Talk:World Instance

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Table Layout

Just wanted to mention that the table layout for the lower table appears to be incorrect. It appears more like a failed indented ordered list. -- DoIHaveTo (talk) 23:45, 5 December 2011 (EST)

Agreed :) Zimoon 03:12, 6 December 2011 (EST)
After a bit of puzzling, I believe the second table layout is correct. It is not so easy to interpret since the level cap has increased, making the right edge go off-screen for some lines. It is attempting to show the range of levels over which you can play the instance. The grey bar shows the range from the lowest to highest level. The first couple of instances are playable from level 20 through level 75. Then one from level 22 through 75 and the next, from level 24 through 75.
This chart might benefit from having a header, and/or some explanation. RingTailCat (talk) 06:51, 6 December 2011 (EST)
This article has suffered from several page moves making it difficult to track down the revision history. At various times it was also named [[World instances]] and [[World Instances]]. My examination of the world instances by level suggests that is a pasted in html table generated from a spreadsheet program, or the result of some very meticulous hand coding, or even machine generated. Hand editing it looks like it would be difficult and error prone. RingTailCat (talk) 07:03, 6 December 2011 (EST)
Well, that makes the whole page "prettier" and somewhat more meaningful! I don't really find it "informative" but ... whatever... I'm just guessing what the original author had in mind to accomplish.
The table was "pure" Wiki-table, but with some attempt to add HTML formatting. (Rav and I have made such tables pretty routinely.) Do we really have "style="position: relative"?? I guess we do as it works, or at least works partially. /Magill
It would be better if we had the wiki-bar chart template and its component parts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Bar_chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Bar_box
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bar_chart_templates
The "grey areas" now show the "start level" of the Instance... all of which, I believe now, can be played to lvl 75... through the various "challange levels" -- I have not played with the instance "stuff" (to which, as of Update 5, we now add the Instance Finder) so I don't know the individual instances
*Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 21:55, 28 December 2011 (EST)
Great looks, good job :-D
Zimoon 02:40, 29 December 2011 (EST)

Free/VIP

I've been, while looking over the instances, wondering how I can get them. Are they all included in their respective QPs and expansions? I know for a fact that Great Barrow instances are free, as well as the Garth Agarwen instances. As an F2P player on a budget, this information would be interesting for me. Couldn't there be a new section in the table where it says "Included in" and the QP/expansion, and "Free" or "Individual purchase only" on the others? -- Candlelight (talk)

Absolutely. Add another column, tentatively named "Available". Per instance, add what opens it up, such as "[[VIP]], [[Quest Pack:Moria]]", "Anybody", or "''(pending)''". -- Zimoon 09:34, 4 May 2012 (EDT)
Can we get rid of "align="center" on that table? -- it really is ugly, and does not make reading it any easier. Other than that, it's clearly useful information.
On a somewhat related note... Do we have anything which details what's in each "Thing" -- Quest packs especially? Being a "Lifer" I don't know if Turbine has any such listing on their website -- never looked.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC (talk) 14:41, 4 May 2012 (EDT)

Scaled Instances Question

I am a newb when it comes to instances but my hunter managed to complete HoN yesterday, with good help of a Minstrel and a RK (no tank loo and behold, just squishies). What was I to say...or ask...yes, are not the upper levels equal to level-cap? Or are there scalable instances that scale lower? If level-cap, you may use the template for it {{Level Cap}} which now gives 150 as result.
-- Zimoon 05:42, 26 October 2012 (EDT)

I think I found the answer myself, Level Cap is the upper limit. Now, does that apply to all instances? I just checked HoN. -- Zimoon 06:37, 26 October 2012 (EDT)
HoN = Halls of Night. What level did you run at? I have a suspicion that scaling does not scale to your exact level, but to a level band of perhaps three or five levels. So, if you are at levels 40-42 (or 40-44), the instance is scaled to one difficult, while if you are 43-45 (or 45-48) you run at the next higher difficulty. If your level is at the low end of the band, the instance is tougher than if your level is at the high end of the band. With skirmishes, I found you could benefit by starting a instance just before you level up, the instance doesn't change when you level up, but your stats go up instantly! But then, HoN may have been nerfed since I last ran it. RingTailCat (talk) 06:50, 26 October 2012 (EDT)
Yes, scaled instances have their minimum levels but can be run at any desired level higher than that, up to the level cap. Running at the highest level and tier (tiers should probably be included on this page too, actually) gives a bonus Challenge quest for seals. -- Eggolass (talk) 07:54, 26 October 2012 (EDT)
Okay, I made a pass through the table to fix the levels and try to squeeze a few more columns in there. Hopefully it's not too cluttered. -- Eggolass (talk) 11:05, 26 October 2012 (EDT)
Looks nice to me, even better than after my turns there.
@RTC: We were a spread out team where lowest guy and leader was level 40, so honestly I don't know what scaling there was. It was tough because we were Hunter+Minstrel+RK (all squishies) but when figuring out a good stratagem we did it ;)
-- Zimoon 11:30, 26 October 2012 (EDT)

Update needed

  • Added Rescue in Nûrz Ghâshu to the table in the process of fixing some category issues.... but it needs to be finished

All of the categories and pages in Category: World Instances need to be organized.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 16:33, 14 August 2013 (EDT)
Rescue in Nûrz Ghâshu is a Skirmish and already listed there. doesn't belong on this table unless we're folding in all the skirmishes. same for The Fires of Smaug, The Battle for Erebor, and Flight to the Lonely Mountain unless we're adding Raids.
only thing missing from Instance Cluster: Rohan on this table is ... The Bells of Dale. will see about adding that real quick. Taz (talk) 01:16, 15 August 2013 (EDT)


other bit i'd like to see updated here: in most recent instances Challenge quests are no longer Dailies and are repeatable as often as the player wants to run the instances. GB, Annuminas, Fornost, Erebor, ITA, Mirkwood, IotF/HoN challenges should all be repeatable in this way. Moria/Loth/Isen instances may still be on a daily (or other) cooldown. (not sure about Helegrod, but those are all raids anyway, no concern here.)
Taz (talk) 01:52, 15 August 2013 (EDT)


Hmmm... looks like I opened another can of worms :) .... I guess the question is -- What is the difference? (This, like the Moors, is a subject with which I am only slightly acquainted.)
Any differences between the three (soon to be four)*** are obviously NOT clearly reflected (if mentioned at all) in the Articles. All are accessible via the Instance finder. I think these pages were created back when they were truly distinct entities. (And a lot of the Wiki "just-growed," i.e. it was not created with any sort of over arching organizational structure... which makes finding things difficult. Today, I don't know that is true anymore. World Instance makes reference to Skirmish but not the inverse. Similarly Raid "sort of" makes reference to both. I stumbled on the Rift entry simply because it was "uncategorized" and I was trying to find a place to put it. As it turns out, it is "not complete" -- it is missing the "daily" quest wrapper associated with other similar quests.
I believe that today, all 3 have the same basic characteristics --
  • all are available via the Instance finder
  • all award some sort of "currency" as "loot;" some also have actual "drops" (I think)
  • all (almost all) are now "scaleable"
  • all (almost all) "Raid Locks" are now gone. (Helgerod might be the remaining hold-out... or was it the Rift itself?)
Other things...
  • World Instances states" -- "Note that this page only includes instances for a small or full fellowship. Instances designed for larger groups are known as Raids."
Maybe that's the differentiator -- Skirmishes can ONLY be run solo...(Is that a true statement?) Of course we get into the problem of defining "Solo" as I believe that "Solo" now means "duo" in most cases.
  • There should be some new "uber" page/category called "scaleable instances?" -- and where are "Big Battles" (i.e. the Helm's Deep "stuff" ) going to wind up ?
*** As I was writing this I discovered Instances and note that there are currently FOUR ... soon to be FIVE with the release of Helm's Deep.
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 17:18, 15 August 2013 (EDT)
Instances looks pretty sane -- that's your base-type for all these sub-types, the overview page, and each sub-type's individual page gets into specifics of what makes it different. Instance Finder is a UI element used to access everything but public dungeons, so it's related but not a sub-type. all seem reasonably well categorized as Category:Game Terms though maybe Category:Instances is also appropriate.
The main thing that differentiates Skirmishes from others is scalable-by-group-size in addition to being scalable-by-level. Looking at the Specific tab in your Instance Finder, skirmishes are all located in their own category at the bottom. That's what defines a skirmish.
Yes, Raids probably needs a similar table for quick reference. Raid locks are still used in almost all not-yet-scaled raids: Rift, Orthanc, Dar Narbugud, Vile Maw, Filikul, even Carn Dum. I expect those will be removed once those instances are revamped/scaled, but that day isn't here yet. (Not sure about Helegrod -- it doesn't have the raid lock reported with "/raid locks", but neither do skirmish raids.)
Taz (talk) 20:16, 15 August 2013 (EDT)

Classification

One thing that I take issue with is that Public Dungeons are classified as instances which they'ren't. If you can stand in the same location as another player at the same time on the same server and not be able to see them (excepting layering due to overcrowding), then it's an instance. If anyone can join in and the game does not make separate copies for each group of players that want to go there, then it's not an instance. But if Public Dungeons are not instances, what category do they fall under?

I've also always thought it strange that we call out Raids separately from World Instances yet we lump together full fellowship and small fellowship instances, the main difference between these three being the group size.

This may be a good opportunity to utilize a common infobox template for articles under this topic to make navigation between them smoother. Perhaps we can adapt one of our existing templates into something similar to this.

Neum (talk) 18:02, 16 August 2013 (EDT)
no, i think the classification of Public Dungeons as a sub-type of Instance is appropriate. the tech that allows World Instances also allows Public Dungeons. consider Defence of Walstow: it's a copy of a small piece of game world landscape, clearly an instance even by your own definition (consider a player standing on the bridge in game-world Walstow vs a player standing on the bridge in instance Walstow). but it's public; players & player groups don't get their own individual copy. (btw, the minimap labels your location while in Ghâmpronk as "Public Instance: Ghâmpronk". articles on the hytbold daily dungeons seem to be missing atm.)
in my understanding at least, any non-game-world space is instance-space: housing neighborhoods, house interior, inside the Prancing Pony, barrow interiors, Great Barrow: Maze. Public Dungeon is what we call the instance-spaces that are shared amongst players; World Instances are instance-spaces that are not shared and not scalable-by-group; Skirmishes are not shared, scalable-by-group, and scalable-by-level. we don't really talk about house interiors as being Public Dungeons, since there's no enemies to fight, but they work in the same way.
tend to agree with you re: Raids. maybe once it was necessary because raid groups required special quests/deeds. (most deeds, solo/fellow quests, etc, would advance in normal fellowship groups but advancement was prevented in raid groups.) recent changes removed all (most?) quests/deeds advancement restrictions, so folding Raids into [[World Instances]] might be appropriate.
Taz (talk) 01:23, 17 August 2013 (EDT)
The primary issue here is that "Instances" did not exist back when the Wiki was started... There were Raids and Public Dungeons. Instances came later. Of course I'm talking here about "jargon" and it's common usage not only at LOTRO but also across MMOs in general.
I don't know that what LOTRO calls Raids would be called Raids in other MMOs. In my limited experience beyond LOTRO, what I have seen are now what are being called MOBA, like Turbine's "Infinite Crisis." The Multi-player Online Battle Arena as a "genre" appears to have "surfaced" in the mid to late 2000 and is only now becoming widespread. It appears that the first "official" MOBA was a Warcraft III mod called Defense of the Ancients circa 2003-5. This is roughly the time when LOTRO was being developed (LOTRO released in 2007). Which is to say that the designers at Turbine took all of the assorted new ideas in the gaming world and created LOTRO from scratch rather than simply "update" Acheron's Call. All of this is to say... the game-engine technology, and the gaming worlds nomenclature for it have evolved pretty dramatically, and rapidly since LOTRO's release. That was largely the point of my original "Update Needed" post.
When the Wiki was begun, terms common to other games and gaming systems were the only ones "known" and therefore the ones used. Today, Turbine has its own set of terms, which, are themselves, not static; and there are often multiple different terms used by different developers -- Automatic Quest Bestowal was the term used throughout the beginning of the RoR beta, but by the end and in release, the term has evolved to be "Landscape Quest."
Turbine clearly considers what we call Public Dungeons to be Public Instances. While most of the Hytbold daily quests as listed on this wiki do NOT show the line, all of the actual in-game quests do ... "This is an instanced public questing area." if they have a "travel" button/page.
Hence my call for a new "upber" category as I described above. The "entries" I was describing are those which currently exist on this Wiki. The one grouping in particular which I have never heard used anywhere but on this Wiki is "World Instance."
As for your Infobox idea... yes something is needed. That particular type entity is a "foreign style" to this Wiki, but clearly something akin to the various "Location" templates can be created. Personally, I've been dealing with the issue by creating "drop down" (i.e. hidden) tables with cross references. (see: [[War-steed}} as an example.)A crude but effective means of displaying the multiple points of related information. (I think that most Wiki folks have realized that relying on "links" embedded in the text simply do not work, that some kind of a "cross-reference index" is needed -- which is what your suggestion amounts to... The style is the only question.
"Raids" continue to evolve. As I mentioned, not only are they all "scaleable" now; but the concept of "Raid Locks" has been dropped by Turbine -- witness the constant stream of requests in the Forums for "Raid Locks" to be put on all of the new "Raids." The primary "defining" item I see is that in the "classic" Public Dungeon -- all players compete for the same Mobs/Loot. While "Open Tapping" has removed most all of the Mob-drop loot issues; re-spawn rates still impact the body count quests/deeds and the ability to harvest resources.
Hmmm... just re-discovered: World Instances Guideline -- It's primarily about Page Layout, but I have to read it again in detail to be certain. It's a long article, and my first response was -- this should be a boilerplate article.
I suspect that one appropriate solution is to get rid of the moniker "World" and to just call them "Instances." The other naming issue is the use of the word "Dungeon" -- LOTRO has no dungeons. That term is a artifact of other Gaming Systems and not meaningful in LOTRO.
"Quest Instances" are (almost) always "Private Instances" -- Solo (or now Duo) or Fellowship access. The group you start with is the group you finish with. Access to them after you have completed them may be via a Reflecting Pool, but that "restriction" seems to have been mostly eliminated since the Epic quest line was made "solo friendly."
"instanced public questing area" though unwieldy is more informative than "Public Dungeon."
Taz is correct up to a point. The technology involved in LOTRO is beyond my ken (I retired from Unix SysAdmin in 2003), but what little I do know the "Main game world" is a cluster of servers all running the same software and accessing the same data. Individual areas are hived-off on to individual, "special purpose" servers, probably running unique software and accessing data unique to that specific area. Every "golden web" transition gateway we go through represents a hand-off to a different server.
I'm rambling -- not enough coffee I guess.... Can we build a table of attributes to use for sorting things out... here's a start using Taz's comments:

Assume we call everything an Instance:

  • Instances
  • Public -- shared amongst players; always solo
  • World -- not shared and not scalable-by-group;
  • Raid -- ?? only 12 or 24
  • Quest -- ?? only Solo to 6
  • Session Play -- not shared, solo only.
  • Skirmishes -- not shared, scalable-by-group, and scalable-by-level

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 11:35, 17 August 2013 (EDT)

Turbine's breakdown

Just looking at the "Triple Pack" over at store.turbine.com.

Their "content" list is below, showing how they describe the various collections of 3/6/12/24 man raids 

Triple Pack Features
Moria
Delve into the dangerous depths of Moria, and try to reclaim its dark halls from the evil burrowed within.
- Over 350 quests designed to support player levels 50 - 60.
- Seven full fellowship instances (Dark Delvings, Fil Gashan, Skumfil, The Sixteenth Hall, The Forges of Khazad-dum, The Grand Stair, 
  and The Forgotten Treasury).
- Two 12-person raids (Filikul and The Vile Maw).
- Heal or deal damage with a Rune-keeper or use powerful attack combos and self-healing as a Warden! 
- Raise the rank cap on your skirmish soldier and skirmish traits to 15, allowing you to further train your soldier and increase 
  its effectiveness in skirmishes!
- Live the legend of two more heroes of Middle-earth with 2 additional character slots!


Mirkwood
Join the elves of Lothlórien in war against Sauron among the ancient ruins, spider-haunted canyons, and foul bogs of Mirkwood.

- 150 quests designed to support player levels 60 - 65.
- Three 3-person instances (Dungeons of Dol Guldur, Sword-hall of Dol Guldur, Warg-pens of Dol Guldur).
- One full fellowship instance (Sammath Gul).
- One 12-person raid (Barad Guldur).
- Raise the rank cap on your skirmish soldier and skirmish traits to 25, allowing you to further train your soldier and increase 
  its effectiveness in skirmishes!


Isengard
Journey eastward toward the tower of Orthanc where an army of Isengard Orcs and Uruk-hai make ready for war.

- Over 375 quests designed to support player levels 65 - 75.
- Three 3-person instances (Fangorn's Edge, Pits of Isengard, Dargnakh Unleashed).
- One full fellowship instance (The Foundry).
- One 12-person instance (The Tower of Orthanc).
- One 12-person raid (Draigoch's Lair).
- Raise the rank cap on your skirmish soldier and skirmish traits to 35, allowing you to further train your soldier and increase 
  its effectiveness in skirmishes!
Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 10:44, 4 September 2013 (EDT)
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