Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

I"d like to see something different than the normal trash, too.

One thing I was thinking about is a creature type D&D 4th ed. called Minions. Minions are basically the underlings of whatever larger or more powerful creature is above them (doesn"t necessarily have to be a boss) that the players have to deal with, but the main encounter is the leader. They have some annoying abilities, but they die in a single hit so they are relatively easy to deal with.

I think there"s some potential in translating this to an MMO. Imagine being rushed by tons of skeletons, but the raid just runs through them swatting them out of their way as they pass. You reach a large crypt where a necromancer is raising the corpses and sending them after you, hoping to prevent you from reaching his master. Like Draegan said, this would be a mini-boss encounter rather than the normal trash-trash-trash-boss scenario. Undead pouring in from every direction, spells flying, a few harder undead at regular intervals that have to be tanked rather than just AE"d, etc.

You could pace the player the same way trash does, but it would be ten times as engaging.

Zhakran said:

Pretty much everything Zhen said is spot on. I just wanted to say that I agree 100% that a job system would be a great thing. Yeah, NO ONE IS ARGUING it would work in WoW. I mean ultimate fucking "duh".

But in future games, a game similar to WoW in design and exeuction, it could definitely work.

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Okay, wanna tell us how? Ultimately it requires the game to have repetitive content because you"re expecting players to go through it multiple times on different classes. This detracts from your ability to tell a good story because every quest has to be a scenario where you might be helping the progress, but you don"t actually get to the solution (see daily quests in wow, they make sense to repeat because they are ongoing efforts). Needless to say, that doesn"t make players feel very heroic.

All this just to keep your name? Your mount? Some rot gear?

Grave said:

Except that when Curt...

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Ideally the quest system would be based on rewarding players very much akin to the EQ AA system. In that you have generic, arch-type and then class specific abilities. I"ve posted about it before but the gist of it is I think quests would be much more entertaining if instead of rewarding you with 20 silver and a weapon you can"t use anyways you get stats, abilities or other enhancements. Don"t make them repeatable, but generic rewards like +health or whatever would affect all classes you roll up but only once you reach a certain threshold. Same with Arch-type. If you go from mage to warlock you don"t have to redo all the "wizard arch-type" quests but if you go from rogue to priest then you have a whole new schlew of quests for arch-type that give +spirit and +healing bonuses and whatnot. Then you have a veritable shitton of class specific quests that reward you with abilities, bonuses to those abilities, upgrades/side grades to those abilities and even more customized meta-stat bonuses.

You get the idea.

Or you can just roll an alt and come up with a solution to rotting gear.

I never liked the idea of a job system. It seems to take away from the whole class decision aspect of the game which is the most important choice you make which in turn creates an identity.

Really? I would argue what you call yourself would be the biggest part of your identity.

I can"t understand the negative press that a job system is getting, your identity is tied to your character even more. Additionally if you really want disconnected jobs, there is no reason that this is not allowed for you to do anyways. Anyone who wants to do multiple reputation or storyline quests (general not class specific) are welcome to do so. Real life is a "job system" very few people do exactly one job their entire life, its completely viable. Just because you"re ex-mil doesn"t mean you forget how to shoot a rifle, but it also doesn"t mean you wear a vest and take your M16 to the office job.

Multiple classes on the same character but only one at a given time?

Can we all collectively get together and say "duh" -- even in WoW? The only problem with it would be class balance when you consider hybrids and talent trees, but I"ve thought this would be a good idea for a long time. With the power of hybrids in TBC you practically just send someone back to shatt to get a new class anyway, if they"ve picked up the right gear.

There"s nothing wrong with the idea and I"ll be god damned if we"re going to call "lol realism" on it. You"ve seriouslygotto be kidding.

Zehn - Vhex said:

Really? I would argue what you call yourself would be the biggest part of your identity.

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Your probably right, I"m basically arguing for the sake of arguing. Maybe if you had to log off to change classes it would sit better with me. Changing my whole class with a push of a button ingame just makes it seem cheap some how.

I don"t know how to explain it I suppose. Ultimately it"s a good thing. It allows you to maintain gear and keep the things you"ve accomplished etc. I"m not sure how to formulate the "feeling" of it not being right.

Oh well.

FoghornDeadhorn said:

There"s nothing wrong with the idea and I"ll be god damned if we"re going to call "lol realism" on it. You"ve seriouslygotto be kidding.

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Ok, we can set aside realism, but do we still care about the lore and history of the world we"re playing in?

The job system also means that every race must be able to be every class. Ogre druids, halfling shadow knights, troll paladins, the works. I"m all for player choice and customization, but not to that degree, where every single race has easy access to everything. Race aside, what about a human paladin who also happens to level up a necromancer in his spare time and switches back and forth on a regular basis?

Even in WoW, where it"s well known that the lore is merely Metzen"s toilet paper, players were baffled and amused that every race in the game would be able to be death knights. They came up with a semi-decent explanation for it, though still a little rocky. You would be hard pressed to do the same across all classes and races.

Ultimately though, it"s just differing opinions and there"s no right answer to what we"re arguing. Those of you who want the job system are probably interested in only the mechanics of the game, what you can do with it and how powerful your one character can be. Other people find the immersion the world provides and the story they experience through their character"s life to be just as, if not more, important.

Any class for any race works surprisingly well in the context of EQ2. I thought it would be terrible but I"ve gotten used to it and I think its fine. The only restrictions are alignment restrictions: a high elf can"t start as a shadowknight (but they can start as a paladin and betray Qheynos to become one!).

the immersion the world provides

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ROFLCOPTER GOES FWOOP FWOOP FWOOP

(or something)

WoW is not immersive. And who said that every race would have to be able to be every class? The big issue would be making sure there"s not a big imbalance on class/race availability, other than that why not leave race restrictions in? Oh no, you might need to level up another character to access some of the classes? You might need to pick a race that has the classes you want available to it?

I don"t have the info on hand, but I"d reckon that in WoW"s system Humans would be a bit gay with this (I seem to recall them having access to almost every class), so yes some adjustment to that, or a maximum number of classes to a character...if WoW were retro-fitted for this I"d think the latter would be the way to go. Three race-restricted classes on a character where, for most classes, each of the three trees is almost an entirely different class? I can"t see the problem with that. So make someone go med for five minutes to make it happen.

Immersion went out the window with custom UIs, hearthstones, and the complete impracticality of first-person play.

Yes, that is mostly the point I"m making here. WoW is not immersive at all. I would prefer that 38 Studios" gameis.

I would have less of an issue with a more restricted system like you mentioned, but at that point you would be much better off designing classes to have the versatility to do different roles as they are rather than making people level another class to do so.

Yes, because the ability to port yourself home instead of being forced to get a port from a caster class or spend 10+ minutes getting to a spot you want to log out at was really worth giving up for "immersion".

1st person vs. 3rd person is a dif beast. TBH 1st person is great if the game engine is really keyed around that type of playstyle, but for games that involve lots of situational awareness and a want to see your avatar (armor upgrades, spell effects, attack animations), 3rd person is much better.

Case and point: Which combat system do you usually like watching more? Dragon Quest/Warrior or Final Fantasy?

There"s a fine line before immersion becomes tedium or blandness. Just ask Brad!

Cybsled said:

Yes, because the ability to port yourself home instead of being forced to get a port from a caster class or spend 10+ minutes getting to a spot you want to log out at was really worth giving up for "immersion".

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Whoa, whoa. I"m only talking about the job system here, and WoW"s lack of immersion has nothing to do with Hearthstone even if it was on Foghorn"s list. It"s easy to explain that skilled mages or even dwarven runecrafters could make a stone such as that.

I also disagree that first person is required for immersion. I can get into my character just fine in 3rd. It"s more the story, the world, and what I"m able to do in it that I find immersive.

FoghornDeadhorn said:

There"s nothing wrong with the idea and I"ll be god damned if we"re going to call "lol realism" on it. You"ve seriouslygotto be kidding.

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There are more problems than just the superficial realism argument. Here are a couple scenarios (using current MMO"s as an example):

1. Items are restricted by class and you"re going through Dungeon001 with a group. Something drops that you can use and would like so you roll on it. Low and behold X_class_jerk also rolls on it even though he can"t use it because he also has a "need" since he can (or might) also use it since he can be the same class as you even if he isn"t right now.

2. Quests you can do only once. You pick the reward you want for your current flavor of the week class but you can"t ever do the quest over again to get the reward. This is a cascade effect where now quests have to be repeatable or people get screwed. This also affects quests which are able to be done once but have portions tailor made for whatever class you are.

3. Alternate Advancement, augmentations (gem slots), enchantments, etc. -- These are tailored to specific classes (sometimes spec). Having class switching either increases the need for many, many, sets of equipment and every alternate advancement point and enchantment or forces a rethink in how those systems would be done.

All of these can be solved but how much is really gained by being able to switch classes on the fly as opposed to just having alts?

And really, if a game has class switching I"d ask why it isn"t just a skill based game to begin with. It might as well embrace that line of thinking and get all the benefits that go along with that kind of a decision rather than trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole.

Neither is a better route, both are viable, but it is appears like a clear separation and trying to blend the two can cause more problems and dillution than it would be worth just focusing on one and playing to the strengths.

Dymus said:

1. Items are restricted by class and you"re going through Dungeon001 with a group. Something drops that you can use and would like so you roll on it. Low and behold X_class_jerk also rolls on it even though he can"t use it because he also has a "need" since he can (or might) also use it since he can be the same class as you even if he isn"t right now.

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This is not really an issue. Even in WoW, people will shit on you if you try to roll on healing/tanking/DPS items and you"re not that spec. Shadowpriests, ele shamans etc are told to go fuck themselves if a healing item drops that the actual healer in the group needs it. Ditto for any other spec and hybrid class.

Isn"t this the moment where the vaunted powers of "the community" kick in and create the general loot etiquette for the game?

A lot of what you guys are discussing are psychology-based arguments. And most of them are good, compelling arguments for a job system. It"s not quite as easy as one might think, however.

What you have to keep in mind is that every system in the game is orthogonal to the job system, and that database architecture must be structured to support it. That is an enormous task prone to massive, catastrophic failures. You also have to architect the way character information is saved. Are you saving information based on your class? Which class? Your race? A separate ID number? How do all these tables interface with each other? Much more complicated that traditional single-class systems.

As much as I like the idea, I"m not saying it can"t be done, but any game that is already in production won"t read this thread and decide to adopt it. It would have to be created in the concept stages for a brand new game.

And why should it? Class diversity is a huge selling point for a lot of players in these types of games, and skill based systems have traditionally failed for one reason or another. A better way to solve class unavailability? Get better server tech and increase the load on each server by a fuck ton. More people per realm = more of every class = more fun to be had. Likewise, don"t limit your raids to fucking 25 people.

Mal"Ganis is a pretty good example here. There are a bajillion people on this server, and more than a few 500+ man guilds. I can group for anything at any time just about, with zero want for any class. Why would you force your customers to play on some shitty, low rent, piece of shit low pop server when the play experience is 100 fold better on high pop? Don"t.

Dymus said:

There are more problems than just the superficial realism argument. Here are a couple scenarios (using current MMO"s as an example):

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Actually 1 and 3 are fine in FFXI and it"s a current MMO. Two is a huge issue and would require some new questing system that hasn"t been thought up yet.

In 1 if you do a pick up BCNM (instanced dungeon) or something to that effect loot rules would have been figured out before you set foot in the dungeon. There isn"t even a Need/greed option but yea if there is a big ticket item dropping either the person who started the dungeon got it (it takes tokens to start the dungeon) or big item to person who started it, rest of party rolls on rest, or split all loot evenly after selling it on the AH.

In 3, FFXI has many AA"s (Merit points) essentially they work pretty much like EQ1 AA"s; however, something like +Hate does specialize your tank into not being the best healer - so there is a system for resetting them and regaining them. They are nice enough to have that your main raid members need to have their AA"s set up well, but not so overpowered that unless you are doing the hardest content you don"t need everyone in your raid to have them perfect.

Also much like EQ1 the basic ones like more power, resists, hp etc are pretty much good for any class, and only the top level of the Merit points start mattering on a role level let alone a job level.

James said:

And why should it? Class diversity is a huge selling point for a lot of players in these types of games, and skill based systems have traditionally failed for one reason or another. A better way to solve class unavailability? Get better server tech and increase the load on each server by a fuck ton. More people per realm = more of every class = more fun to be had. Likewise, don"t limit your raids to fucking 25 people.

Mal"Ganis is a pretty good example here. There are a bajillion people on this server, and more than a few 500+ man guilds. I can group for anything at any time just about, with zero want for any class. Why would you force your customers to play on some shitty, low rent, piece of shit low pop server when the play experience is 100 fold better on high pop? Don"t.

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Man I"m so bummed out I don"t have a massive bloated guild and 500 people in every city at any time, James is right. Having massive-pop servers and bigger raids is much better than having a guild with less, better people and the same people being able to play multiple classes from the same character. Maybe I"m just cripplingly anti-social not to have thought of this first.