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New Playable Races (Species)


MrParrcheezy

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1. Wookies would be problematic because they don't speak Basic, plus it would also cause a lot of texture issues with armor sets and such. As such, don't count on them becoming a playable race.

 

2. Mon Calamari speak basic and their character models could work, albeit there might be a few issues with the mouth design that species has. However, they are more likely to be a playable species, although I am not sure whether a lot of players want them as a playable race.

 

3. The Gand have the same issue as the Wookies. They don't seem to speak Basic and they wear this headmask all the time. Mouth tracking would be completely impossible and thus romance scenes would be an issue. I wouldn't count on them ever becoming a playable race.

 

4. The Sarkhai technically would pass all the requirements, except one issue with the lore aspect: Nadia Grell is supposed to be a "freak of nature" among her people for being able to use the Force. If I recall correctly, she was the only member of her species known to use the Force and be trained in its ways. As such, the Sarkhai would cause lore/continuity problems with the Jedi Knight, Jedi Consular, Sith Warrior and Sith Inquisitor classes. As such, I wouldn't count on them becoming a playable species either.

 

If you look at new playable species, you need to keep in mind these four points:

 

1. They need to speak Galactic Basic (aka English)

2. They need to have human-like mouth designs.

3. They need to have body types that don't cause issues with ingame armor sets.

4. They need to fit the lore of the game and universe, in particular the stories of the 8 classes.

 

As such, it is much more likely species like the Kaleesh, Chagrians, Devaronians, Arkanians, Zeltron or Falleen would become playable species. Perhaps the Kel-Dor could also be a candidate, but their mouth-breathing apparatus would cause issues with the human-like mouth design criterium. From your list, the Mon Calamari pass the test of the 4 criteria the most, albeit I'd say the human-like mouth one would be a bit iffy. Mainly, I just don't see a lot of people requesting this race to become a playable species. Doesn't mean they can't become playable, of course, but I think there are other species way ahead of the Mon Calamari in the queue, so to speak.

Edited by Ylliarus
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Pureblood Sith

 

Uhm, I don't know how to tell you this, but... we already have the Pureblood Sith as a playable species in this game xD and if you mean the Kissai or the Zuguruk, then I am afraid I'll have to inform you those are extinct. The Massassi on Yavin IV and the Sith Purebloods we can play as, are the only living descendants of the ancient Sith race left in the galaxy. The lore has established that the "true" Sith are extinct at this point.

 

Echani

 

Just make a really pale human with white hair. It's how players have been making Echani characters all this time. I have seen dozens upon dozens of players create Echani character in the RP community that way.

Edited by Ylliarus
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Don't we have enough already? I would even cut some from Imperial side choice pool and some castomisation options. Having a choice is all well and good, but it must make sense, and half naked sith with pink pigtails does not make any sense at all.

Anyway thats not the point, I would rather see devs focusing on overall quality of the game, than making new and shiny stuff thats not really all that needed.

Edited by LordRouger
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Don't we have enough already? I would even cut some from Imperial side choice pool and some castomisation options. Having a choice is all well and good, but it must make sense, and half naked sith with pink pigtails does not make any sense at all.

Anyway thats not the point, I would rather see devs focusing on overall quality of the game, than making new and shiny stuff thats not really all that needed.

 

And yet people want and expect new playable species. The forums are full of such requests, as well as the chats ingame itself. So, I disagree with you and I bet that a lot of players would disagree with you. Yes, the devs should focus on all aspects of the game, but as this is a story-heavy game, customization and choice form an important part of it. It's one of the allures of the game, to be able to create a character and story entirely how you want to.

 

Also, it's not up to you to decide what makes sense or not. If a Darth wants to wear pig pigtails, who the hell will stop them? If you try, I bet they'd zap you in the blink of an eye. And it's not like you are forced to pick pink pigtails for your character, you're free to create a character with a different look. But don't go telling what player can and can't do, if the option is there for them to choose.

 

The very fact that you can create a Dark Lord of the Sith with pink pigtails, means that the devs consider it a plausible occurence within Star Wars, as outlandish as it may sound. But then again, we have seen weirder stuff in Star Wars ;)

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Don't we have enough already? I would even cut some from Imperial side choice pool and some castomisation options. Having a choice is all well and good, but it must make sense, and half naked sith with pink pigtails does not make any sense at all.

Anyway thats not the point, I would rather see devs focusing on overall quality of the game, than making new and shiny stuff thats not really all that needed.

Yet, it seems a quite a lot of people, myself included, would want even more options.

 

New species i'd like to see : Zeltron, Echani, Keshiri and Nikto, mostly, but i'd also like more faces and hair styles for the existing species, along with more options on species who don't have that many options like Zabrak or Twi'lek.

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And yet people want and expect new playable species. The forums are full of such requests, as well as the chats ingame itself. So, I disagree with you and I bet that a lot of players would disagree with you. Yes, the devs should focus on all aspects of the game, but as this is a story-heavy game, customization and choice form an important part of it. It's one of the allures of the game, to be able to create a character and story entirely how you want to.

 

Also, it's not up to you to decide what makes sense or not. If a Darth wants to wear pig pigtails, who the hell will stop them? If you try, I bet they'd zap you in the blink of an eye. And it's not like you are forced to pick pink pigtails for your character, you're free to create a character with a different look. But don't go telling what player can and can't do, if the option is there for them to choose.

 

The very fact that you can create a Dark Lord of the Sith with pink pigtails, means that the devs consider it a plausible occurence within Star Wars, as outlandish as it may sound. But then again, we have seen weirder stuff in Star Wars ;)

 

Yes, we did see some weird things, but was that a good thing? I would argue that it wasn't. It's a fictional world and bla-bla-bla, but there is still this things like CONCEPT, TONE and it's CONSISTANCY. Game trying to tell us this story of epic conflict, galaxy-wide war, bloodshed and mayhem aaand there we have also pink pigtails that clearly don't match to everything else around. So it clearly wasn't artistic decision, it was business decision.

Because they knew it was funny, and people who use that use it because it's funny. Everybody happy, who cares if it's at expence of ruinig worldbuilding aspect. I could get into more specifics regarding all of this, but its offtopic and you probably get what i mean as it is. I hope.

Back to the issue at hand im quite aware that ther is a lot of requests like that and people just cant get enough of new playable species. And all of them would disagree with me, half of them without even giving me a chance to explain myself xD

My point is that "wants" not always "needs" and we should requet things with our priority set straight.

Just a little reminder about being careful what you wish for, thats all it is really.

Edited by LordRouger
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why not add the voss,Devaronian,jawas,droids,Sarkhai,Kaleesh or even Kel Dor all would be amazing additions to the game especially since most of them already have models in game easy to accomplish

 

Devaronians, Kaleesh and perhaps Kel-Dor might become playable species somewhere down the road. However, just because a species already has a model ingame doesn't mean they're easier to add in. Look at the Nautolans, as a playable species they received a huge remodeling.

 

As to why Jawas, Sarkhai and Voss most likely will never become a playable species, I will quote myself, as I explained it earlier:

 

If you look at new playable species, you need to keep in mind these four points:

 

1. They need to speak Galactic Basic (aka English)

2. They need to have human-like mouth designs.

3. They need to have body types that don't cause issues with ingame armor sets.

4. They need to fit the lore of the game and universe, in particular the stories of the 8 classes.

 

Jawas evidently have an issue with all 4 of these criteria. They fit none of them. Sarkhai fit 1 to 3 while Voss fit 1 and 2. However, most of the issues with Sarkhai and Voss as playable species would be the lore of the game. If they were to become playable species, they would contradict a lot of things that are established within the story of SWTOR and as such cause continuity problems. Since this is a story heavy game, continuity of lore is a very important issue and as such, will prevent Voss and Sarkhai from becoming playable species.

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Once upon a time the Dev team stated they won't add any species with faces that aren't humanoid enough (expressions modeled for human faces don't work on super alien proportions).

 

But if their stance on this has as any point changed and they're willing to let us play less humanoid species... Hell yeah! Gimme! I want a sucker-face Rodian immediately.

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Once upon a time the Dev team stated they won't add any species with faces that aren't humanoid enough (expressions modeled for human faces don't work on super alien proportions).

 

But if their stance on this has as any point changed and they're willing to let us play less humanoid species... Hell yeah! Gimme! I want a sucker-face Rodian immediately.

 

I am really hoping for the Kaleesh and Kel-Dor. Both have difficult facial designs because of their masks, but both species are just really cool and iconic in my opinion. I'd love to have a Kel-Dor Sage and a Kaleesh Sorcerer!

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Working within the strictures outlined by Ylliarus and Kiesu, restrictions put in place by the devs, does limit the playable species that could be added. Kel-Dor, Kaleesh, and Rodian would all be really cool to play, but they don't meet the criteria. I've had a long running petition for several of the near-human species such as Echani (my personal favorite), Zeltron, Keshiri, Arkanian Offshoot (Arkanians would be out since they're tetradactyl, and only the Sephi hybrid Offshoots have pointed ears so don't start in on space elves), Kiffar, and Pantoran. Most of these would just be skin, eye, and hair colour options on standard Human models (but then so are most of the playable species in the game). Some work would have to be done to give Kiffar their qukuuf (tattoos). Moving away from the nearer near-Humans, so getting into the species the would need some modeling work, Nikto, Weequay, Devaronian (although, they may pose a problem since they are more gender dimorphic than any other playable species), Tholothian, Cerean, Bothan, Falleen, Mon Calamari, and Vurk would all be cool.

 

Some of these are iconic Star Wars species. Arkanian Offshoot Jedi Master Arca Jeth, Cerean Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, Kiffar Jedi Quinlan Vos, Tholothian Jedi Master Adi Gallia, Vurk Jedi Master Coleman Trebor, and Mon Calamari General Ackbar. Others would just be really fun to play and role play with.

 

At least if the added Echani my two Echani could have actual Echani skin tone rather than look like KotOR 2 Echani. And if they added Pantoran I might change my Chiss Jedi to a Pantoran (or maybe I'll just start saying they're a Pantoran with an eye condition).

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Jawas evidently have an issue with all 4 of these criteria. They fit none of them. Sarkhai fit 1 to 3 while Voss fit 1 and 2. However, most of the issues with Sarkhai and Voss as playable species would be the lore of the game. If they were to become playable species, they would contradict a lot of things that are established within the story of SWTOR and as such cause continuity problems. Since this is a story heavy game, continuity of lore is a very important issue and as such, will prevent Voss and Sarkhai from becoming playable species.

I've been thinking about this, and I think that for Sarkhai, it's much less burdensome than it is for Voss.

 

Clearly, Nadia Grell's companion-story lines to a Sarkhai Consular wouldn't make much sense (about as much sense as Aric Jorgan's lines to a Cathar F!Trooper, for example)(1), but the major lore aspect there (Force sensitive Sarkhai are essentially unheard of) has the same contradictory element for Sarkhai Jedi/SIth as it does for Chiss Jedi/Sith - Force use is regarded as an abomination among the Chiss of the Ascendancy, so it's really rare. (Probably a bit of both - it's rarer than normal anyway, and heavily disapproved of, so the few that have it are probably slaughtered young, making it rarer still. Perhaps a Chiss Inquisitor makes less non-sense than the others.)

 

(1) There's something loosely similar, but to a much less intrusive extent, for a Miraluka F!JK and Doc. If you follow the romance, he talks about genetic incompatibility because you're not a human, except that the lore says that human/Miraluka mating is normally fertile. I'm prepared in head-canon to let that one go - to be sure, he's a top-flight doctor (almost as good as he thinks he is), but that doesn't mean he knows every detail about interspecies breeding, and in particular, seeing as how the lore says that a human/Miraluka hybrid normally has neither good physical vision nor good Force vision, it's a bad idea, and therefore it's rare that such children are born. On that basis, I'll let that just be a gap in his knowledge.

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I've been thinking about this, and I think that for Sarkhai, it's much less burdensome than it is for Voss.

 

Clearly, Nadia Grell's companion-story lines to a Sarkhai Consular wouldn't make much sense (about as much sense as Aric Jorgan's lines to a Cathar F!Trooper, for example)(1), but the major lore aspect there (Force sensitive Sarkhai are essentially unheard of) has the same contradictory element for Sarkhai Jedi/SIth as it does for Chiss Jedi/Sith - Force use is regarded as an abomination among the Chiss of the Ascendancy, so it's really rare. (Probably a bit of both - it's rarer than normal anyway, and heavily disapproved of, so the few that have it are probably slaughtered young, making it rarer still. Perhaps a Chiss Inquisitor makes less non-sense than the others.)

 

Fair enough, you do have a point. It would cause issues with a Sarkhai Jedi Consular as you said. It's been a while since I did the Consular story but I guess it could be somewhat tolerated if you squint through a few things and momentarily close your ears. But it's not impossible to accept it in terms of lore.

 

Voss though, a Voss would be an entire matter entirely. The Voss would need its own special class and while frankly I would absolutely love that, I don't see it happening at this point, sadly. As awesome as it would be, the opportunity for the Voss to become a playable species is long gone. If it happened before the release of Makeb or something it could have been worked into the current system, but adding it now is just very unlikely to happen.

 

If I were to think of a scenario how the Voss could become a playable species: they could make a Jedi Consular/Sith Inquisitor type of class for a Voss Mystic. Their class story would start around the same time as the events of Jedi Under Siege do, yet they would involve a vision that the Voss Mystic experiences about the Voss joining either the Republic or Empire. I guess a choice could be added in here, where as a player you get to choose the Empire or Republic, much alike you do with Lana in Inflection Point. Then, instead of Onderon and Mek-Sha you'd spend your Voss Mystic class story working either the Republic or Empire onto Voss, helping them secure a foothold on the planet. At the end of the class story, you get to choose to influence the Three to formally join the Empire/Republic and let Voss become part of The Hand/Task Force Nova or to have Voss remain an independent ally of the Republic/Empire. From that point on, the Voss Mystic class would be integrated into the rest of SWTOR's story.

 

However, such an endeavor would have to come at the cost of furthering the story for all the other classes, as the introduction of the Voss species and Voss Mystic class would be the size of an expansion. It couldn't be done in just a single story update, it would have to deserve the time to be implemented correctly. So, it would be possible, but it would delay development of the main SWTOR story we follow now at least by a year or more. Unless SWTOR magically gets all the resources it needs as well as the manpower and funding.

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Devaronians, Bith (maybe), Duros (cad bane's race), Kaleesh, weequay, cerean, nagai, chargarian, neimodians and maybe the echani have the best shot. Kel dor would be nice but again with the kissing animations through the masks i am not sure about but would be a interesting race. Rodians and wookies have almost 0 chance of ever being playable in swtor. Voss could but the last i heard on that was there was a issue with limited customizations for them and they are all body type 2s.

 

Chargarians being similar to togruta have a shot and being in the game. kaleesh and devaronians probably have the next highest chance of becoming playable species. They both would be well welcomed for both sides though they are more imperial and hutt cartel races but they are very much in play for next. Duros would be cool as there several people that love cad bane and would love to make a bounty hunter/smuggler duros or sith duros in the game. Nagai would be cool they are nearly human with more paint on them and would be able to use many of the humanoid hair customizations as well. Weequay they already exist in models of body types and do have a few custom options in designs and would fit the ability to different from the more human races. Neimodians i am not sure about but could be a option. didnt swtor/bioware say that they were looking to branch off and do a few more alien non-human races in the game in the next few species unlocks. So that would put races like Duros, Devaronians, Kaleesh and Weequay on the board.

 

I would also suggest that cyborgs have a sub species unlock for the various other species in the games so they could have cyborgs of all the races in the game. Kinda lame that cyborgs are pretty much only human when in game there is countless npcs that are cyborgs of other species.

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I say just shoehorn in all the species, just shoehorn em in, short peeps can just be a little taller during cut scenes and weird faced mugs can fade to black earlier during make out scenes, stuff like that. The Mandalorean recently taught us that there may be more variation than we thought than the long descriptions of the physical specifics of species on Wookipedia with the giant Deveronian. Convos already off for several species now, as long as its not any more off than the precedent they set with Cathar and Chiss I think it would be fine.
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I say just shoehorn in all the species, just shoehorn em in, short peeps can just be a little taller during cut scenes and weird faced mugs can fade to black earlier during make out scenes, stuff like that.

 

No, thank you. This is not some overmodded version of Skyrim you play, this is an MMORPG that has to and should uphold certain standards of quality. Shoehorning in such things would be absolutely horrible and make the game look really unprofessional. Each playable species needs to make sense, both with textures, ingame lore, character models, the whole deal. Shoehorning in stuff is the worst possible way to go about adding new playable species and I am glad the dev team would never consider adding playable species that way.

Edited by Ylliarus
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No, thank you. This is not some overmodded version of Skyrim you play, this is an MMORPG that has to and should uphold certain standards of quality. Shoehorning in such things would be absolutely horrible and make the game look really unprofessional. Each playable species needs to make sense, both with textures, ingame lore, character models, the whole deal. Shoehorning in stuff is the worst possible way to go about adding new playable species and I am glad the dev team would never consider adding playable species that way.

 

they already have, cathars are fine people like them, give us some more

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idk why yet another thread on this. Again, near-human species are the way to go (and more bang for the buck, rather than the more meh complicated species that are more time consuming and hit or miss; not to mention romancing looks downright silly on way out there aliens)

 

 

>>>Near-Human species: Zeltron, Keshiri, Echani, Sith Halfblood (Sith/ Human)

Edited by BlackSilverFire
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Ithorian! SWG had Playable Ithorian, Bothan and Mon Cal's...SWToR team..you can't let a game launched in 2003 show you up! Do Eiiit!

 

Ithorians won't happen. Their mouth design would cause a lot of problems with dialogues and romance scenes. On top of that, they have a different body build and so all the armour sets would basically be useless. Also, I don't believe Ithorians speak Galactic Basic? I could be wrong, but I have not seen an Ithorian speaking Basic yet and that's a huge deal breaker because of the voice actors. Because of these three reasons, Ithorians will never become a playable species in SWTOR.

 

Bothans are a different story and I could see them becoming a playable species sometime in the future. They have the correct mouth design, they speak Galactic Basic (English), their body types would fit the ingame armour textures and there would be no issues in terms of lore. I believe we may see them as a playable species someday.

 

As to the Mon Calamari, it's a close call. Either their mouth design will be considered just human enough to become a playable race or it will be deemed just that tiny bit too alien. Their body designs wouldn't cause too many issues I think, perhaps only with the hands and from a lore perspective everything checks out. But the mouth design will be the deciding factor whether they'll become a playable species or not.

Edited by Ylliarus
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