MMO Races: Is monstrosity declining?

[Stonehewer]

When my friends started playing Rift, I dutifully rolled up a character because I knew it was a well executed game with a neat take on class systems. I've been playing it on and off for a couple months, and I've always had to suspend my disappointment over the character races. They are all basically human with one dwarf race.

I enjoy monstrous characters. I run monstrous DnD campaigns. WoW was great. I know Ever Quest and Guild Wars have monstrous races, but when I look at upcoming MMOs, it seems that most are lacking monstrous races. At best, they just have a mix of humans, elves and dwarves.

What do you think? Is monstrosity declining in MMOs? What are some playable races you would like to see?

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

Look at The Elder Scrolls games they have a good mix of races.
Edit: I know it isn't a mumorpuger but still it has a good mix of races.

 

[imnot]

Until we get logs as a playable race im not happy!
You can learn abilities like 'Trip' and uh 'Get sat on'
Okay maybe I didnt think this through

 

[MikailCaboose]

Guild Wars 2 let's you play as the Charr! Steampunk-freaking-beastmen!
*looks up* Oh, you mentioned GW...

 

[The Pinray]

I would say yes, but it depends on the game you're playing. My character in WoW is a Troll, and I absolutely love him (Till I hit twenty. I'm not paying a monthly fee for that game). But most people prefer a character that's easier on the eyes, I suppose. I'd like to try a Centaur or something four-legged. That's why my Troll was a feral druid. Stayed in cat form 90% of the time. I really wish there could be like a Mass Effect MMO where you could choose your own race. I'd rock a Salarian Assassin.

 

[Slaanax]

Until we get logs as a playable race im not happy!
You can learn abilities like 'Trip' and uh 'Get sat on'
Okay maybe I didnt think this through

Roll Downstairs or fit on your back.

I prefer to play monstrous, I can be a human any day of the week. I am little concern about the voice acting for TOR, because I don't see all the cool aliens you could be like Wookies and Transdoshan. I like being something different. In Everquest I played a Iskar which is a Lizard man, used to play Draenei and Dwarf on WoW because all my friends played alliance.

 

[Dagnius]

In my theory... I think it's a hit or miss with 'ugly' races. In my experience from WoW, I met a lot of older players on within Horde (until the Blood Elves came along). Most of my Alliance friends were on the younger side, I'd usually ask why they chose alliance and the most common reply was 'because I don't like how the horde looks'.

Then again, The younger players that I met on the Horde went their race because they like being 'the big scary bad guy that smash faces'. IDK I loved the Human Lore (and my Human Paladin)... I also loved the Forsaken Lore (and my Forsaken Warrior & Mage XD)

I agree with you though. When I played Aion and Rift over at a friend's house, Choosing one side or the other seemed to make no difference to me because both sides were human essentially... Just different skin-tones and hair styles.

Unfortunately if you make an awesome looking race, say, a demon with wings and fire swirling around it EVERYONE would rush to be that race unless there is another equally awesome race or two to choose from.

 

[Worgen]

pesonaly I cant wait to play a giant cat monster in guild wars 2

really the lack of any cool monstrous race can make me overlook an mmo, like it took me forever to actually play the first guild wars since you could only be human

 

[Lt_Bromhead]

It's interesting, I think you may be right.

If you look at WoW, at least on my server anyway, people seem to be rolling less and less of the `monstrous` races.
For the alliance, Draenei and Worgen aren't exactly popular, and hell - just ask any Horde player about the influx of Belfs!!

So I think you may be onto something here.

On the WoW forums, I did see someone suggest that she enjoyed playing a Blood Elf because it felt the most human of all the races (granted, the humans themselves don't really look too realistic! ), so yeah. You might have a point.



Captcha:

agree to disagree

 

[hannes2]

I also feel like many MMOs only offer you human or human-ish races (as in elves and stuff), but I agree that there are some great races in the Warcraft universe, like Tauren and Trolls and my personal favorite the Naga, although I think you can´t play as one in WoW (might be wrong, I´m not playing it).

 

[Stall]

Rift is a bad example, since it's a crap WOW clone in all the worst ways.

Anyways, Tera has some interesting races. There is one beast race, and a few very non-human looking races. If racial variety is a strong point for you in MMOs, then you might find it worth looking forward to.

 

[Stonehewer]

Rift is a bad example, since it's a crap WOW clone in all the worst ways.

Anyways, Tera has some interesting races. There is one beast race, and a few very non-human looking races. If racial variety is a strong point for you in MMOs, then you might find it worth looking forward to.

Thanks for the heads up on Tera. I've been hearing about it, but I think I dismissed it before because I had it confused with another game that looked way too Anime for my tastes. I look forward to reading through some of the production transcripts in their forums.

I find Rift enjoyable enough. I found the rifts to be implemented well: better than public events in WAR. They are useful for getting a very early chance to do group healing, which I appreciate because I enjoy playing healers more than anything else. But the creature / race design, and some of the armour design feels really lifeless.

I'd like to try a Centaur or something four-legged.

Interesting. Any time I've suggested 4 legged (or 8 legged) characters for an MMO, people are like "omg it can't work cuz how could it have a mount?" It seems that having a traditional mount is a really ingrained convention.

 

[Stall]

Thanks for the heads up on Tera. I've been hearing about it, but I think I dismissed it before because I had it confused with another game that looked way too Anime for my tastes. I look forward to reading through some of the production transcripts in their forums.

I find Rift enjoyable enough. I found the rifts to be implemented well: better than public events in WAR. They are useful for getting a very early chance to do group healing, which I appreciate because I enjoy playing healers more than anything else. But the creature / race design, and some of the armour design feels really lifeless.

Yeah, I've been following Tera since late last year. I'm in the same boat as you, to where I always roll beast/monstrous races when given the opportunity, and I always feel disappointed when a game is nothing but humans, elves, and little humans. That's one of the reasons Tera originally caught my eye actually. That, and it's a fucking modern game that shows you DON'T have to cover everything in fucking dirt to look good. All the colors in the screenshots really impressed me. I don't like the anime aesthetic too much, but it will hopefully be a welcome change in pace to play something colorful like Tera.

Anyways, yeah, I found the visuals as a whole in Rift to be really just generic and token. The environments were pretty and well rendered, but none of them felt unique. Same with the armor, cities, and everything really. The graphics were good, but the aesthetic design as a whole in the game was just so uninspired and bland. Not to say it was bad, but it just felt like generic fantasy number 231 landscape, so it never felt like anything had a lot of life (besides the rifts, which were really cool).

 

[The Pinray]

Interesting. Any time I've suggested 4 legged (or 8 legged) characters for an MMO, people are like "omg it can't work cuz how could it have a mount?" It seems that having a traditional mount is a really ingrained convention.

I've run into that too. It's sad. But even in the behemoth that is WoW the Worgen don't have a racial mount. They ARE their own mount. They just get on all fours and book it. It's a learned skill and must be activated, working the exact same as a mount. It's sad that something like a mount is so ingrained. A "fast running" skill is such a simple concept. I just love four-legged characters. I'm always a sucker for a hero with a dog and Red XIII is my favorite Final Fantasy character of all time.

 

[Aeshi]

Yes, sadly these days it seems more and more games are falling victim to what I call the "Star Trek Problem" (aka all the "Aliens/Monsters" are just "Humans with added [X]")

Even WoW has basically become "Night Elves vs Blood Elves" at this point.

 

[Twilight.falls]

Yes, sadly these days it seems more and more games are falling victim to what I call the "Star Trek Problem" (aka all the "Aliens/Monsters" are just "Humans with added [X]")

Even WoW has basically become "Night Elves vs Blood Elves" at this point.

More like Humans vs. Blood Elves, really. Well, Night Elves are just behind Humans, so you have a point.


Anyway, I would love if slightly less humanoid races in WoW were playable. Ethereals, Naga, Ogres, Makura and Tol'vir would be very cool to play.

 

[Javarock]

Yes, sadly these days it seems more and more games are falling victim to what I call the "Star Trek Problem" (aka all the "Aliens/Monsters" are just "Humans with added [X]")

Even WoW has basically become "Night Elves vs Blood Elves" at this point.

More like Humans vs. Blood Elves, really. Well, Night Elves are just behind Humans, so you have a point.


Anyway, I would love if slightly less humanoid races in WoW were playable. Ethereals, Naga, Ogres, Makura and Tol'vir would be very cool to play.

I Would love if they added a third fraction with those races as the main consisting races.

 

[Wushu Panda]

Rift is a bad example, since it's a crap WOW clone in all the worst ways.

OT: REALLY!? I've always thought of Rift as to what WoW was striving for but couldn't get it just right. I like WoW, spent a long time attached but if I had to pick one Rift would win. It has better pacing and a plethora more choices when it comes to talent point specialization.

You have to give them credit, they called out WoW from the start and since then Blizz has lost quite a few people to the game.

Topic-
I'm not fully sure you can say that it's declining, when it hasn't always been dominant. You mention D&D but that's not an MMO. Beastly races have been there time to time but most people don't play them. Ask 90% of people who played Alliance in WoW, their choice for that side was "the races were prettier". I've always loved as playing some monstrous beast, my MTG deck is a Beast Horde, but not everyone is able to appreciate them.

Expect a race or two to be beastly in the popular MMO every now and then, but don't get your hopes up of a big variety.

 

[Cobelo]

Yes, sadly these days it seems more and more games are falling victim to what I call the "Star Trek Problem" (aka all the "Aliens/Monsters" are just "Humans with added [X]")

Even WoW has basically become "Night Elves vs Blood Elves" at this point.

More like Humans vs. Blood Elves, really. Well, Night Elves are just behind Humans, so you have a point.


Anyway, I would love if slightly less humanoid races in WoW were playable. Ethereals, Naga, Ogres, Makura and Tol'vir would be very cool to play.

i know they're rare and all, but i really would like to see Pandaren being playable. I love the big badass panda bears. That's the thing i miss about playing WC3.. I still can't find my disc. *sniff*