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

There are elves in WoW.

@ Fog and Fez,

If you want to play a game exactly like WoW, go play WoW, please. Some people play GuildWars because it is not WoW. This would unbalance the game, just think of the bodyblocking possible with a frame 3x bigger than a normal charactars, much less special attributes... The day ANET screws over PvP and unbalances the game, is the day I quit and go find another game.

Yes this would through off the game alot. WE can have differant races but they should be no differant than humans except for look...

Char and yeti would not be good additions. Anet should only add races that are civilized and work with humans. There are 2 races that do so. The avicara and Dwarf. Therefor those should be the 2 added. Char and Yeti would be unrealistic as there is not one(except a single yeti collector) that don't attack humans on sight. A troll walking around and talking to humans in cinamtics would ruin Guild Wars. But avicara and Dwarfs can talk so adding them would make it weird.

If dwarfs and Avicara were the added it wouldn't unbalence the game(However anyother creature would). They are both about the same size as a human. However Char and Yeti and Such should NOT be added as they would mess up the game.

Brother Gilburt

and we are not playing WoW...

I like it all being human, feels good.

They would have to re-voice all the cinematics for new races. Not fun.

I like my gnome in WoW, but I can't stand playing the game for more than an hour cause of boredom, and this is to just having the game for 3 days. Keep the game to humans.

New voices would be easy just get a intern to snarl and grawl in the background.

The ONLY way and i mean only way to make this work, woulb be to have a new race, that could ONLY be one class.

obviously which would not add much diversity like being a Night Elf Warrior, but that would not make a diff to me.

making perhaps elven druids that are specific to a new chapter coming out and obviously the only way to have the elven skin would be to have it as a primary class.

obviously even THIS causes problems with secondary professions working properly.

but it leaves ANET a door open *shrugs*

The day they introduce races is the day I probably stop playing.

Now why would you say something like that?!


Seriously. If they just added in a couple more races you could look like, (i.e. Tengu) that had no other different stats, what would the difference be?
They would be the same - just different skins!

And it would add some much needed variety... I am personally so sick of seeing all these 'pretty people' everywhere... All of the cute little elementalists dancing around in underwear. ARRG!

I don't understand why anyone would be against this...

And btw, I'm a girl in rl, and I would still want to play a big Tengu over a "hawt" ele.

There is always a race thread poping up every month or so....

Lots way to do race, in term of their ablity, way to added it, how they share with the exisiting human and profession, etc. Such work can go from serious undertaking (with all that combination of possible art assets and character animation) to sample, as just doing a new monster group.

But what I am more interested to know, is what is the player mentality behind wanting to play as a new race. Why why why? Is it because they want more variety? (if it is only interm of skills and playing style, new class can easily fill that role) They want it to be more of a Fantasy escape, which they are just not happy with their "human lifes"? They want to role play as another species? The attraction of unique cultures? The inter-racial hot loving?

Would be interested to hear a in-depth (in term of social behavior, player mentality, basic desire and needs, etc) disscussion on this.

that is why your going to see less and less people playing guild wars. there is no freedom in this game. it so lacking!

i personally dont see the need to play other races. Guild Wars depends on balance and as it has been said already, those new races would merely be humans with different animations/skins, so whats the point?

From my experience with other MMORPGs, having other races is just an excuse to say that you have more playable character types.

Instead of giving you the true costumizability of your build like in Guild Wars, whatever race you're in is pigeonholed into certain classes.

Other races would be neat, but only if they're not any different stat-wise than humans.

Great idea! I've certainly never seen this brought up before... I know the search button almost never works, but could you at least try it? As a formality?

I've already said what my views on the subject are. Playable races are only viable if there are NO INHERENT MODIFIERS.

Plotwise, there are about five races that are developed enough to sustain playability. That is, they actually have some sort of civilization. Not to mention the fact that they can actually be any of the core classes. Yetis, Ettins, Gargoyles, those kinds of monsters just are not suitable for playing. The ones that are are Charr, Tengu, Dwarves, Naga, Dredge. No other race seems to demonstrate all the necessary criteria (of which I'm sure to miss a few): architecture, manufacturing, profession variability, nationhood, appendages, sensory organs, cognizance...

They do have different races
Canthans are different than Tyrians, ie Canthans are darker and faces are bit different than Tyrians...and this is only 2 Chapters...

Elves? oh man...

Do you have a problem with being human? seriously? I HATE MYSELF CUZ IM NOT A L33T ELF! OMG!

how many people in GW say that...

I wouldnt mind looking at a different race every once in a while, it would be fun to be a sensali tengu (r those the nice ones?) or even a naga. But this would rise to armor and art problems... I would like to be a forgotten really their eles look pretty sweet when casting spells, but still i think its good only being human, it is easier on Anet, and also it just makes more logical sense during the storyline and the alliances.

So let's examine this idea and see why it's a total waste of time. First of all there's play balance, as has been mentioned, which means races are merely cosmetic. Then consider the amount of work that has to be done, all the art assets for every combination of armor type and profession have to be redone for each race, along with new animations for each type of weapon.

Why should A.net do this instead of adding skills and new professions that actually, you know, add to the gameplay?

I though dwarves were a different species entirely.

I think it was fairly obvious that we were discussing the possibility of playing as members of a different species, but in case not...

We weren't talking about races as in variations within Humanity, but races in the sense of Humans vs Tengu vs Dwarves vs whatever.

I think that different races would be cool, but without the racial mods. So there would be no difference between a dwarf or a human stat wise. And of course it would take some work to recreate armor and such, but no customization for our characters would be nice. I don't like seeing 5 different characters with my face when I walk through Forge. It would also lay way for racial wars like the ever-so-famous dwarf vs. elf war.

/signed (*no stat mods*)

I know, but it doesn't quite occur to everyone that maybe Anet wants to keep it a game full of humans...