Instance dungeon
Encyclopedia
In massively multiplayer online game
s, an instance is a special area, typically a dungeon, that generates a new copy of the location for each group, or for certain number of players, that enters the area. Instancing, the general term for the use of this technique, addresses several problems encountered by players in the shared spaces of virtual world
s. It is not widely known when instances were first used in this genre, however The Realm Online
(1996) is sometimes credited as introducing the concept.
, where several groups of players would compete and sometimes harass each other in the same dungeon, in order to get to the monsters dropping valuable items. The creation of instances largely solves this set of problems, leaving only travelling to and from the dungeon as a potential risk in player versus player
environments.
Stated another way, instances can be used to reduce the competition over resources within the game. Excessive competition in these spaces leads to several undesirable behaviors such as kill stealing
, spawn camping, and ninja looting as players do whatever they can to acquire the limited rewards. Instancing preserves the gaming experience, since some gaming scenarios do not work if the player is continually surrounded by other players, as in a multiplayer setting. Instance dungeons may contain stronger than usual mobs and rare, sought-after equipment. They also may include level restrictions and/or restrict the number of players allowed in each instance to balance gameplay. Several games use instancing to scale the mobs
to the players' levels, and/or the number of players present.
Despite its advantages, instancing in MMOGs has been criticized. Brad McQuaid
, lead designer of EverQuest
and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
(both of which did not feature instancing at launch), wrote an essay in 2005 arguing that instances can negatively affect the game's community, virtual economy
, churn rate
, and other factors. In response to this article, Raph Koster
added that instancing should be limited to situations in which the creation of a "pocket zone" makes sense within the context of the fictional universe
— such as the holodeck
in the Star Trek franchise. One reviewer described the extensive use of instancing in Age of Conan as "[destroying] the sense of expansiveness an MMORPG should have".
and client
by limiting the number of potential interactions between players and objects. Because the player character
s in the instance do not need to be updated on all the information going on outside the instance, and vice versa for the characters outside the instance, there is an overall decrease in demands on the network, with the net result being less lag
for the players. This also reduces the demands on each player's computer, as the number of objects to be processed can be more easily limited by the game's developer. The developer can better reason about the worst case performance requirements in an instance because they do not have to consider scenarios such as hundreds of players descending on any location at any time.
, launched in 1996. Combat in this game was extensively instanced, with every battle taking place in a special room outside of the open world.
In Guild Wars
, Town/Outpost areas are created on demand, with a new "district" of that town being created for every 100 players in it; players can move between these at will. Players can play with players across the globe, as in EVE Online
, along with the advantages in load scaling and resources of a traditional multiple server model for ArenaNet
, the developers.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
does not use instance dungeons. It was initially envisioned that, through the Advanced Encounter System (AES), certain "boss" NPCs could be triggered when a group entered an area; this NPC would then be "tagged" to that group, meaning no other players could attack or interact with it. However, AES was ultimately not implemented in the commercial release of Vanguard.
In RuneScape
, instances are used mostly in quests, so that other players cannot interfere with the player who is doing the quest, such as battling boss NPC
's or having to accomplish a special task. They are also used in certain 'minigames'. However, most monsters not related to quests are not instanced, so players often have to compete with each other to get the reward from killing them. They are also used extensively in the new skill Dungeoneering.
Wizard101
has a unique system for its instances. As soon as a player steps on the entry area, there are ten seconds given for up to three other players to enter. Once inside, the instance usually triggers a new line of quests, which must be completed to gain access to other parts of the instance. If a player logs out or leaves through the "front door", progress wil be reset (a warning message will appear). If a player dies, flees, or teleports, data will then be reset in 30 minutes. If a monster is defeat in an instance, it stays defeated. Players can repeat instances as many times as they want.
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
s, an instance is a special area, typically a dungeon, that generates a new copy of the location for each group, or for certain number of players, that enters the area. Instancing, the general term for the use of this technique, addresses several problems encountered by players in the shared spaces of virtual world
Virtual world
A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create objects. The term has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of...
s. It is not widely known when instances were first used in this genre, however The Realm Online
The Realm Online
The Realm Online, originally known simply as The Realm, is a second generation MORPG . The Realm Online is still being played by a small number of players, and is known as one of the few MMORPGs that is still dial-up friendly and easy to play.The Realm was launched in March 1995 for Windows...
(1996) is sometimes credited as introducing the concept.
Design considerations
The problem can be stated as follows: every player wants to be "The Hero", slay "The Monster", rescue "The Princess", and obtain "The Magic Sword". When there are thousands of players all playing the same game, clearly not everyone can be the hero. The problem of everyone wanting to kill the same monster and gain the best treasure became obvious in the game EverQuestEverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...
, where several groups of players would compete and sometimes harass each other in the same dungeon, in order to get to the monsters dropping valuable items. The creation of instances largely solves this set of problems, leaving only travelling to and from the dungeon as a potential risk in player versus player
Player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...
environments.
Stated another way, instances can be used to reduce the competition over resources within the game. Excessive competition in these spaces leads to several undesirable behaviors such as kill stealing
Kill stealing
In online games and especially first-person shooter games, MMORPGs and MUDs, kill stealing is the practice of arranging to get credit for killing an enemy, when it should have clearly been another player's kill. An example is when a player in a first-person shooter whittles an enemy's health down...
, spawn camping, and ninja looting as players do whatever they can to acquire the limited rewards. Instancing preserves the gaming experience, since some gaming scenarios do not work if the player is continually surrounded by other players, as in a multiplayer setting. Instance dungeons may contain stronger than usual mobs and rare, sought-after equipment. They also may include level restrictions and/or restrict the number of players allowed in each instance to balance gameplay. Several games use instancing to scale the mobs
Mob (computer gaming)
A mob, mobile or monster is a computer-controlled non-player character in a computer game such as an MMORPG or MUD. Depending on context, all such characters in a game may be considered "mobs", or usage may be limited to hostile NPCs and/or NPCs vulnerable to attack.-Purpose of mobs:Defeating...
to the players' levels, and/or the number of players present.
Despite its advantages, instancing in MMOGs has been criticized. Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid is an American computer game designer who was the key designer of EverQuest, a highly successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in 1999...
, lead designer of EverQuest
EverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...
and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game created by Sigil Games Online, and now developed and run by Sony Online Entertainment. Originally, the game was co-published by Sony Online Entertainment , and the company producing it, Sigil Games...
(both of which did not feature instancing at launch), wrote an essay in 2005 arguing that instances can negatively affect the game's community, virtual economy
Virtual economy
A virtual economy is an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an Internet game...
, churn rate
Churn rate
Churn rate , in its broadest sense, is a measure of the number of individuals or items moving into or out of a collective over a specific period of time...
, and other factors. In response to this article, Raph Koster
Raph Koster
Raphael "Raph" Koster is an American entrepreneur, game designer, and author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Koster is widely recognized for his work as the lead designer of Ultima Online and the creative director behind Star Wars Galaxies...
added that instancing should be limited to situations in which the creation of a "pocket zone" makes sense within the context of the fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
— such as the holodeck
Holodeck
A holodeck, in the fictional Star Trek universe, is a simulated reality facility located on starships and starbases. The first use of a "holodeck" by that name in the Star Trek universe was in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint", although a conceptually...
in the Star Trek franchise. One reviewer described the extensive use of instancing in Age of Conan as "[destroying] the sense of expansiveness an MMORPG should have".
Technical considerations
Having players participate in instances tends to spread out populations of players, instead of concentrating them, which may reduce or level the workload for both the serverGame server
A game server is a remotely or locally run server used by game clients to play multiplayer video games. Most video games played over the Internet operate via a connection to a game server...
and client
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
by limiting the number of potential interactions between players and objects. Because the player character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
s in the instance do not need to be updated on all the information going on outside the instance, and vice versa for the characters outside the instance, there is an overall decrease in demands on the network, with the net result being less lag
Lag
Lag is a common word meaning to fail to keep up or to fall behind. In real-time applications, the term is used when the application fails to respond in a timely fashion to inputs...
for the players. This also reduces the demands on each player's computer, as the number of objects to be processed can be more easily limited by the game's developer. The developer can better reason about the worst case performance requirements in an instance because they do not have to consider scenarios such as hundreds of players descending on any location at any time.
Usage
Perhaps the first virtual world to use instances was the MMORPG The Realm OnlineThe Realm Online
The Realm Online, originally known simply as The Realm, is a second generation MORPG . The Realm Online is still being played by a small number of players, and is known as one of the few MMORPGs that is still dial-up friendly and easy to play.The Realm was launched in March 1995 for Windows...
, launched in 1996. Combat in this game was extensively instanced, with every battle taking place in a special room outside of the open world.
In Guild Wars
Guild Wars
Guild Wars is an episodic series of online 3D fantasy role-playing games developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. Although often defined as an MMORPG the developers define it as a CORPG due to significant differences from the MMORPG genre. It provides two main modes of gameplay—a cooperative...
, Town/Outpost areas are created on demand, with a new "district" of that town being created for every 100 players in it; players can move between these at will. Players can play with players across the globe, as in EVE Online
EVE Online
Eve Online is a video game by CCP Games. It is a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates...
, along with the advantages in load scaling and resources of a traditional multiple server model for ArenaNet
ArenaNet
ArenaNet is a computer game developer and part of NCsoft Corporation, founded in 2000 by Mike O'Brien, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain and located in Bellevue, Washington...
, the developers.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game created by Sigil Games Online, and now developed and run by Sony Online Entertainment. Originally, the game was co-published by Sony Online Entertainment , and the company producing it, Sigil Games...
does not use instance dungeons. It was initially envisioned that, through the Advanced Encounter System (AES), certain "boss" NPCs could be triggered when a group entered an area; this NPC would then be "tagged" to that group, meaning no other players could attack or interact with it. However, AES was ultimately not implemented in the commercial release of Vanguard.
In RuneScape
RuneScape
RuneScape is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in January 2001 by Andrew and Paul Gower, and developed and published by Jagex Games Studio. It is a graphical browser game implemented on the client-side in Java, and incorporates 3D rendering...
, instances are used mostly in quests, so that other players cannot interfere with the player who is doing the quest, such as battling boss NPC
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
's or having to accomplish a special task. They are also used in certain 'minigames'. However, most monsters not related to quests are not instanced, so players often have to compete with each other to get the reward from killing them. They are also used extensively in the new skill Dungeoneering.
Wizard101
Wizard101
Wizard101 is a 3D massively multiplayer online role-playing game created by KingsIsle Entertainment. Players take on the role of students of Wizardry to save the Spiral , and battle a variety of creatures by casting spells using a turn-based combat system similar to collectible card games...
has a unique system for its instances. As soon as a player steps on the entry area, there are ten seconds given for up to three other players to enter. Once inside, the instance usually triggers a new line of quests, which must be completed to gain access to other parts of the instance. If a player logs out or leaves through the "front door", progress wil be reset (a warning message will appear). If a player dies, flees, or teleports, data will then be reset in 30 minutes. If a monster is defeat in an instance, it stays defeated. Players can repeat instances as many times as they want.