Are Classes Good or Bad for MMOs?
A few months back, I was working on a series of blog posts outlining what I would want in a dream MMO. After a series of discussions with Rynala, co-workers, guild mates, and other bloggers about the mechanics of MMOs and how the games can choose to fail or succeed, I decided instead of dreaming, I would write up all the documentation for the MMO of my creation. I am still working on this but do not have anything to post on it at this time since I have about 10+ posts worth of content spread across a multitude of ideas but none of them are fleshed out enough to post yet. Today's thought comes from toiling away on this.
Are classes a good or bad design choice?
Classes are most commonly seen as an assortment of various skills and abilities given a name to differentiate it from other assortments of skills and abilities. Often times, different classes can have different play styles. While druids and paladins in World of Warcraft both have healing spells, the style in which they do their healing is drastically different with the paladin doing big single target heals and the druid using heal over time spells. But is it a good thing to restrict abilities by class? Sometimes there may be encounters where the abilities of one class may be superior to the abilities of another class, leaving the second class feeling worthless and discouraged.
A lot of people I know are big fans of class-less systems. All the skill branches are out there and it is your decision to choose what types of skills you want to pursue. You could work on advancing fighting with a giant battle mace while working on your fire magics or perhaps to work on both fire and ice magics and forgo weapons altogether. What skills your character progresses is completely up to you instead of having a list of class skills you pick up as you level. The problem with this is that MMO players have a habit of optimizing their experience and soon you will have a majority of players running around with the "One Spec"(TM) and there being a lack of overall variety in what people play.
I used to be against the concept of classes but the more I ponder over the idea, I am more accepting of the idea of classes in MMOs. In reading about Darkfall lately, it already seems like people are finding that "One Spec" that is overall superior. While classes can cause some strife between players, I think that having a distinct difference between different players is a good thing. Sure, Bob and I can both play rogues and be essentially the same, but right now Bob plays a mage which has a different play style than my rogue.
Though the concept of Runes of Magic's dual class system is very intriguing to me. Not only do you get to pick two classes to be, but the game offers special synergies when combining certain classes. I do not remember any of them offhand, but an example would be if you played a priest with a knight secondary, you might get a special defensive shielding spell based on the holy spell power of the priest and the defense of the knight whereas if you played a warrior with a priest secondary, you might get a special weapon attack to infuse your weapons with holy energy. Also, if I recall correctly, you could swap which of the two classes was your primary. You might play a warrior/knight today and a knight/warrior tomorrow. You can swap your primary and secondary as each class has to be leveled separately.
Perhaps a superior method would be an advancement on the ideas of Runes of Magic. Maybe give the player access to every class in the game and let them level up each class individually and then pair up any two classes when they want.
Non-WoW Gaming Update
I have reached the point in WoW where there is not much more to do for my main character outside of raids. Sure, there are a bunch of achievements I could finally finish (such as loremaster or the cooking achievements) but I find that more often than not, I just lack any desire to play outside of raiding. I am sure this will all change for a while after 3.1. There will be raiding of Ulduar that will take up quite a bit of time as well as the Argent Tournament for new dailies. The big boon for me will be dual specs since I will be able to spec ret and then go grind out things (like finishing Maghar or getting exalted Timbermaw) but I do not want to pay to be specing back and forth between holy and ret right now.
Outside of WoW, I have not really been playing much on my computer and have been turning instead to my 360. When I replaced my 360 at the beginning of this month, I picked up four games with it: Fable 2 (which I had beaten as a rental before the console was stolen), Grand Theft Auto 4, Culdcept Saga and Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad.
Grand Theft Auto is very meh for me. I have played maybe three hours of it and I do not feel myself attached to the game at all and just am not finding the game enjoyable at all. This is a pity because I LOVED Vice City. I cannot even begin to fathom how many hours I dumped into that game.
Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad is not a good game and the only reason I purchased it is because it is called "Bikini Samurai Squad". It is a pure slasher where you go around killing hordes of zombies. Except the zombies move slow and are not hard to kill and you can usually just run past them all to the end of the stage.
Culdcept Saga is the only game I have put more than three hours into. I have really enjoyed this game because this game has on multiple occasions made me so angry I have wanted to throw my controller. It is best described as a mixture of Monopoly, Yu-gi-oh, and Risk. You move along the game board dropping monster cards on squares and using monster cards and spell cards to take over enemy squares. When I first started, I lost to the very first battle in the game four times. The problem is that they do not do well to explain the game before throwing you into a full unrestrained match and at first the dice rolls (movement is all based on dice rolls) can seem a bit rigged so that the computer is rolling a bit better than you. Luckily, a loss is not a game over and you walk away with some consolation cards and can try the fight again. After picking up some "better luck next time cards" I rebuilt my deck and started holding my own in the game.
Rynala has done a fair share of game playing herself. Her new laptop is a beauty and more powerful than my desktop (yes, I am jealous of it). Before we took the trip home, I loaded Bioshock and Mass Effect on her computer (both run max resolution with all settings maxxed). She beat Bioshock while we were back home and just beat Mass Effect today. Now I just need to get her to play The Witcher.
Anyway, hopefully I will have more to talk about this week. I hope to maybe take a look back into Runes of Magic and get Rynala to join me but we will see how that goes.
No Time To Blog – Too Sick
Between sleeping and vomiting, I have had no time to blog this week. Hopefully I will start writing again next week.
Predict The Future: World of Warcraft
Well I am back from my vacation. It was really fantastic but I did not have as much time to write as I would have (either that or I just felt extremely lazy at times). I did write one thing I wanted to share with you all and challenge you to do yourself.
This was taken from a thread on the Gamers With Jobs forums. The questions where: "What do you predict the 3.2 raid will be?" and "What do you predict the next expansion to be?"
*cracks his knuckles*
Stay awhile and listen...
Since this is a "Predict the Future" thread, this post is going to be filled with spoilers. Reader beware.
3.3 is Arthas. We know this. Blizzard has stated this. They also talked about how 3.3 is the "culmination of the Ashbringer lore". Arthas will die. Ner'zhul will be vanquished. Frostmourne will disintegrate with the death of the Lich King and thus never become an in-game weapon.
Yogg-Saron is the power behind Ner'zhul. And thus with Yogg-Saron's defeat, Arthas and Ner'zhul become vulnerable. On the DVD in the collectors edition, they talked about how they were forming the lore. They spoke about how when Ner'zhul was imprisoned by Kil'jaeden, Ner'zhul was just a powerful shaman that may have dabbled a bit in necromancy. He wasn't all powerful with command over all undead. He was just a powerful hero of the Old Horde. Once Ner'zhul was imprisoned, he somehow became immensely powerful. Yogg-Saron is the God of Death. Coincidence? Of course not. Yogg-Saron is the power behind the Lich King. It has been hinted at enough.
My guess for 3.2 is Grim Batol and Neltharion (Deathwing) as the final boss. The recent book that came out, Night of the Dragon, talks about Grim Batol and the events happening there. If you ever did the Netherwing quests in Shadowmoon, you saw Lady Sinestra and how she talked to the head fel orc about how "the master" is still alive and continuing where his son (Nefarion) failed. He is doing more genetic experiments and is making the twilight dragonflight (hence the twilight drakes in Obsidian Sanctum). Well Lady Sinestra is the villain of the Night of the Dragon book and Deathwing is in Grim Batol experimenting on the remnants of the Red Dragonflight in the area. This expansion has had a huge focus on the dragonflights, thus the instance will fit right in. Think Blackwing Lair 2.0 (which gets me excited because BWL is my favorite instance). Not only that, the instance will contain a reptilian version of dwarves (talked about in the book). This doubly makes it fitting since so much of this expansion has talked about the dwarves' origin.
The next expansion is going to be the Emerald Dream and will introduce the Archdruid (a healer hybrid), or something similar, class. We have more than enough tanks now and even with dual spec we'll see a healer shortage. Thus archdruids.
How do I know it will be the Emerald Dream? Well, when they were working on the Wrath of the Lich King expansion Christie Golden worked on the book Arthas: Rise of the Lich King which is going to be released in April.
At the New York Comic Con, they announced the next book she is working on is "World of Warcraft: Stormrage". So what would be the perfect time to write that? During the development of the expansion.
One thing I did not mention in the thread that I wanted to is that I predict the main bosses in The Emerald Dream will be Old Gods. Maybe the spirit of Yogg-Saron and C'thun or a completely new Old God. And yes, I do expect Malfurion Stormrage and Cenarius to be bosses corrupted by the influence of the Old Gods.
So now it is your turn. What do you predict the next patch will be? What do you expect the next expansion will be?
Frigid Vacation
Well the blogging drought for me will continue for at least another two weeks. Tomorrow marks the start of my vacation. Usually I think of nice warm beaches when it comes to vacation but this time I am going to visit my parents in the frigid northlands (northern Idaho).
I have been working on the design document for my dream game (instead of just talking about it, I want to try my hand at actual design). Between WoW and other games, that has been coming slowly. I will post more about it when I get back from vacation.
As for WoW, I have been busy with my current guild. The guild got Immortal for the first time (and with it many people got their black proto-drake). Unfortunately, I was not in the raid at the time and I probably will not get my drake before 3.1 because of the vacation and having spent too much time out of the raiding scene. My only hope is that 3.1 is still 4-6 weeks off.
We finally got all of the items replaced from the break-in last month. One nice outcome is that we were able to buy Rynala a really nice desktop replacement laptop (her last laptop was very low grade). Now she is able to play games like WoW, Mass Effect and Bioshock all at max settings with no slow down.
When I replaced the 360 I picked up Grand Theft Auto 4, Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad, and Culdcept Saga. Onechanbara is absolutely terrible but it is one of those games I just love to hate. It is incredibly bloody but I will probably finish it just because I am a masochist. I have not had a chance to try Culdcept Saga but it is supposed to be a really spectacular collectable card style game and I find myself really excited for it. Lastly, I have only played about two hours of GTA4 and have been enjoying it. It is the same formula again but still enjoyable for me. I spend more of my time laughing at stuff on the radio than caring about what the characters have to say.
Anyway, I will see you guys on the other side of this much needed vacation.
Wolves, Sheep, and Missing the Point
So Scott Jennings over at Broken Toys has been pretty brutal on Darkfall over the past couple days. Syncaine from Hardcore casual has been one of the most vocal of the people vehemently disagreeing with him. Overall, while most of the arguing back and forth is entertaining to read, I have not felt much need to comment. I think today's post by Syncaine about Wolves and Sheep missed the point.
Syncaine seems to believe that everyone else talking about wolves and sheep simply classify wolves as hardcore PvPers and sheep as the carebear PvEers. He goes on to greatly expand upon this idea to whether you like high impact PvP or not, there is a place for you in the world and it can be more exciting because your actions can have a huge impact and often high risk.
I think that this misses this point of the "wolves and sheep" argument and Syncaine misunderstands the idea. The basic theory is that in an open world impact PvP game, you have the wolves that prey upon the sheep. After a while of being constantly kicked, the sheep will quit and then wolves will have nothing to do but to turn on each other. Wolves do not like being sheep so after a while the wolves quit too and your game is bleeding significant subscription numbers.
I think that Syncaine is wrong in believing that everyone just sees wolves as PvPers and sheep as PvEers. I see it as more of a situation of wolves being people who want to win no matter what and will grief and cheat to accomplish their goal. Sheep are just those that want to be in a fair fight. I do not mean 'fair' as in the exact same power on the exact same fighting grounds. A 'fair' fight could still have you being the underdog, but it is a fight where people are playing the game how it is meant to be played and not exploiting or cheating.
Losing a fight because someone is cheating, exploiting, or abusing some poorly implemented game mechanic is not fun. It is not fair. Sheep do not hate PvP. Sheep hate fights that they will lose 100% of the time. A sheep might attack you at low health or while you fight a mob, but they will not cheat, they will not abuse you. A wolf is someone who will come up to you, kill you, help you back up, kill you again, help you back up, only to kill you again. Sheep do not grief.
After being griefed and abused for so long, the sheep get fed up and go to somewhere where they can find a fair fight. Soon the griefer wolves can only grief each other and suddenly they do not always win and they do not like that.
While most PvP games fail because of terrible game mechanics, I think even those perfectly made would likely fail. It is not the fault of the developers. It is the fault of human nature while online gaming. There is a percentage of online players that live only to make other people miserable. These people claim to love the PvP games they play, but their actions only serve to destroy the games they claim to love.
Druid or Shaman?
So I have decided to level up an alt in my free time and I am having a hard time deciding what to do. Should I make a druid or a shaman? Either way, my plan is to be a healer on it at 80. I just to know which one I want to play.
“But WoW Raiding Is Too Easy Now”
Ixobelle put up a great post today about how 'Raiding Isn't a "Skillset"'.
Go do yourself a favor and read it.