
Originally Posted by
ShinChuck
It's fairly common in offline RPGs, going back at least as far as Dragon Quest III in the 80s. Off the top of my head, the first MMO I can think of that I recall having it in was Dragonrealms, which has been out since the mid-90s (and it's precursor Gemstone may have allowed it as well, although I don't recall for certain). For more recent examples, Phantasy Star Universe (and it's spinoffs Phantasy Star Portable 1 & 2), Eden Eternal and Dream of Mirrors Online allow you to change to any given class.
Various other games do it on a smaller scale. Rift allows you to switch at will between jobs within a given set (four main jobs, cleric, warrior, mage and rogue, which each have nine different jobs you can switch through - so out of 36 total jobs, you can do nine).
Subjobs have existed in pen and paper RPGs for years, and current games like Guild Wars and Lineage have comparative systems.
Don't get me wrong, I agree entirely, being able to change jobs is an awesome concept (sub jobs too, done right!), and I love it. It pains me to see games like WoW being sooooo limited in that regard, having come from the school of Dragonrealms. So while it's not a Square original, it's not an entirely standard mechanic either, so I genuinely applaud them for going that route!