Instant Dungeon

[OJtheLIONKing]

Been an MMO player since Asheron's Call, so I don't want to be called a "new gen" or "casual"--these are dichotomies elitists invent in order to make themselves feel special. Like many of these kinds of distinctions, it's also an illusion. It's also often used as an excuse to defend old design philosophies just because of nostalgia, instead of what would actually be good for the majority of players, the developers, and the game.

Strictly yes or no, I would say I'm for cross-server groups for dungeons, because I remember waiting for hours on end for a single xp party in FFXI, then feeling pressured to stay for 4-6-8+ hours in the party because the time waiting had to be justified somehow, and it was rude to leave without a replacement that often wasn't forthcoming.

Still, as was mentioned earlier in the thread, a level sync option would also greatly reduce wait times without some of the problems that cross-server groups have. Although I don't know what you guys were talking about with people ninja-ing and acting much more rude after it was implemented in other games (these people will do this regardless, a game with a large enough server population to be healthy also has one large enough to screw people and still prosper), if you find some really good group members you generally can't party with them again after that first party ends. That's more problematic to me than any imagined increase in people acting like jerks.

Level sync's not perfect though. Even after it was introduced into FFXI, I still had a hell of a time finding parties at lower levels that didn't match up with the super high xp zones. Why not have both, so you can help your friends with lower level content while people who don't have time to spend hours assembling a party can still have some fun with a group ingame?

As for open world versus instanced...well, I agree there needs to be open world content to make the game feel alive. That's why I don't care all taht much for games like Guild Wars or Vindictus, it feels like you're just exploring a connected series of rooms. However, with open world content you introduce things like NM spawn camping, which is the most boring experience in existence to most people, and fighting over XP camps. I'm all for stuff like behest, campaign or public quests where strangers work together to overcome a great threat, but it has to be carefully balanced so that people exploiting don't ruin it for the people trying to have fun.