Races may be the worse thing that ever happened to Guildwars.

I guess the MUDs from the late 80's early 90's copied WoW somehow because they have playable races O.o

I say that if new races are introduced, its either purely cosmetic, or have the other race only being character classes that we can't get with human characters.

races in GW do not have advantages based on what race they are...alright
the centaur hero does not give an additional advantage over the other ele hero...cosmetics people there are no race specific advantages alright...also...please stop giving WoW too much credit when D&D was THE one to start it all...
/explodes into bits & pieces

I can hardly think of anything that WoW did first.. it's a standard of MMOs and if GW2 was to become more like an MMO then yeah.. it's going to have similar qualities.. it's the style and world that sets any MMO appart from the others.

This thread just made my hand slap my forehead. Thanks.

lol me too.

Close thread in 3...2...1...

IMO the new races don't sit right with me. Humans? k. Charr? K. Norns and asurians? NO WAY! I want to be a tengu, or a dwarf, or a centaur, which seem much more likely. TENGU FTW

Just hench with Talon and all is good...

I want all of those lol, races yes, but the diferences in gameplay should just be some inherent skills. Like for example Dwarves would have unique axe or hammer skills or more health points, other races more energy, monsters like in DoA have their own skills so that too should be implemented to playable races.

Along with Charr, they should put Grawl and Tengu in GW2, imho.

Yeah I'm kinda surprised they wouldn't make the Tengu a playable race... it is fairly popular it seems.. and who knows .. Guild Wars 2 is still only in the "a possibility" phase.. so it could happen.

i dont get where your coming from. Hell if this were kuje a free wow with good graphics, wow players would play it making NCSOFT a ton of money. What is wrong with this being like wow, i dont get your point.

My benchmarks?

Apart from them being generally balanced, the races should also be balanced across all classes. I'd rather not see a situation where, to take an example from Living Greyhawk-style D&D, the wizards are all grey elves and the high-damage warriors are all half-orcs or wood elves. This is an exaggeration, of course, but it illustrates my point - any racial differences that are introduced should not be ones that point to a certain profession, but ones that are equally useful to all professions. Consider the effect of giving a particular race more energy (or energy management), for instance - considering the popularity of radiant insignia, the other races had better have something good to bring to the table to be competitive in professions (and builds) with high energy requirements.

Similar concerns go towards inherent skills - for instance, giving dwarves inherent skills that require axes or hammers would be pointing every dwarf towards warrior - and the reverse, as even if you aren't likely to use them at first glance having the option to use them later is a significant incentive to have your Warrior be a dwarf - and, conversely, to have your dwarf be a Warrior and not an Elementalist (even earth)*.

It'd be a difficult thing to work out (without simply saying that races mean nothing mechanically, of course) but I'd rather not see a world where, for example, all the Warriors are always Charr and all the Monks are always Asurians.

*This assumes that the player doesn't simply roll multiple dwarves, but it's probably reasonable to assume most players will want to try multiple races rather than exclusively playing one or two...

Personally I detest WoW (they'd have to pay me a monthly fee to play that piece of dreck) but I simply don't see the problem. GW is virtually the only PC RPG in history without races, it's not like it's a WoW feature specifically, and I expect they'd be laregly cosmetic anyway.

The OP needs to speak for him self only,how dare he think that he can know what my opinion is! I want to play as charr,end of story.

I think that if the Tengu were a playable race, it would be in Cantha. I'm assuming that if there is a GW2, it's gonna be set in Tyria. Unless they join all the continents together for GW2 (I mean on the one map)... that'd be pretty cool, but I don't know how they'd handle adding new continents in after the initial release of the game.

If they were mechanical, then I would agree with the OP. Races are somewhat pushing the simplicity Anet has going for it but if this were to happen that races would have different mechanics... I'd heavily consider the halt on playing as often as I do. I would lose interest in builds.

A lot of threads seem to be about things that people get from unreliable sources and they fill in the blanks with their own fears. My advice: Don't make an ass out of u and mption...

Maybe we need a seperate forum for assumptions and darkest fears...this is turning into a tabloid forum.

I agree, but what are races to you? different species right? so different in what? just the looks? makes no sense.

An Asurian warrior shouldn´t be tougher than a Dwarf or Charr, thats my point.

You say:

"I'd rather not see a situation where, to take an example from Living Greyhawk-style D&D, the wizards are all grey elves and the high-damage warriors are all half-orcs or wood elves".

Aren´t we all humans now?

Closing this crappy flamefest now. Also, next time flame the Ancient Greeks, they had multiple races in their mythology, they probably copied it from WoW too.