NPC phasing

[Konstanten]

Hello!
My idea to improve immersion is that some NPCs will appear in the world after you help/save them.
For example, after you complete WC by killing Mutanus the Devourer and completing the "The Glowing Shard" quest chain, Naralex can be seen next to Falla Sagewind on top of the mountain above WC, once again trying to restore the Barrens into a lush forest.

Adding
This idea can be expanded to most, if not all, escort quests.

The system would be similar (but not identical) to phasing that was introduced in WotLK.
However, for my idea, each pair of players standing next to eachother would always be visible to eachother (no putting players into different phases/layers), but some NPC might only be visible to one of them.

[Xudo]

I really like this idea.
When you kill some centaur chief, you should be moved to another phase. This additional phase could feature more quests in the same place.
If you level too high (so the mob get greyed out), you also should move to next phase of the world.

World phasing will protect low level characters from high level characters. World pvp will get more fair play.

[Ingameacc12345]

We don't even know if phasing can be done in 1.13 client. It's an ancient piece of software so I wouldn't be surprised if it was nigh impossible to do.

[Xudo]

All that client knows about the creatures and quests in the world is sent by server.
If server will send one data instead of another, then client will know only that it received.

Dungeons are instanced. Players from different ids receive different state of dungeon. So I think it is perfectly possible without any client modification.

Changes in terrain like in cata are probably not possible.

[Konstanten]

I really like this idea.
When you kill some centaur chief, you should be moved to another phase. This additional phase could feature more quests in the same place.
If you level too high (so the mob get greyed out), you also should move to next phase of the world.

World phasing will protect low level characters from high level characters. World pvp will get more fair play.

Personally, I feel like hiding players from eachother would be detrimental, as players in the same group could be hidden from eachother, some phases/layers would contain a lot fewer players, and that resource nodes could be mined by players in different phases/layers than you.

All that client knows about the creatures and quests in the world is sent by server.
If server will send one data instead of another, then client will know only that it received.

Dungeons are instanced. Players from different ids receive different state of dungeon. So I think it is perfectly possible without any client modification.

Changes in terrain like in cata are probably not possible.

I was thinking something like this, the NPC data is just not sent to the client.

[Karico]

good idea

[Xudo]

Personally, I feel like hiding players from eachother would be detrimental, as players in the same group could be hidden from eachother, some phases/layers would contain a lot fewer players, and that resource nodes could be mined by players in different phases/layers than you.

Assuming recent population boom, I think it is good that people will spread over multiple layers with mining nodes in each one.

I personally think that killing same named mob over and over is very immersion breaking. Queues to kill some named enemy is absurd for immersion too. You just get used to it.
Running in party and not seeing eachother in normal circumstances, you can be in party with someone from other continent. You don't see eachother either.
Being in different chapters of the book is the same as being in different parts of the world.

Layering allows to put more quests in the world and it is good. When important enemy is dead, friendly NPCs can arrive there. You clear cave from damned demons and it stays clean. There might be more options to investigate situation, to do some cleansing ritual, to give you more quests.
Your actions will actually influence the world.

[Jc473]

Assuming recent population boom, I think it is good that people will spread over multiple layers with mining nodes in each one.

I don't think any decongestion solutions need to be considered at this point in time. Here's why:

1) We have two SEA servers launching for TWoW tomorrow (as per their announcement). No matter how TWoW handle the launch of these servers, a decent chunk of the corresponding playerbase will emigrate from the current server.

2) We don't know how long the hardcore movement will last. For all we know, it could just be a fad and the interest in it will die down naturally. Also, Blizzard have just launched their official hardcore realms; I think it's a reasonable assumption that some of the hardcore people on this server have (or will) started playing over there instead.

3) I strongly suspect blizzard will be launching some sort of their own version of Vanilla+ fairly soon. I think they will announce this at Blizzcon (early November). I'm pretty confident that this will also take some of the TWoW active playerbase.


Putting all the above aside for a moment, I do think, in isolation, your "dynamic world" is a neat idea. I've always liked the feeling of your actions having an impact on the world. However, as someone else has said, I don't think it should ever come at the cost of people mysteriously vanishing into thin air (i.e. phasing) because they happen to have completed specific quests. For me, that's a big 'immersion breaker'....

[Konstanten]

Personally, I feel like hiding players from eachother would be detrimental, as players in the same group could be hidden from eachother, some phases/layers would contain a lot fewer players, and that resource nodes could be mined by players in different phases/layers than you.

Assuming recent population boom, I think it is good that people will spread over multiple layers with mining nodes in each one.

I personally think that killing same named mob over and over is very immersion breaking. Queues to kill some named enemy is absurd for immersion too. You just get used to it.
Running in party and not seeing eachother in normal circumstances, you can be in party with someone from other continent. You don't see eachother either.
Being in different chapters of the book is the same as being in different parts of the world.

Layering allows to put more quests in the world and it is good. When important enemy is dead, friendly NPCs can arrive there. You clear cave from damned demons and it stays clean. There might be more options to investigate situation, to do some cleansing ritual, to give you more quests.
Your actions will actually influence the world.

Having a full on phasing system would be great for immersion, but it can quickly become difficult to manage and figuring out why two players can't see each other if it is heavily used. As an exaggerated example, imagine if the NPCs in Blackrock mountain are phased in and out depending on bosses killed and quests completed in lbrs, ubrs, mc, and bwl.

I like your chapter analogy, but the story can often branch of into multiple smaller stories instead of staying linear from start to finish

However, it would be cool if you helped set up a settlement: it started with just you and a single npc, but after many quests, an innkeeper, blacksmith, etc. also moved to the settlement.
Without much knowledge, I think this would fit a goblin or high elven settlement thematically

[Konstanten]

Assuming recent population boom, I think it is good that people will spread over multiple layers with mining nodes in each one.

I don't think any decongestion solutions need to be considered at this point in time. Here's why:

1) We have two SEA servers launching for TWoW tomorrow (as per their announcement). No matter how TWoW handle the launch of these servers, a decent chunk of the corresponding playerbase will emigrate from the current server.

2) We don't know how long the hardcore movement will last. For all we know, it could just be a fad and the interest in it will die down naturally. Also, Blizzard have just launched their official hardcore realms; I think it's a reasonable assumption that some of the hardcore people on this server have (or will) started playing over there instead.

3) I strongly suspect blizzard will be launching some sort of their own version of Vanilla+ fairly soon. I think they will announce this at Blizzcon (early November). I'm pretty confident that this will also take some of the TWoW active playerbase.


Putting all the above aside for a moment, I do think, in isolation, your "dynamic world" is a neat idea. I've always liked the feeling of your actions having an impact on the world. However, as someone else has said, I don't think it should ever come at the cost of people mysteriously vanishing into thin air (i.e. phasing) because they happen to have completed specific quests. For me, that's a big 'immersion breaker'....

I agree 100%.
"Dynamic world" is a better description of my suggestion than "phasing"

[Jc473]

Having a full on phasing system would be great for immersion

To be more specific, it would be great for the player to see the world change dynamically as a result of their actions. But it would be unimmersive to see people vanish into thin air because they are on different parts of quest chains.

These two positions are juxtaposed. In a MMORPG, you cannot have everyone witnessing the world evolution at their own pace without losing something (as mentioned above). However, if you choose to have the world evolve over time (due to collective player action), then you will have a bunch of players who missed out on the content.

We cannot have both. Apart from resource constraints, it will always come down to whether people can stomach the idea of players vanishing into thin air, as mentioned above. You could be visiting a new zone (or subzone) and it could, coincidentally, feel very empty. When, in reality, there could be a bunch of players in an alternate phase and you just can't see/interact with them.

[Xudo]

Having a full on phasing system would be great for immersion

To be more specific, it would be great for the player to see the world change dynamically as a result of their actions. But it would be unimmersive to see people vanish into thin air because they are on different parts of quest chains.

Do you notice how people vanish in the air once log off? Or when they are summoned? Or when they join battleground?
People vanishing in the air is normal situation in MMO without persistent characters. You just get used to current state.

[Jc473]

Having a full on phasing system would be great for immersion

To be more specific, it would be great for the player to see the world change dynamically as a result of their actions. But it would be unimmersive to see people vanish into thin air because they are on different parts of quest chains.

Do you notice how people vanish in the air once log off? Or when they are summoned? Or when they join battleground?
People vanishing in the air is normal situation in MMO without persistent characters. You just get used to current state.

1) Vanishing when logging off - if I were designing the game back in the early 2000s, I would've made it so your character would've only disappeared if you logged off in an inn. Otherwise, your character would just remain in the world, freely attackable by players/monsters. However, I appreciate this wouldn't have been in keeping with Blizzard's casual/accessible approach to the game. As it currently stands, yes, I would consider this immersion breaking.

2) Summoned - This is perfectly acceptable given that they are being relocated to a bunch of players in the same plane of existence. The only thing that's missing if you ask me is some sort of visual summoning animation for the player being relocated. If this was the case, it would allow the surrounding players to understand what's actually happening to the player.

3) Battleground joining - In my opinion, this is not a good thing for the game and is immersion breaking. However, the number of players partaking in any PvP activities is relatively smaller than other facets of the game. The only way joining battlegrounds locally (i.e. via battlemasters/instance portals) would work is if you happened to have a very active battleground community. Sadly, you'll just never have the PvP numbers for this to work, and if you did, it would only be at level 60. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I struggle how the battleground community would survive without this unfortunate mechanic.

So, for points 1) & 3), in my opinion, it does break immersion. But why worsen the problem? Furthermore, the amount of 'vanishing into thin air' with a 'dynamic world' system would be orders of magnitude greater than the result of the three aforementioned scenarios.

[Xudo]

There are a number of reasons why low lvl pvp is barely active, but I don't want to discuss it here.
System has its own flaws.

Original idea of the thread was unlockable NPCs visible after you finish some quest. I assume all players were meant to be in same time dimension.
I think that not-always visible NPCs produce same troubles. Like your party member talks to something invisible where nothing actually happening.
There are only 1 NPC with behavior like this. Magnus Frostwake You need to equip Spectral Essence to see him. This NPC located in secret place around the corner of main road. It sells recipes, so you don't need to talk with him every time.

I still think that phased world is good idea, but there should be a way to mitigate problems you mention.
Obvious solution is to phase whole location. Vanishing in the air will happen only on borders of the location. Locations in vanilla have wide level range. Barrens is played from level 10 to level 30 and there is no clear trigger when to change the phase. Different corners of location have different final quests.

One of the points of phasing is to enable world pvp by limiting level range of participants in one location. If horde has quests in barrens for 10-19 levels, then only alliance of 10-19 levels should be allowed to be in same time dimension. PvP should be enabled and enemies with adjacent levels can meet eachother.
Phased location also reduce amount of powerleveling by tagging mobs and killing them with high level character.

So the trigger to phase location can be reaching some level AND loading this location. For example when you fly out to capital and fly back. Other way is login/logout. Location should not phase once you dinged.
When you reach limiting level, then location evolve to higher level with other set of quests. All quests from previous phases still can be turned in, but can't be aquired again.
Limiting level for each location should be different. If barrens is split to 10-19 and 20-29, then silverpine forest should be split to 10-18 and 19-28. There should not be "twink" level to be stronger than anyone in each location.

For example:
Barrens for level 10-19 should contain quests Disrupt the Attacks, The Disruption Ends and Supplies for the Crossroads.
Barrens for level 20-29 should not contain those quests. Instead, there should be some necromancer who raised slaughtered qullboars and plan to attack Crossroads. What else could we expect after this henocide? Even if you didn't participate in henocide, a lot of others were tasked to do it.

[Mac]

Is it impossible? I was once told that the open world was actually two instances. One for Eastern Kingdom, the other for Kalimdor. Is that so? And is it possible to have multiple Eastern Kingdom instances on the same server?

At any rate, this server features several things that were previously “impossible” on 1.12, like transmogs, so it’d be interesting to see if it is doable.

[Konstanten]

...
Original idea of the thread was unlockable NPCs visible after you finish some quest. I assume all players were meant to be in same time dimension.
I think that not-always visible NPCs produce same troubles. Like your party member talks to something invisible where nothing actually happening.
There are only 1 NPC with behavior like this. Magnus Frostwake You need to equip Spectral Essence to see him. This NPC located in secret place around the corner of main road. It sells recipes, so you don't need to talk with him every time.
...

This could indeed look weird.

...
For example:
Barrens for level 10-19 should contain quests Disrupt the Attacks, The Disruption Ends and Supplies for the Crossroads.
Barrens for level 20-29 should not contain those quests. Instead, there should be some necromancer who raised slaughtered qullboars and plan to attack Crossroads. What else could we expect after this henocide? Even if you didn't participate in henocide, a lot of others were tasked to do it.

From a narrative perspective, I love this.
However, I think that any phasing/dynamic world system has to be added little by little: the first step would be to do it to some minor NPC as mentioned above.
If the dynamic world is appreciated and a net positive to the game, then it can be expanded upon!

[Ruthus]

It's a bad idea and we've all seen enough of Blizzard using their resources to try it for 20 years to know why. You run the risk of fragmenting what remains of the population and breaking the game world so that you can see Naralex's story not even really continue.

[Jc473]

There are a number of reasons why low lvl pvp is barely active, but I don't want to discuss it here.
System has its own flaws.

Original idea of the thread was unlockable NPCs visible after you finish some quest. I assume all players were meant to be in same time dimension.
I think that not-always visible NPCs produce same troubles. Like your party member talks to something invisible where nothing actually happening.
There are only 1 NPC with behavior like this. Magnus Frostwake You need to equip Spectral Essence to see him. This NPC located in secret place around the corner of main road. It sells recipes, so you don't need to talk with him every time.

I still think that phased world is good idea, but there should be a way to mitigate problems you mention.
Obvious solution is to phase whole location. Vanishing in the air will happen only on borders of the location. Locations in vanilla have wide level range. Barrens is played from level 10 to level 30 and there is no clear trigger when to change the phase. Different corners of location have different final quests.

One of the points of phasing is to enable world pvp by limiting level range of participants in one location. If horde has quests in barrens for 10-19 levels, then only alliance of 10-19 levels should be allowed to be in same time dimension. PvP should be enabled and enemies with adjacent levels can meet eachother.
Phased location also reduce amount of powerleveling by tagging mobs and killing them with high level character.

So the trigger to phase location can be reaching some level AND loading this location. For example when you fly out to capital and fly back. Other way is login/logout. Location should not phase once you dinged.
When you reach limiting level, then location evolve to higher level with other set of quests. All quests from previous phases still can be turned in, but can't be aquired again.
Limiting level for each location should be different. If barrens is split to 10-19 and 20-29, then silverpine forest should be split to 10-18 and 19-28. There should not be "twink" level to be stronger than anyone in each location.

For example:
Barrens for level 10-19 should contain quests Disrupt the Attacks, The Disruption Ends and Supplies for the Crossroads.
Barrens for level 20-29 should not contain those quests. Instead, there should be some necromancer who raised slaughtered qullboars and plan to attack Crossroads. What else could we expect after this henocide? Even if you didn't participate in henocide, a lot of others were tasked to do it.

OK, so we're now looking at whole zone phasing instead of dynamic npcs or small areas within the zone. As you said, this approach reduces the amount of 'vanishing into thin air' moments but, what is lost instead? Well, as Ruthus pointed out, you are now decreasing the likelihood of player-player interaction in whole zones for the benefit of each person getting to witness a dynamic world.

Feel free to go into all the specifics of how this dynamic world can play out. However, you cannot fundamentally escape/avoid the aforementioned negatives. The main thing that needs to be discussed in this thread (now that you've laid out some solution detail) is if the general playerbase is willing to accept these negatives no matter how good the positives may be.

[Ruthus]

And how good are the positives again? Am I supposed to be cool with turtle wow being reduced to the same bug-ridden, atomizing mess the retail game world is so I can see Naralex standing around outside the instance doing nothing, BUT ONLY after doing the instance and not before? Riveting.

The immersive illusion accomplished by a system like this (at untold costs) is really only possible with one-time quests anyway. Instances will always be repeatable.

[Xudo]

you are now decreasing the likelihood of player-player interaction in whole zones for the benefit of each person getting to witness a dynamic world.

Could you describe specific what kind of player-player interactions gets lost when world gets phased by level?

I already heard this argument before, but it is not very specific.
There are negative interactions in the open world. High levels in low level zones are usually there for:
1. Gathering resources which are easier to farm for them due to level difference. If less high level players will gather low level resources, then more resources will be left for low level players.
2. Gank people. Say "hi" to stranglethorn vale with ganking in hunters camp. If high level players be in own time dimension, then low level players will be safe from those kind of attacks.
3. Powerleveling by tagging mobs. I think it is main source of RMT, which don't require trading. Some people sell leveling services and run here and there with "help".

One possible positive interaction is trading. But it can be done in non-phased location like capital or by AH or by mail.
Hardcore characters are leveling just fine without interaction with high level players.

It's a bad idea and we've all seen enough of Blizzard using their resources to try it for 20 years to know why. You run the risk of fragmenting what remains of the population and breaking the game world so that you can see Naralex's story not even really continue.

Fragmentation argument is not valid. Splitting Barrens to two zones is not very different from making another zone nearby. Part of players will move there "fragmenting the population". Should Lapidis and Giljim islands be removed then?

And how good are the positives again?

Positives of whole zone phasing:
- no ganking by high levels
- no mob-tagging powerlevelers
- high levels don't steal low level resources
- it is possible to make more pvp objectives in location for lower level phase
- more quests in the world
- you see that world evolve over time, sometimes as result of your actions

However, I think that any phasing/dynamic world system has to be added little by little: the first step would be to do it to some minor NPC as mentioned above.

Naralex just standing there is actually not enough to implement anything convoluted.
It could be like building large complex machine for making one small thing.
Actually, system like this can be implemented in dungeons. There could be different dungeons for different levels.
For example when you clear Scarlet Monastery at 40 lvl, you fight with living people. But when you return there at lvl 60, this instance gets full of undead. Scourge gets there and rise all who was killed before.

One more important thing. 3 or 4 people writing here is not "community" at all.
If 3 people say "no" and 2 people say "yes", it is not like 3000 out of 5000 of all players say "no" and 2000 out of 5000 say "yes".

[Ruthus]

"Not valid?" Alright, then the discussion is over and I still think your idea sucks. You've already made it clear this is more about you being upset about competition for resources than actually adding content. And yes, adding layering/sharding/phasing to one existing zone is entirely different and much lamer than making actual new zones. Mind-numbing that I'm even acknowledging that "point."

[Jc473]

One more important thing. 3 or 4 people writing here is not "community" at all.
If 3 people say "no" and 2 people say "yes", it is not like 3000 out of 5000 of all players say "no" and 2000 out of 5000 say "yes".

Indeed, that sample size cannot be extrapolated to reflect the entire playerbase with any good level of accuracy. In fact, I would argue that no amount of forum posters would provide a large enough sample size. Polling the playerbase is probably the best method of gauging player interest, relatively speaking, but it is also fraught with inadequacies. But what it really comes down to is whether the proposed change aligns with the devs' vision of the server. All we can do is present the pros/cons to assist with their decision making process.

Could you describe specific what kind of player-player interactions gets lost when world gets phased by level?
I already heard this argument before, but it is not very specific.

Well, all sorts of interactions get lost. I'll give a couple examples of outright positive types:
1) Social interaction - If two players are within the appropriate level range of the zone but are phased from each other, they can no longer socially interact. This includes exchanging pleasantries, roleplaying, asking/offering advice or exploring together.
2) Helpful interaction - If two players are within the appropriate level range of the zone but are phased from each other, they can no longer physically interact in a helpful way. This includes helping with quests, PvPing (seeking it or preventing it) or trading.

Both 1) & 2) also apply to players with big level differences (e.g. a level 15 in a fresh zone and a 30 who has already completed it). This freeform nature allows for more player-player interactions.

Now, obviously, there are negative interactions which you have provided. But, as I said before, we can't have everything; 99% of the time, we have to take the rough with the smooth. The devs have chosen to implement rules to try and make sure those rough bits aren't too bad. For example, severe bans for RMT and for those who repeatedly gank low levels (e.g. corpse camp). Of course, these are only deterrents but the devs know that if they remove these interactions completely (e.g. with phasing), you lose out on the aforementioned positive ones.

Fragmentation argument is not valid. Splitting Barrens to two zones is not very different from making another zone nearby. Part of players will move there "fragmenting the population". Should Lapidis and Giljim islands be removed then?

With everything I've just said, I would say that the fragmentation argument is very valid. The major difference in your comparison of "splitting Barrens into two zones (phases)" and "making another zone nearby" is that the players cannot interact in anyway should they go visit each other in the respective zones. For example, I am a human levelling in Westfall (10-20 level range) and I'm halfway through dealing with the Defias questline. My friend (a dwarf levelling in Loch Modan, also a 10-20 level range) wants to join me. With the potential phasing system, there could be a very good chance that we can not interact with each other at all until he catches up on the Defias questline.

[Grandyman]

Awesome idea, but tricky in execution.

[Xudo]

If two players are within the appropriate level range of the zone but are phased from each other, they can no longer
...
The major difference in your comparison of "splitting Barrens into two zones (phases)" and "making another zone nearby" is that the players cannot interact in anyway should they go visit each other in the respective zones. For example, I am a human levelling in Westfall (10-20 level range) and I'm halfway through dealing with the Defias questline. My friend (a dwarf levelling in Loch Modan, also a 10-20 level range) wants to join me. With the potential phasing system, there could be a very good chance that we can not interact with each other at all until he catches up on the Defias questline.

I propose phasing based by level. Level ranges should be at least 6 levels wides. Whole zone doesn't have to change in next phase.

My reasoning is:
Splitting zone into multiple phases during some "main" questline is retail way. Story is built around "each" character. Vanilla zones doesn't designed that way. There are multiple parallel questlines and I think it should stay. Assuming that there are multiple stories, they can't be phased together in a meaningful way.
Story will go on even if you level by grinding, because multiple other characters drive it along with you.
Players can toggle xp off, so they could finish everything they want before going next phase.

Example:
Durotar now features quests for levels 1-12. One phase is 1-6. Next phase starts at 6 and ends at 13 . Razor Hill quests are present in both phases. Valley of trials get quest overhaul for this level range: demon cave is clear, peons are mining there, some cleansing ritual is happening.
Next phase starts at 13 and ends at 60. Razor hill quests are changed. Something not related to story could stay the same. Like "bring some meat to inn". Quillboars driven out to river. Probably to the barrens river bank. Kul tiras expedition can overtake destroyed fortress. Darkspear trolls could restore their village on southern islands without Zalazane threat.
Alliance of level 6-13 could get some kind of teleportation to destroyed Kul-tiras fortress and get quests there, involving some PvP action, which would not be interrupted by high-level hordies.

Orc and his undead friend (leveled in Tirisfal) will be in the same phase, if they both are in the same level range.

[Ruthus]

Convoluted and pointless. No one wants to break the game world into tiny shards and mutilate the game's social structure just to give your twink a special bubble where no one stronger than him can exist.

[Konstanten]

As I stated earlier. I think most escort quests each lends itself to this idea: the escorted NPC can either become a quest giver, vendor, or both.
For example, after rescuing Gilthares Firebough from Northwatch Hold, he can become a vendor next to Captain Brightsun in Ratchet, where he sells potions and some green item(s).

For Naralex, an idea is to make him concerned with the silithid in the Barrens, handing out quests to investigate or warn Darnassus/Thunderbluff about the silithid in the Field of Giants