I still dont get how people think they need to level up. Doing 100 damage to a 1000hp mob or doing 1000 damage to a 10000hp mob.
Is it the bigger numbers that makes people happy? Is it that you can show off how much you played? Why do people need to grow stronger when the truth is, that you arent getting really stronger as the enemies grow the same while you just make older content obsolete.
I've always thought that this is a cheap way of fulfilling your "hero's journey", in that your character starts off in low-level areas where mobs are challenging, goes adventuring through the world, and returns changed (able to easily defeat those mobs).
Unfortunately, such steep vertical progression (as it exists in these games today) ignores the many interesting ways in which a character can change and develop. Instead of timidly curious, innocent Bilbo leaving the Shire and returning as a far more confident, somewhat solemn, and very loot-laden hobbit, we get Bilbo leaving the Shire and returning as Gandalf.
I must say, I also don't like the way some games/devs frame horizontal progression these days. Vertical progression is about acquiring new items with new stats, so horizontal progression becomes acquiring new items with the same stats. Unsurprisingly, people aren't as interested. But, as others have pointed out, there is so much more that can be done in terms of character progression that goes beyond the look of your armor or sword.
I've often wondered about changing game assets as a way to show progression. Say your character first enters the Wilds, and sees wolves that all look the same, but as your skill in hunting/tracking increases the wolves are loaded with different features allowing you to differentiate the alpha from others in the pack, or even different sub-species. Apply this idea to every element of the game, and you can imagine how your characters view of the world changes over time. Grouping, in this context, would mean bringing people along who might notice things you'd completely miss.
Wow, this is a marvelous idea.
I'm trying to expand this idea into possibilities, and I'm thinking that the player might need to hold a certain key down to see the differences. For example, if a player has learned an ancient language, he wouldn't know that what he saw was in said ancient language if it showed to him as normal. So he would see it as the ancient language until he holds that key down, or maybe uses a spell-like effect that reveals all things he's learned for a short time. No cost or limit, just functions on use. Like a toggle with a timer on it.
Or better yet, design it to work both ways depending on what it is. Because I really like your idea of visually seeing the Alpha Male.
Apply this to things like detecting traps, having traps glow slightly and be more defined. I think this has been done in SP games. And a wide range of "knowledge" to the player that reacts like this for those players only.
Dammam's post reminds me that socialization often involves special skills that are shared. It's in there already in the form of "the Trinity", but that's so basic and doesn't really involve anything social beyond just being there as a formula. But with a much wider range of such "uniqueness", there would be a need for a much wider range of players you know. And this is getting into "trust" territory much more. So it incentivizes larger social groupings such as Player Cities.
Some great ideas here, the problem is that so few have been seen in MMOs, or if they have the concept is only seen in one place. Gamers go by what they experience and developers go by what they see being done. Getting anything new gameplay wise of the ground is incredibly uphill. Many relatively simple ideas like a level buddy system which aids grouping never became universal, that's why I don't have much hope for more elaborate schemes. That said it would only take one game using such ideas to be a run away success and then everyone would be making them.
The problem with ideas, is that there could be the best idea ever.. yet if it's poorly implemented, it still fails.
Now, for me, The end result is, is there are a huge number of people in MMO's that I would never associate with in RL, that I ended up putting up with, and dealing with them, for the loot, often for Raids and such.. and really.. I'm done with that shit.
This is why The second players are not forced to deal with those kinds of people, they won't.
This is also why, when it comes to PUGs, you get the quiet groups of really skilled players, they don't want to deal with people, because the more people they deal with, the bigger the chance to end up with an asshole. So they say nothing. "Get in, Get it Done, Get Gone" and not need to bother themselves to discover if anyone in the group was a raging asshat or not.
These things are not done because people want a silent, lonely, solo, gameplay time, they want social in their game, this is why they chat on Discord, and Teamspeak, and many other social platforms, they just want that be under their control, where they are being social on their own terms, not because they are locked into a 2 hour saga of an asshat screaming at them... Like So.
So when you figure out how to fix that.. let me know.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I've often wondered about changing game assets as a way to show progression. Say your character first enters the Wilds, and sees wolves that all look the same, but as your skill in hunting/tracking increases the wolves are loaded with different features allowing you to differentiate the alpha from others in the pack, or even different sub-species. Apply this idea to every element of the game, and you can imagine how your characters view of the world changes over time. Grouping, in this context, would mean bringing people along who might notice things you'd completely miss.
Wow, this is a marvelous idea.
I'm trying to expand this idea into possibilities, and I'm thinking that the player might need to hold a certain key down to see the differences. For example, if a player has learned an ancient language, he wouldn't know that what he saw was in said ancient language if it showed to him as normal. So he would see it as the ancient language until he holds that key down, or maybe uses a spell-like effect that reveals all things he's learned for a short time. No cost or limit, just functions on use. Like a toggle with a timer on it.
Or better yet, design it to work both ways depending on what it is. Because I really like your idea of visually seeing the Alpha Male.
Apply this to things like detecting traps, having traps glow slightly and be more defined. I think this has been done in SP games. And a wide range of "knowledge" to the player that reacts like this for those players only.
I also like the idea, but I also think I believe I have seen something similar, just in a very basic way.
Iirc, SWTOR had something like this. Depending on what crafting trade you had, you could see and do different things within some of the dungeons. I don't remember using it much, primarily because the game was so heavily based on vertical progression that after you completed a dungeon once, you never revisited it because there was no need.
The main thing I can remember it being used for was opening up shortcuts. If you had a tech crafter with you, that person could restart a bit of equipment that knocked down a wall, or opened a door to a room with something in it.
With any talk of asymmetric skill / ability design, you have to really consider the content that makes use of these skills. You need to make these skills useful and interesting, but at the same time you probably shouldn't make them mandatory as you don't want block progression if a certain skill isn't present. My preferred option is for these sorts of abilities to open up tactical options.
For example, there is a group quest to kill an Orc boss inside an Orc camp.
With just the normal players, you would have the "brute force" tactic: bang down the front door, kill everyone, fight the boss.
With a stealther with you, perhaps they (and only they) can spot and open a secret door, letting the group bypass the main gates.
With a "charmer" (don't know what I'd call it), perhaps that person could instead talk to / bribe / charm the guards on the gate, allowing us to bypass that fortifaction so we can get behind enemy lines before springing our attack (the trojan horse method...).
With a trapper, perhaps you can avoid some of the environmental dangers of the orc fort, avoiding mines / caltrops or being able to spot machines of war (like ballistas built into walls) so that we could avoid damage from them somehow.
With a ranger who knows animals, perhaps he could prepare us with tonics that confuse wolves, so as we assault the base we have to face less enemies because the wolves won't come near us.
LotRO did a little bit of this, but the skills were really minor. Hunters were able to track animals (great for hunting down named mobs) and teleport the whole group. Captains could also summon group members to themselves. But that was about it. The hunter's tracking skill lost most of it's purpose about 9 months after launch when they changed how crafting worked. The teleporting was still useful at times tho.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I still dont get how people think they need to level up. Doing 100 damage to a 1000hp mob or doing 1000 damage to a 10000hp mob.
Is it the bigger numbers that makes people happy? Is it that you can show off how much you played? Why do people need to grow stronger when the truth is, that you arent getting really stronger as the enemies grow the same while you just make older content obsolete.
I've always thought that this is a cheap way of fulfilling your "hero's journey", in that your character starts off in low-level areas where mobs are challenging, goes adventuring through the world, and returns changed (able to easily defeat those mobs).
Unfortunately, such steep vertical progression (as it exists in these games today) ignores the many interesting ways in which a character can change and develop. Instead of timidly curious, innocent Bilbo leaving the Shire and returning as a far more confident, somewhat solemn, and very loot-laden hobbit, we get Bilbo leaving the Shire and returning as Gandalf.
I must say, I also don't like the way some games/devs frame horizontal progression these days. Vertical progression is about acquiring new items with new stats, so horizontal progression becomes acquiring new items with the same stats. Unsurprisingly, people aren't as interested. But, as others have pointed out, there is so much more that can be done in terms of character progression that goes beyond the look of your armor or sword.
I've often wondered about changing game assets as a way to show progression. Say your character first enters the Wilds, and sees wolves that all look the same, but as your skill in hunting/tracking increases the wolves are loaded with different features allowing you to differentiate the alpha from others in the pack, or even different sub-species. Apply this idea to every element of the game, and you can imagine how your characters view of the world changes over time. Grouping, in this context, would mean bringing people along who might notice things you'd completely miss.
Wow, this is a marvelous idea.
I'm trying to expand this idea into possibilities, and I'm thinking that the player might need to hold a certain key down to see the differences. For example, if a player has learned an ancient language, he wouldn't know that what he saw was in said ancient language if it showed to him as normal. So he would see it as the ancient language until he holds that key down, or maybe uses a spell-like effect that reveals all things he's learned for a short time. No cost or limit, just functions on use. Like a toggle with a timer on it.
Or better yet, design it to work both ways depending on what it is. Because I really like your idea of visually seeing the Alpha Male.
Apply this to things like detecting traps, having traps glow slightly and be more defined. I think this has been done in SP games. And a wide range of "knowledge" to the player that reacts like this for those players only.
Sure, I think it depends on the particular skill. I imagine if my character learned to decipher ancient runes, he would still need to actively translate them and a skill to do that would work. There could be an inspect or analyze action that you can perform to study or figure something out. In other cases, things can be differentiated by a type of font or color. Say chatting with NPCs in their language, once you've learned it. In both cases, you wouldn't go from no knowledge to fluency. Instead, there is a gradual shift. Maybe you analyze the runes and make out a few words. Or only pick up on a few words said in a different language.
But this idea of changing assets doesn't only pertain to visuals. Imagine if your character spent a lot of time in dungeons and began to develop an intuition for impending danger, the game might begin to clue you in by mixing in audio cues that you otherwise wouldn't have. These can be more or less subtle, or even wrong (your character might be a little paranoid after a past experience) but they alert you to something and you might then notify the group. Maybe you are very hard to sneak up on, or maybe you are just really jumpy.
I've just wondered about a game that starts with little contrast or variety in visuals and sounds, and then develops depth as you progress to reveal somethings and hide others. By the end, the appearance of the game reflects your particular journey through it.
With any talk of asymmetric skill / ability design, you have to really consider the content that makes use of these skills. You need to make these skills useful and interesting, but at the same time you probably shouldn't make them mandatory as you don't want block progression if a certain skill isn't present. My preferred option is for these sorts of abilities to open up tactical options.
[...]
I don't disagree. I think it really depends on what progress means in the context of a particular game. To the extent that a game requires you to defeat a specific enemy, acquire a specific item, gain access to a specific location, etc., gating this content behind a specific skill or set of skills will be a problem.
In a way, though, you can say that this is what has happened with all of these games. Maybe progress is not gated behind a hunter's tracking skill, but it is gated behind having enough ranged dps or aoe tanking or dispels... Ideally, if plan A fails, you go for plan B, or try to find a plan C. But once plan C is shown to be optimal, that becomes the only plan.
The personal growth of a character is oddly streamlined these day because it is tied to an external path of progress. You pick a set of talents and skills that optimizes your performance in a specifically needed role. But what if progress wasn't defined by killing all the bosses or acquiring a particular armor set? Of course, this is all easier to speculate about than implement, but you can imagine that if what it means to progress in the game is changed, the nature of player interaction with the game world and with other players would also change.
Some great ideas here, the problem is that so few have been seen in MMOs, or if they have the concept is only seen in one place. Gamers go by what they experience and developers go by what they see being done. Getting anything new gameplay wise of the ground is incredibly uphill. Many relatively simple ideas like a level buddy system which aids grouping never became universal, that's why I don't have much hope for more elaborate schemes. That said it would only take one game using such ideas to be a run away success and then everyone would be making them.
One reason I believe in horizontal progression is that challenge in the open world can be based on skill allowing all to participate who are skilled enough within reason. You can do this with vertical progression but you usually progress past content. It goes deeper into how MMORPG and their worlds are designed in vertical progression.
In a horizontal progressed game you generally have challenge instead of levels. Around most main cities and main roads you'll have easy content representing civilization. Of course exotic cities have challenging areas. Deep wilds should be tough for best armed and skilled. Exotic areas should require groups to navigate.
If MMORPG were or could be more grounded you could have combat that focused on strategies and position vs. tank magnets or blast down gameplay.
Different NPC types have different attack patterns, weakeness, strength. Instead of needing healer for ever quest how about needing a scout to navigate you into a castle or battlefront or rogue to find fugitives in the city or ranger to navigate the wilds safely. You know have different classes shine in different types of missions. Maybe grouping wouldn't feel so much of a chore or forced.
I've often wondered about changing game assets as a way to show progression. Say your character first enters the Wilds, and sees wolves that all look the same, but as your skill in hunting/tracking increases the wolves are loaded with different features allowing you to differentiate the alpha from others in the pack, or even different sub-species. Apply this idea to every element of the game, and you can imagine how your characters view of the world changes over time. Grouping, in this context, would mean bringing people along who might notice things you'd completely miss.
Wow, this is a marvelous idea.
I'm trying to expand this idea into possibilities, and I'm thinking that the player might need to hold a certain key down to see the differences. For example, if a player has learned an ancient language, he wouldn't know that what he saw was in said ancient language if it showed to him as normal. So he would see it as the ancient language until he holds that key down, or maybe uses a spell-like effect that reveals all things he's learned for a short time. No cost or limit, just functions on use. Like a toggle with a timer on it.
Or better yet, design it to work both ways depending on what it is. Because I really like your idea of visually seeing the Alpha Male.
Apply this to things like detecting traps, having traps glow slightly and be more defined. I think this has been done in SP games. And a wide range of "knowledge" to the player that reacts like this for those players only.
I also like the idea, but I also think I believe I have seen something similar, just in a very basic way.
Iirc, SWTOR had something like this. Depending on what crafting trade you had, you could see and do different things within some of the dungeons. I don't remember using it much, primarily because the game was so heavily based on vertical progression that after you completed a dungeon once, you never revisited it because there was no need.
The main thing I can remember it being used for was opening up shortcuts. If you had a tech crafter with you, that person could restart a bit of equipment that knocked down a wall, or opened a door to a room with something in it.
With any talk of asymmetric skill / ability design, you have to really consider the content that makes use of these skills. You need to make these skills useful and interesting, but at the same time you probably shouldn't make them mandatory as you don't want block progression if a certain skill isn't present. My preferred option is for these sorts of abilities to open up tactical options.
For example, there is a group quest to kill an Orc boss inside an Orc camp.
With just the normal players, you would have the "brute force" tactic: bang down the front door, kill everyone, fight the boss.
With a stealther with you, perhaps they (and only they) can spot and open a secret door, letting the group bypass the main gates.
With a "charmer" (don't know what I'd call it), perhaps that person could instead talk to / bribe / charm the guards on the gate, allowing us to bypass that fortifaction so we can get behind enemy lines before springing our attack (the trojan horse method...).
With a trapper, perhaps you can avoid some of the environmental dangers of the orc fort, avoiding mines / caltrops or being able to spot machines of war (like ballistas built into walls) so that we could avoid damage from them somehow.
With a ranger who knows animals, perhaps he could prepare us with tonics that confuse wolves, so as we assault the base we have to face less enemies because the wolves won't come near us.
LotRO did a little bit of this, but the skills were really minor. Hunters were able to track animals (great for hunting down named mobs) and teleport the whole group. Captains could also summon group members to themselves. But that was about it. The hunter's tracking skill lost most of it's purpose about 9 months after launch when they changed how crafting worked. The teleporting was still useful at times tho.
I'm not sure who to reply to here (good comments by all), but your post gets me started better.
So in your examples, a smaller group can find success, as opposed to the brute force tactic. Maybe even one very skilled and knowledgeable Player/Character.
There are additional "knowledge" aspects that are Player Centric, too. Knowing the game and the world you are playing in. For example, in Skyrim, those Undead Nords, if you are stealthed, they can run right up to you but not find you. But as soon as you move, they attack you. This, I'm pretty sure, is them having bad eyesight but good hearing. A world full of different MOB types with different senses to rely on, can be something learned. Same with their spell casting ability, weapon types, etc. A knowledgeable Player (as opposed to Character) can be added to this idea for an even better game. IMO, anyways.
Aside from this comment, there are all sorts of ways this idea can be applied. All sorts of ideas. I saw a MOD in Skyrim where a player can "turn on" their senses and see smells. A green wispy smoke in the distance. That would be another example of Mammam's idea. Maybe a player who's spent enough time in dungeons related to a certain MOB can learn their scent and use it later on, at greater and greater distances. Maybe they have to have a certain skill, maybe not.
You're speaking in terms of a Class Based game, but this idea really could be used in both Themepark and Sandbox games. I think, like all things, it just works better in Sandboxes. Because of the issue of Leveling past content.
There are additional "knowledge" aspects that are Player Centric, too. Knowing the game and the world you are playing in. For example, in Skyrim, those Undead Nords, if you are stealthed, they can run right up to you but not find you. But as soon as you move, they attack you. This, I'm pretty sure, is them having bad eyesight but good hearing. A world full of different MOB types with different senses to rely on, can be something learned. Same with their spell casting ability, weapon types, etc. A knowledgeable Player (as opposed to Character) can be added to this idea for an even better game. IMO, anyways.
[...]
Exactly. Again, thinking back to different assets, consider animations. Say your character trains in hand to hand combat. Initially, your opponents may all seem to do the same thing, regardless of the particular attack being performed. But as you develop in skill, your opponents may use different animations to indicate a specific stance or power-up. Or maybe you've fought similar opponents before and begin to "notice" the tells. The player will have to learn what the tells actually indicate, but the tells themselves may not appear, or may not be forecasted quite so clearly until you have the requisite skill level. In the end, it is still the player who learns to pick up on these subtle hints in sound, colors, textures, and animations.
Bringing this back to group dynamics, one difference would be in passive buffs. Say I have a mage in WoW, if I cast arcane intellect on someone I'll increase their intellect stat by a fixed amount and increase their mana (if they have it) as a result. But with a system like the one we've been discussing, I may have a spell that shares, temporarily, some of my intellect. You can now see the world as I see it, for a little while. So a different "mage" giving you the same buff will have a different effect in as much as their journey has shaped them differently. Naturally, this wouldn't fit quite as well in a game where encounters are about min/maxing resources and damage to outlast the enemy.
There are additional "knowledge" aspects that are Player Centric, too. Knowing the game and the world you are playing in. For example, in Skyrim, those Undead Nords, if you are stealthed, they can run right up to you but not find you. But as soon as you move, they attack you. This, I'm pretty sure, is them having bad eyesight but good hearing. A world full of different MOB types with different senses to rely on, can be something learned. Same with their spell casting ability, weapon types, etc. A knowledgeable Player (as opposed to Character) can be added to this idea for an even better game. IMO, anyways.
[...]
Exactly. Again, thinking back to different assets, consider animations. Say your character trains in hand to hand combat. Initially, your opponents may all seem to do the same thing, regardless of the particular attack being performed. But as you develop in skill, your opponents may use different animations to indicate a specific stance or power-up. Or maybe you've fought similar opponents before and begin to "notice" the tells. The player will have to learn what the tells actually indicate, but the tells themselves may not appear, or may not be forecasted quite so clearly until you have the requisite skill level. In the end, it is still the player who learns to pick up on these subtle hints in sound, colors, textures, and animations.
Bringing this back to group dynamics, one difference would be in passive buffs. Say I have a mage in WoW, if I cast arcane intellect on someone I'll increase their intellect stat by a fixed amount and increase their mana (if they have it) as a result. But with a system like the one we've been discussing, I may have a spell that shares, temporarily, some of my intellect. You can now see the world as I see it, for a little while. So a different "mage" giving you the same buff will have a different effect in as much as their journey has shaped them differently. Naturally, this wouldn't fit quite as well in a game where encounters are about min/maxing resources and damage to outlast the enemy.
I like this a lot. However, as far as grouping goes, I still think there are too many problems caused by the WoW type of games. A problem that would no doubt develop in those games, Themepark Level games with big Power Gaps, is that there would be content where certain of these "visible knowledges" skill up, but it will be lost in the Level grind. So that becomes a case of need to get it before you progress on. Very much like a particular weapon drop. It also becomes directed game play, without choices. And sameness of Characters on the massive scale.
So Sandbox all the way, I say. But it's hard to get you all to see that, I know. I only hope that there's a slow recognition, piece by piece, of the things that don't work all that well in Themepark games. Which is everything that doesn't fit into the predesigned Class.
Comments
I'm trying to expand this idea into possibilities, and I'm thinking that the player might need to hold a certain key down to see the differences.
For example, if a player has learned an ancient language, he wouldn't know that what he saw was in said ancient language if it showed to him as normal. So he would see it as the ancient language until he holds that key down, or maybe uses a spell-like effect that reveals all things he's learned for a short time. No cost or limit, just functions on use. Like a toggle with a timer on it.
Or better yet, design it to work both ways depending on what it is. Because I really like your idea of visually seeing the Alpha Male.
Apply this to things like detecting traps, having traps glow slightly and be more defined. I think this has been done in SP games.
And a wide range of "knowledge" to the player that reacts like this for those players only.
Once upon a time....
But with a much wider range of such "uniqueness", there would be a need for a much wider range of players you know. And this is getting into "trust" territory much more. So it incentivizes larger social groupings such as Player Cities.
Once upon a time....
Now, for me, The end result is, is there are a huge number of people in MMO's that I would never associate with in RL, that I ended up putting up with, and dealing with them, for the loot, often for Raids and such.. and really.. I'm done with that shit.
This is why The second players are not forced to deal with those kinds of people, they won't.
This is also why, when it comes to PUGs, you get the quiet groups of really skilled players, they don't want to deal with people, because the more people they deal with, the bigger the chance to end up with an asshole. So they say nothing. "Get in, Get it Done, Get Gone" and not need to bother themselves to discover if anyone in the group was a raging asshat or not.
These things are not done because people want a silent, lonely, solo, gameplay time, they want social in their game, this is why they chat on Discord, and Teamspeak, and many other social platforms, they just want that be under their control, where they are being social on their own terms, not because they are locked into a 2 hour saga of an asshat screaming at them... Like So.
So when you figure out how to fix that.. let me know.
In a horizontal progressed game you generally have challenge instead of levels. Around most main cities and main roads you'll have easy content representing civilization. Of course exotic cities have challenging areas. Deep wilds should be tough for best armed and skilled. Exotic areas should require groups to navigate.
If MMORPG were or could be more grounded you could have combat that focused on strategies and position vs. tank magnets or blast down gameplay.
Different NPC types have different attack patterns, weakeness, strength. Instead of needing healer for ever quest how about needing a scout to navigate you into a castle or battlefront or rogue to find fugitives in the city or ranger to navigate the wilds safely. You know have different classes shine in different types of missions. Maybe grouping wouldn't feel so much of a chore or forced.
So in your examples, a smaller group can find success, as opposed to the brute force tactic.
Maybe even one very skilled and knowledgeable Player/Character.
There are additional "knowledge" aspects that are Player Centric, too. Knowing the game and the world you are playing in.
For example, in Skyrim, those Undead Nords, if you are stealthed, they can run right up to you but not find you. But as soon as you move, they attack you. This, I'm pretty sure, is them having bad eyesight but good hearing.
A world full of different MOB types with different senses to rely on, can be something learned. Same with their spell casting ability, weapon types, etc.
A knowledgeable Player (as opposed to Character) can be added to this idea for an even better game. IMO, anyways.
Aside from this comment, there are all sorts of ways this idea can be applied. All sorts of ideas.
I saw a MOD in Skyrim where a player can "turn on" their senses and see smells. A green wispy smoke in the distance. That would be another example of Mammam's idea. Maybe a player who's spent enough time in dungeons related to a certain MOB can learn their scent and use it later on, at greater and greater distances. Maybe they have to have a certain skill, maybe not.
You're speaking in terms of a Class Based game, but this idea really could be used in both Themepark and Sandbox games. I think, like all things, it just works better in Sandboxes. Because of the issue of Leveling past content.
Once upon a time....
However, as far as grouping goes, I still think there are too many problems caused by the WoW type of games.
A problem that would no doubt develop in those games, Themepark Level games with big Power Gaps, is that there would be content where certain of these "visible knowledges" skill up, but it will be lost in the Level grind. So that becomes a case of need to get it before you progress on. Very much like a particular weapon drop.
It also becomes directed game play, without choices. And sameness of Characters on the massive scale.
So Sandbox all the way, I say.
But it's hard to get you all to see that, I know.
I only hope that there's a slow recognition, piece by piece, of the things that don't work all that well in Themepark games. Which is everything that doesn't fit into the predesigned Class.
Once upon a time....