Dear Arena.net dev team and fellow players..
Here is my idea of the…. drumroll
“Racial Transformation Tonic”
Before you think back to the other requests and reply “Not gonna happen” allow me first to explain my suggestion, and how it addresses current potential issues with implementing race change.
This would be a tonic, by lore, developed in an Asuran lab experiment, allowing whoever drinks it to mutate their genes and thus race.
This conserves the integrity of the lore. Also, this would mean personal story is NOT reset, as a race change would only offer the cosmetic benefits (and racial skills/armour) of the new race. The current story of the character would remain exactly the same, as if they never changed race. To experience another race storyline a player would have to create another character.
This addresses the issue of ruining the feel of the game or the integrity, as well as any Personal Story or Achievements problems.
The only other issue I see is racial armour. I suggest that this armour is simply made not equippable, as people would be aware of this compromise (mention it in the item description)
As for other changes, Racial Skills could just refund skill points and Home Instance / Map Areas etc would NOT change at all. Again, this “Racial Transformation Tonic” would be for players bored or dissatisfied with the look of their character, after having completed storyline quests. I know this is the majority of the people wanting a race change. As for people wanting to experience another race storyline, they would have to roll another character. This makes the tonic more of an item for PvP, WvW and Guild players who have been level 80 for a while and of course have already completed the storyline; and are perhaps considering investing a lot of time to craft a legendary weapon. But of course to want to do this your character would need to be perfect, and if your initial race is the cause of imperfection it can create a bit of a bottleneck for players and perhaps discourage them from playing.
As for the financial consideration for A-Net as a business, this tonic could be priced same as (or even higher) the extra character slot. This means that if my suggestion, if implemented,would provide no financial compromise to A-Net whilst supplying countless players who want to change the appearance of a character they invested hundreds of hours into. All whilst not ruining, technically nor aesthetically, the Personal Story, Lore, Home Instance, etc.
The only change it could add to the Personal Story tab could be an addition like:
“I drank a mysterious tonic, transforming myself into a [insert race].”
I imagine the in-game description to be something like this:
“Racial Transformation Tonic”
“A single character may modify their race, as well as, appearance settings for height, physique, skin color, markings, face, hair, even gender for their new race. Name and profession will remain the same. The character’s personal storyline, home instance, achievements, etc are not reset. Any owned or equipped soulbound racial cultural armour will no longer be wearable by this character. The kit is consumed on accepting a new race and appearance. "
I believe a fair price for this could be 800 gems, the same as a new character slot, but I’m sure lots of people, including myself, would pay up to 1600 gems or even more for this ability, because after investing a lot of time into a character (e.g. 500 hours with 100% Map Completion) and then not being satisfied with the race style is not enough reason to roll another character of same profession but different race, however is enough to discourage commitment such as legendary weapons or cosmetic purchases from the store (so this tonic would indirectly also bring money!), etc.
Who else thinks this would be a good addition of this into the game? I think this would offer a great option for players, without the compromises previously suggested simple “Race Changes” would.
/discuss
