[MUD-Dev2] Specialization

[Raph Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev2-bounces at lists.mud-dev.com [mailto:mud-dev2-
> bounces at lists.mud-dev.com] On Behalf Of Damion Schubert
> Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 9:49 AM
> To: mud-dev2 at lists.mud-dev.com
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev2] Specialization
> 
> In WoW, the most popular class (the Hunter) is played by 16% of the
> population,
> whereas the least popular class (the Shaman) is played by half that.
This
> doesn't
> seem very balanced, until you compare it to, say, the early days of
UO,
> when
> virtually all classes had the melee and magery skills, and
'individuality'
> was made
> up of the 1-2 random skills you chose beyond that.  THAT was socially
> unbalanced.

That's like saying that because most adults can read and drive, that the
real world is socially unbalanced. Given a world where if you didn't
have those things, you DIED, it seems like a poor metric.

In general, this is a silly debate. A gamelike world clearly benefits
from strong, exclusive specialization, because games benefit from
strong, exclusive specialization. A more social environment doesn't as
much, because in a more social environment it's the diversity of what an
individual can do that makes them interesting.

So what sort of world are you making? It's about design tools for the
job, once again.