Option 5 - ensure that the NPC population accurately reflects the lore populations and design the areas and overall player population hotspots so that they correspond to the NPC population ratio (visibly).
Wait... What? You're going to need to clarify this for me.
Let's say you have an Elf to Human ratio of 1/10. Make sure your Elven NPCs and Human NPCs have a ratio of 1/10. Ensure that Elf player character interactions are limited to areas that accurately reflect the rarity of elves or emphasize how common humans are.
Umm... It seems that what you're proposing is exactly the problem we're attempting to solve - the NPC population would already reflect the race's relative rarity, and the question is now how to make the player population have a similar relative rarity.
Your other suggestion is much more in keeping with our topic.
My point is not everyone's fun is the same. The games don't all have to target people who will only play if they can be an elf and it is easy to do so. That is basically going after the money. A developer who enjoys this type of gameplay can make a game with these rules and those who enjoy these rules can play it. You are basically saying everything has to be made for everyone or else it is excluding certain people. I don't agree with that logic.
No. I am saying everything has to be made for ENOUGH people .. otherwise the game will fail and shut down (say Marvel Heroes Omega, or SWG).
So either you design a rare race that a) no one wants to play .. and you don't have a problem to keep it rare, or b) a lot of players want to play, and you should not have a rare race in the first place.
Either way, rare race is a pretty stupid idea. Don't tell me there is a big mass of players clamoring for rare races in games that they will never get to play.
That depends on cost of production. If the audience doesn't mind racial restrictions they may also not mind having the game not be what is considered triple AAA quality. There are a lot of indie games that do fine. Electronic Arts no doubt aims for a certain return value for a game to be worth keeping around. It is probably fairly high.
Don't tell me if i really want to play ironman in marvel heroes and they don't let me, i won't mind. That just contradict of what "want to play" means.
I fail to see any effective difference between using a paywall for a race as a population limiting device and using it merely out of corporate greed, as many of your beloved free to play games do for almost everything.
By the same token, I fail to see any effective difference between the locking of a race behind in-game achievement(s) as a population limiting device and locking a cosmetic outfit or special ability behind achievements simply to aid the feeling of character progression.
You may disagree with the reasoning behind the execution of these ideas, but you cannot disagree with every single one of the ideas themselves and simultaneously call yourself an MMORPG player.
I fail to see any effective difference between using a paywall for a race as a population limiting device and using it merely out of corporate greed, as many of your beloved free to play games do for almost everything.
You may disagree with the reasoning behind the execution of these ideas, but you cannot disagree with every single one of the ideas themselves and simultaneously call yourself an MMORPG player.
Corporate greed is great. With it, you won't have free games sponsored by whales.
I can call myself anything I want to, just like this site can classify anything as a MMO. Whether i *want* to call myself a MMORPG player .. that is another story.
Just make more and better looking skins for the main races you want to promote and most people will play them. You don't see many ogres in EQ2 after all...
You could also lock the account to one rare race character slot and even have the players unlocking it ingame but a paywall wouldn't really make popular races less popular unless you took a huge sum of money to unlock them.
Players play adventurers and they are rather extreme people moving way out of their races comfort zones anyways. If you want to makes elves rare the only working way to do that is by having small servers with plenty of human npcs on.
TOR is locking Twileks behind a paywall, do they seem rare to you there?
You can lock the race/class under achievement. Sort of like the jedi in star war galaxy.
Not everyone wants to go through all the trouble.
But they can quit if they don't think it is fun enough to only play race/class that they are "allowed" to.
Once again, there is no effective difference between not letting a player wear a certain piece of gear before they unlock it and not letting a player play a certain race before they unlock it.
I've never heard of anyone quitting a game because they don't start with literally everything in the game at character creation without even spending any money.
Once again, there is no effective difference between not letting a player wear a certain piece of gear before they unlock it and not letting a player play a certain race before they unlock it.
Of course there is, unless the race is only cosmetic. You don't think the ability to play with different abilities is an "effective difference" in gaming?
Comments
By the same token, I fail to see any effective difference between the locking of a race behind in-game achievement(s) as a population limiting device and locking a cosmetic outfit or special ability behind achievements simply to aid the feeling of character progression.
You may disagree with the reasoning behind the execution of these ideas, but you cannot disagree with every single one of the ideas themselves and simultaneously call yourself an MMORPG player.
Not everyone wants to go through all the trouble.
I can call myself anything I want to, just like this site can classify anything as a MMO. Whether i *want* to call myself a MMORPG player .. that is another story.
You could also lock the account to one rare race character slot and even have the players unlocking it ingame but a paywall wouldn't really make popular races less popular unless you took a huge sum of money to unlock them.
Players play adventurers and they are rather extreme people moving way out of their races comfort zones anyways. If you want to makes elves rare the only working way to do that is by having small servers with plenty of human npcs on.
TOR is locking Twileks behind a paywall, do they seem rare to you there?
Don't give more evil ideas to greedy companies. They wont make more money by locking elves behind a paywall. They will get a middle finger.
A better solution is to hire a better story writer.
I've never heard of anyone quitting a game because they don't start with literally everything in the game at character creation without even spending any money.