Half Races

[Aadwen]

Hello, and Glad I found a VanGuard Shadowed Souls Site I have been following SS since RoK in EQ. Well now on to my question.

Here is a list of the races

Thestra
Human
Barbarian
Half Giant
High Elf
Vulmane
Dwarf
Halfling

Qalia
Human (2 types)
Barbarian
Dark Elf
Gnome
Kurashasa

Kojan
Human
Barbarian
Half Elf
Orc
Goblin
Wood Elf
Raki


There are a few things that bug me about the races they have listed. I hope this is not the full list, but from what I read it looks that way.

First off, why does only one starting point have Half-elves? Does this mean that only Wood elves and Kojan Humans mate enough to make a race? Dark elves and High elves just are not into it like them crazy woodelves? Just seems weird to me.

Second, they say dark elves have not been living underground for over 1000 years. Does this mean they no longer have night vision, or sufer from day light? (not that daylight penetlies has ever been in a MMO) I know 1000 years to a elf is only 1/2 a life span or so, but it's still along time.

Now on to my last puzzlement. If half-elves are the 50% human and 50% elven, does that mean enough Thestra humans, that don't want to sleep with High elves, make out with Hill giants? GAG!!!! I'm guessing hill giants, becuase I can't see them beeing fire/frost or the other types. Mybe this explains why there are no Half-elves in Thestra, the High elves don't want anything to do with them hill giant leg humpers called Humans

So what do you guys think, or is there something in the lore about why it's like this? I have not had the time to read much of the lore.

Aadwen

[Pirotess]

Hello Aadwen.

The current developer stance on race specific abilities is that they dont like them and dont expect to have them in Vanguard. It is felt that they tend to make people believe a race is specially suited to a specific purpose and they dont want to pigeonhole any race like that.

As to your race question I would say thats probably a matter of the respective races traditional societial values. High Elves are typically aloof and obsessed with keeping their blood line pure. To bed a human and water that blood line down would likely be taught as a great sin to high elven children at a very young age. Dark Elves on the other hand are typically reclusive and arrogant. They would likely look upon a Human mate as a sign of weakness and would rather die than appear weak. Wood elves however have always been portrayed as having a much less rigid and organized society more interested in peace and tranquility than anything else. It seems to me that this is the only reason you see half-elves on Kojan and not on the other two continents.

[Aazenius]

What I don't understand is... why even have races if they aren't going to have specific racial abilities. Why not just make everyone play a human? Sure some races may have itty bitty tiny racial ability scores... but asside from that, what's the point? I like it when races have different abilities, stuff that makes them stand out.

[Khalathwyr]

Originally Posted by Malkius

What I don't understand is... why even have races if they aren't going to have specific racial abilities. Why not just make everyone play a human? Sure some races may have itty bitty tiny racial ability scores... but asside from that, what's the point? I like it when races have different abilities, stuff that makes them stand out.

Variety. It would be pretty boring in a High Fantasy setting if only Humans existed. I like their reasoning behind not assigning additional bonuses to the races because what they say is true. Players will try to find the "optimal" race for a given class and thereafter the majority of the time you see those races it's most probably going to be that optimized class.

While not totally committing to ARAC, this is a step in the direction away from races being paired up with specific classes. Races can be chosen for role-play or aesthetic reasons as opposed to meta-gaming reasons, which is a nice change I think.

[Aazenius]

The only variety I see is my character might be taller or shorter then yours, he might have pointed ears, he might even have fur and a tail...

I feel that all races should have a set group of abilities that is unique to that race. Maybe dwarves are better at crafting with metal, maybe elves are better at working with wood, maybe humans are better at diplomacy...

Not everyone will try to Optimize their character based on what the race gives it. I saw plenty of gnome warriors in EQ1. Sometimes people choose a race/class combo that doesn't make a whole lot of sense from the "optimize" point of view... such as my example.

[panjandrum]

How about just giving each race a different flavour on the same skill/spell?

Having set racial bonuses tends to lead to homogenization more-so than not having it. The bane of most of these games in the end seems to be the min/maxers and the sheep that follow them. People will still find a way, even in EQII you still here that certain races can't be certain classes and it's so not true.

[Pirotess]

Originally Posted by Malkius

Not everyone will try to Optimize their character based on what the race gives it. I saw plenty of gnome warriors in EQ1. Sometimes people choose a race/class combo that doesn't make a whole lot of sense from the "optimize" point of view... such as my example.

True but often thats done just to be different or more unique than most of the other folks playing. Since Vanguard is going to have so many ways to customize your character, I dont think you'd see as much of that being done if certain races were better suited for certain roles.

[Vinx]

I realize there are always min-maxers if you give racial bonuses, but those folks will max on just class if that's all that's available...why rob the rest of us of the chance to come up with imaginative combos? It is nice to have individuality and an intersection of class/race that others cannot achieve. I'm all for less restriction on the combos, it's something many of us have liked since the days of D&D -- if someone want to be an ogre wizard, let em!
It's the game developer's call though--a large segment of the gameplaying public is going to end up playing archetype race/class combos no matter what else is available, even if the main effect of race is just roleplay/aesthetic. Call it the curse of Drizzt or something... the dark elf fixation will always exist.
Cheers,
-Vinx

[Pirotess]

Dunno. EQ2 experimented with the all races could play all classes ideology and it left things feeling flat and uninspired. I guess that could be a function of the game itself being pretty flat and uninspiring as a whole but the system really would need to be improved upon if it were to come to pass. We dont know how its going to go down yet though so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Aadwen]

I was hoping that V:SoH would have gone with race stats. To tell me a Half Giant is as smart as a human is, and that that human is just as storng is not right. Now I don't think they are going to let Half Giants be wizard type classes, and for good reason. The reason is there not as smart. So why is it that human and High elf, both who can play casters, not have some seperation in stats? It only makes since. High elves are abit smarter, but not as storng or have as many HP's. I guess I'm still used to DD still. Well and EQ, since that has been they only MMO that I have really liked.

Aadwen