[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by Gentoo

That's a silly argument. No one would be forced to give up their pimped out 75's, period.
So a new race would screw people over because in order to try it, they'd have to start over? This is true even with the original five races.

But you knew what you were choosing between then. You might kick yourself now for choosing to be an Elvaan (as you should) but it was your choice and your own fault. Adding a new race now forces you to give up everything you've done and starting over if you want to play it because you couldn't choose that option before you spent time on your existing character.

Your Race and Look are the only things in the game that can not be changed once you start without creating another character. This is why another character can cost money where as in other MMO's where your job is also set in stone they don't. So trying a new race in FFXI is stupid because it either means you must pay more or you must get rid of everything you've already done.

[WishMaster3K]

SE loves taking something that's already in the game and reskinning it. Or resizing it AND reskinning it: just look at the fact that we have only a handful of monster types in the game, but they're different colors and/or sizes, and the world is suprisingly large and not stagnant.

Unlike EQ, or WoW, who seem to not kare about enemy design. But anyway.

The only thing I see SE doing would be to take an existing race and re-color it, or as someone explained, add more customization options.

A new expansion to explain a new race would take too much development resources that kould be allocated somewhere else, bekcase they'd need to have a story, have missions, a goal, prizes, etc etc etc.

I was going to post and suggest they Cop-Out and do Dark Elvaan, like every other MMORPG, but have these Elvaan as the inverse of the Elvaan we know:

High MP, low HP, High INT, low MND, etc etc etc... But that would just be someone who wants the stats of a Taru w/o the looks. And they'd probably have some other diety they pray to (ie. Promathia), meaning that they wouldn't get along with other Adventurer's, who are together, "for the glory of our respective nations."

So I say we eat our cake while we have it, and not want to have one AND have one to eat.

[Lilani]

Originally Posted by Gentoo

Ugh, indeed.
Yes I know the story. I just don't consider set in stone. It's creative work. Application of good creativity could make it fit.

But then we'd be turning FFXI into most soap operas these days. They have the main story, get bored with it, and then just start patching on all these new characters and sidestories, forcing them to add "But in the case of ..." catches onto things that, up until they got bored, were set in stone. I absolutely hate patchworked stories because it simply means that the writer couldn't come up with a new situation, so they just started scotch-taping catches onto the same idea.

Too much in FFXI is set in stone and is backed up with storylines to add in a whole new race, that isn't a beastman.

[PhiberOpticks]

4. If the race comes in the new expansion pack like the way WoW did it, the players who don't want the pack or who simply can't find/afford it are screwed as well.

That's hardly an issue. That's a choice of whether or not a person wants the extra content. Either way, they're losing out on something.

That's a silly argument. No one would be forced to give up their pimped out 75's, period.

People are less willing to switch to a whole new character. That's what he's trying to get at. It takes hella long to get to that level anyways.

or as someone explained, add more customization options.

*raises hand* Yes. That's definitely something this game needs. Especially with a game developer that's dedicated to that degree of high quality character design.

A new expansion to explain a new race would take too much development resources that kould be allocated somewhere else, bekcase they'd need to have a story, have missions, a goal, prizes, etc etc etc.

You're making it sound like they'd lose money by selling a new expansion with that type of content. And we all know that's hardly the case.

But I take back what I was saying about the beastmen race. It would turn into faction vs. faction and then would be that much closer to WoW.

[raidenn]

Yagudo!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by WishMaster3K

I was going to post and suggest they Cop-Out and do Dark Elvaan, like every other MMORPG, but have these Elvaan as the inverse of the Elvaan we know:

High MP, low HP, High INT, low MND, etc etc etc... But that would just be someone who wants the stats of a Taru w/o the looks. And they'd probably have some other diety they pray to (ie. Promathia), meaning that they wouldn't get along with other Adventurer's, who are together, "for the glory of our respective nations.

This is all wrong.

Dark Elvaans would be kind, loving and gentle. They'd be hippies.

Elvaan as they currently exist live to be pricks. They go to war at the drop of a hat.

[Murphie]

I voted no, for most of the reasons that have already been explained.

The only people who would benefit from a new race would be new players, and people who are actually willing to give up years of work on their current character to start again. Sure, there would be a lot of level 1 mules of the new race, but beyond that, most people wouldn't have much luck.

I'm already not a fan of adding new jobs, but I'd be behind that idea way before I'd be behind the idea of adding a new race.

[Feba]

Elvaan as they currently exist live to be pricks. They go to war at the drop of a hat.

Everyone says San d'Oria is modeled after the french, but that second bit has me wondering...

[Murphie]

Once upon a time they were far more warlike.

[kglover1969]

Maybe Half Elf or Half Mithra...just thinking that a sub race may be cool

[PhiberOpticks]

It's an idea. But whether or not it's a good one is debatable. I don't think I could imagine it in a way that would look good. How weird would it be to see a half-galka half-tarutaru.

[nickofearth]

It'd be pointless to add them now since we already got the Tears of Altana, Arc Angels whom all races are based off of, etc. Races can't come out of thin air, that'd be stupid.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I'd only ever want new races if meant you could play as the beastmen races, but then you'd have to dramatically restucture some of the beastmen strongholds to be starter areas and risk adding a faction system. And then people would scream for more PvP since there were "good" and "evil" sides.

Don't get me wrong, I do like a faction system and PvP in other MMOs, it just wouldn't work in FFXI at this point and SE handles them differently than most companies would.

[fallenintoshadows]

Releasing a new race would perhaps not scew over old players but be a bit unfair unless they offered a limited period to change your race and any racial specific equipment for a short time after the new race was added to allow for this. Also, as for fitting the race into the storyline, no matter how well written in will most likely be poorly thought of by players, especially those who have come to know and love the storyline. We really won't accept "And they came from the moon!" as an explanation.

Making people be able to create beastmen characters like Orcs screams WoW at me and makes me want to /stab all beastmen even more.


Manthras could be a possibility, as for female galkas= there is no such thing

Customization options sounds brilliant, it was the only thing I could really pick at when I started the game and the one defence WoW players I know use to argue that WoW is better than FFXI. The lack of customization. Things like the tattoos on humes and mithra could be optional for all and any race, more hair and facial types perhaps. Of course if this happened, same story for the older players who miss out purely because they've played longer? A tad unfair but easily solved if again they offered a limited time to alter your character once the new changes were put into effect. No doubt with a fee, something like the world transfer server.

[Pteryx]

I don't think we should get a new race for two reasons. One, it'd push the graphical limits of the PS2 pretty heavily, and if we're going to do that we might as well do it by expanding the range of customizability on character models on existing races instead -- letting you choose face and hairstyle seperately from each other, for example, would significantly increase the number of unique looks out there. Two, the story is centered on the five races of Altana, and the five-ness is a bit strongly ingrained. A sixth race of Altana or a PC beastman race would screw up existing story development. -- Pteryx