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Perhaps more races?
Ap0ph1s
Member
Ok so before anything else I should clarify that i mean like monster races that a player could become like say for example vampires and werewolves. There are a lot more types of races that the current roster of races could feasibly become like that with say for example ghosts, skeletons, litches, and for and example i will elaborate on a bit more, Automatons.
Alrighty than so how I would say you could do a automaton race would be for example have say a dungeon. perhaps it only crops up when certain nodes reach specific levels as it would be a castle dungeon. surrounding the place would be a lot of the normal monsters you likely have encountered in the area but they for some reason have robot limbs and pieces all over them! perhaps you begin to investigate the area looking around until you find a castle thats damn near overrun with these things. upon further inspection you see that while you arent there its almost as if these monsters are acting as servants in this castle doing jobs like cleaning up or moving supplies or etc. and perhaps most intriguingly you see them moving cages full of people inside the caslte.
Perhaps as you begin to look around and maybe while fighting through some of the altered monsters you come across a man who at first glance seems normal until you see his hands and feet and realize he's as much altered as all the monster here and for some reason he was hiding from them all even though it seams that he has at least some relation to whats going on here. When you ask him what is happening he begins by saying "This castle is the property of the inventor... Vegapunk! (you could make a better name im sure but the point is gotten across with that i hope) the scientist is a brilliant man who has managed to make prosthetics that dont just replace limbs but that can replace every organ in any race! However he has recetly turned to using this to only further his power by altering anything he gets his hands on into soldiers to work out his will."
"How does he make MONSTERS work for him?"
".... *sighs sadly* he does that by engraving a rune onto a piece built into their artificial hearts that both allows them to understand what he says and begins to induce damage to their heart if they don't obey his orders..."
"If thats the case than what about you? are you also under his control?"
"No... he... didnt do that to me.... i think he figured i wouldnt be able to do anything even with augmentation and was just using me as a test to see how the full procedure would work on a human, or something like that..."
After you interaction, this man perhaps begs you to also not harm the monsters and creatures that only have partial augmentation and to not let you be seen at all lest them having to follow the order to kill all intruders and fight you with the intent to kill you. Upon hearing that you and your companions can decide if you wish to try stealth around the partially altered or if you are going to ignore that and just blow them all as he gives you nothing more than asking you not to, to not do that. You and your group than begin a quest to delve into the dark heart of this massive castle, all the while seeing one monstrous thing after another and after a large dungeon you all come across a large door and before entering the man who gave you the quest shows up again and tells you to be careful as the scientists has began to venture into making automatons purely for combat and that this is the place where he has been keeping the majority of them. After hearing this perhaps you can ask "Why do you seemingly know everything about this? Who are you really an what is your relation to this place and the procedure that makes those automatons?!'
"..... You want to know who I am? *sighs* I guess given that you abided by my request that shows that you perhaps deserve to know.... Ok. I lied to you that I was a captive from a village in the area... In reality I was Vegapunk's assistant. I was also the first person he made into a full automaton when he first came here. originally this castle belonged to a wealthy noble although after a monster attack the place was destroyed and anyone that didnt escape was dead or dying... I myself was on the verge of death until HE showed up. Vegapunk saved my life! He without question or asking for reward helped me! Also before you ask, no. I dont regret having to become a automaton at all as I either had the choices of death or accepting my new body. I chose the latter..."
"Ok well that explains how you became like this but that doesnt tell me/ us anything about how this Vegapunk went from a doctor helping people to a maniac turning anyone and anything into a automaton?"
"He wasnt always like that! At first he and I took in anyone, Humanoid or monster... If they were hurt or dying we helped them. If they lost a arm we would give them a new one, if they lost a leg than we gave them a leg, and if the lost even a organ we could even give them a new organ! it was amazing and beautiful! However after some time the Vegapunk began to see the wounds inflicted by monsters and the wounds inflicted on monsters and decided began to become frustrated that the best he could do was replace broken parts... He couldnt stop the fighting nor could he stop the harm from happening... Ultimately he decided that if he couldnt do anything but replace parts than he would just replace all the parts..."
"You mean he decided to do the full procedure on anyone and anything right?"
"Yes.... and when he realized that people were rejecting him 'saving' them he become infuriated and thats when he began using the runes... In his eyes he's saving the world from having to suffer death and any who would want to stop him are simply sick not just in the physical but in the mental as well and he feels that there is no way he could be in the wrong....."
Finally after finishing the fight, if you got the assistant to tell you who they really were than you can ask them to do the full procedure to you too, tell them to stop the automaton procedure altogether, or perhaps let them continoue to do it to help anyone and anything who needs it but refuse to have it done to yourself. Also for every monster with the incomplete procedure you let live changes how many named npcs will exist and again if you kill too many than he wont do the procedure for you limiting you to stoping them from doing it although if you went down that route than you can only stop him by killing them as he wont listen to you or you can leave them to continue helping others with the partial procedure.
All in all I could see it as something that is an interesting flavor to add that I dont really think many other mmos would even think about doing but I feel could make characters choice have EVEN MORE impact on how they play and the world around them especially since whenever the dungeon to do this quest pops up you could have npcs that have say just a mechanical arm or leg and perhaps have talk where they will tell you how because of people being people they see a mechanical arm and treat them like they are the killer automatons that wipe out towns and abduct people to who knows were both serving as a little direction to find the quest and making it feel like the quest itself by existing changes the world
Alrighty than so how I would say you could do a automaton race would be for example have say a dungeon. perhaps it only crops up when certain nodes reach specific levels as it would be a castle dungeon. surrounding the place would be a lot of the normal monsters you likely have encountered in the area but they for some reason have robot limbs and pieces all over them! perhaps you begin to investigate the area looking around until you find a castle thats damn near overrun with these things. upon further inspection you see that while you arent there its almost as if these monsters are acting as servants in this castle doing jobs like cleaning up or moving supplies or etc. and perhaps most intriguingly you see them moving cages full of people inside the caslte.
Perhaps as you begin to look around and maybe while fighting through some of the altered monsters you come across a man who at first glance seems normal until you see his hands and feet and realize he's as much altered as all the monster here and for some reason he was hiding from them all even though it seams that he has at least some relation to whats going on here. When you ask him what is happening he begins by saying "This castle is the property of the inventor... Vegapunk! (you could make a better name im sure but the point is gotten across with that i hope) the scientist is a brilliant man who has managed to make prosthetics that dont just replace limbs but that can replace every organ in any race! However he has recetly turned to using this to only further his power by altering anything he gets his hands on into soldiers to work out his will."
"How does he make MONSTERS work for him?"
".... *sighs sadly* he does that by engraving a rune onto a piece built into their artificial hearts that both allows them to understand what he says and begins to induce damage to their heart if they don't obey his orders..."
"If thats the case than what about you? are you also under his control?"
"No... he... didnt do that to me.... i think he figured i wouldnt be able to do anything even with augmentation and was just using me as a test to see how the full procedure would work on a human, or something like that..."
After you interaction, this man perhaps begs you to also not harm the monsters and creatures that only have partial augmentation and to not let you be seen at all lest them having to follow the order to kill all intruders and fight you with the intent to kill you. Upon hearing that you and your companions can decide if you wish to try stealth around the partially altered or if you are going to ignore that and just blow them all as he gives you nothing more than asking you not to, to not do that. You and your group than begin a quest to delve into the dark heart of this massive castle, all the while seeing one monstrous thing after another and after a large dungeon you all come across a large door and before entering the man who gave you the quest shows up again and tells you to be careful as the scientists has began to venture into making automatons purely for combat and that this is the place where he has been keeping the majority of them. After hearing this perhaps you can ask "Why do you seemingly know everything about this? Who are you really an what is your relation to this place and the procedure that makes those automatons?!'
"..... You want to know who I am? *sighs* I guess given that you abided by my request that shows that you perhaps deserve to know.... Ok. I lied to you that I was a captive from a village in the area... In reality I was Vegapunk's assistant. I was also the first person he made into a full automaton when he first came here. originally this castle belonged to a wealthy noble although after a monster attack the place was destroyed and anyone that didnt escape was dead or dying... I myself was on the verge of death until HE showed up. Vegapunk saved my life! He without question or asking for reward helped me! Also before you ask, no. I dont regret having to become a automaton at all as I either had the choices of death or accepting my new body. I chose the latter..."
"Ok well that explains how you became like this but that doesnt tell me/ us anything about how this Vegapunk went from a doctor helping people to a maniac turning anyone and anything into a automaton?"
"He wasnt always like that! At first he and I took in anyone, Humanoid or monster... If they were hurt or dying we helped them. If they lost a arm we would give them a new one, if they lost a leg than we gave them a leg, and if the lost even a organ we could even give them a new organ! it was amazing and beautiful! However after some time the Vegapunk began to see the wounds inflicted by monsters and the wounds inflicted on monsters and decided began to become frustrated that the best he could do was replace broken parts... He couldnt stop the fighting nor could he stop the harm from happening... Ultimately he decided that if he couldnt do anything but replace parts than he would just replace all the parts..."
"You mean he decided to do the full procedure on anyone and anything right?"
"Yes.... and when he realized that people were rejecting him 'saving' them he become infuriated and thats when he began using the runes... In his eyes he's saving the world from having to suffer death and any who would want to stop him are simply sick not just in the physical but in the mental as well and he feels that there is no way he could be in the wrong....."
Finally after finishing the fight, if you got the assistant to tell you who they really were than you can ask them to do the full procedure to you too, tell them to stop the automaton procedure altogether, or perhaps let them continoue to do it to help anyone and anything who needs it but refuse to have it done to yourself. Also for every monster with the incomplete procedure you let live changes how many named npcs will exist and again if you kill too many than he wont do the procedure for you limiting you to stoping them from doing it although if you went down that route than you can only stop him by killing them as he wont listen to you or you can leave them to continue helping others with the partial procedure.
All in all I could see it as something that is an interesting flavor to add that I dont really think many other mmos would even think about doing but I feel could make characters choice have EVEN MORE impact on how they play and the world around them especially since whenever the dungeon to do this quest pops up you could have npcs that have say just a mechanical arm or leg and perhaps have talk where they will tell you how because of people being people they see a mechanical arm and treat them like they are the killer automatons that wipe out towns and abduct people to who knows were both serving as a little direction to find the quest and making it feel like the quest itself by existing changes the world
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Comments
Instead of making armor that any race or gender can wear, Intrepid has chosen the hardest and worst possible path to go down with gear. Every race and gender has its version of every piece of gear. This means that the amount of work to create a single piece of gear is multiplied by the number of races in the game, then times two for each gender.
I once again want to point out that this also limits customization. Instead of having a few orc armors that anyone could wear because they like the aesthetic. Now you have to be orc to have orcish looking gear or pray something that looks orcish is in the cash shop.
A truly awful and flawed system that we will have to suffer from for the foreseeable life of the game. In addition to making customization worst, it also limits how easy it is to put more races in the game.
I wish they would pull their heads out of their ass on this specific issue, but I don't think it's likely.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
XD
oh yea thats right.. well i mean maybe we all can convince them to make it like ESO where there are race styles that you can craft in but its not locked to any specifc race and while i guess not letting someone with a tail wear something wtih no tail hole makes sense its a matter of armor where that isnt necessary i think they could make it work on all races
I wish,
Of all of the things about ESO my favorite thing was learning to craft in different styles and being able to choose how your craft looked. I was not a fan of endlessly digging in bookshelves to collect all of the codex when the game came out. I just really like choosing the way something will look when you craft it. Mortal Online 2 has a good system for this too.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I was aware of the race and gender specific armor but I didn't stop and think of the impact.
I don't know why they didn't come up with something akin to XYZ scaling based on the physical size of the character. Surely that would have reduced the workload?
Can I play a cross-dressing male Ren'Kai in a female Empyrian court evening dress?
Can I be non-binary in a fantasy binary world?
Okay philosophical jokes aside, how far do the options go?
It is basically lifted right out of Lineage 2. L2 is a great game and is very nostalgic for many of us who lived there. Not everything in L2 was outstanding. The soul-shot system, for starters. Also, among the bad things in L2 was the way gear appearance works, and I have confirmed that it is the same in Ashes. (Edit: I brought this up because like me, Steven likes L2 and takes a lot of inspiration from it.)
If you come across a leather armor. That armor has a different appearance on each race. If an elf wears it, then it becomes elvish. That same elf could hand that same armor to an orc, and it would look orcish on the orc.
You basically have no options outside of dyes and cosmetics. You can also transmog and mix and match parts. This is a step up from l2, but it's still limited in a way that I think if more of the community understood. There would be pitchforks. I think rightfully so, too. The game would only be better if this stupid system was discarded.
Here is Steven trying to sell the system like it's a good thing. People coming from less restrictive MMORPGs will be very frustrated with this limitation when old games have better customization.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I'll just be happy if a full breastplate on a male character doesn't turn into a chainmail bikini on a female one. WoW still does that kind of thing.
Relinking this discussion as it appears to be directly relevant given the turn in conversation. I will also relink my survey question and context to it given the circumstances. I already know Vhaeyne's answer in nuanced detail, so am more so interested in others opinions.
In the context of this conversation note that more races either means 'an increase in similar silhouettes among races' or 'an increase in difficulty relative to implementing a system with no racial armor.' I expect the Tulnar to already be either a huge challenge for the devs or huge frustration for people who were existing a lot of customization out of the Tulnar depending on implementation.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
The silhouette limitation goes out the window when you realize that Aion, PSO2(The old one) and City of Heroes. All let you have total control over your character silhouettes at character creation with an acceptable amount of clipping. Basically, you had to really be pushing the limits of possible anatomy to make it happen.
While technically, my answer would be "B" the way you frame the question makes it seem like the trade-offs are a bigger deal than they are. Also consider that FFXIV, unlike FFXI also uses "B" but makes the appropriate change where needed. For example, a hood on the cat race would have cat eat shaped bumps on the head to show the cat years are pushing the fabric in the same way you would expect if the race was real.
The bottom line here is that other much older games can do "B" just fine without painting themselves into a corner when it comes to the amount of work it takes to introduce a race or just a single armor set. Additionally, they are not limiting the players nearly as much. Final Fantasy still has racial armor sets and class armor sets, but they do it as a choice to give them a district option. The tech they use would allow any race to wear any armor with only a little tweaking on their end. Additionally, they have started to allow more males and females to wear each other's cloths and have said they want to be more progressive about this in the future. This last part is a little off-topic, but it shows that gendered armor is always a choice and not a rule.
Knowing you know how I feel, I only answered this time because I looked at my answer in that past thread and don't feel like I made my case as clear as I could.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
What do you think I am wrong about exactly? It's unclear to me.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
But.. Then again.. The Niküa are so cool...
wait so like human lookin dudes that turn into were wolves or no? because if no than thats what i mean on that front is proper lycanthropes
No, that is not a thing as of last information given planned for Ashes. Teased as possible racial skins down the line, but never a gold name confirmation either way.
I do not believe you will be doing transforming. Humanoid frame, animal features etc.
To the OP:
Nothing wrong with more races, just get the ones you're featuring done first before adding more work to the pile of projects.
the fact that the silhouettes dont have to change nor do we have to accept clipping when they can just take the racial armors they have and just make versions that fit each races silhouettes. As best as i could tell by what you wrote you were at least presenting it as tho the only options are throw out the silhouettes or accept that there would be a lot of clipping and that is a false dicotmy where really its just that it should be the case that they take the extra time to make all armors possible to be worn by any race especially since it would make being a blacksmith and selling crafted gear even more important and intresting as crafters would craft things in specific styles and so people would perhaps need to go to crafters to buy gear from them helping the in game commerce.
I submit to the court exhibit A, The Tulnar Silhouettes:
Straight from Intrepid themselves.
Just because we all like Intrepid does not mean they are right 100% of the time. The limitations are clearly a design choice. A choice I dislike.
It looks like Intrepid has decided for us that Tulnar are to be the most popular race.
Why would I choose to hamstring my choices with any other race?
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I don't know that to be true. Unless, you can find a newer quote that specifically overrules anything I have seen.
Remember, Steven has stated that he wants every race to feel distinctive regardless of what they are wearing.
While simultaneously having elves in the game that have the same silhouettes as humans. To the point that I have had to zoom in on people's ears many times to figure out if they are an elf or human in alpha. These guys were wearing elvish armor too, but from a normal playing level of zoom it's hard to tell. So, the whole idea of having things look distinct is kind of a moot point in this case. At least with elves and humans.
Frodo wore elvish chain mail and carried a short sword that was made by an elf who hated orcs so much, it made the weapon glow when orcs were near. It's not uncommon for people to wear other races gear in fantasy. It's a staple of the genre.
Yes, this is alpha and yes things can change, but I think this is a horse worth beating.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
fair, fair.. i mean to be honest thats what i figured as thats how eso did it anyway and it makes sense to do it like this with the type of races i mentioned where you have the main races than as time goes on you just add quests and dungeons that let you acess these new race options later down the line as nodes change and evolve on the servers