New Race Announced! The Au Ra

[Verius_Nox]

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That's all well and good to say, but I've already had a number of friends(including my girlfriend) unsub after awhile because they don't like the lack of variety of races, and can get more options with the same style of gameplay this game offers, in other games. So to say their act of adding in a sixth normal/cute/beautiful human race is to keep any form of success is.. well, poppycock.

[Elazu]

That's all well and good to say, but I've already had a number of friends(including my girlfriend) unsub after awhile because they don't like the lack of variety of races, and can get more options with the same style of gameplay this game offers, in other games. So to say their act of adding in a sixth normal/cute/beautiful human race is to keep any form of success is.. well, poppycock.

And how many more people play because the races are good looking?

Just look at the Roegadyn and Highlander population. There's a reason why nobody plays them.

[Verius_Nox]

And how many more people play because the races are good looking?

Just look at the Roegadyn and Highlander population. There's a reason why nobody plays them.

Except people already play those "good looking" races because they're already available. So, they are a population that already have something that they like and want to play with. The population of players that would like more variety and choice, do not have this option, thus SE is turning away players from their game because they prefer to keep everyone a normal boring human.

[Jynx]

because they prefer to keep everyone a normal boring human.

The truth is harder to accept than the fiction. All races are humanoid and generally the same shape because it's easier to design for. It has nothing to do with them not wanting to give you a cowman with 5 arms, hell I'm sure they would love too but they allready don't care enough to fix hillarious glitches with some armor sets and clipping be damned.

Do you really expect them to animate and work around a entirely new beast-like race at this point in time? If we seen them take great care and polish with the allready established races you might have a point. Right now though, I'd rather see them fix up the current races than even introduce these guys at all.

[Nestama]

Do you really expect them to animate and work around a entirely new beast-like race at this point in time?

Perhaps before 2.2 came out, yes. I actually do expect SE to make a race that is more bestial than human (since we already have four playable Hyurs in the game. Lalafell are barely Hyurs, since they lack knees), especially as we're paying them a monthly fee. People have turned this game down because of the lack of variety. Sure, we can only blame Tanaka for making the current five races similar (but removing everything that made them unique) to the FFXI races, but Yoshi-P and his team could have done something new with their new race. Or they could have brought an old concept from FFXI to life.

Galka concept art

[reivaxe]

Some ppl is indeed defending the design in a wrong way, it's not a surprise we have a lot of forum users here that act that way, it's not only this thread. But anyone defending the actual design is right, it's done, making the models take a good amount of time of work and testing, it can't be changed now, at least if you want the expansion for this spring. Some players just don't like the new race, it's normal, we are a lot of here and there's no way they can please everyone with a single race, but that's how you should take it, instead of asking for options that are impossible unless you delay the whole expansion, you should just keep giving feedback, that way the next expansion will please those who want something more beast like, instead of those who like more human like looks.

Anyway, i paid for the nico nico stream and i remember they saying that this race would have a lot of options for character creation, may be they could please even more people.

Gonna call bull on the bolded.
For people asking for more scales you wouldn't actually have to change the MODEL or animations at all, you could just make it a texture and keep the plate scales they have now ... simple as as that. Would be like this, you don't have to add MUCh to the model they have now to get a more scaly, beast like look to the skin. That's something they may have planed for now or may add in if enough players make a fuss about it this early on in the reveal.

As for not being able to please everyone with one race, I disagree with the notion that that's grounds to not TRY to please more people. I think that the humans are a great example of this. You have two tribes of humans that look fairly different and cover the range of people who want bigger, bad ass women and men and those who want cute or smaller and such people. They could have tried the same here, make one tribe what they are now and the other with bigger, bad ass women and more beastly options for both tribes.

And if they truly DO have a ton of options for the new race that covers things that some people want already then that's great ... but we haven't seen this yet so we can't just assume that.

If you hate that kinda sexual dimorphism, play a Lalafel?

Seriously, what's the kick on this about? It's the only race with such a difference, and so what, it's a fantasy race.

As for the more options, I haven't heard, no to more options, I just heard people say, it's likely due to it being considered a waste of time and money. Look to TERA. AMAN (either gender) and Barraka are not popular races.

Also, it's to late to really change a race that people already play and enjoy. Would have to be a new one, for the cat idea.

Why play just Lalafel? I can play any other race in this game and have less sexual dimorphism than wuts presented in this race ... cause no other race has the default height difference at 2 heads.
It's a fantasy race ... but this game isn't exactly drowning in race options. So this new race at the very least offers a new and interest body shape for males and ... not so much at all for female characters.
So you heard people being ok with it because they think the huge company behind this game thinks it would be a waste of time and money. I have heard people actively against more options because they don't like looking at "ugly characters" and they use money and resources as their defense for why asking for it is being ungrateful and whiny.

And I take your TERA example and counter you a GW2! From wut I see on the census, sure, 50%ish of players play the human race or the big human race (norn). But the other 50%? They play the plaint people race that have options for crazy bark faces and plaint hair and glowing body patterns/ the creepy looking lil people race of big headed deamon things/ the ugly cat monster race that runs on all 4s. And they play those 3 in equal parts pretty much. And that's a "b2p" game .. not a sub based game. They somehow have the time, money and resources to handle ugly cat monster race that runs on all 4s yet that would be a "waste" in this game.

As for the cat idea it wouldn't make sense to make a 2nd cat race when you could just give people the option with in the current race. Giving the option wouldn't negatively effect current kitty people. Heck, they could make it a 3rd tribe.

Except people already play those "good looking" races because they're already available. So, they are a population that already have something that they like and want to play with. The population of players that would like more variety and choice, do not have this option, thus SE is turning away players from their game because they prefer to keep everyone a normal boring human.

This.

To me it seems clear that this isn't a race added in to draw in new people ... it's a race for people who are more so happy with what they have and might wanna make a buff human dude with horns or turn their kitty girl into a ... horned girl. It's strange to me that they don't seem to want to give much incentive to using the Fantasia in the cash shop. Making furry cat people options with coat patterns and more cat features alone would likely make tons of people grab one. I'd use one right now cause I made a much better roe alt that I want as my main but I'm not sure if I should bother if it's just to change the face and skin and not for, say, body shape options as well.

A sign that they truly want to tap into untapped markets would be them making a race that's not like anything we have now ... like wuts in many other MMOs as well as the only MMO I have heard them say is something they should be worried about (Again, that's EQN. A game where players can be humans or sexy elves/ dark elves or dwarfs or huge Orgs or Big Pretty cat people who run on all 4s or Iksar so far with the possibly of being anything from Frog or Rat people to who knows wut in the final game)

[Renik]

Gonna call bull on the bolded.
For people asking for more scales you wouldn't actually have to change the MODEL or animations at all, you could just make it a texture and keep the plate scales they have now ... simple as as that. Would be like this, you don't have to add MUCh to the model they have now to get a more scaly, beast like look to the skin. That's something they may have planed for now or may add in if enough players make a fuss about it this early on in the reveal.

As for not being able to please everyone with one race, I disagree with the notion that that's grounds to not TRY to please more people. I think that the humans are a great example of this. You have two tribes of humans that look fairly different and cover the range of people who want bigger, bad ass women and men and those who want cute or smaller and such people. They could have tried the same here, make one tribe what they are now and the other with bigger, bad ass women and more beastly options for both tribes.

And if they truly DO have a ton of options for the new race that covers things that some people want already then that's great ... but we haven't seen this yet so we can't just assume that.

If you want them to make females bigger, it would require a full rework, model, textures , gear and animations, and of course testing.

About the scaled skin done with textures, with the information we have this is simply not possible for now,the scales of the Au Ra are too big in comparison with their body, because they are partial, you can't use these to cover the whole body not to talk about a complex surface like the face, and doing them as pure texture is something Yoshi wouldn't accept, because it would look horrible.

It's too late to change them, they could have made them more different between clans, like hyurs, but they haven't. you might be able to make a fierce and more scaled character, i don't know.

But as i said, some people like it, others don't, give feedback for he next one.

[reivaxe]

If you want them to make females bigger, it would require a full rework, model, textures , gear and animations, and of course testing.

Maybe you're misreading what I said.

"For people asking for more scales you wouldn't actually have to change the MODEL or animations at all, you could just make it a texture and keep the plate scales they have now ... simple as as that. Would be like this, you don't have to add MUCh to the model they have now to get a more scaly, beast like look to the skin. That's something they may have planed for now or may add in if enough players make a fuss about it this early on in the reveal."


That's just for people asking for more scales and more beast like skin. There's a thread on this forum that was made by someone who wanted people to speak out to SE about making an option for more scaly skin/ beast like features to the race. That would all be in the textures/ some model tweaks maybe. Would not effect animation or gear to give the more plated scales on some parts along with scaly skin textures.

The thing about making the women bigger was me giving an example of how they COULD'VE TRIED TO please more people with this race to counter the notion that they simply can't and shouldn't try. I never requested that they simply make the girls look like FemRoes at this point, just that I don't like how they turned out compared to the dudes now that we see them both side to side.

About the scaled skin done with textures, with the information we have this is simply not possible for now,the scales of the Au Ra are too big in comparison with their body, because they are partial, you can't use these to cover the whole body not to talk about a complex surface like the face, and doing them as pure texture is something Yoshi wouldn't accept, because it would look horrible.

Bolded it non-sense. It's common practice to have skin textures take the place of making something have the appearance of w/e texture through polygons. You can see it with the Drakin in Wildstar for example (notice how his skin looks scaly even in this super cartoony style because of the texture with only a few large plates that would effect the model. They also did the smart thing and made their under belly area and parts pf the face lighter as to make them look more like reptile skinned beings)

My character has a scar on her face ... you can see this as a scar because they're good enough at textures to make a scar look like a scar on the skin. I'm more than positive they can make scaly skin textures not look bad seeing as it's not hard to find examples of that in this game as is.

It's too late to change them, they could have made them more different between clans, like hyurs, but they haven't. you might be able to make a fierce and more scaled character, i don't know.

But as i said, some people like it, others don't, give feedback for he next one.

We are giving feed back right now lol

[Renik]

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If all you want is texture and just as an option, it is possible, but don't say it will be easy, they have to make them look good, they have to give them lightning effects and depth, the more effects you leave to the texture itself, the more time it takes, but these are usually made by a single person, it's up to SE.

[Kyrausagi]

Yes you are correct.
3D modeling and animation is no cake walk. You have to be precise.