holy-trinity
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The Game Archaeologist: How DikuMUD shaped modern MMOs
Even though there are hundreds and thousands of MMOs spanning several decades, only a small handful were so incredibly influential that they changed the course of development for games from then on out. DikuMUD is one of these games, and it is responsible for more of what you experience in your current MMOs than you even know. Of course, that doesn't mean everyone knows what DikuMUD is or how it shaped the MMOs that came out after it. You might have seen it used as a pejorative in enough comments that you know it is loathed by many gamers, but I find that there are varying degrees of ignorance about DikuMUD in the community. What is it, exactly? Why is it just the worst? And is it really the worst if we like the games that can point to this text-based MMO as a key ancestor? Today we're going to dispel the mystery and myths of DikuMUD to lay it out there as it was and is today.
The Daily Grind: What role would you eliminate from the trinity?
MMO designers around the world have flocked to your home. The trinity of MMO roles will be forever altered, but you don't get to add or alter. No, you can only do one thing: You can subtract. Tanking, DPSing, or healing will be forever removed based upon your decision. This might not seem like much of a question, but think about it. Without a tank, all DPS and healing players would have to pay attention to what's going on, and there would be room for things like distinct pulling, crowd-control, or burn roles. Without healing, survivability takes on a different role, and without DPS, groups become smaller and focused on a wider gap between tanks and healers. Time is running out. What would the face of World of Warcraft look like with no tanks? What is Final Fantasy XIV without healers? If you could remove one role from the trinity, what would you pick? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Is crowd control in MMOs dead?
Crowd control used to be a major feature of MMO gameplay, so much that CC, not DPS, was considered the third element of the MMO holy trinity until World of Warcraft swept into the market in 2004 without a dedicated crowd-control class. Before that, crowd-control characters enjoyed an almost godlike status in MMORPGs. An EverQuest Enchanter was one class you never partied without, Dark Age of Camelot's RvR was infamous for its unbalanced zerg mezes, and City of Heroes embraced crowd control so closely that it named an entire archetype for it: the Controller. Not only did WoW begin the trend of deleting pure crowd controllers from game rosters everywhere, it also downplayed the importance of crowd control in general, so much that many of WoW's modern dungeons have little to no trash that'd require control in the first place. It's dramatically different gameplay from the style of the aforementioned City of Heroes, which literally threw huge crowds of villains at you to control and subdue in order to make you feel heroic. Are other modern games continuing the trend? Is crowd control, or at least crowd-control characters as we once knew them, dead? And are they a welcome casualty of the slow elimination of group-or-die MMO gameplay? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
EverQuest Next groups will function without 'the stereotypical tank'
The holy trinity has been a hot topic ever since SOE introduced EverQuest Next at last week's SOE Live convention in Las Vegas. The firm is clearly trying to move away from traditional MMO combat, and more evidence of this comes courtesy of a USGamer interview with producer Terry Michaels. "The dedicated roles of the holy trinity are not going to be present in Everquest Next. There will be different classes and different builds that are angled towards some of the roles," Michaels explains, "so there might be a class or a build that is more tankish but you don't need that person to accomplish that goal and content. You can go in there without having somebody who is the stereotypical tank." Not only that, but EQN is attempting a new spin on aggro in general. "The combat's very different. There's not the common threat mechanic that people see in MMOs where there is somebody who can generate enough aggro that the NPC will never ever turn away from them," Michaels says. [Thanks bardamu1999!]
SOE Live 2013: EverQuest Next's mechanics and more
Anyone who attended SOE Live this year heard quite a bit about EverQuest Next. Even if the upcoming sandbox was not the reason you came, you couldn't help but learn a thing or two. And for those who braved the crowds to attend multiple panels focused on the game, chances are you are still trying to sort through all the information and remember everything that was said! That's where we come in. After attending all the panels and sitting down with multiple devs, we've complied and summarized as much information as we can for you. Today's focus is on various mechanics (such as armor, combat, and classes) as well as a few other odds and ends we tossed in. So why are you still here? All that good stuff is after the break!
Tamriel Infinium: The Elder Scrolls Online is more than just dungeons and dragons
Although many fans of The Elder Scrolls cheered at the introduction of The Elder Scrolls Online at E3, the divisions within the fanbase since then have morphed into warring creatures like Godzilla vs. Mothra, and this column is Japan. Although all of our buildings are being smashed by the battling brutes, it makes for great entertainment. I'm cheering both sides on. I love a good debate. Despite diligently scanning my spam folder every day this week, I am still without a beta invite. I think ZeniMax is playing hard to get. I promised I won't divulge any secrets; I just wanna make my Khajiit Nightblade. Is it asking too much to get a chance to explore the Tamriel dungeons? Obviously, it is. However, we did get a taste of ESO dungeons in a blog this week. And it looks as if we have an exciting combination of RIFT-style classes and Guild Wars 2 combat to look forward to. Hopefully, it's the best of both without the flaws.
The Queue: The cartoonening
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Monday. Yep. JeffLaBowski asked: Is it me or has this expansion flew by? It feels like we are in the pre-expac lull even before 5.4 is out. Anyone else get that?
The Soapbox: The trinity isn't so bad
The role trinity in MMOs has gotten a pretty hard drubbing over the last two years or so. Ask a lot of people with knee-jerk responses and they'll tell you that it's what's killing MMOs. Well, unless they tell you that tab-targeting is killing MMOs. Or themeparks. Or free-to-play. Or World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic or subscription fees or lack of housing, or... All right, so there are people quick to announce the death of MMOs based on pretty much any feature that the announcer dislikes. But the trinity has still been falling out of vogue with players. Guild Wars 2 even made a selling point out of the fact that it didn't have a proper trinity, instead having a series of roles that no one seems entirely clear on. There's a very consistent idea floating around that a game based on the standard trifecta is in some way flawed or not trying hard enough. Except that the trinity isn't a bad thing. Tank, healer, and DPS is not a model that's lacking in some crucial area. And it deserves a bit more appreciation than it gets.
The Daily Grind: What would your role trinity look like?
The trinity of MMO roles is pretty well understood by a lot of players. The tanks hold enemy attention, the healers keep the tanks alive, and the DPS kills the enemies before the healers get overwhelmed. It's a functional system, one that's been used for years. It's also one that many people have decried as being stagnant and overused, resulting in Guild Wars 2 discarding the existing roles and replacing them with an entirely different setup, focused instead on damage, support, and control. But maybe you feel that there's a better way to split up roles. Maybe you think healers are outmoded but the rest of the trinity can stay, or that tanks, DPS, and control would be more interesting to play. Or perhaps you'd like to see DPS go the way of the dinosaur along with healers. If you had the opportunity to design your game of choice, what sort of trinity would you design? Or would you stick with the old standby? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Wings Over Atreia: Aion's classy balancing act
I'm in trouble now. I thought I had it made; I thought I was on easy street. I had one Aion character slot left, open and waiting for that inspiration. Then along came the cloak-donning, guns-blazing gunslinger class. Right on! I know who that slot's going to come 4.0. Or do I? Basically, NCsoft is evil! I had no interest in a musically minded class, none at all... until the Troubadour announcement last week. A healer! Come on, that's not fair; healing classes are my favorite, my passion, my calling in life. Short of a second Aion account, what in Atreia do I do now? This is not a good predicament for the decisionally challenged. Thankfully, at least I know I have no interest in the third class. No, really -- this time I mean it! I know, because even though I gave it a shot once before, I just have no desire to play a tank. And how do I know it is a tank? Elementary, my dear Daeva.
Choose My Adventure: A last round of TERA dungeons with Higiri
Some things are really just acquired tastes. At first they seem lackluster or even outright bad, but that's mostly because you need to adjust a bit more. If you give it some time and practice, all of the difficulties fade away. As it turns out, what seemed unpleasant at first becomes enjoyable, and what you mistook as irritation was really just confusion. And so you can tell others that even if this seems a bit bad at first, stick with it because it gets better. TERA's dungeons apparently do not fall under that category. This week was another week with Higiri, exploring the depths of TERA's dungeons, trying my hand at more tanking, and seeing whether I warmed up a little more to the experience now that I knew something of what to expect. And I definitely had a better picture of what was going on in the dungeon from start to finish, so that was excellent. Unfortunately, it didn't really win me over.
Massively Exclusive: An interview with WildStar's Jeremy Gaffney
Big releases from the WildStar development team at Carbine Studios seem to be few and far between, which is why the recent footage from early testing was such a breath of fresh air. Aside from showing off some of the game's role-based content for Settlers and Scientists, it also displayed new environments, new combat elements, and the unique graphical flair that attracted fans even before anything had been said about gameplay. We gamers are a curious bunch, though, and seeing a bunch of cool new stuff doesn't stop us from asking questions. Executive producer and design director Jeremy Gaffney recently hosted an AMA session on Reddit, but he was also kind enough to answer a few more questions from us here at Massively about combat flow, racial differentiation, and the usual character roles in MMOs. Take a look past the break at what the game will offer players when it finally goes live... which most WildStar fans agree can't be soon enough.
Flameseeker Chronicles: How do trinities work?
People have had varying reactions to Jon Peters' post on ArenaNet's blog last week, which explained the newest system of traits and attributes for Guild Wars 2. There've been all sorts of thoughts about it: that it's awesome, that it's unnecessary, that it's a whole lot of words to keep track of (I'm saying that, in fact, and I'm firmly in the camp of folks who think it's all pretty great). Specifically, the inclusion of the compassion attribute, which improves a character's healing output, has raised a glaring red flag for some players who are afraid this is the first step toward holy trinities and dedicated healers. I respectfully disagree.
The Light and How to Swing It: 3 essential addons for holy paladins
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome. Holy paladins have come a long way from the days of five-minute Blessings and WhisperCast. There's a good kind of complexity that comes from being given choices, and there's the bad kind of complexity that comes from busy work. The developers are constantly streamlining the game and removing outdated mechanics, and I can't complain. Even though addons like PallyPower made our lives easier, the new Blessing system is so simple that we don't need any external help to handle it. Today's holy paladin has different addon needs from the healer of yesteryear. Three of the most important holy paladin addon concerns are unit frames, holy power management, and raid-specific alerts. In Dragon Soul, there are plenty of important things that we need to keep track of. Raid encounters are only going to get more and more complex and chaotic, and we need to be able to quickly get the information we need.
SWTOR's Georg Zoeller salutes the Trooper class
He won't play favorites between the choice of builds, but BioWare's Georg Zoeller is remarkably open otherwise when it comes to talking about Star Wars: The Old Republic's Trooper in action. In an interview on RepublicTrooper.com, Zoeller fields a number of questions about the Trooper's capabilities in combat, especially in regard to how a ranged class can function as a tank. After struggling with these unique problems, BioWare tuned the Vanguard (the Trooper's advanced tanking spec) to be a mid-ranged tank with visual effects to show when the class was warding off melee attacks. "Statistically, their tanking ability is based more upon absorption and shielding and less about avoidance, making them the slightly more predictable tanks (Medics love that)," he wrote. "Finally, they are visually very different when in action, as most of their abilities are themed around technical attacks " Zoeller said that all-Trooper guilds are entirely possible, given the flexibility of the advanced class roles, as Troopers cover the gamut of the Holy Trinity. He sees Trooper healers as being extremely desirable: "Commandos are the only medic class capable of increasing their target's mitigation and receptivity to heals. They are also the only Advanced Class that features a 'smart heal,' an auto-response heal that triggers on the target when they take damage."
The Daily Grind: How do you deal with class overload?
As my guild gets around to signing up on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic website in the hopes that we can join the game as a group during the pre-order access phase, we're slowly coming to the realization that we kinda like playing the same class. As in, most of us. As in, more than half of us are planning to play Smugglers at launch, which makes for an awesome themed guild but doesn't really help us much in terms of class balance when it comes to actually putting groups together and running content. Granted, the new wave of MMOs is doing away with rigid class restrictions and holy trinities, but that doesn't mean all need for balance is dead and gone. So how do you deal with a class overload in your gaming groups? Do you embrace the theme or hope players' desire to be a unique snowflake will help them spread out their choices? Do you impose limits on classes and force people to diversify? Or do you figure your friends will figure it out on their own once they can't form a balanced group out of four Han Solos? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What was your favorite experience as a healer?
If you're going to play a game in which your allies will rush forward into their imminent death despite your best efforts, someone's going to need to take the task of keeping them from death. Sometimes the healer is up on the front lines like the Warrior Priests of Warhammer Online, but most often your job in the healer is to stand back and keep everyone alive in spite of their determination to stand in fire. It's not a glamorous job, but boy is it ever important. From games like World of Warcraft that require a dedicated healer to games like City of Heroes where your "healer" may have no direct healing spells, the third part of the holy trinity sees the least direct action but still tables a lot of responsibility. So what's your favorite experience from taking on the role of the walking band-aid? Were you stuck in a group with members who couldn't keep themselves alive at all if not for your healing? Or is there a particular game that always made healing feel more fun than any other task in the game? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What was your favorite experience as a tank?
Maybe you have a sword and shield, maybe you have a really high Dodge rating, maybe you have durable force fields. Whatever your qualifications for the role, you take up the mantle of the tank to keep the rest of your party safe against your enemies, whether they're gang members in DC Universe Online, vicious beasts in Final Fantasy XIV, or enemy starships in Star Trek Online. Whatever your game of choice, if you've played MMOs for a long enough stretch, you've had opportunity to tank. Of course, part of tanking is that you wind up with stories, in no small part just because it's such a vital job. You can't fake the experience -- you have to get in close and take the blows for the party members who can't survive them. So what was your favorite experience as the party's meat shield? Was it a specific run, a specific group, or was there an entire game that made tanking feel like the most enjoyable thing in the world? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What was your favorite experience as a damage dealer?
Out of the three roles of the holy trinity, damage dealers (or DPS, depending on personal preference) are usually seen as the most superfluous. After all, you just have to pound something into the ground, right? But that's neglecting all of the work that damage dealers actually do, and it's neglecting the fact that you notice when your resident monster-pounder isn't up to snuff. Just because there are an awful lot of damage-dealing players in certain games (World of Warcraft springs to mind) doesn't mean there aren't some noteworthy members of the role. From EverQuest to RIFT, pretty much every game has some way of allowing players to just rack up huge numbers and lay waste to the opposition. So what has your favorite experience been when piling on the damage? Was there a time that you broke numbers you didn't even think you were capable of hitting? A time when you showed your entire party just how good you were at what you did? Or was it a game where you got to combine your love of breaking things with a more party-oriented utility approach? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The MMO Report: Guild Wars 2 edition
In today's MMO Report, Casey Schreiner takes his viewers to Bellevue, Washington for a trip to ArenaNet's offices to preview Guild Wars 2. Casey talks to two members of ANet's team: Game Designer Jeff Grubb and Lead Content Designer Colin Johanson. Jeff spends most of his time filling Casey in on the lore of Guild Wars 2, detailing the story that leads to the alliance between the Humans and the Charr and the addition of the other three races of the game. He also discusses how the choices players make will influence their story experience. Colin, on the other hand, is more focused on the gameplay end of things. He talks about how the game's classes will function without the omnipresent holy trinity, explaining that classes can fill various roles, which can be swapped between in combat. Dungeons are another topic covered, and Colin explains the differences between the story mode dungeons (which are more casual, story-driven experiences) and the exploration mode dungeons (which are tailored for more hardcore players seeking a challenge.) For the full, info-packed video (plus an inside look at the swanky ArenaNet offices), click on past the cut!
