Non humanoid or traditional player characters

Vermillion_Raventhal

Would you like to see MMORPG introduce the ability to play great monsters or animals that have limitations and advantages.  Like a direwolf, dragon, giant, cyclops and etc.  

Kyleran

Very hard to balance and MMORPGs are all about balance,  in both PVE and PVP.

I think Ashes plans to let players temporarily assume control of boss level mobs, but I can't see an easy to do so on a permanent basis.

I mean, offer a dragon race and everyone will want to be one.

Just like the old JEDI in SWG, they had to try very hard to limit how many could play one and add permadeath or something to make it less attractive.

Lokero

Kyleran said:

Very hard to balance and MMORPGs are all about balance,  in both PVE and PVP.

I think Ashes plans to let players temporarily assume control of boss level mobs, but I can't see an easy to do so on a permanent basis.

I mean, offer a dragon race and everyone will want to be one.

Just like the old JEDI in SWG, they had to try very hard to limit how many could play one and add permadeath or something to make it less attractive.

Well, there's an issue bigger than game-balance with oddball races/species.  That issue being the insane amount of extra work graphically.

Art assets are easily one of the more time-consuming parts of game development.  Every new and unique creature you make playable, you have to add in tons of new animations, etc.  If they wear equipment, that's a whole new can of worms to deal with(clipping, resizing, etc.).

I would like to start seeing more unique races in games, but given the limited funding and manpower most of these developers have nowadays, it's not likely.

It's one of those, "we'd really like to add that... blah blah blah low on the priorities list" features.

Vermillion_Raventhal

Kyleran said:

Very hard to balance and MMORPGs are all about balance,  in both PVE and PVP.

I think Ashes plans to let players temporarily assume control of boss level mobs, but I can't see an easy to do so on a permanent basis.

I mean, offer a dragon race and everyone will want to be one.

Just like the old JEDI in SWG, they had to try very hard to limit how many could play one and add permadeath or something to make it less attractive.

There are many ways of making things rare.  Like I had an idea for dragons.  You essentially had to be reborn as a dragon losing your character and possessions.  You had to be chosen by a rare spawning wandering NPC.  Your power came from a bootable lair that you had to fill and protect.  You had limitations from size, factions and form disallowing you to do many actions.

Vermillion_Raventhal

Lokero said:

Kyleran said:

Very hard to balance and MMORPGs are all about balance,  in both PVE and PVP.

I think Ashes plans to let players temporarily assume control of boss level mobs, but I can't see an easy to do so on a permanent basis.

I mean, offer a dragon race and everyone will want to be one.

Just like the old JEDI in SWG, they had to try very hard to limit how many could play one and add permadeath or something to make it less attractive.

Well, there's an issue bigger than game-balance with oddball races/species.  That issue being the insane amount of extra work graphically.

Art assets are easily one of the more time-consuming parts of game development.  Every new and unique creature you make playable, you have to add in tons of new animations, etc.  If they wear equipment, that's a whole new can of worms to deal with(clipping, resizing, etc.).

I would like to start seeing more unique races in games, but given the limited funding and manpower most of these developers have nowadays, it's not likely.

It's one of those, "we'd really like to add that... blah blah blah low on the priorities list" features.

Yeah that could be an issue.  That is one reason you could always have limitations on what the characters could do.

blamo2000

I would rather they stick to races and when they figure out how to give advantages or disadvantages to those in a real, meaningful, and non-superficial way then we'll see about adding animals.  As of now they all just add in races for superficial appearances and tack on some meaningless benefit that impacts nothing.  If you are going to add races, make it a meaningful choice that has a large impact on mechanical character building and ignore the cries of the people who hate when rpgs do rpg things and want everything to be for flavor or looks-only.

iixviiiix

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

Would you like to see MMORPG introduce the ability to play great monsters or animals that have limitations and advantages.  Like a direwolf, dragon, giant, cyclops and etc.  

Limitations : no armor , only 1 skin , change skin when change classes (to higher level of monster)

Advantages : more stats , faster leveling

Deal ?

TheScavenger

Asheron's Call had playable Olthoi. It was PvP only race and they didn't have any levels/skills sadly, but it was a thing. Only insect race I ever played in an MMO.

Most MMO races are re-skinned and slightly changed humans. With the worst lore ever on top of that. Most of them just have the most uncreative non-human races ever lol.

WoW its really mostly unique races (some re-skins), but each race has a ton of lore you never find in other MMOs. Even if they were all re-skins, cause of the lore and backstory they still are really unique. Like novels length of lore, literally. No wonder its still #1

Po_gg

That's a frequently returning (at least once a year...) topic, so just a short recap of what I used to drop into the mix:

CO. Any kind of non-traditional, but 'humanoid' limited characters (max. 2 legs, max 2 arms, 1 head, within those limits you can build anything from beasts, to zombies or robots etc.)

LotRO. Non-humanoid characters, weaver and warg (pvp-only giant spider with a spiderling minion, and stealthy wolf).


ed.

Kyleran said:

I think Ashes plans to let players temporarily assume control of boss level mobs, but I can't see an easy to do so on a permanent basis.

Weird coincidence but both games above have that feature... small world
(CO has the Onslaught, LotRO the troll/ranger play)

Lithuanian

First and most important: Istaria allows you to be a Dragon. Even to belong to one of two factions: Hellian and Lunus. No class (so nope, no Dragon- dps'er or Dragon-healer...), attacks depend upon Dragon hoard, so - hoard whatever you can. 

I would like to see such creatures in game as long as they have some lore (not just "hey, wanna play Ogre healer") and some weaknesses to compensate some uber-powers. Imagine Lotro's Ent (we had session play) - very slow moving, but capable of great attacks.

Istaria had some "animal" races - Dryads, Ssaris (cat -like?) and othes, but probably these are reskinned humans. Cat, capable of running at 4 legs and jet-run to the tree may be awesome.

There still is huge place for MMOs to create unique, non-banal creatures, developers just need to look outside the box.

TheScavenger

Lithuanian said:

First and most important: Istaria allows you to be a Dragon. Even to belong to one of two factions: Hellian and Lunus. No class (so nope, no Dragon- dps'er or Dragon-healer...), attacks depend upon Dragon hoard, so - hoard whatever you can. 

I would like to see such creatures in game as long as they have some lore (not just "hey, wanna play Ogre healer") and some weaknesses to compensate some uber-powers. Imagine Lotro's Ent (we had session play) - very slow moving, but capable of great attacks.

Istaria had some "animal" races - Dryads, Ssaris (cat -like?) and othes, but probably these are reskinned humans. Cat, capable of running at 4 legs and jet-run to the tree may be awesome.

There still is huge place for MMOs to create unique, non-banal creatures, developers just need to look outside the box.

Fun fact about Istaria for others who don't know (not targetted at you Lithuanian dunno if you know or not but I imagine you do since you know a lot about it, but in general)

They are porting the game (slowly) to Unreal engine. Will be a huge upgrade in terms of graphics.

But they are still updating Istaria a lot, so still worth playing if don't mind old graphics. Istaria is pretty awesome.

Chimborazo

Player interactions while being a "non sentient" monster would be hard: I don't really feel the need for this type of feature, but if somebody wanted to add it in a game, I believe it should be limited to certain scenario 

Vermillion_Raventhal

TheScavenger said:

Lithuanian said:

First and most important: Istaria allows you to be a Dragon. Even to belong to one of two factions: Hellian and Lunus. No class (so nope, no Dragon- dps'er or Dragon-healer...), attacks depend upon Dragon hoard, so - hoard whatever you can. 

I would like to see such creatures in game as long as they have some lore (not just "hey, wanna play Ogre healer") and some weaknesses to compensate some uber-powers. Imagine Lotro's Ent (we had session play) - very slow moving, but capable of great attacks.

Istaria had some "animal" races - Dryads, Ssaris (cat -like?) and othes, but probably these are reskinned humans. Cat, capable of running at 4 legs and jet-run to the tree may be awesome.

There still is huge place for MMOs to create unique, non-banal creatures, developers just need to look outside the box.

Fun fact about Istaria for others who don't know (not targetted at you Lithuanian dunno if you know or not but I imagine you do since you know a lot about it, but in general)

They are porting the game (slowly) to Unreal engine. Will be a huge upgrade in terms of graphics.

But they are still updating Istaria a lot, so still worth playing if don't mind old graphics. Istaria is pretty awesome.

The remnants of Horizon.  Probably the last MMORPG I bought the hype.  Pregame was such a good time though. 

Scot

I assume they can shapeshift to human sized, or those dungeon doors can be difficult to get through.

Large races like Taurans (?) in WoW work well, but giant sized races have real issues. If you only play something the size of a dragon expect all the attendant problems. This is really a niche within a niche, but if you could only sometimes play them and were a normal sort of avatar mostly, it could be really interesting.

Vermillion_Raventhal

Scot said:

I assume they can shapeshift to human sized, or those dungeon doors can be difficult to get through.

Large races like Taurans (?) in WoW work well, but giant sized races have real issues. If you only play something the size of a dragon expect all the attendant problems. This is really a niche within a niche, but if you could only sometimes play them and were a normal sort of avatar mostly, it could be really interesting.

Why would a dragon need to do a dungeon?  I think drawbacks for combat power is one way to "balance" things.  

blamo2000

Since people are giving examples of games that have implemented something like this - Shadowbane had a lot of races that fit the bill of what is being talked about.  Centaurs, for instance, had a much higher base run speed but lost out on equipment slots, etc.  

Cryomatrix

I would use large money wall to promote rarity

Amathe

I would like for there to be a warg class (a la Bran in GoT) that can jump into the minds of other creatures and fight as them. 

Mendel

One of the bigger problems might be resale of items.  Who's going to buy my used Loincloth of Amazingness once they see my character is a fungal slug?  Even if I sell a pristine new one, the customer will think I tried it on.

Scot

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

Scot said:

I assume they can shapeshift to human sized, or those dungeon doors can be difficult to get through.

Large races like Taurans (?) in WoW work well, but giant sized races have real issues. If you only play something the size of a dragon expect all the attendant problems. This is really a niche within a niche, but if you could only sometimes play them and were a normal sort of avatar mostly, it could be really interesting.

Why would a dragon need to do a dungeon?  I think drawbacks for combat power is one way to "balance" things.  

I was not being totally serious, but you are asking for imbalance if you go down the road you are suggesting. You seem to want realism in a fantasy world. Now I am all for that, but we are talking about a game here, you have to balance realism with gameplay.

Think about how crowd control was hard to balance so was dropped newer MMOs (also due to easy mode play values). Now think about balancing the power of being a dragon. Better have everyone a dragon or with the power to become a dragon.

Scot

Amathe said:

I would like for there to be a warg class (a la Bran in GoT) that can jump into the minds of other creatures and fight as them. 

Groups sometimes get confused if a player wears the same colours as a mob, so not sure that would go down to well in group play. But I like the idea.

Grunty

Project Gorgon.  Spiders, pigs, deer, cow, werewolf, bat...

Scot

Grunty said:

Project Gorgon.  Spiders, pigs, deer, cow, werewolf, bat...

You can be a werecow?

Grunty

Scot said:

Grunty said:

Project Gorgon.  Spiders, pigs, deer, cow, werewolf, bat...

You can be a werecow?

I don't know about that.  I never got friendly enough with the neighborhood werewolf to find out.

Amathe

Scot said:

Amathe said:

I would like for there to be a warg class (a la Bran in GoT) that can jump into the minds of other creatures and fight as them. 

Groups sometimes get confused if a player wears the same colours as a mob, so not sure that would go down to well in group play. But I like the idea.

I think it could be like in EQ, with the enchanter class. Enchanters could take over and control most things (non-bosses anyway).