Guild Wars 2

As a person who has never really played another MMO I see terminology coming from WoW or other traditional MMOs.

Do thieves act like rogues? Or do rogues act like thieves?

Are guardians like paladins?

Why do people call professions classes? I think Profession sounds a lot better than “class”. Class is more of a social classification, like Upper Class, Lower Class. Profession is more about what you do.

Its just a peeve I have and I bet some Anet developers hate it when someone says class instead of profession , or calls a thief a rogue.

I have yet to see anyone call an elementalist a mage though.

Maybe a baby quaggan dies every time someone does that.

Not really sure if your post is in any way serious, but what the heck. Here ya’ go.

Rogue/Thief - Rogue is a broad term used in D&D and then later in most RPGs and MMOs. The Rogue could be anything from the brute that mugs you to the assassin that stabs you in the back. The Thief is more specific skillset that generally is light on their feet, in and out, and doesn’t want to simply stand toe-to-toe. GW2 plays more like the “Thief” sub-set rather than the more broad Rogue term.

Guardian/Paladin - Guardians are similar in overall functionality, however the Guardian does tend to be more protective of the group and focused more on group combat than most Paladins, but not by much. Guardians also do not have the religious overtones that Paladins carry with them.

Class/Profession - this is another termed derived by D&D and has since been adopted by many many RPGs and MMOs over the years. Remember, most of these types of games now-a-days claim at least some influence from D&D. The term “class” itself is simply a way of “classifying” different skillsets and abilities. The terms you used in your example (upper class, etc.) are the same way, but much more popularized.

Elementalist/Mage - My guess is that mage is a more generic term and could apply to any spellcaster, so not using that term is likely to avoid confusion of which specific type of spellcaster to which one is referring.

Could be because ‘Profession’ in WoW is their term for crafting, instead of Disciplines. Therefore people stick with calling Profession ‘Class’ and Discipline ‘Profession’ since they’re more used to it, I myself rarely ever call cooking or jeweling a ‘Discipline’.

As been said, ‘class’ is more of a shot term for classification. You are classifying your skill set, etc.

To me, we choose a class to play and not a profession. A profession is more like the job you do. Eg. a crafting profession.

I’ve always been used to calling them professions, or profs for short. Maybe it’s because I never played WoW and played Guild Wars 1 for years, but I don’t like the term class for professions.

Class just sounds…kinda ridiculous. I think I’m just used to the terminology of profession at this point though.

And crafting disciplines? I dunno, I don’t usually talk about them anyway, and when I do I say that I’m talking about “crafting” or, specifically, a “tailor” or “cook”. Never used a word for all of them together.

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

I’ve always been used to calling them professions, or profs for short. Maybe it’s because I never played WoW and played Guild Wars 1 for years, but I don’t like the term class for professions.

Class just sounds…kinda ridiculous. I think I’m just used to the terminology of profession at this point though.

And crafting disciplines? I dunno, I don’t usually talk about them anyway, and when I do I say that I’m talking about “crafting” or, specifically, a “tailor” or “cook”. Never used a word for all of them together.

+1 ,

There’s the GW1 vets, and then there’s the other guys. The other guys are in huge numbers and they will bring their jargon to GW2.

Brings question. If a person decides to play an MMO for the first time and chooses GW2 as their game, will they call professions “professions” or will they call them classes? Will they call thieves , “rogues”? Will they give in to what the majority of people call them?

You should have played 1st Edition AD&D. like eight or so different classes, Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Thief, Assassin, Cleric, Druid, Magic-User (yes, not a mage, a magic-user), Illusionist, Monk, and if you wanted to be a Bard you had to be a Fighter first, then a Thief, then go to a Bard college… and every class had a different title each level until 11 or so… Magic-user titles went something like Apprentice, Wizard, Thaumaturgist, Sorcerer, Conjurer…

And then there were class levels, spell levels, dungeon levels… So your 5th level cleric cast a 2nd level spell on the 3rd level of the dungeon…

It wasn’t until something like 10 years after it was released that they started to standardize things with 2nd Edition. They dropped some classes like monk and assassin and gathered everything under the class groups Warrior, Rogue, Priest and Wizard. Then they added kits to the classes and started making a mess of everything again.

Fun times.

Other MMO’s do use different terms, Characters/Toons Classes/professions etc the list is endless its whatever people get used too

I still to this day call Trading post the Auction house because that’s what they were called in so many other games…

tolunart.2095:

You should have played 1st Edition AD&D. like eight or so different classes, Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Thief, Assassin, Cleric, Druid, Magic-User (yes, not a mage, a magic-user), Illusionist, Monk, and if you wanted to be a Bard you had to be a Fighter first, then a Thief, then go to a Bard college… and every class had a different title each level until 11 or so… Magic-user titles went something like Apprentice, Wizard, Thaumaturgist, Sorcerer, Conjurer…

And then there were class levels, spell levels, dungeon levels… So your 5th level cleric cast a 2nd level spell on the 3rd level of the dungeon…

It wasn’t until something like 10 years after it was released that they started to standardize things with 2nd Edition. They dropped some classes like monk and assassin and gathered everything under the class groups Warrior, Rogue, Priest and Wizard. Then they added kits to the classes and started making a mess of everything again.

Fun times.

+1 Man I feel old now. Many many late nights rolling die on a table. Back then I could have never imagined MMO but man I would have loved it probably more then than I do now.

I think it would be a fun experiment to get a bunch of people that have only ever played MMO and put them at a table with a DM, a bunch of multi sided die, and some grid paper to see how they react.

It’s a little counterintiutive but if you ask me class is actually the more correct term. Your combat skillset doesn’t necessarily have much to do with your profession, which is more about what you do for a living. Your profession might be a mercenary while your class is a warrior.

The others are really just flavor distinctions. I would say Thief is a specific type of rogue while the Guardian is a bit different from Paladin. The former is, well, a guardian while the latter is more of a crusader.

tolunart.2095:

You should have played 1st Edition AD&D. like eight or so different classes, Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Thief, Assassin, Cleric, Druid, Magic-User (yes, not a mage, a magic-user), Illusionist, Monk, and if you wanted to be a Bard you had to be a Fighter first, then a Thief, then go to a Bard college… and every class had a different title each level until 11 or so… Magic-user titles went something like Apprentice, Wizard, Thaumaturgist, Sorcerer, Conjurer…

And then there were class levels, spell levels, dungeon levels… So your 5th level cleric cast a 2nd level spell on the 3rd level of the dungeon…

It wasn’t until something like 10 years after it was released that they started to standardize things with 2nd Edition. They dropped some classes like monk and assassin and gathered everything under the class groups Warrior, Rogue, Priest and Wizard. Then they added kits to the classes and started making a mess of everything again.

Fun times.

Magic-User was terminology from D&D Basic. Not AD&D. You also forgot Cavalier and Acrobat in your list.

AD&D 1st Edition Player’s Handbook called them Magic-users, it was changed to Mage in 2nd Ed.

And Cavalier and Thief-Acrobat came later, in Unearthed Arcana… I read those books backwards, forwards and sideways over the years… lol…