Gauging Interest

[GRUMPY]

I totally agree that EQ has too many classes. I suppose they had a reason for it, in the
beginning. I am no expert on EQ's original motives for the way they designed classes,
but I am inclined to think it wasn't about class balancing, it was more about group
balancing and purpose.
Tanks, melee, healers, slowers, nukers, crowd control, slowers, buffers, etc. All built for
various tasks in a group when going to hunt. Everyone had their job to do. But EQ was
not originally built for the "solo player". I would agree, some classes got screwed with
future expansions. (like the druid/wizzy ports, etc.)

As far as "Pay 2 Win", (as donations), I have mixed thoughts about that.
On one hand, servers may very well need donations to keep the server alive for players.
But is it supposed to be a "voluntary" thing, or required to play ? Any type of donation
system on a server could be looked at in different ways by the players in how they
interpret it.
A player could see P2W as being "forced" into donating. Yes, it's free to play, but even
EQ Live is free to play, with "pay to get ahead" subscriptions. But EQ Live servers
have costs to keep those servers alive. Profit or no profit. Obviously when players
start dishing out coin to play, they will have expectations, especially having a server
kept up and available to play on what they just paid for, (or donated to).
On these Emu servers, in some cases, if not enough comes in by players, then the
server may just have to shut it down, with no choices, or the owner chooses to pay
for all the costs alone. Hence, the owner doesn't want to pay for the costs and some
of the players don't either. There has been servers here on Emu that have gone
down for that specific reason in the past.
Lots of different factors to consider in the whole cost system of having a server up.
Content, player interest, etc., it's all "part of the game", which really is a "go big or go
home" catch 22 situation. Myself, I would not put up a cost inducing server, unless I
was in a position to cover all costs, even with a donation system in place, as it might
not be reliable enough. But I don't mind spending money on a hobby that I enjoy.
I would rather spend 100 bucks/mth on long lasting entertainment, than drop it all
into a bar or casino in one night, haha

[ChaosSlayerZ]

Originally Posted by GRUMPY

I totally agree that EQ has too many classes. I suppose they had a reason for it, in the
beginning. I am no expert on EQ's original motives for the way they designed classes,
but I am inclined to think it wasn't about class balancing, it was more about group
balancing and purpose.
Tanks, melee, healers, slowers, nukers, crowd control, slowers, buffers, etc. All built for
various tasks in a group when going to hunt. Everyone had their job to do. But EQ was
not originally built for the "solo player". I would agree, some classes got screwed with
future expansions. (like the druid/wizzy ports, etc.)

Yeah, original EQ design was heavily lifted from DnD.
What designers failed to realize is that in DnD you ALWAYS playing in pre-made party, where players initially intentionally pick classes to form the best balanced group.
Obviously doesn't work this way in MMO. So say you need a tank - you got 3 to pick from right? Not exactly because if you want to raid - you better have a Warrior - which become even more and more restrictive with each next expansion. It reached truly ridiculous levels, when during OoW era a top geared paladin with 1,500 AAs was ONE-SHOTED by a raid mob, and Dev basically told the players that "you need a tank for this encounter" - meaning you actually need a warrior and warrior only. Honestly this is no way to make a game. Same goes for healers - you need Cleric to heal. I mean druid and shamy are Ok for pick up groups but you want to touch raids you MUST have minimum set number of clerics or you screwed.

In short the abundance of classes seems cool on a casual scale, but completely fails in the end game. Raiding Mage - toy maker, really? Necro - mana battery for clerics? Thats retarded.

They somewhat ratified the situation in EQ2 where they made all healers and all tanks more or less equal in terms of power, but with different edge.