anyone remember a game that was made 20 years ago called Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, it was re-released with better graphics as Wizardry Gold.  The game gave you your basic fantasy races but then also gave you Lizardmen, Faerie, Dracon (half-man, half-dragon), Rawulf (humanoid dogs), Felpurr (humanoid cats) and Mook (looked like a Wookie).  It was quiet original for it's time, and built a great atmostphere even for a 2D game.  Other original NPC races included Umpani (Rhinoceros men), T'rang (Spider men), and Ratkin (Rat men).  It had alot of great content, if brought into an MMO would be quite cool.

A good example for lack of imagination imho is in the EQ1's latest expansion, Serpent Spire - the latest race addition (forgot already what they are called): they are basically humans with some horns on their head, plus a bit different stats. Wow. Cool. Imaginative. Great. NOOOOT!
I was so dissapointed, especially in comparison to EQ2's latest addition, the Fay. Has wings, can hover (won't die jumping down a cliff), but can't fly, as to not become too overpowered over other races. Now that is fun and different. EQ also has the frog race, but you don't see many playing them. Wonder why - lack of imagination by us players?

It doesn't bother me at all that games keep re-using the standard, traditional, fantasy races.  What bothers me is that they keep remaking the same damn shallow, simplistic, linear game over and over again.  Grind for levels and loot as you work your way through progressively higher level areas and then spend your time raiding at the end.

I still dream of the "world" mmorpg that makes you feel like your character is living in a fantasy world.  As opposed to the currently over-used formula where you follow a predefined path to the "end-game" and then wait for the next expansion or the next new game to come out.

I use to Imm on several MUDs , those weird text based things that surprisingly are still around, lurking in the backwaters.. We had an insect race which had 4 limbs, balanced by the fact it had next to no hitpoints on each one, so yes in battle its offense was great, if you hit it you almost always cut of a limb..was mostly balanced and kinda fun to have to flee from battle carrying your legs in a sack..

The next lot of MMO's seem to be starting to take their influence from the asian myths (a lot of vanguard races look like the Japanese’s spirits etc) as our various cultures mix and class it seems that the next generation may depart somewhat from the Tolkien model. F

or better or for worse..
I think as humans we are taught that having 2 legs and 2 arms and walking upright is the best thing you can be.  So its natural for us to assume races that mirror ourselves are "better" than a quadruped or serpent bodied creature..
 
On a pure work note:
Getting armour and weapons that work with extra arms, snake bodies, four legs means a lot more work has to be done in the game..
I remember when NWN came out they only had rangers with 1 weapon because the overhead of making each model carry the mixture of each weapon meant the overhead was too high. Now I’m sure that new mmo's have a better system than this but even games like Everquest 2 admitted it was having trouble with creating new gear because of the 16+ different models (est) they had to create for each item..

Mylin

 

 

Originally posted by Neanderthal

It doesn't bother me at all that games keep re-using the standard, traditional, fantasy races.  What bothers me is that they keep remaking the same damn shallow, simplistic, linear game over and over again.  Grind for levels and loot as you work your way through progressively higher level areas and then spend your time raiding at the end.

I still dream of the "world" mmorpg that makes you feel like your character is living in a fantasy world.  As opposed to the currently over-used formula where you follow a predefined path to the "end-game" and then wait for the next expansion or the next new game to come out.

Wise words from Neanderthal. Game developers want complexity, but game producers who tell them what to do want revenue, and the only way that the Producers can envision making revenue is by "Kill, Loot, Repeat". And to make the game last longer they give you a thousand character levels to work through and then they give you an enemy that takes 40,000 character levels to defeat. And there you have revenue, and players that hate you.

If you want players to stay you give them a world that they can live in, and don't limit what they can and cannot do. Most importantly the players and the producers have to remember that if there is an "end-game" then there's also an ending of the interest. Get to level 1000 and you're done, no more player, no more revenue.

Shadowbane!!!

Its the closest you are ever going to get... Unless SpiderRiders Online comes.

Interesting thread! And an old argument even outside of the gaming world. One basic problem is that any race, no matter how alien on the outside, would suffer from incipient anthropomorphizing from the get-go, since in the end it would have to conform to the all too human world of the player and the game universe itself.

Look at the Star Wars Universe as a example...all of the alien races in fact are really more like the humans (does anyone remember the days when Corescant was Corell or Corellia...i.e circa 1977) than unlike them...they share all the mercenary desires and wisecrack with the best of thems. (Remember the radical thing about Lucas' creation back in the day was that the 'droids did not conform to those tired Asimovian three laws of Robotics, and could feel and kill etc. with impunity, restrained only by the limits of their programming and crude mechano/electronic devices). Almost all the aliens in Sci-fi today are still roughly anthropmorphic...especially those who inhabit the pages of more militaristic writers. CJ Cherryh tried to create some alien sensibilities in her Compact Space novels of the 1980s (anyone remember that you cannot really understand a methane breather without a translator, but boy could they fly their ships...;-)), but even these had a human referent.

Any "real" archetypal departure must include a change in the way these beings are conceptualized, and has to work beyond mere game mechanics, but permeate the game. One little known example of how this has worked in the table top world is the World of Tekumel, aka Empire of the Petal throne, which sort of blends strange high fantasy with alien colonization elements (you have 2 six legged races to fight against there, at least...) and also in its human analogues is a strong departure from the Eurocentrism of most fantasy settings, the Tekumelese humans being sort of a cross between ancient Indian and Mesoamerica cultures, with a bit of other Asian or African cultures thrown in.) Part of its success is that MAR Barker, the creator, was another Tolkien (a linguist and anthropolgist) Has there ever been any attempt to create an MMO around Tekumel, or is the licensing still pretty locked up? It would be amazing if it could be pulled off, but my brief exposure to it makes me wonder that it is too alien, too complex for the average l33t d00d out there.

Maybe I should just stick to an elf...a naughty magic-addicted elf (now that's somewhat of a departure)

Just my $0.02

Originally posted by Lunar_Knight
You guys are right. There are absolutely no gam-*cough  Atriarch cough*-excuse me, no games at all coming out that want to develop unique player races. I just wish there was SOME ONE out there developing a total original and weird world set out side the typical fantasy genre, but were would I begin to LOOK?!

isn't  ToA have a dragon or something that looks interesting and promissing

but it looks like its not gonna be completed for some time

and a question is their any other games like ToA?

Too much Tolkein.  I try to avoid it when I can, as much as is reasonable.

Races being hominid, approximately. Well, that helps with reducing dev resources, increasing character empathy, and allows for cross race gear trading. Sure it could be avoided, but I've found out in other games that if humans aren't played, the other races devolve into stat-packages.

Ok, ignore the added resources to develope non-hominoidal species. And the limited gear usage thing. (Hey, a human tshort is pretty worthless to an arachnotaur, except as a white flag...)  So there is this whole game balance thingie. The afore mentioned 6 weapon wielding freak would be a nightmare in combat, unless it's accuracy was a joke.  Of course, then people would whine big time over not being able to hit anything. Without limiting, then combat with one becomes a freaking raid. We need a whole party to just one of them...  Well, that doesn't work for game balance. In fact, it doesn't work for a game, unless that's the only race available. The munchins and combat monkeys, among many others will always go for the extreme power. Soon, if you want to play, you'd pretty much be forced to be one just to avoid being a laughing stock. The only people not playing them would be total noobs who don't know, and the wierdos who like trying something different or more challenging. This kind of situation isn't good for a game because it really limits your market.

Ok, so what do you do. The easy way is the tolkien/star trek way. Other than storylines and minor visual differences, they are pretty much the same. The hard way is to try and develop completely unique races that are not too powerful in any ability. With limited development resources and marketing swearing it'll be out fourth quarter, that's just not too likely to happen.

But wouldn't it be nice.

(I'm currently trying to do this in a pen&paper rpg, but there are gameplay issues that keep cropping up. So I can say that I've been thinking about this subject in general a whole lot recently.)

TTYL

Well, Horizons has flying dragons and some little sprite things that fly...and EQ2 just introduced the Fay, who also fly.

That's a start, I guess.

Originally posted by japo
Well, Horizons has flying dragons and some little sprite things that fly...and EQ2 just introduced the Fay, who also fly.

That's a start, I guess.

Are those rases the flying dragons and some little sprite thingy? or just pets/mounts? I also know of the Fea but from what i tried in the trail it far from flying what they do its more hoovering,  (i did not like the way the Fea where animated, but thats just a personal opinion ;)

They are playable races...and the dragons on Horizons are really cool. 
Not enough to save that game though.

Originally posted by Thony

Originally posted by japo
Well, Horizons has flying dragons and some little sprite things that fly...and EQ2 just introduced the Fay, who also fly.

That's a start, I guess.

Are those rases the flying dragons and some little sprite thingy? or just pets/mounts? I also know of the Fea but from what i tried in the trail it far from flying what they do its more hoovering,  (i did not like the way the Fea where animated, but thats just a personal opinion ;)

Dammit, I want a mythical Fae race to do my hoovering, I hate tidying up.

I personally am getting rather tired of the need for 'balance'. Why should every equally equiped race be as strong as one another? I would like to see distinct advantages, that force races to build up alliances to help defend themselves. For instance the much quoted 'Spider' race should be able to rip through humans like whirling dervishes, however when that clan of flame salamanders comes past the colony looking for sweet sweet ant honey... they are in for a severe burnination.

I also like the idea of locking various professions to certain races - or at least make them different between races. The point of different races is just lost when they just become cosmetic counterparts with one or two minor buffs to set them apart. I think it is a big step moving beyond humanoids though, since most game phjysics are designed around moving on the ground for balance purposes.

Personally I want a race of telekinetic pandas who attack using floating bamboo sticks and razor leaf attacks. Then proceed to maul the fallen opponents soul. Mmm delicious.

No argument, innovative new races would be way cool!

And an auto-balancing algorithm might do wonders for this scenario; i.e. the more players that play a certain race, the less powerful that race becomes, with maybe a small positive adjustment to the others. Not a complete nerf that sometimes happens to races/classes these days, but a gradual effect with maybe a bit of hysteresis added. And have the new "race co-efficient" be viewable somewhere so people can see what its value is and in which direction it's trending.

Bring on the new races!

Originally posted by lilsi
Shadowbane!!!

Its the closest you are ever going to get... Unless SpiderRiders Online comes.

That was my initial thought as well.  Also, Ryzom had races that were different from the norm.

I have noticed that often when people say "somebody ought to add X element to their game," somebody already has, but the game wasn't commercially successful.  In other words, just because something isn't in WoW, EQ2, CoH/CoV, etc. doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. 

Sadly, I think that many people assume that everything new in an unsuccessful game must have been rejected by the market/consumers.  Some of the most innovative game features have been in games that didn't make it, and not because of those features, but rather despite them.  And rather than developers scavenging their remains and saying "hey, this idea was good, let's use it," we'll get more of what is in the games that sell.  Hence, we will get WoW or EQ2 clones with different graphics. 

Well, actually, everything is based on player opinion and if the players want to base everything they vote well on to the generic stuff, then games won't likely advance soon. If players find the guts to try something new then makers will too. The makers are too scared to try something new and imaginative and normally go make a WoW remake.

Although I'm all for the unbalanced races thing, finally making the game realistic in the smallest sense. If everybody doesn't need each other then there is no teamwork and then you're staring at four boring hours of killing the same old monster alone. But again, then people would take the super-somethings and ignore the more complicated species.

It all goes down to whether someone decides to try something new. And to those who don't, get a freaking life!

I don't think that the solution is to get away from roughly humanoid races. Rather, I think the solution is to do something unique with humanoid races. A fantasy game project that I'm involved with made the decision long ago to cut dwarves, elves, and the various other Tolkien and "traditional" races. Instead, the team is creating a number of unique and original races.

I don't want to say that a lot of people are missing the point with the "spider idea," but I think it should be pointed out that the idea is not to create a game with say, eight humanoid classes and just throw in one crazy eight-legged freak class. That would make for a very unbalanced game world having only 1/8th of the populous being something so vastly different. I'm assuming what was meant was having numerous varieties of life such as the mole-men, etc. all in one game. However, i think the problem there would lie in having to incorporate so many different types of game mechanics into something that the average user could actually play; hardware/bandwidth -wise.  Not to mention the amount of time and money that it would take to incorporate all of that into a single, cohesive and smoothly functioning game.

Personally, I'd love to see it. I only pick the "human" (i.e. dwarves, elves, gnomes, etc) races if it's a last resort. I'll take a tiger-man or lizard-man over a human, thanks.

An idea that might work would be to incorporate something in between an eight-legged freak and a human. What comes to mind is something like the werewolf ability in ES: Oblivion. Maybe a character that is hurt by sunlight and cant carry weapons but has great hand to hand and healing, etc., but also with a different point of view; say for instance heat vision, night vision, etc. Or perhaps a vampire species, something that operates as in Oblivion.

Possibly adding some way characters can "evolve" might also add extended gameplay and a hope for something more than just getting more hp or cool armor. Maybe when you get to a certain level or quest you can acquire the ability to become a werewolf or evolve some other physical transformation. That could help the balance issue as you would have to work to earn a unique quality...because we all know if a game inserts one vastly different race...it's hard to resist something shiny and new.