I started playing a couple years ago, enjoyed the game, then life took me away. Now I’m back playing and enjoying myself again and I have this problem where I have a few characters that are kind of mid-leveled, 20s-50s. I don’t want to delete them since birthday presents seem like a big deal, but I’m not really attached to them either.
I could buy makeover kits, but that doesn’t change race. So I was wondering if a “rebirth” option might not be a good idea? I know ArenaNet needs to sell gems, so it could be a gem-store item if necessary to keep demand for character slots and makeover kits and the like.
It could be a race change, or a race change and a level reset to 1, or both of those plus a name change – I don’t really know. I just know that I’d appreciate being able to fully re-tool my old characters into something I want to play without losing their birth dates and the birthday presents that go along with them. I hate the idea of deleting a two year old character.
Is this a dumb idea? Are race changes impossible, is this too similar to full makeover kits? Or would this be something that might be worth asking Anet to put in?
We’ve been told that race changes are not possible due to technical limitations. They’ve made other comments about why they wouldn’t want to do them, but that’s the big one. There’s just too much tied to your race for them to be able to do it without causing issues.
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
I have already bought an extra slot or two, but I have 3 characters that are just kind of sitting there. At $10 a pop, they’re not “not that expensive”, they add up pretty kitten quickly. I can wait for a sale, but the useful upgrades like character slots and bank tabs seem to go on sale very rarely. Plus it means I have characters at my log-in page that just kind of sit there unused, which is a shame.
(edit) I mean I guess I can just save up gold to transfer to gems to buy slots piecemeal as I earn it, to avoid paying real cash for each replacement, but that’s also a bit of a bummer. The “can’t change races” thing makes sense though – your personal story and all that would be a pain to fix. That’s why I thought it may work better as a total reset – keep your birthday, but go right back to level 1 and character creation, lose your equipment, your personal story, all of that.
Convert your no longer played chars to mules. $10 for for as many inventory slots as each has for storage isn’t that bad. Put them on a chest or at a node spot for a daily harvest and you’ll get a few mats for a few silver a day too. You can go to WvW, your guild hall or sPvP if you need access to a merch to clean out the inventory.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
Mules are a good idea I hadn’t really thought about before, and parking them in spots for daily nodes/vistas/whatever makes sense as well. Then I suppose I could take them out of retirement if I ever got the gumption up.
Just delete the characters you don’t want. I’ve been playing since beta, only got 1 birthday gift so far because I often reroll as an other race or profession. Well, that was before I finally found my permanent main. :P But yeah, I don’t really care about the free b-day gifts, these items are not worth it to keep characters I will never play with. And yeah, a race change would be nice but it won’t happen.
Mules are a good idea I hadn’t really thought about before, and parking them in spots for daily nodes/vistas/whatever makes sense as well. Then I suppose I could take them out of retirement if I ever got the gumption up.
Yah. That’s another reason not to delete. I have a couple of level 80s that are currently mules parked at a chest or node farm. It’s better that way, imo. Not only can I store inventory on them and get birthday presents (which gives me free dyes that would cost me hundreds of gold to buy), there’s always the chance I might decide to play them again one day.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
How many gems do you think the “rebirth” option would cost? It’s not going to be much under 800 gems because: (a) it would cost ANet resources to develop the ability to do this and (b) there aren’t any similar services available for any less. (The makeover kit is cosmetics only; it doesn’t require returning a character to ‘start’.)
Accordingly, one might as well create a new character: you get the benefits of the birthday, you can park the mid-tier toon at a JP for some modest amount of mats, and you can store overstock of mats etc, & you get a new toon. All for about the same as what this feature would likely cost.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
How many gems do you think the “rebirth” option would cost? It’s not going to be much under 800 gems because: (a) it would cost ANet resources to develop the ability to do this and (b) there aren’t any similar services available for any less. (The makeover kit is cosmetics only; it doesn’t require returning a character to ‘start’.)
Accordingly, one might as well create a new character: you get the benefits of the birthday, you can park the mid-tier toon at a JP for some modest amount of mats, and you can store overstock of mats etc, & you get a new toon. All for about the same as what this feature would likely cost.
That’s a good point. I guess 400 would probably be what it’d have to cost to be worth not just making a new character. Not sure if that works compared to the makeover kits, but remember that it’d start you over at level 1, so it’s not quite as attractive to most people as a total makeover.
How many gems do you think the “rebirth” option would cost? It’s not going to be much under 800 gems because: (a) it would cost ANet resources to develop the ability to do this and (b) there aren’t any similar services available for any less. (The makeover kit is cosmetics only; it doesn’t require returning a character to ‘start’.)
Accordingly, one might as well create a new character: you get the benefits of the birthday, you can park the mid-tier toon at a JP for some modest amount of mats, and you can store overstock of mats etc, & you get a new toon. All for about the same as what this feature would likely cost.
That’s a good point. I guess 400 would probably be what it’d have to cost to be worth not just making a new character. Not sure if that works compared to the makeover kits, but remember that it’d start you over at level 1, so it’s not quite as attractive to most people as a total makeover.
The name change contract is 800 gems and “all” it does is change a toon’s name. Rebirthing would require a lot more work by ANet to develop the infrastructure (there are lots of visible and behind-the-scenes changes that take place as a character levels; they’d have to design a system to account for redoing that… or not redoing aspects).
In other words, you’re looking solely at this from “what price would players be willing to pay” versus how much is it going to cost ANet to make the feature available.
It’s a desirable feature; it’s just not very realistic that it will be implemented anytime soon.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I left for a few years myself, and when I came back, I had a few 80’s, but I also had a few mid 40’s that I really didn’t want to play in their current iteration. Like you, I didn’t want to lose their birthdate either, so I let them languish…
Along comes a bunch of full iinventory slots, and using them for mules becomes a real benefit. Especially with all the new crowbars/lockpicks/whatevers that don’t stack in your wallet like currency.
I do understand the desire for a “reset ticket” but if you’re going to spend (X) number of gems for a reset, I think gaining a new character slot would be much more useful, considering the charge for a slot would be almost guaranteed to be less than a reset ticket.
I’d be astonished if a “rebirth” option was less than 1000 gems in the gemstore. It’s essentially a convenience item that allows people to have a different char that keeps the birthdate and presumably any map completion. Like any convenience item, they’re going to charge for that convenience as well as the costs to create and debug this feature.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
Yes we should. I don’t have time to level and fully gear a second engineer I need to be able to just change him from a Charr to an Asura and I’m willing to pay for that change.
It’s just weird that this isn’t an option immersion has been used as a false argument for this issue but there’s absolutely nothing that would change in the game that could make a difference with it now that home instances are everywhere and the choices made when creating the characters actually DON’T do anything to the storyline.
This whole argument is just a race change request under a different name. They’ve already said they won’t offer a race change and even though they haven’t come out and said why the problem seems to be how the choice of race at character creation is tied to the hero panel and to the personal story.
They’ve already said, in discussing other topics, that changing core features is a difficult process that can easily introduce bugs that impact everyone in game. Bugs that can be difficult to find and fix and could cause far more problems than fixing a wish to not level up another char.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
Convert your no longer played chars to mules. $10 for for as many inventory slots as each has for storage isn’t that bad. Put them on a chest or at a node spot for a daily harvest and you’ll get a few mats for a few silver a day too. You can go to WvW, your guild hall or sPvP if you need access to a merch to clean out the inventory.
This is what I would recommend as well. Mid-level alts /mules are great characters for parking at JP chests or mid-tier nodes for daily farming. Some JP chests have a chance at valuable items like doubloons, and the items obtained will be of similar level to the toon so they can be salvaged for mid-tier materials which tend to be valuable as well.
As a primarily PVE solo/duo/smaaaaall group player I can honestly say deleting a toon just to keep the birthday stuff you get once a year isnt worth it in the end. You can level characters fairly dang fast and so you want the slots to fill up with ones you actually play. I deleted a character I had since the very first day, simply because I knew I’d never play her again, and I dont regret it, but it took me a few months to decide because it just felt wrong plus missing those birthday gifts. lol.
Yes we should. I don’t have time to level and fully gear a second engineer I need to be able to just change him from a Charr to an Asura and I’m willing to pay for that change.
I’m willing to pay for a jetpack, but that doesn’t mean anyone can produce one for retail — willingness to pay isn’t a sufficient argument.
immersion has been used as a false argument for this issue
I would never use that as a sufficient argument.
The problem is the cost — there isn’t an existing switch that resets a character’s race or level. There are literally hundreds of small (and important) changes made to your character as you level & explore. Those would have to be individually identified and flagged as “hold-when-resetting” versus “reset” versus “modify”. Then they’d have to write a script to make the change, deal with the inevitable bugs caused by using a square peg in a smaller round hole, and the even more inevitable customer support issues.
but there’s absolutely nothing that would change in the game that could make a difference with it now that home instances are everywhere and the choices made when creating the characters actually DON’T do anything to the storyline.
I’m not sure why you would say that when there are changes made to the home instance on a per character basis, as well as changes made to the character. (Home instances were always ‘everywhere’.)
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
It doesn’t have to be complex. All they really have to do is:
1) Have you create your new character. This is done using the normal way. This creates a normal level 1 instance of the character.
2) Copy your existing characters inventory to the new character (rewriting character IDs and packaging up any equipped gear like they do with the level 80 boost).
3) Copy your existing characters name and date of birth to the new character (which preserves the birthday).
4) Delete the old character.
This would effectively overwrite your old character with the newly created one but it would be a new, fresh character with no personal story progression that keeps only a few key elements of the old character (your inventory, name and date of birth).
If they wanted to get “fancy” they could copy other aspects of your existing character (such as map completion and level) to the new one. Again the key is selectively copying some data to a new character. Not attempting to reset an old one.
Edit: actually they should copy map completion and level to the new one. And crafting.
It doesn’t have to be complex. All they really have to do is:
1) Have you create your new character. This is done using the normal way. This creates a normal level 1 instance of the character.
2) Copy your existing characters inventory to the new character (rewriting character IDs and packaging up any equipped gear like they do with the level 80 boost).
3) Copy your existing characters name and date of birth to the new character (which preserves the birthday).
4) Delete the old character.
This would effectively overwrite your old character with the newly created one but it would be a new, fresh character with no personal story progression that keeps only a few key elements of the old character (your inventory, name and date of birth).
If they wanted to get “fancy” they could copy other aspects of your existing character (such as map completion and level) to the new one. Again the key is selectively copying some data to a new character. Not attempting to reset an old one.
Edit: actually they should copy map completion and level to the new one. And crafting.
Even though you think it’s that easy to selectively copy data, I’m not sure why you’d think that it’s never occurred to them to try this sort of work-around. This topic (or its cousins) has been around since near launch.
It’s not complicated; there’s just a lot of simple things that need to be taken care of.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
It doesn’t have to be complex. All they really have to do is:
1) Have you create your new character. This is done using the normal way. This creates a normal level 1 instance of the character.
2) Copy your existing characters inventory to the new character (rewriting character IDs and packaging up any equipped gear like they do with the level 80 boost).
3) Copy your existing characters name and date of birth to the new character (which preserves the birthday).
4) Delete the old character.
This would effectively overwrite your old character with the newly created one but it would be a new, fresh character with no personal story progression that keeps only a few key elements of the old character (your inventory, name and date of birth).
If they wanted to get “fancy” they could copy other aspects of your existing character (such as map completion and level) to the new one. Again the key is selectively copying some data to a new character. Not attempting to reset an old one.
Edit: actually they should copy map completion and level to the new one. And crafting.
Even though you think it’s that easy to selectively copy data, I’m not sure why you’d think that it’s never occurred to them to try this sort of work-around. This topic (or its cousins) has been around since near launch.
It’s not complicated; there’s just a lot of simple things that need to be taken care of.
I’m an experienced software engineer. I’ve worked quite a bit with databases over the many years I’ve been working. I know it’s easy to selectively copy data. I’ve also looked at the GW2 API so I have a good idea of the kind of data they have.
As for why this solution never occurred to them; they’ve already decided they can’t do this so what makes you think anyone at ArenaNet has ever thought about this at all after the initial “oh that’s really difficult, rolling back the personal story would be a big problem there”?
It doesn’t have to be complex. All they really have to do is:
1) Have you create your new character. This is done using the normal way. This creates a normal level 1 instance of the character.
2) Copy your existing characters inventory to the new character (rewriting character IDs and packaging up any equipped gear like they do with the level 80 boost).
3) Copy your existing characters name and date of birth to the new character (which preserves the birthday).
4) Delete the old character.
This would effectively overwrite your old character with the newly created one but it would be a new, fresh character with no personal story progression that keeps only a few key elements of the old character (your inventory, name and date of birth).
If they wanted to get “fancy” they could copy other aspects of your existing character (such as map completion and level) to the new one. Again the key is selectively copying some data to a new character. Not attempting to reset an old one.
Edit: actually they should copy map completion and level to the new one. And crafting.
Even though you think it’s that easy to selectively copy data, I’m not sure why you’d think that it’s never occurred to them to try this sort of work-around. This topic (or its cousins) has been around since near launch.
It’s not complicated; there’s just a lot of simple things that need to be taken care of.
I’m an experienced software engineer. I’ve worked quite a bit with databases over the many years I’ve been working. I know it’s easy to selectively copy data. I’ve also looked at the GW2 API so I have a good idea of the kind of data they have.
As for why this solution never occurred to them; they’ve already decided they can’t do this so what makes you think anyone at ArenaNet has ever thought about this at all after the initial “oh that’s really difficult, rolling back the personal story would be a big problem there”?
It’s not likely a database issue. I haven’t worked with NoSQL dbs (which as I understand, is what they use), so I don’t have experience there, but I think it’s probably more they have things hard coded in the actual game code, which is what will cause the issues. There are likely things that should have / could have been saved to the db but weren’t because of design choices that were made before launch. This is probably one of them, given the statement before launch that they wouldn’t make a race change item. They wanted people to think about their choices and wanted those choices to have weight, to have consequences. No changing willy nilly. Those building block choices has a cascading effect over the lifetime of a code base.
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
What differences in functionality would there be between a “rebirth” kit, just buying a new character slot, and re-rolling an existing character slot?
Are those differences large enough to be worth Anet dedicating resources that could otherwise be spent elsewhere?
Keeping the name, creation date and inventory, but otherwise resetting everything on the character and its personal story.
This service should not be available outside the BLTC because it would otherwise be used for key farming.
I have my doubts that the resources required to do this would be all that significant, specifically because the game already does something very similar when you delete the character. This option should just require keeping two variables and a few arrays.
What differences in functionality would there be between a “rebirth” kit, just buying a new character slot, and re-rolling an existing character slot?
Are those differences large enough to be worth Anet dedicating resources that could otherwise be spent elsewhere?
Keeping the name, creation date and inventory, but otherwise resetting everything on the character and its personal story.
This service should not be available outside the BLTC because it would otherwise be used for key farming.
I have my doubts that the resources required to do this would be all that significant, specifically because the game already does something very similar when you delete the character. This option should just require keeping two variables and a few arrays.
You can re-use the name if done so within a specific time period. The only inventory you lose out on is soulbound items that can easily be replaced and purchased bag slots.
It’s not likely a database issue. I haven’t worked with NoSQL dbs (which as I understand, is what they use), so I don’t have experience there, but I think it’s probably more they have things hard coded in the actual game code, which is what will cause the issues. There are likely things that should have / could have been saved to the db but weren’t because of design choices that were made before launch.
Well, as I said in my previous post the key is selectively copying some data to a new character and deleting the old one. Not attempting to reset an old one.
The new character effectively gets a Level X boost (where X is the old character’s level). This gives them some map completion, some items in their inventory (probably in a box like with the Level 80 boost) and a boost in their crafting disciplines.
I understood they were still using SQL databases but regardless of whether it’s a SQL or NoSQL database a database is still a database. The same principles apply; if you can find the relevant entries associated with a character (their inventory, map completion, crafting recipe lists and so on) then you can copy or move it to another character’s entry.
It’s not likely a database issue. I haven’t worked with NoSQL dbs (which as I understand, is what they use), so I don’t have experience there, but I think it’s probably more they have things hard coded in the actual game code, which is what will cause the issues. There are likely things that should have / could have been saved to the db but weren’t because of design choices that were made before launch.
Well, as I said in my previous post the key is selectively copying some data to a new character and deleting the old one. Not attempting to reset an old one.
The new character effectively gets a Level X boost (where X is the old character’s level). This gives them some map completion, some items in their inventory (probably in a box like with the Level 80 boost) and a boost in their crafting disciplines.
I understood they were still using SQL databases but regardless of whether it’s a SQL or NoSQL database a database is still a database. The same principles apply; if you can find the relevant entries associated with a character (their inventory, map completion, crafting recipe lists and so on) then you can copy or move it to another character’s entry.
They’re probably using a combination of the two. But last time I checked, their database position was asking for someone with experience in both arenas.
Anyway, yes, theoretically that would work. But that would still be quite a bit of work to build an item for. I don’t think it would necessarily be cost effective for them, and does pose its own set of bugs if something gets overlooked. (Doesn’t it always?)
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
Anyway, yes, theoretically that would work. But that would still be quite a bit of work to build an item for. I don’t think it would necessarily be cost effective for them, and does pose its own set of bugs if something gets overlooked. (Doesn’t it always?)
Would it be a lot of work? Perhaps, depending on how you define a lot of work and it would, of course, require significant testing.
Is it worth it? This is a saleable product and it should probably cost more than a new character slot. I would guess somewhere in the 1200 to 1600 gems range.
Personally speaking, I know I’d buy… oh… two as soon as I got home. Maybe a third for my Revenant. Oh and I’d need two or three name change contracts too.
It’s probably just as well that they don’t have this item; it’d cost me a fortune.
Anyway, yes, theoretically that would work. But that would still be quite a bit of work to build an item for. I don’t think it would necessarily be cost effective for them, and does pose its own set of bugs if something gets overlooked. (Doesn’t it always?)
Would it be a lot of work? Perhaps, depending on how you define a lot of work and it would, of course, require significant testing.
Is it worth it? This is a saleable product and it should probably cost more than a new character slot. I would guess somewhere in the 1200 to 1600 gems range.
Personally speaking, I know I’d buy… oh… two as soon as I got home. Maybe a third for my Revenant. Oh and I’d need two or three name change contracts too.
It’s probably just as well that they don’t have this item; it’d cost me a fortune.
There’s going to be more to it beyond just how you or I define “a lot of work” because we have no actual clue what their codebase looks like. But yes, I was thinking the entire scope (planning, coding, testing (happy path, sad path, regression), bug fixing, additional testing, etc) not just specifically the code portion.
I don’t know if I personally would buy the item, and I’m sort of mixed on how I feel about others desiring them. But to each their own. I do think if they priced them at 1600 gems a piece ($20), people would kitten they were too expensive. They could just buy 2 character slots for that.
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
I’m an experienced software engineer. I’ve worked quite a bit with databases over the many years I’ve been working. I know it’s easy to selectively copy data. I’ve also looked at the GW2 API so I have a good idea of the kind of data they have.
What makes you think this is solely a database issue?
As for why this solution never occurred to them; they’ve already decided they can’t do this so what makes you think anyone at ArenaNet has ever thought about this at all after the initial “oh that’s really difficult, rolling back the personal story would be a big problem there”?
No, they didn’t already decide “they can’t do this” — we only know that they haven’t decided to do it. The DB might be an issue or not. There might be scripting issues. There might be support issues.There might be economic or reward balance issues. Or they might have decided that even though it’s “easy” to do this, it’s not worth the trouble for the amount of people likely to spend 1000 gems (or whatever they think it needs to cost).
They make business decisions; they often revisit them. They find things that they’d like to do, but don’t have time to implement (such as the update to material storage).
We can’t assume anything about the technical details or the decision-making process.
The best we can do is ask for features, discuss some of the difficulties, critique the assumptions, tweak the balances.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
It amazes me that a group of people who do not work for, nor have any affiliation with, Arenanet come to the forums and suddenly decide amongst themselves that something is so easy and can easily be done and changed to accommodate their wishes even though the actual makers of the game have already stated that no, it cannot and will not be done.
We’ve been told that race changes are not possible due to technical limitations.
Those “technical limitations” are bound to the character’s progress (story choices etc.). If said reset item would nihilate the character’s whole background and let you rebuild them from scratch, only keeping their age (date of creation), that would certainly be someting many more people than you think would make use of.
It amazes me that a group of people who do not work for, nor have any affiliation with, Arenanet come to the forums and suddenly decide amongst themselves that something is so easy and can easily be done and changed to accommodate their wishes even though the actual makers of the game have already stated that no, it cannot and will not be done.
To be fair, ANet hasn’t actually said that it cannot be done nor that they won’t ever do it. They have only said it’s more complicated than we imagine and that they aren’t working on a race change. (And they don’t reply every time this idea is brought up, so it’s not necessarily obvious to anyone posting today what their current stance is.)
I think it’s very unlikely that we’ll see a feature like this and I think people should plan as if it will never happen. That doesn’t mean I think folks should stop suggesting it nor that I think they don’t get to be upset about it not being in the game
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I really like this idea, It would be great to encourage people to replay the open world again. The limitation with changing race would be negated with it being reset as far as I’m aware the only reason its not been done to existing characters is because story and such is tied to it. With a reset to 1 and all of the story progression it wouldn’t really affect it. Only the date of birth and name really (however im honestly fine with a reset not including new choice of race etc). Specific rewards for playing through a character again like prestige rewards on top of normal level rewards would effectively boost the games lifetime and replay-ability. a few adjustments would need to be considered for particular game items that could be exploited and devalue the system but I’m going to really have a think about this and come back to the thread with some ideas/constraints! :o
We’ve been told that race changes are not possible due to technical limitations.
Those “technical limitations” are bound to the character’s progress (story choices etc.). If said reset item would nihilate the character’s whole background and let you rebuild them from scratch, only keeping their age (date of creation), that would certainly be someting many more people than you think would make use of.
As has been said, it would require the creation of an entirely new character and then just applying the original character’s birthday to the new one. Its not just a matter of wiping data from a column in a database. If it did, it would be much simpler.
Regardless, the technical limitation exists and they have told us such. So we know its more than just ‘they don’t want to do it.’
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
