ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Preamble:
The game has quite a few classes already and we add new from time to time. But hey, edge's vanilla classes are by far the most interesting, varied and well-thought even though they often need numeric adjustments after release. Some other(mainly older) classes are slacking far behind them. Take a bulwark for example or a zerker - they aren't exactly weak. They are just plain and bleak compared to solipsist, pm and tw.

Idea:
I understand that edge has rl stuff and is busy overall. What if we compensate his efforts financially by some pledges? I can definitely throw in a few dozens of bucks if he remakes some redundant class as thoroughly as he usually does.

We have plenty of good ideas around but no one has been coding them.

Bulwark:
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=42715

Wyrmic:
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=3 ... 6&start=30

Yeah that's great you brought up those rework topics. If you were more observant you'd notice that I spent plenty of time in those discussions as well. It just turns out that everyone in the community tries to pull the blanket to their own side and everyone has their own vision of the reworks. It also turned out that if someone just braces themselves and makes a rework addon as they see it, in the end.. it's just not as cool as what edge does. While every one of us(including me) may have some bright ideas, gathering them all together in a complete and well-thought playable class is a totally different story.

Judging by the result edge seems to be the only one 100% capable of doing the job from start to finish and doing it well. When I study the classes he designs they just look like out of leauge compared to what the community usually comes up with.

Yes, the classes designed by edge are by far the most well-thought, but many people were involved in the rework discussion too, and thus the reworks seem like a collaborative effort to me, rather than being edge generating the ideas all alone.

The ideas posted by the other people in the community are fun too. In long discussion strings (like the few Doomed reworks proposed recently) we are bound to find some bright ideas that are definitely improvement to the classes, but unfortunately I don't really see "someone just braces themselves and makes a rework addon as they see it". Ideas are good, but all of them are futile if no one is willing to code them.

Indeed "Code is King" is an old expression amongst programmers. It means that no matter what great discussions you have, it only matters what someone does to the code.

I don't know edge, but most talented programmers have more money than time so pledging development funds may not make any difference. I would contact edge privately and see if funding would help.

Failing that, then your best options is just to get coding. Even if you aren't as good as edge, "some code" is better than "no code" and eventually you might level up. I've been a professional programmer for 30 years and I can tell you that while talent is important, the vast majority of skill is acquired by practice. Even if your addons are crap and nobody uses them, it will bring your level up. Someday you will make something great. There is no reason you have to wait for edge's (probbly mythical) free time

anonymous000 wrote:In long discussion strings (like the few Doomed reworks proposed recently) we are bound to find some bright ideas that are definitely improvement to the classes

Exactly my thoughts about a year ago where we started mindslayer and wyrmic rework discussions. Apparently practice has proven that in such discussions everyone has their own vision of future class and often they contradict each other instead of complementing. So no - democracy does not work here, community is not necessarily bound to generate a consistent design.

mikekchar wrote: Failing that, then your best options is just to get coding. Even if you aren't as good as edge, "some code" is better than "no code" and eventually you might level up. I've been a professional programmer for 30 years and I can tell you that while talent is important, the vast majority of skill is acquired by practice. Even if your addons are crap and nobody uses them, it will bring your level up. Someday you will make something great. There is no reason you have to wait for edge's (probbly mythical) free time

Unfortunately practice has proven opposite on this point as well.
1) When someone gets to coding anything related to community discussions and brainstorming, the most important skill is to decide which ideas to implement and which to reject. Coding itself is not that important, making right design decisions is. And visualizing the whole class, thinking over its mechanics, designing it is way more difficult than just coding it - that's where edge comes into play, he designs stuff really well. And yeah, he codes too.
2) I've been a professional programmer for years myself. While I can learn another language(lua) and code the stuff myself, I'm sure I won't be able to make this "stuff" balanced, interesting enough to play and fit into the game.

Well, since it will be an addon, people won't have to use it if they find it OP. Also, you can just open a forum post and ask for feedback on said addon.

So who made which classes?