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Will we ever see new classes in EverQuest II? Looking at how the game has changed over the course of the last year, I would have to say the answer is a resounding "yes". We've seen everything from a change in class progression to additional abilities that make classes unique to, finally, a new class selection screen that implies that the archetype system of old is long gone.

The developers of EverQuest II have been following a trend over the past year. They have been making changes to the game system that allows them as well as us, as players, more freedom. When I think back to when the game was released, I remember a game that had a very rigid archetype system. There were four archetypes: fighter, priest, mage, and scout. Each of these archetypes fulfilled a specific purpose. As you advanced in levels, how you accomplished that purpose changed slightly as you moved to your class and then your subclass. For example, a scout's job was assisting the group by managing heroic opportunities, tracking mobs, sneaking through places, and supplying some minor utility. As you went from a scout to your chosen class, you would have gained some minor additions to this job, but your overall job didn't change.

That has all changed now. Live Update 13 rebalanced subclasses to have a more unique play style than their archetypes, and thanks to Live Update 19, you don't even choose an archetype at character selection anymore. You simply choose your final class at level 1. This allows developers to balance classes more individually from each other by looking at the subclass' role instead of the archetypes'. For instance, they can look at illusionists and determine if illusionists need help fulfilling the role of an illusionist as opposed to if they need help fulfilling the role of a mage. It also allows players to learn how their classes play from the start. Previously, you would have to first learn how to play a mage, which was very different from playing an enchanter. Then you would have to learn how to play an enchanter, which was still quite different from your role as an illusionist. Now you never have to learn how to play a new class as your character progresses. Rejoice!

With the addition of achievements, players have even more control over how their character develops. If you want to be a swashbuckler who focuses on doing lots of damage with one sword, you can do that with achievements. They don't change your role in a party, but they allow you to reach that goal in different ways and even break away slightly from how your class was designed to be played. You have the ability to play your class in your own way. Once again, the dev team seems to be saying that they don't need the archetype system to keep things in check anymore. Players are acquiring more freedom to do what they want with their characters, and the dev team is happy to accommodate them and balance them individually.

However, it didn't occur to me that the developers were truly moving in a direction that allows for more classes until Live Update 29, which gave us a new class selection screen. On this screen, classes are organized entirely differently from how they were shown under the archetype system. Rangers are placed by themselves, assassins are placed with rogues, shadowknights and paladins are separated, and so on. To me, this is a major clue that the dev team is trying to look at classes individually instead of in groups. If they aren't grouping them at selection, it means they aren't even treating them as if they are meant to be grouped together. This rearrangement shows the direction that the classes have gone over the course of the previous updates (assassins, for instance, are now much more like rogues than like rangers). I believe that part of the reason they are doing this is to allow them the freedom to create new classes in the future without having to conform to the archetype system.

It would have been very hard to add a class previously. If they didn't keep the archetypes even, then people would have claimed that the game was unbalanced. As I was writing this, someone told me that they hoped SOE didn't add another healing class unless they were going to add another tank class as well. I explained that now that classes are balanced individually, there is no need to keep archetypes even. If they want to continue to balance archetypes, they would have to add eight classes at once. This would be nearly impossible; however, with the new class categorization that we are seeing and the way the class system has been changing over the course of these updates, we are able to entertain the possibility of new classes being added. There no longer needs to be an equal number of healing classes to fighter classes. The class system has evolved to the point where subclasses have very different jobs from other subclasses in the same archetype. A troubadour, for instance, has a very different job from a ranger, even though they are both scouts.

Over the course of these updates, we have seen the class system change dramatically. The Archetype progression has dissolved. The developers have added an achievement system to give the players more freedom over how their classes are played. Finally, developers created a new character selection screen that organizes classes not by their archetypes, but by the roles that they really fill. As the class system continues to change and subclasses move in the direction of independence, I can't help but think that the final destination of this journey is the freedom for developers to create more unique classes for us to enjoy.