are increasing - probably due to the fact that more people are playing MMORPG's now. In my short experience with Age of Conan, I could actually "feel" the size of the zone I was in and constantly had to "zone" or "gate" during the intro part of the game where you had to rescue the maiden and escort her to Tortage. This completely broke any immersion feeling for me if I can palpate where I need to go, and know where I can't go due to discreet pathing and instancing used by the devs.

Lets look at another game and how they use different mechanics to make the word appear seamless and is NOT using instancing. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes uses a large open game world, based on "chunks" (lovely name isn't it?). Each chunk is 2,000km, squared (i.e. huge) and is it's own mini-server. If you are in chunk A and looking towards chunk B, you can see chunk B on the horizon and any large land markers such as volcanoes etc can still be seen, creating this HUGE world view. In Vanguard, if you see it, you can travel to it. Granted, there is a small 1-2 second hiccup when you cross into the next chunk (called "chunking") but that's it! No loading screen! You now have another 2,000km, squared area to explore! There may be multiple dungeons, some of them just HUGE all within the same chunk - and many of the dungeons go above ground and below ground, creating this sense of awe when you walk up to them. Gigantic castles laying in ruin waiting for you to explore! When you walk up to a gate or door in Vanguard, you actually open it, and walk in! The world is seamless while walking into a tavern from the outside street.

Alas however, it seems that instancing has become a necessary evil in order for these games to work. I'm sure there are more innovative ways to combat the problems I've listed here, but the easiest (and tried and true) method would be instancing. But for the "RP" portion of MMORPG to continue, we need novel ways to change this mechanic to make the game world truly open and explorable, while at the same time not breaking immersion that devs really strive for in the first place, and keeping the players honest at the same time.