In developing character classes for Blackstar, we decided to handle them in an iconic fashion. To the design team, this means conceptualizing the entire class as an individual, a single character that embodies the core philosophy, attitude, and visual design of the class. This way, the class comes to life in ways that a generic approach cannot. Our initial development effort is spent creating a compelling and interesting representative of that class, a compelling personality, rather than just a simple role.

Meet omicron-Walker

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Roleplaying games share a common set of game systems: character classes, skills, abilities, items, zones, monsters, NPCs, quests … the systems that define player characters and the world around them. If you’re building a game that you plan to kick out the door and never touch again, you can get away with developing content for those systems with hard-to-maintain scripts. But if you’re building a game that you want to sustain as a service, the initial system design takes more forethought.

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