Zone Instancing

[AndMetal]

Spawn conditions would take care of what LDoN dungeons do, which is to spawn a certain set of mobs (levels) based on certain conditions. The only real hard part is creating copies of all the mobs needed, including different levels, stats, etc, then interconnecting all of it. I think that's the main reason there isn't much happening with them. However, once you have the spawn conditions configured, you can trigger them using quest::spawn_condition(). Example:

sub EVENT_SAY {
	if ($text~=/Hail/i) {
		quest::say("Do you want to start a [task]?");
	}
	elsif ($text~=/task/i) {
		quest::spawn_condition("raja", 1, $Group->GetHighestLevel()); # spawn condition id of 1 equals whatever the highest member's level is in the group, which is what level range everything should be tuned for
		quest::say("Have fun!");
		quest::zone("raja");
	}
}

One of the nice things about the spawn2 table is that the respawn timers use the spawn conditions. For example, the max level character in the group is level 50 and every mob in the instance (minus some roamers?) have a respawn time of 2 hours (how long the instance stays opened?). If you enter the zone with a max level of 49, all of the mobs spawned for 49 would spawn on their own timers. If you rezoned with max level of 50, they would still be carrying the respawn timers (the remainder of the 2 hours).

I have a feeling that zone instancing can be done using something like spawn conditions. I know for a fact you can run 2 of the same zone by zoning into a dynamic version, then booting up a static version without zoning. The problem then becomes determining what should or shouldn't be done in an instance vs a regular version, how do you create entry to an instanced zone, and what is the best way to make any zone instanced if you want to (for custom servers).

Kinda rambling & thinking out loud, I would think that instances could be based on groups, raids, and guilds. The type could then be defined in the zone table as an additional column, possibly inst_type (0 = normal, 1 = group instance, 2 = raid instance, 3 = guild instance). Then, if someone attempts to zone into one of those zones, and they meet the requirements (are in a group/raid/guild, have X amount of people in the group/raid), they zone successfully. If not, return false.

Anyway, just some thoughts...