Why is it class based?

[TRex]

It's quite simple really , it's the ideal way to maximize the player base.

It's the opposite of how employment works in the real world. Companies and the general public increase their technology, which leads to human beings becoming less useful as production, and more useful as consumers.

If you follow the same rules in mmo's, there's less need to work with other people to get an objective done. Less people= bad

Classes add a mythical layer to the equation meaning even the dumbest of people have a role, and therefore more likely to stay and purchase something. These are also the most likely people to be looking at the SOE market place when they should be watching the cc, since that is boring.

In any given population, (just rough figures) 5% will be extra-ordinarily gifted, another 10-15% competent, leaving 80% of a population as medicre at best. If you only cater for the top 20%, you will have a niche game that may last for years and years but barely make note worthy profit. Catering for the 80% makes more sense for profit, but expect the attention span to not last longer than a year or so. Adding classes and cert trees to fit, gives extra cushioning to keep that attention span a little longer.

[Klockan]

Originally Posted by TRex

In any given population, (just rough figures) 5% will be extra-ordinarily gifted, another 10-15% competent, leaving 80% of a population as medicre at best. If you only cater for the top 20%, you will have a niche game that may last for years and years but barely make note worthy profit. Catering for the 80% makes more sense for profit, but expect the attention span to not last longer than a year or so. Adding classes and cert trees to fit, gives extra cushioning to keep that attention span a little longer.

Why do you think that the PS1 crowd belongs to the 20%? Don't you think that every subculture makes exactly this claim?

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by TRex

In any given population, (just rough figures) 5% will be extra-ordinarily gifted, another 10-15% competent, leaving 80% of a population as medicre at best. If you only cater for the top 20%, you will have a niche game that may last for years and years but barely make note worthy profit. Catering for the 80% makes more sense for profit, but expect the attention span to not last longer than a year or so. Adding classes and cert trees to fit, gives extra cushioning to keep that attention span a little longer.

Extra-ordinarily gifted at what exactly? Doing everything? You honestly don't think you'll have people with different affinities for certain activities over others?

I personally think you're way off base. It IS a (indirect) way to cater to the playerbase, but not how you think it does. People pay for games that are fun. Let's face it, a game that's not fun isn't worth playing. The idea of introducing classes is to give all players a role to fill that they find most applicable to what they want to do/what they're good at, furthered by the cert system. Having no classes made PS1 character progression stale, because there was one optimal setup that could respond to the most situations. THAT is what will lead people to stop playing, because a major aspect of the game is not inventive or interesting. And when people stop playing, they stop paying.

[TRex]

Originally Posted by Klockan

Why do you think that the PS1 crowd belongs to the 20%? Don't you think that every subculture makes exactly this claim?

I dont think ps1 belongs to the 20%,far from it, within ps1 you get the same ratio. Ps1 is probably a bad example since it was broken for most of its lifetime, and a good proportion of the 20% probably left 5+ years ago.

Take wow as an example, originally they designed the game and the whole focus was on the relative few that could put the time in to do the end game raiding. With each expansion, they made the game more and more accessible to the majority of players. It made commercial sense to do that.

I'm not knocking it, its all about fun and enjoyment, and making this thing a commercial success. The main thing is ps2 needs that 80% both commercially and practically, the game is no good unless its full of people to shoot.

Originally Posted by Ratstomper

Extra-ordinarily gifted at what exactly? Doing everything? You honestly don't think you'll have people with different affinities for certain activities over others?

It's not rocket science.

Some people have a tonne more free-time that others, some have to work for a living and can only put an hour or 2 in here and there.

Some people see skill ceiling as a challenge and work every second to master what they have. Some just jump in game and endlessly footzerg everywhere and complain they are being mossie sniped all the time.

Some people jump in a game and within an hour have like 100/1 k/d ratio, others will play for 10 hrs straight and not have 100 kills in all that time.
k/d isn't a great example overall but it demonstrates efficiency over time.
You can have really great support people too.

It's all about being driven and skillful, and how you work at improving yourself, or not. Some are just naturally gifted. Others really have to work at it. Some may be gifted but are too lazy to work at it. There's room for everybody.

On the one end of the scale you have Eusane Bolt running the 100m in sub- 10s, and working to beat his record by 1/100 of a second, and the other end some fat dude probably struggling to walk 10 yards before having to sit down, and order a McDonalds to recover his strength.