Guild Wars 2

What is the purpose of having Tengu around with models if they serve no purpose in the game. I know people think they might become a playable race in the future but that now seems highly unlikely with Anet’s stance on the idea of expansions (I would love to see them as a playable race, prefer avians over cats).

On that note will we see any sort of new areas with the living story, as in a new region to explore rather than a dungeon or small addition to pre-exsisting maps?

Yes. 15 characters

I want Skritt^^

dont need another big race

It’s said that the Tengu were in development as a 6th PC race, and I believe it. Part of the work already being done to make them playable is one of the reasons people think they’ll be the next race added.

As to new zones? Unless the game goes under, we’ll see some new zones eventually. They’ve already added South Sun (it’s crap, but it was their first try), and the cliffs area for the bazaar when it was around. I’m sure we’ll see something new sooner or later. It wouldn’t surprise me if we have to pay for it with gems, though.

I think they will become playable for reasons already mentioned (in this thread and the many like it). As for the zone, it is VERY likely that we will go to the Tengu area one way or another via the living story, just may take a while. The game is only 1 year old after all.

However they’ve already created a designated area, made NPC who talk about it, made multiple entrance and connection points (two that I know of are as obvious as having a door with Tengu guards outside of them).

Lore wise they also have a rich history, but they have to wait for the right timing. Personally I think they are waiting to see what will happen with Cantha. If Cantha is a go then they will likely tie Tengu in with that. If Cantha ultimately stays scrapped then they will break Tengu away. Either way they need to know in order to create a compelling story.

I very much doubt we will see new playable races anytime soon.
There are a few things that I don’t see ArenaNet spending the time and resources doing:

1. Personal story – the amounr of voice acting, cutscenes and missions is a huge amount of effort.

2. Armour – they don’t want to spend the time and resources to make armour sets that are specifically made for one race, and with a new race they would have to make 9 new cultural armour sets, and also a 3 new tiers of all weapon types.

3. The amount of animations they would have to make is ridicolous. I know that the animators and art designers always go all out, but to me this seems like they wouldn’t do this without an expansion.

4. How will they release them? I definitely wouldn’t mind having to pay to to unlock them, but I am sure most people would get upset if they had to pay for them.

The game is not yet finished balancings stats against content.

If some things as core as stats are not yet done, why would they invest into such an appendix is out of my imagination.

Then again, they did spent time and resources in trivial things just to make some cash with gems.

So… who knows.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

I very much doubt we will see new playable races anytime soon.
There are a few things that I don’t see ArenaNet spending the time and resources doing:

1. Personal story – the amounr of voice acting, cutscenes and missions is a huge amount of effort.

2. Armour – they don’t want to spend the time and resources to make armour sets that are specifically made for one race, and with a new race they would have to make 9 new cultural armour sets, and also a 3 new tiers of all weapon types.

3. The amount of animations they would have to make is ridicolous. I know that the animators and art designers always go all out, but to me this seems like they wouldn’t do this without an expansion.

4. How will they release them? I definitely wouldn’t mind having to pay to to unlock them, but I am sure most people would get upset if they had to pay for them.

1. Protentially but their isn’t too much voice acting and once you get outside phase 1 of your characters story their isn’t any variation appart from your characters voice. Thus being alot cheaper than you might think it to be (from the point you choose guilds the supporting characters and main characters say the same lines).

2. Given they made ascended weapons and skins for each weapon set with each living world I don’t see this as much of a problem.

3. Animations are already done, their are Tengu around using bows with the animation intact suggesting they have already been animated.

4. Living story, have players go to the Dominion which then sets them up to be a playable race since you now have access to their home city and it becomes clear they have some part to play in the world. Given their solitary nature prehaps they come under attack from one of the major factions, begin to struggle and request the aid of other races/factions thus granting them entry to their homeland in order to help them. In return for helping them they agree to have a greater pressence in the fight aginste Zhaitan which then gives the Tengu a reason to be part of the story and makes sense then to have Tengu playable characters.

/puts on Hat of Cynicism +5

They’re not going to add the tengu as a playable race for the same reason they’re not adding new zones or expanding the Personal Story…money. Doing any of those things costs money and takes time, and cranking out filler content via the Living Story makes them lots of money for minimal effort. They’ve already said they aren’t going to have our characters speak because the cost involved isn’t worthwhile, and I can’t help but feel new races aren’t going to be added for the same reason. Too many players play the game for loot and rewards, not enough play for the Personal Story a new race would offer.

darkace.8925:

/puts on Hat of Cynicism +5

They’re not going to add the tengu as a playable race for the same reason they’re not adding new zones or expanding the Personal Story…money. Doing any of those things costs money and takes time, and cranking out filler content via the Living Story makes them lots of money for minimal effort. They’ve already said they aren’t going to have our characters speak because the cost involved isn’t worthwhile, and I can’t help but feel new races aren’t going to be added for the same reason. Too many players play the game for loot and rewards, not enough play for the Personal Story a new race would offer.

There is a way to solve that problem. Put them into the gem store to unlock. introduce them via the living story and then give a gem store option to add them to your player creation and call it an account upgrade. It would be a rather huge gem store seller in my opinion as many, many people want a new race to play. Not to mention the money is minimal for animations and design since most of the groundwork has already been done.

Cruril Darksbane.2318:

What is the purpose of having Tengu around with models if they serve no purpose in the game. I know people think they might become a playable race in the future but that now seems highly unlikely with Anet’s stance on the idea of expansions (I would love to see them as a playable race, prefer avians over cats).

On that note will we see any sort of new areas with the living story, as in a new region to explore rather than a dungeon or small addition to pre-exsisting maps?

The simple answer is that they’re part of the lore. We had Tengu in Guild Wars 1, so now we have them in Guild Wars 2. They don’t do anything, just like the Skritt, but they’re there.

Galtrix.7369:

Cruril Darksbane.2318:

What is the purpose of having Tengu around with models if they serve no purpose in the game. I know people think they might become a playable race in the future but that now seems highly unlikely with Anet’s stance on the idea of expansions (I would love to see them as a playable race, prefer avians over cats).

On that note will we see any sort of new areas with the living story, as in a new region to explore rather than a dungeon or small addition to pre-exsisting maps?

The simple answer is that they’re part of the lore. We had Tengu in Guild Wars 1, so now we have them in Guild Wars 2. They don’t do anything, just like the Skritt, but they’re there.

They were too careful with the models, that had at least at one time planned to add them as a playable race. Besides, your argument doesn’t hold water as there are many, many races in GW1 that are not in GW2. nagga come to mind, many dinosaurs, gargoyles, the forgotten, seers, mursaat (boy I hope they make a comeback, perhaps behind Scarlet’s vision), and more.

Arent the tengu those guarding that gate in LA that for some reason is locked? Isnt that a clear sign that that door will open somewhere down the road of this game?

Invictus.1503:

Not to mention the money is minimal for animations and design since most of the groundwork has already been done.

There’s a lot more that goes into adding a new race than character models and animations; the story requires writing and tons of voice acting, the home city and level 1-15 zone requires environmental artists, Dynamic Event designers, voice actors for the idle NPC banter, there are racial skills that have to be designed and balanced, every existing weapon and piece of armor has to be designed to fit the character models, every skill animation has to be tested to ensure it works with the character models, and all of this requires a great deal of bug testing and quality assurance polish.

I’m not saying all of those barriers guarantee we’ll never get a new race…but if they’re making money hand over fist with the current Living Story model then I just don’t see the financial incentive for them to bother.

Cruril Darksbane.2318:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

2. Armour – they don’t want to spend the time and resources to make armour sets that are specifically made for one race, and with a new race they would have to make 9 new cultural armour sets, and also a 3 new tiers of all weapon types.

2. Given they made ascended weapons and skins for each weapon set with each living world I don’t see this as much of a problem.

You missed a key piece of information. He said Armour, not Weapons. Adding new weapons to the game is relatively easy since all you have to do is get artists to create static models with maybe a couple of particle effects on them. Then those weapons can just be slapped into the hands of every kind of character automatically with auto scaling no problem. It doesn’t matter if it’s going into the hands of a charr or an asura, the character animations require no change. But with armor, it’s a different story. The different races each have several different body types and each one would have to be manually fit for each piece of armor your create, and for a new race all of the already existing armor would all have to get essentially remade from the ground up to fit a new set of character models.

Cruril Darksbane.2318:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

4. How will they release them? I definitely wouldn’t mind having to pay to to unlock them, but I am sure most people would get upset if they had to pay for them.

4. Living story, have players go to the Dominion which then sets them up to be a playable race since you now have access to their home city and it becomes clear they have some part to play in the world. Given their solitary nature prehaps they come under attack from one of the major factions, begin to struggle and request the aid of other races/factions thus granting them entry to their homeland in order to help them. In return for helping them they agree to have a greater pressence in the fight aginste Zhaitan which then gives the Tengu a reason to be part of the story and makes sense then to have Tengu playable characters.

Again, you have no idea how much work goes into creating these things. It’s not that they can’t figure out how to write them into the story. I’m sure they already have plenty of ideas. It’s that they have to write them, script the dozens of personal story missions, make new character models for new missions, hire new voice actors to voice all these new characters, record them, do new motion capture for all the cut scenes. Not to mention all the new work for programmers to do to piece it all together. All of that and more I didn’t even go into costs lots of money. He is concerned about how it would be released cause he doesn’t wanna buy an expansion because he doesn’t wanna spend the money. Sure, they could release it as a free patch like living story has been, but that would mean the money they spent to develop it is a sunk cost that they can only hope to recoup via gem purchases; they would just have to hope that this new content inspires more people to spend real money to buy gems. But if they don’t wanna take that risk, then about the only option is to release a paid expansion, which he doesn’t want.

Shufflepants.9785:

Cruril Darksbane.2318:

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

4. How will they release them? I definitely wouldn’t mind having to pay to to unlock them, but I am sure most people would get upset if they had to pay for them.

4. Living story, have players go to the Dominion which then sets them up to be a playable race since you now have access to their home city and it becomes clear they have some part to play in the world. Given their solitary nature prehaps they come under attack from one of the major factions, begin to struggle and request the aid of other races/factions thus granting them entry to their homeland in order to help them. In return for helping them they agree to have a greater pressence in the fight aginste Zhaitan which then gives the Tengu a reason to be part of the story and makes sense then to have Tengu playable characters.

Again, you have no idea how much work goes into creating these things. It’s not that they can’t figure out how to write them into the story. I’m sure they already have plenty of ideas. It’s that they have to write them, script the dozens of personal story missions, make new character models for new missions, hire new voice actors to voice all these new characters, record them, do new motion capture for all the cut scenes. Not to mention all the new work for programmers to do to piece it all together. All of that and more I didn’t even go into costs lots of money. He is concerned about how it would be released cause he doesn’t wanna buy an expansion because he doesn’t wanna spend the money. Sure, they could release it as a free patch like living story has been, but that would mean the money they spent to develop it is a sunk cost that they can only hope to recoup via gem purchases; they would just have to hope that this new content inspires more people to spend real money to buy gems. But if they don’t wanna take that risk, then about the only option is to release a paid expansion, which he doesn’t want.

That’s not what I said.

I said that I would not mind having to pay for the new races, as they are content you would typically only find in expansions.

My concern was how the majority of people would react if they had to pay for a new race, without buying an expansion.

With the amount of work, time and resources they would have to spend in order to make a new race I only find it reasonable for them to make us have to buy them, but I have a feeling that most people wouldn’t like that.

Hello everyone !

I love Tengu too, especialy when I saw http://gw2.game-guide.fr/files/2012/12/4274396_orig.jpg

The customization could be great !

Hope ArenaNet adds them in future as a playable race ! =D

Tengu? The forums are just going to have threads complaining about armor models being crap.

Skritt? Go play an Asura and pretend.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

With the amount of work, time and resources they would have to spend in order to make a new race I only find it reasonable for them to make us have to buy them, but I have a feeling that most people wouldn’t like that.

I think you are dead wrong on this.

People only object to paying for stuff that seems like it should come for free – entire new races and large areas and so on do not fit into that category. There would be whiners, of course, but there are whiners even with WoW expansions and the like.

Balkanwarrior.5132:

Tengu? The forums are just going to have threads complaining about armor models being crap.

Skritt? Go play an Asura and pretend.

May be kitten start optimizing armor for all races to avoid it then? It’s actually a sane thing to do with a new race, nobody’s gonna play them if they will do such kitten job with armors like they did with charr.

dragonkain.3984:

Balkanwarrior.5132:

Tengu? The forums are just going to have threads complaining about armor models being crap.

Skritt? Go play an Asura and pretend.

May be kitten start optimizing armor for all races to avoid it then? It’s actually a sane thing to do with a new race, nobody’s gonna play them if they will do such kitten job with armors like they did with charr.

See here is the thing Charr background is really generic, boring and dull it’s been done a million times over in almost every single RPG.

I truely wouldn’t mind paying for a new playable race if it was Tengu, or a new area to explore. Armour eh they’re really isn’t that many armour models, their is like what?
Two upto 40
Two upto 70
Three or Four after that?

Not to mention they’re close enough to humans that it can’t be that signifcantly difficult but then I am not a animator so I have no idea.

Artists, no they do not need artists to my knowledge they already had Tengu planned and never released them, that suggests they already have artwork done as one of the previous users has already shown.

Writers yeah ok, but as I said your more than likely over thinking it. You need 2 voice actors for the main PC and quite afew for the first phase of the story. After that your back down to two.

Let’s put it this way:

When your making a game you do not put in characters or models you do not intend to use in any meaningful way, if you are never going to use the tengu for anything why have them in the game at all?

Their is no point having three Tengu stoud around at the gateways preventing you access. Doing so implies you intend to do something with them, weather it was an expansion, living story, or adding them into the world in a more meaningful way.

They should be introduced as part of the Living Story and they have made new areas in the past so why not now. I know everyone avoids that area but the area was designed with combat in mind, this is designed with the intention of introducing a race.

And let’s be honest, a new race is needed. Norn are just enlarged human models, with a decent background atleast, Humans are generic but to be expected, Asura are just reskined gnomes, Charr are dull and boring in every single way (why no one plays them), Slyvani are prehaps the most interesting race but so few mmo’s go into Slyvan races that are playable.

A better question is what MMO has covered Avian races? Because I have never seen one.

Colin pretty much confirmed there will be new playable races at some point.

His words exactly.. “Whatever race we decide to add to the game first, it will be one from that core pool that people have been talking about regularly, but I can’t tell you which one.”

Source.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Jy7CcwnfUdU#t=924

It’s at the 15:25 mark in the video.

Invictus.1503:

I think they will become playable for reasons already mentioned (in this thread and the many like it). As for the zone, it is VERY likely that we will go to the Tengu area one way or another via the living story, just may take a while. The game is only 1 year old after all.

GW1 had a full expansion of real content when it was 1 year old