A Case Against New Playable Races
My suggestion here is to not make any new playable races. My reasons for this have nothing to do with mechanics or not wanting to make new alts. It is an argument about how ANet should spend its resources.
Brief summary of my argument – I would much rather ANet spent its time developing new high level content (like Living Story) or a high level expansion region. Guild Wars 2 has already spent a disproportionate amount of development on low level-race specific content areas and PS. Almost half of the race-specific PS will never be seen by a player who makes 1 character of each profession. ANet may be discouraged from doing any further race-specific content because some races would be left out for awhile, or the content would require 5 times as much work as any other content. Also, any new race would require redoing a lot of what has already been done.
In our personal stories (PS), we have 3 arcs in levels 2-10 and 3 arcs in levels 11-20 determined by our biography. With 5 races, that is 30 story arcs which require at least 15 characters to see. I assume most players have not brought 15 characters up through level 20 of the PS.
What would the game be like today if there were only 3 playable races? For argument, let’s say those races are Charr, Human and Norn. This would free up the development time of 12 PS arcs. This could have been used to create more alternatives, especially in areas where there are none now. Suppose that, after Claw Island, you had the option of build the Pact and doing the Tonn/Apatia/Imposter arcs or, for example, helping the soldiers from Maguuma, Kryta, Shiverpeaks or Ascalon get down to Fort Trinity to help fight Zhaitan. In the Kryta arc, you would first help secure the border against centaur incursions to free up troops, then help them get past the obstacles Zhaitan puts in the way. These would just be 4 of the 12 extra story arcs.
Furthermore, it would free up more of the map. We have 5 low level areas and four 15-25 level areas. Under my scenario, Brisban could have been a level 65-75 area, Metrica a level 75-80 area and Caledon a level 80 area which would provide far more high level content.
Another point I would like to make is that ANet cannot really support the stories of the 5 races it has now. Everything after level 30 has nothing to do with your race. I have seen people on the forums suggest content where the characters “go home” and deal with the changes around Divnity’s Reach, The Grove, etc. with the fall of Zhaitan. However, this requires essentially the same work to be done 5 times over. Flame and Frost sort of dealt with the Charr and Norn, but this was mainly dealing with a new threat and nothing was race specific.
Finally, making a new race would require making new skins for everything: 3 types of armor for each dungeon, all the crafted armors and all the dropped armors. I would rather see an expansion of skins available to current characters. ANet would have to resolve any clipping or animation issues and all the work each of the previous races required. That work is better spent on other content, in my opinion.
