A new playable race?

[SoulGuardian.6203]

There's so much to say about this game, such as the wonderful things A-Net has released, and the constant surprises, etc, etc.

So, we may just never know what the devs have up their sleeves.

But without speculation and just to make a fun thread to see player's responses, here's the questions:

Edited November 14, 2023 by SoulGuardian.6203

[kharmin.7683]

Come on.  You've been around long enough to have seen the almost countless threads on new playable races.  This poll is completely unnecessary.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

13 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Come on.  You've been around long enough to have seen the almost countless threads on new playable races.  This poll is completely unnecessary.

And yet here we are 😂

Yeah, extremely unlikely at this stage in the game. There is far too much that would need to be factored in, i.e. personal story, racial skills, models, animations, and general changes to the world lore etc. that are just not worth the investment to develop.

[Rokeb.3815]

A new race that isn't just a cut and paste of an existing race is a massive amount of work.

On top of all the art and animations for the new race you'll need to redo every single existing piece of armor, clothing, and outfits. That is a ridiculous amount of work for an art team.   I suppose that *if* there was a flawless AI system that could convert over all the art then maybe it would be possible, but it's highly unlikely.

 

I suppose they could make a new species that just wanders around naked, but if they can't sell outfits for it, why would they?

[Dawdler.8521]

First we need to rerig 6000+ pieces of gear however.

Going by the effort we know is needed for visuals such as the 7+ years Anet have worked on the cornerstone in DBL, I’m guessing a completion date around summer 2167, give or take a few years.

Haha wait what am I saying this is PvE. Anet could probably have it done by next Tuesday along with announcing a new expansion and GW3.

[evilcat.6817]

So we can play female Koda in skimpy armour? Well that is something to look at, but the resources could be allocated elsewhere.

No. Too much problem with armour reskin, and races dont even do much.

Maybe think about more look option for existing races, like new furr or tales, or fungu hats, or humans can wear tattoos too, or battlescars. There is more possible options to make existing taces look different, unless you wear full armour and it will not be visible anyway.

[Sobx.1758]

Just like in previous threads about this -which you probably also participated in?- I think it provides low value and is a waste of time and resources. If I had a choice between a new race and, for example, one more interesting instance, event or meta which isn't copy-pasted from what we already have, I'm picking the latter.

[Manpag.6421]

It's literally never going to happen, and would offer practically no value to the game. The costs of rigging all past armour, outfits, etc for new models alone would be ludicrous, let alone paying two different VAs to record all the player chatter plus voice lines for all previous story. It would also be tough to integrate into the existing story, unless you just retconned the whole Pact/Zhaitan story to have another race there. And ANet really don't like touching old code.

There's no value in it. Even if you took the low-hanging fruit that is the Tengu, put in the Dominion of Winds, and made them share Caledon Forest as their starting zone to avoid having to create new levelling maps, there are a bunch of logistical challenges with that (Dominion of Winds is a level 12 area, so they'd need to totally shuffle round the map to make it work). To make a new race consistent with the other races, they'd need to create 22 new story instances (more than an expansion's worth), a set of racial skills that are never going to be used anyway, 3 full sets of cultural weapons, and 9 full sets of cultural armour.

All so a player base that overwhelmingly favours human characters has an additional option on the character creation screen to ignore. And since the races that are "closest" to being candidates for new player races are all unique to the Guild Wars universe (Tengu, Kodan, Skritt, Quaggan, etc), it's not even like going to all that effort and advertising it is going to bring in lots of new players (and money) to the game.

[TwistedAlga.4235]

If ANet decided to create a new playable race, I am 100% sure they could pull it off. If Blizzard can add lots of different races, even if some of them are reskins, (stone dwarves, Kul-Tiran humans, void elves etc, shares same skeletons build-up, animations etc)

Tengu would most likely be the 6th race, it shares the same skeleton and a few animations as the Charr. 

Sadly, they had the perfect time to give us playable Tengu in EoD but sadly they did not, after weeks of hoping by TENGU CONFIRMED in their live streams. . Which Rubi finally confirms Tengu would not be playable.

It's been 11 years now, I honestly think it's too late to make new playable races for some reason. This has been since highly requested ever since the very beginning of this game, that Tengu would become playable for us players.

ANet knows about this pretty kitten well but chooses not to do this.

I am over this and I know quite alot of ppl are too after hoping and wishing for a new playable race will come, but never will.

[Super Hayes.6890]

3 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Come on.  You've been around long enough to have seen the almost countless threads on new playable races.  This poll is completely unnecessary.

You are right 🤷‍♂️ This thread is pointless. Frankly, I'm just in it for the turtles 😀

[TheNurgle.4825]

I would rather see some unified starting area and more "directions" for new players when they hit lvl80.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

I'd rather we get cosmetic options to emulate the other races than just outright new race settings.

[TheNurgle.4825]

2 minutes ago, Eloc Freidon.5692 said:

I'd rather we get cosmetic options to emulate the other races than just outright new race settings.

So you mean more combat tonics? That is really good idea.

[Omega.6801]

No.

[Lucy.3728]

1) I don't care
2) Doubt it
3) a bird race (like tengu) - born with a glider

[Ashantara.8731]

I want it a lot, more than yet another set of new elite specs. Dwarves, Tengu, Centaurs, ... gimme gimme!

Unfortunately, they've had many chances already and didn't deliver, so getting a new race would be the biggest surprise in GW2.

[Freya.9075]

I would like a new race. Preferably with a new skin for raptor 😁

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Freya.9075

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

6 hours ago, TheNurgle.4825 said:

So you mean more combat tonics? That is really good idea.

More easily acquired infusions and other cosmetics that let you emulate other races with the available ones that are close enough, is not asking for combat tonics.

[Darklord Roy.2514]

Definite no on all fronts from me, boss.

Personally, I've always been lukewarm to adding new races in any MMO. I understand that for things like WoW they end up being decent selling points for expansions, but WoW also tends to tie a LOT of stuff to being race specific so that it actually matters in the game (horde vs alliance, the new dragon race that can only play a class that no other race gets).

That being said, I also find them to be a MASSIVE waste of company resources, especially in a game like GW2 where cosmetics are so prominent. We're talking about creating a whole new set of animations (for walking/running, drawing/holding weapons, and ALL skills in the game) and character customization options, a new starting zone, a new personal story from levels 1 - 20 unless they just insta boost this race to level 80 (terrible choice for new players IMHO), logging hundreds upon hundreds of hours of new voice lines for every story step and interaction in the game, and retrofitting THOUSANDS of pieces of gear onto this new race while trying their best to avoid clipping. Just to name a few hurdles.

It would, quite literally, take an entire expansion contents worth of developer time to JUST implement this race by itself, with no other expansion features. We're talking one or multiple years of testing and production, and then Anet have to pray that the sales they make off of this feature alone are enough to make up the cost of their time investment.

Sorry, I just don't think it will ever be on their minds to seriously do. Too many resources spent on too risky of an implementation, can't imagine it's worth it for them.

[Palador.2170]

Once upon a time I wanted them to add Tengu as a player race. I wanted to see more about their culture, and then see it interacting with the other cultures in Tyria.

However, ANet's quality has ... suffered.

If they tried it now, it would only be a cruel parody of what I wanted, while taking away far too many resources. No. Let the idea rest in its grave. 

[Kiki.9450]

10 hours ago, Darklord Roy.2514 said:

Definite no on all fronts from me, boss.

Personally, I've always been lukewarm to adding new races in any MMO. I understand that for things like WoW they end up being decent selling points for expansions, but WoW also tends to tie a LOT of stuff to being race specific so that it actually matters in the game (horde vs alliance, the new dragon race that can only play a class that no other race gets).

That being said, I also find them to be a MASSIVE waste of company resources, especially in a game like GW2 where cosmetics are so prominent. We're talking about creating a whole new set of animations (for walking/running, drawing/holding weapons, and ALL skills in the game) and character customization options, a new starting zone, a new personal story from levels 1 - 20 unless they just insta boost this race to level 80 (terrible choice for new players IMHO), logging hundreds upon hundreds of hours of new voice lines for every story step and interaction in the game, and retrofitting THOUSANDS of pieces of gear onto this new race while trying their best to avoid clipping. Just to name a few hurdles.

It would, quite literally, take an entire expansion contents worth of developer time to JUST implement this race by itself, with no other expansion features. We're talking one or multiple years of testing and production, and then Anet have to pray that the sales they make off of this feature alone are enough to make up the cost of their time investment.

Sorry, I just don't think it will ever be on their minds to seriously do. Too many resources spent on too risky of an implementation, can't imagine it's worth it for them.

What a lot of people don't realize is... if Anet were to go through with this, they have only one finite pool of resources. They go make tengu or whatever else playable, what do those of us who prefer our current characters get? Answer: a lot less than we're use to getting.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Kiki.9450
Typo

[Darklord Roy.2514]

6 minutes ago, Kiki.9450 said:

What a lot of people don't realize is... if Anet were to go through with this, they have only one finite pool of resources. They go make tengu or whatever else playable, what do those of us who prefer our current characters get? Answer: a lot less than we're use to getting.

Exactly this. A new race is a ton of company resources spent, and for the people who don't really care about a new race (which i'd wager is a decent number), it brings exactly 0 value to the game.

[kharmin.7683]

8 minutes ago, Darklord Roy.2514 said:

Exactly this. A new race is a ton of company resources spent, and for the people who don't really care about a new race (which i'd wager is a decent number), it brings exactly 0 value to the game.

All of this has been discussed to death in the many, many previous threads which is what makes this one so disappointing as the OP very well knows this.

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

Considering that a new playable race would mean introducing the race into the entire ecosystem, I would vote for Skritt.

Just replace all player dialog with "Shiny!" - "Stuff stuff stuff!" and "Mine!" and you're done 

On a serious note though: No, way too much work and resources needed to do that.

[ZawaZawa.4179]

Very difficult unless it uses the same rig as a existing model. Otherwise you'll have to retrofit all weapon and armor for this new race.