iGame Radio

Spiderweb Software master Jeff Vogel posted another developer diary about his upcoming game Avadon, this time about the character classes within the game. Because Avadon is using a new type of character class, a class-based system, Vogel has been putting a great deal of thought into what makes a character class.

Based on his musings, Avadon’s character classes will all be able to both deal damage and protect themselves, but each needed to have some unique features to discern themselves from the others. One of my favorites is the Shadowwalker, which includes the ability to teleport. Vogel said it introduced some tricky programming issues, but it was worth the trouble.

An excerpt:

So Those Are the Classes

Your party will usually have three characters: Your main character, and two others selected from the four helpers available to you, one from each class. (And each with his or her own personality, opinions, and goals.) I’ve tried to make a good mix of familiar and unusual, combat and melee, with a bit of blatant (but fun) fan service thrown in. I still have months of balance work ahead of me to make sure each class is distinct, useful, and fun, but so far, in practice, the system seems to be working very well in practice.