Guild Wars 2

More opinions on a new playable race (not necessarily limited to Tengu though this is a race I’d love to see personally put into the playable roster.)

Anything you’d like to see? How it’d be implemented into the game?
Don’t like the idea at all? Let me know!

As the Devs have pretty much stated there would be no additional race(s) added, I don’t really see the point.

I’d rather other new content was what the Devs use their resources on.

Obviously not in the near future any ideas for it to maybe be in a few years time?

Unless they make a new race that shares a body plan with another current race then no., there’s no way. Maybe Tengu someday as that one shares a body plan with Charr and has a site for a racial city. I doubt though they have any plans for a new race any time soon, as in the next year or two.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Unless they make a new race that shares a body plan with another current race then no., there’s no way. Maybe Tengu someday as that one shares a body plan with Charr and has a site for a racial city. I doubt though they have any plans for a new race any time soon, as in the next year or two.

I can indeed imagine that there is an area already set up for the Tengu, or could be, between LA and Caledon Forest, I could see gliding playing a part too maybe with their race, but maybe it’s just a pipe dream, always hoping, as far as voice lines go, just very used to hearing “I need some, SPACE” or “we heal as one!” as Tengu do have a different voice it may shake things up a bit, not to have hundreds of Tengu running around but one thing would be to make alterations of current armour in order to fit the race, for example the upcoming legendary armour, a lot of alterations will have to be made in order for it to fully fit. so it could be tough but, providing ANet would have the resources though, given a few years perhaps as a neat side project, could be interesting.

My first will always be Tengu, then Kodan(so we can finally have kitten bears in armor, since I was hoping the bear form of the norn was like that <.<).
Then, I know it creates huge problems with the armors but I would love to have centaurs playable.

I hate largos so I hope their time will never come… better quaggan then largos for an underwater expansion.

But really after Tengu I would be fine with just race feature packs connected to the expansion’s environment. For example, asian features when we will get Cantha

Perhaps, some don’t realize what would be involved with a new race added.

As noted above, it would need to either be humanoid in stature, or share the Asura or Charr stature. If Charr, there would be the inevitable lamentations about how armor fits. Otherwise, the Dev team would need to re-do the hundreds of armor pieces already in-game to fit the new model.

Also, new Cultural armor would need to be created. A new set of Cultural weapons. Would this new race share a region with one of the other races? If not, a new set of region weapons, as well. Maybe region armor, too.

A new set of Personal Stories have to be created. Will they be the only set of Personal Stories that use the new story-telling mechanics, or would the Devs have to re-do the Core Personal Story, yet again?

Will there be a new starter region or two? Will this race share another race’s starter zone? Would that be fair for those choosing this race?

What about the Home Instance? Which city will it be within? Does a new race Capital need to be created?

Does the new race get race-specific skills? Or would they be the only ones without? Will this new race be of an equivalent size to other races? If not, the Devs must set new camera heights and scale weapons appropriately.

There would be a boat-load of VO work to be done, so that the new race would be able to play every previous story/instance.

I’ve probably forgotten some aspects.

There may not be a new race on offer until Guild Wars 3, if then. And that’s supposing there ever is a Guild Wars 3. I think the Devs have a long, long-term plan for Guild Wars 2.

Good luck.

Inculpatur as far as the home city goes, there is an area already laid out of Tengu, ’tween LA and Caledon forest, but what could be behind there! a city, just a passage way or something else?! Maybe ANet already has a plan for that area.

Then, the only choice is Tengu?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Then, the only choice is Tengu?

Not limited to, but there does appear to be an area already set out, pure speculation but they are certainly guarding something. As for Quaggans they have the whole of the ocean to work with as their home city.

And the other issues? Or the fact that the Devs have stated they have no plans for introducing another race?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

And the other issues?

resources and time, and some pushiness from the community.

Ok.

Best of luck! =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

As the Devs have pretty much stated there would be no additional race(s) added, I don’t really see the point.

I’d rather other new content was what the Devs use their resources on.

When did the devs say there would be no additional races added?

First of all, I don’t believe adding a new race would benefit the game much and it would require an insane amount of work. Inculpatus cedo.9234 posted a nice list of the kind of work we are talking about.

Now, let’s enter the hypothetical realm of maybe adding a new race despite all of the above. One of the things to note is that any new race added cannot be any of the so called “Lesser Races”, that is: Skritt, Quaggan, Ogre, Hylek and Grawl. They already have a story in the game, there are the racial sympathy quests for the Orders and they are not as defined as the other races. Not to mention they don’t wear armor so they are terrible candidates to even consider as a playable race.

Which leaves us with Tengu, Largos and Kodan as possible candidates for a new playable race. There is also the possibility of something completely new but there is no point discussing something that doesn’t exist.

Armors:
Largos can use the body of the humans, Kodan the body of the Norn and Tengu the body of the Charr, so current armors can “fit” them without much work. The only “issue” is the Largos wings, the designers can’t fit something like a Charr tail on armors, they could never make a fit for wings. That has two possible solutions:
a) Make a new sub species of Largos that are wingless and make it part of the storyline. Maybe they are cursed, or maybe something else happened in the playable variety that they don’t have wings anymore.
b) Ignore the wings and let them clip through armor like charr tails (probably with the exception of their cultural armors)

Cultural Armors:
To avoid extra work for the story (see below at Story part) the new Race will only need one Cultural armor. It’s not too unreasonable to create a new set of armor just for the new races.

Personal Story:
The new Races should never have access to the old Personal Story. This solves the problem of voice overs for the storyline. The easiest way to do this is to allow the new Races to play only in Expansion content, so no extra dialogues for dungeons or other core content would be required. And my suggestion for this, is for the new Races to start at level 80, some introductory instances might be needed for their storyline, but nothing extensive.

The Dominion of Winds is an excellent capital for Tengu, a huge Kodan fortress further north can be the capital of the Kodan, and a vast underwater city can serve as the capital of the Largos. All of them can be integrated nicely into the game if they make them level 80 as I suggested above.

In summary: making the new Race like the old ones is a huge no-no, too much effort for little gain. Making them available only in expansion content, their story taking place at the same time as the expansion, might be the best solution for adding a new race in the game without considerable effort.

One aspect that has been touched on is the voicing.

Mike O Brien.4613:

….For the player character’s voice, we separately record each race/sex combination in each language, so that means 40 actors for each line…..

40 actors for each line of dialogue for all the chatacter lines is a substantial cost and it would be a continuing cost to add another race (an additional 8 actors) to this for all the new content made from then on. imo they aren’t making enough money to take on unnecessary increased costs without reason to believe they’ll recoup it.

revodeel.2651:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

As the Devs have pretty much stated there would be no additional race(s) added, I don’t really see the point.

I’d rather other new content was what the Devs use their resources on.

When did the devs say there would be no additional races added?

Here’s one interview, but there are several:

Shacknews: You’ve added a new profession, however you did hold off on adding a new race. What led to this decision?

Johanson: For this one, we looked at what we would get out of adding a new race and what benefit it actually brings to the players from a gameplay standpoint. It’s very limited in Guild Wars 2. A new race adds a racial skill or two and a little bit of story, but it doesn’t give that much meaningful gameplay in the grand scheme of things. The race is more context for the early story that you experience. So we wanted to focus things that would provide a lot more gameplay and address parts of Guild Wars 2 that we felt like we really wanted to be able to make a better experience and grow. So right now, we didn’t feel that a new race was a key need for the game, whereas the other things that we’re adding really provide fundamental building blocks for the future.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/87848/guild-wars-2-director-discusses-heart-of-thorns-revenants-guild-halls-and-more

Still, one never knows what the future will bring. I just wouldn’t hold my breath.

Good luck.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

revodeel.2651:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

As the Devs have pretty much stated there would be no additional race(s) added, I don’t really see the point.

I’d rather other new content was what the Devs use their resources on.

When did the devs say there would be no additional races added?

Here’s one interview, but there are several:

Shacknews: You’ve added a new profession, however you did hold off on adding a new race. What led to this decision?

Johanson: For this one, we looked at what we would get out of adding a new race and what benefit it actually brings to the players from a gameplay standpoint. It’s very limited in Guild Wars 2. A new race adds a racial skill or two and a little bit of story, but it doesn’t give that much meaningful gameplay in the grand scheme of things. The race is more context for the early story that you experience. So we wanted to focus things that would provide a lot more gameplay and address parts of Guild Wars 2 that we felt like we really wanted to be able to make a better experience and grow. So right now, we didn’t feel that a new race was a key need for the game, whereas the other things that we’re adding really provide fundamental building blocks for the future.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/87848/guild-wars-2-director-discusses-heart-of-thorns-revenants-guild-halls-and-more

Still, one never knows what the future will bring. I just wouldn’t hold my breath.

Good luck.

Thanks for the information. I saw an interview with Colin on YouTube where he said we would “absolutely” see new playable races at some point. Granted, that statement was made before the one you linked and Colin is no longer with Arenanet. Regardless, time will tell.

Ridiculous amount of work for a time-strapped company, but I still want my Tengu. Expansion cost + $90 guaranteed.

SirPuddlesworth.6783:

Inculpatur as far as the home city goes, there is an area already laid out of Tengu, ’tween LA and Caledon forest, but what could be behind there! a city, just a passage way or something else?! Maybe ANet already has a plan for that area.

Having an ‘area’ laid out doesn’t make it a home city. And as noted in other posts above, that’s among the lesser issues with adding a new race. Every new race requires two eight new voice actors to be hired for every future story added to the game, even if ANet somehow decided to forgo the personal story for that race.

Even if they did a bad job of adding a new race it would still be incredibly expensive, because of how this game was originally designed. Lots of us who have played since launch would welcome a new race, but that, alone, isn’t enough to make adding one a good business decision.

edit: corrected “two actors” to “eight”. Thanks to Just a flesh wound for the reminder

I’d still rather Skritt over Tengu personally. To make Skritt work it would have be a smarter Skritt without relying entirely on the collective all the time but they’re so deeply involved in the machinations of the world that it seems the most appropriate. Most Tengu tend to just want to bury their head in the sand and go hide some where and watch everything die and burn around them, no thanks.

That and I want my Skritt engineer :}

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

SirPuddlesworth.6783:

Inculpatur as far as the home city goes, there is an area already laid out of Tengu, ’tween LA and Caledon forest, but what could be behind there! a city, just a passage way or something else?! Maybe ANet already has a plan for that area.

Having an ‘area’ laid out doesn’t make it a home city. And as noted in other posts above, that’s among the lesser issues with adding a new race. Every new race requires two new voice actors to be hired for every future story added to the game, even if ANet somehow decided to forgo the personal story for that race.

Even if they did a bad job of adding a new race it would still be incredibly expensive, because of how this game was originally designed. Lots of us who have played since launch would welcome a new race, but that, alone, isn’t enough to make adding one a good business decision.

8 actors. Each new race character will need dialogue for 4 languages and 2 sexes. And they’ll need it for the old LS episodes also unless they block the new race from playing them or have no dialogue. (I doubt the game is set up to block any char from doing Living Story episodes). Which brings up a continuity problem if they did. Would a new race be allowed to do (for example) the Mordremoth story line and be called boss by the NPCs even though continuity wise it makes no sense.

Rauderi.8706:

Ridiculous amount of work for a time-strapped company, but I still want my Tengu. Expansion cost + $90 guaranteed.

I’d be happy to pay this

I see what the devs did here. I used to want a playable race, now a non caped copy the trend armor set is good. Basically I went from wanting an entire race to a few GOOD armor sets. Still want a race, just talking about my expectations

Have to agree with all the above reasons for why adding a race would be a bad economical move.

But if I’m going to add in my own wish it would be Lizardfolk, I just like the reptile aesthetic. While I like a lot of the background and style for the Hylek I just don’t like the frogmen look. And while I like some of the look on head/arms for Krait, I dislike the whole snake for legs thing. (And for the love of kitten! No dragonmen! ugh!)

But I agree it would take a miracle to add a race to the game at this point.

A new playable race (namely Tengu or Largos, but I’d take anything not human-esque) is still probably one of my most wanted additions to the game.

Yes, I recognize it would be a huge undertaking in development time and resources, and for some people it wouldn’t be deemed “worth it”. Especially with the whole “human meta” and the fact that a lot of people probably wouldn’t even touch a new non-human race anyway.

But for me, as a player who plays the non-human races exclusively, a new race would be a fantastic addition. New customization options, new armor options, new voices… all these things are a big draw for me. Especially considering I’ve reached the point where I’ve already used every race / gender combination of the 3 non-human races and have had to start “doubling up” .

And even if its a lot of work, I still think it has benefits for the overall game even to people not playing that race. New cultural weapons work for all players. A new capital city would be open for all to explore. More variety in the overall races you see players using is nice. A new race also opens up more in-depth cultural lore towards that race. Maybe still not “worth it” to some, but its not as though a new race adds ONLY that race and nothing to the game as a whole.

I’m okay with adding Tengu, so long as Big Bird does the voice acting.

Shadow Bane.9362:

I’d still rather Skritt over Tengu personally. To make Skritt work it would have be a smarter Skritt without relying entirely on the collective all the time but they’re so deeply involved in the machinations of the world that it seems the most appropriate. Most Tengu tend to just want to bury their head in the sand and go hide some where and watch everything die and burn around them, no thanks.

That and I want my Skritt engineer :}

Skritt would also cash in box price + $90.
Rats PLUS Birds means I’d have no wallet left. ;_;

I doubt they’ll ever make a new playable race. People need to just give it up. Just be happy you’re getting another dlc.. I mean “expansion”.

I still want to see a new playable race!
Tengu is one of my favorite and I would like to see more of them...!

Steam construct race for me. I’ll simply love to play with an asymmetrical, hulking, sentient pile of cogs, blades and brass pipes moving menacingly. The voice could be a metallic gender neutral and very sparse, so Anet doesn’t need to spend much in voice acting.

After that, Skritt. After that, Tengu. No more.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Every new race requires two new voice actors to be hired for every future story added to the game.

8 actors. Each new race character will need dialogue for 4 languages and 2 sexes.

Right. Only if you think “two” doesn’t mean “8”

More seriously: thanks for the editorial note. I’ll fix the original post

Give us a race of Elfs.

I fully support the idea of a playable race of chromatic oozes.

Balthazzarr.1349:

Give us a race of Elfs.

Elves have been done before, by just about everyone. Same as dwarves. If we have to be burdened with a new race, lets make it something new and original.

DarcShriek.5829:

Balthazzarr.1349:

Give us a race of Elfs.

Elves have been done before, by just about everyone. Same as dwarves. If we have to be burdened with a new race, lets make it something new and original.

Hell if anything Sylvari are the Guild Wars version of elves. They’re just a younger chloroplastic version.

Shadow Bane.9362:

DarcShriek.5829:

Balthazzarr.1349:

Give us a race of Elfs.

Elves have been done before, by just about everyone. Same as dwarves. If we have to be burdened with a new race, lets make it something new and original.

Hell if anything Sylvari are the Guild Wars version of elves. They’re just a younger chloroplastic version.

With trees growing from their limbs.. lol.. but yep…

New race?

Either Largos or…

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

As the Devs have pretty much stated there would be no additional race(s) added, I don’t really see the point.

They’ve never said any such thing.

Teniz.5249:

New race?

Either Largos or…

#NoWaterDrow2016AndBeyond

Besides, they’re all Steve’s minions anyway.

No to new races, yes to new animations, features, and armor fixes to current races. Upright standing Charrs, unique Sylvari animations, etc.

I don’t really see the point. It’s an incredible amount of work, that really adds very little to the gaming experience.

Yes, a race comes with a new city and a new personal story, both of which will lose their luster after the first couple of months.

Even to enjoy the new race, you have to roll a new character, and unlike with a new profession, the levelling experience will be the same it was all those years. Sure, they could also launch a new profession to go with the new race, but between the balancing issues and the elite specializations, there’s not much room for another one, without hurting all existing professions.

And all the time spent stretching the existing skins to a new frame and making cultural armor could be spent on new armor and weapon skins, which would be appreciated by a much larger portion of the community.

No new race, fix clipping issues on existing races first…

maddoctor.2738:

The only “issue” is the Largos wings, the designers can’t fit something like a Charr tail on armors, they could never make a fit for wings. That has two possible solutions:
a) Make a new sub species of Largos that are wingless and make it part of the storyline. Maybe they are cursed, or maybe something else happened in the playable variety that they don’t have wings anymore.
b) Ignore the wings and let them clip through armor like charr tails (probably with the exception of their cultural armors)

A bit of nitpicking here. Implementing wings is not the same as tails. In fact, all races can currently sport a variety of wings on their backs, with minor to no clipping issue.

Another thing, it’s not certain the wings are part of Largos’ biology. There’s concept art that shows them without wings, and their wings in general look embellished with patterns reminiscent of manufactured fabric, rather than living tissue.

In either case, they can turn the wings into a cultural back item without much issue.

Mea.5491:

No new race, fix clipping issues on existing races first…

As much as I might like a new race for the extra aesthetics, yeah.

I’d be hoping for much better Charr options and getting rid of the obnoxious clipping. That might bring more people into playing them and thus justify putting in better effort, instead of the shame spiral of “ew clipping, won’t play Charr” → “we won’t fix Charr because no one plays them”.

I never thought I could despise something more than I despise those winged aqua-drizzt guys. Then people create something even more pointless: UNwinged aqua-drizzts! Amazing.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to get me some dark elven two sworded badasery from time to time. Its just I prefer my Tyria free from abused stereotype cliches I can play in other games where they originated and where they make sense…

As much as it’s accepted to hate on the idea of new races in GW2 (and when I say hate, I don’t mean it entirely maliciously), looking at other games in the genre, I’d say GW2 does a better job than most. Either you’re looking at all humanoid races just labeled differently or they simply don’t give you the option.

Thinking about some of the games I’ve played, I can only think of Tera that has variety in body types (human male/female, human male/female with horns, thicker humans with dragon-ish faces male + less-thicker versions with breasts and dragon-ish faces, loli short race, short plump + really tall + plump).

As much as people speak of the clipping issues of some races in GW2, it’s mitigatable. I’m an advocate of adding more races because Anet has done so well with theirs that people want to make characters using their templates. That’s a far cry better than something like FFXIV where people there don’t even know what a new race in their game could even be.

As much as it’s accepted to hate on the idea of new races in GW2 (and when I say hate, I don’t mean it entirely maliciously), looking at other games in the genre, I’d say GW2 does a better job than most. Either you’re looking at all humanoid races just labeled differently or they simply don’t give you the option.

Thinking about some of the games I’ve played, I can only think of Tera that has variety in body types (human male/female, human male/female with horns, thicker humans with dragon-ish faces male + less-thicker versions with breasts and dragon-ish faces, loli short race, short plump + really tall + plump).

As much as people speak of the clipping issues of some races in GW2, it’s mitigatable. I’m an advocate of adding more races because Anet has done so well with theirs that people want to make characters using their templates. That’s a far cry better than something like FFXIV where people there don’t even know what a new race in their game could even be.

IF AND ONLY IF….we ever get to Elona in the future….. I would like to be an Elonian Centuar, seeing they are, or were at peace with Humans. Look at the late MMORPG Shadowbane. They had Centaurs as a playable race. I’m sure a lot of people dislike bipedals as playable races, and want something different. GW2 can be that game that breaks the ice.

I get that a new race isn’t new ‘content’ so it probably doesn’t fit the bill of whatever ANet plans on doing at this stage of the game’s development, but I’d pay good money for a new race. I’d pay $20 – $30 no problem for a new race, a new personal story from levels 1-30, and a new city only accessible to people who bought the DLC.