The Old Neo- schools.

[Losian]

Were some of those ideas eventually just canned? I remember a while back I played a neo-monk and I thought it was a MUCH More exciting way to do monk.. Which suffers from what a number of schools in Istaria suffer from - they're just plain predictable and dull. Monk, spearman, crossbowman, just a few off the top of my head.. They're 1.5 trick ponies, if even that, which just don't really pack anything interesting.. The aesthetic alone is nice for those who are really big into those types of characters, but there's just no much depth in the gameplay itself and some of the suggestions for neomonk/disciples and spiritist and such were awesome.

I know I saw some mention of spiritists having a neat resource-draining aspect where they'd micromanage that in order to fuel abilities and that seemed great - Istaria really needs school that stand out a bit, in my opinion.. At the moment too many of them feel like the same thing with slightly tweaked skill rates and such, such that some schools would never be played as a main just 'cause there'd be simply no reason whatsoever, but adding some more unique abilities that really make 'em stand out could certainly change that (and, in my opinion, *every* school should be viable as a main and not just relegated to a couple levels for a specific skill and then thrown by the wayside, that's just poor design and encourages bad player habits, in my opinion.)

[Alisto]

I think the lot of them (neo schools) are still on the Blight shard.

I agree, though - a lot of the current schools need help.

[AmonGwareth]

Currently the only neo school that was ever fully finished was neo-monk. The others were incomplete. The other issue we have never finalized is how to introduce it... remove the existing monk school and replace it with neo-monk or introduce neo-monk as a replacement only if you join the school new, etc.

The other issue for some of the neo schools was mana use. The client needed work to display mana. We haven't had that done.

There was a mixed response on the spiritist revamp idea.

[Quiiliitiila]

What exactly are these "neo" classes? Never heard of them.

[AmonGwareth]

Prior to the Server Merge in 2004 and the resulting upheavals (staff, players, etc) the original design team had done some work on revamps of several schools, including Monk, Flame Disciple, Druid and Berserker.

The mechanics of Monk and Flame Disciple are common-place these days in other MMOs (Rogue in WoW, Warrior/Rogue in Rift, etc) but in 2004 they were unknown. Use abilities to build up "points" and then use a finisher that consumes those points to do lots of damage. These revamps were never completed (Flame Disciple only has abilities going up to level 40 I think).

Druid was being converted to use actual mana as the designers thought that it would help create more inter-dependency by allowing you to run out of mana. Would also create opportunities for other crafted items that dealt with mana.

Finally, Spiritist was an idea put forward by me several years ago that would alter the school to no longer be a mage that uses spirit (which is essentially what it is now) to a school that drew life-energy from sources to power its spells/abilities.

Here's the most recent discussion about Neo-Schools: http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...am-Neo-Schools

And an older post about neo-Spiritist: http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ight=spiritist

[Quiiliitiila]

The most recent thread is closed, does this mean discussion about these classes has stopped and the idea(s) is/are no longer being considered? I would've liked to chime in with my two cents :P

The second link for the neo-spiritist brings me to a page that says I have insufficient permissions to view the topic.

[AmonGwareth]

I've re-opened the former and moved the latter into the Talk to the Team section so you should be able to see it now.