Originally posted by rioban

It looks like there's been a passing reference to the origin of the trinity in mmo's but I don't think I saw anyone go into the actual history of what happened.

The trinity was one of several mmo terms that began in Everquest. Class balance had been poor at release and SOE took a wrecking ball to the whole thing with the release of the Kunark expansion. I have never seen an in-game community turn on its own as fast or as viciously as what happened in the two months after Kunark was released ( hybrids ... those poor bastards). Part of the fallout of the balance mess SOE had made of the game was that three classes were now considered indispensable for every high level group - warrior, cleric, and enchanter with just three spaces left over for everybody else. 

The definition of trinity in mmo's have slightly changed over the years since then going from W/C/E (and I guess we will deign to allow a few of you plebians to tag along with us) of Everquest to the modern Tank/Healer/Dps.

 

Not so fun fact: This was the game that also gave birth the the infamous "working as intended".

This is exactly how I remember it.  I'm really glad you posted this because I was beining to think I was crazy and just remembered it wrong or it was from a weird dream or something. 

The idea was that you needed the trinity to play (warrior cleric chanter) and anything after that was fine.  you could probably get the job done with 3 bards after that and it would eventually get done. 

The trinity of (tank healer dps) actually  makes more sense and seems to be an evolution of the one I remember from EQ.  Ahh, the Kunark days.

I really don't recall the trinity ever being mentioned in D&D.  Maybe in 4E but I haven't played it much.

Originally posted by Tjed

Originally posted by rioban

It looks like there's been a passing reference to the origin of the trinity in mmo's but I don't think I saw anyone go into the actual history of what happened.

The trinity was one of several mmo terms that began in Everquest. Class balance had been poor at release and SOE took a wrecking ball to the whole thing with the release of the Kunark expansion. I have never seen an in-game community turn on its own as fast or as viciously as what happened in the two months after Kunark was released ( hybrids ... those poor bastards). Part of the fallout of the balance mess SOE had made of the game was that three classes were now considered indispensable for every high level group - warrior, cleric, and enchanter with just three spaces left over for everybody else. 

The definition of trinity in mmo's have slightly changed over the years since then going from W/C/E (and I guess we will deign to allow a few of you plebians to tag along with us) of Everquest to the modern Tank/Healer/Dps.

 

Not so fun fact: This was the game that also gave birth the the infamous "working as intended".

This is exactly how I remember it.  I'm really glad you posted this because I was beining to think I was crazy and just remembered it wrong or it was from a weird dream or something. 

The idea was that you needed the trinity to play (warrior cleric chanter) and anything after that was fine.  you could probably get the job done with 3 bards after that and it would eventually get done. 

The trinity of (tank healer dps) actually  makes more sense and seems to be an evolution of the one I remember from EQ.  Ahh, the Kunark days.

I really don't recall the trinity ever being mentioned in D&D.  Maybe in 4E but I haven't played it much.

Everything said here is true but doesn't mean the Trinity sprang into existence here just one form of it and where the term was coined.the Term MMORPG was coinded by Richard Garriot when he was lead dev on UO but that the games before the term was coined were not MMORPGs.

Originally posted by Drakynn

Originally posted by Tjed

Originally posted by rioban

It looks like there's been a passing reference to the origin of the trinity in mmo's but I don't think I saw anyone go into the actual history of what happened.

The trinity was one of several mmo terms that began in Everquest. Class balance had been poor at release and SOE took a wrecking ball to the whole thing with the release of the Kunark expansion. I have never seen an in-game community turn on its own as fast or as viciously as what happened in the two months after Kunark was released ( hybrids ... those poor bastards). Part of the fallout of the balance mess SOE had made of the game was that three classes were now considered indispensable for every high level group - warrior, cleric, and enchanter with just three spaces left over for everybody else. 

The definition of trinity in mmo's have slightly changed over the years since then going from W/C/E (and I guess we will deign to allow a few of you plebians to tag along with us) of Everquest to the modern Tank/Healer/Dps.

 

Not so fun fact: This was the game that also gave birth the the infamous "working as intended".

This is exactly how I remember it.  I'm really glad you posted this because I was beining to think I was crazy and just remembered it wrong or it was from a weird dream or something. 

The idea was that you needed the trinity to play (warrior cleric chanter) and anything after that was fine.  you could probably get the job done with 3 bards after that and it would eventually get done. 

The trinity of (tank healer dps) actually  makes more sense and seems to be an evolution of the one I remember from EQ.  Ahh, the Kunark days.

I really don't recall the trinity ever being mentioned in D&D.  Maybe in 4E but I haven't played it much.

Everything said here is true but doesn't mean the Trinity sprang into existence here just one form of it and where the term was coined.the Term MMORPG was coinded by Richard Garriot when he was lead dev on UO but that the games before the term was coined were not MMORPGs.

Oh I totally agree.  The term trinity really describes three amazing things all the way back to it's spiritual reference.  I think in EQ we used is as a tounge in cheek remark to try to get some attention to the other classes. 

It could have started anywhere.  Having read one person that remembers it starting the way I did just makes me feel not quite so crazy.

Originally posted by KingJiggly
Does it matter?

Does anything discussed in these forums really matter?It's jsut a poitn of discussion which it seems more than a few are willing to partcipate in.

Originally posted by Drakynn

Originally posted by KingJiggly
Does it matter?

Does anything discussed in these forums really matter?It's jsut a poitn of discussion which it seems more than a few are willing to partcipate in.

I would rather discuss the future of the trinity. It seems a general consensus that a game to be played with one imagination would have little to no limits on exactly what one wanted to be. I have hardly played dnd, I have been interested in it, but the idea that needing a trinity in a game based on imagination is odd. 

When noving on to mmos, this discussion is of little to know help... Especially since it seems the op is here simply to prove her/himself right in some random forum argument. Sure, the answers are interesting but was the entire op post? (Sorry for the rant, it isnt aimed at you Drakynn). The future is where the focus must be. Of course, this site being more of a hardcore crowd, they seem to like to go back to the "glory days", when instead the future should be focused on.

Originally posted by Boreil
EQ, one of the first true mmorpgs, didnt have a trinity, it was a 4 way, Healer/tank/damage and support. The trinity was born somewhere else, Mmorpg's always had the 4 way .

The "Holy Trinity" is 100% from EQ and it is Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter.  While these werent hard rules for forming a group (but necessity for raids) they were the optimal classes to build a group around (you could argue Bard over enchanter but thats a different argument).

Originally posted by KingJiggly

Originally posted by Drakynn

Originally posted by KingJiggly
Does it matter?

Does anything discussed in these forums really matter?It's jsut a poitn of discussion which it seems more than a few are willing to partcipate in.

I would rather discuss the future of the trinity. It seems a general consensus that a game to be played with one imagination would have little to no limits on exactly what one wanted to be. I have hardly played dnd, I have been interested in it, but the idea that needing a trinity in a game based on imagination is odd. 

When noving on to mmos, this discussion is of little to know help... Especially since it seems the op is here simply to prove her/himself right in some random forum argument. Sure, the answers are interesting but was the entire op post? (Sorry for the rant, it isnt aimed at you Drakynn). The future is where the focus must be. Of course, this site being more of a hardcore crowd, they seem to like to go back to the "glory days", when instead the future should be focused on.

If the OP came off as me trying to just prove a point, I didn't mean it to.  I do realize it can sound like that.  However, I wanted to create a new thread than continuing to hijack another's.

Back on point, I think it is important to understand where we come from as a genre.

This has been a very interesting year in MMOs.  Bioware attempted to bring the RPG back into the genre with story....ANET tried to bring the MASSIVE back with DE....both were successful to a point, but in the end I think each went too far in ditching traditional mechanics.  The genre has gotten itself into a rut but it doesn't need to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

I think if we look back to classic RPGs and the first MMORPGs and what they were both were trying to accomplish then we can really start to head in the right direction.  For the former, there was no technology and the latter has led us to basically little to no socialization.  This overabundant focus on the themepark experience (or the Dungeon Module from PnP days) doesn't really provide the full of what we are looking for.  Themeparks are fine, but they only last for so long.   As did modules....I mean, I could only go through Keep off The Borderlands so many times before it was just a headache.

Sandbox with themepark rides is a possibility (like SWG) but themepark by itself is just too limiting.  Afterall, classic RPGs were all sandbox.   You could buy a module if you wanted a clean and ready adventure (DLCs?) but the main game was all freeform with the DM.

And I don't believe the Trinity as we know it now existed back then.  It's a by-product of the limitations of the MMO genre.  The time between EQ and WoW is where the genre enjoyed huge success...but also moved in the wrong direction.  Trinity, themepark, gear treadmill.....these are all ideas born out of this period and the path to MMO freedom is to rid of these.  But don't remove them just for removing them....Themepark replaced by sandbox....Trinity replaced by?  and Treadmill replaced by?  We still need to answer that.

(Just thoughts....)

Originally posted by grimal

This has been a very interesting year in MMOs.  Bioware attempted to bring the RPG back into the genre with story....

Except that story has little to do with RPG, and the story actually hindered this.  You arent playing your role, you are playing the role someone determined for you.

You want to bring back the RPG, look to EQ and SWG (among other old school games).   These games didnt start with saving the world, they started with just inhabiting the world and making your way in it best you could.

Personally I like the trinity, but I'd like to see it grow. Maybe to the Quintessential Quintet! Tank, Healer, DPS, Buffer, Debuffer. Take away the buffing/debuffing from damage only classes and reinvent hybrids.

Although, if you are looking for a sandbox game with open world pvp, no trinity and a few quests scattered around just to give the world some flavor - there's Age of Wushu which is like playing EVE in China with martial arts. Granted, the learning curve is steep and upon logging in I can see many people do the same they do in EVE and high tail it outta there.

In fact, I'll say that EVE's tutorial is amazing compared to AoW.

Originally posted by Tjed

Originally posted by rioban

It looks like there's been a passing reference to the origin of the trinity in mmo's but I don't think I saw anyone go into the actual history of what happened.

The trinity was one of several mmo terms that began in Everquest. Class balance had been poor at release and SOE took a wrecking ball to the whole thing with the release of the Kunark expansion. I have never seen an in-game community turn on its own as fast or as viciously as what happened in the two months after Kunark was released ( hybrids ... those poor bastards). Part of the fallout of the balance mess SOE had made of the game was that three classes were now considered indispensable for every high level group - warrior, cleric, and enchanter with just three spaces left over for everybody else. 

The definition of trinity in mmo's have slightly changed over the years since then going from W/C/E (and I guess we will deign to allow a few of you plebians to tag along with us) of Everquest to the modern Tank/Healer/Dps.

 

Not so fun fact: This was the game that also gave birth the the infamous "working as intended".

This is exactly how I remember it.  I'm really glad you posted this because I was beining to think I was crazy and just remembered it wrong or it was from a weird dream or something. 

The idea was that you needed the trinity to play (warrior cleric chanter) and anything after that was fine.  you could probably get the job done with 3 bards after that and it would eventually get done. 

The trinity of (tank healer dps) actually  makes more sense and seems to be an evolution of the one I remember from EQ.  Ahh, the Kunark days.

I really don't recall the trinity ever being mentioned in D&D.  Maybe in 4E but I haven't played it much.

It was in EQ that it began as I remember it. 

I played DnD for a long time in the 80s and early 90s and there was NEVER a trinity in it then.  The only reason 4th Gen is using it is so that it will align more toward the video games. 

In truth the trinity is the dumbest thing that ever was put into a game.  IMHO the heavy armor wearing characters should be the deadliest characters in one on one face to face combat because a Knight was the deadliest European fighter in that role back in the dark ages, and yes they could get up if they fell off a horse.  In fact, they were surprisingly nimble all thinkgs concidered.  Now most of us wouldn't be able to perform like they could, but that's because we haven't trained since we were kids on how to fight wearing heavy armor and they were.  The rogue should be the deadliest when attacking from behind and/or from shadows or concealment and the ranger/wizards should be the deadliest at ranged combat.  One using magic and one using arrows.  The idea that the heavier the armor the lower the damage output is plain dumb and a stupid mechanic that does nothing but perpetuate untrue stereotypes.  The armor compliments a fighting style and social status not how deadly you are.

In my day of palying DnD we always put the squishies, and yes that's what we called the caster/healer/ranger back then and we had a heavy in the front and rear of our formation.  We would of course adjust depending on surroundings and group make up that night, but the idea was simple.  If attacked from either the front or rear in a dungeon, the monster would have to fight through a fighter/pally to get to the squishies.  Our usual DM was known for trying to get to the healer when we had one, because when he went down, the rest of us were easier to drop and it makes sense if you think about.  The Fighters wouldn't taunt, but physically being in the way would prevent the monster from getting to the easy kills.  This  allowed the ranger and magic users to attack from a protected postion and the healer was able to heal as well.

Originally posted by Greyface

I've been playing table-top RPGs since I could hold a pencil, and I don't think any of them had any notion of an aggro mechanic.  We had THAC0 and alignment languages, but never anything so stupid as the trinity.

In old-school CRPGS, it made sense to put your heavilly armored characters up front, but there was never any special mechanic that pigeon-holed characters like the current trinity does.  As far as I know, all that originated with Everquest (I could be wrong -- I was playing UO back then, where everyone was a heavilly-armored mage and we bandaged our own damn selves).

Maybe no aggro mechanics as such, but there definitely was screening tactics. Classic 10 foot wide corridor, 2-3 heavy armor wearers shoulder to shoulder, and behind them the people with spears, bows, casters and healers. We did that 35+ years ago when dwarf and elf were classes not races, just a variant of battlefield tactics.

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by Boreil
EQ, one of the first true mmorpgs, didnt have a trinity, it was a 4 way, Healer/tank/damage and support. The trinity was born somewhere else, Mmorpg's always had the 4 way .

The "Holy Trinity" is 100% from EQ and it is Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter.  While these werent hard rules for forming a group (but necessity for raids) they were the optimal classes to build a group around (you could argue Bard over enchanter but thats a different argument).

Or a shaman over an enchanter, or one of the two other plate wearing classes over the warrior- it depended on the content you were doing at the time.  If you had a paladin as a tank, maybe a druid would be better than a cleric as healer because of the way buffs stacked.

Basically the Holy Trinity was Warrior, Enchanter, Cleric.  The "we need these three things if we are going to do anything as a group" was Tank, Healer, Slower, with crowd control sometimes a fourth requirement.  Almost all classes that had spells had some sort of crowd control mechanic (root or mez, or off-tank with a pet, or even snare and run or snare and fear), so often a group of six people would "break" a group of spawn by doing some hard work and then get to the point where they were just single pulling monsters.   At that point the group could swap in anyone, and just farm the 15 spawns they were killing.  Often two or three groups would share their casters.  One enchanter would go around and buff the other group, and then the 2nd group's shaman would return the favor, and when someone died, the only cleric in the area would have the body dragged over to him for a ressurection.  This is a mechanic that WoW  left behind.  WoW and it's clones made gaining experience a solo effort.  WIth the orginal Everquest, some classes couldn't solo at all, and only a few could solo competently.

The Tank/DPS/Slower/Healer/Crowdcontrol mechanic make a lot more sense when the monsters are as powerful as they were in Everquest.  Regular exp mobs were like "Elite" mobs in WoW.  Imagine trying to solo elite instances in WoW at the level you are eligible to receive quests - that was what all the monsters in EQ were like.  They hit hard, they hit fast, they cast complete heal on themselves, they gated and came back with 20 friends.  The game was hard.  Making groups with the best healer, the toughest tank and the best crowd control class (who also increased the group DPS with buffs), was a reaction to the difficulty of the content.

EDIT: Good points, grimfall.   The enchanter/bard mez and need for CC disproves the trinity theory all by itself. 

There was mention of the original AoL Neverwinter Nights in the OP.

I was an original Gold Box fanatic. 

There was no 'Taunt' ability in the Gold Box series or NWN on AoL, because it wasn't in DnD.

There was the idea that Wizards were low armored and needed armored characters to protect them.  This could be easily accomplished in PnP games through description, and even in the original NWN through tactical placement/movement.

In my estimation, when EQ came along, there wasn't an easy way for well armored characters to keep the MoBs off the spell casters so the taunt mechanic was invented to assist. 

but even then...

Anyone who played EQ  knows that taunt wasn't a guarantee.  it didn't always 'hit.'

In my opinion, anyone who says the trinity exsisted in the 1970's, 1980's or at least before 1998 is imposing modern day mechanics where they don't belong.   Go back and read the blue books.   It was about living in your own story, roleplaying and being given the mechanics/tools to do so.

It's understandable that people make the connection though.  We often try to impose order where there is none. 

Good thread.  Good read.

EDIT:  limited experience with Meridian 59, so someone else will have to weigh in there.

Originally posted by CyclopsSlayer

Maybe no aggro mechanics as such, but there definitely was screening tactics. Classic 10 foot wide corridor, 2-3 heavy armor wearers shoulder to shoulder, and behind them the people with spears, bows, casters and healers. We did that 35+ years ago when dwarf and elf were classes not races, just a variant of battlefield tactics.

Not arguing any of those points -- a lot of people did what you're describing.  But a guy in armor up front does not a trinity make.

The reason this thread is 8 pages long is that no one has bothered to define the "Holy Trinity."  If there aren't any objections, let me take a stab:

Tank  /taNGk/  (noun): a heavilly armored character who hits like 9 year-old girl with rickets, but somehow manages to compel violence against themself through some variant of the Jedi Mind Trick.

Damage  /deePEEess/ (noun): a character who can rain death upon selected targets, but somehow manages not to be noticed by the same.  Should those enemies so much as glower in their direction, they explode.

Healer /HEELehr/ (noun): a character who sits around waiting for little green bars to shrink, so they can waggle their fingers and re-embiggen them; serves a secondary function as the target of scorn should either the DPS or Tank die; will also explode if glowered upon.

Compare that to D&D:

• The armored characters did damage.  Lots of it.  They usually did this by sticking enemies with pointy things, which meant they had to stand close to the orcs.  Therefore, armor.  Some of them could cast healing spells though -- the trade off being that they were not allowed pointy things, and had to beat enemies over the head with blunt instruments.  Healing spells were limited in number and were typically saved for emergencies or for after combat.
• The cool kids wore leather jackets.  Since leather jackets are bad at repelling axe blows, the cool kids had to hide whenever there was a fight.  Sometimes, they managed to sneak close enough to stick something pointy into the bad guy.   This rarely made any difference to the outcome of the conflict.  No one laughed at them, though, because they were the only ones who could open the treasure chest after the fight, usually while the armored guys were casting healing spells/getting healed.
• Other guys got to use magic to set the bad guys on fire from across the room.  Sometimes they also set the armored characters on fire.  They could do this once or twice per fight.   Distance was their main form of defense, but they could also defend themselves by putting enemies to sleep, turning them into chickens, or cowering in a corner.  They were not cool enough to wear leather jackets, so they just wore bathrobes.

As you can see, this is not the same thing as the "Holy Trinity" found in modern MMO games.  Yes, there are three items on each list, but they aren't the same three things.  I had a great uncle with three nipples, and they weren't an early form of the "Holy Trinity" either.

I hope this clears everything up.

Without sifting through this entire thread, I'll first post my own initial response. 

There are two main observations I would make.  The first is that the concept of "tank" didn't really emerge for me until I played my first MMO (Final Fantasy XI).  The second is that the term "Trinity" didn't seem to emerge until a game (namely GW2) attempted to make an MMO that explicitly did not have the standard tank/heal/dps trinity. 

Concerning my first observation, I definitely never encountered the term "tank" until I began playing MMOs.  However, after being exposed to the system, I began to see how the concept could be applied to older RPGs.  I would now play Final Fantasy 7, for example, by giving one party member the cover materia, very little magic, high evasion and as much HP as possible.  Voila!  A tank!  And of course healing magic, potions and damage dealing abilities (or more simply put, stuff that removes and restores hit points)have always been staples of RPGs.  So it would seem to me that the only unique concept out of the 3 is the tank, which requires some way of forcing enemies to somewhat reliably attack defensive-oriented characters while leaving defensively weaker characters alone.  In MMOs, this has been called "aggro."   

Concerning my second observation, prior to a game trying to explicitly deviate from "the trinity", players had no reason to give a name to the tank/heal/damage trio.  Names are only given to differentiate between different things.  If there's nothing to differentiate, nothing to distinguish between, there's no use for a name.  In all my years playing FFXI and WoW, I never once heard a player refer to the combat system as being a standard trinity.  Every game used the trinity.  Therefore it wasn't the trinity; it was just MMO combat. 

Originally posted by Homitu

There are two main observations I would make.  The first is that the concept of "tank" didn't really emerge for me until I played my first MMO (Final Fantasy XI).  The second is that the term "Trinity" didn't seem to emerge until a game (namely GW2) attempted to make an MMO that explicitly did not have the standard tank/heal/dps trinity.

You really should have browsed the older posts.  The term has been in use long before the GW2 marketing machine started up -- the earliest that everyone in this thread seems to agree on was 1999 (Everquest).  The first time I personally heard it was in 2002, when I started playing Dark Age of Camelot.