New Character Races!

Yeah! Use your imagination, people, and shamelessly rip off WarCraft!

...I want pointy ears...

I would love to be able to play as the other races in GW.
Charr, Grawl, Gargoyles, Centaurs, Dwarves, Mursaat, Jades, Skale, Undead, the list goes on.

We could have the whole storyline again, but from their point of view.

Charr preparing for the searing, then searing, fighting against the humans in Ascalon, and then I don't know what happens next, maybe over to Orr to fight the udnead hordes?

We know the Dwarf story already, big battle against the summit, some humans helping out, the Mursaat turn up and have a go at them too, and so on.

Imagine playing as a Mursaat though, how cool would that be?

I want blue butts!

Seriously, the game is still too young to rush. I am pretty sure new races, classes and zones will be implemented with the new expansions. The map is still mostly unexplored and can be easily used. Just give the guys some credit and a chance to come up with their own original ideas that were the main reason that made this game more enjoyable than other MMOGs.

What I think, is that (well into the future, possibly xpac after next) when they implement new races, they have their own storyline. Would you love nothing more to be one of the Charr, and burn down Ascalon? DIE RURIK DIE BWAHAHHAHAH!!!! I know I would.

I would like to play as a ghost or undead ... or an evil lich ... would be kind of refreshing in the dogooders world

Too bad the manner in which Rurik died doesn't lend itself to a Dwarf mission... I would love to kill Rurik as a mission objective...

they could o something like replaying the game from the monsters point of view or something. like you do a quest and destroy ascalon and stop the white mantle in gates of kryta and the shining in othe rparts of the game

ahem and the best group...

the trolls

I know this has been said already but dont add elves,drows, orcs etc. Add races such as charr, mursaat, forgotten, centaurs, druids, and dvarves. These races are already in the game and would fit in a lot better than the usual races.

New classes would be great, but new races, no thanks. I think it wont fit in the game at all. They can't put new races in the game all of the sudden.

Why not I think new races would be great..I was sort of under the impression that that was the plan all along for future expansions. How would it not fit..I mean they all ready have dwarves running around why not be able to play them? or like stated above centaur...I agree with not adding new new ones though.

Arena Net has said they will consider new races in future expansions. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Dwarves added, since you meet them quite early and they would be relatively simple to incorporate (compared to other choices, anyway).

Races are actually probably easier to add than classes. Humans will be the baseline. Adding a new race just requires some kind of differentation, but not necessarily any new skills. Adding a new class would require a ton of new skills, which is a lot of work.

For instance:

=Humans=
Hit points: 100 + 20 / level
Energy: 20, 2 basic regen

=Dwarves=
Hit points: 150 + ( 20 / levels 1-10) + ( 30 / levels 11-20)
Energy: 10, 2 basic regen
+20 armor vs. Earth.
-20 armor vs. Water

(So, a non-linear hit point gain; when you reach level 10, you get +20 hitpoints, and when you reach level 11, you get +30 hit points.)

=Charr=
Hit points: 100 + 20 / level
Energy: 20, 2 basic regen

Gains 1 energy after activating any Attack, Stance, or Preparation skill, or casting a Fire, Air, Death, Blood, Smiting, or Domination spell. All other skills cost +1 energy to use.

=Mursaat=
Hit points: 50 + 15 / level
Energy: 25, 3 basic regen


None of those would require difficult coding. The artwork isn't unreasonable for one race per expansion pack. Balancing is a larger issue, but certainly possible. The hardest issue is the design issue of how to insert the race into the game. Do dwarves suddenly show up in Pre-Academy Ascalon? Seems unlikely. Where do they show up? How do you work them in to the Chapter 1 storyline? Maybe you don't.

Some hard questions regarding storyline. The rest is fairly easy, I think.

Mind you, those examples show a very simple way they could add interesting new races. Obviously, races could get skills associated with them, or any number of other interesting things. However, even the relatively small changes I used for examples would play very differently.

Of course, some of them are slanted towards one class or another, but so be it; it would be hard to make races that are actually different without it seeming to slant them in one direction or another, and it allows for some fun when people "go against the grain" and make a Charr Monk Healer.

Other ideas welcome, especially ones that talk about wildly different ways to do races or bring them into their story...

The storyline is why they will be reserved for expansions. Think about it - this way they can add in new content, in a way that slides your characters into the storyline. The issue with the "evil" races like undead and charr is when you want to party them with humans... Why is this Charr running around saving people in the Maguuma jungle? Why is it trying to ascend? CAN it ascend? These questions are awnsered much easier by Dwarves... but I would rather play as a Charr. I think it would be even sweeter to turn some of the Ascalon Missions into PVP Competitve missions... instead of defending the wall/defeating mad hordes of NPC Charr, you find yourself fighting a group of angry player-controlled Charr Bosses.

Humanoid classes may be somewhat easier to fit in. I do miss elves...

I would like Elves, though I agree that every fantasy has the same set of races, which makes it pretty un-exciting. Some origonal races from the game would be good. The centruars, or Charr would make play interesting (I'd want a Charr tanking for my group, wouldn't you?) Hell, playing an evil dwarf would be kinda fun too.

keep in mind assain in coming in chapter 2.

I don't see how ANet would not be able to pull off the insertion of the elf as a playable character. Now I agree elves aren't common in Ascalon but when did you see a dwarf in ascalon? Heck, did you know dwarves were present when you were going through pre-searing the first time? What about the forgotten? Or the mursaat?

There are PLENTY of ways ANet could incorporate totally new races into the game without ruining the Guild Wars' lore. In fact I would be pretty darn excited to see just how they'd be added. I highly doubt they'd make them forest fairies like all the other MMOs. I'd love to see a dark gritty elf like the dwarves have been made to be.

I think it's funny, I was reading this thread and I was going through the same train of thought over and over again which basically went like this: "I don't want ANet to add an overused race [...] I love dwarves in GW they're so cool!"

Anyways I'm going in circles repeating myself. But just so my point can sink in:

ANet CAN make cool elves/orcs/fairies/Conan/Power Rangers, have a bit of faith in our beloved game designers.

I read somewhere, perhaps an interview, that GW would not have the common races and elves were particularly mentioned. Anyone else remember that interview?

Dwarves make sense as they are already part of the story and there are places they could be inserted into the world as we know it. Monster races don't make a lot of sense as how do you explain the enemies we've been fighting to all of a sudden be accepted into human towns?