There have been some interest in class / race change services.
It can be an excellent source of revenue, but there are some valid issues about it being technically complicated. It’s a lot simpler to reset the character, however so I propose a class / race change service that bump a character back to level 1.
Basically, The service work as follows.
1. All skills and items are unequipped.
2. All hero points are refunded to the character
3. The character is bumped back to level 1, losing hero points gained from leveling up
4. All stories are reset for the character.
5. A character creation takes place.
The character keeps any crafting skill and bound items.
Experience tomes are not hard to come by, so anyone who want to remake one of their characters can save up for it.
Is this reasonable ?
Then keep that char as a mule that can hold 100 or more items (a lot cheaper than three 30 slot bank tabs) and buy a $10 char slot and make another char that’s exactly the way you want it.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
As much as I’d like to see something like this (I want to turn my sylvari necro into an elementalist and charr elementalist into a necro, for example), I wouldn’t say that’s “simple” at all.
On a database level it might be easy to just change some values and reset others, but how would it be handled in-game? You can’t just feed an occupied character slot through character creation again, because it’s designed to fill that slot with a new character (and thus would cause the old character to be completely deleted, which is what we want to avoid); we’d need a new system that lets a player make the race, class, and background choices again, which means new code, new UI, and more testing to make sure the changes don’t permanently bug out the personal story.
Now I’m not saying that ANet shouldn’t pursue it, just that we should be realistic about our expectations when pointing out “simple” solutions.
Even if they did offer race or profession changes, it’s not likely to be only for $10. If you’re willing to level the char anyway, then you might as well take your $10 and buy a new char slot rather than pay whatever price they would charge for such a service (my guess is that it would be a pretty steep price).
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
Even if they did offer race or profession changes, it’s not likely to be only for $10. If you’re willing to level the char anyway, then you might as well take your $10 and buy a new char slot rather than pay whatever price they would charge for such a service (my guess is that it would be a pretty steep price).
Well, can’t speak for others, but personally I would gladly pay to change race and/or class to avoid the grueling process of map completion again.
It’s true that an addition like that would be more effort than a $10 price tag would warrant though. Closest we’ll probably ever get are new elite specs that function like sub-classing.
Even if they did offer race or profession changes, it’s not likely to be only for $10. If you’re willing to level the char anyway, then you might as well take your $10 and buy a new char slot rather than pay whatever price they would charge for such a service (my guess is that it would be a pretty steep price).
Well, can’t speak for others, but personally I would gladly pay to change race and/or class to avoid the grueling process of map completion again.
It’s true that an addition like that would be more effort than a $10 price tag would warrant though. Closest we’ll probably ever get are new elite specs that function like sub-classing.
I suspect though that map completion won’t come with it and that it would be too much trouble to have one service that accounts for all the variations of map completions that have been done.
My guess is that the people making these suggestions have an idea that the price will be about 800 gems and when/if ANet did make this service that the forums would explode with outrage about cash grab and greediness (forum outrage for a 700 gems for an account wide slot sound familiar?)
ANet would be better off avoiding the bugs and the forum outrage over the price and have people buy new slots and level with the tomes the game gives them.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
On a database level it might be easy to just change some values and reset others, but how would it be handled in-game? You can’t just feed an occupied character slot through character creation again, because it’s designed to fill that slot with a new character.
Total makeover does something similar so modifying the total makeover code to also change personal origins should work, since the character’s story is reset there should be no conflict.
I’d take a bit of QA to see if it bugs out of course.
The problem is the race. The personal story is tied to race and they coded the Personal Story in such a way that any time they’ve tried to make it replayable, they’ve run into glitches up to and including making it so you can’t progress in the story at all. And I’m sure they tried again when they went to make the Story Journal.
But it’s implemented through character reset so it doesn’t not have any technical issue associated with personal stories.
So you’ve seen the code? You can not say whether or not your suggestion would or would not bypass the technical issues that have been stated for personal stories unless you’ve seen the code.
1. All skills and items are unequipped.
2. All hero points are refunded to the character
3. The character is bumped back to level 1, losing hero points gained from leveling up
4. All stories are reset for the character.
5. A character creation takes place.
The character keeps any crafting skill and bound items.
Experience tomes are not hard to come by, so anyone who want to remake one of their characters can save up for it.
Is this reasonable ?
There’s already an in-game solution to this: keep the old toon and park at a JP chest or node farm, create a new character, use the 80 tomes of knowledge to level it up.
The only thing different between that and the OP’s proposal: nothing. In both cases, you keep the bound items and the crafting.
They might have said it’s difficult technically and I have just pointed out it can be solved.
The original post points out how enormously expensive it would be from a dev standpoint. And that’s without considering the QA they’d have to do to make sure that all the necessary character ‘flags’ get reset properly.
This is another example of “it sounds so easy, why isn’t it easily done?”
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Na, you can’t use any of the bound items while parked next to anything. and you can’t transfer any map exploration to the new character. The difference is there, maybe not relevant to you.
The “enormous” expense is easily justified by the amount of people who want this. As for why it’s not done already. It’s because for every person trying to accomplish something, there is another trying to get in the way.
I am not a dev but I write enough code to know this problem is solvable by reset. The reason is simple, instead of looking all the flags you have to reset, you only need to keep track of the ones you don’t. As in ones related to map exploration and crafting. That’s it.
The “enormous” expense is easily justified by the amount of people who want this. As for why it’s not done already. It’s because for every person trying to accomplish something, there is another trying to get in the way.
I don’t think you can prove that there are enough people to even loosely justify the costs of this feature.
The “enormous” expense is easily justified by the amount of people who want this. As for why it’s not done already. It’s because for every person trying to accomplish something, there is another trying to get in the way.
I don’t think you understand how forums work, at all. No one here has the ability to get in the way. Pointing out problems with your idea isn’t the reason why it’s not done already. The purpose of a forum is to discuss things. Someone may propose an idea, but others pointing out flaws in the idea or saying that the Devs have already said no aren’t being obstructionistic, they’re pointing out why it might not work. If you don’t want a discussion of your idea and people pointing out problems with it, then I suggest you don’t post on a public forum.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
The “enormous” expense is easily justified by the amount of people who want this. As for why it’s not done already. It’s because for every person trying to accomplish something, there is another trying to get in the way.
I don’t think you understand how forums work, at all. No one here has the ability to get in the way. Pointing out problems with your idea isn’t the reason why it’s not done already. The purpose of a forum is to discuss things. Someone may propose an idea, but others pointing out flaws in the idea or saying that the Devs have already said no aren’t being obstructionistic, they’re pointing out why it might not work. If you don’t want a discussion of your idea and people pointing out problems with it, then I suggest you don’t post on a public forum.
This.
TC has been very hostile towards people who have told him what arenanets stance is on this topic.
Even after provided a direct link to arenanets answer that this will issue will not get tackled, he continues to argue and blames other forum posters who essentially just wanted to have him not waste his time.
That’s not a dialoge, it’s a monologue which you can ahve by yourself and don’t need the forums for.
Would arenanet LOVE to make more money with something like race/class changes? Sure, the issue has come up before. Their answer was: it’s to complicated to be done.
Now deal with it or continue on your futile quest, but stop blaming other players.
I have already pointed out solution to that exact problem. And people continue to make the SAME argument that it’s impossible. Not sure exactly who’s having a monologue here.
If there is a problem with the solution, say exactly what it is. There isn’t anything that actually makes it impossible. It just need to be approached in a clever way.
I am not the one having a monologue when people make the same argument they did five year ago without reading my post. It’s NOT too complicated when you reset the character.
I have already pointed out solution to that exact problem. And people continue to make the SAME argument that it’s impossible. Not sure exactly who’s having a monologue here.
If there is a problem with the solution, say exactly what it is. There isn’t anything that actually makes it impossible. It just need to be approached in a clever way.
I am not the one having a monologue when people make the same argument they did five year ago without reading my post. It’s NOT too complicated when you reset the character.
If it’s that simple and not too complicated to reset the character, I wonder why none in their whole team of computer programmers can see it as clearly as you? After all, if it’s that easy and it’s a sure money maker then them missing something that someone who has no knowledge of how the code is can see how to fix is really amazing.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
I have already pointed out solution to that exact problem. And people continue to make the SAME argument that it’s impossible. Not sure exactly who’s having a monologue here.
If there is a problem with the solution, say exactly what it is. There isn’t anything that actually makes it impossible. It just need to be approached in a clever way.
I am not the one having a monologue when people make the same argument they did five year ago without reading my post. It’s NOT too complicated when you reset the character.
We have read your post. None of us have said it’s impossible. Just stated that the past attempts ANet have tried have left the personal story in a broken state. So it’s likely not as easy as you seem to think it is to reset the personal story, which would have to happen with a race change.
Unless you have literally seen the code for GW2, you can NOT say if it is or is not too complicated to reset the character. So I’ll ask again, and please answer it this time: Have you actually seen the code?
If you haven’t seen the code, stop assuming how complicated or not your solution is.
I have already pointed out solution to that exact problem. And people continue to make the SAME argument that it’s impossible. Not sure exactly who’s having a monologue here.
If there is a problem with the solution, say exactly what it is. There isn’t anything that actually makes it impossible. It just need to be approached in a clever way.
I am not the one having a monologue when people make the same argument they did five year ago without reading my post. It’s NOT too complicated when you reset the character.
No one is saying it’s impossible. Arenanet officially said they will not do it because of the complexity involved.
Since your knowledge of the game will be vastly inferior to arenanets, I’ll go by what they said.
By the same logic nobody knows exactly what Anet had tried and decided against previously. Therefore it cannot be used as evidence against all forms of changes that involve the personal story.
It doesn’t matter if you are convinced in particular, anyone from Anet would know what the idea is about if they take one minute to read the first post and that’s all that really matters.
Yeah. Uh, like, your idea hasn’t come up in a bunch of different variations before in the last 3 and a half years. It’s been suggested before in one form or another.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
By the same logic nobody knows exactly what Anet had tried and decided against previously. Therefore it cannot be used as evidence against all forms of changes that involve the personal story.
It doesn’t matter if you are convinced in particular, anyone from Anet would know what the idea is about if they take one minute to read the first post and that’s all that really matters.
And no one in this thread has claimed that they’ve tried to do what you’ve posted and failed.
We’re just trying to tell you that it may not be as simple as you’re claiming it to be and that posts from ANet have shown that they aren’t really looking for a way to implement race change due to the complexity involved in the personal story code. If you stopped and read our posts like you want us to read your posts, you would have seen that.
