Recently I learned that
in Vanilla World of Warcraft one of the ideas for a playable race that never
got implemented were the Naga, a sea serpent race. So this got me thinking
about how most MMOs have rather boring and uninteresting playable races. (We’ll
get back to the Naga a bit further down).
Character creation in
MMORPGs tend to boil down to 2 armed, 2 legged, humanoid, 3 sizes: small,
normal, and large (the large races often have a slight hunchback), and their
female equivalences being standard humans with a few more jiggle physics and
different coat of paint. And while there’s nothing wrong with having
traditional fantasy races such as Orcs and Elves, I seldom see anything
different. Even Final Fantasy 14, a game that I did enjoy playing, its races
were rather disappointing with the more “unique” ones amounting to bad cosplay.
If you’re going to include cat or dragon “people” into your game you could do a
little more than just slap on ears and a tail. Maybe throw in that good old
fashion hunchback, or add some more fur or better yet just get rid of that damn
human skin. Why the fuck does a dragon have tits?!
While I’m not trying to
rag on 14 (and believe me I could do that all day), that was just an example of
what’s typical in the MMO genre today. Guild Wars 2 has a more unique race, the
Charr, that actually resembles a beast, and I greatly appreciate that, but alas
that’s just one case.
My guess as to WHY this
is the way it is:
-
Having all races be of similar shape
makes creating armor and clothes easier for them.
-
A lot of players today do not want to be cucked
by racial abilities, so why make something completely unique if it’s going to
function 100% exactly like a human?
-
Tits. A lot of gamers want their fair skinned
races still, look at FF14.
As for the solution, well
that’s a very complicated matter, but I think that game developers and
publishers need to reconsider their definition of “success” and appeal to those
who want something different such as more unique races. For example Old School
Runescape became a thing, bringing back a 2007 game in 2013, and now there’s
the anticipated Classic World of Warcraft bringing a 2004 game in (hopefully)
2019. This shows to me that some, often smaller teams, are willing to accept a
smaller amount of success compared to one that tries to appeals to everyone.
I for one am looking
forward to the release of Classic World of Warcraft, despite never having
played during the Vanilla days. My reason is that it sounds like a far more
unique experience compared to mainstream MMOs. The sense of accomplishment and
achievement sounds far more rewarding. The sense of community and emphasis on socializing
playing a critical role in the game appeals to me as I believe that’s something
that makes MMOs unique as a genre. When I played through Final Fantasy 14, I
felt like I was playing through a single player game, and while it was fun much
like other Final Fantasy games, I felt it didn’t have much going for it as an
MMO and cancelled my subscription once I was done with the story. I look
forward to the older DnD style of RPG elements in something like Vanilla WoW,
where certain specs were more viable depending on the situation, where wild
monsters could be overwhelmingly powerful yet possible to kill, where the stats
on a piece of gear were more unique and a higher level wasn’t inheritably
better, and getting back on subject, where the racial abilities of each
individual made them unique and gave them advantages in certain scenarios. The
Forsaken (Undead) could eat humanoid corpses to restore health, Orcs had
natural resistance against being stunned in battle, Night Elves could blend
into the shadows giving them stealth. These abilities while small, made the
individual more unique, which made them more desirable for fulfilling certain
tasks, even if only marginally.
Imagine if the Naga were
a playable race in World of Warcraft. They could have the unique racial ability
of breathing underwater, have polearm proficiency, and increased swimming speed
much like the druid’s aquatic form. They would be the only race without legs,
making them stand out (OR! If the lack of feet is a concern for boots, then a type
of tail belt can suffice. Or maybe if we’re getting creative they can’t equip
boots at all and instead get their defense for that slot either passively or
maybe a unique system like increasing scale hardiness through unique foods or
intense training. Imagine in WoW terms if having more defenses or attack for
the Naga was a similar to picking perks for your class. While obviously not all
these ideas may work or may be a lot of trouble to implement properly, it does
offer more uniqueness to the race and offers new possibilities for content.
You may have heard of
“Overlord”, a series with MMO elements where the writer clearly put more points
in world building than actual story telling. While I am growing bored of the
story, the lore and world building that Kugane Maruyama put into Overlord is
fascinating and insanely well detailed. (He seems to be a DnD fan). And while
his world is very much fictional and not a real game, there are a lot of
non-human races where inspiration for game creativity can be taken from. For
example the most simple of monster races, the slime.
For example there’s “Herohero” a slime who while was weak physically, could break
down armor and weapons. Imagine if in your favorite MMO there was an ability or
a way to “break” your opponent’s weapons in combat, even if only temporarily?
How would that change the PvP scene? In the PvE scene a slime could be seen as
a primarily debuff focused race.
What about gear? Would
the slime just wear a helmet, sword and shield with his stubby little
non-existent limbs? Or perhaps he could be unique and instead of “equipping”
gear a slime would have to dissolve any and all gear he obtains, converting the
points that it would give into stats, until they are replaced by better gear?
On one hand this seems like a downside for a race, always destroying whatever
gear he gets, right? BUT, what if the benefit was all dissolved gear was broken
down in the same way an Enchanter would break down gear, giving parts and
components in the same way? So for the downside of breaking down gear
constantly, the slime race would essentially always have the disenchant
ability, without ever having to become an Enchanter.
My point, in summary, is
that MMOs should have more unique races for the sake of player individuality,
more unique gameplay styles and content. The potential that comes from
non-conventional and different abilities of races in MMOs is largely unused and can
help create a more engaging world for the MMO genre. Traditional themepark MMOs
made by triple AAA companies will not likely attempt this, rather smaller teams
and indie studios are more likely to try, but alas notably different
races would probably be one of the last things a small team making an MMO would
consider, due to cost and time.
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