General Discussion

The State of MMORPG's MSPORPGs.

From my personal point of view most games today are just single player online role playeing games. I dont see the point of having these huge masses of virtual land used for nothing more than a superfunhappyslide. I actually want to interact and change the landscape, to infulence others and be infulenced by them. Class system games generally are ristrictive to change. Even outside of role choice.

Class vs. Skill ?

What exactly do these terms mean anyway? As many have pointed out hybrid systems can be good. To be honest i enjoyed that aspect of WoW. Getting to level 10 and shaping my character a little. That thrill was short lived when i realised i have to complete another 10 quests or kill 34 kobolds, then travel to areas that i didnt want to. To play my character the way i had to.

To me what is realy at the bottom of this debate is not just about

class vs skill systems;

its also the XP system;

the PvP;

is it sandbox?;

linear;

Item oriented? etc.

I mean imagine WoW without the need to change areas every 10 levels. Or you could gain exp by dualing. Basicaly toggle with the variables.

Look at EvE. I like skill systems. I hate EvE. Why? Because although you can choose any skills you want there is infact a clever leveling system inside all that. Not to mention that fact that all the XP gains within those "skills" is time based. Which means that no matter how much you try you always going to be behind someone who joined earlier than you. Which is typically a description of a class based game. I did like the sand box, go anywhere, do anything attitude of EvE. But it wasnt what i was looking for.

Nobody is perfect.

No system is ever going to satisfy the entire gaming community. The fact the most of the people on the forum prefer skill system is not an example of how game developers got it all wrong. But rather a sign of the people who do not yet have a game that they are satisfied with. One day they would play a game they liked if only it existed. Otherwise they wouldnt be posting on these forums. Fanbois excluded.

Be like the lemur.

Lets use a metaphor to make it perfectly clear. Once upon a time lemurs moved onto madagascar. They thrived there and multiplied. Soon they found that there wasnt much food to go around. So they all split off into groups and founded their own communities based around their own food. Now there are many different species of lemurs that have their own distinct look and way of getting about. Developers are the lemurs, gamers are the food. Be like the lemur. If the gaming industry is to continue to grow it must make use of all available gaming communities(food). Dont compete with eachother over the same types of people who like the same games. If you do there will only be a high turnover of gaming companies.

I like freedom in my games, I realy dislike being forced to pick a class and then not beeing able to learn other things then those the devs think that class should know. I think the hole idea of class system is a easy fix for lazy companys that isnt ready to invest the extra time to develop a game that alows feedom for the gamer to create his/her own gameing experience. 

Class system is a brain less system that works well for the ppl that dont want to be botherd with creating the char they want to play, and I see no wrong in that, but can we that want to be the masters of how our chars develope  get some games too  

 (and I did not mean that the ppl that wants an easy class system game is brain dead, only the game system, the same as most tv shows are brain dead but the ppl that watch them can be smart  )

When using skill-based system player have minimum chances to get  "bad" set of skills,traits, percs and/or attributes, because he can learn everething. The leveling in skill-based system can be by group of skill, for exaple warriror skills, crafting skills etc (like Runescape). There are good system in EVE too, when skill learning speed depend from attribute.

Skill would be found in free games more, why make a new character when you can just get everything?
But the best thing in my point of view would probabaly to mix them up a circle in this case you choose the warrior , magic is on the other side of the circle, so the warrior doesnt do good at all with magic but can still use it, something like this would be an example:
-------------your warrior so your bottom right would be tank and your bottom left would be archer. so thats half the circle. if your a wizard you would have defence magic on your top right and enchanter* top left of you. and of course the wizard is on the bottom.
*thats the first thing i could think of - enchanting arrows but those are just examples