Q:
I know it has already been suggested to death, but hear me out.
I think that race changes should be put into the gem store. There, the dark horse is out! Please wait! Don’t kill me just yet.
The reason usually given for not doing it is:
1) “You can test races and their racial abilities in the mists (sPvP). There is no reason for you to be allowed to change whenever you want.”
I can see the perceived logic in that statement. People can do that. But here’s the problem: No one is great with a new class right away, because they don’t know the class. Also, not everyone wants to PvP with a class for a week just to “test” it. People want to get a basic feel for it, see if it’s fun, and be done with it. I usually spend maybe 40 minutes testing out a class, and I don’t even think about the racial abilities in relation to the class; I think about them in terms of their general usefulness across all classes.
I would venture to say that almost everyone does the exact same thing I do, and you know why? It is a hassle and a pain in the rear to do it any other way. It takes time to learn to play a class properly, and you have to know how to play a class properly if you want to make the best use of racial abilities.
That isn’t a “test run” on the mists; that is playing and leveling and learning a class, all of which takes time. Also, with the new magic find system being introduced, it is a needless time sync. You not only have to spend the time leveling again, you have to go back and get all of your magic find all over again. It is a huge pain, and it makes people annoyed.
Now I know that this would not be easy. There is the story mode to consider. But I say just give people the options (1/2/3) that they picked as their race and transfer it to the new one. It could be done, and people buying race changes would more than pay for someone to code the ability to do that for characters. And again, no one is forcing anyone to do it. No one has to do it. The only people it benefits are people like myself who, after playing a class long enough to get used to it, recognize that other racial abilities would be better.
I will use myself as an example:
Got my Norn ranger to 41. Norn has some decent racial abilities, but I want a charr. Charrs are not really “better,” their racials are not over-powered, but here is why I personally want one: I like the ability Hidden Pistol and I think it would be fantastic for a ranger; it would give an extra evade in their already evade-heavy kitten nal. I prefer the ability to jump into and out of close combat when I want, and while the ability does not do great damage, it is great for that kind of play style. I did not know this by playing a ranger for 30 minutes in the Mists. I had not played it enough to develop my personal play style. Now, even though I found a race to better suit my personal play style, I have to delete all of the effort I put into my ranger, simply because there was no forethought into making a race change ability. I think by this point I’ve leveled all but a plant person to at least level 20. I think, actually, I have an 80 of all the races except the plant people. I do not care a bit about the stories now. I just want to play a ranger, but I want a fun ability to suit my play style, one that I would pay to get, and now I have to sit around like “…..SIGHHHH….all the wasted effort….”
TL;DR: The reasons for having a race change available in the gem store far outweighs any negative aspect. Plus, more money for ANet.
P.S. Also another benefit is, ANet will get less messages from people who spent gems on characters they deleted (to make a different race for the same character) asking for gem refunds or the re-issuing of items. Why wouldn’t they? They spent gems, found a race they like better, there is literally no way to change races, so why wouldn’t they want a refund or to have those items again? It only makes sense. If I delete my ranger to make it a charr, I sure as heck will want all of the gem store items back I got for my ranger (i.e. the hair color change/appearance change/extra bag slot, etc). Just give a race change on the gem store, and all of that can be avoided.