Instancing the Newbie Experience

I tried out a decent amount of new MMOs last year and I noticed some interesting trends concerning newbie zones. It seems that a lot of developers now prefer to use shared instances to create a common newbie zone. This is very different then what I was originally used to in my games, but I've grown to like the idea. Instances give the developer more control over the beginning experience and allows scripting and storytelling that might be hard to pull off in the regular game world. Also older games can increase the currency drop rate in the starting instance to offset any inflation that occurs. Nothing is more annoying then creating a character in World of Warcraft and seeing most items your level going for several gold.

There are a couple problems using an instance as a newbie zone, but thankfully most developers seem aware of the situation. In World of Warcraft and Everquest there is a newbie zone for almost every race and this adds some re-playability to trying out different characters. Unfortunately, this also leads to balance problems with some areas being better designed and more popular then other ones. I like how classic Everquest introduced a common newbie instance later on in the game to combat this problem. A player can choose to either play through the Gloomingdeep Mines instance or go to their race's starting area. The experience and items are much better in the Gloomingdeep Mines, but someone might have already played through it several times. In general I'm always in favor of anything that gives players more choices.

Restricting players to a single choice almost always results in bad blood. I'm sure Funcom thought a single newbie zone in Age of Conan would allow them to put more time and effort into the experience. They were correct since Tortage is probably the most fun and polished part of the game. However, they forgot to account for the lack of re-playability by having a single newbie zone. The day quests are always the same and it can get old quickly if you play the same archetype since that makes the night quests also the same. The game later splits into three different areas after Tortage, but they aren't setup for low level characters. This was especially devastating for Age of Conan since a lot of end game content was broken and creating new characters was one of the only things players could do once they reached max level.

I guess from my experiences I think it might be better to have small newbie areas for each race and then introduce a shared instance later on in the game. Lord of the Rings has two shared newbie instances, but they're hardcoded to the races you play. Since I liked the humans and halflings I found myself playing through the Archet scenario over and over again. I really wish they had separate starting zones for both races and maybe made the shared instance optional. Blizzard seems to be going this route with the new Death Knight class which gets a starting instance inside the plaguelands. It seems like the instance will involve a lot of lore and equip the character for their journey to the Outlands. I'm believe players will be able to skip it though if they just want to go straight to the Light's Hope Cathedral.

Already players have asked if other classes can get inside the instance or if it will only be for Death Knights. As far as I can tell there are some specific scripted events which would prevent it from being a good instance for other classes. However, if players keep clamoring for a shared leveling instance I could see a WoW version of the Gloomingdeep Mines being made. With the way World of Warcraft is stating to get a little end game heavy it will probably happen sooner rather then later. After all players have long asked for new mid or low end content and this would fit the bill. It's funny that Warhammer Online avoids this situation since the beginning areas for each faction are linked by flight path. Also by introducing RvR areas into the early game it allows players to level by PvP which has a lot of replay value.

P.S. What did everyone think about Fringe?