Why does GW2 need races?

I sincerely hope they do not do that with GW2. Horrible, horrible idea. We don't need to be told "Charr bad, Sylvari good." Let us choose. (And actually letting our characters do evil things would be cool too. With consequences of course....)
EDIT: I might have misread you, and your thoughts are closer to mine. I apologize if that's the case).

Seriously. Why would they do that? We're not even sure if races will be all that different, besides unique race skills that can be balanced post-release if necessary.

Well, I guess it was as non-biased as I could get it. However, there will always be biasm in perspectives, so thanks for accurately labeling your arguments as biased.

Think about it this way.

What you are saying is that high level caps, races, and other things make it "just like every other MMO".

Do you say that about cars? They all look alike pretty much. Most have leather or a leather-like interiors, with the same basic seats. They also have very alike engines. The transmissions are mostly alike (with the exception to manual and automatic) The trunks, well lets just say I couldn't tell a damn Mercedes-Benz trunk from a Hyundai's. What about color? Well, every brand offers about the same colors as everyone else.

Do you say "that'll make that car the same as every other car" everytime a car company announces a new model?

Don't make me make me compare others things to that quote, you won't like it.

I agree that everything will have a certain biased slant, because it's human nature. But as someone previously stated, just because you start a sentence with 'this opinion is unbiased' then proceed to give an incredibly biased opinion, it doesn't make it less biased. It's like saying 'no offence, but you're really ugly'. Just because you say no offense, doesn't mean the person will be any less offended:\.

I see this as a very, very bad solution. First of all, it's like virtual race segregation....which is just weird:\. And second of all, I don't like the idea that just because my friend plays a human and I play a norn, that we can't help each other or play because we are of different races. Not to mention this would kind of defeat the whole point of having diversity because you would still only see one race the whole time you were playing:\.

without races makes GW itself unique, its a all human character based game.. unlike all other mmos, the reason so many people including myself hate it is because of the fact that their trying to be a lot like WOW. The new races and level cap will obviously make the pvp unbalanced and maybe even make the experienced non-meta stay away forever </3 =(

smartest thing i have read on this forum today

nice use of metaphors

having only a human race to play was never the reason that made guild wars unique

just look at other MMOs where they have only human races to play does that cause them to be unique?

Couple things that I would like to address. People have said that there is no point in whining, and that a lot of this is based on guesswork. I would beg to differ on both accounts.

First of all, if there is a time to whine, it's now. Before the game is goes gold and the damage is done. At that point no matter how hard you whine things wont change. Besides, I'm not whining I'm complaining.

Secondly although I do admit that I am making some guesses, they are educated guesses based on logic and past experience. Someone in this thread admitted that they could be a "Possible scenario" but I would argue that they are more along the lines of a "Quite likely scenario"

So anyway here are my issues.

Races with stat bonuses? This is something we see in pretty much every other MMORPG and RPG, so it's quite likely that ANET is considering it if they haven't just taken it for granted and put in already. This is something I really don't want to see becuase, I don't want to HAVE to play a Charr to make a competitive Warrior. Even amongst the people who disagree with me and want races, I don't recall anyone saying they like stat bonuses yet. If you agree/disagree lets talk about it now, and let them know how we feel before the game code is written and can't be changed.

Second. Races mean fewer options for Humans. The way I see it the Art team has X amount of time to work on armor and character models. You put in 6 races and it's pretty logical to assume 1/6 the time can be spent on humans. It's pretty realistic to assume they aren't going to spend 6 times as long making armors and character models. It's not like they have unlimited funds or no deadlines.This means that Humans will be much less diverse so that we can have a bunch of wierd/ugly races (Asura, Charr, Tengu? Centaur?). Now considering that Humans will probably be the most played race or close to it, just think how many more clones will be running around when you have 1/6 the armor, hair and face options.

Summary: I like to play Humans and I like the diverse number of appearance options I have in GW1. I feel like I'm going to lose a lot of that in GW2 when they add in 6 or more other races. Am I assuming the worst? It's possible. But I would rather have a discussion about it now when ANET can see how people feel about the issue and make a change. So if you like the diversity you have in Human character appearances in GW1 and want to see the same in GW2 speak now before it's too late. Or the next thing you know you will have to make an Asura if you want to look different.

Agreed. I am for new races to add diversity. I do think it should be purely aesthetics so it keeps the balance.

Yes...Guild Wars is the only MMO to have human only characters. And because they have a high level cap and races, that makes it EXACTLY like WoW and every other MMO ever made. A-Net's sole intention with this game is to make it unbalanced so we will hate it because, let's face it, games that people hate sell a lot of copies, don't they? Ah, now I see the logic....

[/sarcasm]

Ok, so considering none of us have played the game or even seen in game anything, because they probably haven't gotten in game anything yet, how do you know PvP will be unbalanced? How do you know anything will be unbalanced? If one single neigh-sayer in this topic brings to my attention a solid, fact-based argument, I will give them a big old cookie. Everything anyone says about hating races and why they don't want them is purely speculation and their thoughts that 'omgzor...the characters will look...DIFFERENT!!!11!oneone! That makes it exactly like WoW!'. They are not trying to be like WoW, they are trying to be like Guild Wars 2, it's not a difficult concept.

New races = new eye candy. I never did get into WoW because, frankly, WoW's Who-Framed-Roger-Rabbit cartoon graphics never appealed to me. I was a long time EQ player, and I considered its now-primitive graphics more eye-catching than WoW's.

GW's character graphics are still among the best of any MMORPG I've seen. I'm hoping that they extend their eye-candy-quality to the new races as well. This is what will separate GW2 from the current MMORPG's out there - nice graphics quality combined with excellent game play. WoW only has the latter, not the former.

To the xenophobes who don't want new races: play a human in GW2, or stick with GW1, or quit. The choice is ultimately yours alone. To the xenophiles who want the new races: looking forward to seeing you all in GW2

I spk 4 evry1 wen i say taht NO1 WANTZ RACEZ @ ALL. Cuz i tihk taht racez suxxor nd so dus evry1.

That's the kind of infallible logic that appears when a person (or people) start talking for an entire community (or "the majority" in said community). Let the majorty talk for itsself, from what I've seen, a lot of people want races in GW2.

ArenaNet have done fairly well with Guild Wars. It's true that there have been some changes that could have been thought out a bit better, but overall, the game is fairly well balanced.

Looking at GW2, we have the following information:

The names and vague backstories of a few playable races.
A few pieces of concept art and other pictures.
A few comments from ArenaNet employees.

From this, we're somehow "certain" that GW2 is going to be a clone of all the other MMOs out there. We "know" that there will be racial bonuses, it's "definitely" going to have unique skills and such and there will "definitely" be unbalanced gameplay.

It's also a "fact" that "the majority" don't want races.

I ask you all, where have we found this information? With GW1, has ArenaNet been uncreative? As far as GW2 goes, have we been told that there will be attribute bonuses? Have we been shown the skills that the new races will have? Have we been shown anything to back up the claims that the races will be unbalanced? No, we have not. All we have to go on now are small bits of information, rumors and imagination. I say we hold off judging the race system until we know more about how ArenaNet will approach it. No doubt they will apply their own creativity to it and no doubt it will be as different to the stereotypical race system as GW1 was to WoW.

Well we don't yet know what bonus' for the races Anet is intending on doing. Perhaps there will be none (which would be silly) or perhaps the extra stuff that comes with the classes will be explained in GW:EN.

So, as far as GW2 needing races, people have been asking for them for forever, and practically every other MMO has multiple races.

Lets just see what Anet intends to do with races in GW:EN and then worry about GW2, its a long way off.

Diablo 1 and 2 have been around for ages, still alive and running. Yes, all playable classes are human-only (temporary shapechange forms don't count). No, Diablo isn't a true MMORPG, but neither is GW.

Please do a little research before contributing more FUD.

For those fixated on an all-human-only character selection, GW1 will still be here for you while the rest of us move onto GW2.

Man dont be so stupid. Doing thing that similar to the other doesn't mean it is clone.
If you say GW2 is making it another MMO clone by having new race and higher lvlcap, do you want to say you are a clone too when you are doing thing similar to the other does?

Quoted for truth.

Become people often demand it. While all posts in Saredalic that are posted suggesting new races were always shot down with "this isn't WoW" or "use search noob" before being locked, there were still a lot of posts like that, clearly showing that there was at least some interest in it.

This topic is meaningless in its entirely, why might you ask?

Well, its all based on the assumption that by GW2 having different races other than humans as playable characters is going to be back to back similar in the way of other MMO's systems of what races add to a character. Much like race specific attributes, giving an example: (in wow) Night Elves have a free afk shadow skill to remain hidden for as long as the character doesn't move; given that does the human race have that same ability? the answer is no.

We already know that Anet is Anet, Not other companies.


heck while we're at it, why don't we spread the word of gw2 being p2p like other games! yeah gw2 gonna be p2p guys sorry, o well! right?

wrong. GW2 is already hugely different, IT WON'T BE ANOTHER WALLET PARASITE = no p2p.

My ranger managed to bump into her identical twin and I do mean identical the only difference appearance wise was our guild capes hers was a different colour and that was it everything else was the same.

As to different races, if I don't like the look of 'em I won't play 'em wether or not a given race is better than any other at the profession I want to play. This is why my warrior character is female instead of male I don't want to play a character that looks like a slab of beef.

ScorpiusX

Ok, first off, now that you mention it like that, what is the difference between dwarves and short humans with beards or elves and tall, skinny humans? I don't think I'm gonna look at elves or dwarves the same way ever again....

Second, I know a lot of people that would rather play a game as a non-human. [/sarcasim] I mean, who wants to play a boring human when you can just be one in everyday life? [/not sarcasim]

Also, although I am very, very, very, very, very, very (insert infinite more "very"s here) happy to see that GW2 has races, I agreee with you that the stat bonuses are anoying. Stat bonuses of any kind would just ruin races and make me wish that it was only humans that were playable. I hate it when, in a game, I want to make a mage, but the race I want to create my mage as doesn't have good mage-like stats, so I have to make my mage a different race, and if I want to make a warrior........I'll just stop there.

Also, we won't have as many different human character models, but unlike what you seem to think, people are going to play more than just the human race in GW2 (well, I know I'm probably going to make one human at the most in GW2, and other people seem to want to make more than just humans), which means that, while humans might not be as diverse from each other, they will still be more diverse overall, thanks to the new races.

Hmmmm, yes, and more variety is definitely going to make it like every other game that has ever existed so far....

Also, tell me one game, just one, that lets you be a Charr or a Asura. Think of any? Any at all? And yet you say that it's copying, when no other game even has Charr or Asura (besides GW1 that is ).

If that is all the diferent races do, and the skills don't benifit any single class more than it benifits any other class, then I'm fine with races being different.

I really hope that is all the races do. Like I've said, anything more than being just aesthetic, and I fear races might possibly ruin GW2 for me.

Well, accually, yes. If they give races special abilities, then it will be like this

*GW2 Without Racial Abilities
Player wants to be a caster with elemental powers. They also want to be a Charr. They make a Charr Ele. Now they have a lot of energy, and spells that cost so much energy that it's best if the ele uses those spells instead of a (insert any other class here) using those spells. The player is happy.

*GW2 With Racial Abilities
Player wants to be a caster with elemental powers, again. They also want to be a charr, again. The charr have +10% attack speed and +10% physical damage, but cast spells 10% slower and have -10% max energy. They make a Charr Ele. Now it is the same as above, except ele's have quite a few slow casting spells and now cast even slower because of their race. They also have less energy for those high energy spells. They find out that (insert random non-charr race here) can cast spells 10% faster and has +10% max energy and -10% attack speed and -10% physical damage, but that is the race that the player dislikes the most. Now the player has to either make a race that they don't like, not play ele, or just continue playing their Charr Ele and be at a huge disadvantage. No matter what, player is unhappy, or at least not nearly as happy as they could have been without Racial Abilities.

That sure seemsd like a pretty big difference to me....

and the proof they are going to give such idiotic racials is where?

Exactly. I'm all for differences in races, but not stupid crap like that.

Idea:

Charr - Attack and cast faster depending on the amount of damage sustained. So, effectively, they get "enraged" as they take damage. After all, the Charr were not only fighters, but casters, too.

Norn - Heatlh bonus. They're big. This can help anyone, fighter or caster.

Sylvari - Agility, they can naturally dodge/evade. This can help anyone.

etc...

All this needs is proper balance, which can come in time, with updates, as it does now. I have no problem with something like this. They just need to find "bonuses" that can help all classes in some way, that way there are no, or little, discriminations. Sure, some builds will be better with say, more health, or faster attacking/casting, but overall, if balanced, they would be the same kind of bonus.

In my opinion to keep it simple, balanced, and faithful to GW1 then all you need is a Racial attribute i.e. like strength, expertise and so on. Tie all the unique attribute of each race to a set of skills:

- Norn for example could have there shape shifting spell along with unique attacks that can only be used in that form.

- Char could be a mixture of melee buffs and fire magic styles spells

- Sylvari as you said could have agility buffs amongst other things

- Asura (if it turns out there crafters of magic and weapons) perhaps could craft weapons during battle much like ritualist weapon spells.

Now this would look like you have to pick a specific race for your class but if you balance out everything and make Humans a class that can do everything then theres something for everyone.

Exactly. Just because they use a concept that happens to be in other MMORPG's doesn't mean they are a clone. It's like saying Halo is a clone of half-life because, hey, their both FPS and they both have guns....that means someone sold out, right? It's not even like they're putting in Nightelves or soemthing. Ya they have races like WoW but the races we will have aren't the same! (Not even close, really). We have Charr and Asura....where have you ever seen Charr or asura before Guild Wars? Hmm? They weren't in WoW you say? You say it's unique to Guild Wars?


And once again, how do you know any of that? Why do people seem to think A-Net's only goal in making Guild Wars 2 is to make it as unbalanced as humanly possible? Wait until we have more information and stop making dumb assumptions about some weird, un balancing racial attribute that you, in no way, no exsists, will exsist or was even thought of being made exsistant.

As someone already mentioned the Charr are vulerable to fire. I'm curious how that would effect them as playable race. At first I thought if ArenaNet is going to make the races playable they should be purely aesthetic, but then I realized it wouldn't be true to the current game mechanics where certain races/monsters are vulerable to certain types of attacks.

So I think they should keep those attributes as long as they are negatives. Such as being vulanable to Cold, Dark or Fire damage. There shouldn't be any bonuses for choosing one race over another. If a Charr is vulerable to fire then they would likely need a fire-resistant Insignia/Rune for whatever armor they decide to wear in order to offset the penalty.

One other idea that I thought might be interesting to introduce is creating bonus/negative attribute to height and weight of the characters. Of course we run the risk of having formulic builds, but if they make it so the attribute is minor or can be countered in other ways. Such as player creating a Charr who is at least 10ft and his body width be twice its normal girth (in perspective to the game's surroundings) and the height gives +1 in strength (which effects Warrior profession) and its wide body girth gives it a 25% slower attack/movement speed.

I realize that these kinda things will invite more of one type of build, but even today there are still "flavor of the month" builds.

in fact the new races could make the game more interesting if ANet is able to avoid the "RaceX=ClassX" trap.

But am I the only one to be sure they WILL fall in that trap.

The other mistake they could do would be to make human the "no weakness/no strenght" race. MMOs have prooved that a spesialized race is better than a "no weakness/no strenght" race.

Could go two ways realy realy well or really really badly....However GW1 has set the world and the creatures in it to just add more world for a sequel miht not be enough. With the addition of new races this can add more depth to the world, or it could just end up being more like WoW than GW... either way I don't think we are going to be let down so far I i personally havent been dissapointed with the game developments.

I think If they make playable races purely aesthetic, what happens when a player attacks a NPC Charr and assumes its not vulnerable to fire (when infact the NPCs are vulnerable). It becomes a case of distinguishing PvP races with no inherent attributes and PvE NPCs that do have attributes.

This kinda of unbalance is why I would encourage playable races to have the same attribute bonues their NPCs counterparts have, so that PvP and PvE become more seamless in terms of builds and tactics.

It's already been said in interviews that races will have specific abilities and/or skills.

stop whining about it - if you don't like it, play GW1 until they close the servers for all I care.

I'll take my races thank you very much.

You know what is quiet funny, I found that playing different classes for the different races on WoW didn't hamper my playing style. Yes I played an undead caster, but you know what is interesting.

Sure Gnomes did have higher stats when it came to intelligence, but then why not make them a warrior? That's a warrior that can learn quicker on his/her weapon styles and then can switch between multiple fighting styles at once. Yes this Warrior would have lower life but they in effect then become a good Damage Dealer because their efficiency in weapons is increased with quicker skill gain.

You guys need to think outside the box, Norns get a werebear form. So I play a Caster to switches to Werebear to incrase my health as I cast. That increases my odds of staying alive while Casting. Charr with low Casting? No matter I still most likely do more Melee damage outright if they are strength increase race. Meaning you just play a more Melee intensive fighting style.

[quote]
In my opinion to keep it simple, balanced, and faithful to GW1 then all you need is a Racial attribute i.e. like strength, expertise and so on. Tie all the unique attribute of each race to a set of skills:

- Norn for example could have there shape shifting spell along with unique attacks that can only be used in that form.

- Char could be a mixture of melee buffs and fire magic styles spells

- Sylvari as you said could have agility buffs amongst other things

- Asura (if it turns out there crafters of magic and weapons) perhaps could craft weapons during battle much like ritualist weapon spells.

Now this would look like you have to pick a specific race for your class but if you balance out everything and make Humans a class that can do everything then theres something for everyone.[quote]

Again, this is the same exact problem people don't want. Having the examples you said would make Charr warriors and fire eles the only "good" ones, and all other warriors/fire eles suck. And who wouldn't be a Sylvari monk?

I do like this idea better, especially the enraged part. IMO they just need to give races a primary attribute with no inherent effects that would make it better as a class then others. This attribute could have 5-10 skills to keep it simple. As long as there are no "charr get +10% AP" or something I'm ok with it.

We were talking about how the racial skills will be just like having a third profession choice.
So you can be N/W/Mo or C/W/Mo
That kinda thing.

I personally think it's cool and will probably make a norn caster class. Possibly a healer.
I think it'll be very interesting to play a wereform healer.
Or a sylvani healer, that would be like a druid.

Meh, I like the idea of races, mainly because, when I make a human, I feel a need to make him look like me (I've been doing this since I played Runescape, an MMO that...omg!!...is free to play and only allows human characters!!!! GW is a Runescape clone!!!!!) This desire to play myself makes me always get annoyed when my facial hair automatically matches my hair color, which just isn't the case (I'm naturally blond, but my beard is naturally red). Meanwhile, with different races, I figure I can't make him look like me, so why try? Instead, I try to create the sickest looking character ever (hmm, maybe I'm subconsciously a narcissist, and that's why with human only games, I base the character on myself, thinking that's the best a human will look).

Also, its obvious that racial differences will be more than cosmetic, otherwise I wouldn't be able to be a bear. I wanna be a $#@%in bear! Although, hopefully the game is balanced enough that I can be a spellusing shapeshifter, whereas when I used a WoW free trial and played a tauren druid, I found out that shapeshifter druid = tank (and people call Guild Wars Build Wars. What about World of Buildcraft?)

@Topic

GW2 doesn't need races
Just like people play GW even if they would like to play as dwarf or smth

Races in GW2 will just make it to sell better