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Original Character Races - Which would you like to see in a game?
thecipher
Member UncommonPosts: 146
Let's do a little theoretical experiment here. Say that someone is designing a new AAA fantasy mmo, and that they're aiming for something entirely original, but still recognizeable - Towards this end, they want to put player races in the game that break away from the standard human/dwarf/elf stereotypes.
Since it's not just "imagination gone wild" and game balance has to be maintained, there are a few criteria:
A maximum of 8 playable races
Races must be fairly balanced, and not give advantages over others (ie. no 4-armed races that can wield more weapons, unless you can give all the other races similar advantages)
Since art assets for gear is also a restriction, races can't be too wildly non-humanoid.
Inherent "good" or "evil" is irrelevant, since the goal of the game is to break free from stereotypes.
So which races would YOU want to see in a game like this?
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Comments
I'd just go full on anthropomorphic, no humans at all (except maybe in the backstory). It has the advantage of being very clear: You see a big tiger guy, you have an understanding of his nature. If it's an elephant guy, you know you don't want to be hit by him. They could go all jackleg skeletons at the simplest, and have the 'races' based on their animal precedent. No complex gerrymandering of mythic intent needed to place all the usual wildly different races in the same sphere.
Though really, if you just didn't have the standard Tolkien or D&D mishmash versions of elves, dwarves, etc, they could still be quite enjoyable. A grim Norse version of elves and dwarves, trolls, giants, Aesir, Vanir, etc could play just fine. Though the player base might be the problem there.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
well my idea would be to take the old SPI fantasy borad game Sword and Scoresy it had Elfs and dwarfts , humans and Orcs, but also the cronks, dragons, swamp monsters all as players characters, and commiues red orcs who wared with the white orcs, and the dreaded KIller Penguins, and Kufu Kulties.
This does not fully ansure the question, but the best i can do at this time,
MMO developers need to try their hand at Darkstalkers before attempting to come up with an interesting combination of player races. The perfect racial setup would obviously be catgirls, zombies, werewolves, vampires, demon samurai, abominable snowmen, mermen, and energy based alien lifeforms.
Straight up, it's one of the reasons I play eastern games. I get more unusual races. Sure there's elves, but thee's also usually other races more indicative of eastern folklore, or flat original.
I'm still wishing for a Star Ocean MMO. There were atleast half a dozen non-elf lookin races.
Really? All those highlanders/fellpool/featherfolk/expellians/earthlings look exactly the frigging same to me. Even Final Fantasy was more original than that series (why the heck can't you play as Bangaa or Moogles in FFXIV anyways).
Only 8
).
Well the first group is based off when I was a little kid. I used to be afraid of the dark, so I made up a world where stuffed animals and other toys protected me from monsters. The game would be a modern fantasy.
Races: All are about the size of a TY Bear. Humans exist in the world, but are NPCs and huge (kind of like dragons :P). All races have a starting area, a passive stat increasing ability, a damage ability, and another ability.
1. Monsters: Only ones that can be asymmetrical, like having one arm bigger than the other. (having a scar on one side of face isn't the same type of asymmetry). Have the largest varience in size. Their starting area is a Witches Cottage where they were "brewed." They have a higher resistence to magic, have a ability that causes bleeding and have a minor fear ability.
2. Aliens: They can look like typical aliens or blob like aliens with two arms. Their starting area is a Space Ship (duh). They have higher intelligence/wisdom, has a sharp shot ability, and have a stun ability(to take you to their ship
3. Stuffies: They can look like almost all teddy type stuffed animals. Their starting area is a factory. They have higher resistence to physical attacks, they have the ability called "Hug to death," and have the ability to charm.
4. Fairies: Look like fairies. There starting area is the mystical forest. They have higher agility/dexterity or something associated with speed. They have an ability to zap an enemy, they have minimal flight to escape some attacks.
5. Mighty Muggs: They look like Mighty Muggs, look up on google if you don't know, unlike the other races that use a spore like creation, you can't change the body shape, but can paint on them. Their starting area is a Super Hero nerds house. They have higher armor or health. They have an ability called Super Combo Attack, and another called Harden Armor.
I can imagine them having multiple factions, but tif there was only 2 it wouldn't be divided by race. Basically there would be a faction that likes humans and wants to protect humans, while the other wants to eat, experiment or steal the teeth of humans. All races can be either faction.
I was going to write a second group, but don't feel like it right now.
-I want a Platformer MMO
Well, if I make a classic fantasy game, I'll give players their beloved classic fantasy races.
So it will be:
- Human (4 subraces: Australian Native, Asian, European/Indian/Arabic, Black): no advantages or disadvantages, great flexibility
- Giant (3 subraces: Fire / Redskin, War / Orc / Greenskin, Ice / Ogre / Blueskin): superior strength and willpower
- Dwarf (3 subraces: Mountain, Gray, Hill): superor stamina and wisdom
- Gnome (3 subraces: Cloud, Road / Goblin, Crystal / Halfling): superior agility, speed and intellect
- Elf (3 subraces: High, Dark, Wood): superior dexterity and empathy
- Feline (no subraces): various advantages and disadvantages, including tail
Isz's from The Maxx.
I actually made a femchar in PWI look just like one, great character editor in that game.
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Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
SIDE A : 1.Human a. Imperial(ancient roman-greek style) +10% inteligence 5% dexterity
b.Nords 10% Endurance 5% strength
c.Southern (arab-like) 10% agility 5% wisdom
2.Elfs a.Wood Elfs 10% dexterity 5% inteligence
b.High Elfs 10% wisdom 5% strength
3. Dwarfs 10% constitution .5% strength
SIDE B : 1.Undead a.Vampires 10% strength 5 % endurance
b.Wraiths 10% inteligence 5% strength
2.Drows (Dark elfs) 10% agility 5% wisdom
SIDE C: 1.Orcs 10% strength 5% constitution
2.Goblins 10% agility 5% inteligence
That's so many restrictions, it doesn't seem very interesting anymore.
I mean... it has to be fantasy, they have to be roughly humanoid, no crazy off-brand stuff...
Why not just say 'I want to see how many times I can hear the word 'elf' ' and be done with it? XD
Well, there are elves and there are 'elves'. For example, the halfling in Tolkien's world is somewhat different from the gnome-like kender of Dragonlance while the halflings in Dark Sun are fierce tribal cannibals.
The problem isn't dwarves as a concept but that much of the time it is simply more of the same. The cultures, languages and regional variance of humans (while likely enhanced by their typically depicted expansion and relatively short lifespans) is rarely seen in the other races.
Oh cmon! Is realism so hard to ask here? The fantasy bit is tied to milieu or IP but other than that those are very sensible restrictions.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I actually find the idea of 8 humanoid races in a single landmass pretty weird as it is usuallydone in fantasy, generally.
Not that much about 'realism' at all. I mean, look at how many different countries and tribes have been wiped off the face of the Earth. When you have all these little non-interbreeding races crammed together, fighting for the same resources, I want to know why they don't die off more often. Or at least have them pushed into extreme minority positions, little 'Elf Reserves' or something.
Also, if you can describe them as 'Human but... (insert a few words here)', they don't seem very interesting to me.
The varities of human races and cultures are interesting because they're basically the same at heart, but radically different in culture at times.
When it's 'human' 'pointy eared humans' 'short humans' 'tall humans' 'humans with pointy teeth' 'extra skinny humans' and so on, it's... blah.
Feels too much like Star Trek, and I didnt' like it there, either. :T
You misunderstand me. By realism, I meant feasibility.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I think it's perfectly possible to have non-bipedal, feasible races. :T
Mr. Charr. :T
Being more human >< more realistic, it just means... more human.
I prefer a little more exotic.
edit: Like one of the races I designed has a relatively undifferentiated cellular mass (Like a sponge), but each cell serves to conduct electricity, and functions as a sort of primitive neuron. Unable to gain much intelligence themselves, since their cells are so multi-purpose, they only gain intelligence as a communal organism. Which they gained when some of them swallowed quartz crystals (Rocks being used to grind food, since once again they don't have any teeth or hard internal bits) and were able to use them to communicate through radio waves. Which allowed them to create a more advanced neural network and work their way up to posthuman level intelligence.
All falls under theoretically feasible using science, but... they're blobby, have no skeleton, and would basically be a bunch of beanbag chairs. :T
Well, some good ones from mythology we havn't seen in MMOs before...
Sidhe (Irish mytholgy, not exactly what almost camy to GW: Utopia), Disir (Norse mythology), Satyr (Greek mythology, might exist in some MMO actually but I havn't seen it), Kitsune (Japanese mythology, have been in one or 2 bad Asian F2P games)... And there are a lot more...
Also some non human races, like Griffins, wolfs or similar but they only work in a game that isn't focused on gear. In a EQ clone they would be useless. Shape shifting races like dragons are in some versions kinda works but not perfectly since it is kinda weird they get the gear bonus when they are morphed as well as in human shape.
Tolkien took most of his races from Norse mythology and changed them somewhat to fit, that is the right way to do. But all those races have been changed to be more stereotypical by D&D and they lost a lot of what was interesting about them in the transition from Mythological to MMO race.
There is actually archeological evidence for more than one race of homids living together in the same continent. In Africa 800K years ago there were a lot.
35K years ago in Euro-Asia rthere still were a few (humans, neanderthaals, the Florens hobbit and that race from Georgia they found some DNA from last year.
So several intelligent (more or less, Neandethaals probably spoke, they wore jewelery and maybe even made some cave paintings) is not that far fetched.
If you know your Norse mythology you should know that elves are far from humans with pointy ears (I can't find anything about the ears pre Tolkien)but powerful demi gods. They just got watered down.
MMO devs needs to grow some balls. If we wanted the exact same game with the same lore, races and mechanics we would buy Wow or EQ anyways. Have some imagination and give us something we havn't played to death already.
I did say 'as it is usually done in fantasy'. It's not to say it's impossible, but just... most of the designs you end up seeing are blah. It also helps if you're at a really low level of technology. By the time you're riding around on horses and wielding swords, it's a lot easier to wipe other groups out. Especially groups that share your exact same ecological niche.
Notice how many of those non-human humanoid races are still around and kicking since we figured out how to pick up rocks and hit things with them.
I thought the mass effect series has some very original races. They look very good. Ahh Garrus my darling wherefore art thou.
Mythos has Satyrs as a playable race. I believe Sylvari in GW2 is based of Sidhe? In any case, it is odd that you should mention Disir, as they hardly have any function beyond spiritual protectors in the original mythology. They are also pictured looking like normal humans, I recall.
Now I definitely want a Stone Age MMO. It is actually not a bad idea at all.
Viking berserker
Norman crusader
Greek hoplite
Berber archer
Gypsy witch
Celtic druid
I paired them with classes for you too. I did not have to even go far and they come with tons of background. May not be races by definition but by MMO standards they are.
There are no actual proof that we killed those races. In fact we do have some neanderthaal DNA in us so there were at least some love around.
And we know that 3 out of 4 of those races had spears and bows, the Georgian one is still rather unknown so we are not sure. But your argument is not 100% convincing.
That doesn't mean that the regular fantasy MMOs are realistic or anything but there can actually exist different intelligent races in the same place and at the same time. The Florens humans and "hobbits" existed for several thousand years together, it is believed that a vulcano wiped out the hobbits, but we need a lot more digging to find out if that is true.
I have more problems with how human all the races always are. They have the same values as modern people, think the same way and all seems to trade with small pieces of precious metal.
Coins is something that is rather new, just a bit over 2500 years old. That every culture in every game invents it and accept the same is odd to say the least.
A non human should have a very different culture, value different things and generally differ from humans.
Yeah I'd love to see some races that break the humanoid mold. These are all aliens you can play as in the multiplayer FPS Natural Selection 2: http://www.naturalselection2.com/kharaa/
I'd love to see something like that in an MMO. Also, really big races, as in at least the size of a tree, and really small races, like a few inches tall. That way you could see the world on a different scale and have greatly varying play styles as a result.
Always read the small print.
Ah, yeah I forgot Mythos. The Sylvari are really plants and have not much in common with Irish Sidhes.
Disir is however a bit more than just local protectors or godesses (I am rather impressed that you knew that unless you googled it, but they are the reason that the vikings had dragons in front of their ships, to scare the disirs. They took them off in friendly places, it was a deep insult to have it on when sailing into a none hostile harbour).
But what is interesting about the disir is not their look but the fact that they are kinda living in 2 different dimensions and can pop between those. I think a race like that would be interesting in a MMO, they would have acess to certain places no ther races could go.
Skuld, Urd and Gald/Verdandi, the 3 goddesses of past, present and future are said to be disir. Yeah, they are called the Norns but they are not really the same norns as in Guildwars.
Oh, NS. There are more from that game that would work in MMOs. The commander function the marines have would work excellent in guild Vs guild PvP.
Great game.