If you have a Free-for-All everywhere, that lessens some restrictions
What do you mean "free-for-all"?
Like what you replied ... open to griefing/loot stealing/interference with missions all which can cause serious disruptions of any attempt to choreograph scenes and mini-plots and forcing you into very simple 'mission' goals and actions
If you have finely crafted mini-scenarios which you dont want interfered with (or worse Griefer-ized) that is another problem.
There are planned lot of different quests, but I don't see how it could be an issues in sens of instancing/no instancing.
the issue Is : that is one way way (using instances) where other non-designated players are prevented from interfering and constantly making a hash of any planned (choreographed/designed/coordinated) sequence of interaction with npcs/terrain for the Mission the player has been told to do. Otherwise even a small subset of players will constantly be allowed to 'have their fun' disrupting/stealing other players experience and achievements -- and thus much effort of yours to attempt to create interesting situations will be so damaged as to be largely worthless to many players
Huge worlds Ive seen have been largely "Pretty Deserts" with anything of real interest far and few between
Well it's a content issue, I know... Hope to solve it one way or another :)
which is the point that if you want more complex missions (where something unique can exist and it NOT just being the only place where monster X spawns) your 'staged' situations cant be open to be pre triggered/skewed/manipulated into confusion by players who LOOK for just that kind of thing to do to piss off other players.
Mass slaughter of generic opponents is easy. Lots of individual interesting player experiences are hard. It all depends what you are aiming for (and for any individual goodness, unfortunately Procedural Generation of 'instances' is a most practical tool.
Sorry, can't say I understood this sentence...
procedural generation offers generated combinatorics and coordinated creations. Its used to mass generate varying situations (it can be made VERY complex and have whole miniplots, goal sequences (and be player customized) , etc... be machine generated for the 100000 people who will ALL go through largely the same places and missions (which in most MMORPGs are wholey staticly defined.
scenario instances there are (can be) created 'on the fly' and potentially anywhere on your terrain map world
even just as bulk filler for the map -- the generation logic is hard to do right but still can be relegated to the 'filler' content around other more complex/ornate/handcrafted mission scenarios (adaquate semi-interesting filler is a major improvement over largely generic spawn minefields most MMORPGs have).
--------------------------------------------[size="1"]Ratings are Opinion, not Fact