Does GW2 have the most unique, best fleshed races of any MMO?

TheScavenger · November 2016

Outside of Humans (which look like barbie and ken dolls), and Norn being rather boring, but at least they look like actual humans than based off dolls.

No game has Charr, by far the best race of any MMO. Sure some MMOs have cat-like races, but Charr themselves are vastly different and look far different than most cat-like races. Their lore is amazing, their animations are great and they look amazing.

Sylvari one could argue being human-like, but they have very unique plant-based appearance. Their lore is also one not often seen in an MMO, maybe some elves could be similar in that elves sometimes are born from the planet depending on the game, but Sylvari are still nicely designed with great lore to them.

Then there is the Asura. No race anywhere has a Gremlin race based off the Stephen King creature. They also have unique aztec/mayan based culture, which I have actually never seen an MMO base that culture off of for a race and their aesthetics.

Each race is heavily fleshed out, and most just never seen before.

Do you guys agree that GW2 has the most unique, best fleshed out races of any MMO?

TheScavenger · November 2016

As an additional post.

The only other MMO besides GW2 with rather unique races (since undead are never playable almost ever for some reason), is WoW. The races in WoW have really fleshed out lore, and pretty good looking races. Undead because there is almost no MMO that actually lets you play as the Undead which is sad. Blood Elves look amazing (the females anyway, the males look dumb) and Night Elves look really cool. Tauren are really awesome and based off native americans. Most of the races in general are nice to look at. WoW's humans are way better looking than GW2 humans, and its by far the worst looking race in WoW. Though a lot of the WoW races (in regards to lore) are kinda cliche and trope-based, and not as unique as in GW2.

Plus, nothing beats the GW2 Charr :pleased:

time007 · November 2016

nah. they are missing a lot of lore. if they had dozens of books out prior to the game being released i would say i think they are the best, but i can't get into them, not without an abundance of books and a universe of lore.

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aliven · November 2016

For me the best race in mmo in general are Taurens and Charrs. Too bad both are fucked up by outfits, armor etc which are made for standard barbie/ken doll.

filmoret · November 2016

ESO did a great job of adding lore to the races. Their problem is all the races use the same models.

Siniorica · November 2016

My main is a Sylvari, but now any time I have a chance I play as a Kodan(with the elixir). Most likely we would not see a new race beside Tengu any time soon. As for one of the most unique races I would vote for The Gibberlings from Allods, moving together in a pack of three as a family, being able to name each of them separately! Not common in depth with the lore of the game but the mechanics they offered for this race are stunning!

Caffynated · November 2016

Unique? No, not by a long shot. EQ, SB, Horizons, and even WoW have more unique races.

Most fleshed out racial lore? It's really one of the only MMOs out there not based on another IP that bothers with a complex in game story, so you could certainly make the argument. Outside of the game itself though, I would say SB, ESO, and WoW all have more depth to the lore of their races.

Kyleran · November 2016

Naw, DAOC with 21 races is better, IMO.

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Archlyte · November 2016

GW2 gets the award for attempt to make some new stuff as far as races are concerned, but I damn near didn't buy that game because of the Asura. I do like the Charr, but they are pretty much your standard Kzinti type race (Kilrathi, Aslan, etc.). I thought that using planyt people instead of elves was a pretty bold move and praiseworthy, but I still found myself wishing for Elves and Dwarves in GW2.

filmoret · November 2016

Kyleran said:

Naw, DAOC with 21 races is better, IMO.

Having 6 different humans 3 different minotaurs wouldn't call that better. But the other races are pretty cool. Though they do seem to be using the same model like ESO does.

Aeander · November 2016

The Sylvari are an incredible, unique race. Arenanet did a fantastic job in making them visually and culturally distinct.

As far as the Asura go, I suppose they are a slightly unique variant on goblins, but they aren't exactly what I would call standouts.

The Charr are pretty well-defined and have a lot of visual variety that helps them stand out from less realized beast races.

The Guild Wars 2 humans are bog-standard as one might expect. However, it is worth nothing that they actually serve a story role more akin to elves (as a dwindling, magically-inclined race), so I suppose they can be given due credit on that front..

(Caugh. And the Norn are a garbage race for trash people. Caugh.)

As for racial lore, it depends on whether we are referring to ingame franchise lore only or if we allow for outside sources (like novels). Guild Wars only has 3 novels, which exist more to set up major plot points than to deepen the races. That sets it back significantly. However, the ingame lore of the series is actually quite deep and fascinating - moreso in Guild Wars 1, where the dialogue tends to be more serious than in Guild Wars 2.

I suppose I can't find too much fault with that fact either. At the end of the day, the main source of lore should be the games themselves. We shouldn't have to read an appendix to appreciate the world we are playing in (I'm looking at you, Destiny).

filmoret · November 2016

I would like to point out that LOTRO lets you play monsters. Well I'm 100% certain that I made a monster character and played it for a while. Now I cannot find it on google anywhere. Which is odd because I remember it being a big deal that you could create a character and make it one of many different monster races then venture out into the mmorpg world and quest like a human.

Thupli · November 2016

I think Sylvari are especially well done, and i like the plot for HoT as it ties back to them. In my mind, the Sylvari and Asura have the better starting areas with tie in lore in gw2.

But other games even with races like Dwarves and Elves have some great lore.

rojoArcueid · November 2016

I did not play enough of EQ2 to get to know the lore behind each race, and like i said many times before, GW2 is my favorite mmo to date (love the Norn and Sylvari lore). With that said, my answer to the OP is, and probably always will be WoW.

Note: I despise the Charr for what they did to Lady Althea in Guild Wars: Prophecies

observer · November 2016

Tera has Popori, Elin.
WoW has Draenei, Worgen, etc
EQ2 has Kerran, Froglok, etc.

There's a lot of other unique races in other mmos.

I'm really starting to hate mmos that only have humans now, but those are mostly asian ones these days. I understand why dev companies do it. It's because they want to save money and time, but it makes their mmos feel generic.

someforumguy · November 2016

But those races (except Sylvari) were already in GW1.
But I do think Asura and Charr are kind of unique compared to elf species nr23878 and orc species nr 27674 in other MMO's.
Sylvari are kind of wood elf-ish. Very nice art, but kind of meh race. Pretty sure they added them for the players who normally chose elf. Treehuggers, pfff

IsilithTehroth · November 2016

You must have just started playing mmos.

Aeander · November 2016

IsilithTehroth said:

You must have just started playing mmos.

Is this the case though? In a genre in which half of the games (ie every Asian MMO ever) consist of human, big human, lolicon, elf, and beast man, I have to say that a race like the Sylvari is a standout. In fact, even in the western market, we're still usually playing the same old elves and dwarves.

filmoret · November 2016

someforumguy said:

But those races (except Sylvari) were already in GW1.
But I do think Asura and Charr are kind of unique compared to elf species nr23878 and orc species nr 27674 in other MMO's.
Sylvari are kind of wood elf-ish. Very nice art, but kind of meh race. Pretty sure they added them for the players who normally chose elf. Treehuggers, pfff

I wouldnt compare a sylvari to a wood elf. They are more like plants then people. Yea they look dumb but their lore is pretty cool. I have a sylvari mesmer and yes he's probably the stupidest looking character i'v ever played.

The thing with GW2 is they went off book. The races aren't pulled out of other games. I mean everyone has an elf, dwarf, orc.... So when you create something unique it catches people's attention. Looking at DAOC's list of races they offered some unique races that although were popular to fantasy lore they weren't popular in fantasy games as playable races.

Kyleran · November 2016

Torval said:

Kyleran said:

Naw, DAOC with 21 races is better, IMO.

Were they well done? I think that matters as much as the number. Crowfall and Camelot Unchained look to have some really interesting lore and races. Hopefully they will be more than skins with a short summary.

IMO yes. Being "a bit" old school, I enjoyed the fact every race had its own stats, and these affected your weapon type choices or spell casting abilities.

Even among "human" types, one would favor swords (slashing) or hammers (crush) due to higher strength while another favored rapiers or daggers (piercing damage) due to higher dex.

There was a very great difference in avatar size, some races such as Elves or Trolls were huge in size, with an advantage of being able to shoot over obstructions other shorter races could not.

Conversely they could also take a head shot while the shorties were safely below the walls.

Even on the battlefield racial differences mattered. Troll Skalds were huge targets on the battlefield, who did more melee damage than their dwarf counterparts which I favored for several reasons.

These includedbhaving more mana for direct damage insta casts, harder to directly target and unless I was in speed mode players could not as easily identify my class.

Finally, and I realize many people hate this, but every race was limited to specific classes, not only by intentional design, but sometimes the racial stats just didn't make a lot of sense to choose a race with lower intelligence to play a DD bolt caster.

Still, since you could add stats to your gear via Spellcrafting it was possible to add any deficient ones so you did see people with unexpected combinations.

Distopia · November 2016

Kyleran said:

Naw, DAOC with 21 races is better, IMO.

DAOC's races were rather boring IMO. I'd go with SWG as having the best races. Most game franchises can't really compete with the depth of lore in something like Star Wars though.

filmoret · November 2016

Kyleran said:

Torval said:

Kyleran said:

Naw, DAOC with 21 races is better, IMO.

Were they well done? I think that matters as much as the number. Crowfall and Camelot Unchained look to have some really interesting lore and races. Hopefully they will be more than skins with a short summary.

IMO yes. Being "a bit" old school, I enjoyed the fact every race had its own stats, and these affected your weapon type choices or spell casting abilities.

Even among "human" types, one would favor swords (slashing) or hammers (crush) due to higher strength while another favored rapiers or daggers (piercing damage) due to higher dex.

There was a very great difference in avatar size, some races such as Elves or Trolls were huge in size, with an advantage of being able to shoot over obstructions other shorter races could not.

Conversely they could also take a head shot while the shorties were safely below the walls.

Even on the battlefield racial differences mattered. Troll Skalds were huge targets on the battlefield, who did more melee damage than their dwarf counterparts which I favored for several reasons.

These includedbhaving more mana for direct damage insta casts, harder to directly target and unless I was in speed mode players could not as easily identify my class.

Finally, and I realize many people hate this, but every race was limited to specific classes, not only by intentional design, but sometimes the racial stats just didn't make a lot of sense to choose a race with lower intelligence to play a DD bolt caster.

Still, since you could add stats to your gear via Spellcrafting it was possible to add any deficient ones so you did see people with unexpected combinations.

I miss the days where you had best choice races for classes. It added a lot of flavor to the game. Now they make all the racial stats the same so doesnt matter what choice you have.

maskedweasel · November 2016

Despite not all of the races are playable, SWTOR by far I would say would have to have the most fleshes out races. I mean there is so much information dating back for decades on all the different races, it's hard to compete with.

Unique... well again, not everything is playable, but there are some crazy unique races in SWTOR too.

observer · November 2016

maskedweasel said:

Despite not all of the races are playable, SWTOR by far I would say would have to have the most fleshes out races. I mean there is so much information dating back for decades on all the different races, it's hard to compete with.

Unique... well again, not everything is playable, but there are some crazy unique races in SWTOR too.

Swtor missed a huge opportunity with playable unique characters. Star Wars has a vast variety of different races, yet Bioware chose the lazy route, and made all their playable races humanoid.

Implementing a different skin texture on the base human model doesn't make it unique.

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Does GW2 have the most unique, best fleshed races of any MMO?

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