Not everyone wants to wildly mash buttons and destroy the targets as fast as they can. These are not some artificial roles that we have been forced into by bad game design… these are roles that fill our need to protect or nurture or support in a game. Additionally I have lots of friends who are extremely nurturing people, that will always gravitate towards playing whatever the feel to be the most supportive healing class because they want to in equal parts “nurture” their friends. I LEVEL as a tank because I enjoy tanking mobs, it feeds off my protective nature and I know many tanks that feel exactly the same way. We do not feel like we are forced into those roles… those are the roles we assign ourselves happily and willingly. The component that designers bent on this path seem to completely miss… Tanks enjoy tanking and Healers enjoy healing. My mind is filled with nothing but visions of the giant chaotic mess that grouping in Guild Wars 2 was. I am totally fine with not having a strict reliance on tanking or healing… but it scares me that they plan yet again to abolish these roles. Which always seems to read to me as the pipe dream of every dps that has ever played a game and been bitter that they are not treated as seriously as the tank and healer characters. To preface the part that scares me… they talk about a concept of “everyone taking care of themselves” and “No tanks or healers”. I have to say most of it sounded almost word for word like the pitch we heard leading up to the launch of Guild Wars 2. My rabid fanboyism from Friday quickly turned into quiet terror when they started unfolding their vision for the game as a whole. I watched this last night along with a few other friends and we pooled our comments over a shared chat channel.

As a result of their work I bring you the Class Panel video 1 and 2… and my commentary on it. I have so much gratitude for Curse gaming for having the forethought to record all of the SOE Live sessions that Sony themselves did not have the foresight to live stream over.

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