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Originally Posted by Cecily
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You sound like someone whose religion just got mocked. Or like an atheist with "because science." What specific lore are you referring to? I'm guessing... class design would come before lore. And any lore after the fact would just serve as an explanation. But, yeah it's really just an arbitrary game design. That's a not a bad thing. It does kind of derail your special snowflake discussion though, which is obviously way more interesting. Please continue.
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In all but the most rare cases(usually shitty mobile games) lore and game world is designed before mechanics. You may very well have an idea how your game should be played(like the extreme basic version before you add abilities classes etc)but to start designing classes without a creative direction is a really really backwards way of doing it(and would take A LOT more time).
The beauty of Everquest is that choices do have an impact. They did not design each race to be nothing but a random skin to choose from. Each races have a different kind of culture and the classes we can be is affected by this, as well as which cities we are welcomed in(before faction work).
In other words, saying it is an arbitrary decision is not true at all. However, unlocking race/class combos as the game went on probably was. Then it was all about making sure a very loyal and stubborn audience would stay busy playing and for whom making these weird class/race combos were the most fun. So even that wasn't really arbitrary but a decision made to make people play for longer. With it went class recognition and certain races styles.
Sadly this set the precedent for modern MMOs and we now have a market who cannot deal with anything other than zero impact choice and cannot live without instant rewards. When we end up with the ability to choose everything, choice becomes meaningless.