why is this "MMO" totaly instanced?

Serious answer - I would put it down to a poor engine.

Now I'm not an expert, but the exact same computer that played Rift at launch on full settings, and only got lag when like 40 or 50 people were at a rift even (and by lag I mean 15 FPS) gets 15 FPS the instant I pop into a warzone on pretty low settings (shadows off, the only thing of the top of my head I don't have a minimum is character detail, but low res textures, etc). Put 15 people at a quest hub and insta-15 FPS.

I never had any issues in 4 mans or 8 mans, but I'm guessing somewhere beyond 10 players the engine just sort of takes a crap. Why, I don't know.

My CPU and RAM never once hit 100% usage while playing TOR, and of those 2 and my graphics card, my graphics card is the highest spec of the 3.

I'm sure the ability delay is all to do with the engine, and I know the animation vs execution time has to do with the engine.

I do wonder, if this game really has been in development for the reported 5 years - how did this engine perform the day they signed up to use it? I can't imagine a 5 year old computer playing this game remotely well, so what were those early tests like?

Anyways, I suspect this game is instanced so much simply because it had to be for performance issues - due to a poor game engine.

Now as to why there are even Orbital Station instances...

DDO is pay to win model.

Game Engine is the Hero Engine. Its about a decade old, and has never been used in any released product to date other than another MMO that only lasted 4 months before being shut down.

The engine was created by a company that makes MUDS(text games) professionally.

If Illum is any indication, the game cannot take 20 people on screen at the same time, it bogs down to nothing.

I donno if you are being sacasitic or not, but ddo was a disaster

Its basically a diablo 2 that requires monthly payment

the instanced nature of the planets is my biggest peeve, there is nothing cool that you can explore. There is no secret buildings with funny stuff in them, or areas that take skill to get to. Just feels like miles and miles of open landscape with mobs thrown around everywhere. Some of their planets are just BLEEHHHHH boring.

Well I can tell you that THE smartest thing Blizzard did was to build their own engine, and not buy some decade old hulk and try to put a game on it. In EVERY situation where a company launches an mmo with a purchased engine, it's a mass bugfest and lagfest.

The side benefit Blizzard got from creating their engine was Mac Support was built in.

Maybe $200 million could have been better spent on actual engine design. With a solid engine at the core, the game you build on it is just so damn much better.

Instancing makes it easier to drop in new content wherever they need it. At this point in time its far easier for a player to reroll on a new server then wait for transfers to start as I doubt that will happen for several more months.

As i have said somewhere else we have roughly 10-17% the population of Wow (depending on whose numbers you use) so please keep that in mind when making comparisons.

I think our efforts would be better spent trying to get them to implement ACTUAL server forums so we would be more able to figure out where to go to play the faction we want or try to figure out how to add faction percentages to server list (THis wou;d be the best method)

Exactly. I remember hearing a bunch of things Bioware said before the beta was released. Like how even at max level you won't be bored because there are lots of things to explore on different planets. Another example is how they said this game would also cater to lower end systems, but I'm not going to get into that. My point is, there is nothing pleasing about going back to a planet you spent hours on, ALREADY exploring, just to go back to said planet to look at some trees or npcs with no dialog? Oh sure Holocrons are there but that's a one time thing. And the thing with instancing, it's way worse here than any other mmo I have played.

It doesn't feel like the Star Wars Universe

I don't agree with the way you are using the terms "sharding' and "instance" as the two are separate things, so as you have used them together I will as well and note some games I am aware of that use either or both of these things.

DCUO

AION

Age Of Conan

Guild Wars

DDO

That's just a few, and I'm not commenting on the success of those games, just noting the ones I am aware of, because you seam to think there are none, which is not the case.

I really missed Ultima Online - Where guilds would clash over boss spawn points / great camping locations. (i know a majority of people didn't like getting rolled by PvP'ers/PKs) but I thought those were the most epic of days.