Unicorn McGriddle is a genius. This is taken from a thread on Q23 where this guy explains the idea of my “permeable class system” on which my dream mmorpg is based and that I tried to explain at length here.

It explains how I plan to solve some problems of accessibility of the game, and reduce as much as possible the “healer problem”, or, from a broader point of view, the negative, disrupting dependence on other players.

This is also tied to the ideas that originated that thread and that I mirrored here.

This is also probably the best thing you’ll read on this blog this year. It demonstrates that (some of) my ideas are solid. They just need to be shaped up by someone else who could “translate” my ravings into something decipherable. And somewhat succinctly. And not in a awfully boring way.

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Welcome to Overexplanation Theatre
by Unicorn McGriddle

I think part of the confusion here is an erroneous conflation of the Mage class with the Mage role. Here’s how I’m following HRose’s “fixed classes/flexible roles” concept, illustrated with a simple example paradigm for a hypothetical game:

Roles:
Tanks absorb damage. They engage opponents and prevent them from attacking weaker party members.
Rogues deal melee damage. They are fragile and must fight on the front lines, but dish out the heaviest hits in the game.
Archers deal ranged damage to single targets. They are fragile, but do good damage and get to stay out of the way of combat unless something breaks through the tanks and rogues.
Mages deal ranged damage to multiple targets. They are fragile, but can fight from the rear and are vital for facing large groups of enemies.
Healers deal very little damage, but exist primarily to heal party members. Though weak, they can do their jobs without getting into direct combat most of the time.

Classes:
The Northman: Northmen are savages, barbarians, and bandits. They disdain magic and heavy armor.
The Teeker: Teekers practice telekinesis, creating physical force with the power of their minds.
The Ghost: Ghosts are the partially corporeal spirits of the dead.
The Siren: Sirens are sinister, thin-limbed creatures that look almost human. Their strength is unnatural and their appetite for souls is alarming.
The Experiment: Experiments were created through reckless bio-engineering. They are disgusting but effective.

In a typical MMO, one would expect each class to correspond to a role or compromise between roles. Here, however, each role is an option open to each class…

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Five Northmen have grouped together. In order to fight their way through the dangerous Lair of the Yoni Ghouls (suggested for levels 25-30), they will need to specialize, each in a different role. They stop by a Northman outpost and grab some new weapons.

Stf-u decides to be the tank, so he gets a spear and a large hide shield. He’ll wade into the thick of things and goad enemies to attack him, keeping them at bay with his long reach and portable cover.

4me2poopon is a bit more daring. He’ll be the rogue. He takes up his instrument of valor, the twohanded axe. He can do some very serious damage with it, but he can expect to be hurt seriously in return. He’ll probably die the most often, assuming Stf-u knows what he’s doing and the Yoni Ghouls don’t break through and start enveloping back-row party members in their treacherous folds.

Beecock, the party leader, will be an archer, picking out key enemies and skewering them with his javelins. Aside from being pretty damaging, a javelin through the body is debilitating, reducing movement and attack speed.

URbraneONdrugz prefers the mage lifestyle. He stocks up on light throwing axes. He’ll chuck them into crowds in large quantities.

GW_Bush, last but not least, will be the healer. He’ll slap bandages on whoever needs them, do some hasty stitching if necessary, and if somebody actually dies, give them a bit of rough chest-pumping and mouth-to-mouth.

Now let’s see what another party is doing inside the Yoni Ghouls’ Lair. These guys are Teekers. The Teeker effects are pretty flashy, since the developers decided telekinesis should be visible and colorful and glowing. It looks cool in screenshots.

Biatch-Noggin, whose name is rumored to have been inspired by advertising agency Chiat-Day, is wearing his Control Circlet as usual. With this thing on, he can have three ghouls at once flailing helplessly as he suspends them in midair.

Farm4gold isn’t really a gold farmer, just a daring young Teek rogue. A Flux Spike allows him to make devastating short-range telekinetic attacks. He is fighting a desperate fight against the ghouls that the tank has not immobilized.

Fuck_tha_EULA is on archer duty, using a Narrow Modulator to focus his will over long distances. The Yoni Ghouls in Biatch-Noggin’s clutches bleed from their orifices as he hammers them like fucking piñatas.

Shitnrotate, our intrepid mage, has a Network Projector. He evens the odds by lashing Farm4gold’s opponents with meshes of glowing force. This weakens and disorients them, and Farm can take them down with a few hits while minimizing the damage to himself with a little fancy footwork and luck.

GW_Bush_SR takes the healer role, using his Ether Controller to protect wounded areas for the time it takes to shunt some lifeforce into them. Even as we watch, he throws the horns or something like them, and a bulky, glowing brace appears on Farm4gold’s wounded arm. After a moment, the wound heals and the brace dissolves. In game terms, armor is temporarily raised, then that buff goes away and the hitpoints come back.

Still struggling through the newb areas are five young Ghosts. They are currently in the Bounce Palace of Fluffy Squirrels (suggested for levels 5-10).

“Fucking cover me,” grumbles TiteBunz in a Teamspeak baritone as his big-titted but diaphonous tank trembles and dissolves into a loose fog for the third time.

“I’m trying,” says AnalExplorer, letting loose with his risky soul-sucking attack. If he pulls it off, he’ll be powerfully healed. If he fails, their foe will have a free shot at him.

“I think we’re gonna wipe,” says Prez_GWBush gloomily as she suffuses TiteBunz with a golden fog of reviving energy. Bunz recommences his/her attack, trying to draw the enemy into a frigid ghostly embrace that will slow and weaken it.

But the Pet Squirrel fights back. It manages a crit on Anal after his attack fails, and he too quivers and dissipates. Bush curses the cooldown timer on her rez.

ONoez, the mage, is of little use here. “I should have hit the rogue shrine,” he says mournfully, and nobody disagrees with him, although technically the game lore calls it a Shrine of Soultheft.

TEH-Hannitizer, the archer, is their last hope. He breathes a silent, fervent prayer, and gambles on Terror Curse, which at his level has only a ten percent success chance on Pet Squirrels.

It bounces. ONoez throws himself in front of the ravening Pet Squirrel to buy the rest more time as TiteBunz drops again, hissing “Shit!” into his microphone. Bush rezzes the Explorer, and Hannitizer tries another Terror Curse. This time it sticks, and the squirrel flees in panic.

AnalExplorer burns an all-too-rare Rosicrucian Resurrection Stone to bring TiteBunz back, and together the party runs for it. Once out of combat, they begin the trek back to the Ghost Shrines so that ONoez can change classes to something more useful. You only fight enemies one at a time in the Bounce Palace anyway. Hannitizer says they ought to go back to the Sewer Warehouse Caverns and grind more Limp Rats. The rest of the party agrees to consider it.

Meanwhile, a party of Sirens is fighting Acorn Bandits in the Fields of Lingam (suggested for levels 10-15). Most people agree that this is where the game really starts to get fun.

YeOldeTymeRP is keeping the bandits occupied as a tank. His spindly avatar would seem lost inside its massive suit of armor if it didn’t move so fluidly. He strikes the bandits around him with his armored fists, for he neither has nor needs a weapon. Their Arrowhead Clubs bounce harmlessly off his platemail. They’ll make fine loot later — most vendors will buy Arrowhead Clubs for 60 to 70 dorito yen.

FukkFakk is operating as a rogue, and there is a certain beauty in watching him shred Acorn Bandits with his razor-edged gauntlets. Unlike OldeTyme, he wears fairly light armor, and a few solid hits on him have him screaming for a medic.

EQsux raises his dartgun to his lips and pegs another bandit, whose eye erupts in a spurt of blood as he clutches it helplessly. Then the curare kicks in.

ALLurBASErBELONG2US, winner of a serverwide annoying name competition, dances through the bandits scattering poisoned caltrops like popcorn. Siren mages don’t attack at range — instead, they must weave through combat like rogues do.

GDubyaBush, the healer, must also be within touch range to work her magic (figuratively speaking). As we watch, she darts close to FukkFakk and licks his wounds lasciviously. They close up. Those wacky Sirens!

Lastly, here’s a bunch of guys who were in the beta — members of ForgotMyCondoms. One of the more powerful guilds, ForgotMyCondoms has gotten several server firsts in their time, such as being the first to complete the Grasping the Lingam’s Secrets quest. These are their mains, Experiments created back when Experiments were stupidly overpowered (post-1.1 but pre-1.3). Let’s take a listen to their Ventrilo chatter as they plumb the depths of Yoni Crater (suggested for levels 90-95).

“What are these things?” says Tikkelmypikkel, activating Fleshroots (which anchors him in one place, but gives him tentacles with which to bind and constrict monsters). “They look familiar,” he adds, as several are caught in his web of pulsing meat.

“They’re reskinned Limp Rats,” guesses ChoggleTime, his avatar’s throat bulging as he vomits a Toxic Bloodgush on one of them. “Remember in the beta, when all the Yoni monsters were rats? I bet these are just placeholders.”

“So lame,” jeers 80087355, using Longarm to send one spiny limb stretching out past Tikkel and Choggle to hit the rat. He impales it, but another rat attacks his arm and he withdraws it in pain. “Oh, so fucking gay! I can’t believe they made Longarm vulnerable to retaliation. Experiment archers SUCK now. I’m totally going to cancel my subscription when this month is up.” He will, of course, do no such thing.

GDubyaPrezBush, who is rumored to have a large number of alts on this server, steps up and heals him without comment, slapping a raw, veiny appendage slobbering with moisture over his damaged arm.

ePeen, their mage, barfs out a cloud of Serial Killer Spores and the remaining rats perish. “This area’s lame, guys. It’s not even finished yet. Let’s go back to the Hysterical Chamber.”

“No, dude,” says 8008, “this may be lame, but think how awesome it’s going to be when we finish it first.”

Ahem. So to recap, this system means that while class has an impact on some nuances of your capabilities, and a major stylistic importance, it never excludes you from a group. Anybody can take the archer role or the healer role or whatever, depending on what’s missing. No more LFG need priest, where are all the priests, oh god why didn’t anybody in the guild think to play a priest. It’s just LFG need five people of roughly similar levels and we can work it out from there.

These particular examples of classes are basically like races — albeit more influential, especially in terms of art and animation. But HRose’s “flexible classes” — even the ones in this example — are perfectly compatible with a more typical race system. Just read it through again and pretend that half of them are elves and have +1 to gay.