Not "classes" exactly.

[Stars]

I was thinking about what might be appropriate for solving the "what exactly are Humans?" mystery.
My suggestion might not find approval from the powers that be, but it would save the humans from their identity crisis, and give more options to other races.
Let races choose a "theme" for their characters when they are created. Keep their skills/spells the same, but have the in guilds and oogs changed a little according to the initial decision of the player.
In this way, a human can be more similar to , but not exactly like, a thief, magic-user or martial artist. A fighter-inclined Human would get the barehands bonus in guild, but a magic-inclined Human would not.
(This is assuming that skills and spells are altered somewhat in the future.)

Also, this can be used for the other races. A magic-inclined Dwarf will never be as powerful as an Elf, but he/she can cast certain spells without oog penalties. I do not suggest that they get fireball and the like, but more fighter enhancing spells. Of course, this Dwarf would not have as many in guild fighting skills as a Dwarf with a strict fighter theme.
A magic-inclined Kender may sound a bit strange...perhaps Kender do not get a choice. The race of Kender are basically inclined toward thieving, or "borrowing", by their very definition. A Kender doesn't have the attention span necessary to study the mystic arts. Although, BR Kender are not exactly like the kender of Dragonlance, so who knows?
Heaven help the world caught in the clutches of a kender wizard.
Not all races would have the same choices because they are not all made the same.

So, let's devise more appropriate skills/spells for the races. Then give the players a little more control of what their characters are like. This is not "classes" exactly; it is more like an inclination towards one aspect of a particular race's natural abilities.

-Stars

[Everybody]

I could see this working, but it would require a complete overhaul of all the current skills/spells as well as substantial modifications to the code affecting each race. Originally, this was why the multi-classing options were built in (the out of guild philosophy) - you could play your dwarf as a fighter-mage provided you were willing to pick up the slack via extra xp at every level. Unfortunately, until just recently (when the flaming code got fixed) it was very, very difficult to try and play a "straight" spellcaster (i.e. no dual/second attack, no dodge/parry) just because of how the combat system is set up... it's hard to deal acceptable damage (anywhere nearing a dwarf's melee damage, for example) with just spells.

What you're speaking towards, in the long run, is the problem with race diversity that we're (perhaps slowly) trying to fix. Each race, currently, is mostly defined by one skill, and there's a large common subset of spells, etc. that everyone can learn. So, you don't have to find a different play style for each race, you just apply the play style you've learned to each one, making minor modifications. Demons and illithids (and to a lesser extent, avians) are exceptions to this... they don't play like other races because how they get new skills (for demons) or just the skills that they can get (for ills) are substantially different from what any other race has.

I, personally, would like to see tweaks in most all of the races - illithids, avians and druids need it least, imo - to make them more different from each other, to the extent that different strategies would be used when trying to solo different races, or even when using different races in a group. This is, in part, what my human proposal is pushing towards, and I think it would not only make humans play differently, but would give them a racial identity as martial artists.

[Stars]

Costs for oogs should increase as well.

[Stars]

Since the experience cost is so great for out of guild, then why are the fighter races doubly cursed with long spell lag?
Perhaps the dwarves should be able to cast fireball twice a round just like the elves. They are paying amazing amounts of xp to use it after all.

[Lairian]

Unless I'm mistaken, it's 1/round for elven fireballs, though that could be lag on my side.

Also, I think the system works very well all races except humans as is; I'd like the concept of martial artist to be broken from human, though, so we could just have a standard human adventurer (footman? defensive fighter?) as well as kung fools.

In my mind, the way kender and dwarves are set up are acceptable...I would like to see a bit more arcane in avians and illithids to give them the potential to vary a bit from a linear path.

[Divebomb]

Almost all in guild spells (in fact i can't think of any offhand) can be cast two per round. You often have to queue them up for it to happen, but it does.

I think kenders are good the way they are simply because of backstab's power (and dirtkick is a pretty good blind).

Dwarves i think are boring. Sorry dorfies. They hit well in a group or on perfect matches, but that's all they do. Bash sucks, kick sucks, trip is more or less useless. I give them disarm, but avians and kenders get that.

I wish they could just DO something without having to practice an oog like fireball.

[Faustus]

I know the chances of getting this put in are slim, but if we ever did manage to get no-pass doors added as an option, Dwarves could get a 'bash door' skill that could give them something no other race gets...

[Stars]

Non-pass doors would be awesome. I would also like to see rooms that cast dispel magic on players. Just like damage rooms, dispel magic rooms would work every couple seconds.

[disaster]

i also really like the no-pass doors. what's the point of even bothering with hard-to-obtain keys, when that pesky elf just wanders through anyways. as for a dwarf skill that no other race has, how about enhance armour? i know this is a throw-back to the old illithid spel, but it seems to me that it would be more in keeping with dwarves anyways, being as that they are THE fighter race, and who knows more about armour than the one using it the most. could just do it like it was before, or possibly do it like taint, the dwarf gets to add some ac and possibly hit/dam to the armour, but in doing so the item becomes timed.

[snarf]

you have *cough*speco_teleport*cough* who needs nopass doors..

Maybe we should look at ways to rebalance the game (and i mean the fighting code and the code for the stats calculation for the mobs) so that npc's and pc's get a bit more equal again...

Maybe I should write some experimentation-kind of thing to facilitate getting more insight.. or someone else could do that

[disaster]

yeah, but speco teleport is REALLY annoying since it takes so long for the teleporters to kick in. besides, i'm of the opinion that teleporters should be a reasonably rare occurance, not just strewn all over the realms because builders think that they're cool. magically warded doors are, after all, probably much more in keeping with the themes of areas than a magical teleportation device in general.

[snarf]

err speco_teleport, while the name implies teleporting, does not have to be "teleporting" as such... there are some nice examples for that...

the thing i fear is that a nopass flag will be over-used as much as the nopick flag has been

having said that.. speco_teleport is going to be over-used, i know, but now we have one thing that is already there that does the one true thing (annoy pass door ppl)

[Faustus]

As for no-pick doors, the only reason that you say they're overused (even though I've never thought of it as such) is that it is the only way we builders have to create some sort of limiting factor for a door. But as a limiting factor, it doesn't even really work, since pass door spells, potions, and scrolls are so easy to get and use.

And as for the fear that a no-pass flag for doors would be overused far to much, remember that among Kiri, Diveebomb, Everybody, and myself (along with a few others) each area that gets submitted is examined by several experienceed builders. We know enough that if we see an area where every single dooor is no-pass, at least one of us would send the area back to the author and say "the doors need to be changed."

[RadicalEd]

I rather like the idea of a non pass door flag. It makes us rushing avatars, think twice about where we are going. Plus it will create an alternative to the speco_teleport cause that is rather annoying. I understand its purpose, but if we know where to go why do we have to wait over and OVER again for sometimes up to 3 minutes (real time).

[RadicalEd]

But i understand why it is implemented. To make constant aliases to kill things stop

It worked.... for a while