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A smart way to let Tengu play main story and other things


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So we all know that it would be hard to get a new race that also gets a playable main story line, so here is my idea about how it could be set up.You play as your Tengu in a vision of the past, I'll explain it better... You are able to play your new cool Tengu character through the main vanilla story but you are living it as an out of body experience, where you act as the commander but you hear the standard human voice when the character is talking.As an example in the battle of claw island mission you would see your Tengu but in the dialogues you would see your character not speaking and instead hearing the voice of the human commander.Another solution that would result much cheaper but I would still love it is applying a filter to the human player character voice to make it sound like a bird, like they do with the charr voice with all the little grawls and stuff, and that would be enough!

Also I would add that about the armors it would be easier of the devs would build the Tengu to fit the same pose/skeleton of the charr so we could have the same amount of armors and the devs would save time(I'm guessing the devs already thought about this since is common practice in game development but I wanted to get it out there), we would get clipping as with the Charr but I think we can all learn to live with that.

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They should just make an endless Tengu tonic. Problem solved. :PIf they really made new races happen I'd want Dwarves or Largos first. (Preferrably with own personal story separate from the core races ... tying it together later with the living story. Like them having a own personal story for their race ... then skipping to latest living story. While core races played core personal story, HoT, PoF and LS2 to the latest point where both races stories would be combined. That even could work with a few different races at once if they were from the same region ... with region specific story.)

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@MrForz.1953 said:Why new races. And why Tengu of all of them? It eluded me for years.

You have probably seen many people wanting Tengu because they played gw1 where the tengu lore was really deep and interesting, and now you can see the big wall near lion's arch where some of the Tengu are living. The Tengu as a race are sorrounded by mystery and full of cool heroes.Also being a race that was planned at release of the vanilla gw2 but then dropped for reasons more or less unknown(probably doing with Cantha being scrapped) is the most likely one to be brought in as an expansion race.Why new races? Because they expand the players view on some lore, they give some players a new meaning into replaying content to level up a new character, they give another option for customization and like Wow they bring new and old players to the game with something new.

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I don't know why people say that Tengu wouldn't fit in the main story, its no different than Revenant, just a retcon.

We see Tengu all over southern Kessex and north-eastern Caledon, some in Auric Basin and even one in the Pact and Guild Hall too. The whole thing about them remaining just behind their wall and never coming out is a myth.

That said, I find it unlikely because its too many lines to voice.

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@Hannelore.8153 said:I don't know why people say that Tengu wouldn't fit in the main story, its no different than Revenant, just a retcon.

We see Tengu all over southern Kessex and north-eastern Caledon, some in Auric Basin and even one in the Pact and Guild Hall too. The whole thing about them remaining just behind their wall and never coming out is a myth.

That said, I find it unlikely because its too many lines to voice.

Not unlikely really, Anet was never shy about hiring famous voice actors and spending money for voice lines when they needed them, still, if that would be the problem, casting the same voice actor as one of the main races and adding a strong effect/pitch change on it would do the job

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@"Hannelore.8153" said:I don't know why people say that Tengu wouldn't fit in the main story, its no different than Revenant, just a retcon.

We see Tengu all over southern Kessex and north-eastern Caledon, some in Auric Basin and even one in the Pact and Guild Hall too. The whole thing about them remaining just behind their wall and never coming out is a myth.

That said, I find it unlikely because its too many lines to voice.

Because Revenant is a class, not a race. Simply dropping a race in there is extremely difficult and with a class, someone else learns it from a new area and thus others can become it and classes aren't really mentioned in the story, outside of Necromancer for Exposition Salad (Trahearne). A race, you'd have to retcon a lot of stuff to include the Tengu and you'd have to develop new animations, new voice lines (a lot of them) and see how they fit in the story. On top of that, people can say "we can skip the 10-80 story", but I can guarantee you people would complain because they can't flesh out their Tengu's story and their place in it.

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@"Kanok.3027" said:Because Revenant is a class, not a race. Simply dropping a race in there is extremely difficult and with a class, someone else learns it from a new area and thus others can become it and classes aren't really mentioned in the story, outside of Necromancer for Exposition Salad (Trahearne). A race, you'd have to retcon a lot of stuff to include the Tengu and you'd have to develop new animations, new voice lines (a lot of them) and see how they fit in the story. On top of that, people can say "we can skip the 10-80 story", but I can guarantee you people would complain because they can't flesh out their Tengu's story and their place in it.

Funny enough Tengu would be easier to implement lore wise into the main story than Rev was. Rev was never a profession, even lore wise, until Rytlock went to the mists looking for Sohothin, coming back with the ability to channel the Mists (Reason Rox keeps bugging him to talk about his new powers). So for them to suddenly be all over the place makes no sense lore wise and when it comes to playing those story parts after Rytlock came back, if you're a Rev player, and Rox starts asking him even though you've been with her for a while now with the same powers just feels wrong. (And Necro isn't the only one mentioned by Trahearne. There are several Mesmers who refer to themselves or others as Mesmer [Jenna and Anise being famously referenced as such], Elementalists and Guardians are referred to by NPC occasionally. Warriors, Thieves, Rangers, and Engineers are referenced a bit, but it's not easy to spot simply because of the class specific names being titles you could give to anyone who holds those professions as occupations).

On the otherhand: We have Tengu in the pact during the main story line. Tengu are allowed to mingle with other races and travel as they please, it's just frowned upon. Tengu who do so can also become outcasts if they forgo too much of their heritage, but none of this really keeps them from being a part of the vanilla story; as, again, there are cases of some being in the pact or helping outsiders. Not sure why people keep thinking it's "Live by the bird or die by the bird" kind of situation. They're not that black and white, just very jaded given what happened to the Angchu and Sensali tribes.

@"MrForz.1953" said:Why new races. And why Tengu of all of them? It eluded me for years.

New race because it's something that more than just a niche amount of people can play with, draws in different people, and really what else is there that they could add at this point that'd be "different" other than a new race? And as far as why Tengu; for me it's mostly because they were the most Native American like race in GW1 and have a nice amount of lore that makes them feel more alive than most of the other races. That and I love Avians. So being a Tengu with a shamanistic background would just be the best.

@"Luthan.5236" said:They should just make an endless Tengu tonic. Problem solved. :PIf they really made new races happen I'd want Dwarves or Largos first. (Preferrably with own personal story separate from the core races ... tying it together later with the living story. Like them having a own personal story for their race ... then skipping to latest living story. While core races played core personal story, HoT, PoF and LS2 to the latest point where both races stories would be combined. That even could work with a few different races at once if they were from the same region ... with region specific story.)

If they were going to make an endless tonic of anything it'd be Dwarves or Largos. Tengu were originally a planned race for GW2 and have the ability to be diverse in their appearance which could appeal to a larger audience. Dwarves are near extinct, those still alive being stone and fighting Dragon minions underground. So your choices on story to play and appearance would be "You are a living statue and you fight destroyers". Largos, as far as we've seen, all look the same and are mostly identical to humans aside from their bluish white skin and large blue wings (which we have as backpieces and something they'd have to work around with armor if they were a playable race). On top of that they're both humanoid races, of which we already have three, with backgrounds that aren't super diverse (Dwarves) or are shrouded in secrecy (Largos). Dwarves being small Norn who live underground. Substitute hunting with crafting and they're pretty much the same thing. Largos are a race of assassins who live very secretively. Playing as a Largos you'd have to throw away any idea of being the pact commander or leader of a guild that wasn't mostly assassins, of which Dragon's Watch is not.

Even if we don't consider how not so diverse they are you HAVE to consider them being the pact commander as that's who the story revolves around. Even if your personal story up until the current story is different it still needs to be explained why a Dwarf or a Largos is the current commander and your ragtag group looks to you as their guild leader. For someone outside of the vanilla to current story to suddenly appear, never be mentioned by any leaders up until that point, and somehow be given the position of commander and guild leader of Dragon's Watch would make absolutely no sense.

One of the reasons people look at Tengu as the first race to be introduced as a playable race is because they already have a massive amount of lore behind them and a place in the world that allows them to work in the current set up from the start of the story. They were originally intended to be a playable race so the ground work is already there. The only other race that could have been considered would be Centaur (but with the introduction of mounts is an impossibility).

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@Dantert.1803 said:So we all know that it would be hard to get a new race that also gets a playable main story line, so here is my idea about how it could be set up.You play as your Tengu in a vision of the past, I'll explain it better... You are able to play your new cool Tengu character through the main vanilla story but you are living it as an out of body experience, where you act as the commander but you hear the standard human voice when the character is talking.As an example in the battle of claw island mission you would see your Tengu but in the dialogues you would see your character not speaking and instead hearing the voice of the human commander.

There's really no point in saying you play this as a vision on the past. That would mean you'd have to be standing at the scrying pool to do so and really solves nothing if you're still playing through the story steps. If you mean this in that you can only play Tengu through these visions that kinda defeats the purpose of making them playable as you wouldn't be able to customize them to your liking.; they'd be a basic looking Tengu, much like playing Caithe in her vision of the past story arc. That'd also just mean replaying the story but looking like a Tengu via Tonic; no real point in that. If you mean that you make a Tengu and play through the story but it, for some reason, has the Human voice; why human? Why not Charr, Sylvari, Asura, or Norn voice? This also means going through and implementing them in the story anyways; and if they are going to do that why not just spend the extra bit to make sure it's done right and get a voice actor to do the lines specifically for the characters?

Another solution that would result much cheaper but I would still love it is applying a filter to the human player character voice to make it sound like a bird, like they do with the charr voice with all the little grawls and stuff, and that would be enough!

This would still mean going through to every voice line and adding said filter. At that point they could get someone to record voice lines and record new little characterizations to them that would be more fitting than just human voice with a few chirps, whistles, or caws. This would also mean getting rid of any identity the Tengu would have in verbal communication; making them sound like humans with verbal ticks.

Also I would add that about the armors it would be easier of the devs would build the Tengu to fit the same pose/skeleton of the charr so we could have the same amount of armors and the devs would save time(I'm guessing the devs already thought about this since is common practice in game development but I wanted to get it out there), we would get clipping as with the Charr but I think we can all learn to live with that.

Tengu already have the same mesh as Charr, but this doesn't cut down on the amount of work it takes to make armors work for them. Would be like throwing human molded armor onto Norn or Asura; would be under/oversized and wouldn't contour the same. Charr have a broader physique compared to the Tengus slender physique.

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@Vyriis.6258 said:

Tengu already have the same mesh as Charr, but this doesn't cut down on the amount of work it takes to make armors work for them. Would be like throwing human molded armor onto Norn or Asura; would be under/oversized and wouldn't contour the same. Charr have a broader physique compared to the Tengus slender physique.

the overall thickness of the physique doesn't affect the fitting of the armor, right now you can pick between slender and muscular body types because each body shape has a bounding box around which the armor conforms, test it out with the norn male with the thickest body type and you'll see it.The devs already put the human shaped armor on all the other races because it's the quickest and only way they could to it, even if that sometimes means having clipping or having to edit some small details, like the feet of the asura with 3 toes.Still workwise it wouldn't be a massive task(I work as a lead character artist in games and I know what I'm talking about ;D ).Also if you look at the current Tengu animations they are basically the same as Charrs so I would expect them to recycle most of them

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@"kharmin.7683" said:Adding Tengu as a race doesn't really add anything new. You would still be constrained to the current professions. In my opinion, an expansion should add new content, not a re-skin of existing content.

You're right, but why stop there? Why add new maps? you're still constrained to the same activities (events, hearts poi etc) , why add new story? its just the same end goal as the last end goals?

Maybe YOU think adding a race doesn't add anything new, but then why have other races in the first place to begin with? Why didn't they just make us all human like the first game from the start? Maybe because some people prefer to play a certain class as a certain race which adds a fresh way to play the same professions. I'm sure a LOT of people would like to play Tengu Theives and Rangers as the race lends itself to that play style.

Not to mention adding a new race opens up story and lore possibilities, and different masteries from that culture if they wanted to.

It's more than just adding a new "body skin" to the game.

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@zityz.6089 said:

@"kharmin.7683" said:Adding Tengu as a race doesn't really add anything new. You would still be constrained to the current professions. In my opinion, an expansion should add new content, not a re-skin of existing content.

You're right, but why stop there? Why add new maps? you're still constrained to the same activities (events, hearts poi etc) , why add new story? its just the same end goal as the last end goals?

Maybe YOU think adding a race doesn't add anything new, but then why have other races in the first place to begin with? Why didn't they just make us all human like the first game from the start? Maybe because some people prefer to play a certain class as a certain race which adds a fresh way to play the same professions. I'm sure a LOT of people would like to play Tengu Theives and Rangers as the race lends itself to that play style.

Not to mention adding a new race opens up story and lore possibilities, and different masteries from that culture if they wanted to.

It's more than just adding a new "body skin" to the game.

I agree with both sides here. Adding tengu wouldn't add anything mechanics wise to the game. Especially when compared to masteries, mounts, and new professions/elite specs.

But a lot of players, myself included, would find a new race to be refreshing. It's new content in a different way. I would have new fashion wars to explore. And hopefully they would come with their own personal story (even if its not fighting Zhaitan but is their own unique streamlined story) that would allow me to have a deeper look into the world of GW2. They could even make them unlockable in-game. Imagine doing a series of quests where you essentially go and find the tengu that you can then make into a playable character. Either way it would still allow players to delve deeper into the world of the game.

New playable races are a big thing in MMOs. Just look at how many WoW has added. Not to say that everything should be like WoW, but this is one thing I wish anet would do.

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Assuming Tengu become a playable race, easiest thing, is to have Domain of Wind split into half city, half level 1-10 map. People then can level through the other maps, as they normally would, and it would integrate with the rest of Tyria. First 3 chapters would be centered around the Risen, since they are right there on the sea and it is at the time in the story. Terharn probably main point of contact, to link to the core Tyria story (probably an earlier PoC in Domain of Wind, before Terharn introduced around chapter 3).

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@Mewcifer.5198 said:

@Kanok.3027 said:You know what? Let's let the people that want Tengu as a playable race have it. It means the expansion will be delayed even further, thus putting it another year or so out because of all the work involved. Let it happen!

That is assuming it is not already being planned for.

well the race has been programmed in the game since the beginning, Animations are also there since there are tengu you fight in HoT. The biggest time consuming part would be to graph the armour already out to the models. which do share a lot of similarities to char in terms of structure.

It's doable, thats what expacs are for.

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@Dante.1508 said:

@MrForz.1953 said:Why new races. And why Tengu of all of them? It eluded me for years.

Because choice is good and something new breaks up the stagnation that is GW2.How so? It's just cosmetics and maybe a few extra story steps and a city. After that, it will play exactly like any other character of the same profession. How does that really change anything gameplay-wise?

A new profession really brings change. But a new race is mostly just cosmetics... Idk, not really worth the effort? A few tonics and just opening the map for any character via story should do the trick just fine.

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@Fenella.2634 said:

@MrForz.1953 said:Why new races. And why Tengu of all of them? It eluded me for years.

Because choice is good and something new breaks up the stagnation that is GW2.How so? It's just cosmetics and maybe a few extra story steps and a city. After that, it will play exactly like any other character of the same profession. How does that really change anything gameplay-wise?

A new profession really brings change. But a new race is mostly just cosmetics... Idk, not really worth the effort? A few tonics and just opening the map for any character via story should do the trick just fine.

Nice try. I've been fighting this battle for quite a while, but you will never win against Tengu-lovers.

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