Outside of blanket assertions you aren't giving any reason to conclude Everquest and WoW were successful because of race/class restrictions or that WoW is less successful now because of allowing All/All. There isn't anything to indicate these changes are anything other than coincidental. The MMO market is spread out much further than it was in 1999 and 2004, and to expect any game to have the player base it did at its height a decade ago is pretty unrealistic.
Here's an idea that could be cool to allow for unlocking new combinations later in game.
Say I play an Archai Shaman, and I've progressed far enough to start using a for of Alternate Experience. I could then assign a portion of the exp I earn to go towards "Archai Exp" that I then use to unlock a new class I can pick for a new Archai. Or maybe I chose to assign a portion to "Shaman Exp" instead, then once enough is earned I can unlock shaman class for a different race in my character creation.
Long game play and commitment to the the game would be required to venture outside the matrix. The world wouldn't be over populated with non-matrix characters, while still giving players the chance to get to a combo they really wanted. Also, by diverting exp from leveling, it would further increase game time before max level, which is something VR seems to strive for.
Since we are talking about racial starting stats I thought it would be intresting to share some, these stats are taken from the Jim Lee stream and is very dated now. But should give us an idea of starting stats.
Human:
Strength 9
Stamina 9
Agility 8
Dexterity 8
Constitution 10
Wisdom 8
Intelligence 8
Charisma 8
Total: 68
Elf:
Strength 8
Stamina 10
Agility 9
Dexterity 8
Constitution 11
Wisdom 10
Intelligence 8
Charisma 9
Total: 73
Archai:
Strength 9
Stamina 9
Agility 9
Dexterity 8
Constitution 11
Wisdom 8
Intelligence 9
Charisma 9
Total: 72
Keep in mind that all stats are useful to each character as they will scale up skills differently, strength may increase the damage of fire spells for a wizard you can see this on skills like the dire lord:-
Chanus said:Outside of blanket assertions you aren't giving any reason to conclude Everquest and WoW were successful because of race/class restrictions or that WoW is less successful now because of allowing All/All. There isn't anything to indicate these changes are anything other than coincidental. The MMO market is spread out much further than it was in 1999 and 2004, and to expect any game to have the player base it did at its height a decade ago is pretty unrealistic.
Don't you think if all/all was truly better that WoW wouldn't of done it by now, which they havent. You'll going off of pure want to make you feel that it is better but hardly any games are doing it but F2P games and a lot of the sub based games that are all/all are cashi ng out like Aion, RIFT and some others. So if anything it showing that all/allllgo is actually worse than class restrictions. Let's break the mold and instead of a game fall victim to bending to the way the community wants to play it let's have the community bend to the way the game wants you to play it, sense the other way always seems to lead to the game just simply being forgotten or being tarnished and than the people say "I wish this game was the way it used to be instead of what it is now."
Leachim said:Here's an idea that could be cool to allow for unlocking new combinations later in game.
Say I play an Archai Shaman, and I've progressed far enough to start using a for of Alternate Experience. I could then assign a portion of the exp I earn to go towards "Archai Exp" that I then use to unlock a new class I can pick for a new Archai. Or maybe I chose to assign a portion to "Shaman Exp" instead, then once enough is earned I can unlock shaman class for a different race in my character creation.
Long game play and commitment to the the game would be required to venture outside the matrix. The world wouldn't be over populated with non-matrix characters, while still giving players the chance to get to a combo they really wanted. Also, by diverting exp from leveling, it would further increase game time before max level, which is something VR seems to strive for.
Love it.
@Leachim and 18D7,
I like that general idea as well or as a similar function of the progeny system. Normally X race doesn’t have Y class mostly because they do not have it as a cultural institution. If your parent (adoptive or biological) has earned good standing with said cultural institution they can sponsor a non-native race for inclusion and training. This could also be done through a sudo half breed mechanic where the child looks like one or the other parent but qualifies as either race for purposes of possible classes and starting locations.
Kellie said:Since we are talking about racial starting stats I thought it would be intresting to share some, these stats are taken from the Jim Lee stream and is very dated now. But should give us an idea of starting stats.
Human:
Strength 9
Stamina 9
Agility 8
Dexterity 8
Constitution 10
Wisdom 8
Intelligence 8
Charisma 8
Total: 68Elf:
Strength 8
Stamina 10
Agility 9
Dexterity 8
Constitution 11
Wisdom 10
Intelligence 8
Charisma 9
Total: 73Archai:
Strength 9
Stamina 9
Agility 9
Dexterity 8
Constitution 11
Wisdom 8
Intelligence 9
Charisma 9
Total: 72Keep in mind that all stats are useful to each character as they will scale up skills differently, strength may increase the damage of fire spells for a wizard you can see this on skills like the dire lord:-
See and I like this because it's make two extremely different races like the ogres and dark myr share a class hut let them both probably preform close to the same as the ogre would obvious have a higher str stat but the dark myr would have a agi and probably a touch of INT stat to make up for it and because of that they preform the move above probably close to the exact same. Do again there isn't a clear cut meta or anything in the game as I see in face value.
Here is a transcript from an old EQNext roundtable where race class restrictions were being discussed:
EverQuest Next Round Table Response #5 - Class/Race Combos & Restrictions
Omeed: Hi, everyone and welcome the Round Table. My name is Omeed Dariani. I'm the Senior Brand Manager of the EverQuest franchise. I'm here today with Terry Michaels, the Senior Producer of EverQuest Next, and Jeff Butler, EverQuest Next's Creative Director.
Jeff: Hello, everyone.
Omeed: We're here today to discuss Race/Class Restrictions. "Should all races have access to all classes?" And this was, by far, our most popular, most controversial, most discussed question; definitely the biggest one on the Round Table.
The majority of people were fine with having race/class restrictions as long as it fits with the lore. I shouldn't' say the "majority"; the "plurality" - something to learn about voting: majorities are over 50%, pluralities are less but they're in charge. "The More You Know." So, something kinda funny happened here, right? We started off agreeing with the team and this is actually the first time that our internal team is not in agreement with the Round Table. Can you talk a little bit about how that went?
Jeff: While, interestingly enough, I think philosophically we were very much in line with the votes the players were pretty much putting forward, in our own minds when we were thinking about what we'd like to see for the game, our thinking matched what the players were laying out. Unfortunately, when we started developing the game, we realized we wanted to create a situation where our players were never forced to make a decision they would later regret based on knowledge they didn't have at that stage in their careers. During character creation, we didn't want them to have to make a decision on career paths they might later come to regret.
Omeed: So you're talking about a thing like, where, in some games you might pick a god, right, and you don't know that up front that picking that god is going to restrict some amount of things.
Terry: Right.
Jeff: It could later on restrict your faction choices and then you would find out late in the game after you created that character and leveled him up that you've backed yourself into a corner and we'd effectively, as a development team, allowed you to create a character that you didn't feel was viable. We decided early on, before we had addressed any of these questions internally, that we wanted to try and avoid those things. So, that lead us to, in this case, not being in agreement with the players.
Terry: Right, because in our game with the fact that we've already announced that we're gonna have at least 40 classes, and with the multi-classing, when you chose your class at the beginning - your race and your class at the beginning of the game - as you chose that race you might have to understand every ability out there and every item in the world to be able to make a choice if we did allow for race/class restrictions.
Omeed: Yeah. And I know for me, when I start up an MMO, or just an RPG in general, I feel like I have to sit there for a half hour, 45 minutes, I have to read a wiki to figure out what all these different options mean. It almost feels sometimes like I'm doing my taxes.
Terry: Right, and for those games that are out there, especially ours and the ones that are like it, it's a very clear distinction like which races can be a warrior, but you know what a warrior is so if you can be a warrior you're happy with that. In our game, you don't know what other classes are gonna have abilities that might augment the playstyle that you really wanna create in the game. And, so, it'd be almost impossible for someone, even with the wiki and a spreadsheet with all these tools available, you'd probably couldn't even figure out how you were limiting yourself if we had race/class restrictions.
Jeff: We talked about the possibility of somebody creating an Ogre Warrior. The Ogre Warrior doesn't necessarily care about the Bard class. As an RPer, he doesn't even believe...
Omeed: The hypothetical "Bard" class.
Jeff: Thank you, yes. He doesn't even believe, for instance, that a Bard and an Ogre should ever meet. So he doesn't concern himself. He merrily goes down his career path as an Ogre Warrior and then later realizes that for his playstyle, the Bard had an ability that could really help him. Well, he couldn't be expected to know that when the game started. Now, when, if the rest of the player populous would realize that ability is key to a Warrior being successful, at the current stage of the game, at that state of game maturity, then he would be disadvantaged. Whether it's his perception or reality, it's a situation that we didn't want the players to have to deal with with no knowledge at all.
Terry: And it also applies to when the game expands in the future, after we've launched, if we decide to release additional classes, that's information that people wouldn't have had at the beginning of the game and there's no way for them to have known it. So we're basically arbitrary decisions as to who gets to play these new classes and who doesn't and the ramifications are just...the players aren't gonna like that.
Omeed: So players would just basically get screwed for no reason by design decisions that weren't necessarily intended to mess them up...
Jeff: Right, absolutely.
Omeed: ...because of the structure we put in place.
Jeff: Character races that might be added, character classes that might be added, and also items that modify character class abilities and things of that nature; all of the balance of those things could never be foreseen by the player on day one creating his character class. So, ultimately, we don't think it's fair, we don't think it's wise for us to restrict players in those choices because, ultimately, sooner or later, someone is gonna get hurt. Whether it's an issue of perception or reality, we think it's best just not to go there.
Omeed: It blows my mind that we actually started thinking about this while this discussion was happening, that when we put up the poll, we were seeing these results come in and we were happy. "Oh, that's where we're going, that's what we're thinking". And then as we went through and we're reading arguments and discussing it internally, we said wait a second...this isn't gonna work with our game.
Jeff: It's a situation where the actual design, and the responsibility for the life of its game and its health, outweighs the benefits and the desire as a role player and as a game player and a game crafter to actually have these restrictions. Because, y'know, no one looks at this and thinks, "Oh, this doesn't have a place in fantasy". Right? The Dwarven Defender from Dungeons & Dragons makes sense to people, right?
Omeed: And we have Ogre Bards in real life. Meatloaf, for example. [Everyone laughs.]
So, that's another episode of the Round Table. Thank you guys so much. I thought this one was really interesting in that the discussion really changed a fundamental design direction. So, we'll see you next time. Thanks very much to Terry and Jeff for their time.
Jeff: Thanks, everyone.
Depending on how progeny works, the above precedent should absolutely be considered with respect to how race/class restrictions could cause similar issues in Pantheon. In the most recent newsletter there was an excerpt from the Thaeolyn Greyborne reveal that alluded to progeny:
"Having proven her worth, Thaeolyn now commands a troop of Dythiir's Hand, defending the White Gate, a pass in the Roan border. She is a fierce and loyal commander, changing course from that of a rogue to a front of the line warrior, though still retaining the knacks of her previous life."
Seeing that elves have access to both rogue and warrior, the above makes sense. At the same time, there are a bunch of races that have far fewer options available to them which would in theory make them far less desirable as progeny candidates. Despite the majority (pluarality, technically) of the EQNext fanbase saying that they were in favor of some sort of race/class restriction system, the developers declared that they were going a different route instead. The Race/Class restriction topic was a 336 page mega-thread on their forum, garnering over 6,700 responses. Here is a link to a follow-up article on mmorpg.com: https://www.mmorpg.com/everquest-next/columns/no-class-race-restriction-is-a-good-thing-1000007808
So since they didn't want you to make a race class combination and make you feel like you didn't put yourself in a. Corner so that makes you feel like being a ogre wizard doesn't do that? That almost seems like the race class restriction would prevent you from doing that because they won't make you pick a race that doesn't fulfill some requirements of the classes they can be, plus this isn't EQN or what ever so why would pantheon try to use the same philosophy just because it fits your way of thinking? Oh wait it doesn't stop trying to make the devs feel like they aren't doing something correct just because you want an all/all game.
Riahuf22 said:Look I'm not where to single people out, nor should be the intent of these forums, but to adamantly go against class restrictions and saying that all/all is better and statements such as these are simply pure opinion and just doesn't make it so, it only prove correct to the ones that sant it that way much how class restriction seems better to people like me who want it that way. So I'm done arguing it's simply not worth it and for as long as the matrix stays I'll be happy and some people might have to adjusts much like if they go another route I might have to be the one to adjust. But as is I don't see any harm in it I'm simply just tired of repeating myself and hearing the people saying the opposite repeat themselves in the process, I'm tired of running is circles.
Riahuf22 said:When 2 people keep saying the same thing over and over again and just dancing in circles and no one is budging even a little bit than yes eventually you just drop the conversation because there's isn't a true point to it unless if you simply want a healthy argument with that preson . And that's where it stops because I don't want any kind of argument with 1AD7 because one I honestly feel that if he wants 9 cities to be identical than why wouldn't the devs just make 1 city and save resources, money, and all that hard work and use it to make the rest of the world, the answer is they probably would of if they tried to make them all the same but since they wanted them to be dramatically different they made them have different homelands to represent them dramatically different.
Riahuf22 said:So I'm going to drop from this topic all together now, VR has clearly made their decision and than said for now that are going to stick to it, or until than their nothing left for me to say, both say pros and cons as we have clearly stated over and over again, and even though you disagree with what I have been saying I have just as strongly disagree with you and therefore have been doing nothing but going in circle and a dance I've been tired of preforming and leave the dance floor to you.
Riahuf22 said:I'm not going to repeat myself to you if all your going to say is the same thing over and over again I have no interest in giving you anymore attention I'll just let you deal with the fact that for the mean time you'll have to deal with class race restriction and I hope it never changes.
You have stated multiple times now that you would stop engaging me on this topic. Please follow through with that.
Not if you keep repeating yourself i wont, plus I changed my mind
And one of those comments weren't even towards you.
And another I can do as I please just as you can keep repeating yourself.
I honestly wouldn't have dared to quote anything related to EQN, even in their thinking process they never showed more than the wish to appeal the masses with little constraint and "engaging gameplay"(ie : breaking land for pretty much no reason except showing their 3d engine).
Of course due to it's history, I'm diabolizing a bit EQN. But anyone knowing EQ's history, and the game dropping years after years once sony took the future of the game in their hand, would understand why it had nothing in common with EQ, or any of the great ideas that were in the game back then. It was just a faint try to resurrect a franchise they screwed years ago and be competitive with every modern mmo out there throught "flashy things" withouth developping a stable and solid core.
The same goes for the whole discussion, it's only a problem because they decided to allow some sort of "multiclassing" (or class switch, I don't recall perfectly I was dubious about this one to begin with), which means they can't set a character in stone or it means they force players to start over (DDO made this if I'm not wrong, probably not the same public aimed). Permanent choices are a double edged sword, they can hurt misinformed players but ultimately they also sort players and can have interest if they aren't harsh and punitive. The question remain in what magnitude they are to be.
The roundtable is simply revolving around a non strict class design, which is not what Pantheon is about. It's fitting for games like FF's that revolve around maining one character and pushing him in every class avaliable, but that's really not the case here.
MauvaisOeil said:I honestly wouldn't have dared to quote anything related to EQN, even in their thinking process they never showed more than the wish to appeal the masses with little constraint and "engaging gameplay"(ie : breaking land for pretty much no reason except showing their 3d engine).
The quote I shared was a clear deviation from what you describe. Regardless of EQN being a complete bust, they did engage the community on various topics and when it came to this one in particular, they purposely chose to not appeal to the masses (40% plurality in one of the most controversial/discussed topics they ever had) and backed up their decision with a logical explanation.
MauvaisOeil said:Of course due to it's history, I'm diabolizing a bit EQN. But anyone knowing EQ's history, and the game dropping years after years once sony took the future of the game in their hand, would understand why it had nothing in common with EQ, or any of the great ideas that were in the game back then. It was just a faint try to resurrect a franchise they screwed years ago and be competitive with every modern mmo out there throught "flashy things" withouth developping a stable and solid core.
Of course ... it's diabolized because it had nothing in common with EQ. It was a flop. A bust. A disservice. When it comes to Pantheon, the echo chamber on this forum basically suggests that things are either right or wrong depending on how closely they resemble what was observed in EQ. People can go on and on with that if that's what they want to think, but I will continue to base my perspective off of the described vision/spirit of the game. For example:
"Our intention, therefore, is not to bring back ‘everything’ from the old days, but rather to pick and choose those which make sense and are needed to make a fun, social, cooperative, and challenging game."
I don't see how race/class restrictions fit those criteria. There can always be exceptions ... but when they actually contradict (arbitrarily) the fun/social/cooperative/challenging elements, there is a rise for concern. To you ... the decision is right because that's how it worked in EQ. A nostalgic throwback. To me, the restrictions make the game less fun, less social and less challenging. Please see my previous posts on this thread as I touched on all of those things.
MauvaisOeil said:The same goes for the whole discussion, it's only a problem because they decided to allow some sort of "multiclassing" (or class switch, I don't recall perfectly I was dubious about this one to begin with), which means they can't set a character in stone or it means they force players to start over (DDO made this if I'm not wrong, probably not the same public aimed). Permanent choices are a double edged sword, they can hurt misinformed players but ultimately they also sort players and can have interest if they aren't harsh and punitive. The question remain in what magnitude they are to be.
What do you think Progeny is supposed to be? I purposely shared the article due to the relevance it has with the progeny feature. It has always been suggested that players would be able to retain certain abilities/traits from a previous class and that is exactly what was alluded to in the most recent newsletter.
MauvaisOeil said:The roundtable is simply revolving around a non strict class design, which is not what Pantheon is about. It's fitting for games like FF's that revolve around maining one character and pushing him in every class avaliable, but that's really not the case here.
Actually, it revolved around this realization:
"Unfortunately, when we started developing the game, we realized we wanted to create a situation where our players were never forced to make a decision they would later regret based on knowledge they didn't have at that stage in their careers. During character creation, we didn't want them to have to make a decision on career paths they might later come to regret."
Whether or not VR shares a similar philosophy remains to be seen, but that kind of thing doesn't revolve around any particular feature or system. It's an underlying principle that could have an impact on a range of design choices. This has nothing to do with EQ or FF. If we look at the article for what it was, and the similarities of what was being discussed, specifically the example of how an Ogre might come to realize that they would like a bard ability in the future, and how progeny basically suggests that this would be possible for humans and not ogres due to the restrictions, there is a direct correlation. It's unfair for you to draw conclusions on what "Pantheon is about" when one of the game-defining features suggests the exact opposite of what you describe.
Or like I said earlier you can just make a RP all/all server and keep people who want to play that type of playstyle they can. Without forcing that type of gameplay on the rest of us who don't want it, it really is the easiest fix to this, I'm not all for separating the communtiy but this whole subject could backfire as if you make it all/all a ton of fans could be upset, just like if you don't other could, now if they do or not is another thing, but I don't want to be forced to play in an all/all mmorpg nor do I want to play with an ogre that just so happens to "believe" he can be a wizard smh.
Riahuf22 said:Or like I said earlier you can just make a RP all/all server and keep people who want to play that type of playstyle they can. Without forcing that type of gameplay on the rest of us who don't want it, it really is the easiest fix to this, I'm not all for separating the communtiy but this whole subject could backfire as if you make it all/all a ton of fans could be upset, just like if you don't other could, now if they do or not is another thing, but I don't want to be forced to play in an all/all mmorpg nor do I want to play with an ogre that just so happens to "believe" he can be a wizard smh.
You don't want that type of gameplay forced on you? We're talking about character identity in an open-world game. You don't want to play with an ogre that just so happens to "believe" he can be a wizard. But what if that player is awesome? What if he is an absolute blast to hang around with ... and if you had only given him a chance, he could be one of the best friends you ever met in gaming? If someone said that they don't want to be forced to play with female dwarves who grow beards, is that a fair request? What about people saying that they don't want to be forced to play with people who have names they don't agree with? What about being forced to play with male players who roleplay a female character? Should we dump all of these players on a special RP server to prevent the greater population from having to put up with their insufferable differences? I would venture to say that one of the main reasons DND eventually dropped race/class restrictions is because they realized that they were antithetical to roleplaying. Again ... roleplaying is all about allowing your audience to get involved in the creative side of character development and storytelling. Racial essentialism stunts that creative element and it's definitely more of a glaring issue for some than others.
One could make the argument that the "races of Pantheon" aren't actually races at all -- they are species, which then nullifies the racial essentialism argument. But let's be realistic here. They are all humanoid creatures and they are being played by humans. We expect players to treat each other with respect while we interact with each other in the game. When I see a Skar character in the world should I look at them with absolute disgust because of the type of "creature" they are, and then interact with them accordingly? We aren't talking about a "species matrix" that includes orcas, gelatinous cubes and dung beetles. They are all humanoid. Pantheon is supposed to be an evolved MMO but we're willfully ignoring what is widely perceived as one of the better evolutions of roleplaying and character development in online gaming? The game is clearly emphasizing a theme of humanocentricity by making all of the races humanoid. Racial essentialism is being emphasized in this theme and it does matter to a lot of people. Please see DND and WoW as precedents of how this topic was acknowledged as a legitimate issue, particularly for the open-minded and creative types, and why those games "evolved."
There is plenty of research and study that helped pave the way toward the evolution (in the specific context of race/class restrictions being lifted) of a game such as WoW.
Some published research on this topic: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.826.9123&rep=rep1&type=pdf
I don't expect most people to care or bother looking into any of that. I don't expect to change the opinion of others who disagree with me. I think this is a very interesting topic, one that has garnered the interest of researchers, professors, and scientists. There is a reason this topic "kept coming up" in the DND/WoW communities and it speaks volumes to me that there are folks who dedicated incredible amounts of time and effort to understand the underlying cause of concern.
I think creative expression and character identity are integral components of making a world feel alive. My interest in Pantheon would wane considerably if there is an effort to "try too hard" to achieve these things by enforcing strict/linear stereotyping just to make "the game" believable. I want to believe in the players, whatever that looks like. They make way more of a difference than any amount of in-game storytelling ever could which is why I am far more interested in an open-world M-M-O-R-P-G than a single player storybook adventure game.
Ogre wizard breaks my immersion of the game and I don't want my immersion broken so therefore I don't want to see it or it will feel fake
Plus I gave a good solution to this whole problem and you write me literally an entire book just because I don't want to play with a ogre wizard? Tough it isn't going to change nor should you expect me to just because it del that I am wrong for feeling that way.
Yeah and lets also get rid of classes entirely. It's absurd that an elven ranger cannot also learn some rogue and ranger skills, maybe even a bit of magic too. You mean to tell me that in all the time on the planet no one deviated and mixed classes/training/schools? Nonsense! Total immersion breaking. Let me be completely free to express myself, lore is dumb and shouldn't be used to make a world if it limits me in any way.
/s
Riahuf22 said: Ogre wizard breaks my immersion of the game and I don't want my immersion broken so therefore I don't want to see it or it will feel fake
Allowing unintellectual players to play races that have naturally high intelligence scores would be pretty immersion breaking to me but I wouldn't expect that to be artificially restricted. That's why it's called roleplaying. It should be allowed to happen, even if people are bad at it.
Iksar said:Yeah and lets also get rid of classes entirely. It's absurd that an elven ranger cannot also learn some rogue and ranger skills, maybe even a bit of magic too. You mean to tell me that in all the time on the planet no one deviated and mixed classes/training/schools? Nonsense! Total immersion breaking. Let me be completely free to express myself, lore is dumb and shouldn't be used to make a world if it limits me in any way.
/s
Strawman fallacy. To be fair, progeny suggests that characters will be able to learn skills from other classes. Race/Class expression is not the same thing as allowing a warrior to shoot fireballs out of his arse. Some rules can be justified while others are challenged. Nobody is advocating for what you're suggesting in the name of character identity/expression. You're just moving the goalposts of what is being discussed to detract from the actual topic at hand.
The topic at hand is in the same field: "I don't like the lore/anything restricting my choices or how I play/make my character." It pops up no matter what the design is, and you see it on these (and every game forum) for all sorts of things like not liking defined class roles or people wanting specs so they can be DPS warriors etc. "I want to do a thing, I should be able to do it."
Regardless, to have things be all/all or nearly that (at first character creation at least) would take dramatic changes to the world/lore/design.
We have moved way past the idea of these things being available at character select. You and I agreed on a compromise 8 pages ago.
Serious question posed to all:
What would be more immersion breaking?
A highly intellectual/seasoned player who roleplays an Ogre Wizard?
Take it to the extreme. Imagine an Ogre Wizard in-game ... roleplayed to the max as an intelligent being with a firm grasp on concepts of wizardry and magic?
Or ...
A low intellectual/inexperienced player who roleplays an Elven Wizard?
Take it to the extreme. Imagine an Elven Wizard in game ... roleplayed to the max as an intelligent being with a firm grasp on concepts of wizardry and magic?
Wouldn't immersion be completely shattered when the 300 year old Elf says things like: "Doodz, plz help me finish my quest, I gotta log off at 9PM!"
The conundrum for me is that the seasoned/intellectual Ogre Wizard is being artificially restricted from existing. There are plenty of players who could pull off that role with ease and look damn good while doing it. They would add value to my experience. Meanwhile, there are other players who take on the role of an Elven Wizard that totally distort any sense of virtual reality. Should there be a prerequisite IQ or Personality test that must be completed before players are eligible to play certain combinations in the name of immersion? Come on. Immersion is a horrible argument, IMO. Just because someone "looks the part" doesn't make things more realistic. Again ... World > Game. The players are what brings life to the characters, not some made-up stereotype. Cultivate that creativity and you'll find all kinds of interesting characters in the world. You can artificially restrict that from happening but you're absolutely going to chase off some of the great roleplayers in the process. The system, as designed, is self-defeating in many ways.
Riahuf22 said:So what wrong with having a rp all/all server and have both options available to everyone?
Nothing intrinsically, but we can't have every disagreement solved by a special ruleset server.
It's clear they're going to have a matrix, so the entire argument is academic at this point, but for me I think player choice should win out over player restriction, especially when the restriction is merely based in someone's opinion that they don't like the ability to choose.
Like, you can make the lore/immersion argument all day long, but as the game stands currently, it's Air Bud rules.
There's nothing in the lore that says an Ogre cannot be a Wizard. There is simply the lore as-is and a race/class matrix that doesn't include Ogre Wizards.
The lore is incomplete at present, and it could always be written into the lore that some few Ogres do decide they want to be Wizards. They haven't written that, and I think it's highly unlikely they will, but there is not a single at-present argument specifically denying wizardry to the Ogre race.