Guild Wars 2

This thread is probably more of a suggestion thread than anything.

I have been thinking a lot about the new playable race and what they might be. At this point the people on this forum probably pay attention to this stuff and can likely not need me to find an ANet quote saying that a new race is coming “some time soonish.” Personally I am a massive fan of the Tengu, birds for some reason makes me think of ancient and wise – which intrigues me for some reason.

Let’s start with the fan favourite. Kodan. I personally like this idea far less than a wild pig becoming a playable race – I want more questions than answers. The Kodan (from what we know) are merely the genetic ancestors of the Norn. Boring. For the same reason I dislike Cantha – I can always play GW1 to go there (that’s a different argument entirely though). The concept of explanation is far less interesting than expansion – look at WoW: when they were on their last leg they brought out a new race with a completely new lore (the pandas). While I personally think WoW is pathetic, I can’t argue with that decision to re-ignite interest in the game. Either way, people will vote for the Kodan in the same way they voted for Kiel. Just avoid these guys – we don’t need more Norn – I would be seriously impressed if you could logic them into the storyline because I can’t. Your Lore forum is as active as it is because you keep leaving stuff open to interpretation, this is closing off that possibility.

The second fan favourite is Tengu. It seems as though these guys were the plan all along – pay very careful attention to where the Dominion of Winds is: it’s a great starting area (even if they have to use/abuse their neighbours further levelling). They have enough space for 1-15 and 15-25. The Tengu in terms of GW2 are very much shrouded in mystery, trying to decide who to form an alliance with. It’s a really solid premise with which to form a personal storyline. They have a lot of room to go wherever you might want to take them.

I might venture to say the Largos may be the third favourite. We know little more than ~2 instances about them so ANet would have a lot of flexibility with them. That being said, a lot about them was divulged during those few encounters. I’m not convinced that a viable storyline could be made that wouldn’t violate their ethos, maybe it could.

And then my personal favourite troll race: Krait. Man I love these guys. It’s a great way to integrate a darker aspect into the game (with the current happy-go-lucky Sylvari issue). I mean, they have slaves fighting over air bubbles they have created. So evil. It would make such a great storyline because of the conflicting nature of it: “kill all aliens” followed by “we can use the aliens to our advantage to ease our problem of the dragon.” You wouldn’t necessarily have to remove them as an enemy because you could be playing a sympathiser portion of them (Kryta vs. Bandits anyone? Except this time you are the equivalent of the bandits). Easily explained again out of the story in a book between GW2 and GW3 (the backstabbed the other races, as you would completely expect – Trahearne being too much of an idiot to see that coming, which he is, join in your fan hatred and discredit the guy).

The main question is, how do you integrate a new personal storyline? ANet has this issue whereby expansions within the same era are chronologically stable. GW2 happens at the same time as GW2+new race. They might be in cahoots with Jennah or Trahearne, or not. At the end of the day the original playable races never heard of them because they were working behind the scenes – helping out the others without actually interacting with them (or partially, treaties and so forth that the original PCs didn’t know about). For example, one of the missions could be fending off a certain amount of enemies during the siege of fort trinity. The storylines can be completely different up to a certain point in the storyline (even after Victory or Death).

Finally, this provides a great way to break free of Trahearne. The fanbase hates him, give it up. I would even go as far as to say break the fourth wall and make the new race despise him as well (explaining why they avoided him and the pact).

Thoughts?

The personal stories should have just been that, personal.
IMO the whole campaign on Zhaitan should have been just that, a campaign.
The entire thing is instanced anyway, you can have your living world, your moving calendar, all that stuff and just leave these major stories (like forming the pact to defeat Zhaitan) as campaign type chains. Then you have the personal story be a self contained story to your own experiences. They did fine for the first 20 or so levels of personal story but from there things start getting less and less personal culminating with Traehearne.

zamalek.2154:

Let’s start with the fan favourite. Kodan. I personally like this idea far less than a wild pig becoming a playable race – I want more questions than answers. The Kodan (from what we know) are merely the genetic ancestors of the Norn. Boring. For the same reason I dislike Cantha – I can always play GW1 to go there (that’s a different argument entirely though). The concept of explanation is far less interesting than expansion – look at WoW: when they were on their last leg they brought out a new race with a completely new lore (the pandas). While I personally think WoW is pathetic, I can’t argue with that decision to re-ignite interest in the game. Either way, people will vote for the Kodan in the same way they voted for Kiel. Just avoid these guys – we don’t need more Norn – I would be seriously impressed if you could logic them into the storyline because I can’t. Your Lore forum is as active as it is because you keep leaving stuff open to interpretation, this is closing off that possibility.

The difference is I would play the Kodan. I don’t like my Norn. I’m thinking of re-rolling him as a Charr because he’s just so BLEH! The Norn don’t appeal to me and the Kodan do.

The second fan favourite is Tengu. It seems as though these guys were the plan all along – pay very careful attention to where the Dominion of Winds is: it’s a great starting area (even if they have to use/abuse their neighbours further levelling). They have enough space for 1-15 and 15-25. The Tengu in terms of GW2 are very much shrouded in mystery, trying to decide who to form an alliance with. It’s a really solid premise with which to form a personal storyline. They have a lot of room to go wherever you might want to take them.

As I like beast races, I would play these, too. More than if they just introduced Cantha back into the world and we got oriental characters, though I miss my assassin and no, the Thief isn’t close enough.

And then my personal favourite troll race: Krait.
Thoughts?

The Krait will never be a playable race for many of the same reasons that the Centaur will never be one.

First, armor. They don’t have a humanoid body with the right shape legs (centaur have too many, and krait don’t have enough). Anet is lazy enough about localizing armor for races (see Charrmor arguments, and to a lesser extent Asuran complaints) that anything they produce here will be equally as haphazard. The argument that not enough people play such races to justify any time being allocated to fixing them is causal, not demonstrative. The reason no one plays such races is because the armor looks horrible, and not fixing it isn’t going to get more people to play the race. But here, the problem is that they would have to build entirely new models for the armor, which will lead to the inevitable “hover gear” on the Krait’s snake-like lower body, where it doesn’t QUITE touch the body and just magically hovers around their hips.

Second, and most importantly, Krait are a universally hated species. By design. Centaur are evil. Krait are evil. They are that way because the devs have SPECIFICALLY STATED that they are. They are not something players should ever have remorse about exterminating because they would do it to you in a heartbeat, and that isn’t warmongering rhetoric. Its how they designed the race. Forget that one centaur in GW1 and the herd he was putting together that were peaceful and helpful. Yeah, whatever to that. They don’t exist anymore. Peaceful centaur get stomped. Krait? Same deal. No nice Krait. No non-biting sea snakes. We’re supposed to hate them.

But, yeah, I would play a Krait if they ever got over themselves fast enough to make them playable.

LEGALESE: This is a commentary on ANet policy and its effects on potential advancement avenues for the game, not an attack on any specific dev, though an interview with a specific dev was referenced, but not in a negative way. It’s sad that this clarification is necessary, but we seem to have brought it on ourselves.

zamalek.2154:

The main question is, how do you integrate a new personal storyline? ANet has this issue whereby expansions within the same era are chronologically stable. GW2 happens at the same time as GW2+new race. They might be in cahoots with Jennah or Trahearne, or not. At the end of the day the original playable races never heard of them because they were working behind the scenes – helping out the others without actually interacting with them (or partially, treaties and so forth that the original PCs didn’t know about). For example, one of the missions could be fending off a certain amount of enemies during the siege of fort trinity. The storylines can be completely different up to a certain point in the storyline (even after Victory or Death).

Thoughts?

The point of an expansion is to provide a starting point for a new storyline to begin, even if the old one isn’t ended. So where would we introduce the Kodan as playable races, with their own starting city/territory? Well, when we go after Jormag, I’d say. The Tengu? How about the jungle Dragon? Krait? Unnamed Dragon #6. See, expansions are the perfect place to say, yes, this is what happened so far, and now we’re taking you further.

So, personal story? Simple. The first two parts (intro and background item) are simple. They would be built into the new starting areas for the new race. They explain who that character is and what his race’s beliefs are. Then you have the new race trying to integrate into the rest of society for whatever reasons (finding out about these strange outsiders for Tengu, hoping to educate/test the lesser species/preserve their culture for the Kodan, forge new alliances for the Krait) by joining the orders. From there, they progress as normal through the rest of the personal story to Orr.

After that, they progress through the added levels from the expansion to the expounded story in the expansion as would any existing level 80s. Rinse/repeat for each expansion. Don’t have the expansions? No new race, no new personal story quests, no access to the new zones. I’d pay for that. It would be an excellent compliment to the Living Story, which has become the bi-weekly joke content. One two-week period of insanely hard, followed by two weeks of insanely insipid. Anything with Scarlet is likely to be both, sadly. She’s just bad and whoever came up with her should feel bad. Yes, OK, I am enjoying the new content for the Mad King. No Scarlet. I think there’s a correlation.

Yeah, an expansion would bypass the problem of the Personal Story neatly. Any new races that are added join in at a time where, canonically, Zhaitan has been defeated. Using the Tengu as an example, their low-level storyline might take place entirely within the Dominion of Winds, and then their higher-level storyline moves over to Cantha (assuming it’s a Cantha-based expansion) where it merges with the storyline used by the existing races.

I’d love to see the Krait as a playable race too, although I agree that the Krait themselves are far too “irredeemable” to play nicely with the other races. More than likely if this happened, we’d get another serpentoid race like the Naga or the Forgotten instead.

I don’t see the different body-shape of the Krait being a significant hurdle to the art direction too. Their upper-body remains the same as humanoids, and instead of having leggings and boots, they could have waist and tail armor.

Who remember Vizunah Square from gw1? that was a perfect way to tie in the character from ascalon in gw1 to the ones in cantha. I dont see why they cant do that with the tengu. Think about it, say were going after primordius (chose him because in Edge of Destiny, his champion was right near rata sum and the DoW is close enough) and we need back up, so the pact start knocking on the door of the DoW and out come angered tengu. They then say we are never going to help you and stuff and then shut the door on our face. (everything before this would be the beginning of the tengu personal story) So the Pact, who have engaged the forces of primordius in the jungle, are starting to get wrecked left and right while the tengu are watching from the great wall. Then one tengu decides to help but others try stopping him. This leads to a civil war in which the player (also apart of the personal story) must assassinate a tengu leader so they can start helping the pact. After all that is done, they join the pact and help destroy the dragon primordius. How does that sound?

and for those who havent played gw1 and dont know what vizunah square is
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Vizunah_Square

I don’t see how the kodan could be playable. They are polarbears? How do you customise that? Sure their lore is fairly interesting, but there is 0 difference on male and female, besides armor they are all identical. Not much fun in that.

(before anyone says, no difference on male/female asura or charr then… yes.. there is a difference, even if somewhat subtle, but you can tell the difference, and fairly easily too)

Tengu… I am so in favor of tengu, they are interesting and there is lots of room for customisation. Sure they were kinda lookalikes in GW1, but then so was charr back then. They got good story behind them too.

Largos… well dunno, maybe, maybe not. I remain neutral on that one.

Krait… eeeh not really seeing it as an option.

As for their story, I don’t think it has to follow the same time frame. It could be after. All the living story events take place after we beat Zhaitan afterall. A new race would have a different starting point and what not. Maybe have their own story like the others up to a certain lvl, make them join the pact, which is already there, and the merge with the other already existing races in a battle against one of the other dragons.

PS. I really wish for 3-4 new races and possibly 1 new heavy profession. Would balance it out nicely with 3 of each (light, heavy and medium) and the possibilty to have 1 of each race as 1 of each profession. But that is just me dreaming ofc.

I think Kodan could be playable if they revoked the “only polar bears” mentality. If we could have brown, black, grizzly, and polar there would be room for personalization, but as is, not much.

Although it would be interesting, I think Kodan are a little too similar to norn to become a playable race. Also, I agree with some that customization seems like it would be lacking, but I imagine if they ever became playable that would obviously change.

I’m really banking on tengu and largos. Tengu already have the dominion of winds set up for them. I can’t see why that won’t be someday accessable (I hope.) Though, they could still remain unplayable and just a new zone for the current races to do stuff in, I don’t know…

Largos are a real enigma. From the personal story you can see they already have their own lore behind them, though we don’t know much about it. And honestly, why would they have been introduced anyway? As it stands, the largos (woman from story, I think a man you can fight as an event somewhere are the only two, another NPC from way back in living story now removed) could be removed completely from the game and nothing would be different. Change up the abbadon temple story mission a little, take another NPC with you, done. So why are they here? They weren’t in GW1 and already established, they are new to this game.

While I would like to see the Largos playable, I just can’t see it happening.

For starters, they wear masks all the time, so that would make 90% of the head armour unusable on them as their mask would interfere with it.

Then going by the wiki, you find more reason that lean towards them not be playable like they are all assassins and wield 2 swords so the only professions that would fit them is Mesmer and Warrior, Thief would fit too but they can’t dual wield swords.

Again, the wiki says they all have white hair, so this coupled with a mask covering up their face makes their customization weak.

Then there is the giant wings on their back which would cause problems with armour, 2 handed weapons and back pieces.

So I would actually love to play a Largos Thief and Mesmer, but what we know of them at the moment doesn’t seem like they would be playable.

As for Krait, never going to happen, same goes for Skritt, Quaggan, Troll, Dredge, Centaur, Ogre and any other lesser race.

Krait might be done lore-wise.

Remember the mission “Wet Work” and following?

At the end of it, you steal the orb protecting the city in the Treacherous Depths from annihilation by the Risen. (IMHO in the personal story you character should say something about destroying an entire city, even if they deserved it)

Krait characters could start their story from there. They might barely escape the annihilation, maybe with some children they must protect, and they realize their superiority was just an illusion.

Whitey.6185:

As for Krait, never going to happen, same goes for Skritt, Quaggan, Troll, Dredge, Centaur, Ogre and any other lesser race.

Oh, well. I guess we’ll just have to /thread! Whitey has spoken and this is all meaningless now.

Thank you for your input, but that’s all just your opinion. You’re entitled to it, but you aren’t entitled to take a dump on everyone else while expressing it.

In return for your favor, the Largos are the LAST race that will ever be included as playable. Part of their appeal as characters is their mysteriousness, and if they become playable, they’ll lose all of that. Taking what little mystery is in GW2 out would be a disservice to the game.

Krait, while they are supposed to be one of the unshakable enemy races, could be made part of the playable circle. This is how you would do it:

redslion.9675:

Krait might be done lore-wise.

Remember the mission “Wet Work” and following?

At the end of it, you steal the orb protecting the city in the Treacherous Depths from annihilation by the Risen. (IMHO in the personal story you character should say something about destroying an entire city, even if they deserved it)

Krait characters could start their story from there. They might barely escape the annihilation, maybe with some children they must protect, and they realize their superiority was just an illusion.

And I love this idea. This is so wonderful. Good job.

Amusingly, I’d love to see the Skritt as playable, specifically because of the ironic disjunction between the character and the NPCs for the firing range event in the Charr starting area. I’d love to see some sort of look of dismay when your Skritt character hears “No scrawny buck-toothed thieves on my firing range!” and a look of horror when she says “The next thieving skritt I get my hands on is getting fired out of a cannon!” That would be awesome.

I’m looking forward to Ogres just because I want my ranger to have the option of starting with/acquiring a Rock Dog, Gryphon or Black Raptor. Yeah. This has needed to happen for the last year.

Honestly, any of the lesser races would make good playable candidates, but their personal stories would have to remove their own race as a possible option for the second quest chain you get during the Orders segment of your play. Just imagine the character generation portion of Grawl creation. “My personal God is _ (armor piece) _.”

Sorry but no matter what people come up with for reasons Krait would make good playable races, it’s just never going to happen and I would willingly bet money on it not happening.

Was the same for WoW, I’ve lost count how many people keep going on and on about playable Naga and Murlocs yet it will never, ever happen..

The only races I see a potential of becoming playable is the Tengu, Kodan & Largos (slightly less possibility) and at a push, the Dwarves, however it would need some extreme lore explanations as to how they became living again.

Whitey.6185:

Sorry but no matter what people come up with for reasons Krait would make good playable races, it’s just never going to happen and I would willingly bet money on it not happening.

Was the same for WoW, I’ve lost count how many people keep going on and on about playable Naga and Murlocs yet it will never, ever happen..

The only races I see a potential of becoming playable is the Tengu, Kodan & Largos (slightly less possibility) and at a push, the Dwarves, however it would need some extreme lore explanations as to how they became living again.

People said the same thing about the Pandarens. Never say never. The only people who can say never work for Anet and there is always an asterisk after that “Never” because they can change their minds at any time.

I don’t see the Largos ever happening. They just have nothing worthwhile going for them. We meet 2 in GW2, one for a few missions and the other for a skill point. Nothing special, lousy fighter, very little help against the mobs we fight, and she has this huge chip on her shoulder. Bleh. Not interested.

I’d rather see the Kodan, Ogres, Tengu and Krait. At least they have interesting things going for them. Skritt look like they would be pure fun, and the Grawl, Quaggan and Hylek look like they would add a lot of interesting lore to the game. I could see any of them happening, mostly because I think they wouldn’t be hard to implement. Almost makes me wish there was a way to set up a poll so we could see what the top three choices among players would be for races to make playable next. The results might be surprising, but would certainly be insightful.

But there is one major reason why Krait will never be playable, they don’t have a humanoid body. Not only would this cause massive issues with armour and weapons, but you know that spacebar on your keyboard? you know, the one that makes your character jump, not only would jumping Krait look ridiculous, but please explain how that is even possible?

Also, a Krait Guardian? just no.

EDIT: Oh and I never heard anyone saying that Pandaren wouldn’t be able to be playable in WoW, they work because they can wear normal gear and use normal weapons and act like just every other playable races.

You can’t just add a playable race because it would be cool, it has to work with the games mechanics and that is the most important thing.

Whitey.6185:

But there is one major reason why Krait will never be playable, they don’t have a humanoid body. Not only would this cause massive issues with armour and weapons, but you know that spacebar on your keyboard? you know, the one that makes your character jump, not only would jumping Krait look ridiculous, but please explain how that is even possible?
Also, a Krait Guardian? just no.

Technically, they do. They have a head, a torso, bi-lateral symmetry with at least two limbs, and a generally upright posture. They even have hips, which they shouldn’t, but they do. Armor can be adapted to their version of the humanoid form.

Jumping… Apparently you don’t know anything about snakes. They jump all the time. Their bodies are all muscle. A twitch causes them to shift a fraction of an inch to a few inches, depending on the breed. Besides, if “actual jumping” is all that important to you that you just can’t deal, go play with a slinky. Come back when you get the connection. Jumping is just animation. The mechanics of jumping is crossing a gap with or without a solid collision surface beneath it and arriving at a point where there is a collision surface at the far end of the movement. That can be accomplished by any number of animations, not just classic hopping. As a Charr player, I can assert easily that my characters do NOT jump. They hop. The distance bridged is far too short to be a real jump for any Charr. They also run far too slow to be really running. I call it “playing around at a mild pace”.

I’ll be happy when a game finally stops making every race conform to the same speed and movement requirements. Big race? Fast movement because of huge stride. Small race? Slow movement speed because of hobbit stride. Serpentine race? Serpentine movement, wall climbing, and body bridging. Check.

But that’s just my personal wish list. Stop being so literal. Nothing in this game is literal. Jumping isn’t jumping for all races. Only the Asura actually run and jump. We just call it jumping and running because that’s what we’re conditioned to call it.

And OMG, a Krait Guardian would be awesome! Yeah! Make this happen!

EDIT: Oh and I never heard anyone saying that Pandaren wouldn’t be able to be playable in WoW, they work because they can wear normal gear and use normal weapons and act like just every other playable races.
You can’t just add a playable race because it would be cool, it has to work with the games mechanics and that is the most important thing.

Didn’t spend much time on the WoW forums when/if you ever played, eh? The forums were lit up every time a new expansion was announced with thousands of people calling for and against the inclusion of the Pandarens. Even when the announcement was made that the entire expansion was going to revolve around them, there were people saying they couldn’t be included because of lore. Really? REALLY! Give me a break. If you need any greater reason to stop saying that one race or another CAN’T be in the game, I give you two examples from WoW: Space Goats and KungkittenPandas. If they want it bad enough, they will do it, and you saying they can’t doesn’t mean a squirt of dog kitten .

Besides, I already outlined how Krait armor could work. Go look at my first post in this thread.

But they don’t base adding playable races on lore, that can be explained in the story, to add a payable race it has to play like all the other races.

just like in WoW, every playable race is just a re-skinned human, Krait do not meet that criteria.

Yes, snakes can leap to strike it’s prey, but it’s not jumping (also, Charr can jump, if you stand still and press space they jump like a human) however snakes cannot jump straight up off the ground on the spot.

Can’t really be bothered to argue about this topic to be fair, but I’m just going to say this again, Krait will never be a playable race, even Quaggan have a better chance of being playable.

IMO, the idea of krait as a playable race seems very unlikely just based on the opinion that ArenaNet had created for them originally. I remember reading about their thoughts on the krait as being a fully black race, mainly un-redeemable. Now, I don’t personally see them as any more “un-redeemable” than the charr were in GW1, but at the same time I don’t think it makes sense, based on what we’ve seen of them, that they would join the good guys. It just seems hardly in their personality, and no more likely than Scarlet pulling the strings of the krait in this next story

Neither I think they’ll ever do it. But if they wanted, there wouldn’t be lore-based obstacles.

redslion.9675:

Neither I think they’ll ever do it. But if they wanted, there wouldn’t be lore-based obstacles.

There aren’t any real mechanics based obstacles either. And we all know that companies reverse their positions on decisions made, so the fact that they said the race was supposed to be irredeemable doesn’t mean they won’t change that.

Jumping is just a stupid argument. Really, trying to keep a race from being playable because of an animation issue is just silly. The armor can be handled easily. “Pants” can be made into hip/tail armor and “boots” can be made into tail tip ornamentation.

Honestly, I’d be excited to see ANet beat Blizzard to taking on a non-traditional humanoid in a game. That would be beyond exciting. Trendsetting, even.

Drakkon.4782:

redslion.9675:

Neither I think they’ll ever do it. But if they wanted, there wouldn’t be lore-based obstacles.

There aren’t any real mechanics based obstacles either. And we all know that companies reverse their positions on decisions made, so the fact that they said the race was supposed to be irredeemable doesn’t mean they won’t change that.

Jumping is just a stupid argument. Really, trying to keep a race from being playable because of an animation issue is just silly. The armor can be handled easily. “Pants” can be made into hip/tail armor and “boots” can be made into tail tip ornamentation.

Honestly, I’d be excited to see ANet beat Blizzard to taking on a non-traditional humanoid in a game. That would be beyond exciting. Trendsetting, even.

They made Trahearne.

I won’t hope nor expect anything from them.XD

You really think ANet are going to go and change every single piece of leg and boot armour in the game just to fit the Krait? They couldn’t even be bothered to fix the tail clipping with Charr so there is slim to no chance of them re-modelling all armour in the game to fit a race with no legs and feet.

I never thought of kodan as being a fan fav more than tengu. From what I’ve seen on forums tengu is more popular, and I think there will be a good chance for tengu to make it in.

Tengu will be a playable race at some point, there’s no doubt about that.

I doubt it’s just a coincidence that they’ve been set up so perfectly to be playable and besides, they have likely already done a lot of work on the tengu as they was initially going to be playable in the final release game but was held back to focus more on finishing the other 5 races.

Whitey.6185:

You really think ANet are going to go and change every single piece of leg and boot armour in the game just to fit the Krait? They couldn’t even be bothered to fix the tail clipping with Charr so there is slim to no chance of them re-modelling all armour in the game to fit a race with no legs and feet.

Never said “would”. I said “could”. And for someone who can’t be bothered to argue this point, you don’t seem to be able to shut your mouth for more than a few minutes. Is “can’t be bothered to argue the point” code for “shut up about it because I don’t like your opinion”? I’m just curious, because you’re getting awfully chatty.

Sorry, it just amazes me that you think Anet would even consider redoing all the armour in the game to fit the Krait.

Whitey.6185:

Sorry, it just amazes me that you think Anet would even consider redoing all the armour in the game to fit the Krait.

I don’t. I just said they could do it. There is always a way. They lack the will, as far as we know.

The Tengu and Kodan are far more likely to be made playable before the Krait. Hell, even the Skritt will be playable first. But if they were to make the Krait playable, your objections are by far the LAST ones that would ever keep them from doing it. Nothing you raised as an objection is even in the realm of reality as being a problem. It’s all your opinion, and it is very unfounded. Never confuse probable with possible. Just because it isn’t’ likely doesn’t mean it CAN’T be done. And that’s exactly what you’ve been doing.

I never really said it can’t be done. I said it’s never going to happen because Anet are never going to put that much effort into a race that not enough people care about or want to play.

Colin already said whichever race they add first will be from the pool that people want/ are talking about the most, and from what I can see (in game and on forums) the most wanted are Tengu, Kodan and Largos, which are also probably the 3 most likely to be added, Largos are basically a human so would need little work to make them playable. Kodan are basically Norn, and Tengu are similar to Charr.

I think we need more lore and ls for the tengu before they are made playable. As people have pointed out we know very very little of them. Going blindly into a race would be bad in my opinion, far to many lose ends. At the very least a novel should expand on the idea of the tengu.

Apart from the Tengu, I don’t see Anet adding in another race. Any other races would cause more trouble for them.
-Armor, mainly Charrs have to deal with blatant clipping, yet Anet doesn’t even work to fix it
-Lore, they’d have to try to incorporate all the races to not make players feel left out while also dealing with existing lore. (has to avoid a major clash in lore) That’s why a mysterious race has a better chance. They can basically do anything they want.
-Customization, as others have already stated, races like the Largos lacks viable customization options and are heavily portrayed as assassins which limits the classes available.
-Animation, creatures like the Tengu are so humanlike that only a few alterations can make the Tengu fully fleshed. (already Tengu models in game) Reason Krait cannot be is because Krait are only designed to have mob like animation, ie slither attack etc. But with races, emotes need to be done. They’d have to be able to jump, dance, sit, and kneel in order to match the other races.
^ this can be done for the Krait, but it takes more work and time. (All of a Tengu’s animation can easily be reskined of that of a charr or human, only thing they’d need would be the dance)

If they made kodan or largos playable instead of tengu i would cry.
the kodan are extemely similar to the norn with their body type and the largos are just like human or sylvari with wings.

The Kodan need to drink a lot more milk and show much more difference from norn to be anything of interest for me, they all seem to have osteoporosis….

To be honest, the only new races I want to be playable are Tengu and Largos.

The Kodan are not of any interest to me, and the only class I would want to play on them is probably a Guardian, whereas Largos I would love to play a Thief, Mesmer and water Ele.

Krait could “jump” by coiling their tail up underneath themselves and leaping upwards in the manner of a spring. Yes, it’s not terribly realistic, but you already have player characters jumping up gaps about their own height from a standing position, which is simply not possible for humans in real life.

I do agree, however, that Krait are unlikely to become a playable race given how much they’ve been painted as the villains in GW2. While I WOULD like to see a serpentoid race be playable, it’s more likely to be the Naga or Forgotten rather than the Krait. Having to reskin armor for them would be a lot of work, but perhaps not as much as you might think. Their upper torsos are already humanoid, and their leggings/boots would likely just become kilts/skirts or wrappings, which are fairly easily to do. (It’s mainly just wrapping a texture around a cylindrical object.)

My money’s on the Tengu becoming the next playable race. They were actually slated to be the 6th playable race from the very beginning, but got cut due to lack of time. The Kodan are also a good possibility, but I think they share too much game tropes with the Norn (big, strong, cold-dwelling race) to really stand out on their own.

Drakkon.4782:

I’d love to see the Skritt as playable, specifically because of the

Not really on-topic but I have always loved the Skritt because as a race they break the fourth wall and are a reference to players’ tendencies (“shinies” are not that different from “loot bags”).

zamalek.2154:

Drakkon.4782:

I’d love to see the Skritt as playable, specifically because of the

Not really on-topic but I have always loved the Skritt because as a race they break the fourth wall and are a reference to players’ tendencies (“shinies” are not that different from “loot bags”).

I know, right? There’s just so much that could be done with them, and it’s all fun!

The hardest part about skritt would be translating stuff like… um… this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Sad_Duty#Dialogues
…to skritt-ese. How do you take them seriously there?

I think, if they bring in another playable race, it will be the Tengu.

Why? They were already intended to be a playable race. According to the ‘making the game’ book that came with the Collector’s Edition, they were going to be playable but the team decided to scale down on the races and they got the boot for release. That’s why there’s the Dominion of Winds – that was their starting area and when they got set aside for launch, they just closed off the region.

I don’t know what other races might have been playable (the wording in the book – which I can quote when I get home if folks want and can look at it as right now I’m at work – made it sound like there were even more ideas for starting races than the five we were given and Tengu) but my guess is since they have a starting area already set right in the middle of the game? They’d be the first on the introduction list.

Sirius.4510:

The hardest part about skritt would be translating stuff like… um… this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Sad_Duty#Dialogues
…to skritt-ese. How do you take them seriously there?

On the contrary if the skritt are silly their entire storyline and morbid in that one instance it would add an immense amount of weight to it. At the moment that part of the storyline is very weak, I didn’t feel sorry for Ceera at all.

Lostwingman.5034:

The personal stories should have just been that, personal.
IMO the whole campaign on Zhaitan should have been just that, a campaign.
The entire thing is instanced anyway, you can have your living world, your moving calendar, all that stuff and just leave these major stories (like forming the pact to defeat Zhaitan) as campaign type chains. Then you have the personal story be a self contained story to your own experiences. They did fine for the first 20 or so levels of personal story but from there things start getting less and less personal culminating with Traehearne.

THIS is imo the main issue with the PVE part of the game as it currently is. “Why?” one might ask. Well from a design point of view the current system creates several obstacles hindering both character development and addition of new content, yet at the same time when altered somewhat it has incredible potential.

Because like Lostwingman already stated no matter how you start out (class, race, etc) eventually you always reach the same conclusion in your personal story and therefore it ceases being a personal story. This also becomes a problem when new content related to the ps is added, as it HAS to pick up where the player left off, which in the current case is exactly the same for every player.

One of nicer features of GW1 were the missions. Although at first glance they appear similar to the personal story instances of GW2 they were quite different. They provided a challenging and a mostly immersive experience that promoted group play, while maintaining a linear, easy-to-follow, yet flexible framework for the narrative of the game. Although I’ve seen Anet being criticized for their inability to properly convey a story imo the missions in GW1 did so quite adequately. This was mostly due to players being able to connect the dots between the events in each mission (aside from numerous sidequests).

If you follow the campaign idea and seperate the personal story and the main(retail) story/campaign of guild wars 2 you get a similar and very flexible system in return, potentially resulting in multiple campaigns running at the same time, some depending on the completion of others, while getting as a bonus on top of that a basically neverending personal story in which some of the elements that currently needed to be put into the living story could be incorporated.

kyro.8162:

-Customization, as others have already stated, races like the Largos lacks viable customization options and are heavily portrayed as assassins which limits the classes available.

Largos could easily have the usual customization options of skin/hair/eye color, plus the shape/size/color of the fins on their back.

All the Largos in the game are using one of two models right now, so of course there’s not much variation. The tengu currently all use the same one as well, I believe (with a few palette swaps).

I’m sorry, where could we deduce that a new race is coming “some time soon”

While it will probably be the Tengu next, I am highly in favor of Hyleck. Even grawl would be nice. Both give that tribal feel without being the “epic loners” that norn are.

Just curious, what makes people think that a new playable race has to be in the game already?

People keep saying like Tengu, Kodan, Hylek, Largos and so on are the likely races to be playable, but they could just add a completely new race that’s not in the game at the moment.

I mean, Sylvari were a new race introduced in GW2 so there’s no reason they couldn’t bring in another new race with an expansion and make them playable, or even races that are in the Guild Wars lore but not in the game.

I never played original WoW and started around the end of Lich King stuff but I’m pretty sure I never saw a Pandaren in the game, yet now they are playable. Yes they were in the lore already but wasn’t in the game (as far as I know) so Anet could do the same, there’s no reason a new playable race has to be a race that already has NPC’s running around in game.

Whitey.6185:

Just curious, what makes people think that a new playable race has to be in the game already?

People keep saying like Tengu, Kodan, Hylek, Largos and so on are the likely races to be playable, but they could just add a completely new race that’s not in the game at the moment.

I mean, Sylvari were a new race introduced in GW2 so there’s no reason they couldn’t bring in another new race with an expansion and make them playable, or even races that are in the Guild Wars lore but not in the game.

I never played original WoW and started around the end of Lich King stuff but I’m pretty sure I never saw a Pandaren in the game, yet now they are playable. Yes they were in the lore already but wasn’t in the game (as far as I know) so Anet could do the same, there’s no reason a new playable race has to be a race that already has NPC’s running around in game.

They were in the Warcraft RTS games.

Seems like there are other reasons why Tengu are the most likely new playable race, even if I find them kinda boring, by reading about them on the wiki.

Whitey.6185:

Just curious, what makes people think that a new playable race has to be in the game already?

While it doesn’t have to be, it is the most likely, given that some of the elements required for a new playable race are already given with current unplayable races. Elements like lore, relevance, and a place in the world. A-net could completely start from scratch but why would they spend time and money reinventing the wheel? Just looking at the creation of the sylvari shows us just how much is put into creating and implementing a new playable species.

Kodan aren’t viable if we consider established lore. They don’t fit anywhere, and the theoretical location of their capital city would be in the middle of Jormag’s territory.

If you want to draw comparisons towards WoW, choosing pandaren isn’t fair. Pandaren always had playable race potential, with established lore detailing a civilized empire. Kodan’s counterpart are the furbolg, a bear-race lot of people want, too, but won’t ever happen for the same reasons kodan won’t happen.

Why kodan won’t happen, in my opinion:

• Variety is lacking, and it shows. They would need to improve the race a lot lore-wise, adding a lot of racial background and changing established lore. Their “racial spot” is pretty much covered by charr physically (big fur mammal), sylvari morally (peaceful teachings) and norn thematically (snow and bear spirit), too. Also, they are pretty humanoid, unlike the charr who don’t feel human-cats in any way.

• Can’t get starting zones that would flow well with what we already have. Yeah, they could start in a haven-zone in Jormag’s territory, and then have a portal to Lion’s Arch. There’s options there, but still. For a race established as refugees, having a capital that somehow is in a better state than what we already see may be contradictory. They fit better the same role the hylek have in Sparkfly Swamp, and not low-level content.

• Their entire race seems to follow Koda fervently, making them plain moral-wise. Sylvari suffer from something similar, but only partially, because they have established individuals that don’t follow Ventari’s teachings, and others that even defy them. We don’t find that between the kodan, just like we don’t find tolerance between the krait, and other races that have “rogue elements”, like the dredge, keep showing the same radical attitudes, just from opposing sides. Norn are plain enough morally, I can’t imagine how plain kodan would be.

• Kodan don’t sound like your adventuring type. The few you see south are there just to gather help and return home. They seem to have many problems already, it doesn’t sound reasonable to see them fighting anyone else than Jormag for a long while. Some of their members show even some kind of “elitist” attitude, rejecting those that don’t know enough about Koda.

If you force it enough, you could make their capital and starting zones work. You could even make them unique enough using skin tatoos to compensate for their lacking customization. But lore and cultural-wise, it wouldn’t work well.

The only races I see working in this game are tengu, naga (they could have recovered from GW1 and have a big society) and maybe largos (though the general attitude of what we have seen so far makes their society look like very narrow and secretive). Dwarves, after all we hear about them in-game would be too contradictory, unless they pull something like “dwarf-looking dwarven constructs” theme, which could work. Same for all the other “ancient” races, there’s way too much talk about how unknown they are, bringing playable characters would completelly break everything, specially around the Durmand Priory dialogues and recorded gossips.

Also, I would love hylek, but they can’t happen, between other things because of the stupid relationship between skin colour and culture they introduced with GW2. They would need to “break” established lore to make it work, though I wouldn’t care too much because it isn’t good and important lore really. Maybe we could get Heket instead? Whatever, I find them hard to happen, too.

Hey, what’s with the no love for Dwarves? Of the known races, Tengu and Dwarves are probably the best bets because they each have:

1. A home city (Dominion of Winds, Thunderhead Keep (or Droknar’s Forge if Thunderhead Keep is a dungeon)) that’s surrounded by

2. enough unexplored land (Sanctum Cay, Southern Shiverpeaks) for 1-25 leveling zones, and

3. a lore connection to one of Tyria’s underlying mysteries (Cantha’s condition, Primordius)

4. that could serve as the basis for their 55-80 zones (Cantha (via that under-construction Asura Gate the Tengu are always mentioning?), the Depths of Tyria).

5. Also they have the right number of arms and legs.

Of these, Tengu are admittedly slightly more likely, since they also have existing subraces and a dragon in Cantha would be a new one (Primordius is sort of “taken” by the Asura, like how Jormag is the Norn dragon, Kralkatorrik is the Charr dragon, and Zhaitan is the Sylvari dragon). Also, playable Dwarves would force Anet to decide what female Dwarves look like.

The problem with dwarves is that there’s far too many dialogues and scripts speaking about them being a mystery.

You pretty much break all of those dialogues by making a living dwarf walk around those scholars. And we aren’t talking about just some gossip, pretty much more than 50% of Durmand Priory activity is based around dwarves.

You can’t have so much lore, storylines and situations where an extinct species is being researched, and then just throw the extinct species as if those dialogues never happened.

It would completelly break the entire cohesion of way too much things.

So no, dwarves can’t be playable, unless you pull some weird theme where they aren’t dwarves anymore, like making them lose their identity as dwarves, or using dwarf-looking dwarven constructs, making the playable race not be dwarves but dwarf constructs built to replace them.

If you want dwarves playable figure out the lore to reverse their stoning and their reasons to stop fighting primordius and his minions under ground for us to delay his full onslaught while not kitten ing off the entire player base :p