Where have class roles gone?

The mmo genre has changed drastically over the years. For me, the prime of the mmo was Dark Age of Camelot. I loved the open world, the rvr combat and most of all that each class had a specific role. You had classes that were responsible for damage others that were healers and some that were support.

Classes that dealt damage varied in how they accomplished that task. Some did it with long range single target and some did it by using in your face aoe attacks. That doesn't mean that the "in your face" guys were melee, although for the most part they were. That game had casters that would get in your face and use aoe damage to down huge groups of people. The healers ranged from the traditional healer who stands and casts to healers that healed allies by doing damage to the enemy. Finally, support classes. You had a massive variety of classes that were responsible for dishing out crowd control and handing out buffs.

The point here is that the mmo genre went from being a truly dynamic experience where the role you decided to play was important, to an experience that it doesn't matter what you choose, everyone does the same thing. Lets look at World of Warcraft as an example, not because I don't like the game but because they have had the biggest impact on this genre. As you go through the different classes for pvp, you'll notice that the only difference between them is how they do damage or how they heal. A rouge and a priest couldn't be more different in theory. However, they can both deal damage and can both heal during combat. The major difference is one does melee damage and one casts spells. Both classes even have several forms of crowd control. In theory you would normally think of the rouge as a class that would sneak up on a target, stun them and do damage. A WoW rouge does that, but they also heal more than most other classes, even classes that are supposed to heal like the priest.

What happened to the good times? Will there ever be a role specific game again or have games like WoW taken this genre so far in the wrong direction that there's no coming back? I think that Rift tried to combat this with their class system. I personally think it was a brilliant system. As a mage, you had to decide if you wanted to be a healer, crowd control specialist or a damage dealer. No one person could do all of them or even do two of them well. Unfortunately, Rift didn't do well and people quickly flocked back to WoW.

So, will we ever get out of this "everyone can do everything" rut? My answer is no. I think at this point even if game developers try to push us back in the right direction, the players have been conditioned to want everything. People wont be happy with having to decide on one style of play when WoW offers them anything they want. I genuinely hope that things will change and fast. I love the mmo genre and I want to see it make a turn around to when the games were actually team based and required thought and planning. What do you think, will that ever happen? Do you want that to happen? Share your opinions on the state of gaming, even if it's not an mmo.