This is a very good explanation, or the best so far, I think. People always play the "good" side in MMOs for some reason, and warlocks are pretty evil.
By the same token druids are pretty elfy and noble, though... and rogues, undoubtedly the second most evil class have always been super popular for some reason (if not most evil, considering things like gnome warlocks are little balls of egoism and arcane mastery for its own sake, not because they're satanic)
I think this is also the reason for the disparity between alliance and horde populations. From first impressions you get that horde are the bad, evil guys and alliance are the good guys. In the vast majority of fantasy, trolls are orcs are bad (not to mention undead) and this what most people are going to think of. For the rogue popularity, I think it's the whole ninja/assassin type person that people like to play. There's a great draw to popping out of the shadows and surprise killing people before they can react.
Druids are, for lack of a better term, wussy. Very, very wussy. The majority of WoW players are young males. Hell, the majority of GAMERS are young males. Playing a character that is "in tune with nature" and wants to "cleanse the land of impurities" doesn't sound cool. It sounds lame. Sure, the class is pretty fun once you realize how it works, but by that time you're too far invested into your main character to really want to switch over.
I think a minotaur environmentalist zealot that turns into a bear is a lot less wussy than wanting to play Legolas, teen-girl heart throb, don't you think?
Originally Posted by Tzan
I think you're forgetting sex appeal and, pardon the pun, wow factor. Warriors, Rogues, and to a lesser extent Hunters are sexier than casters.
A Warrior standing around Org with massive glowing weapons inspires awe in the nonraiding/casual set. Rogues too with their glowing/dripping daggers and swords are impressive. People can try on the weapon, see the high DPS of the weapon and see themselves using it to 'pwn all'.
Caster gear lacks sex appeal. It's takes a much greater understanding of the game and game mechanics to see that X amount of +spell damage or +spell crit translates into something that's going to make you a god. And, in general, caster weapons aren't as flashy looking. (The Squid stick is funny looking, but not really sexy.) Compare Thunderfury with Atiesh.
Warlock sets have been the sexiest damn thing in the game since day one.
Every time a new tier is released people go I can't believe warlocks get an awesome skull hat/gas mask/black hole that follows them/firey demon wings/et cetera. Why does Blizzard always spend their energy designing such awesome gear for warlocks and making (X class that I play) gear look so generic?!
I agree druid sets are truly uninspiring but your "chillin out, lookin sexy" comment should work in favor of warlocks. We've beat everyone from Dreadmist on (maybe a few gripes about the stinky Jawa look of Plagueheart but other than that very consistent, awesome design) Warlocks have certainly had more sexy sets and equipment than warriors or rogues.
I know in my guilds in the past warlock shoulders/hats are the only types of gear I've seen massive competition for based on looks alone instead of stats, while others classes could not care less if they've already got the upgrade. Every time the Felheart Horns dropped off Garr there was a tiny war even when everyone already had Nemesis
I also think that despite certain disparities between classes both at pve and pvp, the class balance in wow is as good as you can get in a mmo and as such even if someone believes some other class to be more overpowered, he doesn't think it's THAT overpowered to bother spending several weeks to get it to 70. Especially when there's a history of overpowered classes getting hit with the nerfbat rather sooner than later. I just can't see the appeal to level a warlock because they have their weaknesses too, they will eventually get toned down if they don't and it takes a lot of time to level a different character.
Also, the pain of attunements and reputations has made the thought of having any serious alt almost forbidding as other people mentioned.
Finally, this is something personal for me perhaps, but I feel my characters carry some sort of history reflected in their gear and achievements. I wouldn't like to reroll now because I have a priest who is exalted with several pre tbc faction like zandalar or AD and that for me gives me the impression of having a 'complete' character compared to my shaman alt who I tried to farm herbs with last night and noticed he hasn't even discovered half of the burning steppes yet.
I am positive that class numbers are based on what people think is cool when they made their first char. As far as I know the class numbers has largely been the same since release, while class balance has been like a tornado of nerfs and buffs for the past two and a half years.
EDIT* I must agree with the 'sex appeal' argument as well. That could be a reason why people reroll warriors and rogues. I think that videos have some part to play as well, imagine how many new warriors were born when Pat PvP2 was released.
Because leveling a druid/warlock through the early 1-40 game is a painful experience, and doesn't in any way match up to the hype. Both classes are quite nice at 70, that doesn't really help you motivate yourself to get one out of stv.
I would say just the opposite from experience. Both classes have little to no need for downtime and have high damage output (feral in the druid's case), and can take on a heftier load than most other classes due to ability to make the green bar go up without the need for food and the blue bar similarly raise or disappear entirely. These two classes along with hunter I believe are the quickest leveling classes in the hands of a decent player. I feel their leveling speed is not really a factor, however, and this just sort of an aside.
It's likely the popularity just has to do with the first-glimpse aesthetics of the class being appealing and identifiable or not. Archetypes of the warrior, rogue, mage, and priest have been around a long time in RPGs. To a lesser extent the paladin and hunter as well. Popular figures in fantasy literature and film tend to fit in one of those categories. With a game population of 12 million or whatever it is currently, you're attracting a ton more than the tried and true RPG game fans who, I think, would be more likely to choose classes based on abilities, or at least factor them into their decision strongly.
I'm really just saying the same as some other posters in more words, I suppose . People are attracted to what's cool, and without researching WoW's classes much, words like "hunter" and "warrior" are more cool-invoking and immediately identifiable in relation to fantasy in pop culture than ones such as "druid".
I've leveled at least one character per class. With half of them I've reached level 30-40, and actually I've my walrock and priest at lvl 66 and 70 respectively. I admit that leveling the priest 1-60 was painful even if I were using a discipline/shadow spec, but only because that was my first character and I was influenced by more experienced people (which, indeed weren't experienced enough).
But warlocks... I mean.. SUCCUBS?! PAINFUL 1-40?
I've leveled my lock when TBC started and with her I had NO PROBLEM killing 2 mobs (same time, not in sequence) of 3 level higher when i was level 10.. at higher level I was able to manage to kill 3-5 mobs (starting with 3, than 2 adds) and I was using imp/void all the time (affliction spec). With my Felguard at level 40 life become easier, yes, but it's impossible to say that life is difficult for warlocks at ANY level.
Warlocks have it easy like hunters, thanks to their pet.
Now, I see the things like this: with my warlock I've done things that I consider really impossible to do with other classes at same level, and I've done them while learning the class, no help with tactics by warlock friends. But in 2 of the first 5 post in this thread you can read people claiming that leveling a lock, at least 1-40, is painful, or it is if you don't use you succubus...
I mean no offence to anyone, but people that complain usually, in my opinion, do it because they don't know what balance is and they do not understand how their class is meant to be played.
Being a newbie and start leveling a class means that you have to "study" it and understand how to effectively play it (and not how you want it to be played). Affliction lock can kill a rogue 4 level higher while they have pulled 1-2 mobs and have void out, but it's impossible to do it if you pretend to spam shadowbolt.
Basic understanding of how your class/spec works is what is needed, and I'm sorry to say that people lacks a bit of imagination and reasoning if they can't find a way to use it efficiently.
I'm still wondering why level 30 locks ever bother to have their felhunter out while questing... the majority of player seems to think "this is the last skill I got, than it's the better" (and I mean, i've seen them in zones where there were only melee mobs... but anyway, I still prefear a well timed SB to kill healer mobs than to put out my puppy).
Another problem is the killing tactic adopted. I've seen my guildmates complain about they're leveling being slow because of rec time.
While leveling my priest (shadowspec for leveling) and warlock (either when affliction and when demonology) I never needed to rec, or I needed to do it like once every 20-30 minutes. The point is:
1) An efficient leveling spec is a spec developed for leveling. Period. PvP or Raiding spec are different. A careful planning is needed in each of this 3 cases.
2) An efficient leveling tactic isn't to burst your enemies with all you've got, it's to trade the burst damage with the mana usage (for mana users of course, but this is quite true even for rage users)
3) Have a good understanding of what your class can reasonably do, or you'll have to waste hours corspe running.
The result is that for classes "easily understandable" and with "efficient easy-to-find killing tactics" the population is higher. Tough probably the "I think this class is cool!!!" factor is quite important too.
And by the way, people complain on everything because only the ones complaining write on the forum noticable threads... I mean, have you ever heard someone speaking of a thread were lots of people were praising the devs for their class balance? I don't. Probably there are such threads, but what people talk about are those of the first kind. And by "breakdown effect" many other start to whine without even analyzing the "problems" on their own.
I'm not really sure of which percentage of the class users actually share the opinion with the "whiners". And regardless of the number, of course, they can still be wrong (like for the "WF nerf" in last patch... I've talked about his perfromance with a Forte's enhancement shaman that I know, and he is still topping the damage meter (not first place ok, but he adds utility too)).
Now I'm not trying to incite any actual battles over whether a class is balanced or too powerful (save that sort of bullshit for the WOW boards.) My question is merely one of group behavior not matching its logical predictable outcome: given the similar trends in the past and outcries of "flavor of the month overpowered!" given to rogues/warriors/hunters, why does the population of warlocks/druids not match the hype? Given the very obvious "common knowledge" about those classes one would expect to see an influx of alts or rerolls so that the individuals complaining could reap that competitive advantage as many did before and become more powerful themselves. The reality of the situation, though, is that warlocks and druids both remain in the bottom 3 classes in terms of population to this day (not counting the paladin/shaman choices, which were each exclusive to a faction until recently and as such have not yet produced fair/stable samples for evaluation.)
Just throwing something out there, but I somewhat wonder if a lot of this has much to do simply with the changing nature/state of the game post-TBC.
When a lot of the Rogue/Warrior stuff was going on, it was actually after many people had already gotten to 60 and perhaps even gotten "bored" if they were not in a cutting-edge raid guild. It could simply be that when many people had little more to do than PvP and such, that their willingness to roll a new character based on percieved power was a bit higher than it is now.
After all, when TBC came out...I'd imagine most people wanted to level to 70 more than they wanted to re-roll from scratch while everyone else was in Outland. (Most of the people who wanted to do that probably rolled Alliance Shaman, BE Paladin, or swapped sides I would guess?)
Now that we are at 70, people still may be "busy"--and, of course, it's a bit longer of a leveling curve to go to 1-70 than 1-60. This could be contibuting heavily to people's reluctance to jump on some FotM bandwagon, so to speak.
From a practical sense of those classes mentioned, though, I would say that Warrior and Rogue are pretty straightforward to level compared to Warlock and Druid. Druids can be a bit painful if you don't know what you're doing, and low-level Druid itemization is a bit questionable. Likewise, while Warlocks are probably easier to get into than Druids, they do take a lot of attention to knowing what to do, and low-level itemization is also lacking. Rogues are quite easy to grind up, while Warlocks and Druids take a bit longer to hit their stride perhaps. (I think Warlocks are probably easier to level 60-70 than a Warrior, for instance, but a new person re-rolling may not realize that.)
Mage, Hunter, Rogue and Warrior are the most basic concepts in fantasy. Caster, Archer, Assassin/Thief, and um.. Warrior. Paladins and Priests are also pretty simple to get a handle on from name alone. Druids, Shamans, and Warlocks are more technical, and probably not going to be many player's first choice when presented with the character sheet.
When the BC beta was in its end stage, there was an unprecedented imbalance favoring bear druids above protection warriors. I don't know if you had seen how bad it was, but: They took less damage on a crush than the warrior on a block, they had more life than a warrior with last stand activated and they did the same dps as any dps class while tanking while warrior rage generation was nerfed into oblivion just a month before BC.
As I intended to level 60-70 as a protection warrior to be able to tank instances while leveling up, I was really pissed. I also hoped to be MT for our guild in the long run. I considered my alternatives:
*swallow it
*reroll druid
*respec fury
*quit
I chose "swallow it". I was right. Druids were nerfed hard, really hard just before BC went life and again about one month or so after release. Warriors were buffed with thunder clap in def stance and more rage. The situation is now somewhat balanced again.
It did look for a while as if things had got totally out of control with druid tanking, it got to the stage for me where I finally got round to finishing levelling my druid to 60 before tbc came out and then levelled him alongside my warrior to 70.
Quite simply, I had been my guild's mt since before we were raiding and if the best way for me to carry on doing that was to swap plate for fur then that was what I would have to do, as it turned out after a few buffs and nerfs, my warrior is the slightly better option to mt for the harder stuff.
My druid has to settle for almost being as good in that stuff, far better at tanking the easier stuff, vastly superior for grinding, a viable dps option for raids or instances or even a backup healer when needed to be, which doesn't sound like too terrible a deal really.
Anyway, getting back to the point, the combination of a personal investment in their main combined with the time required to level that flavour of the month is why current balance will never change anything other than the amount and subject of nerf posts.
I started the game as a druid, leveled it to fifties; after that it just didnt work, couldnt play in such a slow pace. It was possible for me to grab a few mobs, get some tea, come back, spend all rage in a few swipes, shift out - stomp - heal; repeat with something else than tea; and this was faster than the dps-form of the very class. Hell, still cant forget my 45 min combat with one of those treants in feralas.
Then I made a warrior and the difference was absolutely ridiculous. I attacked that same treant at same level, died in 30 sec, turned back and walked away. God, the relief; who cares if I couldnt kill this time. This was before the druid patch, but right now Im not even considering leveling that druid to 70, didnt even log that char once again. That, and I still believe warrior is a true hybrid in the game; more so than a paladin or shaman. Of course, conditions are different now; but no, Im not going back to druid, ever.
Trust me on this, things are very, very different for a feral specced druid nowadays, they are a grinding machine with basically no downtime other than refrshing your buffs every half hour.
I started the game as a druid, leveled it to fifties; after that it just didnt work, couldnt play in such a slow pace. It was possible for me to grab a few mobs, get some tea, come back, spend all rage in a few swipes, shift out - stomp - heal; repeat with something else than tea; and this was faster than the dps-form of the very class. Hell, still cant forget my 45 min combat with one of those treants in feralas.
Then I made a warrior and the difference was absolutely ridiculous. I attacked that same treant at same level, died in 30 sec, turned back and walked away. God, the relief; who cares if I couldnt kill this time. This was before the druid patch, but right now Im not even considering leveling that druid to 70, didnt even log that char once again. That, and I still believe warrior is a true hybrid in the game; more so than a paladin or shaman. Of course, conditions are different now; but no, Im not going back to druid, ever.
I assume you are talking about original Druids pre-talent fix. My first character when WoW was first released was a Druid - I levelled him to 54 ... and that was, by far, the most painful grind ever.
I re-rolled Horde and a Mage and the difference in levelling speed was astounding.
However, I now have a 62 Tauren Druid which I levelled to 60 after the Druid upgraded talents - worlds apart.
"Being a leader is not a position of power. It is a position of service." ~ Barestomper
Mage, Hunter, Rogue and Warrior are the most basic concepts in fantasy. Caster, Archer, Assassin/Thief, and um.. Warrior. Paladins and Priests are also pretty simple to get a handle on from name alone. Druids, Shamans, and Warlocks are more technical, and probably not going to be many player's first choice when presented with the character sheet.
This explains the initial class picks but not the lack of interest once something was overpowered to switch to it, though.
To give an analogue, Diablo 2 had the archetypes for barbarian (fighter) amazon (archer) and sorceress (caster.) Yet the first flavor of the month, due to the initial overpoweredness, was the Necromancer, the weirdest class in the game.
I know it wasn't an MMO or anything but what I'm saying is that I'm pretty sure people would switch to a "Qwyjibo" that threw bananas if it was overpowered and hyped, even if it wasn't their first choice. I'm not buying this "fantasy archetype" thing.
Trust me on this, things are very, very different for a feral specced druid nowadays, they are a grinding machine with basically no downtime other than refrshing your buffs every half hour.
It is so many factors that build-up the popularity -and therefore population percentage of each class: The seasons, the background of the player, playing experiences and of course the expectations, and hell yeah: the sexual appeal and appearance.
Timeline and Evolution
It has been 2.5 years since the very first day. The nine classes, each one's players have had their own experiences against all kind of emergencies in different situations: Leveling complications including the wayback world PvP which was the only option once a time, PvP performance at 1v1 and what AV has brought: group vs group, PvE role in groups and raids.
All these factors were the background launchers in shape of the classes into their current forms. With a class revamp that has been implemented once in every 3 months, the "groovy class of the month" mentality came along. Just a quick example, there were so few warlocks around until patch v1.5.0 came out.
Also, the first days of World of Warcraft was the world of rogues and shamans. At "World PvP" days, when outdoor 1v1 duels or ganks were popular, the "1v1 fact" was what making those 2 classes mostly chosen. But then Alterac Valley came out and we met the crowd PvP and all those rogues and shamans just noticed how their self-reliance on PvP fizzled out. This time, it was ranged classes rocking on the dancefloor. And a rotation has kept moving and rolling in until today, switching and changing the main actors via assorted reasons.
As a side note, the most effective patch moves were v1.5.0 for warlocks, v1.7.0 for hunters and of course v1.8.0 with the druids. Then the pre-TBC "PvP patch" of course, increasing the warlock, druid and hunter population dramatically once again.
Class Roles
Apart from the realities all above, my personal ideas are all the class balance results depend on people's self expectations. Just a quick tour into the nature of mankind is able with bringing the results of natural selection: The powerful is the stronger, and therefore is the survivor.
What makes a class strong in World of Warcraft is not the amount of DPS given, it is simply the numbers of utilities of the each specific class has. Also, the usage perspective of those utilities make the classes to be chosen for specific reasons. THE PROBLEM i believe here is and what makes the classes unbalanced against the others, some classes' utilities are multi-viable in different matters of usage and arenas. What i count is, for example, like the effect of an *ANY* spell in all leveling, grinding, PvP, 5man dungeons and PvE raiding role to be too useful and promising in results maths-wise everywhere and any time.
This is also what makes the DPS classes chosen over the healer/tank/hybrids. A rogue, a hunter, a mage or even a warlock doesn't have to respec for a specific aim. You may name this laziness of the character's owner, or you may name this love against that class, or anything else. The point is, a rogue -compared to an any other class- does heavy damage at level 10 in Teldrassil, as he acts the same role at level 70 in Black Temple. Fact is, learning and mastering on a DPS class is much, much easier than learning how to play as elemental shaman in AV, enhancement leveler and farmer on outdoor world, and acting as a resto healer against Kael'thas Sunstrider in The Eye.
The Appearance
Well, this is the issue i love most. This is also what annoys me as well. WoW is the game that mesmerised most of the newbies via its graphical beauties and wonders. I am one of those.
One of the notable facts is for sure, the looking of the character wearing class-specific armory and weapons. As stated above by Opioid, the warlock sets along the warrior ones were always the most-well-designed armor sets in the name of fine arts.
Some examples:
* A female Night Elf rogue in Bloodfang, holding 2 swords.
* A male Night Elf warrior in Dreadnaught, holding a Thunderfury.
* A male Orc warlock in Corruptor.
* A female Blood Elf mage in Frostfire.
The reason i opened my main character, a female Night Elf hunter was definitely, Dragonstalker. Along the attractivity of RP-wise epic hunter quest which leads to Rhok'delar and Lok'delar.
The reason why people don't just change their mains is because reputation, instance access and equipment in WoW are character-bound. Make them account-bound and you will see a lot more fluctuation depending on the current FotM.
That being said not all classes get "eventually rebalanced"... 2 years and waiting for an "oh shit" button that doesn't require heavy talent investment into the restoration tree and for a purpose for over 20 of my totems. /whine
I know it wasn't an MMO or anything but what I'm saying is that I'm pretty sure people would switch to a "Qwyjibo" that threw bananas if it was overpowered and hyped, even if it wasn't their first choice. I'm not buying this "fantasy archetype" thing.
If you had a class that threw bananas, I think you would get a fair amount switching to it as long as it wasn't too underpowered.
Two reasons you dont see people rerolling warlocks:
1) They can be very boring to level if you arent interested in being very efficient and taking two or three mobs at once. All you have to do is send in the voidwalker, apply dots and then you are left to stand around and wait for the mob to die. This is a very different experience from the other more popular alt classes that need to continually hit buttons to kill mobs. Personally, I like to send in the void and apply dots, apply dots and then fear a second mob, apply dots and then drain tank a third mob. This way my ADD is satisifed, but I don't know how many people play this way.
2) With TBC there is allot to do at lvl 70 and so people arent playing alts as much. This means that it is now a much lonelier experience leveling an alt from lvl 1 because there are far fewer people around to quest/instance with at your level. Additionaly, the players you group up with at low levels are now much more likely to be on their main, which in general makes them less capable players compared to all the people pre-TBC who who running around on low level alts.
Pain of 1-40 on a warlock - Standing there with agro trying to shadowbolt.
Remember kids, you are a new player with zero understanding of the game. Neither druid nor warlock lend themselves to "first time through" looking for quests and following directions. To say that their class quests are "vague" or that their gameplay direction is "lacking" is to be incredibly kind. Both classes have had _major_ reviews, several times, and both classes still have some issues.
Depending on when you look at it things are more or less painful, but I doubt anyone who follows the questline for a druid to 30 and then stops could give you an accurate assessment of the druid at 70. Seriously, 10 levels casting and running, 10 levels tanking, and 10 levels trying to _rip_ stuff to death?
Yeah, them furballs are manic.
Same deal with locks - 10 levels of imp, then 10 levels of void, then 10 levels of succy, with very little rhyme or reason therefor.
Hunters - at least new hunters, pick a pet once. Maybe twice, and they keep it. Some of them might try a few on for size with a stable slot - but they still have "Cat" or "Bear" stashed a way - old reliable. The playstyle settles in when you hit 10 and get your pet and it doesn't change. You can go 10--->900 with autoshot and growl on.
Classes with large changes in gameplay from 1-40 are going to be the ones with the least people making it _through_ to 60/70/900. I doubt many alts that are abandoned in the 20s are picked up later and finished - I'd guess the majority of the 20's abortions just rot on the account.
So yes, a well played warlock destroys stuff - but it's not intuitive to the game to play a warlock well. The game itself doesn't teach you good warlockery (in fact it tries to teach you just the opposite).
Yes a well played _anything_ destroys stuff, but some classes are taught by the game how to play well, and others are taught by the social support group outside of the game. The latter tend to be underpopulated in my experience.
I wish mage became the flavour of the month sooner ^^
On a serious note, rolling the "OP" class is just plain stupid imo, because in couple of month it will get nerfed or changed in a way its no longer op. Like it happened to shamans, double trinket mages, etc.
I've contemplated the reroll several times because I am of the opinion that over time the non mana classes have to take the brunt of balancing vs the mana using classes just given the numbers. Which I totally agree with, I want to own you because im better, not because I have this stupid idiocy where deathwish, enrage, pvpzerk all stack to make me a cross of Darth Vader\He-man\Conan. Blizzard definately did not do any favors to classes that might use multiple sets of gear when they introduced specialized pvp gear, but at least its much easier to get now ( seems druids might still have this the worst ).
Whatever the numbers say, If you took 5 of the best players in the world, and had them compete in every possible situation - 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, Solo, Duel, Raid, Heroics etc - I've got to believe that their score in this made up competition would generally reflect the population balances with some notable exceptions, like a warlock in the hands of someone very skilled, A warrior\druid with 2 sets of gear and the experience to tank, DPS and PVP well.
The other thing that has to skew the number is the number of people who have a raid character ( prot tank ) and a everything else guy ( fire mage ), like I would if inflation wasnt insane vs respec costs and the allure of a pvp mount etc. The ease of having one spec and one set of gear is very appealing to me. How many of the "warriors" are just people who chose that class when it was the Flav of the Week and through just pure momentum and ease of play are still playing that class, but would be a free HK for anyone who reads these boards?
I agree with the sex appeal part, look at my name, talk about young males at their 'creative zenith' ( made the name for DiabloII the day it came out, age 17 or so ), and here I am with that same name. The same could probably be applied to people who mostly like their class despite the few rage filled moments when they're wtfpwned in PVP. I'm still on Garona, which had the worst Alliance\Horde ratio the day X server was released, because it is home. We're stubborn creatures who are averse to change.
On a serious note, rolling the "OP" class is just plain stupid imo, because in couple of month it will get nerfed or changed in a way its no longer op. Like it happened to shamans, double trinket mages, etc.
Which doesn't change that people will do it, anyway, so it's not terribly relevant to an analysis of people doing it.
2:40-3:10 are relevant, but the entire thing is certainly worth watching.
I think for an examination of the mass market, we need to stop thinking from the perspective of the rich, and from the perspective of the mass market. "Why isn't everyone buying a Lexus?" asks the billionaire. (Common drum I beat, sorry, but the "average guild" thread demonstrated pretty clearly twice it needs beating - I'm trying to keep it relevant).
I think the "sunk cost" fallacy is the primary culprit - "I've already spent three months on my level 42 mage, I don't to do that all over again to be a super cool rogue!" Moving to the antecedent of that, I would suspect (from ancedotal evidence - about 10 people who did no research prior to character creation that didn't involve the character creation screen and/or manual) that the web design rule of "4 second impression" (or whatever the exact number is) is pretty much it. Whether it's a fantasy archetype ("I want to be Legolas / Merlin / Gandalf / Johnathan Rhys-Davis ! ") or some other reference ( Aladdin / Prince of Persia, personally ), something leaps out about something, pretty quick. The dagger icon, the mage staff, the priest's staff. Blizzard doesn't sell millions of copies because they're bad at design. At a glance first impressions do a lot.
The portion of the audience with informed opinions is miniscule. 8 million people do not read EJ.
Everybody is your brother until the rent comes due.
I still have the theory that buffs and nerfs cycle between classes. Every class had once a time in which they were (considered) to be overpowered and other times where they were (considered) broken.
That keeps the numbers of players in every class as even as possible. Because of that druids were so strong during level phase for example.
I think these cycles are intended and will continue in the future but will mostly come, once class members start quiting or some classes start to loose their playerbase.
Edit: Some addition:
Rogues and hunters have even with the worst possible specs (we had contests for the worst possible rogue spec) very good solo play and can destroy badly specced oponents in PVP quite easily.
Hunters often are leveled for bots. Also it is considered by many players as the best farming class, so being the perfect alt for healers or tanks.
Last edited by Hildegard : 06/03/07 at 4:56 AM.
Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Institut für Pfuschkunde
06/02/07, 7:51 PM
. People are attracted to what's cool, and without researching WoW's classes much, words like "hunter" and "warrior" are more cool-invoking and immediately identifiable in relation to fantasy in pop culture than ones such as "druid".
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