Dwarves?

I hope they have Dwarves in New Britannia (those bearded, stout, stocky, and gruff individuals that love to drink lol). I noticed not very many RPG games have included them in recent years, and it would be nice to add this kind of Tolkien-esque element back to a CRPG.

 

While I can understand your personal preference, and you are certainly allowed to advocate for it, there was a poll in the dev forums where 80% were against having non-human playable races. If you're advocating for dwarf NPC's, who knows?

The one thing I wish is that this game would NOT be "tolkien-esque". There are tons of games with dwarves and an MMO for Lord of the Rings. As much as I do love Tolkien - I don't want everything to follow that pattern - and too many stories lazily end up there.

 

I likewise understand the desire, though as far as my personal taste, I find the results of the poll heartening, and hope that non-human characters are prohibited. This is something I enjoyed about Ultimas IV until UO (before they added the gargoyles and elves, and whatever else there may be now).

 

I don't think having humans as the only player character race precludes the existence of other intelligent humanoid races.

 

Based on various interviews with Gariott, I feely pretty certain we will never ever, ever see dwarves or elves and the like. Im sure if we ever get additional races they will be newly created and not borrowed from elsewhere based on his feelings about such things. I agree with him for the most part. He tends to be against other races in general (which im not), but I am in agreement other races should be unique to the world being created and not borrowed.

Also I would not say the poll was80% human only... Option #1 human only. WAS highest number of votes WHEN taken individually.. option #2 and #3, which where options for other races in different ways, added together, exceeded poll option #1. Which means that the majority of the people that participated want humans only in the initial release, but in the long run the majority wanted to see other races.

 

I think if anything the first additional race we play if we get the chance should be gargoyals just for the fact that they are a strongly porominant race in the UO mythology

Thanks,
Matheryn

 

I do retract my 80% note.. I see which poll your referring to now. There is on that is a two topic poll that is 80% no's, but there was also a poll that was 3 choices and on that one the majority was for wanting additional, but later. an issues of multiple threads on similar topics (unavoidable)

 

I agree the Gargoyles would be nice. I don't think there can be a copy right on them so its probably usable.

 

Having dwarves, elves, goblins, or other oddly shaped humanoids as enemies would be a pretty good idea. This would allow realistic gear drops from them without flooding the market with gear that's wearable by humans. The problem with human enemies is that they need to drop wearable gear or have their equipment magically vanish when they die. Dwarf armor could only be melted down for scrap metal or vendored. Thus there could be bands of intelligent enemies that use tactics and generally act like humans without causing a flood of equipment to the market.

 

Off topic here, but because humans are the only playable race, I feel it's important to be able to see as huge a variety in their physical stature as is humanly possible. I think the game needs small people and giant people. There should also be crippled people, sick people, ugly people and stinky people. And this diversity should exist among all the ranks of society. The more, the merrier! When the tavern girl in this town looks strangely similar to the farm girl to the far north, or every guard has the same canned voice expressions that greet me to each town, I feel the world becomes a faceless mass of disinterest.

Perhaps the developers' choice to only have humans is a way to challenge themselves to flesh out their characters, since they can't rely on all the cliches that different races would have provided them.

 

Hehe, I like this post. Not too concerned about game mechanics, housing or PvP...I just need me some dwarves.

 

If you want to play a dwarf, you can role-play one. I did this in UO and had a great time. Personally I really hope they don't have races in this game that you can play - every other game has this and it has become so generic. This isn't going to be an Everquest clone. However, I really hope we can define ourselves and have the ability to look different to everyone else. There is nothing worse than logging on to a game and finding that you look just like everyone else. I hope there will be good character customization and many, many different armours and clothes

 

My opinion is, I think there should be more races besides Humans, for it to really be a Fantasy game, otherwise this is just going to be another GTA but without the big guns and sweet rides! Im definately all for elves, gnomes,dwarves, and other PLAYABLE races, I hope they reconsider the only human players, Im tired of being human, its just boring! (Just NO pandas!)

 

I'm confused. Don't potential players understand the STORY behind the game? You are an avatar of yourself you come from present day earth, like you were sitting in your chair and *Poof* you are now in New Britannia. I have not seen any gnomes or elves running around our present day earth recently...have you?

 

I thought the game was all about being transported from Earth to New Britannia. So yeah, you could be a dwarf of course.

 

Yeah theres a dwarf that lives down the street, and gnomes hide my crap (like that one sock that always comes up missing) theres an Ogre that lives upstairs i hear him stomping around!!, and I've seen this person thats an archer thats too good to be just a human, when i was younger and was in bar fights i was nothing less than a Barbaric Orc, So yes in a way ive seen those characteristics. Maybe when magically transported into (FANTASY LAND) we can choose to play whatever race we want. I mean this is my opinion when ive read any fantasy novels (Like Tracy Hickman writes) there are other races besides boring humans. This is just my opinion, and im sure alot of others opinions as well.

 

It's been said our sex can change in our journey to New Britannia so becoming something other than human isn't that far fetched. Personally I'm thrilled we can only play humans so there is no complaint from me.

 

Even if they had the extra time and resources to allow non-human playable races, I don't think I'd even want it personally -- given what we know about the story so far. If the story changes in later Episodes and opens this up in creative story-based ways, I'm all for it.

But back to Dwarves....if the backstory / lore requires dwarvenfolk, sure. I initially had a negative reaction when I saw them mention elvenfolk but when I saw Richard's response, I was even more curious -- but in a positive way.

 

Sure there are dwarves. Step 1: make a short character with a beard, step 2: tell everyone you are a dwarf, step 3: profit.

For elf Step 1:make a skinny character with weird skin tone, step 2: tell everyone you are an elf, step 3: profit.

 

You want them to reconsider the whole story behind the game?