[MUD-Dev] Instancing (was: MMORPG Cancellations...)

[Byron Ellacott]

Koster, Raph wrote:

> interference from third parties. Instancing is merely two birds
> with one stone--it first segments off the experience so that
> greater narrative power can be brought to bear and players cannot
> be interfered with; and it secondly segments off the experience so
> that it is impossible for it to have any impact whatsoever on the
> larger world.

Please correct me if I'm taking your mention of instancing here out
of context, but a general theme I've seen from your posts recently
suggests that you see instancing as primarily being a world effect.
That is, instancing is a means of separating a space from the rest
of the world, so that it does not effect the rest of the world.

On the other hand, I always considered instancing a way of providing
a greater sense to players that their actions were more important.
When you have an instanced dungeon, you know that you (and your
party) are the heroes or villains, you're the important actors.
Without instancing, you instead have to compete with other parties
to be the important actors in a setting.

This becomes particularly important when content is slowly injected
into a game over time, because each new piece of content will be
greatly desirable, yet sadly finite in availability.  How else do
you solve the problem of ten parties of players wanting to interact
with a segment of world that can only handle one or two parties?

--
bje
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