"Advanced Classes = Fundamentally Different Class Designs"

Generally when evaluating who's out to lunch on a particular issue, I look at who appears to be more intellectually dishonest or clueless. This applies just about everywhere. When one side is misrepresenting the other's arguments, using bad argumentative tactics such as oversimplification, slippery-sloping, appeals to authority, and the like, it's usually a clue as to who's either on the wrong side of history or simply the wrong side of the argument.

I'm finding the pro-AC-respec camp to be the more intellectually honest here. The amount of straw men being set up by the other side could consume the entire hay-producing capacity of the Midwestern United States.

Eh.. this is a little madness. I find it hard to emphatize with people that (as you said) would play in a way (rolling 100 alts bla bla) only if they were forced to do so, but instead would, if given the chance, simply switch ac.

You'll have to agree that that is more than a little contradictory if not masochistic.

People who really want to have multiple chars even of the same class, can do so even with the option of ac switching, dual spec, or whatnot present. Hell, there's a guy on my server with 2 commandos one is gunnery the other is combat medic. Those who instead want to play multiple chars but can do so only if they are FORCED, should sit and rethink their stance/ideas/whatever.

Maybe i lied, i don't find it hard to emphatize with them, i find it impossible. My line of work is closer to the one of a developer than the one of a psychiatrist.

The problem with the 2 points, for both sides, you presented is this: the "pro ac switching" point can live happily with people who also want to roll 1,2,3,4,100 characters of the same class but different acs, while the "anti ac switching" point leaves the people who don't agree with it with no choice, and that, is terrible.

This is a game and such limitations doesn't improve the fun nor the sense of accomplishment, even less promotes staying subscribed in the long term.

You haven't been paying attention long enough. This thread is the tail end of a very protracted debate that has been going on for months. Just because some people stepped in and made logically questionable points doesn't mean the ENTIRE side of the discussion is logically inept. You're using a very small sample size to generalize about the whole - that's bad logic. Maybe we shouldn't consider your post "intellectually honest."

You have entirely made my point for me.

I believe in the months that I've lurked here I believe I've read and understood your entire arsenal on the matter. You have no idea for how long I've been paying attention, or to what. So that's your first unfounded assertion, plus a shade of ad hominem for good measure.

I was also careful to qualify my statements--your clues to this would be found in the qualifying words "generally", "usually", and "the more". Yet you present my position as absolute, that the ENTIRE side of the discussion is logically inept. Which wasn't my statement, so you've set up a straw man there.

You have no actual knowledge of my sample size, yet you're asserting that you do. That's your second unfounded assertion (as an aside, I don't believe this forum as a whole is even a valid sampling of the opinions of the 2 million players, so anyone here making statements about what the majority player base thinks are at best laughable).

Also, sample sizes aren't bad logic; they're contributors to invalidity in statistical analysis. Statistical analysis and logic are entirely different things, thus you're misrepresenting that as well.

Maybe you shouldn't consider my post intellectually honest; entirely up to you. But given what you've written above, in which you're demonstrably committing either a misrepresentation or a fallacy with almost every sentence written, I'm perfectly happy to let the audience be the judge.

If you'd like to engage in some mature discussion, I'm willing to engage on that basis, but you would first have to write some. This particular post wasn't it, as I have shown.

Gonna take you to school next, MagikMyst. Unfortunately I have a couple of tickets to Lewis Black and must split, followed by other actual nonSWTOR activities this weekend. Might be a couple of days before I'm next able to post.

World of Warcraft (who doesn't allow class changing) would like to speak with you.

I'd also strongly counter the bolded statement by saying it does indeed improve one's sens of accomplishment.

Certainly: say that to my tank/healer/dps druid.

One of two classes in a ten class game that can do that. One of two most notoriously difficult classes to balance. They are the exception - not the rule.

And?

So how about a more recent MMO then Rift: 5 templates per class from Tank to DPS through Healer with almost instant respec? You are right it's not the exception it's the core design and it does not makes any classes less pleasant to play either.

One of two classes in a ten class game that can do that. One of two most notoriously difficult classes to balance. They are the exception - not the rule.