Guild Wars 2

It recently occurred to me that if Anet introduced a tonic that allows you to play as though you were a member of a particular race, that would seem to indicate that this race is never going to be a choice at character creation.

If Anet did ever introduce Kodan as a playable race, many people would feel they have wasted their Karma on this tonic since they could now create an actual Kodan character. And the tonic would become far less likely to be purchased.

In grade 2 we learned about making inferences and reading between the lines. I’ll help you out here buddy. Kodan will not be a new playable race. You’re welcome. Feel free to send gold to my account to express your gratitude for my impeccable comprehension skills.

Kodan simply do not have enough variety or versatility to become a playable race. Their limitations make for a far better and more interesting NPC. To become playable would lose much of what makes them unique.

I think it is safe to say the tonic is the compromise here.

Even if I am wrong, 175k is a nominal Karma sum, easily and quickly recouped by the time any potential race addition would arrive in game.

Randulf.7614:

Kodan simply do not have enough variety or versatility to become a playable race. Their limitations make for a far better and more interesting NPC. To become playable would lose much of what makes them unique.

I think it is safe to say the tonic is the compromise here.

Even if I am wrong, 175k is a nominal Karma sum, easily and quickly recouped by the time any potential race addition would arrive in game.

There had been talk of wanting Kodan as a new race, but I hadn’t seen any points like yours. The Kodan NPCs don’t have varying hair color, or other obvious personalizing characteristics as you say. So you are probably right.

I don’t know about the Karma being nominal. Certainly not for me. But it probably won’t be an issue anyway.

The problem right now with new player races is the Personal Story. That is the huge crux. They would have to make entire new personal stories up to the part where the player joins one of the three orders before things become the same. Heck look at Revenants. They weren’t introduced into HOT but when you make a new character as one, you still gotta go through the entire personal story. It seems weird and jarring to be this warrior that gains their power from the mist but doing older story material.

Tonics are the work around. It saves time for devs to work on more relevant content. With tonics they don’t have to worry about making a new area or new personal story. They also don’t have to worry about meshing the existing armors over the new bodies. Tonics and away they go!

Does this mean that there won’t be a new playable race ever? No. We could get something BRAND NEW but as it stands Kodan, right now, aren’t getting the draw. They are tonics and in the future I believe we’ll get others in Combat Tonic forms, such as the Krait, Largos, and Tengu.