ID:265932
 
I'm working on a Megaman game, and this question has been haunting me.
Should I use instanced maps for levels, or no? If I did, there might be more lag, but will actually play more like a Megaman game, if I don't, people can help eachother through stages (I don't like this because some people WAY overdo it, sometimes it's nice), and that's it. (I plan to add a PvP Guard, obviously).

What're your thoughts on this, instanced or non-instanced?
Have you tried using swapmaps?
In response to Flame Sage
That was going to be what I used, unless something better exists. (Which, as far as I know, no)
Do you load levels dynamically? Will players be able to add new sections to the map? Do you need to be able to load and unload maps without restarting the game? Then use instanced maps.

If not, it won't slow down the game any to have the whole map loaded at once, as long as there is nothing happening in sections of the map that players do not occupy. If you have monsters running around everywhere on the map, regardless of whether players are there or not, then it will certainly slow down your game.
In response to Foomer
Foomer wrote:
If not, it won't slow down the game any to have the whole map loaded at once, as long as there is nothing happening in sections of the map that players do not occupy.

Very true. And if your maps are large enough to be causing lag during the loading process, then add a little Counter to the map loading proc and every time it reaches 100, 200, or whatever you find is appropriate, add a sleep(1) and reset the counter.