Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
How Many Races for a game? (Poll)
Numynclatre
Member Posts: 4
How many playable races or cultures do you like to see in an MMO?
Do you think there is a such thing as too many races?
-A coward dies a thousand times before his death. The valiant never taste of death but once.
-The only one keeping you from success is yourself.
Comments
I have two answers to this. On the one hand, I feel it's unwise to offer players a choice of more than 6 options at every stage of character creation to avoid choice paralysis, so a giant list is not a good idea. However, I also prefer games that are designed with the ability to generate infinite races/cultures.
I've often imagined a sandbox RPG where you started with a human in a world that was constantly adding randomly-generated races/cultures with random buffs, equipment slot parameters and/or caps. As you wandered the game, as your character made friends, it would unlock the option of generating alts of those races.
The more the better. My favorite thing about Shadowbane was 12 races, many of them unique:
Aelfborn (Half Elves)
Aracoix (Flying Birdmen)
Centaurs (Half man, half horse)
Dwarves (Stonemen)
Elves
Half Giants
Humans (Heirs of the All-Father)
Irekei (Desert-dwelling Elves)
Minotaurs (The Beast Men, creation of the elves)
Nephilim (Flying demon-like creatures)
Shades (The Pale Ones who are linked to the process of death, and have a gaunt, billy corgan-like appearance.)
Vampires (Powers and spells consume health instead of mana or stamina.)
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowbane
It depends how different each race is. Giving a race pointy ears =/= different ><.
I see this question a lot and my answer is always the same.
I would rather have one well fleshed out race than a bunch of generic or shallow ones. Depth is more important than number, you have to have history, cultures, beliefs etc. for a properly made race, a general appearance isn't enough.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
Lots, but make them unique. If you give me 5 different kinds of elves that's not really doing it for me.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
I agree that deapth is important, but it doesn't have to be a straight quality-quantity tradeoff. There are two kinds of deapth: manually created and emergent.
Games where the developers manually script out the history, architecture, culture, personalities and challenges give you diminishing returns on every new culture you add because you're basically spreading the effort of writers and developers ever more thinly across content that most people will only sample. If you are going to have 20 races, manually modelling them and writing the histories of them is probably impossible to justify.
On the other hand, if you create a simulation that describes how culture and history and distinctiveness emerge in your world, then you can run your simulation an infinite number of times at minimal cost, generating new cultures at will.
Games have made great strides in modelling physics, but there hasn't been anywhere near the same investment in simulating other aspects of a world's ecology and culture that give an MMO texture. Whoever can pull off interesting and robust simulations of these will dramatically reduce the cost of generating new content.
I think there should be as many as you can put in there, however I agree with several posters that it should be more than just human variations. Having Elfs and Dwarfs is ok in my opinion because of how long they've existed. I also would like the races to have depth, often games put in an unusual looking race, but it has very little story (WoW's Worgen). That's why so far I like the Charr race in GW2, it's unusual looking and has a good story background.
-I want a Platformer MMO
Sometimes, you can get more out of fewer actual "races" but offering more "cultures" or "bloodlines" for those "races"...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
This is true. Several games have more then one human or elf culture, but pretty much all the other races are just one culture as well.
-I want a Platformer MMO
agree with this..i love shadowbane soo much it almost makes me wanna cry when someone other than me speaks of it...many races all unique..wich ALOT of dev. and mmo's get wrong so many times..4-6 is just lazy imo of dev
As long there new unique races i dont realy care.
If its again humans elfs dwarfs orcs and for mobs dragons goblins and trolls im sick of these races and mobs.
Why dont they dare design some comepletely new races and story/lore.
Prolly affraid all tolkien lovers( about 90%?) will cry hehe.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I had to vote 20+ for one reason. I've yet to be satified with any races I've played beyond EQ. But I think I liked EQ races so much because you just can't wonder into every other race's towns. Depending on the character's race the towns of other races will kill you on sight, and just refuse service etc. There was lore to discover in it. It wasn't spoon fed, you actually had to hunt and quest for lore. That made it interesting.
All the games ever since can pretty much just be sumed up in a 3 sentence explanaition. >.<
I also don't like how the human race tends to get a pass on lore explaining why they are there.
I've enjoyed plenty of games with 1 race or a small selection of races, but can't think (off the top of my head) of a game I enjoyed that spammed races recklessly.
Looking back, I suppose it's for all logical reasons:
Choices are only interesting when they matter.
Race is chosen at the start of the game.
Offering the player a very important choice at the very start of a game (when they know almost nothing of the systems) is usually a bad idea.
So race often doesn't matter much, which mean it's not an interesting choice.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
5 to 10 for me...
yeah id rather have 5 to 10 good choices than 20+ that all looks the same
what I want is the ability to change skin color and appearance and not pre generated body parts.
More is not better. I'd rather have few distinct races than a bunch of bland ones.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Well, my "ideal" MMO has these:
1. human, 4 subraces: Red (australian), Yellow (asian), White (european), Black (african)
2. giant, 3 subraces: Fire Giant, Jungle Giant/Orc, Ice Giant/Ogre
3. dwarf, 3 subraces: Mountain Dwarf, Gray Dwarf, Hill Dwarf
4. gnome, 3 subraces: Cloud Gnome, Road Gnome/Goblin, Crystal Gnome/Halfling
5. elf, 3 subraces: High Elf, Dark Elf, Wood Elf
6. feline (no subraces) (they get a tail)
Thats 17 race options. Or rather 6 really, as subraces arent meant to be really full blown new races. Human subraces only change looks, nothing else. Other races subraces add more differences to each other, but you still wont be completely different.
I dont consider golem a race, unless you offer an explanation like in Dragon Age.
I dont consider undead a race. Everyone might get the option to turn undead if they play necromancer or death cleric. Or there might be an option to turn vampire. Either way, its not a race.
Personally I'm deeply annoyed about games introducing known races and naming them differently just to be "original". Like the many names darkelves get.
I dont like animal-like subraces much, but as many people like the catpeople, I added them. If it would just be me, I would also remove humans completely.
As many as that can add something of value and some uniqueness to the game in question.
More choice is ALWAYS better. I don't really understand why some people demand "depth and deep story" when it rarely even matters in most MMORPG's. In most games, the race lore is found on the websites, not even within the game, and if it is in the game it's via only a very small number of quests.
There are hundreds of NPC mobs with their own races and creatures, yet no one complains of the lack of depth of these characters. In fact... most people don't even read the quest text, and if they do--- it's usually more important to make a good storyline for the quest than a rich background that is rather irrelevant.
I don't see why creating a race magically creates a massive amount of overhead on the storytellers of the MMORPG. A culture, race, and history can be summed up in a few paragraphs or quests at most-- in a game with thousands of quests, hundreds of creatures, and in the case of WoW millions who don't care.
Yet playing AS a race is really cool, invoking both visual, roleplaying, and racial abilities/stats.
I don't think anyone here realizes: you never know any of the lore of any game when you picked the race at the start. In fact, even with a cool intro video like EQ2 that explains the backstory of many of the races, you still have no idea. Yet EQ2, Shadowbane, DAoC, and Vanguard all provide 12+ races, and people tend to really like that.
In vanguard, there are 3 continents with different cultures, so only 3 cultures amongst 12 races. Same amount of resources taken from the lore writers as 3 races would have. In Dark Age of Camelot, 3 realms and I played this forever and never knew any race lore, just realm lore and very basic lore at that. EQ2? Two sides, little importance to racial lore. Shadowbane? I don't think this game even HAD lore or storytelling in it.
So obviously, at least for my gaming experience, I care more about the number (12+) and uniqueness of races (Centaur, Minotaur, Goblin, Vampire, Shade, Kobold, Celt, Avalonian, Highlander, Rocky Troll, Shar, Treefolk, Lurikeen, etc. etc.) than about any "back story" or "depth" that is demanded, yet in most games entirely ignored or unimportant to actual gameplay and fun for anyone who doesn't read the website-- despite the fact backstory and "depth" in lore can be written in a matter of minutes by even a crappy storyteller.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Err.
Either people care about race, then they want deep races.
Or they dont care, then why give them a race choice in the first place, anyway ? Even less many races ?
Most importantly, each and every new race introduced will lead to many problems with gear and looks. Thats why every player race is much more costy than beastial races.
That's true you don't want to overwhelm the players right away. I think your idea of discovering a races is a good one, while it would work better in sandbox MMO's I can even see it being added to Themepark games and working well.
On the poll 5-10 races is the most favored, which seems to match what most people on this thread posted:
1. Having more than just Human like races is good.
2. Numbers don't matter as long as each Race has a deep background.
So far in most MMO's 5-10 is the largest amount of races people had without getting a bunch of races that are just aesthetically pleasing.
Emergence seems to be the biggest critic of this, saying that most people don't even know the stories about races and don't read quests, so numbers are more important.
Well, I agree with Emergence a bit, many people don't read quests. However, people that care about stories do which is a good chunk of the playerbase. To give depth to a Race is more than making a a background and quest text, it also is Visual. Seeing a race that lives in a very technological city, really dirty city, only small towns, the clothes they wear, tatoos, etc... gives depth to a race. I actually think Visually giving a story is stronger and stays with people longer.
-A coward dies a thousand times before his death. The valiant never taste of death but once.
-The only one keeping you from success is yourself.
I would rather have one race with amazing player creation tools, sliders for everything, 58 hair styles, 25 colors, ect. Than a thousand races that you cant change their looks.
Then again in a game that has armor that covers you, you might as just get rid of races and everyone is a floating armor set holding a weapon.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
There isn't an actual reason as to it being a "fact" that you have to not overwhelm players at the start.
Sure, it's not a good thing compared to a way to slowly give them all the details (perhaps via tutorials, progress, or unlocking content) but it's not a must-have for all gamers.
Some players LIKE to be overwhelmed with choices. Sure, these players are more likely to be intelligent people and are certainly not stupid, so it might alienate the WoW/Farmville crowd, children, ADHD teens, desperate housewives, and ADHD adults-- however, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
A game that caters towards the top 10% intelligent (or capable) players isn't necessarily wrong. In fact, the more complex of a game, it could arguably be said that the better the community because the less stupid people, the less immature people, and the less impatient rush-to-end-game players. The more EQ1 type "real gamers" and the less WoW type "xbox kids".
I wouldn't be overwhelmed by a game with 100 races to choose from. I would be overwhelmed by over 100 classes (most of which I had no idea what they did or why they're different) but if the game provided tips, I could easily pick a race and a class, and most likely return to try more characters later. Obviously a game with 100+ races or classes would be built around replayability and having multiple characters, so that wouldn't be a problem and I'd enjoy it more since I make multiple characters ANYWAY. I would be overwhelmed and think it's stupid if there was no help or explanation of hundreds of options that I didn't know did anything. Yet a simple tooltip explanation for everything would be fine for me.
I don't understand why some human beings would be "paralyzed by inability to choose" when they are on their own time, playing their own way. If they want to play, they HAVE to eventually pick something. They won't literally be "paralyzed". Perhaps it might result in them going to forums asking "What should I play as?" but this already happens to those players easily "paralyzed" by the fear of choice. I'd know, since I often go to forums to help me decide what to be after I've made a few characters, because I have a hard time choosing between 2 or 4 classes, let alone 100. Yet it wouldn't be any more difficult to pick one out of 4 than it would be 1 out of 1000. I'd narrow them down fast, as I always do.
I just wanted to point this out, that a game isn't required to appeal to ALL people. If it was, we'd all have to water down our games to cater towards the impatient ADHD xbox kiddies or simple minded farmville crowd. Fortunately, one can simply say "I want to make my game, for gamers, not for children!" On the business side one needs only target their consumer, make a goal on a # for playerbase, and invest accordingly. Niche games don't require watering down even if the niche audience is small-- the budget just needs to be niche as well.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
I agree. I don't think most of us would be overwhelmed with 100 Races either, not just the top 10%, like the top 50%.100 classes on the other hand would probably result in a lot of watered down classes, better off just being a skill-based system. I honestly don't think most people are too stupid to play complex games, really I think most people could handle complex games, I never met a person (that plays games) that stupid. I think a complex game could get a huge playerbase, its just nobody has figured out a way to increase the playerbase dramatically without making it easier, maybe I'm too optimistic.
However, I don't think the extreme sandbox method of no tutorial, no guidance is good, it just annoys most people.
I think about wow it it saddens me, occassionally there are threads about the next best race (Naga:P)and tons of people are like "There are too many races already!" It is sort of dumb, come on. Just one of many I stopped playing the game.
-I want a Platformer MMO
Here is what I want to see - one, just one. Everyone is a human, or everyone is an elf, or everyone is a dorf. Doesn't matter but everyone is. You should have tons of customization in the character creator to differentiate yourself from everyone else, but your still just a single race, you just look different. You also get to chose your place of birth before coming in. You come from France cool, you come from Spain cool too, you come from North Dakota ok your crazy but still cool. Point is, on OUR planet we are all humans, as diverse as 60 races on an MMORPG game out there. Our culture and where we are fromis what seperates us, and that should be all anyone needs ina game too. Tall, short, skinny, fat, light complexion, dark complexion, big hair, bald, let the player decide. I'm just so tired of some game developer trying to decide how I should look or what background I have to have for my character. Let me be who I want to be for once. If I wanna be a 4 foot tall fat white dude with a fro bigger than my horse, then let me do exactly that.
As many races as it takes to fit that particular game. There's no 'one size fits all' formula. Some games work really well with single races. Some were designed around having many, many races.
As long as the amount of races works well within the frame of the game, both lore and mechanics wise, I have no problem with anywhere from 1 to 100 races (Though I have to admit, it would be harder to do a good job with 100 races, but that doesn't mean it can't be done...)