Curmudgeon Gamer
21 April 2008
Gamasutra, don't BS me with RPGs, please
From Gamasutra:
I sure love when somebody looks at the state of things now, mentions a few precursors, and then writes some revisionist history, 1984 style. We have always been at war with Eurasia, as Matt likes to say.
What absolute bunk. What archetype is the ninja-jester-lumberjack from Ultima, again? And thieves in D&D and AD&D didn't exactly work like rogues and druid cat form in WoW today. There was no sustained "DPS". These alternative classes, even races, performed alternative tasks. Can we find a secret door? Call the elf. Lost underground? Hello, dwarf. Need to pick a lock? Call the thief. But when it was melee time, did the thief stick around? Heck no; s/he RAN. There were similar issues -- protect the magic-user squishie, bring in the cleric to heal the ranger, etc -- but these don't feel like they do in WoW. To heal in D&D, you had to back out of battle and head someplace safe. In WoW, in contrast, the healer is constantly dropping spells. And what's the difference between an elf and a Tauren druid? Hrm, one stomps and the other can make itself invisible when it's drinking to restore mana. Oh yea, and one's a cow. What completely different playstyles!!!
Let me put it more succinctly. There was no "threat" in D&D. Threat is, in a nutshell, the formula that makes monsters in WoW keep attacking whatever has caused them the most damage. If your tank keeps wailing, your warlock can keep railing. You have to be careful not to out-damage a monster if you're not a tank, else the monster makes a beeline for you. Keep your damage below the tanks' (again, oversimplification, but it's close), and it's as if you don't exist. Dungeon Masters tended to be a little less, well, formulaic.
Let me add to my succinctness... There were no quests in D&D. Oh sure, you had something random driving the plot, but tell me which one has a better, more memorable plot, Blackrock Depths or Ravenloft (and here I mean I6 in particular)? Why is that, exactly?
The difference between D&D and WoW is that the first is wide open. WoW doesn't copy archetypes; it's D&D on rails. WoW dumbs down role-playing to the point that it's more checkboxes than imagination (see my last post on plot again).
Ultima Online is much closer to D&D than WoW. There's no real class structure at all, which is what I was getting at by referencing the ever-popular "ninja-jester-lumberjack" crack from Worst Ninja's UO log. Obviously this gamasutra author, Mr. Hopson, is more interested in furthering WoW-specific commentary than treating each game on its on terms.
In any event, there was never any "difficult to design" hybrid issue for D&D. The players made hybrids out of every class to a degree. It's called role playing. That someone could now re-imagine D&D as such a close cousin of WoW should frighten those that like the "RP" in MMORPG. What a bunch of bunk.
(The "economic model" approach to party dynamics was about as impressive as the early statement I lambast, above. I'd be more interested in hearing how party dynamics and character creation follows the food pyramid. It'd be original, at least. OH, wow, everything works like money?!! Are you kidding me? This pseudo-academic tripe gives every ludologist a bad name.)
In classic role playing game (RPG) design, there are commonly three primary character archetypes: tank, DPS ("Damage Per Second"), and healer. These archetypes have their roots in old-school pen and paper RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, and were carried forward into early single player RPGs like Ultima and then into MMOs.
I sure love when somebody looks at the state of things now, mentions a few precursors, and then writes some revisionist history, 1984 style. We have always been at war with Eurasia, as Matt likes to say.
What absolute bunk. What archetype is the ninja-jester-lumberjack from Ultima, again? And thieves in D&D and AD&D didn't exactly work like rogues and druid cat form in WoW today. There was no sustained "DPS". These alternative classes, even races, performed alternative tasks. Can we find a secret door? Call the elf. Lost underground? Hello, dwarf. Need to pick a lock? Call the thief. But when it was melee time, did the thief stick around? Heck no; s/he RAN. There were similar issues -- protect the magic-user squishie, bring in the cleric to heal the ranger, etc -- but these don't feel like they do in WoW. To heal in D&D, you had to back out of battle and head someplace safe. In WoW, in contrast, the healer is constantly dropping spells. And what's the difference between an elf and a Tauren druid? Hrm, one stomps and the other can make itself invisible when it's drinking to restore mana. Oh yea, and one's a cow. What completely different playstyles!!!
Let me put it more succinctly. There was no "threat" in D&D. Threat is, in a nutshell, the formula that makes monsters in WoW keep attacking whatever has caused them the most damage. If your tank keeps wailing, your warlock can keep railing. You have to be careful not to out-damage a monster if you're not a tank, else the monster makes a beeline for you. Keep your damage below the tanks' (again, oversimplification, but it's close), and it's as if you don't exist. Dungeon Masters tended to be a little less, well, formulaic.
Let me add to my succinctness... There were no quests in D&D. Oh sure, you had something random driving the plot, but tell me which one has a better, more memorable plot, Blackrock Depths or Ravenloft (and here I mean I6 in particular)? Why is that, exactly?
The difference between D&D and WoW is that the first is wide open. WoW doesn't copy archetypes; it's D&D on rails. WoW dumbs down role-playing to the point that it's more checkboxes than imagination (see my last post on plot again).
Ultima Online is much closer to D&D than WoW. There's no real class structure at all, which is what I was getting at by referencing the ever-popular "ninja-jester-lumberjack" crack from Worst Ninja's UO log. Obviously this gamasutra author, Mr. Hopson, is more interested in furthering WoW-specific commentary than treating each game on its on terms.
In any event, there was never any "difficult to design" hybrid issue for D&D. The players made hybrids out of every class to a degree. It's called role playing. That someone could now re-imagine D&D as such a close cousin of WoW should frighten those that like the "RP" in MMORPG. What a bunch of bunk.
(The "economic model" approach to party dynamics was about as impressive as the early statement I lambast, above. I'd be more interested in hearing how party dynamics and character creation follows the food pyramid. It'd be original, at least. OH, wow, everything works like money?!! Are you kidding me? This pseudo-academic tripe gives every ludologist a bad name.)
--ruffin at 17:27
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