Guild Wars 2

I frequently see the request for a race change option in the Trading Co. but there’s always the issue of the Personal Story and how it’s tied so very deeply to your character’s race.

Just an idea to help support it, but why not have a Personal Story reset along with the race change?

And what about cultural armor already bought for that character?

WaxWorm.8574:

And what about cultural armor already bought for that character?

Maybe that is part of the ‘cost’ the player is going to have to obsorb in order to do the race range. Cultural armor is lost.

Right now we don’t have the option at all. I think that many would argue that it would be better to have the opion even though it wouldn’t be perfect, then to not have the option at all.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I frequently see the request for a race change option in the Trading Co. but there’s always the issue of the Personal Story and how it’s tied so very deeply to your character’s race.

Just an idea to help support it, but why not have a Personal Story reset along with the race change?

I had been saying that for the longest time now… pretty simple solution to the personal story issue IMO… and if someone wants a race change THAT bad it shouldn’t be a real big issue.

WaxWorm.8574:

And what about cultural armor already bought for that character?

I feel like then they’re just SOL… but I feel generally speaking (im sure there are many exceptions) people that are really dissatisfied with their race to the point of needing a race change wouldn’t have purchased t3 armor… and t1 and 2 are pretty much pocket change as cost goes… it would just have to be a sacrifice the player has to make… as one of those people (t3 on my sylvari guardian and level 50something personal story) I would give both back to be able to re-skin as a human and still have the rest of my stuff and be at level 80.

I’m having a thought here, but out of curiosity, what would you pay for a race change?

2000 or 3000 gems for one.

I have not bough Gems too often, but that is close to $40 right? Or about 100g converted.

I’m just thinking that, even though this would take more work on our part, a race change is essential possible through our own means.

It is not perfect, but the fact that you can level from 1 to 80 via crafting alone would mean that you could delete your character and reroll it with the same name if you wanted, created in the race that you desire.

If you had no materials of your own it would cost about just under 100g or so to level all 8 professions from scratch bringing you to level 80. You’d have 80 skill points which is enough to learn all or most of the skills that you would need.

Now you would loose everything bound to the character itself, so all exotic gear, but for those saying they would give up cultural gear anyway this shouldn’t be a problem. You might even have extra dungeon tokens to suit the new guy up, or jugs of karma in the bank if you wanted to go that way.

The only way this really wouldn’t work at all is if you had things bought with laurels that you would loose, soul bound things from fractals, or of course a legendary.

I know this is not what we are asking for and it would still be nice to impliment, but for the price most people are willing to pay for this race change, it is very near possible on our own.

@ OP:

No one(aside from maybe 3 people) gives a kitten about the story.

But…if you do, there is an easy way around it: require you to have finished the story and then you can select a couple bullet points to change up your ending with your new race.

Not a big deal to implement…so get on it. 800-1200 gems BOOM, I’d buy 3-4×.

CryxTryx.9208:

I’m having a thought here, but out of curiosity, what would you pay for a race change?

I would not pay a cent, if the cultural armor is not automatically converted to fit my new race. I am on the other side of the boat – I do not care about the personal story. At all.

Either destroy cultural armours, or convert them into the corresponding skin from the new race. As for personal story, either require that you’re up to a certain point, or reset it but so that you can’t get certain rewards again (I’m sure Anet might have concerns about Black Lion Keys, for instance).

The cost: 800-1200 gems sounds about right.

The main issue with personal story resetting is the fact that the personal story gives unique rewards. And it would be quite complex to remove all these rewards with a race change, especially if they are transmuted and such.

lordkrall.7241:

The main issue with personal story resetting is the fact that the personal story gives unique rewards. And it would be quite complex to remove all these rewards with a race change, especially if they are transmuted and such.

Why? If a reward is intended to be unique to the point that they don’t want you to get it again, just make it so a reset personal story will not give those rewards again, rather than deleting the ones you got the first time around.

I know very little about programming, but they seem quite capable of having some sort of checkbox per character: “yes he has gathered that ori node today” or “no, he has not”. If you’ve received the unique reward once, you can’t do it again.

Ah, but different personal stories (especially the racial parts) offer completely different stuff. Which would make such a thing a nightmare to program.

It won’t happen for the same reason that profession changing won’t happen:

ANet would never let you skip their content.

It’s absurd of you to ask them to let you do that. Because let’s face it, even if you have played all the races and all the orders, most people have not. And of course, the same applies to every other choice in the Personal Story. There’s tons of miniarcs that have two or three different routes. Not to mention that every single race has 3 possible starting stories.

Heck, just the last of those amounts to 15 different routes.

lordkrall.7241:

Ah, but different personal stories (especially the racial parts) offer completely different stuff. Which would make such a thing a nightmare to program.

Seriously? Does it even have to list the item? Can’t it just be “yes, this character has received his reward for lvl 10 personal story” ?

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

2000 or 3000 gems for one.

What do you have on your character that it wouldn’t be cheaper in almost every respect to just buy a character slot and level a new one? O_o

Lane.3410:

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

2000 or 3000 gems for one.

What do you have on your character that it wouldn’t be cheaper in almost every respect to just buy a character slot and level a new one? O_o

Yeah after revisiting this thread and seeing 2k-3k i slapped myself thinking “Wait , i can craft from 20-80 for much cheaper but those first 20 levels are dreadful but 2k-3k gems are you insane?!” yeah 1200 would do it for me :P

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

yeah 1200 would do it for me :P

I ended up just buying another character slot when they were on sale, so cost me 640 gems I think?

I didn’t powerlevel via crafting since I enjoy map completion, but I suppose if I had it would have come out to (guesstimating) 15g per craft x 8 = 120g, which would be enough to buy ~4000 gems at their current rate. So, I guess your initial figure wasn’t off by much.

Personally though, I wouldn’t spend over 800 gems (the cost of a character slot) since it takes me no time at all to level an alt to 80. It would’ve been more convenient if I could have just race changed, but I don’t have the patience to wait for them to incorporate that. :P

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Just an idea to help support it, but why not have a Personal Story reset along with the race change?

This is definitely what I think they should do. Assuming their would be no issues with the code, it doesn’t seem like race change would not be particularly hard to add and it is definitely in somewhat high demand.

WaxWorm.8574:

And what about cultural armor already bought for that character?

Cultural Armor would become unwearable by that character then. The player should still be allowed to keep it and use it on another character though (by transmuting it down to white to remove the soulbound). Or Anet could just make all cultural armor available to all races (like the cultural weapons).

Gilburt.9146:

Cultural Armor would become unwearable by that character then. The player should still be allowed to keep it and use it on another character though (by transmuting it down to white to remove the soulbound). Or Anet could just make all cultural armor available to all races (like the cultural weapons).

Wow, do you hear yourself? So basically If I decide to change my race (if they ever implement this feature) first I need to pay gems for the race change item, then I need to spend another 120 gold on cultural armor, to buy another 6 pieces of exotic armor AND 6 Divinity runes?! Are you kidding me?

The cultural armor should be automatically converted to mach your new race, without losing ANY current items on your character.

Complete personaly story as requirement (or up until a certain point where race doesn’t matter anymore – after Battle of Claw iirc, where there is different cutscene if you’re a Sylvari), cultural armor get lost in the process (if you’ve spent 110g on that char it’s unlikely you dislike the race. and if you do, it’s your fault having spent so much gold on something you don’t like), can redo the char creation when changing race, racial skills gets resetted.
Cost, 1600 gems sounds accurate to me (double the total makeover).

AndrewSX.3794:

Complete personaly story as requirement (or up until a certain point where race doesn’t matter anymore – after Battle of Claw iirc, where there is different cutscene if you’re a Sylvari), cultural armor get lost in the process (if you’ve spent 110g on that char it’s unlikely you dislike the race. and if you do, it’s your fault having spent so much gold on something you don’t like), can redo the char creation when changing race, racial skills gets resetted.
Cost, 1600 gems sounds accurate to me (double the total makeover).

Pretty close to my thoughts. And I especially agree that losing any cultural armor etc should be a risk involved with a race change.

Wow. I don’t know why you want it to be so expensive and penalizing. I honestly wonder how many people would bother with it at that point.

It seems to me that coding “Human Cultural Armor A” → “Charr Cultural Armor A” and/or “Human Personal Quest Choice A” → “Charr Personal Quest Choice A” wouldn’t be that difficult.

I can understand some level of discouragement to inhibit ‘abuse’, but if it’s too detrimental it’ll become a mostly unused service likely only purchased by people who have soulbound items like legendaries they don’t want to lose.

Lane.3410:

I can understand some level of discouragement to inhibit ‘abuse’, but if it’s too detrimental it’ll become a mostly unused service likely only purchased by people who have soulbound items like legendaries they don’t want to lose.

Which is exactly the point.

Funset.7893:

Wow, do you hear yourself? So basically If I decide to change my race (if they ever implement this feature) first I need to pay gems for the race change item, then I need to spend another 120 gold on cultural armor, to buy another 6 pieces of exotic armor AND 6 Divinity runes?! Are you kidding me?

The cultural armor should be automatically converted to mach your new race, without losing ANY current items on your character.

Yes, I do hear myself, thanks. If they can realistically include an option to convert cultural armor then I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it. Also, I had said I would be fine with each cultural armor set being wearable by all races (as cultural weapons aren’t restricted to certain races), which is also realistic way to address this problem.

I don’t, however, think it’s a necessity that cultural armor be converted/changed in anyway for a race change feature to be added. It’s not Anet’s responsibility to be bothered with every bad investment a player makes (such as having bought cultural armor on a character whose race they no longer want).

Funset.7893:

Gilburt.9146:

Cultural Armor would become unwearable by that character then. The player should still be allowed to keep it and use it on another character though (by transmuting it down to white to remove the soulbound). Or Anet could just make all cultural armor available to all races (like the cultural weapons).

Wow, do you hear yourself? So basically If I decide to change my race (if they ever implement this feature) first I need to pay gems for the race change item, then I need to spend another 120 gold on cultural armor, to buy another 6 pieces of exotic armor AND 6 Divinity runes?! Are you kidding me?

The cultural armor should be automatically converted to mach your new race, without losing ANY current items on your character.

Wow. What is even happening in your head?

lordkrall.7241:

Which is exactly the point.

Well, then I really don’t see what incentive Anet would have to develop such a service. It’s obviously a problem since it doesn’t already exist and making it that punishing and expensive to race change I can’t see anyone in their right mind doing it.

Lane.3410:

lordkrall.7241:

Which is exactly the point.

Well, then I really don’t see what incentive Anet would have to develop such a service. It’s obviously a problem since it doesn’t already exist and making it that punishing and expensive to race change I can’t see anyone in their right mind doing it.

Exactly, and ArenaNet have been quite clear with the fact that they are not planning to develop such as service.

lordkrall.7241:

Exactly, and ArenaNet have been quite clear with the fact that they are not planning to develop such as service.

They’re said nobody is working on it and it’s not on their schedule at the moment.

A bit different compared to “We will never do it” – even if i think too that we’ll never see it.

AndrewSX.3794:

lordkrall.7241:

Exactly, and ArenaNet have been quite clear with the fact that they are not planning to develop such as service.

They’re said nobody is working on it and it’s not on their schedule at the moment.

A bit different compared to “We will never do it” – even if i think too that we’ll never see it.

No company in the right mind would ever say “we will never offer this as a service”, especially for something that could (relatively) easily be done. That, and the number of people who would actually use this would probably be a tiny fraction of the player base.

Lane.3410:

Wow. I don’t know why you want it to be so expensive and penalizing. I honestly wonder how many people would bother with it at that point.

It seems to me that coding “Human Cultural Armor A” -> “Charr Cultural Armor A” and/or “Human Personal Quest Choice A” -> “Charr Personal Quest Choice A” wouldn’t be that difficult.

I can understand some level of discouragement to inhibit ‘abuse’, but if it’s too detrimental it’ll become a mostly unused service likely only purchased by people who have soulbound items like legendaries they don’t want to lose.

When services like this are offered, they are priced as Penalties, not as Products.

Such items are just affordable enough for an emergency, but deliberately out of reach for casual purchase. See the Server Transfer and Rename Tokens. At those costs, ANet doesn’t actually want you buying them outside extraordinary circumstances. If they set a price point that would promote a high sales volume, it would create huge problems. A Race or Class Change token (which I do not believe they will ever offer at any price, but agree they’d be a little daft to say they’ll never offer at any price) would be very similar.

And again, a reminder, anyone who says such a service could be “easily programmed” is demonstrating an almost complete ignorance of the realities of programming. Never speculate about how easy a modification to a program would be until you have personally been eyeballs-deep in the code. It makes you sound like Marketing People.

800-1600 Gem range, convert all cultural armor, no restrictions, no crap.

Story doesn’t matter.

Let people pay for a service that’s been tried and tested in other games and proven to be (mildly) popular. There’s absolutely no reason not to offer this service considering its just swapping data values and would make ANet piles of cash in the long run.

blenheim.6489:

800-1600 Gem range, convert all cultural armor, no restrictions, no crap.

Story doesn’t matter.

Let people pay for a service that’s been tried and tested in other games and proven to be (mildly) popular. There’s absolutely no reason not to offer this service considering its just swapping data values and would make ANet piles of cash in the long run.

Ah yes. “just swapping data values”.

The whole story of the game is based around your race.

Melchior.2135:

It makes you sound like Marketing People.

100% complete personal story. Allowed to race change. 3k gems. Cultural armour will no longer be equip able.

I currently want to change race, but have around 2k gold worth of item skins attach to the character, all my ascended gear, all dungeon storys, 100% map completion. Loosing 80 gold worth of cultural armour will not affect me.

no race change due to technical difficulties? easy make a class change instead; a viable compromise.

item will unequip everything before implementing the class change.

GW2 players:

Demand a useless and expensive feature.

Complain that it’s useless and too expensive.

Yeeeeeeah……
This is a horrible idea and you are all horrible for thinking of it AND then contributing to it.

There is NO good reason for this to happen. None. At All.
Your character IS a certain race and they ARE a certain profession and that should not be changeable because it just doesn’t make any sense for it to be.

If you truly want a change you have 5 character slots and if you are honestly using all of those you could always purchase another character slot. If your problem was that you didn’t want to level again I would have to point out a couple of things:
*Leveling does not take long at all
*IF you would consider a 3-4k gem purchase that is the equivalent of 90g in game, more than enough to level 1-80 by crafting alone.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

Yeeeeeeah……
This is a horrible idea and you are all horrible for thinking of it AND then contributing to it.

There is NO good reason for this to happen. None. At All.
Your character IS a certain race and they ARE a certain profession and that should not be changeable because it just doesn’t make any sense for it to be.

If you truly want a change you have 5 character slots and if you are honestly using all of those you could always purchase another character slot. If your problem was that you didn’t want to level again I would have to point out a couple of things:
*Leveling does not take long at all
*IF you would consider a 3-4k gem purchase that is the equivalent of 90g in game, more than enough to level 1-80 by crafting alone.

And here’s a negative nancy riding in to sour the thread.

Here’s a little story. I have 8 80’s one of which was a human warrior. Well I decided that I didn’t like a human as a warrior, I wanted a charr. Now I don’t care for the personal story or any of this games terrible PvE content, and it’s because of this stupid living story restriction that I couldn’t have paid a fee and simply ha a race change. I want to change two other characters, but after goin through the experience, until a race change is implemented, I’d rather not give Anet any more money buy buying any more character slots or buying any products on their store.

TL;Dr your way of thinking is rife with stupidity, and its not always as simple as just reroll.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

There is NO good reason for this to happen. None. At All.
Your character IS a certain race and they ARE a certain profession and that should not be changeable because it just doesn’t make any sense for it to be.

And sex change makes more sense?
it exists in-game already if you didn’t know.

The problem with a race-change item is mainly because it is technically challenging, and it might screw up so many things in the code. Apart from equipped items, i don’t see much technical difficulties on profession change.

I also don’t see why it bothers you or how it affects you in any way when someone else wants to change his appearance or profession.

Bread.7516:

And sex change makes more sense?
it exists in-game already if you didn’t know.

I am quite certain I can do a sex-change and become a female if I wish.
I am however extremely unlikely to be able to become a panda.

Regardless of whether certain players feel the story is not important, as long as Anet feels it’s important, I don’t believe we will see a race change option. I understand the desire to change races and have done so (and factions) in other games. In GW2, however, the embed of the story is deep and supported by many things such as the exclusive cultural gear. Race change is not something I would advocate for.

If you are not ok with the race change, DO NOT DO IT.
If you are not ok with the reseting/whatever with the personal story, DO NOT DO a race change.

But there are a lot of people, who do not care about the personal story, and do not have any prejudices about the race change. They will race change, and it in NO WAY will affect your personal gameplay experience!

In conclusion: If the race change became available, none will be forcing you to do it. So why the whine?

Because it will require quite a bit of work from ArenaNets part, which we would rather have put into something useful?

I don’t have a problem with people wanting a race change option per se. If people aren’t happy with their character then obviously they’d like to change it without having to start from scratch.

I wouldn’t do it simply because I consider the road to 80 quite an investment in the character I’ve chosen. You spend a lot of time on this character and got to know it, like it (usually) and it embodies something of a personality. To me, it’s very obvious from the beginning whether I got it wrong or not, and I have no problems just deleting a level 10 char. But to get a character to level 80, I’ve probably created a whole “personality” around it, that I feel simply having an option to click a button and change the entire race of that character would ruin.

However, some people just get to the end and realise the armour they wanted doesn’t work and aren’t happy to find another. That’s also cool. I think it’s a shame they haven’t formed that connection with the character that I think is pretty key in all RPG-style games, but it is what it is.

I personally won’t be using a race change option, but I won’t begrudge anyone else who wants it.

Make the player redo his/her story and change Cultural armor into account bound, both sound reasonable to me for paid race change.

Personal story does not matter that much if at all, plenty of players never even touch their story.

Lane.3410:

Wow. I don’t know why you want it to be so expensive and penalizing. I honestly wonder how many people would bother with it at that point.

It seems to me that coding “Human Cultural Armor A” -> “Charr Cultural Armor A” and/or “Human Personal Quest Choice A” -> “Charr Personal Quest Choice A” wouldn’t be that difficult.

I can understand some level of discouragement to inhibit ‘abuse’, but if it’s too detrimental it’ll become a mostly unused service likely only purchased by people who have soulbound items like legendaries they don’t want to lose.

But then how about this title?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fashion

By making the cultural armor change to the new one (which we all agree would be the logical thing to do) I can get this title way cheaper by just buying this item 4 times. Next time you see everyone will have “The Emperor” title.

lordkrall.7241:

Because it will require quite a bit of work from ArenaNets part, which we would rather have put into something useful?

Making money is useful.
I would also like a race change option.

Malpractice.7850:

Making money is useful.
I would also like a race change option.

It is.
But it will most likely require much more time and effort than it is actually worth. And unless the price is extremely high they would most likely earn more on simply selling more character slots for people that want to try other races.

i have a warrior asura and i want change it to norn.
i know i can create new one but my fractal levels and my accessories my map completion my dungeon stories and my legendary gifts.
- add change race with this 1000-1500 gems + story full done and special armors destroy
any news?