Is balance in MMOs actually possible? I personally think, that while a noble goal, it's one of those far away dreams that a developer can (and should) always strive for, but it will never be reached.


Blackguard dives into this subject in today's blog:

In response to Psychochild’s claim that balance is not impossible… Let’s remove players from the equation for a moment, and ignore their perception of balance. The only way to truly achieve statistical balance in an MMO is to have a really crappy, really stale game. Everything would have to be pretty much identical.

This happens to be a very interesting and insightful blog entry, so be sure to stop by Nerfbat and give it a read, and add your own comments!