The Honeymoon Period

This is something that most MMOs experience from launch date to +/- 2 months after release. A flood of people get the game and with glossed over eyes they recommend the game to everyone they know. Queues to log into servers are extremely long; new servers get added to the server list and low level areas are flooded with players.

This I have seen and myself been engulfed in numerous times. (WAR, Aion, AoC, etc)

1-2 Months later though you suddenly see a dramatic decrease in players. Some server become ghost towns. People who proclaimed loudly for the game are now the ones that sneer at people still playing it.

The reason I am bringing this up at the moment is because I am being assaulted with this honeymoon infected players of Rift. People who have just started playing and those that have not played it yet but have become devoted advocates for the game. I get that they like the game or what they hear about the game at the moment but till the honeymoon period is over I am going to take what they say with a bucket load of salt.

Stab from the shadows

You've all seen them before or in this case not seen them until you suddenly see your character stunned and dead in a few seconds. Yes I am talking about those anoying stealth classes in MMOs.

The reason i am brining this up is because Guild Wars 2 has just revealed another class and that class is the Thief. To say I despise this class type is an understatement. Only game so far that I know that has gotten the class in an acceptable way is Lotro with it's burglar class.

These classes are normally high DPS classes that can pounce from total invisibility and kill you in a few seconds with out you being able to do anything to stop them. They also tend to get a bonus to dps with their first attack from invisibility and from the back. This is all supposed to be offset by the fact that they have light armour low hp. The problem is this is not really an offset since they can stay invisible near you for ages until it is the perfect time to kill you.

I do not believe these classes should have total invisibility. Slow them down when they want to move invisibly; make them slightly visible with distortion waves when they move; add a timer for how long they can stay inivisible; make it use up their stamina slowly as they stay invisible. Somehing has to be done to avoid giving them carte blanche.

I am hoping more info on the offsets of being invisible will be come available on how this class works when the class page comes up on the arena.net website.