Cameron Sorden emphasized the Pokemon factor of World of Warcraft’s Hunter class effectively in a recent post over at Random Battle. Unfortunately, that factor makes us roll our eyes, and is exactly the factor that turned us off from the class initially. While there’s certainly something to be said for “pet classes”, the idea of giving every class in an MMORPG a pet is purely ludicrous – it’s s novelty worth considering but definitely shouldn’t become the norm. Sadly, Blizzard has already catered to the pet lovers not only by consistently adding vanity pets (which we are okay with), but also by giving pets (albeit in lesser forms) to a variety of classes, to include Mages and Shamans.
While the idea of taming beasts fits the Hunter archetype well, there’s no need to muddle the waters by taking away from traditional class archetypes. Most MMORPGs are not based on worlds where everyone has pets – they don’t even come close to Golden Axe: Beast Rider in concept. In other words, if the IP itself is not built around pet companionship, then pets should be relatively rare from a combat perspective, and we don’t need bestial or mystic minions. Rather, if the minion concept is to be put into play, then developers should do it the sensical way and add humanoid companions that can be hired (i.e. mercenaries). Guild Wars, and other games, have already done this to some success, and we’d rather see developers use that idea to help players solo an MMORPG than fluff an otherwise good game with dual-character classes. That’s not to say that pet classes don’t have their place, but let’s draw a clear distinction between these classes and “normal” classes. More importantly, the ratio between them should be maintained in such a way that most classes can claim success from feats not accomplished by an unecessary companion.
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