Comment by vunderba

> to be equally compelling mechanics.

I'd go a step further, not just equally compelling, but it'd be interesting to see some games, particularly RPGs, where combat is effectively optional. One of many ways to level up your character and complete the objectives of the game.

There aren't many out there where you could have a complete pacifist playthrough, for example, and if there is, you usually still have to resort to theft, or use of paralyze & calm spells.

In most RPGs your professions (farming, herbalism, mining, etc.) are just secondary skills to help you progress in combat, and all the good stuff comes from killing enemies.

They're by no means equally compelling. But they are viable ways to generate currency, you progress in them over time as a specialist, they feed back into the player economy performing tasks that other people want performed, and they are, importantly, in the same world, on the same shard. I know not to go near Orc Camp because there's a group of player killers down there, despite the fact that there's a rich Agapite vein running through the mountains near the entrance that I would love to mine and make armor out of. Back to the relative safety of Minoc for me, however crowded. In some timeline two weeks in the future, I band together with a bunch of other players (most of whom just want to farm orcs) to kick them out. Territorial control, even without any formal mechanics of territorial control, is closely correlated with narrative and socialization; I wouldn't have met any of those players if we were all on our own separate instance.

Eve Online accomplished something a little more combat-focused, but similarly diverse in playstyle, mostly by dint of having a single large persistent world-shard with minimal functional instancing.