MMORPG races looking too much like regular Humans

[Deleted]

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.

Yes, quite. I didn't mind playing humanoid characters in WoW for a while, but I've got bored of most of them (Elves etc) now that they seem to be becoming more human and less distinct. Ie: Blood Elves were quite fantastical, magical, demonic etc, but now they've become 'redeemed' and more human. Heck even the former High Elves were more mysterious and "other" then Blood Elves are now. Rift had even less to define the different races making them seem even more human.

[Drakhar]

If there is one thing I will defend SW:TOR on, (and likely the only thing I would defend the game on lawl) it's the race choices. They don't have the ability to get much more creative outside the confines of the IP, and if you look into the Star Wars Universe you'll see that most races are very human-like. To be honest, that's probably the result of the limitations of special effects in the 1970s. I suppose they could've done Wookies - expansion maybe? Many other MMOs, yeah, not so creative. Anyway it's hard to fault SW:TOR in this case, though I agree that more diversity and the options of more non-human races is better for any MMO.

[Veluren]

If there is one thing I will defend SW:TOR on, (and likely the only thing I would defend the game on lawl) it's the race choices. They don't have the ability to get much more creative outside the confines of the IP, and if you look into the Star Wars Universe you'll see that most races are very human-like. To be honest, that's probably the result of the limitations of special effects in the 1970s. I suppose they could've done Wookies - expansion maybe? Many other MMOs, yeah, not so creative. Anyway it's hard to fault SW:TOR in this case, though I agree that more diversity and the options of more non-human races is better for any MMO.

I think it's because the slightly-less-humans would require new voice files, honestly.

Trandoshan lizard men, for example, hiss their S's, if they made trandoshan playable as, say, bounty hunters, it would make no sense for them to use the current voicefile, they'd have to re-record every single line of dialogue for both genders.

[Drakhar]

I think it's because the slightly-less-humans would require new voice files, honestly.

Trandoshan lizard men, for example, hiss their S's, if they made trandoshan playable as, say, bounty hunters, it would make no sense for them to use the current voicefile, they'd have to re-record every single line of dialogue for both genders.

That's true, but for a Wookie all you have to do is make it growl and have subtitles! Easy!

I forgot about the voice --> class (instead of race) association. Hah, just more hidden laziness for that subpar game.

[Borfl]

The reason why humans are in MMORPGs, and usually there's 2 for each faction, is because of faction imbalance. In WoW people were turned off from the horde because it had monstrous races so they felt more natural playing something humanoid, like Nelves and Humans. Then Belves were introduced and there was a paradigm shift in races.

To be honest humans are boring, but I find what really breaks faction/race imbalance is this need to have racials in MMORPGS. There will always be a race with the better racial(s) which is dumb, races should be a purely aesthetic choice.

[Nakash]

Look at it this way would you be happy in SWTOR if you are a wookie and in every dialogue scene your character just screams wookie noises ?

[Elementium]

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

Humans with scales and lizard heads or humans with catheads. Like.. literal lizard and cat heads.. no creative adjustments.. no unique skeletons. If you're going to make a game about being YOUR OWN character then the races need to be different.. My entire time playing through Skyrim on my Argonian just left me thinking "this game is great but man.. if Blizzard did a Warcraft game like this? Game Of The Decade".

[Ixiel]

The reason why humans are in MMORPGs, and usually there's 2 for each faction, is because of faction imbalance. In WoW people were turned off from the horde because it had monstrous races so they felt more natural playing something humanoid, like Nelves and Humans. Then Belves were introduced and there was a paradigm shift in races.

I don't think it has anything to do with how "inhuman" the Vanilla WoW races were, it was more about how they looked in general. Before Blood Elves, Night Elves were the popular race, not humans, because by comparison the Night Elves looked prettier and much less blocky, especially the males.

Draenei are very far from Humans yet they're probably just as popular or more popular than Orcs, which are just thicker, greener, balder humans.

The trick isn't making a race look like a Human, it's making a race look pretty in both genders. WoW is known for it's sexual dimorphism.

Guys that play girl avatars often play them because they're prettier than the big bulky males. Once you make the males of a race look just as good without having an ugly face or insane bodybuilder muscles they tend to get more attention from people who like the pretty avatars. A guildie of mine has 10 85s and they're all female except for his Worgen Lock and Druid because Worgen were the first Alliance race that had males that were neither stupidly bulky nor had odd proportions.

The problem is that you can't make a male race look -too- pretty, like the early male Belves.

I, personally, love races that are far from human but still look good. I love Worgen and Draenei in WoW, Tideborn in Perfect World, Dekan in Rohan, Sylvari in GW2, and Amani in Tera. I tried several MMOs free and sub, including Rappelz and GW1, but one of the biggest turn offs was that I couldn't be a scaley blue hoofed fuzzy horned 6-eyed... thing.