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General: MMOWTF: Stealth
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
This week, Dan Fortier takes a hard look at stealth in MMORPGs in the most recent incarnation of his weekly column, MMOWTF.
Stealth has been a very important yet decried part of MMOs and RPGs in general since the beginning. From the snooping and pickpocketing Thieves to the Assassin Striking rogues of Everquest, stealth has always had a volatile place in MMORPG history. Proponents of stealth claim that it is vital to a well rounded system and that the many disadvantages heaped on most of the sneaking classes/archetypes offsets the power of their chosen professions. Those opposed to it claim it’s unrealistic, unnecessary and general used by gankers and greifers to have fun at the expense of others. This week’s text blob will shine a light on the ongoing debate about it’s place in the MMO genre. Grab your eye drops get ready for more heretical gimcrackery!
Read the whole shebang here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
It's hard for me to consider the stealth ability anything but over powered.
I'll use the most common example, and probably the one most MMO players are familiar with, the Rogue class from WoW...
Rogues in WoW have the potential to be exceptionally powerful in PVE, especially in the raid environment. Some of our top DPS in raids before I opened my eyes and stopped playing WoW were the Rogues. Not only could they out damage even our top mages and warlocks (depending on the fight) but if the fight went south they could simply vanish and avoid repair costs from the wipe. So in WoW, I'd have to disagree with the OP that Rogues are "generally" less viable and powerful for PVE play.
Rogues in WoW are also some of the best at farming. Why? They can kill a single target very, very quickly, then vanish/stealth to rest up before the next fight. A skilled Rogue can farm for hours with minimal resting much more efficiently then most if not all other classes in WoW.
In PVP, Rogues can easily be defeated if you are skilled but only under optimal conditions. Their ability to stealth and choose when to strike makes them invaluable in any PVP environment, be it the Arena, the Battlegrounds, or open world PVP. Even if they are losing, they can always vanish, heal up a bit, the strike from the shadows again at an opportune time.
My biggest complaint with the rogue class in WoW is that every talent spec they have is capable and effective in both PVP and PVE. If played well, with effective gear, any Rogue of any talent spec can do well in both. I'd LOVE to see Warriors/Priests/Palidans/Druids say that!
I would spent countless amounts of gold respec'ing my Warrior from Protection for raiding to Arms for PVP and back again every week. Mostthe Rogues I knew would stay the same spec. True, a PVE build Rogue will pump out more damage in raids, and a PVP Rogue more effective in PVP, but unlike a Protection Warrior, Holy Priest/Pally, etc. they are not COMPLETELY useless in certain game activities.
Questing as a Rogue is also much, much easier. They can stealth past all mobs/NPCs towards their objective, then Sap a target and open the required chest, or take out that one enemy then vanish again into the shadows...
Turning invisible is indeed a very, very powerful ability. Yes, there are counters to it in WoW, but those counters are class specific, so certain classes can have an edge over a Rogue, but only if they know the Rogue is near by. The Rogue will ALWAYS have the initial advantage in a fight.
I think WoW took it a few steps toooooooo far in also making the Rogue a very powerful and useful class. Hence, why you see SOO many Rogues in WoW.
Heck, some dude payed 9,000 Euro for a pimped out Rogue? How insane is that?!
Read the whole shebang here.
It's rogue, dammit. Not Rouge. Rouge is make up. Rogues use stealth.
News flash, all classes have class specific abilities, Rogues without stealth is like a priest without healing, and rogues play an important role aside from DPS machine, they enhance the back up melee slots, gaps in group formation, think of them like a mechanic, or better yet like a troubleshooter. The next time you get a stray outside of Crowd Control range, or you need a hard hit on a soft target, just think how lucky you were to bring that rogue. The problems here is that there isnt a player alive that doesn't think his class is better, and that other classes are not needed, or that his class is under powered and other classes over powered, and since no two people will ever agree on any one thing, this topic has flaming troll poo written all over it and will most likely boil down to a screamfest about gankers, which you'd be surprised to learn not all gankers play rogues or thieves, some of the more notable and deadlier one's I've known or been killed by were warriors or rangers, not a single trickster rogue amoung them. Can you hear the cries of rangers as people change thier tune and claim the same things about them as they did about rogues.
Witch Hunts rarely have happy endings.
Thanks [i]Dan[/i], Like the class doesn't suffer enough in design without people bringing up what little they do get to do.
It is WOW that implemented Rogue as most powerful DPS machine. Rogues in WOW are in fact ASSASIN CLASS
And there is where inbalance comes.
As nature of assasin , this is a class most adept in striking single target and killing it before it can retaliate. WOW does a good job of emulating this.
However they failed to emulate the REAL ROGUE - in almost any MMO
Real rogue is all about , scouting and support - and being able to disable obstacles and traps
This worked good in DDO naturally, and LOTRO did make step in right direction.
On the end
I would beg developers to reconsider stealth.
Most of people like me that like stealth play it because they love it.
I love games like
Thief, Ghost recon , Hitman ....
Make stealth classes more dificult to play. And let them bring more benefits to a party ( not be a dps machines )
Than everyone will be happy
I feel something similar to the vanish ability in WoW (if the actual vanishing part of the skill were on a timer) is a much more realistic, balanced way of incorporating stealth ability into a game. A flash or smoke bomb blinds the rogue's opponents, rendering the thief "invisible" for a set period of time. I can buy this. Unfortunately the way stealth operates in most MMORPGs (including Warcraft) I've played is so incredibly dumbed down, the skill operates more like a spell then a skill, allowing a non-magic using class to disappear into thin air through sheer force of will even if they are standing in an open field in broad daylight.
That sounds more like David Copperfield trickery than cat-like burglar agility to these ears.
i dont believe in puctuation in my rants so i apologize now but please read
the thing that most people dont understand is the fact that yes stealth allows the user to always (well almost always) get the first hit/upperhand on people that they attack . However they dont realize that when they get killed by someone using stealth that in the most part stealth classes are always broken because developers must feel like they need to underpower the class because of this ability and it takes quite some practice to be able to kill others with this class of the same level range and if stealthed users dont get the first hit in a fight they will lose a good chunk of the time pending on playing ability of both people involved it is a fact of life if 2 chars of the same level and skill level start fighting lets say a tank and a theif , the theif doesnt get its first hit off than the theif will lose 80-90% of the time!!!!!
that being said this is how i feel
1.they are the most fun class to play for myself because i like challenges which is what playing a stealth class is all about
2.getting killed by an overpowered nuker that i cant get close enough to hit is way cheaper in the scheme of things as far as im concerned
3.there is awlays a counter class to the stealth class ie.in shadowbane there is a theif /assasin and a scout who can reveal them and see them in stealth
3.the new mmo's are being slapped together as fast as they can and i dont think developers are putting thought into what they are doing most of the time because for every 10 pay to play mmo's out there only a few actually survive the test of time as far as im concerned.
4. taking out stealth to me is like taking out the healer class or the melee class or the mage class and i cant even imagine a sucsessful game without any of those so why should we be missing the 4th class every game needs.......the STEALTHED one
WARHAMMER BETTER HAVE STEALTH!!!!!!!!! because its form a company who knows what they are doing
Well as far as ganking goes, you don't need stealth for that. Hunters/casters in WoW can be like snipers, hiding behind terrain then nuking nearest enemy player with the massive ranged crit. Stealth at least requires that you get close and risk being found.
Rogues in WoW certainately get the most "press" since WoW is such a huge game. When they redid the talents many rogues went subtlety, the tree was simple almost too good to pass up (shadowstep). People need to remember though that it's not just rogues, night elves and druids can stealth as well. Many a horde get nailed with my 3k starfire crit when they didn't see my 60 boomkin and tried to take the flag.
Stealth in others games is handled similar but has slightly varied ways to deal with it.
DAoC stealth is a skill, although you may have stealth at a certain level if you don't spend your points to improve it then it's pretty much worthless. Basically there the skill determines the distance any mob/player can detect you. With a skill of one a lvl 50 stealther is very gimped as people will see his shadowy form coming a mile away. So the player that wants to be able to sneak has to sacrifice skill points that could otherwise be put in his other class skills (ranged, poison, archery.. depends on class).
Stealth in CoX is handled in a few ways. The power "stealth" is a pool available to anyone level 6 or higher. It offers defense bonus and reduces range you are seen, but you move slower. Invisibility pretty much makes you undetectable to the majority of npc's but you cannot attack while invisible. Hide is the Stalker signature power, while by itself it offers the same "quality" stealth as Invisibility vs npc's players can detect you sooner. Hide can be combined with Stealth (or similiar) for better concealment if one is willing to spend a power choice on it. There are many powers though that increase perception to defeat stealthy opponents.
All in all I have to agree with Dan on the skill aspect. The stealth ability itself is neither weak nor overpowered, it's the player who makes it seem so.
In SWG, the Spy profession has a love/hate relationship with the other professions. In PvP, they're great for checking out the enemies base or blowing up their vehicles before the enemy can make it to you (I think most spies get an evil sense of satisfaction when they take out the more expensive vehicles, heh). However, they have some nasty attack abilities that under certain conditions can make it not fun to be on the recieving end - especially when they hunt in packs.
A spies effectiveness is determined by the total Camoflauge value they have - the higher that is the less likely they are to be detected. If it's low, enemies passing by with decent Detect Camo values have a chance to see an outline of the spy which they can attack and pull them out of stealth. On the other hand, if you go all out and stack camo in every socket and powerup that you can you can become virtually undetectable as it's not possible to get your Detect Camo value up as high as you can get the Camo value. However, AOE attacks will affect stealth players in the vicinity of them so most professions can still have a chance to hit them if they have a rough idea of where they might be.
Most players have around 14-20k health in SWG and if they use their Ambush attack from stealth under the right conditions they can do over 6k damage in one hit. Not only that but it applies a debuff to the victim that reduces all healing by 50%, snares them and provides a pretty decent fire/poison DoT on them (depending if it's done from ranged or melee). If a group of spies decide to single you out then there's usually not alot you can do
Told ya, a witch hunt....man this arguments as old as time it self, it has been a violent topic for as long as I've been playing MMORPG's and Muds. If you really want an adversary to flame, I'm going to pass you off to these boys,
http://www.thesafehouse.org/index.php
I'm sure they'd be happy to school some of those winky cry babies who instead of worrying about themselves always have to be doing the grass is greener thing, if you worried more about your own class and toon and less about what rogues can do you'd probably have nothing to complain about and have beaten the game by now. Otherwise, Like all good rogues I know when the odds are stacked against me, I'm done with this flame trap.
Lucifrank you missed my point, that was only an example of one thing people complain about....
I think that looking at it as a class specific skill or a skill that must be trained to do is a mistake.
All players should have the ability to try and conceal themselves. Think about how many times you would have never notices someone if it weren't for that bloody hovering name that in some games can be seen like a wall hack!
everyone should have the ability to try to take cover, move carefully trough say brush and trees, slink in the shadows, try to hide in a crowd, etc, etc. Conditions like lack of movement, quietness, size, and shape could quickly be dropped into an equasion to generate the dynamic perceptability of someone trying to hide. Then certain classes or people trained in certain skills, using certain items, possibly racial traits should get bonuses to it. To keep people from basically just running around stealth, you would also have to set up a mechanic so it was not as simple as just turning it on or off, and the better you are the longer and better you could do it.
As for the video display hack, it has loooooooong since been able to slightly mod the appearance and display of a avatar/sprite to match its surroundings enough to stop that. I can't count how many times I have found a spot in a game that unless you were looking at me when Imoved you couldn't see mee and the PVPers just attacked under my name.
The entire prcess could be simply done on the client end and data could be synced with the server, but no one is willing to take the trouble.
It is not an unfair advantage if everyone can do it to a resonable extent.
You then could include tonnnes of gameplay ideas just by doing that; Spying, Recon, Assasins, Bounty Hunting, Message Running, etc.
It just goes to show, the MMORPG.com staff are the biggest trolls out there. This argument is stale, stupid, and pointless. If dredging up dead horses to beat is their idea of generating interest or starting a dialog, it's time to hire new staff. Also, if you can't even spell "rogue", your opinion of stealth as a game mechanism is not likely to hold much water with me.
Stealth is a design decision. A bad one, but a design decision nonetheless. It colors the way the game is going to be played by EVERYONE, not just the stealthers. Some games have it, and some don't. I tend to avoid PvP in games that have it, as it really is unrealistic and un-fun for anyone but the stealthers. But some people like it, and they are welcome to enjoy those games.
It just goes to show, the MMORPG.com staff are the biggest trolls out there. This argument is stale, stupid, and pointless. If dredging up dead horses to beat is their idea of generating interest or starting a dialog, it's time to hire new staff. Also, if you can't even spell "rogue", your opinion of stealth as a game mechanism is not likely to hold much water with me.
Agreed
The worst thing about stealth is knowing someone is there when you're in an open field and you can't do shit about it. But i guess it's because the other player has great skill according to this article.
eve does stealth right.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it.
Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro
if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
Yes, EVE does do it right, but "Stealth" of a futuristic starship and an avatar in the bushes, shadows, or cover is another thing.
Although I would like to see the ability to power down my ship thus turning off my transponder onlyleaving a coupleof ships systems running. Theoretically you could keep some cloaks runnning ifyou had the right skill set. As a down side you would have to power up the other subsystems to get mobile or be able to attack.
Mind you I think that we should also be able to drop shields or remove them entirely and replacethem with armour affecting fittings.
Well, ofcourse stealth could make sense in a SF MMO, but what would happen then is you'd get invisible people that are using tecnological means to an end and then we would have all the same problems.
I'm ok with stealth, I played stealth and against stealth, I play WoW rogue and a priest... the best way to explain how it works is in a duel, if a class knows the rogue is gona attack and gets prepaired rogue is gona have it 10 times harder to win than attacking some unsuspecting fool on the road.
I would be completly happy only when stealth would be something that depends on your and your char skill, rather than just on some number% but I came to understand that most of the people complaining about it are the same type that judge WoW PVP only expiriencing PVE, so they think it's the same thing, you can spot them when you move behind them and they stand there in one spot for few more seconds untill they get it that it's time to move. The same type is always complaining, lazy to think and learn but always willing to blame everything else.
First of all, Dan's job as a columnist here at MMORPG.com is to bring up topics that will stir conversation. That's the point of MMOWTF, and each week, he does a great job making his own point about an MMO issue and prompting others to give theirs as well. This week is no exception. You may not like the topic of choice this week, and that's your decision and your right, but to call him (actually all of the staff at MMORPG.com) trolls for posting an article on an industry topic is going a little bit far.
Dan has been writing his MMOWTF column without fail or even a genuine break for the last year, and has always managed to come up with a new and different topic.
As to what was obviously a typo in terms of the spelling of the word rogue, I'll jump on that particular grenade. I missed the typo when I posted the article. That happens sometimes. It's not a good thing, but it does happen. I should also point out that it wasn't a case of not knowing how the word is spelled, it was the case of a mistake while typing.
Hope that clears things up for you.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
"if the fight went south they could simply vanish and avoid repair costs from the wipe"
This cannot happen with combat pulse in a raid, this combat pulse breaks them out of stealth and the rogue will die in a raid setting. I see more hunters getting out of combat with feign death and saving repair bills than rogues.
"A skilled Rogue can farm for hours with minimal resting much more efficiently then most if not all other classes in WoW."
So can any other skilled player short of a dedicated healer or prot warrior. Mages and locks can AoE farm like crazy and hunters well they just let therir pet do the work.
"If played well, with effective gear, any Rogue of any talent spec can do well in both. I'd LOVE to see Warriors/Priests/Palidans/Druids say that"
A prot warrior I will agree cannot pvp and pve well but other classes for the most part can pvp and pve effectively with either spec, holy priests are actually the better pvp spec now (yes shadow is still good at both). Palys can do both. Druids are downright awesome in any spec for pve and pvp. Locks, mages, hunters and shaman can all effectively pvp and pve with any spec, granted a pure pvp specced toon will do better at pvp but a pve spec can do quite well with a skilled and decently geared player at the keyboard.
"Questing as a Rogue is also much, much easier. They can stealth past all mobs/NPCs towards their objective, then Sap a target and open the required chest, or take out that one enemy then vanish again into the shadows..."
There are very very few quests in the game where this is the case.
Most people see rogues in WoW to be overpowered. The problem here is that most people are trying to pvp in pve gear which lacks the stam needed in pvp and in that situation a rogue will gank that person and seem overpowered. But if you put on some proper pvp stam gear a rogue will have a difficult time ganking you. I can't remember how many times I've seen some one crying in guild chat that rogues are overpowered. My first question to them is "Well how much health do you have ?" and the vast majority of the time the response is "I have about 6000 health". Theres the problem, not the rogue being overpowered. In pvp you generally need about 10k health or more. Once you hit this number a rogue becomes much easier to defeat.
When it comes to pve a rogues raid dps is rather extreme but so it should be since a rogue brings no utility to a raid other than dps when other dps classes bring crowd control and/or buffs. Lets not forget high end raid rogues right now stack haste and haste is being nerfed in the next patch so rogues dps will drop.
Just for the record I have 4 level 70s. Warrior (Arms spec for PvP only), Hunter (currently beast spec and not played very much), Rogue (mutilate spec and not played often either), and a Priest which is my main (currently shadow spec since its what our guild needs, but I often spec over to a 28 dis / 33 holy which I find to be more fun in PvP than shadow spec) I have 3 sets of gear for my priest, shadow, pve healer and a pvp smite/heal set which is more stam heavy but good spell damage and crit.
WoW being the main example, it is apparent that very few if any of the "zomg rogue is overpowered" lot have actually tried playing a rogue.
My main wasn't a rogue, but i made one as an alt and got it to lvl 60 pre-TBC and it was not an easy class to play. I certainly didn't feel over-powered and i had quite nice kit.
They are an opportunity striker and unless an ideal opportunity arises, even a lucky crit, they are pretty useless. On a 1 vs 1 basis if you survive their initial attack, then you have won. If you know they are around than you have won.
If you have an AoE attack, a DoT attack, a HoT, a movement slowing attack, a protective shield, an instant heal, a fear attack, better than leather armour then you have to be slow to react to lose to a rogue and i can't think of a class that doesn't have any of these things.
In PvP arenas it was rare i could pull off a decent stealth attack if there was a mage around as all they did was AoE spamming.
It depends how you are specced, how well you know your class skills and your reaction time whether you can defeat a rogue easily or not.
I have seen stealth exploited to just upset other players, but if that really bothers you then don't play a PvP server. Or even play a rogue yourself.
I think it would be a shame if they stopped including a stealth class in games because people didn't know how to turn their weaknesses against them.
Oh God! Here we go again with the "Stealth is unrealistic" crap. You're kidding me right? It never ceases to amaze me at how many call this mechanism UNREALISTIC. Realism in a world, usually a hugely fantasy driven world complete with: Sorcery, Magic, Necromancers raising the dead, Mages shooting fire and ice from their hands, Enchanted glowing swords of frustration, people summoning pets from no where, Life stealing daggers and bows, Priest/monks/healers casting spells followed by a whooooosh of light and it makes someone good to go, Fighting huge demons THAT ARE NOT REAL, could not and should not be expected.
It's a fake world my friends, don't think it's supposed to be realistic. You want that, walk out your front door for a change and put down that shield you bought at some fan fair.
I bet you top dollar with the right set up...Many Real life illusionist can make things disappear right before your eyes. Shit, David Blaine made himself levitate on the street. Copperfield has made entire buildings disappear (but really didn't, or maybe it did...lol).
Seriously though, I can accept that people think it can be OP if not balanced correctly. But the argument for being unrealistic in a video game that clearly is all fantasy and not some sim is completely absurd imo.
And stealthers being OP in WoW is certainly not the case...the class is broken in that game beyond 60 because of issues pertaining to resilance and how everyones hitpoints went up, but with all the other classes they recieved scale in terms of damage dealing while the rogue class still does basically the same damage at 70 that he did at 60. A class that relies on crits didn't get a boost to that at all. The CD's even stayed the same. The outcome of this...your attacks and CD's can be lived through. That's an entirely different argument tho, but can go check the WoW forums and this topic dominates most of the Rogue community thoughts.
<blockquote><i>Originally posted by Sovren1</i>
<br><b><p><p>Seriously though, I can accept that people think it can be OP if not balanced correctly. But the argument for being unrealistic in a video game that clearly is all fantasy and not some sim is completely absurd imo.</p><p></p></b></blockquote>
<br>
I think that by unrealistic, most people mean that it's unrealistic on its setting. Sometimes you'll read some of those descriptions and you'll read something like: "With great guile the rogue/thief/assassin has learned to conceal himself from prying eyes." Which sounds nice, I think, the end result however is disapointing: *Poof!* "You are now hidden!". It's not like most game devs these days can say: "Oh... But it's impossible to implement a functional stealth system!" Because it has been done before, for many years now... So many in fact, that you'd think MMOs would catch up with.
I think what most people find frustrating is that, in some games, we know that there's a stealth character around, but we still can't do anything about it. Sure, some classes have skills and the likes... But there's a thief bragging that he's hidden right next to me, why can't I see him, if I already know he's there?
The Anti Social Gamer
In my option I rather dislike the whole aspect of things like Stealth, Stuns, Movement Impairing Affects, and Other Crowd Control as they all seem to usually cause long term imbalances in MMO's.
I rather see more MMO's relay on using cover / movements and using more just one weapon most of the time using different types of weapons(speed/damage type) and not just equipping a single weapon to use all the time with only one damage type.
I think the reason why things like Stealth, Stuns, Movement Impairing Affects, and Other Crowd Control are so popular design in MMO's is the fact that so many copy the basic game play design of mostly Melee / Caster classes with usually one Ranger Type Class by switching to a more Range Weapon / Caster type gameplay this would allow for more ability to use cover / movements as a core gameplay option.
Stealth should be defined as the inability of MMO developers to achieve balance in pvp.
Every MMO that I have played with the stealth ability has suffered from constant imbalance.
UO struggled with stealth for some time before they got it under control, DAoC never did learn how to do stealth correctly. Stealth is probably Wow's greatest weakness.
Thief on the other hand did stealth well. I completely disagree with the OP about implementing a complex stealth. Explain to me how a character can stealth in broad daylight in the middle of a field? A simple approach just leads to gankers galore.
I do agree with the OP that stealth should be hard to play, it is far too easy in many of the MMO's.
Even Eve suffers from stealth as it's poor implementation of cloaking allows cloaked ships to be literally impossible to find and they can stay cloaked forever.
Maybe someday a MMO will come along and implement a stealth system we can laud instead of complain about.
"While Stealth classes seem to be a lightning rod for complaints about class imbalance, the real power of these characters is in the skill of the user. It is generally very easy to spot players who don’t have the skill to play a stealth class properly as opposed to most of the special spamming tanks that require as much guile as a sewer worker. When you come right down to it, stealth requires more skill to be effective, not less. As a fan of this play style I certainly hope that future games make it hard to be a great assassin so we can weed out the nubs who are looking for an I WIN button."
Totally true Dan! I agree.
Stealth is as popular now in mmorpg's as it ever was, there is a market there, people want it.
In my opinion, people want a U.I and control system that lets players flourish more in relation to showing their skill in handling a Stealth type of character off.
I can see why you brought this topic up, with the recent debate in the AoC forums and the talk on the Warhammer forums(no stealth) here. Imo the majority of players want stealth in, and for those interested in PvP, its not the stealthers fault if they kill you, its yours for not combating or countering it. Many games implement counter type classes in PvP, even though the balance might not be clear sometimes, its still there, there are ways. Many times have I been blown away my stealthers in games only to get my brain working and come up with counters, also to some degree you do have to appreciate how a good stealther can wipe away so many.
For those that don't play Stealth well you deserve to die in game too!
Many, many times do you here the blame on the class, when its really the crapness of the defender..
My thoughts are if you make a game with PvP in, it'd be a mistake not to make one with stealth in.
I love rogues. WoW got rogues right. Many counters to rogues, and rogues are not the killing machine people make them out to be. DAoC didn't get rogues right. They were overpowered for a very long time, and now they are a class that is totally worthless unless grouped with 5 other rogues. If you think playing a rogue is so easy mode, then be all means find out for yourself.
My DAoC info may be out of date, haven't played since early 2005, but there were no stuns associated with the assassin classes. In fact, the best opening move "Perforate Artery" had to be done from the front. None of the sneaking up behind you had to move quickly and hope your stealth skill was good enough they wouldn't see you in time. Technically though DAoC didn't have a "rogue" class, just assassins and archers who could stealth, so may not be totally fair to compare the two.
I am not surprised this pretty much is centering around stealth in WoW, after game is the Big Boy on the Block. Stealth there is however, not absolute. I remember pre-BC in scholo our imp sap rogue moved in on a mob to sap and a rat critter walked by, he said "if this mouse farts it will break my stealth and we're toast". We got a good laugh outta that. It is sad though how certain effects break stealth, I actually bug reported the first time silence broke my rogue's stealth. I mean ok I can't cast spells... so what?
The whole "rogues overpowered" thing I think really stems from the high end gear. I had a 70 rogue hit me with a 7k ambush crit, you see that a few times and people begin to scream NERF! If you think about it though many classes can have OMFG moments depending on the spec and gear of the player. Pyroblast crits, Aimed Shot crits, 1k Mind Flays, etc all can leave you with the impression that that class needs to be nerfed.
I forget the name or I'd credit him here but a WoW forum poster said it best. The thing about rogues is that they come out of nowhere, pwn you and leave. A mage/hunter you can see them coming or see where they shooting from. What would tick you off more some guy shooting at your house from the street or another guy sneaking into your house and beating the tar outta you while you slept?
Oh and to the people that complain about "rouge" typo, get over it. It's a common typo, we know what he meant and quit being so picky!