Guild Wars 2

For a long time there has been speculations about if we will ever get a new playable race, what it could be and so on. So purely out of curiosity I wanna hear what other people think of the idea of a new playable race?

Personally I am split, on one hand a new race could be awesome and could bring a lot of interesting lore, places, etc. to the game, and for those who like fashion wars and/or role play it can be an amazing thing.
On the other hand I think it would be difficult to implement a new race into the already existing ones, depending on how it’s done of cause, considering the personal story in particular.
Also if a new race is introduced, what about the already existing toons? Of cause the character slot limit is high (64?), but maybe you don’t want to delete the toons you already have (would be my problem), don’t have the time/money for more char slots, etc.

So to ask shortly: do you think introducing a new race would be a good or bad idea?

The argument has always been that it’s semi-wasted content. The personal story is not popular and is only played through once anyway, starter zones are something you use once and then outlevel in an hour of playing, etc. There is not much replayable content for a new race.

Perhaps several level 80 ‘starter zones’ for a new race could be interesting, and this new race starts in the end-game (for example how the Kodan live in what would be level 80 territory). The “personal story” could consist of like 8 new missions that are unique to the new race, almost like a living world update, just something to give the new race some lore. I could get behind that.

There are problems

1) the armor
Unless the race shares a body plan with another race, the current armor in the game will be inaccessible to it. When ANet gave the quote about how difficult it is to design armor, apparently even two similar body plans such as human and sylvari have to be designed separately. So if that’s true it would need to be identical body plan to another race to work, which greatly limits the new race.
2) story
How could it fit into the personal story without bending lore into a pretzel? One could say, leave it out, however new players from then on are going to be confused. They’ll have 6 races they can make but only 5 have the personal story. There will be an unending stream of forum threads and ingame questions asking why no personal story for race X. And I guarantee the new players won’t be happy that their character is blocked from doing the personal story for what they will consider to be dumb reasons.

It’s not going to happen. Anet is barely able to produce armour for the existing races (let alone re-fit all of the current sets and outfits for a new character mesh).

Any new race(s) added would have to be identical to one currently playable to be even remotely viable, and from what I’ve seen of the other humanoids in the GW2 universe this just isn’t the case.

The story wouldn’t have to be back-filled if the race were a newcomer to the alliance. The Tengu, for example, could finally come out of hiding. And some of their framework is already built, like the Kodan or others.

Plus, imagine all of the character slot sales that would generate

No a new race wont bring any fasion wars it will be the same streched armors like norn/charrs for them aswell.

I think the work for a new race would be completely worth it, but if they couldn’t start it at level 1 with the current story as the other races do, I’d suggest making it a race you can only start after completing the entire game story (personal plus Living Story plus HoT).

Then this new race’s story would begin after that, explaining why they’re now joining the rest of us. You could give them their own unique personal story explaining who they are and their/your journey towards joining the pact (sort of a backstory/going back in time to explain their current existence as you saw it at the end of the game story). This would be the story that takes them through the leveling experience.

You could let them start at level 1 and go through the game content like anybody else, except their personal story would be different and would end at the end of the current game. Obviously you’d have to let players go through all the Living Story and HoT content, so you could just come up with something explaining why they need to see the history of the world or something so far.

As for what race, I think the Largos would be great (plus, you can introduce the unknown Deep Sea Dragon from their home in the Unending Ocean and say they’re coming to the Pact for help defeating it – I mean this is an expansion that basically writes itself lol!). They’re a really interesting race and one we don’t see much of, so you could easily come up with new lore and reasons why they’re suddenly active and with us. They’re also humanoid so probably would be easier making armor for them – except they have the cool wings.

It would just need to be mostly on land. I know they live in the water but we’ve seen them on land and we all hate water combat sooo… yea.

Fluffball.8307:

The argument has always been that it’s semi-wasted content. The personal story is not popular and is only played through once anyway, starter zones are something you use once and then outlevel in an hour of playing, etc. There is not much replayable content for a new race.

Perhaps several level 80 ‘starter zones’ for a new race could be interesting, and this new race starts in the end-game (for example how the Kodan live in what would be level 80 territory). The “personal story” could consist of like 8 new missions that are unique to the new race, almost like a living world update, just something to give the new race some lore. I could get behind that.

Definitely something we’d have to see with an expansion. A new starter zone/region, and the new race might have to integrate outside of the Zhaitan story track. Partially to avoid having to re-voice all those lines. Possibly even avoiding having to revoice all the Season 2 and HoT lines. A new race would have to resolve all of that first. We glossed over Revenant’s place in storyline because the class still functions with the existing voice acting (even if it’s really disjointed in lore).

And then there’s armor and modeling. As the most likely candidate is Tengu, there would still have to be work done for each piece of armor rigging, and probably other work done in cultural armors. Another gargantuan effort.

As much as I want, and would pay mucho monies on characters for, a new race, I doubt we’ll see it. Unless there’s some sneaky bit of moving the Legendary Weapons team to securing a new race for the expansion? I can hope.

A new playable race stunts new content development, and slows down future content development…. and no, a new race is not new content.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a new playable race. Just not at what it’d cost in dev time.

Occasionally more options is a larger detriment for a game than a boon.

~EW

Just a flesh wound.3589:

There are problems

1) the armor
2) story

That, and: Swimming, jumping, combat animations, emotes, voice acting and so on.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

A new playable race stunts new content development, and slows down future content development…. and no, a new race is not new content.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a new playable race. Just not at what it’d cost in dev time.

Occasionally more options is less healthy for a game.

~EW

It doesn’t have to be a waste. Imagine an expansion for the Largos where their “starter zones” are the maps of the new expansion, all new Largos start at level 80, and their “personal story” is part of the expansion story. You could think of the HoT story as a good precursor to that, in that the sylvari had a minutely different version than other races.

Or, they could give the new race a new starting story that segues into the new expansion story, instead of the Zhaitan and Mordremoth nonsense all over again.

Fluffball.8307:

It doesn’t have to be a waste. Imagine an expansion for the Largos where their “starter zones” are the maps of the new expansion, all new Largos start at level 80, and their “personal story” is part of the expansion story. You could think of the HoT story as a good precursor to that, in that the sylvari had a minutely different version than other races.

Would you lock the ability to play the new race behind completion of the HoT story by another race (or other preceding expansions that might come out before this would be implemented)? I think you’d have to.

It’d still slow down development time going forward, as that new race would need to be programmed for in all future content, including anything done to core tyria. Isn’t there enough complaints about slow development time already?

Still, I like your solution. My skepticism to these kinds of threads are usually rooted in efficient use of dev time/resources to grow the game… What would we have to give up in order to incorporate a new race? Atm I think too much would need to be given up.

(and skritt would be a better pick, anyways. )

~EW

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Would you lock the ability to play the new race behind completion of the HoT story by another race (or other preceding expansions that might come out before this would be implemented)? I think you’d have to.

I personally would just tie it to buying the largos (for example) expansion. Buy the new expansion, get the new race. The level 80 start is not a big deal now that all new players automatically get a level 80.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

It’d still slow down development time going forward, as that new race would need to be programmed for in all future content, including anything done to core tyria.

Would it? What would you change in core Tyria to incorporate a new race? Unless I’m missing something obvious, the only new thing you need is voice acting when applicable, and that isn’t going to tie up the people coding things. A secondary thing would be the very rare change in dialogue you sometimes see based on what race, but that’s usually just a different text box, and it’s not something that’s mandatory for the devs to add.

As far as adding coding time, I assume armor is the big hang up. However I think that can be worked around. Largos have human proportions. Kodan might be able to be assigned norn proportions. Tengu I’ve heard use the charr skeleton, but their bodies would cause horrendous clipping problems… that might be a reason we haven’t see a new race yet. Tengu were the obvious first, but perhaps largos are what anet decided on. /random speculation

Edit: I wonder if you could distort the human speech to sound largos without actually needing an additional voice actor.

Given the snail’s pace at which they create new armors, there are already too many races in the game. Adding more races would just compound the armor problem even more.

Fluffball.8307:

I personally would just tie it to buying the largos (for example) expansion. Buy the new expansion, get the new race. The level 80 start is not a big deal now that all new players automatically get a level 80.

With a constant influx of new players into (healthy) mmos, that might do a disservice to their understanding of the narrative that GW2 relies so heavily on to hold player interest. I know that the ‘what about the new players’ rhetoric is often needlessly used, but I think here it might have grounds.

Fluffball.8307:

Would it? What would you change in core Tyria to incorporate a new race? Unless I’m missing something obvious, the only new thing you need is voice acting when applicable, and that isn’t going to tie up the people coding things. A secondary thing would be the very rare change in dialogue you sometimes see based on what race, but that’s usually just a different text box, and it’s not something that’s mandatory for the devs to add.

Perhaps not as much as I suppose… my mind might still be stuck in how core content is presented… with cut scenes and animations. You might be right. The thing is I’m not a dev, and I hate assuming knowledge of something I don’t actually know… I’d want to ask a dev what other things would be required. It’s likely enough that you, I, and others here in the forums don’t know. What snippets of behind-the-scenes stuff I do know about this game often reaffirms this position every time I see posts regarding those minor subjects.

Fluffball.8307:

As far as adding coding time, I assume armor is the big hang up. However I think that can be worked around. Largos have human proportions. Kodan might be able to be assigned norn proportions. Tengu I’ve heard use the charr skeleton, but their bodies would cause horrendous clipping problems… that might be a reason we haven’t see a new race yet. Tengu were the obvious first, but perhaps largos are what anet decided on. /random speculation

A second race that uses the charr model would certainly increase time allotted to fixing/avoiding clipping issues that torment so many people. This would be a good thing to all those people, I’ve no doubt.

Fluffball.8307:

Edit: I wonder if you could distort the human speech to sound largos without actually needing an additional voice actor.

I imagine if they went whole-hog into the Largos race, they’d have to hire a new voice actor or have an existing one change their voice (as they are skilled at doing that). Modulating the voice might be too obvious a corner-cutting for many… I speculate as to the venn diagram of how many people would mind a modulated voice to those that mind armor clipping.

~EW

Just to reiterate what I posted above, #Largosmasterrace #Largosexpansionplease.

Also on the topic of largos, I posted a thing on Reddit a while back about why they can be a cool land dwelling race for our inevitable Largos post level 80 story introduction water dragon expansion. (Please Anet!)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/47nrcf/largos_as_landdwellers/

I think with the admission armour sets take months to develop and then potential extra work for making outfits backward compatible, the chance of new races is very low.

Personally I find races much more interesting to interact with rather than play as

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Can Largos wear backpacks? What happens if they have the white winged backpack? Will they have the white wings and the blue wings at the same time or will the blue wings go POOF each time a Largos wears any backpack? How about gliding? Wings and a glider both or only the glider?

The defining feature of that race, the giant blue wings, are incompatible with wearing a backpack or a glider. A race that can’t use major cosmetic features without turning off a defining part of it is a race that is problematic as a choice for a new race.

This is a good point. I think the easiest answer would be to lock the Largos characters out of having visible backpacks and gliders, except what their wings would naturally show. How many players would be upset with that? How difficult would it be to program that exclusion for one race when all the others would have those skins available? Even what I see as the conceptually ‘easiest’ solution (which it might not be) still brings issues for consideration….

~EW

Start Up Costs (for a new race)

• Create three variations each of the L10, L20, and L30 chapters of the Personal Story.
• Insert new race into all the other chapters.
• Insert new race into LS2, HoT, and LS3 chapters.
• New & adapted stories must be translated into French, German, Spanish, and Mandarin.
• Hire male & female voice actors (in all five supported languages) to cover all of above, plus skills.
• Create new cultural skills.
• Figure out what to use as new race’s home city, starter areas.
• Invent cultural armor (3 tiers, 3 armor weights each)
• Adapt/QA all existing armor, weapons, backs, and gliders so that it works for new race.

Ongoing Costs (for a new race)

• Write new race into new stories.
• Ensure actors (in all five support languages) are under a contract that makes them available at the appropriate times.
• Also ensure actor availability any time there’s a new elite specialization
• Extra time for rendering/QA for weapons, armor, backs, gliders.
• Extra time for animating new skills (for elite specializations).

(I’m sure I’m forgetting something)

The short of it is:

• Huge initial costs.
• Increased costs for new stories, skins, and skills.

What else could ANet do with those same resources? How much more story? How many more armor sets, outfits, weapon skins?

I’d love to see a new race; I’d just rather see all the other things we’d miss out.

I’d love just a … Mac client.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Can Largos wear backpacks? What happens if they have the white winged backpack? Will they have the white wings and the blue wings at the same time or will the blue wings go POOF each time a Largos wears any backpack? How about gliding? Wings and a glider both or only the glider?

The defining feature of that race, the giant blue wings, are incompatible with wearing a backpack or a glider. A race that can’t use major cosmetic features without turning off a defining part of it is a race that is problematic as a choice for a new race.

This is a good point. I think the easiest answer would be to lock the Largos characters out of having visible backpacks and gliders, except what their wings would naturally show. How many players would be upset with that? How difficult would it be to program that exclusion for one race when all the others would have those skins available? Even what I see as the conceptually ‘easiest’ solution (which it might not be) still brings issues for consideration….

~EW

The easiest solution is to not include Largos.

A new race would require new leveling zones, and story to fit in to the PS. It would also need cultural armor and weapons. These things would be produced by the same assets that would make new zones, story and skins for LS or a new XPac. Given the continual demands for new stuff to earn and do, and ANet’s inability (which they share with any MMO developer) to keep up, I don’t see them being able to get away with providing a new race and racial content which would appeal to only part of the player base.

Edit: ANet could cut part of the start up costs by introducing a new race in an XPac area. Characters from that race could start at max level, cutting any need to tie into vanilla story and continuity. BlizzAct did something like this with a class, Death Knights. They could even use an existing NPC race, with the playable version being from an area uncovered by the XPac. This would of course do nothing for the armor and weapon issues, nor the ongoing costs of adding a new race.

At best a cross-continental version of an existing species. something that wouldn’t have to do much with the species’ build. right now the Asura look like they evolved straight from amphibian to mammal, but what if somewhere else the asura evolved slower.
similar form, more muscle and dry skin, less brain. No need to tweak with armor models, which seems to be the worst contestor for a new race. The wardens of Cantha look pretty human, except they’re made of .. well.. literally the world and the forests. So they need to make a model thats half human, half sylvari half earth elemental, and then they can just slab the existing human models of armor on them.

No more elves, no more black, no more emo solitary assasins. Please, keep GW2 original. No wings over wings. No aquadrows.

Terrible idea. Have you seen the (lack of) effort they put into creating, for example Charr armor (human skin + stretch to fit). It’s a big part of why no one plays Charr. New race? Same thing’s going to happen.

Search the forums. this gets done about once a week, and the answer never changes. its not feasible for anet to add a new race, either lore-wise, or money-wise. every single VA would have to come back and rerecord the personal story things to account for the new creature, and youd have to redo things like LS1 and LS2 and LS3, and possibly destinies edge to retroactively include the new species, or players of the new species will whine that theyre being left out, blah blah. its just not going to work, theres no reason to keep bringing it up forever.

Felahr.9830:

Search the forums. this gets done about once a week, and the answer never changes. its not feasible for anet to add a new race, either lore-wise, or money-wise. every single VA would have to come back and rerecord the personal story things to account for the new creature, and youd have to redo things like LS1 and LS2 and LS3, and possibly destinies edge to retroactively include the new species, or players of the new species will whine that theyre being left out, blah blah. its just not going to work, theres no reason to keep bringing it up forever.

It does get brought up a lot but you are ignoring the arguments brought up in this thread that you can make a new race part of an expansion. Normally I’d forgive you for not reading but I brought that up in the very first response and it was brought up multiple times after that. No need to redo everything.

Fluffball.8307:

Felahr.9830:

Search the forums. this gets done about once a week, and the answer never changes. its not feasible for anet to add a new race, either lore-wise, or money-wise. every single VA would have to come back and rerecord the personal story things to account for the new creature, and youd have to redo things like LS1 and LS2 and LS3, and possibly destinies edge to retroactively include the new species, or players of the new species will whine that theyre being left out, blah blah. its just not going to work, theres no reason to keep bringing it up forever.

It does get brought up a lot but you are ignoring the arguments brought up in this thread that you can make a new race part of an expansion. Normally I’d forgive you for not reading but I brought that up in the very first response and it was brought up multiple times after that. No need to redo everything.

all of those ideas have also been rehashed to death. this gets brought up literally every kittening week. its not going to happen. just stop.

The only one that makes sense to me is Largos. Tengu would be neat but I think it would take a lot more work to bring them back as a playable race, and they would almost have to bring us back to Cantha afterwords otherwise it would be a wasted opportunity. They may have to wait til GW3. Largos are much more human-like and would be more feasible if you’re looking for a new-comer that would probably perform well in popularity, and would need very little background story, although exploring their civilization would be important in some form, at some point.

Honestly, though I think I would prefer they just stick to the races they have now. I would like them to get back to the Human element of the game, because that’s what made the first game so special and interesting in the first place. The human civilization’s are colorful and extremely diverse in comparison to the other races which are all relatively uniform and lack any genuine diversity. I want to go back to Cantha, and Elona, I want to expand on the Ascalon plotline and see where the newly agreed to “Human Ascalon” goes, and the cooperation with the Charr to rebuild the region. There’s a tremendous amount there that I personally believe would be far more interesting now that we’ve kind of reached the limit of the Sylvari story (for the current era). We could go much further with the Asura, and the Norn as well, but we already know which of the Elder dragon’s is next, which takes a Norn focus out of the question. Bringing more playable races into the equation would come with a certain amount of expectation that they be a focus, and there is a lot of demand for GW2 to go back to the origins more to re-establish the connection between the two games.

Somehow, I doubt that a new race will be added (any time soon), and I realize the community is split on the topic. However, I personally would love to be able to play as a Tengu, since I love avian races in fiction. I also am interested in their culture, but don’t know much. For armor, they essentially could use the template of Charr armor since their body postures are similar and both have tails.

I just want to be an avian creature in a video game more once… Cats and other animals are done to death as playable characters.

Felahr.9830:

all of those ideas have also been rehashed to death. this gets brought up literally every kittening week. its not going to happen. just stop.

Why make arguments ignoring them if they’re so pervasive? If anet introduces a new race, I believe the only way it makes sense is for it to be in a way that ignores your argument for ending this discussion. Adding Kodan into the personal story is beyond ludicrous even not considering development time.

While I don’t like the Largos personally, I think if you were bringing them in you could easily get around the wings issue by revealing that wings are limited to a sub-section of the species, maybe as a sign of rank or a particular family group or maybe some weird mutation. Common largos, such as the player would be, would be born wing-free.
Likewise, their capital city could be an underwater dome which is filled with air, allowing the usual running around. It could work.

I hope we get to look inside the Tengu zones, though I’m not fussed about playing them either. I already find it hard to play a distinctly non-human character like a charr. But if we were to play them, their story could easily be incorporated into lore in the same way Opposing Force did with Half Life. The Tengu would be revealed to be there all along, participating in everything the other races go through, but in secret. We’d get to revisit the same scenes, such as the battle for Claw Island, but from a new perspective. Maybe it would be revealed that the Tengu actually took out a large part of the risen forces themselves, at sea, and that the force faced at Claw Island, as bad as it was, was actually much smaller than it would have been if not for the Tengu.
Maybe.. just maybe… it could be revealed that the reason Zhaitan was beaten so easily was that the Tengu had already softened him up before DE got there! Wouldn’t that be a kicker?

Anyway, I’m not for playing any more races, at least not any that we currently know of in Tyria. This was just a thought exercise.

I can’t see how adding a race could really be bad. It might slow down stuff like adding armour, but it’s not like their flooding us with new gear to begin with. As for lore, I don’t see how giving them the regular personal story would be a problem. Guild Wars 1 basically allowed characters to time travel/view visions of the past to play certain missions (such as early Prophecies missions for characters from Cantha, since their story starts halfway through the Prophecies one). There really doesn’t have to be any complicated in-universe explanation for it. Or, they could just start them somewhere else. Like, if they are xpac exclusive, give them their own brief little story zone.

Quaggan or bust

Astra Lux.2846:

I can’t see how adding a race could really be bad. It might slow down stuff like adding armour, but it’s not like their flooding us with new gear to begin with. As for lore, I don’t see how giving them the regular personal story would be a problem. Guild Wars 1 basically allowed characters to time travel/view visions of the past to play certain missions (such as early Prophecies missions for characters from Cantha, since their story starts halfway through the Prophecies one). There really doesn’t have to be any complicated in-universe explanation for it. Or, they could just start them somewhere else. Like, if they are xpac exclusive, give them their own brief little story zone.

Read some of the posts above — even without worrying about the lore, they still need to hire the equivalent of 10 new actors (two genders, five supported languages) and bring them back for each new season of Living World, not to mention updated/new skills/specializations. And that’s without even getting into cultural armor, collections, and getting existing armor to work with the new race.

I think many of us are seriously underestimating just how much work (both one-time and ongoing) would be required to add a new race. That doesn’t mean it’s not a worthy undertaking; it does mean that we have to be prepared to give up a lot of other things that ANet won’t be able to make happen.

I agree with everything thats pretty much been said in this thread. Yes, i’d love it, but i realize ANet will never put the effort in to create one, unless GW2 gets almost as big as WoW, and they have the resources to do it.

If they did, and just for the fun of speculation, i’d love to see dwarves in the game, but not the Ogden model, because Ogden looks like a refried old stale kitten as a character model.

The downside, obviously, is that it would be expensive, and there are ongoing costs as well. We don’t know exactly how much, though, including whether it would really be prohibitive.

The upside is that a lot of people would pay for it. But, again, we don’t know exactly how many, and thus whether it would pay for itself.

That makes it difficult to tell whether it would be a good or a bad idea all-up.

I only can see if a new race can’t use old armor skins. Otherwise it is a huge effort to implement it. Also, it’s just flavour and ‘wasted’ content. If they introduce a new race they have to do it in a different way. Story wise it would take place after the events of Zhaitan and Mordremoth.

A new race is an amazing idea if it’s Tengu ;p
They are fully capable of creating a new campaign arc that starts the characters at a different level to change pacing and use that second arc’s avatar as an optional custom teammate for Dragon’s Watch.
For example, Tengu could all start at level 40 and have a challenging and fresh personal story that is more densely spaced between levels so that the leveling process stops being story, grind 10 levels, story, grind 10 levels, ect

Good idea, saving my 80 boost for my first Tengu character. A-net have made bog things before…. gliding for example.

Good idea for us players, terrible idea for Anet. Consider that it currently takes them 9 months to make a set of armor with what exists imagine how much worse it gets if you add in another race, not to mention if they chose to go back to all existing armor and refit it to the new race.

If they choose to add a race logistically it would be one that shares an existing body shape. (IE Largos) Tengu dont really match and existing body time so in my understanding the likely hood they would be added is very slim.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

The Tengu would be revealed to be there all along, participating in everything the other races go through, but in secret. We’d get to revisit the same scenes, such as the battle for Claw Island, but from a new perspective. Maybe it would be revealed that the Tengu actually took out a large part of the risen forces themselves, at sea, and that the force faced at Claw Island, as bad as it was, was actually much smaller than it would have been if not for the Tengu.
Maybe.. just maybe… it could be revealed that the reason Zhaitan was beaten so easily was that the Tengu had already softened him up before DE got there! Wouldn’t that be a kicker?

If they introduce Tengu, I would love to see it as a side story. Maybe even have a spot where, after the Pact and the commander get into place, but before Zhaitan’s defeat, the Tengu squad encounters the Pact Commander’s squad getting overrun, tries to save them, but the squad is demolished. Reinforcements show up too late, Trehearne and the Pact have a big cry over the dead commander, and start to look at the Tengu as a replacement. Throw in a few test missions as the competent Tengu commander makes his stabs at Zhaitan’s forces, and bam, new Commander of the Pact to integrate into the story at large.

Of course, integrating the Destiny’s Edge dungeon stuff might get weird. >.>

Sirius.4510:

The upside is that a lot of people would pay for it. But, again, we don’t know exactly how many, and thus whether it would pay for itself.

I shamefully admit I would shamelessly shovel $90 in new character slots at playable Tengu. :|

I would still love to see Tengu as playable race, been waiting for a new playable race for so long..! We’ll see what Anet plays to do with these kitten birds,

To be honest, I dont think doing a entire seperate Story for a single race 1 to 80 would be much more of an undertaking AND it could add into the narration of the next expac, as the level 80 portions would tie directly into the other races level 80 portion, that new race would simply have a prologue to the story, perhaps areas of that level 80 story would have parts that were led up to via the new races lower level stories. In this capacity they dont need to rework the personal stories all the way up through for a single race, they just start fresh which is a lot easier and gives us a new Personal Story set post Zhaitan and Mordremoth.

Grant it would mean they would have access to the Mordremoth or Zhaitan story but they can always just create another core race character later. ANET should not be afraid to push the narrative forward. Zhaitan has been dead for 4 years, and Mordremoth almost 1, we can move forward and not stay rooted in the past of GW2.

WELL, I am always open to speculation and wishful thinking…So here is my opinion.

You all are right about it being a very low possibility of a new race, what with the new voice acting, implementing new lore, creating their armor or even their cultural armor, there is just alottttttt of work into implementing a new race into an already and MASSIVE existing world. HOWEVER….If for whatever reason they did add a new race, I have always thought it would be amazing to play as Kodan….They look fierce but they can be very peacefull and they are very proud for talking polar bears lol Another thing is that their “base charactor model” already exists as npc’s so that would help knock down the level of work required to actually implement this new playable race. But can you imagine playing as one of those proud, but dangerous beasts??? Make a Guardian Kodan and just take on the world…That would be amazing.

mikeydoodle.9621:

WELL, I am always open to speculation and wishful thinking…So here is my opinion.

You all are right about it being a very low possibility of a new race, what with the new voice acting, implementing new lore, creating their armor or even their cultural armor, there is just alottttttt of work into implementing a new race into an already and MASSIVE existing world. HOWEVER….If for whatever reason they did add a new race, I have always thought it would be amazing to play as Kodan….They look fierce but they can be very peacefull and they are very proud for talking polar bears lol Another thing is that their “base charactor model” already exists as npc’s so that would help knock down the level of work required to actually implement this new playable race. But can you imagine playing as one of those proud, but dangerous beasts??? Make a Guardian Kodan and just take on the world…That would be amazing.

Or what about a Kodan Ranger using a Juvenile Polar Bear?? XD

Hypothetically, I would wish that, if Kodan (and Tengu) were to be made playable, there would be at least enough sexual dimorphism between genders so that other players can tell the difference as you run around. As slight as the differences are with Asura and Charr, I can still tell which is which as long as they aren’t buried in armor. As it is now, however, Kodan look exactly the same, and I’ve never heard of a female Tengu in-game before.

Rauderi.8706:

I shamefully admit I would shamelessly shovel $90 in new character slots at playable Tengu. :|

Pfft. If the designs were good enough, I would spend $180 on Tengu slots.

Seeing as HoT came with the new profession, Revenant and Anet said flat out theyre not adding anymore more professions….that leaves a slot open for development of a new race to take up that spot and Tengu was already like 70% complete or something before they decided to go with Sylvari instead. I whole heartedly believe we will get Tengu some day, next expansion or one after that….we will get it.

If they do introduce a new race (and I hope they will), I’m 90% certain that it will be the Tengu. They were originally slated to be the 6th playable race at launch, but got cut due to lack of time. They already have a capital city of their own, have a distinct and unique model and culture (one reason why I don’t think Kodan would be a good idea is that they’re too similar thematically to the Norn, both of them being big, physically powerful arctic-dwelling beings), and unlike some of the other races, they presumably have the numbers and the resources to contribute to a global fight against the Elder Dragons and other world-spanning threats.

As for the Personal Story, I suspect a 6th race would have its own Personal Story, tied to a big trip to Cantha or Elona that all the races can play through. Think of it as something similar to Factions or Nightfall, where new characters (in this case the new race) gets to play some early missions before starting the level 80 content, which is also where all existing characters join in.