Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Do you feel like Ashes is missing races?
Marzzo
Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Our 9 races might be enough for most, but I heard of some people feeling like they don't click with any of them. Do you feel like there are not enough races? Are they too similar? What kind of races do you feel are missing?
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That being said there is one sensible extension I feel would be hard to argue against. The more they develop Nikua, the more I am convinced a halfling x gnome race could be needed. The changes to the Renkai, Vek, PyRai (and Nikua hopefully) have been stark enough that it feels like that niche of 'extra small/evasive and crafty' is the only one left in terms of standard eurofantasy racial design. This is obviously harder to execute though given the no lols rule, since no matter how full figured you make a small woman, people seem to react strongly negatively in many differing directions.
Past that, the racial skins from cosmetic packs have have a few good candidates but feel far more fantastical and out of place. Still I think it'd be dumb to not use them as clear dlc jumping off points later on if new races must be added past Gnome-lings.
More specifically the elemental skins. I feel like you could make a version of 4e's Genasi that aren't exactly those fire and ice skins but 'half human versions of them with more expansive options in the cc.'
Regardless you have to remember new races don't just mean new CC options, but new racial architecture as well. Half elementals and halfling/gnomes have very clear ways you could guide architecture. But it adds to the cost of adding them. That's one of the core reasons I would vote against a new race being added aside from it already feeling very racially complete. Definitely do-able, but I prefer activities/quests over cosmetics for dlc.
(edited to respect the apparent censoring.)
If you were to add other races to Verra, what would you add?
or if it would be compatible to the lore some race that survied under water and now comes to the surface again ...
9 player races are a lot for starting up any RPG, especially an MMORPG.
More player races - that's what an expansion is for.
@Vaknar I think for a new race, you have three options
Hell yes, i would love to see elemental type people also. It could tie in well with the lore too because i think i recall there being elemental balls of energy being sent to Verra during the fall. Would be very fun to customize and stuff also but probably very hard to implement so maybe as DLC but would love to see it!
Oh yeah for sure. Everything I said was only in reference to 'possible DLC', even the halfling/gnomes. I don't really like dlc races. But you know, it's boring to argue about what 'shouldn't be' all the time.
I feel like the architecture is the hardest part of the half elemental race to implement. Getting architecture based off fire and ice as the guiding principle requires a lot of creativity and eyeballing to keep it from looking out of place. Gnomes and halflings on the other hand have clear sources of inspiration to draw architecture from.
Maybe the totally not Gensai half ice elementals could have Russian architecture inspiration and the fire ones have Ottoman Empire inspired architecture? That way there are some similarities, but ultimately they are still rooted in designs that suit their preferred climates? It'd be quite the undertaking.
You could also add to the list something non-living. Some kind of clockwork/golem style of artificial race.
To add two other methods to Nerrors list above of ways that could be used to create a new race in Ashes;
The gods could literally decide to create a new race. Maybe they see the current races as failing in some way, and so decide introduce a new race to fix things.
Second, some mad scientist doing genetic research combining existing races, or trying to add intelligence to existing species could have some form of escape.
Interestingly, all 5 concepts (mine and Nerrors) can be found in EQ2. The game had a parent race (Barbarians), a race that managed to survive an apocalypse unnoticed for many years until being rediscovered (Fae), a race from another planet (moon, technically - Vah Shir), a race that the gods created because the existing races were shit (frogloks), and a race that were a genetic experiment gone wrong (Sarnak).
Interestingly, the Charater Art lead of Ashes worked on EQ2 for a number of years, so I am sure Chris knows all of this (and much, much more) anyway.
Material race like golems (material customization).
Elemental race like fire spirit/snow cold spirit/water spirit.
But this is too complicated to implement.
So 9 races is fine.
Couldn't bear it huh?
I can't really comment on the Tulnar since we've seen practically nothing about them, and what info we have is sparse and sometimes conflicting. But given the variety from the races we've already seen, I expect yet another distinct type of character to add even more diversity.
As said by others, nine races is a pretty good amount, especially at launch. World of Wacraft only had 8 at first. Other games have had more; EQ had 12. Lord of the Rings Online only had 4 (they have expanded to 7 since then). So the amount we have to me seems fine, it's about average for an MMORPG.
Nah, I just thought that the Vulpera out foxed them.
1 or 2 new races in the future would be fine, but always put quality over substance!
NO FEATURE CREEP!
Tulnar.
Done
Hey now, the request was not to have feature creep. We can still have creepy features.
I say, bring on the Tulnar in all their glory!
I hope husbandry can let us breed pandas though.
I heard the secret command for doing exact that is "conda install pandas"
wait, I think I've seen that command somewhere before .....
(steers back onto topic)
Anyway, 9 races feels enough for now IMO.