MMORPG races looking too much like regular Humans

[fairymore]

Lately I have noticed that most MMORPGs do not go outside the box very far when races are concerned. While playing in WoW i really took for granted that i could play a minotaur/"cow", an Orc, a skinny blue troll with exaggerated facial features, or a Draenei which to me is as good as an alien. Now all of these are humanoid no doubt about it but compared to other MMORPGs i have played they are pretty out there.

For example when i played rift i felt all i was doing was playing a different version of the same human race. Both factions in Rift had a Human race and Elf race with very small differences.
I am also noticing the same thing happen with SWTOR. The game looks wonderful and like a lot of fun which i look forward to but the choices in races seemed lacking. There are many races but to me they all seem like different kinds of regular humans. They all have nearly the same human anatomy in my eyes. Some may have small horns while others have tentacles shooting from the back of their head but the differences stop from the neck down.
I see this also in Age of Conan, DCUO, and Aion though i am inclined to cut Aion some slack for its amazing character creation. I do not understand why other successful MMOs today do not imitate WoW's direction and make extraordinary races. I mean why is SWTOR shipping without the Wookie being a playable race?

I am however hopeful when i see games like GW2 and Tera who have the typical human race (which i have no personal grudge against) AND odd looking races too! Significantly different from a Human look while remaining humanoid beings. The Charr, Sylvari, and Asura in GW2. The Amani, Baraka, and Poporis in Tera.

I would also like to include a question.
Do you feel its necessary to have very unique looking races in a MMORPG?
Do you feel the game should come with races already or that you should be allowed freedom like in Champions Online where you can make the most unique avatar your imagination can think of? Make up your own race.

[Deleted]

Actually I think this is a very good thing, except for monster races but they should look feral, not cute or messed up. I mean I like LotR and all the races there are pretty much human looking and not much different but the zoo thing really turns me off and makes me lose interest. All my favourite RPGs have very little racial differences too, starting from Dragon Age and ending with Skyrim.

Oh and I always play human anyway:P

[sluggs]

Actually I think this is a very good thing, except for monster races but they should look feral, not cute or messed up. I mean I like LotR and all the races there are pretty much human looking and not much different but the zoo thing really turns me off and makes me lose interest. All my favourite RPGs have very little racial differences too, starting from Dragon Age and ending with Skyrim.

Oh and I always play human anyway:P

You may need to look a little differently if you think skyrim has very "little" racial differences.

[Blood Crusade]

I personally like human races. I want my character to look good, dare I say "attractive" while i'm spending hours upon hours customizing them. It's the reason why I don't have a problem playing female toons when their male counterpart for the race looks terrible, or sometimes just for the hell of it. It's this same reason i'll never again play a Tauren in WoW, to bulky for my tastes.

[Edge-]

People like playing characters they can identify with, that's why 90% of the characters you play are bipedal humanoids, and with most of them are almost exactly human.

[Deleted]

You may need to look a little differently if you think skyrim has very "little" racial differences.

How so? There are nords, bretons, redguards, imperials that ARE humans and all the elves look very human-like too. Only the cats and argonians are a bit different. Still, I'd only say looks, the backstories are fantastic and that's what matters the most. It's not like "let's take some animal and copy paste some Earth culture to it like egyptian crocodile people"

[fairymore]

People like playing characters they can identify with, that's why 90% of the characters you play are bipedal humanoids, and even more of them are almost exactly human.

This is a good point you brought up and i had thought about it before. I understand why races that are like WoW's Tauren are always bipedal humanoid because there are mechanical issues and psychological issues. And while it all boils down to personal preference i think the games i mentioned above like Rift and the new SWTOR conform too much.

Someone mentioned Lotro being virtually the same race and i agree, i think that way about the Alliance faction in WoW. The Human, Dwarf and Gnome race are virtually the same race with different heights. But even then that's more than i can say for Age of Conan (Or Rift/SWTOR).

[Skelington]

Humans are pretty boring. The beast-like/humanoid races are neat.

[blaqkmagick]

I agree with OP. The lack of true difference in races has kind of put me off SWTOR. I like wow because every race truly feels different.

[Godsmack241]

You may need to look a little differently if you think skyrim has very "little" racial differences.

I'd say that poster was right, actually. A bunch of races are basically humans from different areas of the world. Sure, there's a cat race, a lizard race, and orcs. But I mean, jeeze, when did orcs start looking like half-orcs??? Did my bag of holding just fall into another bag of holding or something?

Lol, dnd jokes aside, a majority of races in skyrim are just humans with skin tone differences and maybe size. Then, even the elven races also look almost identical to eachother, aside from again skin tone and size.

Don't get me wrong, skyrim is amazing and I am loving playing the game, but some more racial diversity would have been nice.

[PACOX]

I for one actually like the humanoid races. Elves, I detest them but I can at least tolerate them in favor of more exotic races like you might find in WoW or EQ. I can't take all of the walking cows, goats, dogs, pandas, etc. Unless my character is some sort of werebeast, I don't want to be stuck looking like Fido. Its something about nonhuman races in high fantasy games I just can't stomach. Did I say I have elves (and why are elves always the noble races? Blizzard almost had it right with BEs being magic fiends until they translated them into actually in game characters then they just seemed silly. Elves IMO should be fiendish characters, like high functioning meth addicts). I can stomach not so human looking races in Star Wars and Star Trek but they just piss me off in fantasy games.

[Rocketsurgeon]

You may need to look a little differently if you think skyrim has very "little" racial differences.

Skyrim is the poster child for poor racial diversity. There are 3-4 races of human and at least 4 races of elf. Most of the major npc sentient races are of common stock. Even the dwarfs are elfs!. Their monster people have standard human appendages with a humanoid head and a tail that clips through their armor. Blegh.

I personally hate all-human races in a rpg. Its much worse to me than having only human as a choice. The world seems so much more dull when their differences are so small and inconsequential. Its a turn off. I get super excited when I see rpgs that have truly distinct races. I don't have to play them. I'm about to join a new tabletop campaign for Rifts and we'll be human based. If I have a half dozen races to choose from and they all have two arms and two legs with human knees and human oriented facial organs I can't help but feel I'm being ripped off or patronized.

[Deleted]

Skyrim is the poster child for poor racial diversity. There are 3-4 races of human and at least 4 races of elf. Most of the major npc sentient races are of common stock. Even the dwarfs are elfs!. Their monster people have standard human appendages with a humanoid head and a tail that clips through their armor. Blegh.

I personally hate all-human races in a rpg. Its much worse to me than having only human as a choice. The world seems so much more dull when their differences are so small and inconsequential. Its a turn off. I get super excited when I see rpgs that have truly distinct races. I don't have to play them. I'm about to join a new tabletop campaign for Rifts and we'll be human based. If I have a half dozen races to choose from and they all have two arms and two legs with human knees and human oriented facial organs I can't help but feel I'm being ripped off or patronized.

See, different tastes! I think it's perfect and a huge reason why I like Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls universe. It's not that they all are like humans so much, it's more that they are realistic and they have a much bigger focus on the back stories unlike than like most of the diverse race games have (if you compare to WoW, they have indian cows, Jamaican trolls etc.).

Another reason is that humans have in their nature to kill off all different things so if they'd want to make it realistic, they would have to make human races the underdogs cause otherwise there would be no living side by side with a snake monster with 60 eyes.

[Veluren]

Troll answer: All the devs hate furries.

Honest opinion: Drawing furry-esque races is simple, but designing them tends to be a bit of a graphical issue due to certain things like working facial structures to show emotion on a face that normally doesn't show emotion, double difficulty if you've decided to give them a digitgrade leg biology, as you'll most likely have to rework the entire skeleton to make them move in a way that's not awkward.

[mangoarizona]

I agree, theres never anything too out there. I always wanted to play a Bangaa (i think thats how you spell it) from FF 12, or at least some type of crocodile/lizard thing. Argonian from elder scrolls are still very human like. The Charr in guild wars 2 looks pretty cool, but I agree, we need some real variances on races in mmos, humans just get so damn boring.

Now Mass Effect has some cool races, still pretty humanoid but Krogan and Salarian are pretty different than humans.

Wow, has a pretty diverse set of races, but it would be difficult to implement something that ISN'T humanoid, because it might change the gameplay a lot.

[Rocketsurgeon]

See, different tastes! I think it's perfect and a huge reason why I like Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls universe. It's not that they all are like humans so much, it's more that they are realistic and they have a much bigger focus on the back stories unlike than like most of the diverse race games have (if you compare to WoW, they have indian cows, Jamaican trolls etc.).

Another reason is that humans have in their nature to kill off all different things so if they'd want to make it realistic, they would have to make human races the underdogs cause otherwise there would be no living side by side with a snake monster with 60 eyes.

Actually, my greatest beef with it is how unrealistic that is. Yes, humans are antagonistic towards different things. That is true for our own minute differences. Shades of hair/eye color are sufficient reason for genocide. Being completely alien is actually a good means of protection when facing humans, if for no other reason because it takes them a while to mass up and distribute torches and pitchforks.

Multiple species evolving/being-created to be virtually identical in shape and function isn't realistic at all. Realism, in terms of multiple sentient species in one setting, would imply creatures from different niches and environments who ideally do not compete directly. Think about Neanderthals or other similar creatures in our past. Those things are toast. Now consider some of the most intelligent animals on our planet, those most likely to find themselves in our shoes at some point. Keas, cuttlefish, and the like have had much greater freedom to do their thing because they are sufficiently different both in approach and in habitat. Even the other primates are a good example.

In terms of magical origins, there are limited uses for redundancy. Some, admitted. You've got your slave races and such. Generally speaking, its an impractical waste of time. Creation, life, fills voids. Life eats away at surplus and fills in the holes. Life creates balance and spreads the love. In terms of odds, the likelihood of multiple sentient races arising that fill the same roles and are so similar as to be easily mistaken for each other at 5 paces is extremely, extremely unrealistic.

Humanity has had history of living alongside the alien in culture. The question in a fictional setting full of humans is less if there's a snake monster and more how do the snake monsters fit into the world of humanity. Snake monsters that live along the sea cliffs and engage in trade with nearby vessels are a boon. Snake monsters that live in the country side and enjoy the taste of sheep are competition. I could replace "snake monster" with "human foreigner" to much the same effect.

Your equating gameworld depth with scarcity of game story is farcical. WoW having awful lore and storyline isn't the fault of having slightly less than completely human races. Mass Effect has some beautifully diverse races and yet story doesn't suffer(even if I think other things do). Yes, there is a little bit more work involved in adding a few different models to rig and animate. Fortunately, most companies hire people for specific tasks. Having an office in a dustier part of the world isn't going to make for a poorer gameworld due to a busier janitorial staff.

[Deleted]

I get bored of humans, I'd like to play as robots or cyborgs something. Or maybe something like the Tauran (no not cows) from The Forever War.

[Digglett]

Reason I couldn't get really into Rift. Human for the religion side, Darker skinned humans on the technology side. Then you have elves, and a tall blue/purple human. :/

I hate playing a human, I'm stuck as one IRL, I don't want to be stuck as one in a game where I'm trying to immerse myself and 'escape' from reality.

[Deleted]

Humanity has had history of living alongside the alien in culture. The question in a fictional setting full of humans is less if there's a snake monster and more how do the snake monsters fit into the world of humanity. Snake monsters that live along the sea cliffs and engage in trade with nearby vessels are a boon. Snake monsters that live in the country side and enjoy the taste of sheep are competition. I could replace "snake monster" with "human foreigner" to much the same effect.

Your equating gameworld depth with scarcity of game story is farcical. WoW having awful lore and storyline isn't the fault of having slightly less than completely human races. Mass Effect has some beautifully diverse races and yet story doesn't suffer(even if I think other things do). Yes, there is a little bit more work involved in adding a few different models to rig and animate. Fortunately, most companies hire people for specific tasks. Having an office in a dustier part of the world isn't going to make for a poorer gameworld due to a busier janitorial staff.

Well, it still comes to taste. Some people prefer humans and races that look like human. For example I prefer low fantasy setting with a few races with deep lore, politics etc. that look like humans to a world where you have 100 races and most are just furry humans with animal heads and have no real backstory. As for ME, yea, it's pretty good but it's not fantasy RPG, it's more of a space sci-fi and the races are aliens (and most of them actually look like humans too, with a different color skin, number of fingers and other minor things).

But there is really no explanation, like I said, different tastes for different people and there are games for both. If you complain that Skyrim has too human-like races, I say it's just perfect and complaining about it would be like complaining about why Mass Effect aliens aren't more like humans and why there are so many of them.

[Deleted]

I don't really mind it that much if races look a lot like humans. As long as there are features that separate them from the rest of the races it's fine by me, even if those features are really subtle. That's what I like about skyrim for the human races. They are all human but with different backgrounds, interesting stories, and subtle features that distinguish them like skin tone, or a slightly more, or less, muscular build etc.

Don't get me wrong, but I also love the more feral looking races. As long as any given race in a game has a good story behind it, and good customisation options, it's fine by me.