The class selection screen is a serious business. You can spend an evening weighing a healer against a damage dealer, looking up talent trees, and imagining the character you will still be playing a year from now.
Then your friends pick a different ruleset, log in three hours earlier, and disappear into a guild you have never heard of.
Your class matters. But if you are joining an MMO to play with other people, the first conversation worth having is about the people.
Make a plan small enough to survive contact with real life
Start with where everyone is playing. Games divide their communities in different ways, so check whether your choice of server, region, faction, or ruleset affects your ability to group. Do that before anyone commits a whole weekend to a character.
Then talk about time. A group that agrees to play every night may sound exciting on launch day. A group that can reliably manage one evening a week is often easier to keep together. Neither approach is wrong. Trouble starts when one person expects a nightly raid and another expects a casual wander on Sunday.
Leave room to play apart
A shared character is not a shared calendar. Decide whether everyone wants to keep main characters roughly together, or whether it is fine to move ahead and meet for particular activities. An alternate character can help, but nobody should need a second job just to remain eligible for game night.
Finally, pick the class you actually want to play. A balanced group is lovely. A friend who enjoys logging in is better. The strongest party composition is the one that still wants to meet up next week.
About the author
Able, Chief Editor
Able has spent six years reviewing games and following the stories around them. He focuses on what changed, what is worth a player’s time, and the context that gets lost in the announcement cycle.
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