Chance of Tengu playable race in the new expansion?

[Torben.5628]

Lots of new 3D design needed for all the existing gear

This is mentioned so often.

I rather believe they are pretty much automatically transformed. How would armor fit to different body types otherwise. If they really redesigned all the armor for each class, I guess there would be less armor clipping on Charr, so I don't think that's the case. Also, every armor seems to perfectly move along the body while moving no matter the body shape. Looks more like a case of some more or less basic armature and weight stuff that works exactly the same for pretty much every armor piece. But this claim is exactly as reliable as every other claim on this and I'm also not even into animation. Did ArenaNet ever give insight about how new armor is created? Whatever the case is, making a wild guess is not a good argument for this discussion... for any discussion :)

just need to sit down and do it

I think pretty much every kind of office work is an act of "sitting down and doing it". The only difference is that stuff has to be redone or changed from time to time because code turned out to be bad and there are some meetings in between. But it's still time you spend in front of your computer to do the tasks that are assigned to you.

Integrating the new race to the original story + HoT + PoF: now this IMO is a real challenge. The Pact was formed by the coming together of the 5 playable races

There is already at least one tengu in the Pact. The tengu armorsmith Izu Steelshrike joined in "Forging the pact". For some magical reasons everybody agrees that there seems to be only one slot for tengu in the Pact, so it is not possible for a tengu commander to appear. I mean, how ridiculous would it be if there was another tengu besides Izu who happens to be so involved out of personal dedication that they end up becoming the commander? Impossible!

Izu is not the only tengu that runs around Tyria outside of the Dominion of Winds. There is only one realistic option why a tengu playable character would not be able to play in the Pact as part of the story: The Pact is a bunch of racists that already pushed their limits of tolerance by allowing Izu in their ranks.

Isn't Tengu just charr with a different head?

Also claimed every now and then.

The legs and hands are slimmer. The forearm is more at an angle. The thighs are more at an angle. The tail is different. They have feathers on their elbows.

---

I think everybody is overthinking this too much. Nobody knows how much work it is. All you can do is tell them that you would like it, but giving them advices on how much work it is or how they should do their job when they are the only ones who know how their stuff works won't help at all. And I think it's annoying.

I would like to see tengu as a playable race.

I would also be fine with the option of having a playable tengu without any story. I don't really care about that, I have one char that I use for story purposes and that's enough for me. Maybe unlocking them by playing the first Cantha mission, similar to how mounts are unlocked by playing the first mission, is an option. Depends on how much other players would hate it if it was like that I guess.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I'd like to see the quotes where ArenaNet said the game was never going to Cantha. As well, as the quotes that say the Tengu, as a playable race, are in the game files.One Dev (Josh F.) gave his opinion on why the Canthan district was removed from Divinity's Reach; never did he, or anyone else from ArenaNet say that the game would never go to Cantha.
Now, ArenaNet did say they thought about adding Tengu as a race before launch, but that's not the same as having files of Tengu as a playable race in the game. ArenaNet thought about many things before launch. Some appeared, some did not.

Thus, again, I'd like to see the aforementioned ArenaNet quotes.

[Linken.6345]

@"Torben.5628" said:

Lots of new 3D design needed for all the existing gear

This is mentioned so often.

I rather believe they are pretty much automatically transformed. How would armor fit to different body types otherwise. If they really redesigned all the armor for each class, I guess there would be less armor clipping on Charr, so I don't think that's the case. Also, every armor seems to perfectly move along the body while moving no matter the body shape. Looks more like a case of some more or less basic armature and weight stuff. But this claim is exactly as reliable as every other claim on this and I'm also not even into animation. Did ArenaNet ever give insight about how new armor is created? Whatever the case is, making a wild guess is not a good argument for this discussion... for any discussion :)

just need to sit down and do it

I think pretty much every kind of office work is an act of "sitting down and doing it". The only difference is that stuff has to be redone or changed from time to time because code turned out to be bad and there are some meetings in between. But it's still time you spend in front of your computer to do the tasks that are assigned to you.

Integrating the new race to the original story + HoT + PoF: now this IMO is a real challenge. The Pact was formed by the coming together of the 5 playable races

There is already at least one tengu in the Pact. The tengu armorsmith Izu Steelshrike joined in "Forging the pact". For some magical reasons everybody agrees that there seems to be only one slot for tengu in the Pact, so it is not possible for a tengu commander to appear. I mean, how ridiculous would it be if there was another tengu besides Izu who happens to be so involved out of personal dedication that they end up becoming the commander? Impossible!

Izu is not the only tengu that runs around Tyria outside of the Dominion of Winds. There is only one realistic option why a tengu playable character would not be able to play in the Pact as part of the story: The Pact is a bunch of racists that already pushed their limits of tolerance by allowing Izu in their ranks.

Isn't Tengu just charr with a different head?

Also claimed every now and then.

The legs and hands are slimmer. The forearm is more at an angle. The thighs are more at an angle. The tail is different. They have feathers on their elbows.

---

I think everybody is overthinking this too much. Nobody knows how much work it is. All you can do is tell them that you would like it, but giving them advices on how much work it is or how they should do their job when they are the only ones who know how their stuff works won't help at all. And I think it's annoying.

I would like to see tengu as a playable race.

I would also be fine with the option of having a playable tengu without any story. I don't really care about that, I have one char that I use for story purposes and that's enough for me. Maybe unlocking them by playing the first Cantha mission, similar to how mounts are unlocked by playing the first mission, is an option. Depends on how much other players would hate it if it was like that I guess.

Might aswell make it a tengu combat tonic then, like the kodan one we got awhile back.

[crepuscular.9047]

spread the bird flu? no thanks

[Frostfang.5109]

Might aswell make it a tengu combat tonic then, like the kodan one we got awhile back.

Tengu offers loads more options in character creation than kodan. One, imo, very strong reason to make tengu a strongt candidate for being the new playable race.

[Torben.5628]

Might aswell make it a tengu combat tonic then, like the kodan one we got awhile back.

no because I want to customize my tengu and have access to cultural armor that only my tengu can wear. I also want to put armor for my tengu together that looks nice. And armor clipping hasn't stopped me from doing so on my charr. And a tengu dance emoji as well as some funny things they say when they receive buffs and stuff.

A tonic is just not enough. No way.

[Linken.6345]

@Torben.5628 said:

Might aswell make it a tengu combat tonic then, like the kodan one we got awhile back.

no because I want to customize my tengu and have access to cultural armor that only my tengu can wear. I also want to put armor for my tengu together that looks nice. And armor clipping hasn't stopped me from doing so on my charr. And a tengu dance emoji as well as some funny things they say when they receive buffs and stuff.

A tonic is just not enough. No way.

So customizeing is important but not story?

[Howluffu.7259]

@Linken.6345 said:So customizeing is important but not story?

Looking at how gw2 story is made I would prioritize customization importance over the story ANY day. It's far more relevant in Fashion Wars 2.

[Torben.5628]

So customizeing is important but not story?

Both are. But I have other chars that I can play the story with, so I don't need to be able to play the pact commander story as tengu. If they end up adding tengu and integrating them into the story: fine. But I wouldn't care about playing the whole story again as tengu. Even though I like it a lot.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Trying to figure out what big xpac selling points cathan will bring. Hot sold espec and a new class, pof was mounts. A new race with heavy restrictions probably is on the table. Frankly speaking, 4 to 5 living story maps and another round of especs probably won't cut it when you compare it to shadowbringers.

[Dante.1508]

We need Ninja skritt..

[Teratus.2859]

Not all Tengu are from Cantha, the race has many different clan's and only two of them (Angchu and Sensali) are from Cantha, in fact historically all tribes originally came from Tyria.

The Avicara Tengu are native to the ShiverpeaksCaromi Tengu are native to Krytaand Quetzal Tengu are native to the Tarnished Coast and Woodland Cascades.

Since most of the Tengu clans have joined together in the Dominion of Winds we have never seen most of them in Gw2.The Caromi Tengu make up the entire Tengu guard that we see in game as well as all the Tengu merchants and unique Tengu that venture out into the world and interact with other races, these are the Tengu we've had the most interaction with over the entire Gw2 game.Genzhou Talonrend is so far the only Tengu in Gw2 that I know of who likely belongs to one of the Canthan Tribes since he wrote the book Riding the Wind: The Tengu Exodus.. but that in itself doesn't guarantee he belongs to one of the Canthan tribes, it just strongly suggests it.

The only other Tengu tribe we've seen are the Quetzal Tengu which have relocated to the Maguuma Jungle and remained a hostile, violent and territorial faction, even to other Tengu I believe.

We know very little of what goes on within the Dominion of Winds but we do know a few things.

1. The Dominion has had issues with the Elder Dragons since the start of Gw2, specifically Primordus and his Destroyers which have managed to tunnel into the area.
2. The Tengu clans have formed 4 great houses to represent each of the clans and preserve their different cultures but all Clans and houses serve one Tengu Emperor.
3. Main Tengu culture inside the Dominion is more based on the Canthan Tengu Clans.. such as the Tengu having an Emperor and the default spoken language inside the Dominion being Old Canthan and not common Tyrian, in fact Tengu who cannot learn Old Canthan are discriminated against and forced to leave the Dominion where they are treated no differently to any outsider.This is probably because the Canthan Tengu Clans likely founded the Dominion of Winds before all but the Quetzal Tengu Clans were fully unified into the 4 houses, thus some of their Canthan cultural traits remain somewhat dominant inside the walls.

But yes, Tengu are not originally from Cantha.. quite the opposite in fact however Canthan Tengu culture is more dominant within the Dominion which makes the confusion understandable.As for them becoming playable I don't see that ever happening, However bringing them into the story for the next expansion is something I definitely want to see ^^

[papercrown.9248]

@"Safandula.8723" said:Please no. Keep in mind, that introducing new playable race would require a lot of work on fitting already existing armors to tengu, and even more of work on voice acting for already existing personal stories. Maybe they could introduce new race in other way so no need for second thing i mentioned, but still imo its to much work for cosmetic update to the game, while the same resources could be put into making another parts of gameplay.But im almost sure we will see some tengus soon, as new saga episode will bring tengu weapons

Well, the body and armor for the Tengu technically already exists - the Charr. If you look at the NPC Tengu models and compare their posture and especially their torsos and legs to that of the skinniest Charr body, it is close enough that simply reskinning the thinner Charr bodies to make the initial Tengu player models. They would need to replace the head of course, and swap the tails with featherdusters, but it CAN be done.

As a 3D modeler, I've already taken a good, hard look at the reskinning idea. It is more plausible than you think. There is also the rumor that Tengu WERE planned for the initial base game release but were cut out at the last minute. This is news from 2012 when the game was still in beta and you could only play as humans and Norn, of course; but the theoried reason as to why the Tengu were excluded, along with the Canthan district of Divinity's Reach (of which there did exist real footage of) was because ... well, it was a politics in videogames issue involving China. I know no one wants to hear that, but according to the news at that time, they did not want GW2 using their cultural aesthetic.

Now that the game has been released IN China for a few years, that is no longer an issue.

I could be wrong, but this was buzz that I DO remember from 2012, way back when the area we all know now as the "Queen's Gauntlet Arena" / Festival center in Divinity's Reach was just a massive crater in the ground with NPCs talking about how a sinkhole swallowed the entire Canthan disctirct. You can still find screenshots of it to this day.

[Josiah.2967]

This is the company that can't/won't update back items we payed for to be dyable.

Considering the above, do you really believe refitting/designing armor and outfits for a new race is reasonable? The same company that doesnt fix cosmetic Asura/Charr toys, outfits, back pieces, and glider bugs.

[Linken.6345]

@Josiah.2967 said:This is the company that can't/won't update back items we payed for to be dyable.

Considering the above, do you really believe refitting/designing armor and outfits for a new race is reasonable? The same company that doesnt fix cosmetic Asura/Charr toys, outfits, back pieces, and glider bugs.

Were are the human, sylvari and norn toys?

[Josiah.2967]

@Linken.6345 said:

@Josiah.2967 said:This is the company that can't/won't update back items we payed for to be dyable.

Considering the above, do you really believe refitting/designing armor and outfits for a new race is reasonable? The same company that doesnt fix cosmetic Asura/Charr toys, outfits, back pieces, and glider bugs.

Were are the human, sylvari and norn toys?

They seem to focus more on them. We have plenty of cosmetic problems with Charr including the chair debacle.

The new Dragon Wings are broken on asura while gliding with no respnse from arena.net. They do not attache to the Asura's body while gliding. They hover over at a really weird angle and pushed wayup the body compared to the old dragon wings which looked great..

I will not even discuss how appaled I was when bought the endless selfless and thoughtless tonic for my asura which was never fixed. I cant even see it in my current hair.

[Astralporing.1957]

@papercrown.9248 said:As a 3D modeler, I've already taken a good, hard look at the reskinning idea. It is more plausible than you think. There is also the rumor that Tengu WERE planned for the initial base game release but were cut out at the last minute. This is news from 2012 when the game was still in beta and you could only play as humans and Norn, of course; but the theoried reason as to why the Tengu were excluded, along with the Canthan district of Divinity's Reach (of which there did exist real footage of) was because ... well, it was a politics in videogames issue involving China. I know no one wants to hear that, but according to the news at that time, they did not want GW2 using their cultural aesthetic.Actually, while you are right that there was such a rumour (in fact more than a rumour, we've even had some dev statements to that end), the reason why Tengu were cancelled had nothing to do with removal of Canthan district. The district was indeed removed due to out-of-game political reasons, but Tengu were not included simply because they were not finished - the work on them was dropped earlier, when the devs decided that having them ready on release date required more resources and effort than they could spend on them. Basically, when the game launched, they were in only half-finished state, and since that time the amount of work needed to introduce them into the game has only increased.

[Frostfang.5109]

@aspirine.6852 said:

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:The Tengu can all go die in a fire and be made into BBQ Hot Wings for the Charr after their heartless massacre of civilians during the attack on Lion's Arch.

Screw them fascist isolationist birds.

I hope we get to feather farm them again in the cantha expansion :)

Perhsps avian flu can be used as a weapon against feather-farmers... ?

[Astralporing.1957]

@Frostfang.5109 said:

@aspirine.6852 said:

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:The Tengu can all go die in a fire and be made into BBQ Hot Wings for the Charr after their heartless massacre of civilians during the attack on Lion's Arch.

Screw them fascist isolationist birds.

I hope we get to feather farm them again in the cantha expansion :)

Perhsps avian flu can be used as a weapon against feather-farmers... ?If so, i will simply be farming them on my sylvari.

[Dragon.4782]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@papercrown.9248 said:As a 3D modeler, I've already taken a good, hard look at the reskinning idea. It is more plausible than you think. There is also the rumor that Tengu WERE planned for the initial base game release but were cut out at the last minute. This is news from 2012 when the game was still in beta and you could only play as humans and Norn, of course; but the theoried reason as to why the Tengu were excluded, along with the Canthan district of Divinity's Reach (of which there did exist real footage of) was because ... well, it was a politics in videogames issue involving China. I know no one wants to hear that, but according to the news at that time, they did not want GW2 using their cultural aesthetic.Actually, while you are right that there was such a rumour (in fact more than a rumour, we've even had some dev statements to that end), the reason why Tengu were cancelled had nothing to do with removal of Canthan district. The district was indeed removed due to out-of-game political reasons, but Tengu were not included simply because they were not finished - the work on them was dropped earlier, when the devs decided that having them ready on release date required more resources and effort than they could spend on them. Basically, when the game launched, they were in only half-finished state, and since that time the amount of work needed to introduce them into the game has only increased.

That might not necessarily be the case. I think it is plausible we are getting Tengu because not only are Quetzal and DoW tengu working side by side (as shown in the champions trailer, showing not only are the DoW tengu leaving their walled cities, but also allying with tengu from outside the city limits which was implausible in Vanilla.) but also in the Jormag rising trailer, Bangar is shown with an abnormally upright posture for a charr. His chest is also more puffed out, his shoulders seemed to be slightly pushed back and his neck seemed less slouched/hunched as well. I think devs might try and repurpose Charr animations and rigging so it makes implementing old and new armor sets on tengu much more easily than simply starting over from scratch.

I also have been doing some 3-D Modeling in my spare time and I can say it is very plausible to not only alter an existing toon's mesh to make a new race (i mean look at the norn, sylvari and humans they are practically the same minus a few subtle details). but animating animations for such a model would also become easier.

Not saying its a done deal and they will be added, because you still require lots of manpower to make it happen. That being said, it would not as much as you would think and with the rehires from post merger with NCSoft, having tengu as a playable race does fit reasonably in the realm of possibility!

[firedragon.8953]

Races in GW2 don't add anything meaningful to gameplay. There is actually no reason to add a new playable race except for cosmetic variety.

Cosmetics can be dealt with through combat tonics.

Lore is VERY welcome, but you don't have to be a player character to experience it, and actually I think it is just a convoluted way for world building, which I wouldn't recommend.

I too thought tengu would be cool as a playable race, but the more I think about it, the more I realize it will do almost nothing for the game. I'd rather see a transformation battle system implemented or something where you could just transform into a tengu (or quaggan, whatever) as like an alter-ego and adopt a different playing style or something for a limited time. I'd prefer us to get a "tengu tonic" that lets us infiltrate the Dominion of the Four Winds and have a "new recruit" experience without actually making a new playable race and trying to integrate that into the game and lore.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Dragon.4782" said:That might not necessarily be the case.Oh, that was definitely the case. They had no hometown, starting areas, racial quests and cultural armor done, for example. No voice lines either. Does that point to them being "cut out at last minute"? That would have to be a veeery long last minute then.

[Dragon.4782]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Dragon.4782" said:That might not necessarily be the case.Oh, that was

definitely

the case. They had no hometown, starting areas, racial quests and cultural armor done, for example. No voice lines either. Does that point to them being "cut out at last minute"? That would have to be a veeery long last minute then.

They could still augment current VA's or even have recurring VA's (Like Liam O'Brian for instance who comes by somewhat frequently at Anet to do voice recordings for toons) voice tengu lines and have them do their own campaign that ties directly into the End of Dragons. With the manpower they have now, a new map, city, etc. is plausible.

[Tuco.2419]

I'm ready for a tengu race. Just have it squawk loudly for all the voice acting.

[Taylan.2187]

@"Tuco.2419" said:I'm ready for a tengu race. Just have it squawk loudly for all the voice acting.

I feel like this bird is manically laughing at us.