Just wanted to get the opinion of more people than the ones I have talked to on Jung Ma:

 

Do you want fewer /phasings/shards/instances (whatever you want to call it) in the game? IE more players on the open world parts like planets, fleets etc.

 

To me the game feels a bit dead, I rarely meet other players while leveling and almost never engage in PVP due to never seeing a hostile player.

 

I would like to have larger groups of players in the same phases/shards, so SWTOR actually feels like a MMO, not just a single player game.

 

Aerion Sunwalker

Knight of the Republic

Edited February 20, 2012 by AerionStarwalker

The phasing should be done from this point on. Open everything to one single planet. Well, it's basically one planet these days anyway but what's the point on Illum this morning in having 36 in Illum (2) and 3 people in Illum (4)? And there was no option to go to 1 and 3. Made no sense.

Absolutely, often there are no more than 13 players on a planet surface and still there are a lot of phases. Too much of a spread of players, people don't enjoy playing like they are on a deserted island..

They have to instance the game the way it is and it will never change because the games engine is quite pathetic at handling more than 20 avatars on screen at one time.

So... how, without instances, would you manage the various quest gambits that need them?

 

Hard to be dramatically saving the power station on Hoth if someone else is dramatically blowing it up in the background... and downright annoying if you've just hunted down the foe who you've been chasing across three planets, are moving in for your final confrontation... and some twerp force-leaps in and kills him for a loot drop or something trivial of that nature.

 

Basically, the instances are necessary to allow players the control of deciding which other players, or none, if they prefer, they let intervene with the important aspects of their story, the game.

 

Besides, it's lovely to get behind a green wall and know that you don't have to worry about high-speed respawns if you go afk for a moment, or being trampled by a horde of loot-happy groupers.

I am not saying they should drop the instancing/phases (hence the title of my post), I just want them to have more people in the same instances, so the feeling of the game would move from a solo experience with an encounter being rare to actually seeing other players.

 

And yes, that might lead to people having to wait for a respawn, but at least they would be aware that others also play alongside them.

Edited February 20, 2012 by AerionStarwalker

And yes, that might lead to people having to wait for a respawn, but at least they would be aware that others also play alongside them.

 

I already have people playing alongside me -- my group. I like the instancing for two reasons: less competing with other players (not an interest of mine) for resources, quest items, etc; and dead enemies (mostly) stay dead.

 

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind of they got rid of the sharding, as in Dromund Kaas (1) and Dromund Kaas (2). I don't mind crawling over other players in the "open world" portions of the game, but I like being able to get away from that and focus on most of the major quests without the distractions of non-group players.

They have to instance the game the way it is and it will never change because the games engine is quite pathetic at handling more than 20 avatars on screen at one time.

 

Has this been proven as 100% true? Or are you just guessing?

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind of they got rid of the sharding, as in Dromund Kaas (1) and Dromund Kaas (2). I don't mind crawling over other players in the "open world" portions of the game, but I like being able to get away from that and focus on most of the major quests without the distractions of non-group players.

 

I am talking about the open world, might be confusing me using the word instancing, so lets say sharding or phasing instead.

 

My point is that there are too few players in the open world zones, and it ruins the MMO-experience for me.

Meh, I'm on Shadow Hand and I haven't experienced a shortage of people. If I want help doing something I might come up short, but that's a completely different reason. I waited for a couple of hours to get 2 people for a flashpoint and I think the only reason I got those 2 was because I pointed out that there were literally over 170 people there and there had to be at least 1 or 2 willing to try it.