Guild Wars Diversity - Discussion of new Races in the GW Universe

Turning undead......sounds nice....awesome idea hehe!

I think the game is awesome the way it is..I would not be able to make a presumption about whether they should add more races until the game has been out in its full version for a while. I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface as it is!

yea this game is much bigger than we even know. we are just suggesting for later chapters

Definetaly CHARR and mayb have it like professions, Human/Elf= half elf
Human/undead Well i dunno, maybe semi-vampire,Human/Charr lol of all that times they're fighting each other a Human male married a Charr female and had one Human that grey hair and horns. But again if you are a pure race like pure charr, you'll get the most out of the racial stuff.. but that may give u less choice of professions if some professions were targeted to a race

Hey, the gurus were right. The line between sanity and genious IS very thin.

If we're going to do races, keep them original. I don't want to be an orc. I don't want to be an elf. I don't want to be a dwarf. I don't want to be a generic movie character that we've all seen in Lord of the Rings and in every game that exists that has races.
We need stuff that is completely original. A Charr race? Tengu? Gargoyles? Maguuma? Even though I don't doubt that A.Net would make even something as generic as Evles as original as they did the Shiverpeak's Dwarves, it's still generic nonetheless.

Oh, and finally, if they added races, they MUST be purely aesthetic. Why? Because otherwise it would stop being a cool customization option like the color you dye your armour and would become something like "Well, I'd rather be a Charr, but Tengu are better archers, so I'll get that instead".

PS: Half-Elf? A pure-Elf is already just a human with pointy ears!

Amen. If additional races are added, I don't want them having to rebalance everything about the game in order to do it. I want to pick a certain race because I want to be that race not because I have to pick it if I want to be the best when it comes to my chosen build.

Like I said, Charr had pretty much every profession already, it'd be an easy transition for a race later. I'm totally agreeing with the idea that other races should not do anything but change your look.

Agreed with Weezer and Lunarhound. I don't want to have to pick between Races because people have found out that one race is somehow inherently better than the other.

Aesthetics all the way; and of course, keep it original. But until we hear anything official from Arenanet, I wouldn't count on any new races being added for a long, long time.

Edit: Tur beat me to the post, but now I have to throw you in their in agreeing with new races being just for looks

You could make races not purely aesthetic but still not necessarily unbalancing by having them use diffferent class pools - like a char might not have access to rangers, but does have access to (insert class name here).

Laz

I don't see how adding a new playable race with different benefits/drawbacks than Humans would not unbalance the game in some way, even if the changes were slight. I had thought of a nice example involving balancing math equations, but I got distracted watching the Dune miniseries on The Sci-Fi Channel and lost my train of thought. I'll try to remember it and edit my post tomorrow.

Edit: OK, I think I've got it again. Lets say you have an equation, using variables x and y. You've taken the time to balance the equation, and everything's all good. Suddenly...

*WHAM!!*

You now have a new variable; z. Well, since there is a new variable introduced into the original equation, it is now off-balance. But who would ever be interested in an equation which doesn't equal zero at first, second, and third glances? So what do you do? You rework the equation, plugging in new numbers and calculating things until you have finally rebalanced the equation, and the world is back in order. Your equation is now as attractive to the outside world as it was before.

See what I'm getting at? Anything which is added to the game and is not purely for looks needs to be balanced as a part of the bigger Guild Wars equation, no matter how trivial that detail may be.

Hope people followed the example, I was kind of just spitballing things...

I would like to see standard Rpg races but with originality thers no reason you need to call a dwarf a dwarf .. i dont see why they need to be just aesthetic either, the race modifications could be very minimal thus being easyer to balance. Everything is possable it just needs alot testing...

Personally :
1) any races added - they should come into the game and storyline in later chapters.

2) all race choices should be purely cosmetic. No more game balancing issues already! the character classes have been painstakingly balanced by the Dev team so that they are all perfectly viable options for play - now you want them to do that with races as well?

3) Add more faces/hair please! - and if you look at Necros btw, they practically are undead for all intents and purposes - check a comparison between a necro with white skin and Kain from the Soul Reaver series

Blood Elf, why? Cause it takes a race everyone is familar with, and throws a twist on it. Night Elf has been overused, but Blood Elf is rather unheard of in MMO's. However, I rather have more options for character customization then new races.

Playing Dwarves, sure.

I'd take Elves over monster races, though. Come on, playing as Charr? How the hell would that make sense storyline-wise?

I think, if at all, ArenaNet will add races that aren't overused (with the exception of Dwarves) without ruining the story.

I'm hoping ArenaNet never adds elves as a playable race, but probably for an entirely different reason than most of the people here.

At the moment, as far as I'm aware, elves aren't in the game at all, even as NPC's. That means that, if they're ever added, there's still room to make them very different. What I wouldn't mind seeing, are elves that aren't in any way similar to the humanlike tolkien elves, but closer to the sort of faerie-like creatures you see in a lot of folk lore. Small, sexless, nasty little green or purple-skinned things with sharp teeth and creepy little laughs who love to pick on humans. Closer to imps or goblins than what most people have to come think of as elves. Obviously, not the sort of thing anyone would expect to be able to play as, but I think it would be fun to run into them as NPC's/monsters while adventuring.

Besides being fun to fight, putting this sort of elf into the game would forever quiet most of the people who want to play Legolas clones. When adding elves is brought up, it can simply be said truthfully that Guild Wars already has them. They're just different.

One thing I'm hoping is in the cards is the ability to play evil. It'd require an entirely new set of missions, so I don't see it as being something to release all that soon. It might also mean running it entirely on a seperate server, so that evil characters aren't congregating among good folk at Lion's Arch etc. But it'd be a nice new dimension to explore in the gameworld.

This is I think where Charr (and possibly even dwarves?) would come in. Maybe also playing as undead or dark elves. And if it's on a seperate server or with limited interaction with goodly folk, it would mean balancing evil characters only, not rebalancing anything previously established.

It's a thought.

bah I'd take a drizzt clone over a Legolas clone anyday

*holds up a Legolas action figure* This is an elf. *dips it in black paint and pours white-out on its head* This is an elf on angst. Any questions?

Actually, an evil storyline might be cool for an expantion. It could work something like KOTR, where your decisions affect the decisions you can make later. You can be good, evil, or neut. But this is far too much to ask for by release.

I said how it could earlier...look back a page.