Guild Wars 2

Would their ever be a race change option ?

no sorry dont think so . Each race has its own Living Story / Personal story they go thru that wouldnt work

Serinetempest.9027:

no sorry dont think so . Each race has its own Living Story / Personal story they go thru that wouldnt work

And as usual:

- Character must have completed main story or race change is not allowed. No resets, no issues with story choices.
- First arc is changed to state that player “was born new race but raised as adoptive race”, which is the reason for them having completed adoptive race story background. Adoptive race never changes even if you keep changing race.

Problems solved and its integrated into the personal story.

But whatever, there will be dozens posting here that its not possible with some flimsy excuse that story text no one ever look at wont match. Oh the horror.

No there will never be a race change option. Arenanet have directly stated that their systems don’t have the capabilities to support this.

It is a LOT more complex than people seem to think. Even if you make it so that the character has to have completed the personal story the game still needs to know which paths to assign them to, which it can’t do without letting the player make those choices, which would require replaying the entire storyline, which is akin to creating a new character from scratch.

Dawdler, that doesn’t solve any problems because it makes no sense from a lore perspective to say that they skipped that arc because they were “raised as adoptive race” (and don’t go saying that a gender change makes no sense because it actually doesn’t raise any problems whatsoever.) And that story text is more than just story text because every single path the player chose has been coded into the game and affects a lot more than what text is shown to you in your story panel. Unless you have direct experience coding in a AAA MMO then you don’t really have any clue how much effort it takes for them to put each tiny bit of code in game. Heck, they had to give an NPC in one of the living story cutscenes an identical response over and over again just because to put in the code for her to have a unique response each time would have been ridiculously complex.

Saying that they CAN’T do is bullkitten. 16 years ago in UO you ran through a quest line that allowed you to “embrace your Elvish heritage” and gave you the option to change your race from Human to Elf.

They could do it.

Eight O Eight.8257:

Saying that they CAN’T do is bullkitten. 16 years ago in UO you ran through a quest line that allowed you to “embrace your Elvish heritage” and gave you the option to change your race from Human to Elf.

They could do it.

You’re talking about a completely different game built on a completely different Engine with different systems that handles race in a different way. In GW2 your race is not purely cosmetic. It is a lot harder for them to do. Yes they COULD if they wanted to, but it would require a lot of time and resources that is better spent on other aspects of the game. If you picked the wrong race then that is your own problem, nothing is stopping you from making a new character, you can transfer virtually everything over to that new character and levelling to 80 and completing the personal story doesn’t even take that long.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

No there will never be a race change option. Arenanet have directly stated that their systems don’t have the capabilities to support this.

It is a LOT more complex than people seem to think. Even if you make it so that the character has to have completed the personal story the game still needs to know which paths to assign them to, which it can’t do without letting the player make those choices, which would require replaying the entire storyline, which is akin to creating a new character from scratch.

Dawdler, that doesn’t solve any problems because it makes no sense from a lore perspective to say that they skipped that arc because they were “raised as adoptive race” (and don’t go saying that a gender change makes no sense because it actually doesn’t raise any problems whatsoever.) And that story text is more than just story text because every single path the player chose has been coded into the game and affects a lot more than what text is shown to you in your story panel. Unless you have direct experience coding in a AAA MMO then you don’t really have any clue how much effort it takes for them to put each tiny bit of code in game. Heck, they had to give an NPC in one of the living story cutscenes an identical response over and over again just because to put in the code for her to have a unique response each time would have been ridiculously complex.

Lol what are you even talking about?

When the story is done its done. Finito. Ended. Not coming back. It has zero impact on your character past some words in your character screen and some achievements.

You want an even simpler solution? Fine, that’s been suggested in the past too. When you race change on a character that has completed the personal story, you’re greeted with a big text saying “Your past is a mystery” when clicking your personal story page. That is all.

And no, I dont have to code AAA MMOs to know its very possible if devs just add this functionality. In GW2 you already “race change” at multiple instances of the game. In fractals you turn into a Charr. You can turn into a Quaggan too.

Hell you can even change into a kittening chair. Hows that for lore?

I’m a little surprised you did not argue cultural gear though. Everyone always does that instead, crying over lost gold. Dumped in your inventory, account bound, still race bound, soulbound on equip. That way you can move it to another character of your old race. But you have to accept the loss otherwise and get new gear for the new race.

It has an impact on how the games code understands your character. The game needs to know what choices you have made, it doesn’t matter if it never impacts on the game after that point, the coding still requires that those choices were made.

The “race change” in instances is purely cosmetic, all the game does at those points is change your physical appearance, all of your personal story information and the way NPC’s would respond to you out in the open world would still treat you as your original race.

I get what you’re saying, yes it would be super easy for them to cosmetically change your race, but the game engine needs more than just the cosmetic change. If they left all your personal story past choices intact then there would be a huge discontinuity since your race is no longer what it was, and simply saying that your past is a mystery is incredibly problematic in a game that is very much story and lore based.

It’s not going to happen, there is a reason it hasn’t already happened. It’s nowhere near as simple as you seem to think and I’m not going to argue it anymore. Good luck

FlamingFoxx.1305:

It has an impact on how the games code understands your character. The game needs to know what choices you have made, it doesn’t matter if it never impacts on the game after that point, the coding still requires that those choices were made.

The “race change” in instances is purely cosmetic, all the game does at those points is change your physical appearance, all of your personal story information and the way NPC’s would respond to you out in the open world would still treat you as your original race.

I get what you’re saying, yes it would be super easy for them to cosmetically change your race, but the game engine needs more than just the cosmetic change. If they left all your personal story past choices intact then there would be a huge discontinuity since your race is no longer what it was, and simply saying that your past is a mystery is incredibly problematic in a game that is very much story and lore based.

It’s not going to happen, there is a reason it hasn’t already happened. It’s nowhere near as simple as you seem to think and I’m not going to argue it anymore. Good luck

I believe you missed my point where the choices have already been made. Race change doesnt change anything. The choices will still have been made.

A Norn that has race changed into a Charr would still be treated as a Norn you say? Yes, that’s exactly my point. He should be. Because that Charr was raised by the Norn and taken in by the Norn as a Norn. He may look like a Charr, but they dont judge. Poor thing was found as a baby in the woods, whatever story you want to make up. That Charr later grew up and played with Norn kids and he was treated as a Norn in everyway except his “wierd” appearance. As an adult, all the Norns basicly see him as a Norn, but he is a Charr. Then of course, he does the personal Norn story, despite being a Charr. And you end up with a level 80 Charr that has done the Norn personal story – your race changed character.

Besides, they wont be treated differently by NPCs. NPCs probably see race as a integer number. Most have no idea what your personal story is – those characters are in the story instances, which you’ll never see again because its impossible. They just see 1 – Charr. So they greet you like a Charr. Changing that 1 to a 2 is no less of a problem than drinking a potion that make you into a chair.

Race change is not happening. End of story.

Dawdler.8521:

A Human that has race changed into a Charr would still be treated as a Human you say? Yes, that’s exactly my point. He should be. Because that Charr was raised by the Humans and taken in by the Humans as a Human. He may look like a Charr, but they dont judge. Poor thing was found as a baby in the woods, whatever story you want to make up. That Charr later grew up and played with Human kids and he was treated as a Human in everyway except his “wierd” appearance. As an adult, all the Humans basicly see him as a Human, but he is a Charr. Then of course, he does the personal Human story, despite being a Charr. And you end up with a level 80 Charr that has done the Human personal story – your race changed character.

Hmm, yeah, seems legit. It’s not like humans and charr hate each other in the lore or anything, right?

That aside, I’m not against race changes if they find a way to make it work with the lore and the story, but your method isn’t exactly sensible. :P It’s a tougher issue to get around than you’d think, and I can appreciate why ANet aren’t going to touch it with even a jotun-sized greatsword.

How about a Race Altering Potion. We already have potions that can be used in combat (Watchknight Tonic), so this is possible. Put it on 1 hour use, 5 min cool down so that it unrestrictive.

Neurochazm.5370:

How about a Race Altering Potion. We already have potions that can be used in combat (Watchknight Tonic), so this is possible. Put it on 1 hour use, 5 min cool down so that it unrestrictive.

no please, putting such things on cool down is 1 of the worst thing in my opinion

so…

you want them to spend time, resources and money rewriting a large section of the game engine to allow you to change you race…

or we could have them spend time, resources and money on making new stuff for us to play with, like new zones and dungeons.

This again…

No.

/thread

Eight O Eight.8257:

Saying that they CAN’T do is bullkitten. 16 years ago in UO you ran through a quest line that allowed you to “embrace your Elvish heritage” and gave you the option to change your race from Human to Elf.

They could do it.

You’ve gotta love these armchair developers who believe they know more about the game code than the devs themselves.