Tabula Rasa Interview
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Q: Making a very broad generalization, there are 4 types of MMO gamers: Hardcore PvE players, Hardcore PvP players (with griefers being a subset), Casual PvE players and casual PvP players. How does a game that uses instancing benefit each type of player?
A: That's an interesting question. It depends on how they are implemented. One thing that's nice about an instanced space versus a public space is that you can set up each instance space with its own rule set without messing up what is happening in the consistent/public space. Obviously having each space with completely different rules would get confusing for the player, but theoretically, and no one has quite done this yet and it is something we are striving for with Tabula Rasa, you can have elements that make everyone happy, theoretically.
Having instanced spaces that allow PvP even while your persistent spaces are always PvE will please one group of people. For PvP players, they can go into an instanced space for a war game, or gauntlet or something like that.
What it could do though, is if the PvP player gets their joy at being able to attack anybody, at any time, where their enjoyment comes at the expense of other players, if you devise a rule set where people have a choice on whether to go into the space or not, then you may lessen their experience because they won't have enough victims to keep them satisfied.
For casual players, it would depend on how the rule sets are designed. You have the model that we are going for in Tabula Rasa, where the shared persistent spaces are mostly PvE but where for the instanced spaces some are PvP, and some are PvE. Some are indirectly PvP where even though the players aren't fighting each other they might be competing for the same goal, like a race or something like that.
