Warhammer Online team developed 250 classes, kept 20
by Griffin McElroy 
{ Aug 10th 2008 at 5:00PM }
This report comes from an interview with Mythic's Creative Director, Paul Barnett, on Videogaming247. Barnett explains that the Warhammer team got a little out of hand when developing certain aspects of the title, and that the team decided to cull their expansive career roster to the 20 classes available at launch. A wise choice, considering the countless months it would have taken to make sure that the Treasure Hunter, Gymnast, Dermatologist, Pastry Chef, Assistant Dermatologist, Chimney Sweep, and Librarian classes were all evenly matched.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jynxycat @ Aug 10th 2008 5:20PM
Even with 20, that's still lots of balancing to do.
I have faith though, DAoC wasn't half bad.
Jakka (Not sure why he got banned?) @ Aug 10th 2008 5:36PM
People always bitch but I don't think anybody will really complain about balance until the first few months.
Every game needs to keep going for a while in order for "unbalanced patterns" to emerge and there are other factors too.Like the skill curve.Players will always learn new tactics which once again will tip the scales.
Look at TF2.Everybody bitched about how overpowered Engineers were,but with no nerfs given to our Texan man, a lone engineer is now considered a momentary annoyance.How did this happen? Players simply became better.Same with spies.They used to fill Snipers and Medic with dread but now they're simply useless.
WiiFTW @ Aug 10th 2008 5:12PM
I wonder how many people they would have to have working and balancing constantly if they were to have 250 classes.
Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Aug 10th 2008 5:19PM
Remember when multiclassing wasn't some batshit insane notion?
uranutan3 @ Aug 10th 2008 5:45PM
Remember when every single MMO released wasn't trying to directly compete with the current most popular one?
Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Aug 10th 2008 5:52PM
No, not really. Because before WoW was the one to beat, it was FFXI, before that, Everquest, before that, Ultima Online.
Trying to do anything other than keeping up with the joneses leads only to broken dreams and empty servers.
Jake11 @ Aug 10th 2008 6:57PM
what about guild wars. totally different and it's pretty popular
Shagittarius @ Aug 11th 2008 11:20AM
1. FFXI was a piece of shit. No one tried to copy it.
2. Guild Wars is not an MMO.
Thanks for playing.
SantaDuJuan @ Aug 10th 2008 5:20PM
I don't see what the problem is Everquest 2 has 250 classes
...I'm here all week
Jakka (Not sure why he got banned?) @ Aug 10th 2008 5:20PM
Imagine someone making a full-blown W40K MMO.
...shit.
Alikar @ Aug 10th 2008 5:33PM
http://www.vigilgames.com/games_40k.php
You mean like that?
Jakka (Not sure why he got banned?) @ Aug 10th 2008 5:40PM
I mean a full blown one.Every unit,every race,every planet in the galaxy and every race fighting each other ,including a single player being elected as the Emperor each time.Sitting on his throne, he could wipe out half of the enemy forces with a single click.
Want a WoW-killer? Make a game on this scale of epicness.
Jakka (Not sure why he got banned?) @ Aug 10th 2008 5:41PM
*each week/month
I really need to proof read.
Hyams @ Aug 10th 2008 6:12PM
A 40k MMORPG is a MMORPG I might actually consider playing.
LaughingTarget @ Aug 10th 2008 8:05PM
I would probably play it if you controlled a squad as opposed to an individual. Squad-based MMORPG, that would rule.
theengine @ Aug 10th 2008 5:38PM
Of course the smart thing to do would be to simply not balance them... gasp....
I mean, as a army vet, I know special forces can beat the shit out of a medic. It's not really terribly balanced. To which you'll reply, why would someone even play the medic then, whine, whine? And I'll say, to enjoy a different gaming experience when the usual shit bores their character to death.
See, I don't even need you kids to have these little arguments. I actually sit around my apartment in the nude having youtube-comment fights with myself.
Jimiisama @ Aug 10th 2008 5:58PM
Well, when everyone has a different job, you need to work together for a common goal. So it doesn't matter if your healing class can't fight 1v1 against a warrior; why should he be able to? This really isn't a problem in games like TF2 where each class is completely different. The problem is when several classes that do the SAME job can't do them equally well; it basically makes a few classes useless while a handful dominate which seriously limits the playable content in the game. No one will play class A if class B does everything A does and better. It's kind of misleading if you sign up for a game with 20 classes and only 4 of them are playable (lol MVC2).
theengine @ Aug 10th 2008 6:04PM
Hey that's life, ok? I clean the toliets at Wendy's and I'm sure a neuro-doctor can do my job and his, whereas I can't do brain science. You don't see me crying about it.
I've thought for a while now that WOW needs both a warrior and a squire class. The warrior class would be better in every way than the squire. And I know what you're thinking, you're like but the squire would turn into the warrior, but he doesn't cause it's a dead end job cause that's life, kids. Deal with it....
Hyams @ Aug 10th 2008 6:18PM
Yeah, but there's a reason people don't pay money to play games based around cleaning toilets.
Games are about having fun, not about simulating reality. If you only want to simulate reality, why not forgo the whole 'game' thing in the first place and just live life?
Jakka (Not sure why he got banned?) @ Aug 10th 2008 6:26PM
@ theengie
You've missed a point in your Medic-Soldier comparison because that was a perfectly balanced equation.
The unbalance comes in when Paladins were able to win against Warriors of an equal skill, because Paladins are far weaker by default to make up for their magical abilities.Still, I can't really argue over WoW issues since I haven't played the game too much...
...but I can always spend all day talking about how the latest TF2 update ruined BB.
Psaakyrn @ Aug 10th 2008 9:36PM
A smarter thing would be to make fully customizable characters...
with fully customizable skills...
(in terms of balance, just remember that every reaction has an equal but opposite reaction, and work from there.)
Nadril @ Aug 10th 2008 5:56PM
FYI Mark stated that that article was missquoting him, they never "developed" 250 classes. However they did consider over 250 various classes.
Joeshie @ Aug 10th 2008 6:12PM
Man, I remember when SWG had 32 professions. Such a great freakin' game until SOE decided to change it into a WoW clone.
435 @ Aug 10th 2008 7:14PM
Damn, and I was hoping to be a pastamancer.
Tim The Enchanter @ Aug 11th 2008 10:05PM
Mmmm.... manced pasta...
Tonester @ Aug 10th 2008 8:03PM
Too bad %60 of their class mechanics suck and the other %40 are completely identical to each other except they call the skills a different name. This game is a joke.
jynxycat @ Aug 11th 2008 12:42AM
So it's like Warcraft ?
Ubiqutous Oxymoron @ Aug 10th 2008 8:51PM
I would wank all of the producers raw if they could give me a vampire class, and i mean vampire, not necromancer.
I remeber playing warhammer fantasy battle at the golden demon awards and spending 500 of my 1500 point army on a lvl 3 vampire general, it took on squads of mounted elven cavalry and fucked them good and proper.
i would spend 1 month per level.
t_m @ Aug 11th 2008 2:06AM
Shame. The careers system in the old Warhammer RPG was interesting, and would work pretty well for a MMO.
Instead of being a class, and sticking to that class (or making alts) there were simply hundreds of careers open to you. They were in different levels, and you could move from one career to another at will as long as you met the entry requirements.
It wouldn't require huge amounts of balancing, cos everyone would have different routes through the career system.
Yay! for simply copying the other MMOs and being totally unoriginal!!!
Shagittarius @ Aug 11th 2008 11:24AM
I completely agree with you that I would find this is more fun as well.
However once everyone figured out what the best path was 90% of the characters would be the same.
t_m @ Aug 11th 2008 12:18PM
lol. everyone in my group always wanted to jump straight to assassin... ;-)
I guess people always find the way to beat the system... but i can't help feeling that it'd become less important in a more freeform system... cos everyone could essentially build their character how they wanted... there's much less chance of a "best character" when there are 10,000 possible combinations.
And most people wouldn't be starting again from scratch, they'd be shifting their existing character over to the better careers... so even if a few careers needed to be nerfed, it'd be a lot less annoying for everyone... cos your character wouldn't BE the career.. it'd just be a small part of them.
Frankly I'd take ANY innovation thats offered... but i think i'll be disappointed on that front... but this kind of system does at least appear to have a lot of benefits..
(did SWG try something a little similar? guess that didn't work out so well though...)
Cannonater @ Aug 11th 2008 5:06AM
Don't you be taking those Pastry Chefs for granted. Everyone always laughs, until the run out of apple turnovers.
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