IMO on this subject

They might a well do all kinds of aliens and stuff since we are not going to continue class stories or companion storylines, seems silly to restrict options for veteran players due to a storyline left far behind

Just tie aliens and even non basic speaking aliens into the legacy system where you can unlock then for classes in which the Main 1-50 quest line has been completed with a CM purchasable option.

IMO on this subject

 

They might a well do all kinds of aliens and stuff since we are not going to continue class stories or companion storylines, seems silly to restrict options for veteran players due to a storyline left far behind

 

Just tie aliens and even non basic speaking aliens into the legacy system where you can unlock then for classes in which the Main 1-50 quest line has been completed with a CM purchasable option.

Umm... all the main reasons for not having them still exist in the continuation of the faction storylines. Nothing has changed in that area.

You still have camera angles to think about, you still have flirting and the like. So the reasons that were because of storyline are still there.

IF they would REALLY want to listen and actually give the race that the most want, they could simply force by default no helmet shown and make everyone aware of it.

That's not the only problem though. Infact it's the lesser of the issues that exist with two of the most requested races.

I know that the Togruta are the most requested race, and after them I think it's the Nautolan. Note this is going by the forums and species that use the existing body types.

Anyways the Togruta and Nautolan present a problem with their head tails d****** their shoulders. Now you can easily disable/prevent head pieces from showing up the way they do on a number of companions, however their would be alot of armor sets that the head tails would clip through and I don't know if everyone would be as accepting of that as they would helmets.* I only say that because once someone's favorite armor set or X PVP/PVE they spent forever aquiring no longer looks good I can imagine them getting upset.

But yes, if you made players/people understand that there would be severe clipping issues, no helmets, or whatever with races like Togruta and Nautolans then they should go ahead and do them.

They really need to put out a dev diary video about making a new race, what goes into, what it takes, etc, because in the past they've said that even something like the Cathar are more difficult than people think and take alot of time, but have never actually explained why or how.****

Why has to design team gone so far from offering new and interesting species to only more humans with new colour options and funny eyes.

Because races like the Cathar and Voss use or can use the existing body types, don't present any clipping issues, can use all the existing armor, don't present any problems within cutscenes, etc, etc.

There's a very small window of races that fit all of those requirements.

Anyway the problem is that making Voss a new race for players would be complete and utter lore-rape and would just work silly in game. All player toons are called as outsiders when they arrive at Voss. It's a terrible idea and I would not buy the Voss unlock at all.

Seriously?

If you play as a Cathar Trooper or Smuggler you can have a quest giver explain to you what a Cathar is within the first 10 minutes of the game. Not to mention the number of instances on Taris where the same thing can happen too along with the fact that Taris is a Cathar heavy planet and your race would play a big deal in a number of quests.

How about the fact that you can play as a Chiss Smuggler and can ask what a Chiss is in one of your class quests.

Your race outside of a few rare instances has always been cosmetic and breaks the lore in a number of instances, but you're acting like this is the first time it's happening in TOR.

All the Voss in this look the same. Blokes are blue with yellow, women are red with blue.

 

There's nothing to distinguish them aside from clothing so unless they pull some kind of a retcon on every Voss NPC in the game customisation options for a Voss player character would be sparse to say the least.

Did you forget the fact that Cathar were exactly the same way before they became a race?

Outside the Trooper's first companion (Aric) there were only two Cathar models in the game. A male and a female. Once they were made a species they worked like any other race in terms of customization.

Now given that, why would you not think the Voss would be the sameway?

Also note that the existing/vanilla Cathar (NPC) faces are not available for the player to use when creating a Cathar and actually look quite different, which is weird, and I imagine the Voss will be the sameway. In other words you won't be able to make a Voss character that looks like the existing two Voss just as you couldn't with the Cathar.

Plenty, but not near top 3. That was the point I was trying to make. Also, back in the days, Cathar was never higher than 3rd place. They listened alright...

Actually during the closed beta the Cathar were the most requested species. This was due to the fact that players came across them so early on Tython and Ord Mantell.

It was only long after that point that other races became more requested, like the Togruta, but by Bioware had decided during the beta days that Cathar were going to be the next race.

IMO on this subject

 

They might a well do all kinds of aliens and stuff since we are not going to continue class stories or companion storylines, seems silly to restrict options for veteran players due to a storyline left far behind

 

Just tie aliens and even non basic speaking aliens into the legacy system where you can unlock then for classes in which the Main 1-50 quest line has been completed with a CM purchasable option.

It has nothing to do with the story though

That's not the only problem though. Infact it's the lesser of the issues that exist with two of the most requested races.

 

I know that the Togruta are the most requested race, and after them I think it's the Nautolan. Note this is going by the forums and species that use the existing body types.

 

Anyways the Togruta and Nautolan present a problem with their head tails d****** their shoulders. Now you can easily disable/prevent head pieces from showing up the way they do on a number of companions, however their would be alot of armor sets that the head tails would clip through and I don't know if everyone would be as accepting of that as they would helmets.* I only say that because once someone's favorite armor set or X PVP/PVE they spent forever aquiring no longer looks good I can imagine them getting upset.

 

But yes, if you made players/people understand that there would be severe clipping issues, no helmets, or whatever with races like Togruta and Nautolans then they should go ahead and do them.

 

They really need to put out a dev diary video about making a new race, what goes into, what it takes, etc, because in the past they've said that even something like the Cathar are more difficult than people think and take alot of time, but have never actually explained why or how.****

Well, if I use this http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Togruta as reference, specifically, the picture used for racial characteristics (orange skinned - white and black arrow head-tails), they could do the head-tails like the twilek`s one - solid, with their mesh above any armor mesh and force no helmet, to avoid clipping with the montrals (horns). Alternatively, they can force only one type of lekkus, or only 2 - frontal and backwards, straight. The backwards is already in place, from the existing twilek race. They also should have the know-how to avoid or minimize clipping, from previous twilek problems in the past years, too.

I am sure there are solutions, if they would really want to find them. And if, just IF, they want to be more catholic than the Pope, they could add with the race, above 10-20-30 specific headgear pieces, with the required disclaimer, of course. I am SURE that the ones wanting Togruta won`t mind - not the vast majority, anyway.

Umm... all the main reasons for not having them still exist in the continuation of the faction storylines. Nothing has changed in that area.

You still have camera angles to think about, you still have flirting and the like. So the reasons that were because of storyline are still there.

No reason a rodian can't flirt with the ladies.

I would be happy with generic faces for races like sullustan, Bith or kahleesh

I didn't notice this right away myself, but the Voss appear to be a unique body type in this game, not shared currently by any of the playable character races. Go stand next to one and you will notice that they appear as a body type 2 from afar but are actually much taller.

I know the quote from the devs that people are talking about, but I am very skeptical about the Voss as a playable race, this being only one of the reasons. There are other races that are more iconic to the Star Wars universe and which can be worked into the current body types available.

My poor body type 3 female Cathar already magically shrinks every time she kisses Aric and then grows back to her normal height as soon as she steps away. It's weird...and I'm thinking a playable Voss would have that same problem, among others.

I didn't notice this right away myself, but the Voss appear to be a unique body type in this game, not shared currently by any of the playable character races. Go stand next to one and you will notice that they appear as a body type 2 from afar but are actually much taller.

 

I know the quote from the devs that people are talking about, but I am very skeptical about the Voss as a playable race, this being only one of the reasons. There are other races that are more iconic to the Star Wars universe and which can be worked into the current body types available.

 

My poor body type 3 female Cathar already magically shrinks every time she kisses Aric and then grows back to her normal height as soon as she steps away. It's weird...and I'm thinking a playable Voss would have that same problem, among others.

Not to mention the different voice patterns the Voss have which don't match any of the classes' voices, and the fact that Voss was just rediscovered a short while ago. That isn't even considering their culture, and how the large majority of the Voss are faction neutral (only listen to their Mystics).

And since none of the playable classes have ever been to Voss before, how weird would it be to play a Voss and a dialouge option pops up saying something along the lines of "What is Voss like?" or "I've never heard of that planet (Voss) before".

Voss, Nautolan, Mon Cal and Wookies, do I need to say more?

Well, if I use this http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Togruta as reference, specifically, the picture used for racial characteristics (orange skinned - white and black arrow head-tails), they could do the head-tails like the twilek`s one - solid, with their mesh above any armor mesh and force no helmet, to avoid clipping with the montrals (horns). Alternatively, they can force only one type of lekkus, or only 2 - frontal and backwards, straight. The backwards is already in place, from the existing twilek race. They also should have the know-how to avoid or minimize clipping, from previous twilek problems in the past years, too.

 

I am sure there are solutions, if they would really want to find them. And if, just IF, they want to be more catholic than the Pope, they could add with the race, above 10-20-30 specific headgear pieces, with the required disclaimer, of course. I am SURE that the ones wanting Togruta won`t mind - not the vast majority, anyway.

That's seems overly complicated. Actually I just think you described exactly why they wouldn't want to do it, ie "oh well they could just do this, this and/or this." It's easy to say, much harder to do. You also gotta remember that most people aren't going to want to compromise, they want what they know, so they're not going to get away with doing the leku hanging over the shoulders.

Oh and here is a good example of the clipping issue Togruta present with armor(s)

https://live.staticflickr.com/5018/13454777413_5a7ebdd759_b.jpg

HOWEVER, this is all based on the way Togruta are currently designed in the game and if the Cathar are any indication of how they add in a playable race they might rebuild the Togruta race. For instance the playable Cathar don't look really look like the NPC vanilla Cathar(s) which I was kinda disappointed by, because I liked the way they looked.

If they rebuilt them it could allow them to to play around with the leku physics abit because as it stands right now the physics for the Togruta leku aren't like that of the Twi'leks. The Togruta ones are much more stiff.

I didn't notice this right away myself, but the Voss appear to be a unique body type in this game, not shared currently by any of the playable character races. Go stand next to one and you will notice that they appear as a body type 2 from afar but are actually much taller.

 

I know the quote from the devs that people are talking about, but I am very skeptical about the Voss as a playable race, this being only one of the reasons. There are other races that are more iconic to the Star Wars universe and which can be worked into the current body types available.

The Voss don't use different body types. They use the same meshes and skeletons, but have been resized.

For instance Lord Scourge is Sith Pureblood who uses Body Type 3. Here he is standing next to my Jedi Knight who is also a Body Type 3, wearing the same armor. Notice that Scourge is bigger. This is simply because the model's dimensions have been made bigger, but the body type and skeleton remain the same. They have to for things like animations to work properly.

https://live.staticflickr.com/5229/13455028334_c0c3a4a0fc_z.jpg

My poor body type 3 female Cathar already magically shrinks every time she kisses Aric and then grows back to her normal height as soon as she steps away. It's weird...and I'm thinking a playable Voss would have that same problem, among others.

The kissing scenes all use the exact same animation regardless of body type. It's always positioned so that the male is taller than the female. Lots of games handle this the same way. It's done to make things easier.

Not to mention the different voice patterns the Voss have which don't match any of the classes' voices, and the fact that Voss was just rediscovered a short while ago. That isn't even considering their culture, and how the large majority of the Voss are faction neutral (only listen to their Mystics).

 

And since none of the playable classes have ever been to Voss before, how weird would it be to play a Voss and a dialouge option pops up saying something along the lines of "What is Voss like?" or "I've never heard of that planet (Voss) before".

How is any of that different from playing as a Cathar on Ord Mantell and asking what a Cathar is? In the first 10 minutes of the game mind you. Or playing as a Chiss Smuggler and asking what a Chiss is? Or being a Cathar on Taris where numerous quests revolve around Cathar and it's never acknowledged?

Heck how is different than the hundreds of other times when your race should be recognized and isn't?

The honest answer is that it doesn't really matter since the races have been purely cosmetic from launch aside from maybe a dozen specific instances in the game. Note a dozen in how many lines of dialogue the game has?

Once you were able to use any race for any class/faction lore breaking reasons went the window when it comes to playable species.

How is any of that different from playing as a Cathar on Ord Mantell and asking what a Cathar is? In the first 10 minutes of the game mind you. Or playing as a Chiss Smuggler and asking what a Chiss is? Or being a Cathar on Taris where numerous quests revolve around Cathar and it's never acknowledged?

 

Heck how is different than the hundreds of other times when your race should be recognized and isn't?

 

The honest answer is that it doesn't really matter since the races have been purely cosmetic from launch aside from maybe a dozen specific instances in the game. Note a dozen in how many lines of dialogue the game has?

 

Once you were able to use any race for any class/faction lore breaking reasons went the window when it comes to playable species.

The difference is that such race-class combos can be justified with proper RP - it's not against the lore of that time. Having an adult Voss who is a Sith is impossible to justify. His planet was unknown to the galaxy how the hell did he end up on Korriban?

If Bioware wants co completely throw out their own lore then ok. Sure make Voss a playable race. I for one will not buy them.

The difference is that such race-class combos can be justified with proper RP - it's not against the lore of that time. Having an adult Voss who is a Sith is impossible to justify. His planet was unknown to the galaxy how the hell did he end up on Korriban?

People said the exact same thing about Treek (an Ewok) being in the game as well.

I would love to see BW having the stones to give us a playable specie that would look a little less "humanoid", like the Ithorians or Duros.

The Duros could work, but only because they are humanoid. What about Duros would conflict with the current game design?

The Ithorains on the other hand won't happen, and it's not about stones.

The problem with adding anything that isn't already like the existing races is that the entire game, cutscenes, animations, mounts, etc, was built around the current body types so unless a race can use those body types don't expect to ever see them playable.

They basically shot themselves in the foot with races by developing so much of the game before finalizing the playable species. I honestly think that they thought TOR would make so much money that they'd eventually be able to go back and correct this stuff but that obviously wasn't the case.

People said the exact same thing about Treek (an Ewok) being in the game as well.

The difference between Treek (companion) and Voss (as a playable species) is their is only 1 Treek, and there are multiple classes. There isn't an Ewok Bob, Joe, Bill, or Tommy; there is only Treek. It is entirely plausible that one Ewok (out of who knows how many live on the moon of Endor) made its way into the Galaxy at large. If the Voss make it as a playable species it means all and any of the classes can/are Voss.

And, as stated before, the Voss have their own seperate body-type (which players do not have access to). It has the build of the body-type 2 but taller. That in itself is enough to keep Bioware from adding Voss as a playable species.

Now, a Voss as a companion? That is a different story, and is totally plausible.

The difference between Treek (companion) and Voss (as a playable species) is their is only 1 Treek, and there are multiple classes. There isn't an Ewok Bob, Joe, Bill, or Tommy; there is only Treek. It is entirely plausible that one Ewok (out of who knows how many live on the moon of Endor) made its way into the Galaxy at large. If the Voss make it as a playable species it means all and any of the classes can/are Voss.

That still doesn't explain away all the issues with the Cathar not being recognized when they should be, or NPCs telling you what a Cathar is when you're playing as one.

And, as stated before, the Voss have their own seperate body-type (which players do not have access to). It has the build of the body-type 2 but taller. That in itself is enough to keep Bioware from adding Voss as a playable species.

No. The Voss use Body Type 2 at different dimensions. The mesh and skeleton are still exactly the same.

By your logic the Sith Purebloods wouldn't be a playable species simply because of Lord Scourge

https://live.staticflickr.com/5229/13455028334_c0c3a4a0fc_z.jpg

^Lord Scourge standing next to Body Type 3 Jedi Knight. Now is Lord Scourge not using Body Type 3? No, he is using it only the dimensions of his model are bigger so that he's more imposing.

This sort of thing exists all over the game.

Now, a Voss as a companion? That is a different story, and is totally plausible.

I don't think we'll see a companion that has the potential for romance. They'll no doubt always try and avoid it by giving us like a droid or pet type creature.

That's seems overly complicated. Actually I just think you described exactly why they wouldn't want to do it, ie "oh well they could just do this, this and/or this." It's easy to say, much harder to do. You also gotta remember that most people aren't going to want to compromise, they want what they know, so they're not going to get away with doing the leku hanging over the shoulders.

If I managed to find at least 3 solutions for this issue in about 5 minutes, I`m sure people who are PAID to find solutions can find more and better ones. Assuming they want to and not thinking to stamp some Friday afternoon skins on top of a humanoid skeleton and call it A NEW DAWN.

Something tells me that there is no will to give us the race we actually want, but what is easiest for them, which is a damn shame, as Cathar proudly stands as an example.

A shame, really, as I was waiting since 2008 to play a Togruta sage.

I would love to see BW having the stones to give us a playable specie that would look a little less "humanoid", like the Ithorians or Duros.

this +1000

Zeltron.

This 1000x.

For instance Lord Scourge is Sith Pureblood who uses Body Type 3. Here he is standing next to my Jedi Knight who is also a Body Type 3, wearing the same armor. Notice that Scourge is bigger. This is simply because the model's dimensions have been made bigger, but the body type and skeleton remain the same. They have to for things like animations to work properly.

 

https://live.staticflickr.com/5229/13455028334_c0c3a4a0fc_z.jpg

Wow, I never noticed this. Scourge is actually bigger than even the body type 3 male? Sheesh. No wonder his head's cut off half the time when he's standing in cut scenes behind my knight, ha ha.

Maybe Voss bodies can be just resized with a click then, who knows. I'm guessing they could add some kind of voice modulation to them so that current class voices we have will still work. However, they'll still have to convince me though that they can come up with a gosh darn good lore reason for them, and I'm hard pressed to think of how that could be done.

The whole point of the Voss storyline is to discover this new race and species which the galaxy has never interacted with before. (Almost never I guess...not sure how long ago the Empire's failed invasion of them was supposed to have happened.) All characters are known as "outsiders" to the Voss, are required to stay in the "alien enclave", and start their reputation at practically less than zero. Their whole culture basically rejects the concepts of "Jedi" and "Sith" and they have such strict social norms for Force sensitives than any Voss going outside of this is going to be a true outcast. I can see one or two Voss fitting in this category...but if the whole galaxy suddenly erupts with Voss Jedi, Voss smugglers, Voss bountry hunters, Voss Sith, etc, you've practically got a cultural revolution on your hands. You'd think the Voss would mention that in the storyline then...or something. Maybe they'll throw in some story about a colony of Voss miltants living on some backwater planet that suddenly gets discovered and bursts onto the scene. I don't know. Might take some suspension of disbelief.

Wow, I never noticed this. Scourge is actually bigger than even the body type 3 male? Sheesh. No wonder his head's cut off half the time when he's standing in cut scenes behind my knight, ha ha

This happens for several companions, including Khem Val or Bowdaar for example.

If I managed to find at least 3 solutions for this issue in about 5 minutes, I`m sure people who are PAID to find solutions can find more and better ones.

Did you read my post?

Anyways I said what the solution was, and that's rebuilding them.

Chances are that any race being added needs to be (re)built. This isn't really surprising given that the vanilla character models, or specifically head models, for races like the Cathar and Voss aren't generated the way the playable races are/were. For instance whenever you encounter a human NPC in a cutscene they're face was created in a similar fashion to the player's, with certain exceptions that the devs access to that players don't (wrinkles, etc) However the Cathar, Voss, Togruta, Nautolan, etc, have pre-built non customizable heads which is (part of) the reason why there's only 2 heads for all those races, 1 male and 1 female.

^This is why the player Cathar faces look so different from the NPC ones and why the Voss (if done) would be no different as well.

I think I may have come up with something would be way easier.

Since head tail races don't have hair styles, add an equivalent "Leku Style" in Character Creation. You'd have the default style that Ashara and NPCs have, a tails back style, wrapped around the neck like a scarf, youngling/Ashoka style, etc, etc.

Editing the Leku Style of a Togruta at a Appearance Designer Kiosk would always be free.

By doing it this^ way you can at least give players what they want/expect from the leku styles while also offering a (free) alternative to the clipping issue(s) as there would at least be one style of leku that doesn't clip through X armor.

In other words if Leku Style 2 clips through your favorite armor, change it to Leku Style 5 or whatever. It's not perfect, but a compromise, something that's doable and works within the game's limitations.

Hopefully they can get around to doing another Customization update at some point and knock out as many races (that are doable) as possible in a single update. As it stands right now the process takes way too long and we generally only ever see anything major as part of some sort of themed update, ie Customization = Cathar, Dyes, Barber Shop or GSH = Housing, Guild Ships, Legacy Storage. So something like Customization 2.0 = A few races, Barber Shop for companions, additional character creation features (tattoos, markings, scars, skin tones, etc)

Wow, I never noticed this. Scourge is actually bigger than even the body type 3 male? Sheesh. No wonder his head's cut off half the time when he's standing in cut scenes behind my knight, ha ha.

 

Maybe Voss bodies can be just resized with a click then, who knows. I'm guessing they could add some kind of voice modulation to them so that current class voices we have will still work. However, they'll still have to convince me though that they can come up with a gosh darn good lore reason for them, and I'm hard pressed to think of how that could be done.

 

The whole point of the Voss storyline is to discover this new race and species which the galaxy has never interacted with before. (Almost never I guess...not sure how long ago the Empire's failed invasion of them was supposed to have happened.) All characters are known as "outsiders" to the Voss, are required to stay in the "alien enclave", and start their reputation at practically less than zero. Their whole culture basically rejects the concepts of "Jedi" and "Sith" and they have such strict social norms for Force sensitives than any Voss going outside of this is going to be a true outcast. I can see one or two Voss fitting in this category...but if the whole galaxy suddenly erupts with Voss Jedi, Voss smugglers, Voss bountry hunters, Voss Sith, etc, you've practically got a cultural revolution on your hands. You'd think the Voss would mention that in the storyline then...or something. Maybe they'll throw in some story about a colony of Voss miltants living on some backwater planet that suddenly gets discovered and bursts onto the scene. I don't know. Might take some suspension of disbelief.

I don't think they they (BW) really care anymore about the lore breaking stuff.

In all honesty though, the reason they are doing the Voss (if that is the case) is simply becasue they're the most unique looking humanoid race in the game that can use the existing body types + animations, don't present any clipping issues with armors, or any problems within cutscenes.

Remove all the lore breaking reasons from Voss being playable and it's much easier to understand why BW would chose them to do.

In a certain sense it's "good" that they're doing the Voss because what other plain races would there be after them? In other words what other races fit the playable race criteria? None that I can think of, which means unless they aren't adding any more races after the Voss they'd have to move onto something like the Togruta or Nautolan.

This happens for several companions, including Khem Val or Bowdaar for example.

While companions like Blizz and Treek just get cropped out entirely in some cases.

But yeah basically if a scene wasn't specifically scripted with the height challenged characters in mind, they get cropped out in certain instances.

Body Type 3 can also be problematic in certain scenes where the shot is designed to be over the shoulder but because of certain armors or just the angle in general the character your talking to just gets blocked out of the shot entirely.