What was class distribution like back in 2000?

[sox7d]

Here it's very skewed towards solo and min-max classes, but what do you guys remember of the distribution when everyone was retarded?

[Nihilist_santa]

Lots of frustrated hybrids with loads of druids and necros camping everything.

[Nycon43]

Far fewer enchanters for sure, rogues also a bit less common.

[Rangerest]

70% of my server were DE NECs

[Briscoe]

There were a LOT of warriors, which is a natural class choice to make if you get home with the box, read the class descriptions, and want to play a melee-oriented class.

I feel like there were less clerics on live than here.

I agree with more hybrids and fewer enchanters.

[pharmakos]

way way more paladins / shadow knights / rangers. way less bards.

[myriverse]

This isn't scientific, but I have an old copy of my guild's roster from 2001 (post-Luclin). This was the class demographics:

BRD - ~5%
BST - ~3%
CLE - ~9%
DRU - ~13%
ENC - ~6%
MAG - ~2%
MNK - ~7%
NEC - ~4%
PAL - ~5%
RNG - ~5%
ROG - ~10%
SHD - ~5%
SHM - ~5%
WAR - ~15%
WIZ - ~6%

We were only in it to have fun playing the characters we enjoyed. There was no min/maxing or planning for raids at all. And most characters represented were created pre-Kunark.

[Cecily]

Was rogue main.

[Vexenu]

More hybrids, Wizards and Mages.

SKs, Paladins and Rangers (especially Rangers) were really appealing classes to the casual mass of players since they have a mix of spells and melee. Wizards were more popular then because people didn't understand the concept of sustained DPS as well as now. Mages were very popular because pets were more powerful than on P1999 and didn't steal XP.

Always a lot of Druids and Necros, just like today. Strong, casual-friendly solo classes.

Fewer Shaman, Monks and Enchanters.

Shaman were less played because most people didn't understand how powerful slow was, and probably wouldn't hit 60 for Torpor anyway. Shaman were perceived as just a buffing class by a lot of players, and hence not very fun. Monks were not as popular because of the weight limit (seriously). And prior to Kunark adding Monk weapons a lot of melee-inclined players avoided Monks because they didn't like the idea of just punching things (again, seriously) and by the time Monks got weapons most players were already married to their other melee mains. I actually remember a lot of original Monk players complaining about having to use weapons to DPS for roleplaying reasons. Enchanters were less played because people didn't understand the power of charm, and charming in general was more difficult back then due to hardware/connection limitations, lack of game knowledge and probably tougher resist code than we have now on P1999. Most Enchanters back then were just handing out crack, haste and mezzing stuff. If chanters had been doing the stuff from the Solo Artist Challenge thread back in the day the class would have been nerfed into the ground and charm probably removed from the game or totally reworked.