Maybe I'm blind or can't read, but...

[Deminia]

I absolutely feel it is important to allow existing players the opportunity to convert their character models to another race/gender. I think a one time free option should be available to any player. I am undecided on whether or not to allow additional changes for a fee - if that were also allowed, it would need to be a high enough fee to prevent players from doing this often. I am personally leaning towards a one time free and that is it, and perhaps limit this opportunity to a short time frame - during the free to play period would suffice.

If lore needs to be addressed, I think there are several ways this could be accomplished. Players could "awaken" from a deep sleep and dimly recall either an alternate life or simply a dream of another life or even from a dream about another character's life. Upon waking, the player would be in the new gender/race. Someone earlier mentioned something about "seeing one's true self" - that would also work well.

The entire world map will be changed through a catastrophe - surely if the devs require some lore reasoning behind a race/gender change, this can certainly be not much different. New world, new race/gender - why not? The catastrophe could have changed many things beyond the map. Imps and other mobs have been hiding inside goats and other creatures in the existing world - and are only revealed when something violent or magical reveals them. Players who chose the race/gender change could have also been secretly masked by some spell. Perhaps such players could even have had been trapped within the Necrologis mechanism. Just as not all goats hide imps, not all players were actually hidden by such witchery.

However, should the devs decide to forgo any lore, I would not at all be opposed to having a simple character change during the free period that occurs without any story attached. Either way works for me.