Guild Wars 2

So Race changes are kinda complicated when you consider each character its own personal storyline, that being said Anet has multiple ways to tackle the issue.
1)Reset the parts of the storyline where its Race Specific
2)Add a new quest having an Asura experiment go wrong causing your race to change
Any thoughts?
(Note this won’t be free but will be a service you can buy in the Gemstore)

It would be nice but how would they handle cultural armor? I would like this feature but I can’t see any realistic ways to make it happen. I would love to change my Asuran elementalist into a human.

either very difficult or easy, it depends on how they programmed it. But it would cause problems with the quest line pre-vigil/priory/order factions.

For cultural armor they can just switch the parts you have with the respective race your changing too (ex. human whos switching to a norn will have his t2 human armor changes to t2norn)
OR they can just made the cultural armor not usable and it just be another sacrafice for a race change.

Orb.1702:

So Race changes are kinda complicated when you consider each character its own personal storyline, that being said Anet has multiple ways to tackle the issue.
1)Reset the parts of the storyline where its Race Specific
2)Add a new quest having an Asura experiment go wrong causing your race to change
Any thoughts?
(Note this won’t be free but will be a service you can buy in the Gemstore)

It will not happen:
.1 – Almost all story is race specific. Also, you already received rewards from doing them, so unless a full character rollback is made, it’s impossible.
.2 – If there was a way of Changing Race, that would be a good and fun way, where you buy a item to use at that “faulted” machine.

With the fast leveling in GW2, i don’t believe it’s necessary. You can quickly level up another character to the desired level. I Agree that somethings might be lost (like the dyes), but even so, there is no need to turn on a gender switch feature.

Cheers

It wouldn’t be difficult. It would be pointless and ridiculous.

marnick.4305:

It wouldn’t be difficult. It would be pointless and ridiculous.

Why is it pointless? I have a Charr Necromancer that I dont like because, well, it’s i Charr in light armor.. I would pay for a race change since I have 300+ hours on him, the dyes I want, full explorer. BUT, I’m not satisfied with the look of armors because most of them has clipping issues.

It wouldn’t be that difficult to do, it just depends on how much work they want to put into it.

If they wanted to be quick and dirty:
- Racial skills lost
- Cultural armor would remain as is – unusable and soulbound
- A default personal story choice is selected for you up to whatever level you were at and order you selected or simply the personal story is automatically completed and you’re given no choice

If they have free time:
- Any bought racial skills are refunded
- Cultural armor remains unusable. To convert it, they would have to check all your characters and bank to calculate if the old achievement should be removed and the new one added
- You reselect your personal story character creation options, your personal story is reset to 0 and all rewards are disabled up to the level you were at. Alternatively, they could make you answer a questionnaire to fill in your personal story up to the level you were at. They already have the personal story journal, so they could use that to tell you the story of your choices.

They probably will have a race change option one day, but for now, they don’t have the free time to do so and they probably wouldn’t want to use a “you’re given no choice” option to do so.

Ehragus.5843:

marnick.4305:

It wouldn’t be difficult. It would be pointless and ridiculous.

Why is it pointless? I have a Charr Necromancer that I dont like because, well, it’s i Charr in light armor.. I would pay for a race change since I have 300+ hours on him, the dyes I want, full explorer. BUT, I’m not satisfied with the look of armors because most of them has clipping issues.

Well … 800 gems for a spare charr slot (pun intended), 30g for levelling him with crafting. Been there done that is account wide.

Not really much point in talking about it. Anet has flatout said they won’t be adding race changes to the game.

I have been wondering about this myself.

Being that I only started the game a few weeks ago, while I was leveling an Asuran Elementalist alt a friend told me that Karma was account-wide and said i shouldn’t keep the jugs of karma stacked in my bank (I wanted to choose a main before using my supply) so I just used them all on this level 12 Asuran Elementalist – and then found out he was wrong.

That would not be such a bad thing, except I got around to actually looking at the gear models I have to look forward to as a female Asura and I am underwhelmed. Every head-piece makes me bald, and wouldn’t want her to be dressed in magical lingerie like the other races I wish there were more robes, or something just a tiny bit more feminine. I’m going to look like a bald boy no matter what I do.

Do I delete the character and waste that karma? Do I fill my bank with salvage kits?

Or could I level as an Asura and eventually race change? I’d be up for that.

I don’t think it would be that hard, and I really would like the feature.

-Restrict it to players that have already completed their “racial” personal story. After level 30 there is no racial specific personal story, so there’s no reason to prevent someone from switching based on this.

-Swap cultural armour for its equivalent on the other race.

I would definitely pay for this feature in the store.

Ehragus.5843:

marnick.4305:

It wouldn’t be difficult. It would be pointless and ridiculous.

Why is it pointless? I have a Charr Necromancer that I dont like because, well, it’s i Charr in light armor.. I would pay for a race change since I have 300+ hours on him, the dyes I want, full explorer. BUT, I’m not satisfied with the look of armors because most of them has clipping issues.

Ummm…that’s why you pick the character race/class combo you like the MOST as your first character. Sound familiar? Please, don’t bring WoW-elements into the Guild Wars universe. Race/Gender change is a WoW thing, and when it comes down to it, GW is far more realistic than WoW – always has been. I have a question for you, Sir. ANet never planned for GW to be so unrealistic. There’s still real-life elements to it…such as not being able to change your race. You realize, that in real life, you can never change the fact you are human, to become some other sentient being. Unless you went through drastic measures and chose to live your life in the wilds, but even that is unreasonable. If it’s unreasonable in real life, it should be unreasonable in PC games, and it IS unreasonable. WoW is currently the only PC game that offers Race Changes, though it shouldn’t have had. The happiest of people don’t have everything they want; they make the best of what they already have. You had the ability to create the perfect character for yourself, and chose to settle for less – deal with it! I’m not trolling at all. I’ve noticed several people bringing in WoW elements into this game in particular, but why THIS game? Why not the other MMOs out there? But, just to note, to expect ANet, a very down-to-Earth company, it’s very unlikely to implement something that is unreasonable to provide. Also, WoW is unlike all other MMO’s w/ traditional quests, because the quests in WoW are actually shared across ALL races/genders. Most other MMO’s, even traditional questing, have at least a gender/race lock, for dialogue purposes. To request a Race Change, is to ask the entire company to redesign all of GW2, at its very base itself, all over again. Might as well ask to have all servers shut down too, while you’re at it. Again, I’m not trolling; my point is…Race Changes are unreasonable to provide. This is just my opinion on the matter, supported by clear evidence.

@Riot – No, your friend was correct, about the Jugs of Karma being account-bound, say if you wanted to use them for a different character, it’s just the Karma provided is linked to the character you use the consumable with. You should’ve kept those jugs in your bank vault, to use with a different character. It’s ok though, you made a mistake; but don’t say your friend was wrong, because he was actually right about what he said.

Stop being racist and play your toon as he is now.

Lancaeron.1524:

Ehragus.5843:

marnick.4305:

It wouldn’t be difficult. It would be pointless and ridiculous.

Why is it pointless? I have a Charr Necromancer that I dont like because, well, it’s i Charr in light armor.. I would pay for a race change since I have 300+ hours on him, the dyes I want, full explorer. BUT, I’m not satisfied with the look of armors because most of them has clipping issues.

Ummm…that’s why you pick the character race/class combo you like the MOST as your first character. Sound familiar? Please, don’t bring WoW-elements into the Guild Wars universe. Race/Gender change is a WoW thing, and when it comes down to it, GW is far more realistic than WoW – always has been. I have a question for you, Sir. ANet never planned for GW to be so unrealistic. There’s still real-life elements to it…such as not being able to change your race. You realize, that in real life, you can never change the fact you are human, to become some other sentient being. Unless you went through drastic measures and chose to live your life in the wilds, but even that is unreasonable. If it’s unreasonable in real life, it should be unreasonable in PC games, and it IS unreasonable. WoW is currently the only PC game that offers Race Changes, though it shouldn’t have had. The happiest of people don’t have everything they want; they make the best of what they already have. You had the ability to create the perfect character for yourself, and chose to settle for less – deal with it! I’m not trolling at all. I’ve noticed several people bringing in WoW elements into this game in particular, but why THIS game? Why not the other MMOs out there? But, just to note, to expect ANet, a very down-to-Earth company, it’s very unlikely to implement something that is unreasonable to provide. Also, WoW is unlike all other MMO’s w/ traditional quests, because the quests in WoW are actually shared across ALL races/genders. Most other MMO’s, even traditional questing, have at least a gender/race lock, for dialogue purposes. To request a Race Change, is to ask the entire company to redesign all of GW2, at its very base itself, all over again. Might as well ask to have all servers shut down too, while you’re at it. Again, I’m not trolling; my point is…Race Changes are unreasonable to provide. This is just my opinion on the matter, supported by clear evidence.

I would not say anyone asking for a race change is asking for Anet to re-design the game – we have the technology! Rival games have mastered it, it is old news, it is just one more thing to pull people away from those old games to Guild Wars. In terms of actually applying the feature it would not be as difficult as you say, so long as you have a minimum level requirement to ensure that anything related to personal story is completely finished.

Nobody suggested making all questing linear for every race, either. One of the best parts of Guild Wars is the variety in questing, but that does not mean much once you have hit level 80 and you realize that none of the armor sets you like are available to you, or they glitch through your model, or they render you bald (in the case of female Asura).

It’s a quality of life feature, that is all. It is a way to bring in money, and I am sure Anet knows that games like WoW make a killing off additional services. Seeing as how Guild Wars is only supported by the initial buy-in price of the game, and then gems after the fact, offering more and more in terms of additional services and vanity items is simply good business.

They may not implement race changes, maybe not so early when people are motivated enough to simply re-roll if they want it bad enough, but that is the thought process that goes into making decisions like this.

It all comes down to enjoyability and integrity of the game, and dollars and cents – none of which is threatened by vanity services.

Lancaeron.1524:

@Riot – No, your friend was correct, about the Jugs of Karma being account-bound, say if you wanted to use them for a different character, it’s just the Karma provided is linked to the character you use the consumable with. You should’ve kept those jugs in your bank vault, to use with a different character. It’s ok though, you made a mistake; but don’t say your friend was wrong, because he was actually right about what he said.

I meant to say, he said that once I used the jugs every character would have access – i knew the jugs themselves were account bound because I could move them between characters.

But he is new to the game as well, so it was an honest mistake. :P

to the OP

DDO did something similar where you could reincarnate to a different race and choose a new class keep all your gear and soulbound items etc. But started back at level 1.

I suspect a race chance will need to consist of a few things so that it won’t cause problems
1. Resetting the entire story line for your character starting back at level 1.
2. Making a new code so that you cannot equip cultural armors that do not belong to your current race.
3. Finally, removing the race related skills and replacing them with the new race.

What you’re saying is that you can change order without going down in lvl?

Vanilla Donut.2583:

2) Resetting your story makes no sense story-wise. One moment you’re a human born under nobility, and the next moment you are a sylvari born from the pale tree? I can understand stuff like hair changes, but this is plain surreal.

Resetting the story would, well, reset the story. In other words, after the change, you were NEVER a human as far as the story is concerned. It would be like leveling a character to 80 through crafting only and starting your story then.

Also, I kind of find it humorous when people use real world logic for a fantasy game as a counterpoint to things like race changes. I’m a feline/bovine sentient creature who speaks [English/French/Italian/etc. depending player’s region], can shoot lightning and fire from my hands, take a greatsword to the face and keep on running, and change my entire physical appearance including gender, but the race change is the unbelievable/outlandish one, eh?

Anyway, I’m not expecting the feature, either. No subs means all money is from sponsors and gems store. And the gems spent on buying more inventory slots, XP boosts, Gem-Gold conversions, etc. that typically comes with new characters is probably what they are after.