MMORPGs moving to 1-10 MS server side polling

[Dwill]

No, a zone isn't an instance. Instance has since the very beginning in '96 (I think it was created for the first time for MMORPGs then), meant that you made copies of a place/zone/whatever. A single occurrence of it doesn't make it instanced.

It actually does. The zones are mini-instances, that much is easy to see by the fact you have to load in between each of them. Something more on the side of open world is like in World of Warcraft where one can just mount up and go from Orgrimmar straight to Thunder Bluff without single loading screen. What Square Enix is creating is just something that would toss people in North Shroud #2 instead of everyone clogging #1.

The server cost is actually the only reason it was created. At least from what I remember from when I studied it. BTW, not talking about this game, but from when it was actually first used.

Actually, it was first created to allow multiple people to have access to the same content without people having to wait awhile (sometimes hours) to have a go at content. Then companies started noticing it could actually be used as to save on server cost and certain companies went way overboard with that (Age of Conan comes to mind).