Thursday, October 01, 2009

Class Channels

There is one feature of Aion that WoW should absolutely steal: class channels.

In Aion, one of the automatic channels you join is dedicated to your class. All Clerics are in the same Cleric channel, all Templars in the Templar channel, etc. I find that these channels are invaluable.

Class channels provide a new or inexperienced player with immediate access to the wisdom of higher-level players of the same class. I've seen discussions on how to gem, advice on which path to take, and general all-around help.

I think WoW players would also greatly benefit from this. To have a place where you can ask questions, which is only populated by people of your class, would be very useful. Even the lurkers can benefit from seeing questions answered. As well, by restricting the channel to a single class, you avoid cross-class arguments and sniping.

In some ways, it's like the class forums, but more immediate. You can ask a question as soon as you have the problem, and get quick feedback.

The only concern is if there would be too many people in the channel for comfort. From my experience in Aion, I find that the class channels are mostly quiet, unless someone has a question.

9 comments:

  1. After they added custom and cross server channels, we always had class chat channels in EQ. It worked well. Nearly always quiet, but somebody was almost always on who knew the answer to a question asked.

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  2. I think it's a good idea. I have a DK (Tank) in my guild that is always trying to give advice on how to play my Lvl 80 Shaman, when he's never even played one before.

    I know he means well, he's not arrogant about it, but I would be 100% receptive to other Shaman's tips as opposed to a tanking DK who may have done some reading but never actually put knowledge into practice.

    I think it would help additionally if the channel was cross-faction as well.

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  3. It's a great idea that other games should implement alright. It's fun to get to know your class from someone who knows better rather immediately then later I've noticed. It takes effort on the person learning to begin with, however. If both parties are have a sort of mutual understand, however, the growth process becomes amazing.

    On that note, WoW should support a bit more custom channels then the standard 10. Especially with CrossServer support coming in Cata.

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  4. I love the class channels in Aion! It seems like it would be so easy to implement and it can really help a lot of people!

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  5. Hey I don't mind class channels, problem is that most players on WoW walk around with the attitude "omfg noob, l2play" ...

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  6. "There is one feature of Aion that WoW should absolutely steal: class channels."

    ^ This. End of discussion. There is no reason to debate it.

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  7. Not that I can see any bad thing with this, but I, as a sworn altoholic, seem to never be on the right toon, for example when asked for a group, 80% I have to relog.
    I'm not meddling around on my main, I'm playing alts when not raiding.

    So a lot of usefulness is lost here by not being able to lurk on the channels I have max-level chars.

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  8. That is a neat idea, and would also eliminate the need for newbies to visit forums outside the game just to know the basics. This along with some tutorials upon hitting the endgame (about stats and important raiding info that everyone needs to be aware of) would make the game even better imho...

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  9. The only problem I can actually see about this is the hybrid classes. I know I stopped visiting the paladin forums when the healing forums because of the in-spec fighting.

    I still think they should do it though. Maybe most people in the game don't have such a spec-ist attitude.

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