Roleplaying existed way before MMO's. Unlike standard video game RPG's where you follow a prescribed story, one of the main allures of an open-world MMORPG is that you don't have to follow the golden path. You should be able to forge your own backstory and history when your character enters the world rather than being the hero that is destined to save it. Forcing people to follow race/class tradition is synonymous with suggesting that those races aren't capable of independent thought. Sorry Ogre, you just aren't cut out to be a bard! Your race just doesn't have the personality. Here are the personalities that you can choose from. Enjoy! 50% of the race/class roleplay potential is removed before you ever enter the game. Might as well be an MMO(<50%RP)G at that point because the art of storytelling character development has been cut in half. A few roleplaying quotes:
"But roleplaying is not purely educational. It's also one of the most creative possible entertainments. Most entertainment is passive: the audience just sits and watches, without taking part in the creative process. In roleplaying, the "audience" joins in the creation, may introduce huge impact to the project. The GM is the chief storyteller, but the players are responsible for portraying their characters. If they want something to happen in the story, they make it happen, because they're in the story."
"In some ways, the emphasis on character development has impeded progress in storytelling with RPGs. The central premise of these [computer RPGs] is that the player steadily builds his abilities by acquiring wealth, tools, weapons, and experience. This emphasis on character development tends to work against the needs of dramatic development - dramatic twists and turns clash with the prevailing tone of steady development. Fortunately, this impediment is not fundamental to the RPG genre; it is a cultural expectation rather than an architectural necessity."
1) Do the current race/class restrictions shown on the web page feel too restrictive to us or just right? Based on what we know about the races, what would we want to change about that list if we could?
No. Nothing.
2) Would people be more ok with the race and class restrictions if they were only there for character creation initially, and later on, through some sort of long and involved quest, you could actually switch your class to something else? (For example, you start as an Ogre Shaman but later, after a lot of hard work and determination, gain acceptance into the wizard's school in Syronai's Rest and become a very rare Ogre Wizard)
I don't know about the majority of players but I would not like that.
3) If there are two races that can be the same class, should each race have different "takes" on that class at character creation? For example, should Dark Myr warriors favor spears initially, and lighter armor with more manueverability, while Human warriors favor swords and heavy plate, giving each race a sort of unique "style" of that class that the player could choose to either stay with or move away from? Or should all characters of the same class start off more or less identical, regardless of which race they select?
I don't know about which 'should' be the case but, if the implementation was easy for the team, I'd like to see different weapons/styles as mentioned.
4) When a race (such as Gnomes) doesn't have any class options that use an entire category of items, does it make sense for members of that race to be able to learn how to craft those items in their starting city? Or, should they have to travel somewhere where those things are actually used? (Example: Should gnome blacksmiths be able to learn to create heavy armor in Skyhold if there are no gnomish heavy armor users?)
It depends on how social the Gnomes are at launch. If Skyhold is the tradehub of Whitethaw, it's OK with me. Otherwise, they should travel to where the items are made to be used.
Addtionally,
There is something to be said about the Skar and an argument that they should be able to craft and know less than other races. How far down this road do we travel? :)
Leachim said:I seem to be one of the rare ones that enjoy no race class restrictions. I started my MMO gaming with Muds and EQ, then WOW, LOTRO, Guild Wars, ect..... However it wasn't untill the past few years that I've started playing D&D, and there any race can play any class, just may not be as "optimised" as other race/class combos.
When you make your own world and it's history and lore, then you can easily build in a logical sounding explination as to why some race can't do some class. So saying the lore doesn't support something feels a bit of an excuse because when you make the lore you can make it say whatever you want.
Others worry about race not meaning anything if you can pick from any class; that I just don't understand. By allowing full choices, race then becomes more meaningfull because you chose that race you wanted from a larger list, rather than being shoehorned into picking from just a few.
You're not alone. :) I agree with your post completely, especially your last paragraph. Choice matters less when your choice comes pre-restricted. That's not choice - that's railroading specific combinations.
Well, here’s to VR upholding the layout and class race combos they created. All I can say is thankgoodness they with Brad are designing this game lol. I wouldn’t be here but for the blink of an eye if it were otherwise. Keep up the awesome vision and top-notch work VR! The matrix is simply the best I have ever seen and is second to none. It will serve Pantheon very, very well. :)
Naunet said:You're not alone. :) I agree with your post completely, especially your last paragraph. Choice matters less when your choice comes pre-restricted. That's not choice - that's railroading specific combinations.
Naunet - No offense meant, but have you tried World of Warcraft? I’ve read universal class race combos is mostly a thing over there and is pretty low-key. It‘s just a suggestion if you haven’t tried it out. :)
Syrif said:Naunet - No offense meant, but have you tried World of Warcraft? I’ve read universal class race combos is mostly a thing over there and is pretty low-key. It might interest you.
Syrif. You obviously played Everquest. 800 (rough guess) of your 912 posts are copy pasta in the introduction section. If someone mentions that they played EQ your response is:
"Two thumbs WAY UP for returning from EQ (like many of us here). There were hundreds of thousands of us there at one time. Welcome back!"
or:
"Cool! Old EQ forever <3 You are MOST welcome here and welcome back!"
If they don't mention playing EQ your response is:
"welcome"
You are clearly biased for anything and everything EQ and it just so happens that there are still EQ servers running today. P99 would probably interest you.
Syrif said:Naunet said:You're not alone. :) I agree with your post completely, especially your last paragraph. Choice matters less when your choice comes pre-restricted. That's not choice - that's railroading specific combinations.
Naunet - No offense meant, but have you tried World of Warcraft? I’ve read universal class race combos is mostly a thing there and is pretty low-key. It might interest you.
That's not the case.
Anyway, one point for restrictions is that if you allow any race to be any class, you have to discourage combos that don't make any sense (such as Ogre wizards) by making the racial abilites/stats bad for that class. Which means you have to likewise have strong positive bonuses in other areas. Thus you end up with Ogre warriors outclassing other warrior races to an unreasonable degree.
Also, allowing highly sub-optimal choices would be a mistake. As much as you want to say "well, if someone makes an ogre wizard, they should know that they're going to be worse than other races", it doesn't matter. People will make it because they can, then ***** to no end when they get to the end game and they're getting left out of raids because they're significantly worse than other wizards just due to their race. Why invite that situation? Restricting the races is a much wiser/easier road.
Allowing people to make mistakes (or purposely play less than "optimal") is the opposite of hand-holding. Some people actually prefer to go against the grain and play an oddball race/class combo as it helps build a memorable character identity. I have seen plenty of players who deviated from the "race/class meta" over the years that were still considered great/reliable for whatever role they selected. Allowing choice opens up other possibilities as well. Maybe ogres have an interesting racial bonus that is ideal for tanking, but under certain circumstances, it could offer great situational value for a wizard. Players should be able to make these choices on their own rather than being pigeonholed into limited options for the sake of saving them from themselves. These kind of decisions usually have a trade-off where you sacrifice early-game efficiency for late-game versatility. Seeing that there will be stat caps in Pantheon, it should be possible for an Ogre to cap their INT when they are deeply progressed on their character. At that point, other stats could be much harder to come by, such as strength or stamina.
zoltar said:Syrif said:Naunet said:You're not alone. :) I agree with your post completely, especially your last paragraph. Choice matters less when your choice comes pre-restricted. That's not choice - that's railroading specific combinations.
Naunet - No offense meant, but have you tried World of Warcraft? I’ve read universal class race combos is mostly a thing there and is pretty low-key. It might interest you.
That's not the case.
Anyway, one point for restrictions is that if you allow any race to be any class, you have to discourage combos that don't make any sense (such as Ogre wizards) by making the racial abilites/stats bad for that class. Which means you have to likewise have strong positive bonuses in other areas. Thus you end up with Ogre warriors outclassing other warrior races to an unreasonable degree.
Also, allowing highly sub-optimal choices would be a mistake. As much as you want to say "well, if someone makes an ogre wizard, they should know that they're going to be worse than other races", it doesn't matter. People will make it because they can, then ***** to no end when they get to the end game and they're getting left out of raids because they're significantly worse than other wizards just due to their race. Why invite that situation? Restricting the races is a much wiser/easier road.
Well, as I mentioned no offense was meant and no hard feelings. It was a suggestion and I merely mentioned World of Warcraft as an example to get a feel for universal class race combos based on what I’ve read. Especially since universal combos will not exist here (again, based on what I’ve read). Cheers :)
1) Do the current race/class restrictions shown on the web page feel too restrictive to us or just right? Based on what we know about the races, what would we want to change about that list if we could?
I enjoy them, but I would like the humans to be less versatile. I allways associated priest to faith and I don't really believe it's possible to fix every faith in a single race single kingdom society. I also don't think it will "cost" the human anything since it's not a combat advantage, it will just end up beeing the usual "human dominate because they are quick to expand and reproduce" but that will have no impact on our personnal experience, since Terminus isn't dominated by humans at all and the breeding time isn't usefull in an MMO.
2) Would people be more ok with the race and class restrictions if they were only there for character creation initially, and later on, through some sort of long and involved quest, you could actually switch your class to something else? (For example, you start as an Ogre Shaman but later, after a lot of hard work and determination, gain acceptance into the wizard's school in Syronai's Rest and become a very rare Ogre Wizard)
I don't really see the point. Offering the choice to break the rules is very close to offering no rules at all, even if it remains different. In the end, beeing an ogre Wizard might become the prime choice (due to racials) and most people would just follow guides up the point they are ready. No, out of matrix choices should be punished to some extend with some definitive workaround, either beeing less effective by a significant margin, beeing slower to level and recover exp lost (not debt, debt is meaningless at level cap), or something like that./
3) If there are two races that can be the same class, should each race have different "takes" on that class at character creation? For example, should Dark Myr warriors favor spears initially, and lighter armor with more manueverability, while Human warriors favor swords and heavy plate, giving each race a sort of unique "style" of that class that the player could choose to either stay with or move away from? Or should all characters of the same class start off more or less identical, regardless of which race they select?
I like the idea but I doubt it will be possible in an MMO context. Specific flavour or themed character works great in an environment where the GM controls everything from loots to encounters, it can be designed to allow thoses mix to be as close as possible to "munchkin choices" while disallowing the latter. In an MMO context, only the base setup is controlled, once done, players will just take what's best from an objective point of view and claim it as "the norm". Just look at GW2's builds and you will realize no one cares anymore about exotism, versatility or choices as they just stack brainless damage builds with the very same full damage gears. It's unfortunately the side effect of too much theorycraft / sims, the game is predictable to the point you can just trash out every utility or survival in order to decrease the time to kill and get "more free time" in a game.
The only constraint that is really relevant is the constraint the developpers have to come up with a PC concept .
Obviously if they don't , there will be no game . Now since the RPG origins the PC concept has always been a set of numbers which are supposed to represent a coarse , mathematized , naive archetype of a living being . There is a half a dozen parameters (intelligence , constitution , strength , agility , wisdom) which define the PCs innate abilities . The numbers might be sometimes named otherwise like stealth , focus , intuition or whatever but it always finishes by a small set of numbers . Pantheon is no different from all the RPG ancestors , so the PCs you'll create will all use the same old intelligence , strength etc archetypes . Half the PC concept done .
The second and last fundamental decision that must be taken is whether the innate stats matter and how much they can be changed . In some games they don't matter and what you get is an undifferentiated mud where the graphics and the players' abilities (f.ex how fast they click or how many macros they use) differ but the PCs can develop all and any abilities the player wishes . In some games innate stats do matter and what you get is that the huge majority of players will choose to create PC archetypes (f.ex high intelligence = caster and high constitution = tank) . Pantheon has also already taken this decision - innate stats matter . Second half of the PC concept done and everything else is litterature . And much coding :)
Basically this whole discussion boils down to the simple question whether somebody likes his PCs to stay forever differentiated by the innate stats or whether he likes them to be able to "equalize" the innate stat differences in the course of the game . A majority of people here , what could be called the "old EQ school" , seems to like the former while a minority seems to like the latter .
But perhaps the most important thing to realize in this issue is that the matrix we discuss is irrelevant for the gameplay . VR could decide to add more restrictions or , on the contrary , allow all race/class combos and it would change nothing . Because the 2 fundamental decisions have already been taken and the PC concept will not change , what impact would have the decision to allow all race/class combos ? Small to zero . Sure , some originals would create Ogre enchanters but as their intelligence and its corollary the mana pool would be half or less than the one of Gnome enchanters , they would level slowly , have difficulty to find groups and more generally struggle untill they'd die out like the dinosaurs . Having on the other hand a matrix where this punishing choice is forbidden from the start leads to the same result (e.g no Ogre enchanters) even if it frustrates some small minority which would have liked to try it out just for the "fun" of it and probably reroll a Gnome enchanter a bit later .
I've never been a fan of restrictions like this unless they just make absolutely no sense from the lore to the point where it would be disruptive. Why shouldn't a brave, perhaps foolhardy gnome be able to take up the warrior life? Stories like that are interesting and fun! Games are supposed to be fun!
I really think games are ruined by people who insist on too narrow definitions of things to the point where creativity is stifled.
I can't think of an example where a race/class combo should absolutely not exist, but I am not completely steeped in the Pantheon lore yet. I entirely disagree with the idea that it hurts the game to allow gnomes to be warriors. If anything, what I don't want to see is race/class combos becoming so restricted that you end up with the only good choice for a warrior is an ogre because of frontal stun immunity and naturally high strength (example cribbed from elsewhere). Why would you even play a gnome warrior? They are clearly inferior in every way!
That, to me, is just bad game design and limits fun. Make the races distinct, make their differences interesting, but avoid as much as possible situations where certain classes are indisputably optimal as certain races.
oneADseven said:Well said. Once upon a time, players could make choices that weren't "ideal." But then a movement happened where we had to be saved from ourselves. Gnomes don't have the starting stats to be an efficient tank so let's just prevent that from happening to prevent people from making that mistake. Ogres aren't supposed to be casters so let's just prevent that from happening so people don't make that mistake. Let's also remove the ability for players to manually assign stats because people are bound to do that wrong. There are many memorable characters in my MMO history that were "oddballs" -- Tower, the gnome warrior from EQOA, was one of the first. Gnomes weren't ideal for tanking but that guy made a reputation for being an awesome tank despite being a gnome. That decision carried weight and his reputation is remembered 15+ years later while many others have been forgotten.
At the end of the day, these race/class restrictions go against the RPG of MMORPG. Lore is meant to provide history, not be used as a rail for character development. Players should be able to express individuality and make a character their own. They should be able to come up with their own backstory. There are countless reasons why someone might want to go against the grain and make an Elven Paladin, or maybe an Ogre Bard. Preventing that from happening is removing the ability to create your own story in the world. Forcing people to select from a prescribed list is basically assigning a massive rail at character select screen. Terminus is supposed to be a high fantasy world but it's impossible for a Dark Myr cleric to set down their tome and pick up a sword and shield? Even though they can also be warriors? One of the game tenets discusses a meaningful faction system.
What is more unrealistic? A Skar becoming allied with Elves, which in theory should be possible with the faction system? Or a Dark Myr transitioning from cleric to paladin? Dark Myr are depicted as one of the most vengeful races in the game but there is some imaginary barrier preventing them from transitioning to a more vengeful version of cleric? Why? Why is one possible but not the other when the former (skar allied with elves) is far more contradictive of established lore. I'm not a fan of the restrictions and hope that they eventually add some sort of betrayal quest or that progeny ends up allowing people to unlock the rare race/class combos. I also think it's inconsistent to cite lore as a reason for class/race restrictions from the adventuring sphere but not do the same for crafting. If it's impossible for gnomes to pick up a sword and shield, why would they have any history of being blacksmiths? Why can't halflings be paladins considering that they were cursed by the King of Specters and have a well-established tradition of wraith hunting?
Why can Skar be monks when they are notoriously shortsighted and lack endurance? "The way of the Monk is a path of harmony between the body and the soul. Through longstanding discipline Monks have transformed their very being into resilient, living weapons which they are able to wield against their enemies with devastating effect." So they are shortsighted but also capable of having longstanding discipline? I would rather see freeform roleplay where players can create their own story. Where players aren't protected from themselves just because a certain race would be "less than ideal" for a given class. There are slightly less than 50% of the possible race/class combinations slated to be available. We don't get the privilege of encountering a rare Ogre Paladin and being able to appreciate their story -- that player never had the chance to make one. It's conformity to trends and history. The wonderful tale of Drizzt Do'urden would never have been able to happen in another epic fantasy world if he had been forced to follow status quo. Pity.
You have me convinced, but I would combine it with a character creation interface where it was very clear how certain combos could be far from ideal from a min/max perspective. If you're new to MMORPGs and are eager to get going, you should not be allowed to pick a "strange" combination without ample warning.
Jabir said:You have me convinced, but I would combine it with a character creation interface where it was very clear how certain combos could be far from ideal from a min/max perspective. If you're new to MMORPGs and are eager to get going, you should not be allowed to pick a "strange" combination without ample warning.
There are two solutions to this that don't involve hand-holding of the player at creation.
1) Don't design a game where the min/maxing is so overpowering that people can make bad decisions at character creation resulting in an irreparably inferior race/class combo.
2) The Easy/Normal/Hard Start strategies where, sure, a gnome warrior is going to have a tougher time at the start. Their strength is lower so they have a harder (not impossible) time carrying the heavy armor required to be a good tank. As they progress through the game, and acquire magic items, this burden lessens until they are eventually on-par with other warriors. By the end game for current content, there should be race/class combo parity among the choices with the differences being flavor/cosmetic. Maybe their abilities are superficially different, but effectively equal. You had a harder road playing that gnome warrior, but you were able to earn your place in the end.
Chanus I see your point - but my background in games that have real race distinctions that matter even at maximum level leads me to disagree.
I would prefer racial distinctions that matter well after level 10 and aren't merely cosmetic.
Inability to do some classes at all is how it works now - good. Inability to do some crafts or significant penalty towards those crafts would be good.
Attribute plusses and minuses that actually matter at maximum level - good. Pantheon is a game that focuses on choices and roles. If you want the best possible tank because you are a dedicated min/maxer or are afraid you won't be able to get groups otherwise - pick a race and class that allow this. If you pick a race that is minus two to strength that is fine but accept that if strength is critical you may well not find groups as easy to get. That is your choice. Not every race should be good at everything. That path leads to boring homogenity.
It is not handholding to give the player clear instructions at character creation. As in the racial choice screen saying that "This race makes a typical stone look like a member of Mensa. Not recommended for mages or healers. Best for melee damage or tanking roles".
Just wanted to share one more thought that came to me regarding the class matrix. I think it’ll help open people up a bit if you read the lore (it is so well written you will most likely continue on to read it all). But ya reading a lot of the great discussions here, I feel many people haven’t read the lore. Long story short, the inhabitants (all or almost all) were sent to this world at different time periods, according to different eras of war and development. So the elves for instant e (who we all relate to Legolas Elrond and flowing waterfalls unicorns and beautiful architecure etc), but in reality the elves world (another dimension) was being destroyed, so with the last (or some) of their god’s power, he summoned a massive world tree, and transported the elves to this dimension in an effort to save them. What they got when they came to this world is the polar opposite of rivendale: all out war, terrible, ugly living conditions, the elves themselve began to divide into separate factions because of the turmoil, some based off of worship for their god, others who have given up on their god, and those in between. My point is it isn’t like VR were just like “let’s just make all of these races and classes opposite just to be different.” Like they actually put a ridiculous amount of thought creativity and delipment into this “new world.” And this new world shouldn’t seem or feel far fetched. Have we all forgotten Gandalf himself comes from another dimension. Alltogether? Have we not seen countless, varying iterations of elves orcs in different prose and lore (eg the elves in “legend” with tom cruise vs elves in lotr etc). God I remember the legend elves giving me the CREEPS when I was little haha. But yeah I really think If people give the frickin amazingly written lore a read, you may feel very, very differently about the matrix. Have a good day my friends. Ps I’ve butted heads With you before adseven but I admire your never ending passion for this game. I alwyas see you at the epicenter of some hot debate haha : ) )
To expand just a little more, many of these regions and lifestyles these races were now forced into have forced them to acclimate both environmentally and culturally (eg our dwarves are stuck up in the freezing cold, gnomes specifically are created magically/ethereally which makes sense why they would only be able to do certain magical skills or trade skills or even CLASSES that no one else can). So everything builds on top of itself, layer after layer, riggt down to racial resistances and abilities. These nascent class race mixes are all a direct product of the environment and lifestyle each race and culture is a part of (which just happens to be a much destroyed/stressed world than we are used to but that’s all).
Mod Edit: Merged double post.
ARAC (All Races All Classes) is fine for some games, but is not my preference. I like that races are challenged to work within their own society with the roles they gravitate to and have to go outside their society to sometimes borrow others who specialize in something else. My fondest memories come from EverQuest 2, RP PVP server - where your starting city determined your race and class offerings. We played Freeport side (evil) and were restricted to Evil and Neutral only classes/races. We raided that way. While the ARAC blue (non-PvP) servers had access to all classes/races in their raid make-up, we had to come up with different strategies to win because we couldn't have that Paladin or Ranger with us to do x, y, and z. It was more fun that way, figuring out ways of doing things within our restrictions.
And roleplay-wise, if you wanted to play a race/class that didn't exist, there were illusions that you could use to look like other things. So, you may have had to create a High Elf Illusionist, found/earned the Dark Elf illusion item, and then placed in your description that your character should be treated as a Dark Elf Illusionist living in Qeynos (good city.) There are always ways to do interesting things within the confines of the rules.
~WN
dorotea said:Chanus I see your point - but my background in games that have real race distinctions that matter even at maximum level leads me to disagree.
I would prefer racial distinctions that matter well after level 10 and aren't merely cosmetic.
Inability to do some classes at all is how it works now - good. Inability to do some crafts or significant penalty towards those crafts would be good.
Attribute plusses and minuses that actually matter at maximum level - good. Pantheon is a game that focuses on choices and roles. If you want the best possible tank because you are a dedicated min/maxer or are afraid you won't be able to get groups otherwise - pick a race and class that allow this. If you pick a race that is minus two to strength that is fine but accept that if strength is critical you may well not find groups as easy to get. That is your choice. Not every race should be good at everything. That path leads to boring homogenity.
It is not handholding to give the player clear instructions at character creation. As in the racial choice screen saying that "This race makes a typical stone look like a member of Mensa. Not recommended for mages or healers. Best for melee damage or tanking roles".
I think you can have distinctions that aren't merely cosmetic without a clear "this combo wins every time" situation, but I also don't agree that it makes for a better game to limit player choice in this way. I don't agree that allowing for more race/class variety leads to boring homogeneity. That doesn't even make sense. It by definition creates more variance.
Even if you don't agree with min/maxing, which I don't, you have to look at things from the standpoint that a game's community and culture will eventually be defined by the min/maxers. If you make a gnome warrior completely and forever inferior to an ogre warrior, you will end up with all warriors being ogre warriors. How is that better? Or even good? To me, that is the height of homogeneity and boring gameplay. Limiting the extent of objective min/maxing is how you make for a more creative and compelling game system.
Leachim said:I seem to be one of the rare ones that enjoy no race class restrictions. I started my MMO gaming with Muds and EQ, then WOW, LOTRO, Guild Wars, ect..... However it wasn't untill the past few years that I've started playing D&D, and there any race can play any class, just may not be as "optimised" as other race/class combos.
When you make your own world and it's history and lore, then you can easily build in a logical sounding explination as to why some race can't do some class. So saying the lore doesn't support something feels a bit of an excuse because when you make the lore you can make it say whatever you want.
Others worry about race not meaning anything if you can pick from any class; that I just don't understand. By allowing full choices, race then becomes more meaningfull because you chose that race you wanted from a larger list, rather than being shoehorned into picking from just a few.
I don't expect to change anyones minds, especially not VR's, and am looking forward to playing Pantheon when it's ready. I just wanted to present the other side, that I hadn't seen here yet.
As for your other questions; 2 - I don't think changing class midgame is a good idea, but maybe unlocking that class for a new character on your account instead. 3 - I've always liked the idea of different races doing the same classes a bit differently to better reflect their heritage and body types. 4 - That doesn't sound unreasonable. It sounds to me like you can still learn it, just not from your people, you would have to travel and interact with other race's cities to learn more, rather than it being blocked from learning italtogether like some folks interpreted it to mean.
I'm with you 100% Leachim -
I've also stopped caring about rationalizing VR's race/class matrix because it just comes down to what they want to do and it doesn't really matter what the players want in this matter. Like you said, both sides of the argument are futile - You can debate lore all day (without changing anything) and trying to argue that restricting choice makes your choice "mean something" is self-contradicting because having more options could make your choice that much more important depending on racial features. i.e. a gnome may be a terrible "tank", but make a higher dmg warrior... thus making the choice of race actually matter - instead of any race that can be warrior be basically the same aside from asthetics.
Mod Edit: Removed image as it is against forum guidelines.
Syrif said:@Zuljan Bingo. I do think reading the lore will help a few of the people who have a problem with the matrix. Anyway, I agree it’s obvious VR put a lot of thought and creativity into the lore and matrix they have made. It’s impressive to say the least. :)
You're right that understanding the histories could change some minds but I'm not sure that's what most people want. Knowing the histories of all of the races and the world history is a lot to expect. I've done it and it took a bit of effort. I don't think that the majority will get that far into it. My guess is that there are many players who have an idea of what they want from the races/classes and that is more important to them. We'll see what happens when we get more info!
oneADseven said:Well said. Once upon a time, players could make choices that weren't "ideal." But then a movement happened where we had to be saved from ourselves. Gnomes don't have the starting stats to be an efficient tank so let's just prevent that from happening to prevent people from making that mistake. Ogres aren't supposed to be casters so let's just prevent that from happening so people don't make that mistake. Let's also remove the ability for players to manually assign stats because people are bound to do that wrong. There are many memorable characters in my MMO history that were "oddballs" -- Tower, the gnome warrior from EQOA, was one of the first. Gnomes weren't ideal for tanking but that guy made a reputation for being an awesome tank despite being a gnome. That decision carried weight and his reputation is remembered 15+ years later while many others have been forgotten.
At the end of the day, these race/class restrictions go against the RPG of MMORPG. Lore is meant to provide history, not be used as a rail for character development. Players should be able to express individuality and make a character their own. They should be able to come up with their own backstory. There are countless reasons why someone might want to go against the grain and make an Elven Paladin, or maybe an Ogre Bard. Preventing that from happening is removing the ability to create your own story in the world. Forcing people to select from a prescribed list is basically assigning a massive rail at character select screen. Terminus is supposed to be a high fantasy world but it's impossible for a Dark Myr cleric to set down their tome and pick up a sword and shield? Even though they can also be warriors? One of the game tenets discusses a meaningful faction system.
What is more unrealistic? A Skar becoming allied with Elves, which in theory should be possible with the faction system? Or a Dark Myr transitioning from cleric to paladin? Dark Myr are depicted as one of the most vengeful races in the game but there is some imaginary barrier preventing them from transitioning to a more vengeful version of cleric? Why? Why is one possible but not the other when the former (skar allied with elves) is far more contradictive of established lore. I'm not a fan of the restrictions and hope that they eventually add some sort of betrayal quest or that progeny ends up allowing people to unlock the rare race/class combos. I also think it's inconsistent to cite lore as a reason for class/race restrictions from the adventuring sphere but not do the same for crafting. If it's impossible for gnomes to pick up a sword and shield, why would they have any history of being blacksmiths? Why can't halflings be paladins considering that they were cursed by the King of Specters and have a well-established tradition of wraith hunting?
Why can Skar be monks when they are notoriously shortsighted and lack endurance? "The way of the Monk is a path of harmony between the body and the soul. Through longstanding discipline Monks have transformed their very being into resilient, living weapons which they are able to wield against their enemies with devastating effect." So they are shortsighted but also capable of having longstanding discipline? I would rather see freeform roleplay where players can create their own story. Where players aren't protected from themselves just because a certain race would be "less than ideal" for a given class. There are slightly less than 50% of the possible race/class combinations slated to be available. We don't get the privilege of encountering a rare Ogre Paladin and being able to appreciate their story -- that player never had the chance to make one. It's conformity to trends and history. The wonderful tale of Drizzt Do'urden would never have been able to happen in another epic fantasy world if he had been forced to follow status quo. Pity.
I get your point but it's historically unaccurate. "Once upon a time, you had limited choices with in thoses choices, some that weren't ideal".
Eq, one of the pioneers of the MMO games, had a race/class matrix forbidding some choices. Some others were allowed but far from ideal.
Even Ad&d before that had a race/class matrix for all non humans, and if I heard right, D&D 1st edition had elves and dwarves beeing race+class combos, and far from beeing "at choice".
The opening of the race/class matrix came with more recent games or different philosophies, with all choices but some worse than others (and gear used to stomp basic stats so much it rarelly mattered after one or two expansions), then lazy designs came with no limitation at all, but no drawbacks either.
I'm fine for open choices if the remain relevant at all time and not just a nuisance until you gear enough you could be a jellyfish tank no one would care. But I prefer more "lore restrictions" like they are currently planned.