Raid Zone Instancing Questions

[Harney]

I read on the frontpage you plan to go ahead with instancing raid zones for guilds. I would like clarification on a few things.

If any person with your guildtag starts an instance, does said person lockout the instance to everyone in his guild?
How long are the lockouts of each zoned instance?
How long does an instance stay open?
Are you able to get in to an instance if you werent online when the instance was obtained?
If members of the same guild ( using myself as an example here ) raid at different times, is there a reasonable workaround for a guild to do two instances of a zone in the same day, without using any of the same characters for both instances?

I'm sure I will have more questions going forward, and will continue to address them as I get clarification on these few. I think instancing is a great thing, and am all for it, but there are a lot of details that go along with making sure it's implemented correctly.

Thanks for all the hard work!

Also, Pyronis is really the same event as Arch Mage, as once you pop his adds once, he doesn't ever respawn them again, so you probably need to change his script as well.

[Tyler]

Thanks for the Feedback. To be honest, Striat will need to answer most questions regarding instancing.

[Lillu]

Pyronis fixed too, thanks for reminding me.

About instancing.
This will be a bit different to the "classic" instancing. Instances will have no time limit, no lockout time. If any person with a guildtag starts an instance, it will stay up till eternity, and will act as a normal raid zone.
This siad instance will be assigned to any member of that specific guild, regardless if that player were online or not when the instance were created.

Well this is how it's planned, but for this, we need some custom code and testing, so might take a bit more time than planned. Striat is working hard on it.

[Xebnok]

Pyronis fixed too, thanks for reminding me.

About instancing.
This will be a bit different to the "classic" instancing. Instances will have no time limit, no lockout time. If any person with a guildtag starts an instance, it will stay up till eternity, and will act as a normal raid zone.
This siad instance will be assigned to any member of that specific guild, regardless if that player were online or not when the instance were created.

Well this is how it's planned, but for this, we need some custom code and testing, so might take a bit more time than planned. Striat is working hard on it.

Interesting!!!

[Rerfu]

About instancing.
This will be a bit different to the "classic" instancing. Instances will have no time limit, no lockout time. If any person with a guildtag starts an instance, it will stay up till eternity, and will act as a normal raid zone.
This siad instance will be assigned to any member of that specific guild, regardless if that player were online or not when the instance were created.

Well this is how it's planned, but for this, we need some custom code and testing, so might take a bit more time than planned. Striat is working hard on it.

Sorry I'm a forum noob I don't know how to quote. I do understand why you want to implement it in this way. This will require the same juggling that goes on currently with guilds. If you have people in different timezones you have to designate which days they can raid which mob and which days the others can raid.

All I'm saying is you could eliminate the juggling and save yourself coding headaches if you just instance by players present and not by guild tag. This would allow for multiple guilds to raid old content together and eliminate people getting left out because they weren't on the exact second we raided that mob.

I see the problem either way its done, that's just my point of view.

[Lillu]

I don't really see your point. player based instancing would result in a total chaos, and would make raiding impossible. you would have to plan when you raid, who will be there, players wouldn't be able to hunt in those zones out of raid times, and so on..
Also, we are talking about 3 zones, so not sure what old content are you referring to? the content we are talking about is the one that caused the insane amount of drama having multiply guilds raiding it the same time..

Guild based raiding is simple and clear. You can do whatever and whenever you want in your guild instance. ONLY backdraw is the fact, that you wont be able to group out of guild players in the 3 instanced progression zones.. but for grouping, there is everything else, so I guess that isn't really a big issue either.

[Rerfu]

Ok, let me be constructive to the instancing then.

Your best bet for guild instances is probably finding a working guild lobby and just porting that code into the raid zones.

Also, to get around the whole drop guild thing, just add a 24 hour flag when you leave a guild so that you cannot join another one right away.

[Lillu]

trust me, we'll come up with the best solution possible.

[Topsy]

bah!

[striat]

Sorry I'm a forum noob I don't know how to quote. I do understand why you want to implement it in this way. This will require the same juggling that goes on currently with guilds. If you have people in different timezones you have to designate which days they can raid which mob and which days the others can raid.

This isn't a concern at the moment. Guilds have the responsibility to look out for themselves. If someone gets left out of a raid or doesn't show up, the guild leadership may need to resolve the issue with that member. Ultimately, however, cross guild drama/griefing will be addressed with our approach.

All I'm saying is you could eliminate the juggling and save yourself coding headaches if you just instance by players present and not by guild tag. This would allow for multiple guilds to raid old content together and eliminate people getting left out because they weren't on the exact second we raided that mob.

This direction is not being considered at this time. I fear doing so would result in a "Get geared fast!" type of server.

Ok, let me be constructive to the instancing then.

Your best bet for guild instances is probably finding a working guild lobby and just porting that code into the raid zones.

This doesn't really get us to where we want to be though. A guild lobby is something that will be considered soon. However, that is not a substitute for our current goal.

Also, to get around the whole drop guild thing, just add a 24 hour flag when you leave a guild so that you cannot join another one right away.

We're addressing it. Basically, we could go this way; however, I'd like to implement a more reasonable approach. Sometimes players do switch guilds or drop guilds for a legit reason. Even though it is only for a day, I don't agree with punishing players for others' potential exploits.