the thing with AOC's pet system i played a necromancer however i would class the pets more as a movable dot that does damage but doesnt hold the agro, like most pet classes nowadays most mmo's i dont think like pets as people use them to do all sorts of things the developers never envisanged.

consider the focus shield on pets in dark age of camelot i dont think mythic ever thought somoene would use that to effectivly kill every single large epic encounter (bar the dragon) in the game, or that by using a single underhill ally with mentalist hot it would totally replace 4 tanks in a exp group.

i think companies are moving away from combat pets to more eye candy type pets. but we will see, cant see what all the vangard bashing is about. A failiure in mmo terms is one that is canceled, Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa are failiures. Vangard just has a small population but as long as that population is enough to keep the servers going pay the bills then it will remain active.

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Originally posted by giggal

 
consider the focus shield on pets in dark age of camelot i dont think mythic ever thought somoene would use that to effectivly kill every single large epic encounter (bar the dragon) in the game, or that by using a single underhill ally with mentalist hot it would totally replace 4 tanks in a exp group.
 

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I played DAOC too (you dirty hib) and I played a class that could charm pets and Ive never read or seen anything close to what your claiming.

Exageration and hyperbole at best.

As far as your claims to games getting away from combat pets, I completely disagree there also. Oh I know that some games have what comes down to decoration pets, but that doesnt mean that developers are getting away from combat pets.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Don't be so sure; TOR is planning on having "companions" (i.e. NPC pets) for "every" class.

I haven't decided if I want a sarcastic assassin droid or a leather-clad female twilek yet.

But yeah, WoW has a good pet-class mechanic. Shame it's got such a bad rep from the farmers.

I better be able to have an HK-47 companion.

BTW, UO had the best taming system. Nothing was better than taming your own mount and then owning the whole dungeon with a whole bunch of wyrms and dragons.

Originally posted by logangregor

 

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Originally posted by giggal

 
consider the focus shield on pets in dark age of camelot i dont think mythic ever thought somoene would use that to effectivly kill every single large epic encounter (bar the dragon) in the game, or that by using a single underhill ally with mentalist hot it would totally replace 4 tanks in a exp group.
 

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I played DAOC too (you dirty hib) and I played a class that could charm pets and Ive never read or seen anything close to what your claiming.

Exageration and hyperbole at best.

As far as your claims to games getting away from combat pets, I completely disagree there also. Oh I know that some games have what comes down to decoration pets, but that doesnt mean that developers are getting away from combat pets.

Yes there was a time that Enchanters could focus pull groups of mobs or epic mobs. For example, the horse and wyvern in teh Cursed Forest, The queen in the bog of cullen, the princess in Darkness Falls were all able to be focus pulled. This point in time helped create a lot of crappy tanks who didn't know how to play their class because they just stood there and added dps or just stood there.

With a druid, bard or ment, enchanter, and one other pbaoe class you could powerlevel at fins' groups like not other combination with focus pulling. Because of this, Mythic changed the Damage Shield's aggro code which caused mobs to aggro randomly on group members and not just the chanter pet.

wows hunter pets are fail vs UO tamer pets :( Iwashoping they would be better but IMO what wow offered was several steps behind what UO offered.

Im hoping SWTOR has a driod controller class or a pet control class. The npc/buddy system in TOR sounds really good

I have a cool idea for pets in mmorpgs, one that has probably already been done in many mmorpgs but I would love to see in FPS games. Dog handlers. Let's say they existed inside a COD:WOW game. They have dogs that accompany them, and the handlers tell the dogs certain commands. Go rip up a sniper that's hiding in the bushes? Sniff the ground and detect any bouncing betties (or in general any mines)? Go accompany someone on your team so that the dog will kill anyone that threatens their person they're guarding? Go rip someone up into a blob of flesh that was once a human? This is a kind of class I would love to see inside a FPS, and I hope this kind of class appears inside FF XIV.

then you played a long time ago, i take it you played albion sorc or minstrel, neither of these got a focus shield but a fully buffed underhill ally could and still can kill a lot of the epic enconters and artifacts in the game.

Originally posted by giggal

then you played a long time ago, i take it you played albion sorc or minstrel, neither of these got a focus shield but a fully buffed underhill ally could and still can kill a lot of the epic enconters and artifacts in the game.

Yea, I played when RP's didn't actually give you a choice of realm abilities up to classics with a nice layoff after TOA.  You can stilll focus pull you just have to be a little more careful with the heals on the aggro code,, at least last time I played which was awhile ago.

Before you could heal that pet with anything, hots, minors, majors, and instas and the pet would never lose aggro. When mythic made the "fix" to the code an insta heal was immediate aggro on the healer.

And I played HIbernia on the normal servers and then Midgard on classics. I tried out albs a couple of times but I just couldn't enjoy that realm.

Originally posted by Ozarumon

These mmos coming out today either no longer do pet classes vanguard shocked me that they did not have a tamer like class, or they only give the class a static pet for example in Warhammer you are stuck with the same lion like pet. It grows and changes apperance but still its still a cat.

 

WoW is the only current mmorpg with the best pet system, some will argue old school SWG had the best pet system but old school SWG is no longer around. In WoW there is so many pet options and talent customizations and you can even buy toys from dalaran to have your pet do tricks and what not.

 

It seems as mmorpgs progress the pet/tamer class is dying off.

Its because pet classes are absolute nightmares to balance with other classes.   Either the pets are too strong ( same strength as a pc ) or they are too weak.    Its even worse for PvP.    The best pet class game I ve played is Rappelz.   Its too bad that the devs for that game don't update it enough, and make some of the most idiotic changes to gameplay I have ever seen.  I could see a private server for that game being extremely popular if anyone ever took the time reverse engineer the client.

i liked summons/pets in guildwars :)

Perfect World - Venomancer class which lets you tame a pet that levels up with you. Different monster types can be tamed and each has their specific strengths and weakness

Ether Saga Online - You start off with a pet very early in the game (as reward from a quest in newbie zone) and you can tame different monsters as pet (each monsters have their own strengths and weaknesses). You can somewhat customize your pet's abilities thru the pet trainer.

Aion - The spiritmaster class has elemental pets which you can control and spells that act like pets but you cannot directly control.

Just a very small sample of games with good pet systems, I'm sure there are plenty more.

FFXI had an exelant class system I thought. You had the Beastmaster {name says it all} the Puppet master {you control fighting puppets, The Dragoon {you only got one pet, a dragon. which I thought was still sweet} Summoner {you summon powerful pet/spirity type of things that fight for you}

Anyways I know its an older game, but FFXIV is coming out, and i'm hoping that SE hasn't lost there touch!