I have been playing the same character since I began GW2 and so it’s the character itself that is important. However, back then, I didn’t really know the differences between Norn or Humans and so I just picked one. I don’t care if I have to redo my personal story, loose racial items, etc. If there was a contract available, I’d gladly pay Anet the cost.
If you don’t care about losing the story progress or cultural items, why not just… make a new character? Because you don’t want to have to level to 80 again? Oh, so you just want an insta-level 80 fully geared, not just a race change.
Name
Map completion (WvW included)
Traits
WP’s
Skill points
Nostalgic tie to character
Crafting
NPE
Bag space
Many reasons why I wouldn’t want to just start over from my main with the same profession. I can see the race change service being one of their hottest selling services of the year, hell w/all the bad publicity of the NPE/trait system it may even bring back a few veterans.
I have been playing the same character since I began GW2 and so it’s the character itself that is important. However, back then, I didn’t really know the differences between Norn or Humans and so I just picked one. I don’t care if I have to redo my personal story, loose racial items, etc. If there was a contract available, I’d gladly pay Anet the cost.
If you don’t care about losing the story progress or cultural items, why not just… make a new character? Because you don’t want to have to level to 80 again? Oh, so you just want an insta-level 80 fully geared, not just a race change.
Name
Map completion (WvW included)
Traits (yay for new system…)
WP’s
Skill points
Nostalgic tie to character
Crafting
NPE
Bag space
Many reasons why I wouldn’t want to just start over from my main.
I can see the race change service being one of their hottest selling services of the year, hell w/all the bad publicity of the NPE/trait system it may even bring back a few veterans.
This. A thousand times this.
I would write more, but I think you have said all I want to say.
Lisa-Sad by what the Trait System has turned into.
Since this is the merged topic I will go ahead and toss my name in the hat. I have 2-3 characters that I would dearly love to race change. I had no idea how bad armor looks on charr and how I can’t see anything on asura since they are so kitten small. That and all the quality armor goes to human/norn/sylvari.
I would love to change my race also. So much time spend with my engineer asura and now I regret it. I want to costumize my armor so it looks good, but asuras are so small, it is pointless… Pleas, make my engineer human or norn!!!
Just an idea… Whenever you get a race change it doesn’t need to change your storyline, all it needs to change is the beginning. ie: Norn family takes in human child and raises them as a norn… Not really that hard programming wise
Just an idea… Whenever you get a race change it doesn’t need to change your storyline, all it needs to change is the beginning. ie: Norn family takes in human child and raises them as a norn… Not really that hard programming wise
Probably any real amount of programming is too much effort on Anet’s part. Just reset everything storywise. Practically zero amount of work needed to do that. And make the gem cost of the change high enough that farming for black lion keys this way is not worth it.
I know the chances are slim. But I would really like to see this happen and be in the store too! When you can already change so much, why not be able to change race too like in other mmos.
All you need to do in order to make race change viable is to simply reset the personal story back to the beginning and give the same choices as they do in beginning.
Hell, with same effort they could even do class changes into a possibility if they wanted to.
Yea, the player would have to play the personal story all over again, but honestly, I think it would be worth it and it would be a service I most certainly would pay for in order to turn my Norn into something whose weapons and armor don’t clip constantly.
I’m still wondering why don’t they let people re-play personal story with their current characters anyhow.
Agreed. To change your character’s race would mean having a wonky personal story progress which is one of the things integral to the game. I mean, it would be weird to be an asura yet have a personal story that only a sylvari can understand for example.
The problem is when they’ve researched ways to make the personal story replayable (probably for instances of “oops, I accidentally accepted my friend’s progression and jumped from one order to another order”) they’ve encountered bugs up to and including not being able to progress in the story anymore.
Would anyone be opposed to a purely cosmetic change of race? For instance, I would be a Human, but visually I would look like an Asuran? Every NPC in game, all the of the quests, everything would still consider me a human, but I would just look like an Asuran.
I would be totally okay with this. The only issue I can see it causing would be racial abilities in WvW. I don’t think that is a big deal though. You can either leave it be, or if needed you could change those abilities only.
The main reason they need a race change system so badly is because if you have put time and gems (bag space) into a character you really should not have to reroll the entire character just to make it look like another race. I would agree that something like that was fairly understandable in 2004 when MMOs were just starting to boom… but it is almost 2016 and quality of life features like this are pretty much expected of a successful triple-A quality MMOs.
PS: I want to throw more money at you ArenaNet, please let me.
Thanks for asking. To change the race in the Gem store will not be an option in Guild Wars 2.
Thanks, I actually read that. But things change, especially in games that are in development life cycles that basically do not end until the next title is released or the game servers are closed.
On a side, note… I would literally spend $200 dollars on this. I am dead serious, it would take FAR too much real life time to switch a characters race that has map completion among other things.
On a side, note… I would literally spend $200 dollars on this. I am dead serious
LOL you $200 dollar maybe pay for 1 -2 dev work for 1 day maximum if they get not paid much. I do not think Anet will make race change for you $200. Maybe offer to pay for dev to find way to make race change work will cost you many thousand dollar. Then Anet maybe listen.
On a side, note… I would literally spend $200 dollars on this. I am dead serious, it would take FAR too much real life time to switch a characters race that has map completion among other things.
I’m morbidly curious why?
Ascended gear and a bunch of the new exotics are account bound now. Achievements/masteries are account level. Other than the leveling up, which is almost trivially easy to side-step with tomes, what’s on your character you can’t recreate/move to another character with far less effort than $200 implies to most players?
“You keep saying ‘its unfair.’
I wonder what your basis for comparison is…”
- Jareth, King of Goblins.
Ok so people keep complaining about race change, I could care less, I love my little Asura.
Here is how to fix it!
Buy a race change pass.
Use pass
Warning is prompted!! Using will erase all personal story and soul bound weapons armors and trinkets.
Level and acct bound items will not be effected nor will map completion. But you will have to redo your personal story and here is another kicker! Rewards will not be given for personal story repeats.
Any issues with this?
Don’t say home instance personal story or cultural armors, those are addressed.
It might be best if it requires the char to strip all armor off first. Some are bound to have applied cultural armor skins to their ascended armor and that’s bound to either bug it or have chars wearing cultural armor that belongs to another race.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
From the sounds of comments made by Anet previously, its just not that simple. It sounds like they have some of that kitten hard coded into the character code itself, as opposed to being detachable data in their database. Which poses a helluva lot more issue with this “simple” feature that so many seem to want. Granted, even if it was completely modularized, and all of the assorted data was database cataloged perfectly, it’d still make for some interesting hoops to jump though to sanitize it all and then roll the fresh racial skin.
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
At any rate, they’re not working on it and said they won’t be working on it.
1) I am afraid that the team does contemplate different possibilities and new features for the future but this one is not among those.Source
2) There are a lot of far-reaching consequences of allowing one character to play through every race’s personal story or equip any cultural armor/weapons. For now, we feel that it would take away from the experience of Guild Wars 2 for the majority of players.Source
3) Thanks for asking. To change the race in the Gem store will not be an option in Guild Wars 2.Source
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
From the sounds of comments made by Anet previously, its just not that simple. It sounds like they have some of that kitten hard coded into the character code itself, as opposed to being detachable data in their database. Which poses a helluva lot more issue with this “simple” feature that so many seem to want. Granted, even if it was completely modularized, and all of the assorted data was database cataloged perfectly, it’d still make for some interesting hoops to jump though to sanitize it all and then roll the fresh racial skin.
Well I see the issues, that every character has different maps and skills and training and such, which could cause a lot of errors in a swap. What if it required base game map complete for not HoT characters as well as max lvl 80 with all skills learned, and etc for Hot characters. And it literally deleted your character and let’s you make a “beta” like character. Starts at 80 with all skills and map completed, the real issue comes from people not wanting to re map or re level because they picked wrong x years ago. Ideas?
At any rate, they’re not working on it and said they won’t be working on it.
1) I am afraid that the team does contemplate different possibilities and new features for the future but this one is not among those. Source
2) There are a lot of far-reaching consequences of allowing one character to play through every race’s personal story or equip any cultural armor/weapons. For now, we feel that it would take away from the experience of Guild Wars 2 for the majority of players. Source
3) Thanks for asking. To change the race in the Gem store will not be an option in Guild Wars 2. Source
I know it never will happen, just fun to speculate haha
I bet it has to do with their values that are picked during character creation.
A long time ago, your ferocity/dignity/charm were actual values in the hero panel, and affected your storyline, and the choices you made also affected certain item trees and such so its probably why its not as easy to switch… if it was me coding it, those would just be columns in a SQL database table but who knows what they’ve done.
From the sounds of comments made by Anet previously, its just not that simple. It sounds like they have some of that kitten hard coded into the character code itself, as opposed to being detachable data in their database. Which poses a helluva lot more issue with this “simple” feature that so many seem to want. Granted, even if it was completely modularized, and all of the assorted data was database cataloged perfectly, it’d still make for some interesting hoops to jump though to sanitize it all and then roll the fresh racial skin.
Well I see the issues, that every character has different maps and skills and training and such, which could cause a lot of errors in a swap. What if it required base game map complete for not HoT characters as well as max lvl 80 with all skills learned, and etc for Hot characters. And it literally deleted your character and let’s you make a “beta” like character. Starts at 80 with all skills and map completed, the real issue comes from people not wanting to re map or re level because they picked wrong x years ago. Ideas?
The problem is when ever they’ve tried to do things like redoing the personal story, it has hosed up the system. Including not being able to continue the story, which could even include living story or HoT story. It’s not as simple as it looks to mess with the personal story.
At any rate, they’re not working on it and said they won’t be working on it.
1) I am afraid that the team does contemplate different possibilities and new features for the future but this one is not among those. Source
2) There are a lot of far-reaching consequences of allowing one character to play through every race’s personal story or equip any cultural armor/weapons. For now, we feel that it would take away from the experience of Guild Wars 2 for the majority of players. Source
3) Thanks for asking. To change the race in the Gem store will not be an option in Guild Wars 2. Source
I know it never will happen, just fun to speculate haha
Yah. To some extent. Speculation where they’ve said, “No. Absolutely not.” only holds so much amusement value to me. But speculate away if that’s what’s good for you.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
From the sounds of comments made by Anet previously, its just not that simple. It sounds like they have some of that kitten hard coded into the character code itself, as opposed to being detachable data in their database. Which poses a helluva lot more issue with this “simple” feature that so many seem to want. Granted, even if it was completely modularized, and all of the assorted data was database cataloged perfectly, it’d still make for some interesting hoops to jump though to sanitize it all and then roll the fresh racial skin.
Well I see the issues, that every character has different maps and skills and training and such, which could cause a lot of errors in a swap. What if it required base game map complete for not HoT characters as well as max lvl 80 with all skills learned, and etc for Hot characters. And it literally deleted your character and let’s you make a “beta” like character. Starts at 80 with all skills and map completed, the real issue comes from people not wanting to re map or re level because they picked wrong x years ago. Ideas?
cringe
Just the thought of how much data would be involved…. gods what a nightmare. And I like doing database stuff (generally). I’m just going to skip the ‘how could’ speculation this time around.
The problem is when ever they’ve tried to do things like redoing the personal story, it has hosed up the system. Including not being able to continue the story, which could even include living story or HoT story. It’s not as simple as it looks to mess with the personal story.
Yup. Seems to have all kinds of interesting affects on the system (which again, makes me wonder about the state of the code). So, I say we let that sleeping dog be.
Don’t look at me like that. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s probably not true.
It has its problems due to potential abuse and problems with the personal story.
However, since they introduced race based achievements for characters that need to be level 80 it should certainly be an option now. Like you can temporarily turn your character into another race to complete the Sylvari only (or whatever only in future expansions) achievements. Achievements should be totally skill based not dependent on your choice of class anyway.
It has its problems due to potential abuse and problems with the personal story.
However, since they introduced race based achievements for characters that need to be level 80 it should certainly be an option now. Like you can temporarily turn your character into another race to complete the Sylvari only (or whatever only in future expansions) achievements. Achievements should be totally skill based not dependent on your choice of class anyway.
There’s been precedent for racial based achievements since the game launched. Fashion achievements for equipping racial armor. Story achievements for the racial personal story steps.
I don’t have a problem with racial based achievements. However, I will be upset if they favor one race too much for racial achievements. Sylvari having one more achievement than the other races doesn’t fall under too much favoring.
It has its problems due to potential abuse and problems with the personal story.
However, since they introduced race based achievements for characters that need to be level 80 it should certainly be an option now. Like you can temporarily turn your character into another race to complete the Sylvari only (or whatever only in future expansions) achievements. Achievements should be totally skill based not dependent on your choice of class anyway.
There’s been precedent for racial based achievements since the game launched. Fashion achievements for equipping racial armor. Story achievements for the racial personal story steps.
I don’t have a problem with racial based achievements. However, I will be upset if they favor one race too much for racial achievements. Sylvari having one more achievement than the other races doesn’t fall under too much favoring.
Achievements are achievements, but in the HoT story ascended trinkets with marauder stats are locked behind needing a sylvari at least in chapter 1. The achievements were easy enough except for the keep the cannon alive one, haven’t started on chapter 2 yet.
Yeah, I really hate my choice of char for my ranger. Char are cool, thematically, but the armor clipping, the broken, hunch backs, and weird two-footed walk that they do… It hasn’t grown on me. How am I supposed to play a Druid with my weird, grunting all tube time char? I’m not. I’m getting to the point where I just want to delete him, but I don’t want to spend the time re-leveling. I don’t care about gear or story rewards, I just want my char gone.
From the sounds of comments made by Anet previously, its just not that simple. It sounds like they have some of that kitten hard coded into the character code itself, as opposed to being detachable data in their database. Which poses a helluva lot more issue with this “simple” feature that so many seem to want. Granted, even if it was completely modularized, and all of the assorted data was database cataloged perfectly, it’d still make for some interesting hoops to jump though to sanitize it all and then roll the fresh racial skin.
Well I see the issues, that every character has different maps and skills and training and such, which could cause a lot of errors in a swap. What if it required base game map complete for not HoT characters as well as max lvl 80 with all skills learned, and etc for Hot characters. And it literally deleted your character and let’s you make a “beta” like character. Starts at 80 with all skills and map completed, the real issue comes from people not wanting to re map or re level because they picked wrong x years ago. Ideas?
cringe
Just the thought of how much data would be involved…. gods what a nightmare. And I like doing database stuff (generally). I’m just going to skip the ‘how could’ speculation this time around.
The problem is when ever they’ve tried to do things like redoing the personal story, it has hosed up the system. Including not being able to continue the story, which could even include living story or HoT story. It’s not as simple as it looks to mess with the personal story.
Yup. Seems to have all kinds of interesting affects on the system (which again, makes me wonder about the state of the code). So, I say we let that sleeping dog be.
Dont forget the biggest nightmare: some unforeseen bug eating your character. If that happens, anet’s response is likely going to be limited to just “welp, sorry, nothing we can do. sorry to see you go if you cant recover from this.”
All I can say is, if you’re paying that much for a race change, you should be able to get the personal story rewards again. So, that’s kind of a non-issue.
There is simple solutions to this…
- Character must have complete all race stories.
- Racial background/stories will be selected randomly.
- If a minor race has been help and is not available for the new race : random choice
- Race armors are “lost” (because you bought T3 for the skin, not the stats and T1/T2 are cheap anyway)
Or they let you choose background too and reset personal story with a “no reward mode” until you reach the same personal story level again.
Biggest problem I see with this is that when new races come out people will just change and skip the experience of the new story…
As opposed to just making a character of the race and using a birthday scroll+50 tomes of knowledge, or EotM train farming and skipping the experience of the new story?
