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Can't we just get a "Unknown" Race?
trikiran
Member Posts: 122 Bounty Hunter
STO has the unknown race where you can basically create your own race with massive control. For those of us that want more then the piddly 8 base races this would be a good thing. I get that you want to sell drow and other races for 200$ + But I really doubt that many people will go for 200$ more per race. Why not just charge the 200$ for a mixer that you can create your desired race.
It is the same engine so I know the coding is not hard to pull off. But as it stands it is quite annoying that the race list is smaller then D&D 1.0.... honestly feels like a bit of a cop out by only giving us a 8 of the 34 not to mention more advanced mixed races which puts that into the hundreds.
So the unknown race would simply be an official way of making one of the "34" core races in 4.0 No Sharkfaced laser shooter monster from space Obviously.
It is the same engine so I know the coding is not hard to pull off. But as it stands it is quite annoying that the race list is smaller then D&D 1.0.... honestly feels like a bit of a cop out by only giving us a 8 of the 34 not to mention more advanced mixed races which puts that into the hundreds.
So the unknown race would simply be an official way of making one of the "34" core races in 4.0 No Sharkfaced laser shooter monster from space Obviously.
Post edited by trikiran on
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In D&D, pardon my French, no way in hell.
Nope, you can not possibly say that because STO or CO has something Neverwinter should because that idea is not in any way shape or form compatible with D&D. True D&D has several dozen player races you can choose from which will be added over time...
But this idea of unique races running around all over the place is something which is by no means fitting in the Forgotten Realms.
I'm sorry for being blunt but you hit my D&D Forgotten Realms Nerd Nerve there.
As far are having only eight races so far, this is a free to play game and they need stuff to sell, we will probably get many more races to play over the years as long as we're willing to pay for them.
Then as a nerd you should appreciate the full list of 34 OFFICIAL Races and be outraged that the game is shipping with 8... one of which you need to pay 200$ for. What garbage. And I should clarify it would not be a "unknown" as I am just using official cryptic wording, it would be the ability to manually make one of those 34 races. or playing with some half breed options.
As for now we know that drow is the most popular race outside the standard 1.0 ruleset and cryptic has already put a 200$ price tag on that, So what new races that they do/if they add will come with what price point?
I don't argue with the point of them needing to make money, But the promises of cryptic in the past as far as "new" content has never been followed very well. So that is not a solid foundation for faith in cryptic to do their job. But it is the massive off tilt of the races that breaks immersion for me. In FR in Neverwinter there are dozens of races seen on the streets daily. Your telling me that an all out war on the city only brings in 7 races to be seen anywhere and an 8th that will be super rare? Common.
Your info is wrong. $200 buys you a "background" to be used when you create a Drow character, which suggests that the Drow will be one of the 8 classes at release. It's a special background for people who are willing to support the game early. Just wanted to clarify that for you. As far as the rest of your post, I can't comment. I was not aware that 4e had 34 races available.
I stand with the french here .... I mean ambi.
Unknown race would kind of kill all the D&D lore for me. They should just concentrate on Genasi and Dragonborn - these two being common Sword COast races - and then move to others like orcs, bugbears etc.
Neverwinter Wiki
But I would not appreciate somebody making up their own race!
Races will be released in time either for free or a one time charge. Cryptic has never stated what their official plans are for the future of races and classes other than they are coming.
However let's look at your complaint...
Baldur's Gate 1: Human, Half-Elf, Elf, Dwarf, Halfing, Gnome - 6
Baldur's Gate 2: Half-Orc, Human, Half-Elf, Elf, Dwarf, Halfing, Gnome - 7
Neverwinter Nights 1: Half-Orc, Human, Half-Elf, Elf, Dwarf, Halfing, Gnome - 7
Neverwinter Nights 2: Half-Orc, Human, Half-Elf, Elf, Dwarf, Halfing, Gnome, Tiefling, Aasimar - 10 (excluding subraces)
Neverwinter: Human, Half-Elf, Elf, Dwarf, Halfing, Drow, Tielfing - 7!
Now the huge difference between the first 4 Games and Neverwinter is that company support ended right after release. Expansion Packs might have given a few more sub-races but none of them ever went near touching the full list of races. Neverwinter will be the first game with even a remote possibility of getting more races into the game.
And for the record, I don't count Community Created Races since those couldn't be played on any server you wish. I loathed Hak Paks with a passion in NWN and will never say 'well the community created it so it's there.' The community made awesome gameplay content, far better than the main story archs, but they can never replace what the company releases to all players official through purchases or patches.
EDIT - Oops I forgot DDO. It has a whopping 8 Races and two must be purchased/unlocked through content!
Compare at launch dude, compare at launch!
I think there were 5 or 6.
CLASSES is another matter though.
But yes indeed...even worse. I feel a bit condescending in this thread and other similar threads and for that I am truly sorry but there's no way I can think of to post it otherwise.
Other D&D Games are either behind in the races or are only slightly ahead. This game is, by no means, releasing with an unbearably small amount of races and will be getting many more. I'm truly curious as to why this feeling even comes up or has nobody really compared them to the other games in the past?
Of course the community added something like 70 different playable races in nwn2, so you can play as a drider, worg, ogre, yuan ti, kobold etc.
Plus D&D has seen an (IMO sometimes excessive, and just to appease a certain type of player that let their imaginations run a little too wild, even for a fantasy world *coughdragonborncough*) amount of hybrid and hybrid-like races, some of which could only be achieved with an "unknown race" type (what if my character was a half-dwarf half-drow? What?
can happen & i will support you in asking those races, but the point here consists of 2 words - "at launch".
Also coomon races should get priority over rare races. Hence I asked that genasi & dragonborn be started before rarer races.
However, frankly you cant expect all races at launch now, can you?
Grey Orcs and Yuan-Ti were not at release. I purposely left them and a couple of others out. Remember this complaint has NEVER been what will eventually be (or it wouldn't be an issue at all) it's what the game is being released with.
And again I do not by any means count what the community makes other than gameplay content. I hated hak packs, used them for sure, but I hated them. This is a complaint about what the developers are putting out at launch which is more than some other games and not far behind the others.
Many of those might be added, especially half-drow which are a player race though I believe they haven't been officially placed into a 4E Player Handbook.
They just won't going to be at launch just like every other comparable D&D Game didn't offer more than 10 or so race choices at launch.
Again I'd really love to see the argument of why this game should release all these odd-ball races AT LAUNCH when no other D&D Game did. What makes this game so unique that it unforgivable to not give EVERY single option at launch even though it is the ONLY one which promises additional races for years to come?
And again if it's not an officially released race it doesn't count >.<
I *know* NWN2 has 1273621871964 community created races...those aren't comparable...and frankly many are an insult to the FR Campaign which is why I do not want to see a 'create your own race' option.
Of course I can (I would be unrealistic, but I can
The argument in this thread isn't "why can't we have all odd-ball races at launch?", though. Its "why can't we have a STO-style "unknown race" so we can make them up ourselves?" Which would be more realistic than expecting 200k odd-ball races to show up at any point at the game's history, much less at launch.
Two words: Cryptic Studios.
(Their reputation for providing some of the most extensive customization options in the industry, which sets the bar for them pretty high. And their reputation for failing to provide adequate support to their games after launch, which causes people to fear that any race that doesn't ship at launch or soon after may never get added, ever)
Personally, I considered Dragonborn a madeup* race and an insult and afront to my traditional D&D sensibilities, but I'll still have to live with them when they finally ship in (and I'm sure that they probably will soon after launch).
*obviously all fantasy races are "madeup", but some of them are traditional fantasy races with some sort of basis on real life myth or at least D&D traditions, others spang out of nowhere from one D&D edition to the other simply because "some players want to play dragons".
I personally detest Dragonborns but like you I will have to live with them. I long ago realized players have this huge love for them even though I would prefer almost any other races to be included into the game.
I'm not at all a fan of monster races becoming Player Races and I would love for nothing more than Cryptic to limit the amount of monster race players if they don't simply say 'NO!"
That being said there are plenty of non-monster player races (or unofficial races) which can be added in over time without breaking the game or the Forgotten Realms lore.
I'm not a fan of the Drow being strewn across Faerun, though I'll certainly be playing one, but a worse concept for me is seeing goblins and gelatinous cubes running around saving Neverwinter.
If Cryptic limited the amount of players who could choose such options I would be fine but as Gill has said such actions ruin the immersion for those who aren't just playing an MMO but are true fans of the Forgotten Realms lore and setting.
And that is why, no matter what argument is used, neither Wizard of the Coast nor the loyal Forgotten Realms Fanbase will ever support the concept of allowing players to make up their own races.
Even if that didn't break the game mechanically the very concept shatters everything I hold dear about my twenty year love affair with the Forgotten Realms. It's not an option to destroy the lore by allowing players to create their own races.
It works in NWN 1 and 2 where each server can opt to follow whatever game setting they would like but this game, being a single server MMO, has to enforce Forgotten Realms lore for the sake of the target audience.
I can't imagine anything more exciting
As far as I know no other D&D games have been made with 4.0 in the mix, ddo was 3.5 I believe. The point I am trying to make is that like other games when you have a gap of 10 years between sequels It's good to get forward momentum, And while you are correct on those releases you are not correct with the expansion packs for NWN. The goal of a game continuing on the foundation of a predecessor is to keep pushing ahead.
They should have tried to double it. My point being it is not HARD. It's not. Your race effects very little Technically speaking. Most of the art and graphics are already in the game, You already have orc skins and npcs, doing a dragon disciple half breed is mostly human in looks you Literately slap on some wings and you are g2g. Give new base stats and whatever other background options which is mainly for feel and boom done. Not to mention the 20 something other half breads that you could make.
That is my point.
It's not bloody hard.
It's not technically hard.
They already have most of that in the game.
So why the pure bs and hate for even saying. "Hey, this is a really big issue that is easy to fix, So why are we not fixing it?"
Completely my point. The ground work was laid ages ago in what the fan base wanted. You would be a complete FOOL to say that NWN did not have a massive effect on rpg games. And that the desires of the community were valid, Of those 70 races that ended up being in the game as a whole half of them were easy to make and put into the game. Same here. The data is there for at least another 8 I'd say. Would take a few days tops to add them in.
Hence me saying that 8 is pitiful. But saying all 34 official plus the 100+ accepted off shoots or rares is asking for to much. There is not reason why they could not have launched with 12 or a "Strict" Create your own type. As in your own I mean from the list of official with the graphical support. For example Ocrs, Already in the game. Nymphs/dryads/half breeds, Simply altering the elf form slightly and adding about 3 new hair choices with 5 more unique hair colors. Dragon Descendants, Add options for tail and graphical wings, most of which is in the game. This is what I ment by the "unknown" factor, It's not creating hammer-head-yak-man-bear-pig Grow up... It's about giving us the tools to make and "classify" a race which many D&D vets have into the game without breaking anything.
I'm sorry you are coming across extremely arrogant and rude. First of all the idea of goblins and jelly cubes would not fit into the form of race creator I suggested, So you are completely pushing the topic into an extream which you as a mod are suppose to prevent. Secondly you insult the idea of having a "made up race" like dragonborn and drow running around when they are massively popular, And lastly this is an IP that contains thousands of races and where many great story telling minds have written official books that have added and keep adding to the world regularly! So the very idea of you bashing what a large part of the community wants is a self destroying argument because it is that desire that has shaped the IP into what it is now.
I understand that a completely "unknown" race creator would never work but I am only using the wording that is in STO to make a comparison to a format much like the foundry where the players within reason can create and add "standard look alike" characters to their roaster. Instead of working off that idea of giving additional options for the sake of the community you launch into a condescending attack on the idea and force it into extreams. Despite the fact that there ARE 34 OFFICIAL races you treat the idea of having more then 10 as an abomination. And my point is that if Cryptic had no desire what so ever to EVER support the games IP and history to NWN's fans They should have just made it about some other city or place in the realms. To build on the past success of NWN and to ignore the spirit of the game... That is spitting in the face of the game the IP and the fans.
(Does D&D have frog-people?)
Oh, did I interrupt an angry rant?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grippli
Most of my knowledge of D&D monsters come from the 2E MM, but this is what I saw first.
I have to agree with ambisinisterr in this case, though. Sure there may be a few extraordinarily pure souls out there (like trikiran) that want to create a family-friendly set of previously known races for the benefit of FR lore and its fanbase, but at the same time, there are an exponential amount of players out there who would rather just bend the rules and try and break gameplay by making a player that is half-terrasque, half-el-diablo, half-vampire, half-god, and 75% dragon. You say it's all cosmetic, but it's not. Did you not notice the racial benefits, no matter how insignificant they may seem?
And what of the people that DO create the above abominations? Where do you get the free animations for every single possible action in the game depending on what monstrosity's frame you use? Are you donating those animations for us?
And it DOES break immersion for a lot of us. Judging from the state of the CURRENT BETA, we don't have a whole lot of evil, or even chaotic, choices available to us at THIS POINT IN TIME. When it comes to immersion and lore, it's not only Cryptic's vision, but WotC's as well. Did you miss the part that WotC has to approve what goes into the game? Maybe you're primary beef should be taken up with them first..
Plus, just for reference sake (not that I'm doubting you or anything) I'd like to see what all 34+ official races are.
Secondly, the D&D Edition has no bearing on the race selection. From Second Edition on there have been several dozen different player races to choose from in Pen and Paper. New Editions tend to have less for a decent period of time for the same reasons that D&D Video Games only release with a handful of races to choose from: time.
Typically Wizards will release core races and a few rarer races in Player Handbook 1 and simply add on races (and classes) in later handbooks.
However that's slightly off the main topic. If you're thinking there weren't more races at the time of the other D&D Games were designed you would be completely incorrect. There's just never enough time or reason to add in every single race to the game. Spending time working on races nonstop so that players could choose whatever race they want would either drastically delay any game's release or negatively impact the rest of that game's development.
As for why there couldn't be a race creator thingy-my-what added, I'll try to make a few quick points.
1. Most creatures in the game which could be player races in the game at this time are already Player Races.
2. The rules system isn't a thousanth as loose in D&D as in CO/STO. Again Wizards would never allow this.
3. A lot of people would love to cheat too. Doesn't make it the right thing for the game. I'm all for the occassional compassionate monster but I shouldn't see hundreds monsters running around Neverwinter as if they are man's best friend. This is something that works in your basement or in individually hosted games, not in a big name international IP.
Also, remember this is an MMO. It tooks years for the NWN2 Community to amass the collection of unofficial races. There's plenty of interest for more races but developers have never put the time to create them for the initial game launches. In the case of an MMO it's not possible for players to create races as they could easily destroy the campaign setting. Mplayer created races in NWN2 do which is why, as another person said, many NWN2 Content Developers restricted both official and unofficial races.
In the end I'm not arguing I don't want more than 10. I would love to see 100!
I'm saying there is no way for the race creator to work in a D&D Game since race attributes are given by the rule's system and not player generated. The Flexibility just isn't there.
And more importantly than anything else I am saying I do not, in the least, understand why players are giving so much displeasure about releasing the game with the same general number of races as any other D&D Game. This isn't anything new. There will be more races in time and that's all I need to know. More races are required...but it's not required to launch the game.
I agree with Ambisinisterr regarding the amount of races being available at launch or shortly after is a good amount, comparable to many other mmorpgs or many other D&D official titles when they were released.
I also agree that having a means to create 'unique, randomised, customised, or unknown' races doesn't fit in with what this game is doing or it's direction, however I would like to add this as reasons why.
Firstly: in 3.5ed D&D (I can't speak for 4th because I never played a non-standard race) there were restrictions imposed on playing other races. Wanted to play an Ogre, sure, you could, but with all it's benefits came a level penalty, where your level 1 ogre was the equivalent of a level 4 regular race. You lost out on feats, certain paragon choices and gear restrictions etc, because you chose to be so unique. Having played Beta, I can tell you that the size of an Ogre in this game is double that of the human character, just animations alone and logistics on immersion (how did that thing fit through a door in the city of Neverwinter?) etc would take time and money to complete.
So, OP, how would you incorporate that kind of game balancing at launch with the ability to custom make your favourite hybrid?
Secondly, I can't recall whether it was for GW2, or for Diablo3, but one of the Devs was asked about the backlash a fanboi group was dishing regarding what they felt was their entitlement regarding classes going overlooked, and he replied that it was sometimes in the best interest of the game as a whole, to ignore what the select few are looking for to give a polished product to the majority.
I wouldn't mind appropriate classes being added later, I'm perfectly content to have several or more to choose at launch or shortly there-after (I mean, GW2 only had 5 races!**). But I don't want to see the devs buckling to fanboi pressure so some fans can have their 'shades-come-vampire rogues'* added to the game for the sake of 'But it's possible, it's what I want, do it or this isn't true D&D'
If that's what you want. Stick to PnP, grab open your dungeon guides and see who want's to play that race with you.
*lordeeto (also on the forums) played this character as a dragon/demon/god hunter in a 3.5ed campaign which lasted a few months. Seriously, a shade-come-vampire backstabbie rogue who was Lawful Neutral!?
**Edited for contextual validity.
I do think there is point in the statement in context of your being a mod. You are perhaps trying to balance your views and that of a mod - like two different personalities. However whatever you say unconsciously does represent PWE in a way. You are afraid to criticize PWE harshly even in your so-called views because you are afraid that it may bring in posts that you will have to moderate. Even when you say that your views represented are your own, in truth they are affected by your status as a moderator.
Even if you try to be independent or a representative of community - you are not.
Then there is a tendency that whatever you say is truth because you are privy to information others are not - which again compromises your independent status. Whenever you take a stand of inability to compromise, it is not entirely independent because such a statement is a mix of authority and your views.
Hence it is taken as "extremely arrogant and rude".
sorry but NWN2 is not a FR exclusive setting game at least not since its release...as you know people created dragonlance, speeljammer etc worlds... so you are basically limiting people creativity by keeping creatures and races to FR only...
What i really miss is subrace: basically the only one is the difference between Eladrin and Elf (which is official in 4e). We lack Gold Dwarves, regional human differences and halflings.
Nevertheless, i hope they're going to support classes, instead of races.
St. Augustinus
My point about it not counting is that those were community driven races and not released by developers...and certainly weren't available at launch. I preferred sticking more towards the Forgotten Realms most times but in a general Neverwinter Nights I don't have a problem with the option to be there for those who didn't want to stick to FR.
However, while NWN did allow for users to generate a world in any setting they wanted, Neverwinter will always be limited to the Forgotten Realms. All content will be run hosted through the main game and all races which run around in any UGC will also have to be run through the standard game as well.
Not only will fans of the Forgotten Realms Setting, such as myself, not want to see certain player races added but Wizards of the Coast would likely never permit it. Sadly the cost of being an MMO is that all official content such as player races, classes and equipment will have to be confined closely (maybe not exactly) to the Forgotten Realms Setting.
denkasaeba
Subraces have been tweaked a lot in Fourth Edition. It's hard to explain but near as I can tell they actually removed "sub-races" and simply labeled them as different races.
Elves are equivalent to Wood Elves basically while Eladrin are equivalent High Elves or Moon Elves. Drow are now it's own Stand-Alone Race.
Later on they added sub-races but seemed to have simply separated everything out into it's own race. Honestly if that's true I have to say I preferred the subrace set-up just for cleanliness sakes. I'd have to do a lot more reading but that's the gist of what I have been able to figure out thus far about the Fourth Edition sub-race system.
Anybody is free to correct me on that one