Instance dungeon

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In MMORPGs, an instance location is a special area, typically a dungeon, that generates a new copy, or instance, of the dungeon map for each group that enters the area. This saves server work and ensures that there will never be competition (kill stealing, spawn camping) over resources such as mobs within the instance. Because the player characters in the instance do not need to be updated of the information going on outside the instance, and vice versa for the 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 technique also tends to spread out populations of players, instead of concentrating them. This increases individual player's gaming performance by placing less graphical processing demand on their computers, reducing graphics-based lag and making the game itself more available to people with less powerful computers.

This also 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.

Instances were first proposed by Richard Garriott in the late 1990s as a way to solve a set of related problems which had become obvious in Ultima Online. The problem can be stated as follows: everyone wants to be "The Hero" and slay "The Monster", rescue "The Princess" and obtain "The Magic Sword". When there are 2,000 and more 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 EverQuest, 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. There are few examples of boss camping and kill stealing in World of Warcraft - because a copy of the dungeon (instance) is always created on demand each player or party.

Despite its many advantages, some players are critical of the use of instancing. They feel that instancing detracts from the realism of the game world.

Games that have been known to use instancing include:

Guild Wars takes almost the opposite approach, with every combat area in the game being instanced; the game world is strictly divided into Town / Outpost areas (Where you can meet other players) and Explorable / Mission areas, which are all instanced. Even Town / Outpost areas are themselves 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. This system provides the advantages for players of being able to play with players across the globe, as in EVE, along with the advantages in load scaling and resources of a traditional multiple server model for the developers.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is another game that does not use instance dungeons. However, it is envisioned that, through the Advanced Encounter System (AES), certain "boss" NPCs can be triggered when a group enters an area; this NPC would then be "tagged" to that group, meaning no other players could attack or interact with it. AES was not implemented in the commercial release of V:SoH, but Sigil programmers are reportedly working on it and are planning to release it in a future patch.

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.

Several games use instancing to scale the mobs to the players' levels, and/or the number of players present.

[edit] See also

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