Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I would like to know if one day it will be possible to change the race of the character ?

Thanks

They’ve said no multiple times. If you want to change the race of a character you can always craft one to 80 though (why I have 2 eng).

Hi Aberrant,

Thank you for your kind answer.
I’m french and on our forum a lot of persons are asking for it. But the answers are always : “Yes one day but we don’t knowh when”.
So I wanted to know if our english friends knew more about it !

Thanks.

Anet’s leaving a lot of money on the table by not selling this in the gemstore.

I don’t think Race change will ever be possible as it ties into so much in the game. Skills, appearance and story. It would be a nightmare to code and would likely cost more than any Total Makeover Kit ever will if they do decide on it.

Talonblaze.3175:

I don’t think Race change will ever be possible as it ties into so much in the game. Skills, appearance and story. It would be a nightmare to code and would likely cost more than any Total Makeover Kit ever will if they do decide on it.

I don’t think it’s as hard as you think. Everything you mentioned: Skills, appearance, story should be determined by entries in a database — it should not be hard to change — it could be as easy as a few search and replace scripts.

The most difficult issue would be what to do with the story, but I say: wipe your story progress to 0. That’s the price you have to pay to change races.

As for cost: certainly it should cost at least as much as a total makeover kit since it has more functionality. I see no problems with that.

Lord Kuru.3685:

I don’t think it’s as hard as you think. Everything you mentioned: Skills, appearance, story should be determined by entries in a database — it should not be hard to change — it could be as easy as a few search and replace scripts.

The most difficult issue would be what to do with the story, but I say: wipe your story progress to 0. That’s the price you have to pay to change races.

As for cost: certainly it should cost at least as much as a total makeover kit since it has more functionality. I see no problems with that.

The problem with wiping the story means someone could, say, level up to 40 while doing all the story missions, change their race, then do all those missions again and gain easy experience.

The only way that could work would be to remove any exp and rewards from missions that were previously done. Or reset their level too.

SmirkDog.3160:

Lord Kuru.3685:

I don’t think it’s as hard as you think. Everything you mentioned: Skills, appearance, story should be determined by entries in a database — it should not be hard to change — it could be as easy as a few search and replace scripts.

The most difficult issue would be what to do with the story, but I say: wipe your story progress to 0. That’s the price you have to pay to change races.

As for cost: certainly it should cost at least as much as a total makeover kit since it has more functionality. I see no problems with that.

The problem with wiping the story means someone could, say, level up to 40 while doing all the story missions, change their race, then do all those missions again and gain easy experience.

The only way that could work would be to remove any exp and rewards from missions that were previously done. Or reset their level too.

Who cares if they get that experience again? Creating a new character and going through the story gets you the same experience. But if, for whatever reason, Anet really cares, then can make the race change cost skill points and XP in addition to gems.

SmirkDog.3160:

Lord Kuru.3685:

I don’t think it’s as hard as you think. Everything you mentioned: Skills, appearance, story should be determined by entries in a database — it should not be hard to change — it could be as easy as a few search and replace scripts.

The most difficult issue would be what to do with the story, but I say: wipe your story progress to 0. That’s the price you have to pay to change races.

As for cost: certainly it should cost at least as much as a total makeover kit since it has more functionality. I see no problems with that.

The problem with wiping the story means someone could, say, level up to 40 while doing all the story missions, change their race, then do all those missions again and gain easy experience.

The only way that could work would be to remove any exp and rewards from missions that were previously done. Or reset their level too.

Make a lvl 80 requirement.

And I agree with everything lord said… Its not as hard as you think.

I had no idea that coding an MMO was as easy as simply switching out a few scripts.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I had no idea that coding an MMO was as easy as simply switching out a few scripts.

For something like wiping your story progress to zero, it absolutely should be that easy…

Unless you have very poor programming practices … which is unfortunately, possible — witness Anet’s inability to match skill descriptions with their actual functionality; for example the slayer potions bug where you take x% more damage from the listed foe instead of x% less.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I had no idea that coding an MMO was as easy as simply switching out a few scripts.

For something like wiping your story progress to zero, it absolutely should be that easy…

Unless you have very poor programming practices … which is unfortunately, possible — witness Anet’s inability to match skill descriptions with their actual functionality; for example the slayer potions bug where you take x% more damage from the listed foe instead of x% less.

Trust me, you don’t want programmers to write the descriptions. That’s what the tech writers are for.

Someday I hope they will add a race change in gemstore, Asura brains are hard at work I’m sure.

Wetpaw.3487:

Someday I hope they will add a race change in gemstore, Asura brains are hard at work I’m sure.

Well The lil rats have managed to come with with Perfect Sex changes (Even your voice changes) This is great for a man living inside a woman’s body… But what about an Asura Living inside a Norn’s Body… It gets rather lonely in there.

Behellagh.1468:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I had no idea that coding an MMO was as easy as simply switching out a few scripts.

For something like wiping your story progress to zero, it absolutely should be that easy…

Unless you have very poor programming practices … which is unfortunately, possible — witness Anet’s inability to match skill descriptions with their actual functionality; for example the slayer potions bug where you take x% more damage from the listed foe instead of x% less.

Trust me, you don’t want programmers to write the descriptions. That’s what the tech writers are for.

What I meant was that there should be code that automatically gives the appropriate data to the description. So the tech writer would write the description while the actual numbers (e.g. “weakness: 3 seconds,” or “apply burning every 4 attacks”) would be plugged in automatically as a variable (the “3” and “4”).

I’m not sure if it’s as much of an issue right now, but a while back, we’d have lots of these numbers not updated when the skill was changed — implying they were inputted by hand!

Lord Kuru.3685:

Behellagh.1468:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I had no idea that coding an MMO was as easy as simply switching out a few scripts.

For something like wiping your story progress to zero, it absolutely should be that easy…

Unless you have very poor programming practices … which is unfortunately, possible — witness Anet’s inability to match skill descriptions with their actual functionality; for example the slayer potions bug where you take x% more damage from the listed foe instead of x% less.

Trust me, you don’t want programmers to write the descriptions. That’s what the tech writers are for.

What I meant was that there should be code that automatically gives the appropriate data to the description. So the tech writer would write the description while the actual numbers (e.g. “weakness: 3 seconds,” or “apply burning every 4 attacks”) would be plugged in automatically as a variable (the “3” and “4”).

I’m not sure if it’s as much of an issue right now, but a while back, we’d have lots of these numbers not updated when the skill was changed — implying they were inputted by hand!

This seems to be the case… At least in gw1 the numbers updated accordingly. While I don’t know what their programing language looks like I’m sure its complicated, however, I find this to be lazy programming. Programmer are considered to be some of laziest people in the business but only because they will make things update/run automatically so they won’t have to go back in. Gw2 programmers seem to be the exception to this rule.

Programmers are inherently lazy. If given some boring repetitive grunt work they will write a utility to do it for them. That said that utility would likely be brittle, undocumented, meant for their eyes only and would leave with them.

Why? Because it’s an “off the books” utility cobbled together over a few lunch breaks so it wouldn’t impact on the rest of his work.

Considering changing race in mmos is nothing new, i dont see the reason for not having it available. Aside from having people create entirely new characters to re-gear probably makes anet more money.

Creating a new character = money sink.
And we know Anet loves money sinks.

Also, it’s probably more complicated than we think.
Let’s say you remove all the EXP from the personal story. Let’s say it brings you back to lvl 60 (not gonna do the math). What about the EXP you gained by doing dynamic events above lvl 60? What about the EXP you gained by killing mobs above lvl 60? What about the EXP you gained by doing achievements that can only be done by lvl 80’s? Exploration in lvl 60+ maps? Etc…

Behellagh.1468:

Trust me, you don’t want programmers to write the descriptions. That’s what the tech writers are for.

As someone who works as a Technical Writer in a software company, this made me smile so much.

Zanshin.5379:

Creating a new character = money sink.
And we know Anet loves money sinks.

Also, it’s probably more complicated than we think.
Let’s say you remove all the EXP from the personal story. Let’s say it brings you back to lvl 60 (not gonna do the math). What about the EXP you gained by doing dynamic events above lvl 60? What about the EXP you gained by killing mobs above lvl 60? What about the EXP you gained by doing achievements that can only be done by lvl 80’s? Exploration in lvl 60+ maps? Etc…

Why so complicated? Just leave the toon at level 80 and wipe the story to 0.

If Anet thinks XP/karma/skill pts can be gained unfairly in this way, then something like this:

race change costs:

• 4000 gems
• 1000000 XP
• 1000000 karma
• 200 Skill Points

(made up numbers, of course)

I would instantly change my Sylvari Thief to a Human if they were to add this in.