New playable race

[Drizzt.1796]

I'd like to see that.

[Cynder.2509]

@Drizzt.1796 said:Or the Isle of Janathir

@Drizzt.1796 said:I'd like to see that.

Yeah, me too. Or maybe some other off-Tyria places like the Underworld (I know we've got it as Hall of Chains but I'm talking about those places that are maybe not raid content) or the Realm of Torment. But I guess they'd butcher the Realm of Torment and make it all fluffy and family friendly instead what it actually was. I liked the general approach on "creepy" and "disturbing" things in their designs in gw1. One good example are the necro minions. But that isn't the point of that discussion.

To come back to the point: I doubt that these will be considered as candidates for a playable race but margonites seem like a nice option too. Actually every playable race and possible playable race seems interesting in their ways.

[Drizzt.1796]

True, but Kormir took over the Realm of Torment so she made have it "fluffy". Especially the outside of the of the Sanctum ( https://wiki.guildwars2.con/wiki/The_Sanctum ) Its possible. Even though it did turn into the dark library via abbadon's previous corruption

[Randin.5701]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:It's not "less capable". It's the voice acting and armor. Both cause a situation where adding a new race would not only require adding/redoig a lot of already existing assets, but also significantly increase workload (and costs) on all future stuff.

True, but it can be worked around to a greater or lesser extent. How complicated armor ends up being depends on the hypothetical new race's physiology; for instance, if the new race was Largos, then the human/sylvari armor models would largely work as-is (maybe with some tweaking of helms).

As for voice, the question does need to be asked whether the new race actually needs new voice actors. The developers are capable of altering voice recordings (pitching the voice higher or lower, adding weird effects to it, etc.), so they should, theoretically, be able to take the recordings from one of the existing player-character voice actors and shift the sound enough to not immediately sound the same as the existing race, while still sounding good. They'd still need to record some new lines (the first three chapters of the personal story being by far the largest chunk of it), but a comparatively modest amount compared to what they'd need to do if they were starting from scratch. Of course, I'm not sure how the time and effort needed to alter existing voice lines compares to just using a new voice actor, but I have to imagine that it would be noticeably less.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Randin.5701 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:It's not "less capable". It's the voice acting and armor. Both cause a situation where adding a new race would not only require adding/redoig a lot of already existing assets, but also significantly increase workload (and costs) on all future stuff.

True, but it can be worked around to a greater or lesser extent. How complicated armor ends up being depends on the hypothetical new race's physiology; for instance, if the new race was Largos, then the human/sylvari armor models would largely work as-is (maybe with some tweaking of helms).First - you forgot about wings. Second - there are tweaks necessary even between human and sylvari or Norn. Yes, using an already existing model as a base (i.e Tengu, since they use Charr model) would make it easier, but there would still be a lot of work to do, both now and in the future.

As for voice, the question does need to be asked whether the new race actually needs new voice actors. The developers are capable of altering voice recordings (pitching the voice higher or lower, adding weird effects to it, etc.), so they should, theoretically, be able to take the recordings from one of the existing player-character voice actors and shift the sound enough to not immediately sound the same as the existing race, while still sounding good. They'd still need to record some new lines (the first three chapters of the personal story being by far the largest chunk of it), but a comparatively modest amount compared to what they'd need to do if they were starting from scratch. Of course, I'm not sure how the time and effort needed to alter existing voice lines compares to just using a new voice actor, but I have to imagine that it would be noticeably less.Trust me, players would notice it immediately, and then you'd need to deal with backlash of players complaining that "their" race did not get equal treatment, but is being done on the cheap.

Basically, either you put all the effort into making a new race, or you shouldn't even bother. Otherwise you will only end up putting resources into something that would cause a popularity loss.

[Drizzt.1796]

If they did add tengu, i would very honestly make my race a tengu with blue feathers and name him "Captain Falco". Lol

[Drizzt.1796]

I feel like these past comments were off track... .

[Bast.7253]

Honestly, I don't think it's necessary to add the personal story bit to a new race. Especially if it's a race that's been cut off from all of the others. If they lock the race unlock behind completing the personal story on another main race, then they could just add races without any personal story. Or give them their own unique one, separate from Zhaitan.

They could add a personal story post-Zhaitan/Mordremoth/Kralk with the instanced portions of the story reflecting a world that's changed since they were killed. It would be instanced, but would still be a good way of showing a "living world."

Tengu could join, for example, now or after we kill Primordus and their personal story could reflect it. Just treat them as though they didn't have any involvement.

I guess the downside of that approach would be that they would be doing new expansion stories as a commander that aided in the slaying of Zhaitan.So yeah, they'd probably have to either forego a personal story completely or create a completely new one.

Idk. Core isn't that hard to work around, but when you factor in the expansions and living story seasons, it does get a bet challenging thinking of a way around having a different personal story than vanilla. Literally the only way right now it seems is to just outright ignore the vanilla personal story and just have them jump into later content as though they completed it and were there which wouldn't be good for a first time player and would ultimately would mean they'd probably have to do the story on a main race to unlock it first.

I like Tengu, Kodan, and Largos, but I wouldn't mind getting something else entirely.

I really liked the Vampiric elf vibe the Kurzick's kind of had in Echovald, but I they were really just pale goth humans from what I recall.

Something completely new could be really fun though if we ever go to a new part of the world. I really like elves, but we kind of already have Sylvari that meet that criteria. Always thought an elephant/humanoid race would be cool.

There's always the possibility of mist-entities too, like Razah.

[kharmin.7683]

So.... to create an entirely NEW story line for new race characters starting at level 1? Is that what you're suggesting?