The Yin and Yang of Gaming

Via Lum, Ubiq talks about skill-based and class-based MMOs, and why ultimately class-based is better. I tend to agree with him. I think a purely skill-based system, such as Bethesda Softworks’ Elder Scrolls series, is perfectly fine for a single-player experience, because you can get away with the protagonist eventually becoming a minor deity in its own right. However, for the multiplayer experience, you have to constrain skills somehow, and inevitably broken combinations show up or everything is watered down for balance’s sake. Maybe it’s a personal preference, but it’s part of the reason I never got into Second Life. It’s got too much freedom, there’s no defining context at all. Creating for the sake of creating is fine and all, but give me a little push, at least. I guess I suck for not being creative enough.

Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with skill-based systems, it’s just they’re much much harder to get right, and with the popularity of World of Warcraft these days, no one can afford to get it wrong….