the racial divide: species, races & cultures

[Traceur]

I've noticed that the requests & disagreements about race selections seem to fall into 4 main levels. With each level the preset choice looses the level of rich details in lore & gameplay nuances the dev's can tailor to the players, but also gives the players more freedom in creating our characters & player-politics divides the way we want too.

choose a tailored background - choosing from a list of specific backgrounds within the world, often within a culture. while this limits players into specific character archetypes, it also enables the dev's to handout the player rich details origin stories for their characters to be built upon within a designated role. Requests for predefined race-class choices (such as in JRPG's), crossbreeds, social casts, predefined bloodlines or factions within a culture, fall under this category.

choose a culture, create a character - giving us the freedom to create our characters from a list of preset cultures. While not as richly detailed as the option above or as freedom giving as the option below, it still enables cultural nuances, mentalities & predisposition to have an affect on gameplay. Requests for historical or fictional human-only cultures such as Celtic, Persian & Chinese, or requests for ideologically divided sub-races such as dark elves & high elves, fall under this category.

choose a race, create a culture - while potentially giving us the freedom to create our own cultures via player-civilizations, you would still have to select from a specific race within a species, often divided by attributes such as height, body build, skin color or minute facial differences. Requests for generic fantasy races such as dwarves & giants, goblins & orcs, or request for cosmetic only racial differences, fall under this category.

choose a species, create a race - possibly the highest level of freedom technically feasible, giving us the full variety & range of a species within the character customization options, while leaving any preset racial choice to be a choice of entirely different species. Requests for engulfing the entire human range within the human racial slot, requests for extreme avatar customization options, & requests for unique & non-humanoid species, fall under this category.

[auutumn]

The post is very good and brings up new ideas I haven't thought of before. The idea of creating my own species/race sounds very challenging and I would hope that the game provides some framework to use. To be able to detail an avatar that's as unique as I am would represent an evolution in MMOs.

[OMGPIE]

I personally think the third one down (choose a race then create a culture) is the one that would have a good level of freedom and still be somewhat simple to do with MO.

[The Last Spartan]

/Agrees with OMG.

Hit the nail right on the head Traceur.

[F0rd]

Umm, option four for the win. I do believe, however, that it is possible to combine the choices one or two, probably two, with option four. Why couldn't I be given full customization of my character, a range of species to choose from, and still choose a culture within my race to originate from? Implying that the only way that developers could include details for a race or culture is by making class presets on character creation seems... skewed?

[Myst]

Originally Posted by OMGPIE

I personally think the third one down (choose a race then create a culture) is the one that would have a good level of freedom and still be somewhat simple to do with MO.

I agree with that, and voted the same thing.

[SkirmCard]

Sweet mother jesus Traceur, how long did that take you? (very nice btw)

Customization Options: Each race has it's own ranges of physical abilities and attributes, some positive, some negative I love it.

Individuality: having unique recognizable faces replace name tags would be revolutionary (imho), but I have a small feeling that that kind of system would be very biased to people with very high end computers who can make out outfits/faces at greater distances than those who have lesser computers.

I love the ideas in "integrating the levels of racial divide", but I would like to suggest a random idea I just had for picking a culture/race.
What if you could breed from the standard races? What if you could choose what the races your grand parents, and/or parents were? Then depending on what race the males were versus the females, and what race dominates your family tree could help point where you would most likely be living in the world.

This would also help a player to try to create a character tailored to his or her needs.

[foolheart]

Originally Posted by Traceur

6) when finally each group has being chosen a concept and is now a race, each of them gets fleshed out: different attributes & possibilities are redefined to fit it, with possibly it's own unique attributes others don't, expanding upon the concept the tapestry of details & thus how to implement it's existence into the game world is expanded: what are their cultures? where do they live? what do they believe? what are their traditions? what is their history? what are their relations with other cultures?

Won't all races live in harmony though? Meaning that culture is so superfluous. This is in reference to the "choose race, create culture" option. I chose it and then i wondered why after.

I find it funny how people expect all races to oppose other races, or be segregated in games, and in reality being rascist isn't allowed.

[Traceur]

Originally Posted by foolheart

Won't all races live in harmony though? Meaning that culture is so superfluous. This is in reference to the "choose race, create culture" option. I chose it and then i wondered why after.

I find it funny how people expect all races to oppose other races, or be segregated in games, and in reality being rascist isn't allowed.

will races live in harmony? given that in my system cultures are dependent on starting location, then just like races can have multiply civilizations, some civilizations might have multiply races.

with humans being the only race in the start of the game, it would be up to the players if they accept new races or not, and as they build up their own player civilizations and cities, it would be up to the players if they want to group up based on races or not. some civilizations might be racist while others may prefer a racially diverse culture. it entirely depends on the player actions.

[Saviour]

I agree with the 3rd one too