"Back in May 2007, when the Black Temple materialized in Patch 2.1, high end raiding guilds were drooling at the idea of taking down the infamous Illidan Stormrage, scourge of the Outland. Unfortunately for those guilds that achieved their lofty goal, there has been little else to challenge them. The telling fact is, when the Sunwell Plateau goes live in Patch 2.4 sometime this Spring, it will be the first new 25-man content to hit the game in a year! And this is where Lore, a level 70 Blood Elf Paladin whose guild has had Illidan on farm for the past three and half months, now sits. For 25-man raiders, clearing Black Temple hasn't been the real challenge. Finding a new goal worthy of their time, dedication and uber-gear has been the task just out of their reach. And Lore's guild has been suffering for it with attrition, disinterest and players leaving the game entirely. The news that new high end content is coming is great news, but it can't come fast enough for elite raiders who aren't quite the minority they used to be. WoW Jutsu shows that more than 6% of raiding guilds have entered Black Temple already. Has Blizzard made the right choice by ignoring this group of players in favor of cranking out PvP improvements, 10-man instances and Cooking Daily Quests. Or has Blizzard dropped the ball for a good chunk of its player base. " "Relmstein is at it again, this time with a look at class trinity in MMORPGs. This is old, old RPG strategy stuff-- basically almost every RPG out there is based around three different class roles: that of tank, DPS or healing. Tanks (like Warriors and Fighters) take damage, DPS classes (like Mage and Rogue) dish the damage out, and healing classes (obviously) keep the party alive long enough to win the battle.
For a while now, game developers have tried to vary up this class trinity, so that you don't just have the same options in every game. In WoW, hybrid classes like Paladin and Shaman can play more than one role, and classes like Hunters and Warlocks have extra abilities (crowd control and buffing/debuffing) that help them be something more than what the class trinity lays out for them. Or there are classes like Druids, who can play all three roles at various times. But the problem here is that while there are some extra abilities floating around, there aren't any new class types to speak of. wow gold The reason for this in WoW is because the developers want to give every class the option to go all the way to 70 solo, which means classes that could be total crowd control classes, like Hunters, are forced back into one of the class trinity roles (in this case, DPS). So far, we haven't seen a really pure crowd control class-- at least not like we've seen pure tanking, pure healing, or pure DPS classes. So let's put our minds to it. What kinds of classes could we make that would do something fundamentally different from tanking, healing, or damage. wow gold Relmstein comes up with the great idea of a ""Threatmaster"" class-- kind of a whole class that revolves around the Hunter's Misdirection ability. That person could direct aggro from monsters whereever they wanted it to go-- if the healer pulled aggro, you'd have the Threatmaster just point it back at the tank, or if there was no tank, the Threatmaster could push it around to different players, and bounce the mob between them. To carry Relmstein's great idea to the solo game, a Threatmaster class could even turn mobs against each other-- he could use their abilities and damage to supplement his own." "Draele over at Rantings of the Afflicted asks if WoW could ever have what he calls a ""meta"" class.
wow He lists the examples of Mesmer in Guild Wars or a Psionicist in Vanguard, and I'll add to that the Sorcerer class in Dark Age of Camelot-- classes that depend on manipulation and mind control rather than direct damage or healing. I'd say that it's possible, but extremely unlikely. Why. Because WoW is based on an RTS game, and in RTS, there's not a lot of complicated manipulation going on-- either you're attacking or defending, or some mix of the two. wow gold There hasn't really been any precedent (that I can think of or stretch to) in the Warcraft universe for a Bard or ""Mesmer"" class, and that's why it's pretty unlikely that Blizzard will try to break out past the trinity of usual MMO archetypes. Not to mention that, as Draele says, a meta class is a complex thing to create and play, and WoW tends to be more casual than complex. Of course, never say never. There's a lot in this universe that hasn't even been hinted at in the game yet, and as was mentioned in last week's podcast, Death Knights will likely only be the beginning of hero classes, so who knows what Blizzard could come up with. For my own idea, I'd suggest a time-based class. mp3 player All of the classes now revolve around controlling something that affects every player in the game-- life, mana, or the ability to take either away. But there's something else that affects all players, and that's time.
For a while now, game developers have tried to vary up this class trinity, so that you don't just have the same options in every game. In WoW, hybrid classes like Paladin and Shaman can play more than one role, and classes like Hunters and Warlocks have extra abilities (crowd control and buffing/debuffing) that help them be something more than what the class trinity lays out for them. Or there are classes like Druids, who can play all three roles at various times. But the problem here is that while there are some extra abilities floating around, there aren't any new class types to speak of. wow gold The reason for this in WoW is because the developers want to give every class the option to go all the way to 70 solo, which means classes that could be total crowd control classes, like Hunters, are forced back into one of the class trinity roles (in this case, DPS). So far, we haven't seen a really pure crowd control class-- at least not like we've seen pure tanking, pure healing, or pure DPS classes. So let's put our minds to it. What kinds of classes could we make that would do something fundamentally different from tanking, healing, or damage. wow gold Relmstein comes up with the great idea of a ""Threatmaster"" class-- kind of a whole class that revolves around the Hunter's Misdirection ability. That person could direct aggro from monsters whereever they wanted it to go-- if the healer pulled aggro, you'd have the Threatmaster just point it back at the tank, or if there was no tank, the Threatmaster could push it around to different players, and bounce the mob between them. To carry Relmstein's great idea to the solo game, a Threatmaster class could even turn mobs against each other-- he could use their abilities and damage to supplement his own." "Draele over at Rantings of the Afflicted asks if WoW could ever have what he calls a ""meta"" class.
wow He lists the examples of Mesmer in Guild Wars or a Psionicist in Vanguard, and I'll add to that the Sorcerer class in Dark Age of Camelot-- classes that depend on manipulation and mind control rather than direct damage or healing. I'd say that it's possible, but extremely unlikely. Why. Because WoW is based on an RTS game, and in RTS, there's not a lot of complicated manipulation going on-- either you're attacking or defending, or some mix of the two. wow gold There hasn't really been any precedent (that I can think of or stretch to) in the Warcraft universe for a Bard or ""Mesmer"" class, and that's why it's pretty unlikely that Blizzard will try to break out past the trinity of usual MMO archetypes. Not to mention that, as Draele says, a meta class is a complex thing to create and play, and WoW tends to be more casual than complex. Of course, never say never. There's a lot in this universe that hasn't even been hinted at in the game yet, and as was mentioned in last week's podcast, Death Knights will likely only be the beginning of hero classes, so who knows what Blizzard could come up with. For my own idea, I'd suggest a time-based class. mp3 player All of the classes now revolve around controlling something that affects every player in the game-- life, mana, or the ability to take either away. But there's something else that affects all players, and that's time.
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