Is equality a reality?
Balance. Fairness. Equality. These things while perhaps never fully attainable, are things that are very important to us, as a society and as human beings in general. However while unattainable in our daily lives on this planet, what about on another more basic level. World of Warcraft, a video game that is gaining notoriety claims that its classes are fair and balanced, a major claim to be sure considering that it is currently the most well known and most popular Massively Multiplayer Role playing game on the market, and is growing into a phenomenon spanning comic books, manga, trading card games, and various other forms of entertainment. Being equivalent in classes seems like it could be a simple thing to do and to determine if it was done, yet even though Blizzard insists that that the game that they have created is balanced in every way, the outcry of the players through various venues, is standing out as a pivotal piece of evidence to the contrary.
Take the class of Rogue for example. The Rogue is billed as the single most damaging melee DPS class, and in theory supreme in single target DPS (Damage per second). Blizzard (The creators of this game) themselves have stated that a Rogue is supposed to have "Very high melee damage potential exceeding other Classes" However numerous tests against other classes have proved this to be inaccurate, assuming that both classes were played equally well and were similarly geared. Suppose we pitted this Class against another class billed by the moniker of damage dealer, the Mage. The Mage, according to Blizzard is supposed to be " Very effective in damaging multiple targets at once with powerful Area of Effect Damage Spells above other AoE Class choices", In other words Multi, not Single target DPS. However, where the Rogue is to be the dominant Single Target DPS dealer, and the Mage is supposed to be the dominant Multi target DPS dealer, often the Mage can be found to overlap into the territory where the Rogue is supposed to be undebatably superior. Considering the Rogue has not even the slimmest of AoE (Area of Effect) Damage dealing capability, being bested by a Mage in the one arena where it is supposed to reign is a slight not easily mended. However seeing as this class is supposed to be balanced against all other classes, can we expect that it has other capabilities to make up for it? Perhaps we should expect it and it should be granted unto us, but clearly its not, seeing as the only other role that a Rogue has in a party is to be CC (Crowd Control), and Mages once again are superior in that area. Mages however have yet another role aside from the Single/Multi target DPS and crowd control, seeing as they can both Spell-Steal and Decurse, buff and portal, giving them a much larger range of diversity in ability than the Rogue.
Were this the only example of blatant favoritism of one class over another, perhaps it could be passed over as merely an error in judgement on the part of Blizzard, it is sadly not. Lets examine another aspect of the classes. Previous to the expansion that came out as of late, the Burning Crusade expansion, the Alliance (Good) and the Horde (Evil) were each granted exclusive access to a class that were supposed to be true equals of one another, and in fact greatly needed to be, considering the implications of cross faction imbalance in the areas of Player vs. Player combat.
The Shaman, a hybrid healer, melee DPS and caster DPS class was the Horde's champion, as was the Paladin, a Warrior of Holy Light was the champion for the Alliance. However where the Paladin was skilled in the area's of healing, it was only mediocre where tanking was concerned and flat out incapable where DPS is concerned, the Shaman was skilled in every area of its makeup. The major deficiency for a Paladin was, aside from the lack of Damage dealing capability, was an astounding lack of range of any kind. Only by specializing in a talent tree deeply could you attain any kind of range, and even then it is a token at best. However the Shaman has a ability for Melee that is equivalent to a Fury Warrior, almost on par with a Rogue, and a Casting ability equal to a Boomkin Druid or a Warlock, where single target Caster DPS is concerned, with a highly advanced healing ability, added to the ability to grant buffs of many different varieties to the party with which the Shaman was grouped causing the Shaman to be not only very effective in Player Vs. Player battles, but also incredibly desirable in the Party environment.
These examples and others are echoed not only in this essay, but also in the forums and discussions of World of Warcraft, both on the web site which openly asks for suggestions and complaints to be posted, but also on numerous web sites across the Internet. Does this obvious imbalance make the game unplayable? Perhaps not considering over 6 Million people are logging on every day to satiate there hunger for Questing, grinding and PVP, however the question remains is Blizzard lying to its customers with the much flaunted ideal of equality between classes. Still, even more importantly, while equality is important to us our day to day lives, is it something that is less important the the basic idea of the game in general? Is equality and balance a matter of perception for that matter, something for each and everyone to decide, or something that is decided as a general consensus by the population at large. Even more importantly, are people taking things too far by questioning the fairness and balance of World of Warcraft in general, seeing as its just a game? All things considered, where the idea of fun and enjoyment is concerned, perhaps the classes are not so unbalanced after all.
