Instance

Definition

Instances differ from normal City, Trial or Hazard Zones in that only members of the current team can enter them and the "public" are not allowed in to that exact version and interact with the team. All "door" missions are instances. Characters not on a team that has access to that mission/instance will be unable to enter the instance, with an appropriate error message appearing. Multiple teams may have the same mission in the same location and even enter immediately after one another, but will ultimately end up in separate instances.
The term Instance also refers to the phenomenon where a particular "public" zone (City, Trial or Hazard) is close to being "full" - it has sufficient characters - that a separate version of that zone is created. Characters attempting to travel to those zones, for example by monorail, zone transit border or similar, will be presented with a selection screen showing which instance of the zone they wish to enter. Zones that are full will be labeled as such and cannot be selected as destinations; but instanced zones that have any active characters on them will persist, even if there is only one active character in the zone.