Personally, I find such arguments against class based systems to miss a pretty critical point in game design. 'Fun' is more important than 'Realistic'. I'm not saying class based is more fun or less realistic, but I don't see it as a good justification for choosing one over the other.
One of the problems I often see fundamentally associated with purely skill based system is the inherent lack of difficulty communicating what one's role would be in a group. Say for example someone wants put together a balanced group of 6 players to go and slay the ginormous dragon of treasure hoarding. In a class based system, you are thinking.... Ok, I nead a healer, a couple of tanks, a damage dealer, and someone to handle crowd control. When you head out and try to find random people to fill these roles, you have to determine which individuals would fit which roles and that they are of a sufficient power level to be in a group of your scale.
Which system would make it easier to put together such a group:
- Class based: "Hi, I'm a level 18 cleric"
- Skill based: "Well, I've got 18% bandaging and 20% healing magic, but I've also go 19% swordplay and 15% offensive magic"
Of course, if your game isn't based around having balanced groups of people go out and kill things / quest utilizing their abilities to fill their roles to the best of their abilities, then this is less moot. However, I personally play Muds/MMO's for exactly this reason - I can get single player style gameplay out of a single player game. I would agree that on the surface, class based systems seem to compartamentalize content more than skill based systems. However, I think this is a bit of a falsehood, if you consider access to content as a function of time and player effort. (in other words, how many players are going to max out all their skills)
One could also argue that it is easier to balance class based systems. With skill based systems, you end up having to balance every skill vs. every other skill, or players will generally ignore the weak 'gimped' skill trees and everyone ends up looking the same. With class based systems, you balance roles against each other. For example, you know that a rogue should be less about magic and tanking andmore about stealth and damage dealing. He can have more weak skills than another class, for example, so long as the total package is perceived as balanced. Keep in mind that I'm talking about systems with 10 or so well thought out classes, not 130 crappy unbalanced ones.
Additionally, one system I've always liked is the TES/Daggerfall/Morrowind system which used both class and skill based systems. Basic operations like running, swimming, etc were skills, but then to advance in your profession you had to do quests for your guild. Levels in a class (or guild in this case) made a lot of sense in this system, because one could envision the guild structure only releasing various class skills as they deemed you earned them. I imagine 'real world' guilds operated in much the same way. In this system a 'class' represents more of a social structure with it's own graduated advancement system than a simple (and boring) advancement mechanic.
Saren
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