The Races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Rakshasa, Fairy, and Orc)

[Roekai]

I know this is pretty far down the line, but I would like to see something along the lines of an Everquest faction system; where each race is based in a location and each race has its own faction (i.e. Rakshasa start in a small newbie area somewhere in Illmari and are friendly with Rakshasa in Labs, etc...Orcs start in a small newbie area somewhere in Kur and initially have good faction with the Orcs in Gazalak, Humans South Serb, etc, etc, etc).

No one allowed in the Orc territory and Orc not allowed in any other territory (i.e. Serbule). And, obviously, like in EQ you could change your faction through laborious killing, sometimes even being able to gain favor with competing factions at the same time when battling a common enemy. Some factions would have a tough road, like Orcs, being disliked almost everywhere, but I like it.

Having factions could would also limit the merchants you could sell to, and you could even have item restrictions, and whole skill lines restricted. Like in order to get to 100 sword you need to talk to the orcish trainer so either you need to be an orc and have the easy path to 100 sword or you need to abandon your human home and live with the orcs and shit then have to betray the orcs and work you faction all the way back up again.

If the game ever got popular you could even have a throw away pvp server like rallos zek (and who gives a fuck if its balanced) where you can only attack people with different faction affiliations.

or maybe there is a way to have a more basic faction system, idk.

having races with home cities and factions was a big part of what made EQ feel so big; you simply couldn't explore many places, and hunted in places that other people thought of as safe spaces. Like as a human enchanter i hunted the guards in the dark elf newbie area, and even though i didnt play on a pvp server i would wait until someone needed the gaurd and THEN kill him, fucking the newbie. idk i'm rambling and have bad grammar and shit but i feel like i got the thought across.

any suggestions or criticism or support for this idea?

[ShieldBreaker]

Orcs, Fairies, Dwarves actually will all get their own Starting area when they are created. The Orcs starting area is Gazluk, it's newbie orc content is not added yet. There is also going to be some intrigue with different bands of Orcs, so Orcs might get access to areas that are pretty much off-limits to other races in that the other races have to fight their way through. The Fairies have a fairy land with giant bees and weird looking plant life, a part of the character creation was accidentally added temporarily, a while back, but we were told to ignore it. We know the least about the dwarves but they have a homeland.

The three starting races (Human, Elf, Rakshasa) will all probably always start out on the Starter Island, this means that all players will have the basic same backstory and the same exposure to the Main Quest line. The elves have a homeland, if/when it gets added it might be easier for elves to access it and move freely around it. We haven't got Statehelm yet, which is end game Human Capital. It might be humans will have areas there they can go that other can't, but I think the restriction would be rather limited. The Rakshasa have their city of Rahu, i don't know if it is any different if you are actually a Rakshasa.

I think they will be things like NPC will not talk to you, or you have to bribe them to get them to talk to you depending on your race. I think Citan said he wasn't a big fan of faction systems, but who knows.

It is supposed to be impossible to be a Jack-of-ALL-trades, restrictions and limits to skills are probably planned, but during this testing phase they are not being implemented as rigorously as suspected because it would also limit feedback and testing.

On pvp, why not if there was a pvp server just make it free-for-all pvp, it would be the easiest to implement.

Overall, like you said most of this is pretty far down the line stuff. And honestly this has been discussed before, many times, so actually the devs are aware of it. But all suggestions and feedback is welcome and who know what surprises the future holds.

[Tagamogi]

The Rakshasa have their city of Rahu, i don't know if it is any different if you are actually a Rakshasa.


Not notably. Since I didn't spend my whole life in Rahu, I get treated the same as any other foreigner and still need to buy a visitor's pass etc. The main racial difference I noticed in the game was Gretchen disliking me on sight because I was "rakkie scum" but throwing a few chairs at her fixed that problem. ;)

The problem I see with faction systems is that anytime there is new content, there needs to be new content for all factions, creating at least twice the work for the developers. Or it gets decided that new content is faction-free, which then to me makes it seem that the earlier faction division is kind of pointless...

I liked the EQ faction system a lot from a lore perspective. It was awesome starting a new race/class/religion combo and having to figure out a whole new city and lore and who'd hate you and who wouldn't. It feels like EQ pretty much abandoned the faction system as too much effort pretty early on though and these days, everyone just hangs out in PoK and nobody raises an eyebrow at the gnome and ogre grouping together.

In PG, we already have the beast and non-beast division, and the associated headaches of unevenly available skill trainers and storage, so I don't know if we need to make that worse by making whole areas off-limit based on someone's starting race.

I love it that NPCs in PG will occasionally have different dialog based on the race of the player talking to them and I hope that continues and gets maybe expanded a bit. I'd definitely like to see a few more racists NPCs.


( Random edit: One little bit of flavor racism I also really like is the inscription on the council machine in Rahu.)

[Sasaki]

I want to see some people treat fairies almost like animals, and just not take them seriously at first.