I know there was an old post about this over a year ago, and Isharon went into a bit of detail about the discussion, but I can't seem to find the original post discussion. Was there ever a definitive answer to the question? Is it too mechanically problematic to do race changes? Or was it left open ended in case someone GM wanted to mess with it?
FATBOY30269
TEVESHSZAT
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 03:41 PM CDT
>>Was there ever a definitive answer to the question? Is it too mechanically problematic to do race changes? Or was it left open ended in case someone GM wanted to mess with it?
IIRC, it's mechanically problematic.
Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.
IIRC, it's mechanically problematic.
Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.
ISHARON
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 03:59 PM CDT
>>Fatboy30269: I know there was an old post about this over a year ago, and Isharon went into a bit of detail about the discussion, but I can't seem to find the original post discussion. Was there ever a definitive answer to the question? Is it too mechanically problematic to do race changes? Or was it left open ended in case someone GM wanted to mess with it?
I have not seen any indication that GMs are reconsidering the decision not to allow race changes.
The post I quoted is here: http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Abilities,%20Skills%20and%20Magic/The%20Experience%20System/view/3696
Archived copy: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Post:New_TDP_Method_-_10/05/2012_-_04:46
The complete thread is here: http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Abilities,%20Skills%20and%20Magic/The%20Experience%20System/thread/1495950
>>But I think the point is that we are all getting a stat respec because we made our choices under certain circumstances, and now those circumstances are changing. The same is true for race.
There's a major difference in scale, though. Stats are something that you grow slowly over time, and that as things subtly change, you can course correct pretty easily. The whole notion of training new stats up as you gain more ranks means that you can do micro-optimizations (or store up TDPs and do major optimizations, either way). Since there's a constant, organic flow of stat increases as you progress in the game, you're regularly given choices as to where things will go. Sometimes, a change comes along (or in these cases, a bunch of changes) that means that those optimizations you made over time aren't relevant any more, and the difference is enough that you might have a fundamental shift in the arrangement you want your stats to have. I suspect that if we were offering a 50% stat respec instead of a 100% stat respec, the end result (As far as people's builds go) would end up the same.
However, with your race, that's one of the decisions that you make and you really have to stick with it. You never get a chance to re-assess your race or guild (barring the weirdness where you join one guild and another, which I think literally nobody's done in years), because those are formative and permanent decisions.
I'll use an extreme example, because that's where the most significant changes would be seen. Gor'Togs are presented with the very clear assertion "Good at being strong, bad at being smart". Let's say there's a scenario where mentals only matter until 30 points, and after that it was worthless. Could you argue in good conscience that you should roll a Gor'Tog War Mage because the difficulties training mental stats fall off once mentals start being useless? If you make that argument, you're banking on the fact that mentals will never be worthwhile to train above 30, so 'Togs are always better. Since you're making this decision in a game that is constantly evolving and claims (even if it doesn't always happen) to strive toward balance, I feel like a mistake has been made somewhere.
That's one of the several reasons that the arguments for a race change fall flat for me - The only arguments are firmly couched in a stance that is completely and explictly OOC. The only times when somebody is impacted so significantly by a stat change that their ability to play plummets is when they've been metagaming and using mechanical loopholes without regard for the roleplaying consequences. All other arguments aside, I find it difficult to get behind an idea that only really tends the wounds of people who discard the spirit of the game and were taking advantage of the mechanics of today.
>> so what's the cost of a race change? Granted, Soch said it is too high for such a "small" change -- all I was asking for was more clarification on how small the change is and how large the cost is.
There are several costs. The first cost I think of is technical - It's a heck of a lot of code. It's not just "change the race and be done with it" - There's a whole bunch of items, systems, etc that rely on you being the race you are. What about racial perks? What if you're in moonskin? What about race-specific items, etc, etc. It can be done, but it's NOT a pretty picture.
Then, there's the lore cost. Right now, since there's basically no representation of stats, it's really easy to hand-wave a stat respec - Nobody can tell when you do a stat respec unless they're very intimately familiar with how your stats affect your performance, and see you before and after. A stat respec, then, really doesn't have a lot of lore impact, and is certainly low-impact enough to use as a solution when we DO make changes that affect how people have trained their stats.
Changing your race, though, is vastly, vastly different. How would people feel if half of the people in Stone Clan all of the sudden became Togs, or Gnomes, or (worse) Elves? How would Rakash communities feel if all of the sudden, half of their members left and were replaced by people who until that day were halflings and prydaens? It gets really messy, really fast. Racial communities start to fracture around the edges (Not the cores, because they're dedicated to their RP decisions, but at the edges), which leads to smaller communities. Not to mention whatever voodoo we have to cook up on the back end to make it even remotely consistent for people to magically change their race. The RP question is a very big one, and in one of the few games left out there that DOES care about roleplaying, this is a huge deal.
There's also the customer support cost. "I accidentally changed my race, help!" If we say "too bad, you confirmed the choice", that's a very possible recipe for unhappiness large enough to discourage somebody from leaving. If we revert them, even in 'rare scenarios', we end up spending an enormous amount of time either writing code to handle racial reversion OR manually doing it, both of which keep those GMs from doing whatever they would normally want to do (which, I can assure you, is not handle an assist about somebody who messed up a transracial operation).
That's just off the top of my head - I won't even go into the higher-level game design/theory stuff about permanence, choice, freedom, etc, both because I'd rather not write a thesis and because I have much, much better things to do. That is the tip of the iceberg of 'how large the cost is'.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!
sortable list of all Trader-owned shops and inventory: http://www.elanthia.org/TraderShops/
armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide
I have not seen any indication that GMs are reconsidering the decision not to allow race changes.
The post I quoted is here: http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Abilities,%20Skills%20and%20Magic/The%20Experience%20System/view/3696
Archived copy: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Post:New_TDP_Method_-_10/05/2012_-_04:46
The complete thread is here: http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Abilities,%20Skills%20and%20Magic/The%20Experience%20System/thread/1495950
>>But I think the point is that we are all getting a stat respec because we made our choices under certain circumstances, and now those circumstances are changing. The same is true for race.
There's a major difference in scale, though. Stats are something that you grow slowly over time, and that as things subtly change, you can course correct pretty easily. The whole notion of training new stats up as you gain more ranks means that you can do micro-optimizations (or store up TDPs and do major optimizations, either way). Since there's a constant, organic flow of stat increases as you progress in the game, you're regularly given choices as to where things will go. Sometimes, a change comes along (or in these cases, a bunch of changes) that means that those optimizations you made over time aren't relevant any more, and the difference is enough that you might have a fundamental shift in the arrangement you want your stats to have. I suspect that if we were offering a 50% stat respec instead of a 100% stat respec, the end result (As far as people's builds go) would end up the same.
However, with your race, that's one of the decisions that you make and you really have to stick with it. You never get a chance to re-assess your race or guild (barring the weirdness where you join one guild and another, which I think literally nobody's done in years), because those are formative and permanent decisions.
I'll use an extreme example, because that's where the most significant changes would be seen. Gor'Togs are presented with the very clear assertion "Good at being strong, bad at being smart". Let's say there's a scenario where mentals only matter until 30 points, and after that it was worthless. Could you argue in good conscience that you should roll a Gor'Tog War Mage because the difficulties training mental stats fall off once mentals start being useless? If you make that argument, you're banking on the fact that mentals will never be worthwhile to train above 30, so 'Togs are always better. Since you're making this decision in a game that is constantly evolving and claims (even if it doesn't always happen) to strive toward balance, I feel like a mistake has been made somewhere.
That's one of the several reasons that the arguments for a race change fall flat for me - The only arguments are firmly couched in a stance that is completely and explictly OOC. The only times when somebody is impacted so significantly by a stat change that their ability to play plummets is when they've been metagaming and using mechanical loopholes without regard for the roleplaying consequences. All other arguments aside, I find it difficult to get behind an idea that only really tends the wounds of people who discard the spirit of the game and were taking advantage of the mechanics of today.
>> so what's the cost of a race change? Granted, Soch said it is too high for such a "small" change -- all I was asking for was more clarification on how small the change is and how large the cost is.
There are several costs. The first cost I think of is technical - It's a heck of a lot of code. It's not just "change the race and be done with it" - There's a whole bunch of items, systems, etc that rely on you being the race you are. What about racial perks? What if you're in moonskin? What about race-specific items, etc, etc. It can be done, but it's NOT a pretty picture.
Then, there's the lore cost. Right now, since there's basically no representation of stats, it's really easy to hand-wave a stat respec - Nobody can tell when you do a stat respec unless they're very intimately familiar with how your stats affect your performance, and see you before and after. A stat respec, then, really doesn't have a lot of lore impact, and is certainly low-impact enough to use as a solution when we DO make changes that affect how people have trained their stats.
Changing your race, though, is vastly, vastly different. How would people feel if half of the people in Stone Clan all of the sudden became Togs, or Gnomes, or (worse) Elves? How would Rakash communities feel if all of the sudden, half of their members left and were replaced by people who until that day were halflings and prydaens? It gets really messy, really fast. Racial communities start to fracture around the edges (Not the cores, because they're dedicated to their RP decisions, but at the edges), which leads to smaller communities. Not to mention whatever voodoo we have to cook up on the back end to make it even remotely consistent for people to magically change their race. The RP question is a very big one, and in one of the few games left out there that DOES care about roleplaying, this is a huge deal.
There's also the customer support cost. "I accidentally changed my race, help!" If we say "too bad, you confirmed the choice", that's a very possible recipe for unhappiness large enough to discourage somebody from leaving. If we revert them, even in 'rare scenarios', we end up spending an enormous amount of time either writing code to handle racial reversion OR manually doing it, both of which keep those GMs from doing whatever they would normally want to do (which, I can assure you, is not handle an assist about somebody who messed up a transracial operation).
That's just off the top of my head - I won't even go into the higher-level game design/theory stuff about permanence, choice, freedom, etc, both because I'd rather not write a thesis and because I have much, much better things to do. That is the tip of the iceberg of 'how large the cost is'.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!
sortable list of all Trader-owned shops and inventory: http://www.elanthia.org/TraderShops/
armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide
THAYET
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 04:06 PM CDT
>> The RP question is a very big one, and in one of the few games left out there that DOES care about roleplaying, this is a huge deal.
Of all the arguments against race respecs, this is the weakest because Shift exists and people already deal with people changing sexes and stuff.
I agree the technical back-end is potentially a huge mess, but the lore to support it does exist.
Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com
"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs
Of all the arguments against race respecs, this is the weakest because Shift exists and people already deal with people changing sexes and stuff.
I agree the technical back-end is potentially a huge mess, but the lore to support it does exist.
Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com
"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs
ISHARON
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 04:26 PM CDT
>>Thayet: Of all the arguments against race respecs, this is the weakest because Shift exists and people already deal with people changing sexes and stuff.
Sure, it is theoretically possible for a god-like Empath to shift a person's race. At least one Necromancer, Xerasyth, has changed his race twice (apparently by building new bodies for himself). The lore supports a lot of things that PCs are not allowed to do (usually for game balance, technical, or policy reasons).
Another RP consideration is that most people who wanted to change their race would be doing so for purely mechanical reasons. (Even if you reset stats and TDPs during the race change, race changes would be used as a way to change one's set of stat bonuses and penalties.) A sex change doesn't have the same implications, because it has no effect on your character (except in a few fluff cases with gender-restricted clothing).
DR has enough metagaming as it is without adding race changes to the mix.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!
sortable list of all Trader-owned shops and inventory: http://www.elanthia.org/TraderShops/
armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide
Sure, it is theoretically possible for a god-like Empath to shift a person's race. At least one Necromancer, Xerasyth, has changed his race twice (apparently by building new bodies for himself). The lore supports a lot of things that PCs are not allowed to do (usually for game balance, technical, or policy reasons).
Another RP consideration is that most people who wanted to change their race would be doing so for purely mechanical reasons. (Even if you reset stats and TDPs during the race change, race changes would be used as a way to change one's set of stat bonuses and penalties.) A sex change doesn't have the same implications, because it has no effect on your character (except in a few fluff cases with gender-restricted clothing).
DR has enough metagaming as it is without adding race changes to the mix.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!
sortable list of all Trader-owned shops and inventory: http://www.elanthia.org/TraderShops/
armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide
THAYET
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 04:41 PM CDT
The way around the TDP issue is to simply make race changes a purely cosmetic change, TBH. Back end, you're still a Human even if you're a furry with cat ears now.
I personally would also probably restrict many or most racial verbs, but that's just my take on it.
Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com
"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs
I personally would also probably restrict many or most racial verbs, but that's just my take on it.
Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com
"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs
NITUKI
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 04:50 PM CDT
Make people have to go to Xerasyth and survive for it to happen. He is the only one I know of in game to change his race.
THAYET
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 04:54 PM CDT
Trylaine et al. could self-shift everything, including race. Jomay can presumably pull it off. While those are granted higher-than-PC levels of skill, it's not really outside of the realm of reasonableness to set it at a very high (1000+ Empathy) difficulty.
Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com
"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs
Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com
"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs
GABRIEL4
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 05:05 PM CDT
<<The way around the TDP issue is to simply make race changes a purely cosmetic change, TBH. Back end, you're still a Human even if you're a furry with cat ears now.
The problem with this is that race choice just becomes a choose your own stat bonuses thing and devalues the concept of choosing a race.
If it was just a cosmetic shift then you'd also end up with code based oddities like a gor'tog being able to fit into a gnome sized tunnel because mechanically they're still a gnome, or a halfling handing out an elven handshake to a rakash for similar reasons.
The problem with this is that race choice just becomes a choose your own stat bonuses thing and devalues the concept of choosing a race.
If it was just a cosmetic shift then you'd also end up with code based oddities like a gor'tog being able to fit into a gnome sized tunnel because mechanically they're still a gnome, or a halfling handing out an elven handshake to a rakash for similar reasons.
GNIKOLEYCHUK
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 05:12 PM CDT
>>>> If it was just a cosmetic shift then you'd also end up with code based oddities like a gor'tog being able to fit into a gnome sized tunnel because mechanically they're still a gnome, or a halfling handing out an elven handshake to a rakash for similar reasons
Also, do we really want a bunch of gor'tog-gnome barbarians and elothean-human moon mages?
Also, do we really want a bunch of gor'tog-gnome barbarians and elothean-human moon mages?
THAYET
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 05:14 PM CDT
The concept of decoupling stats from race doesn't exactly offend me, so I can't say that would be a hangup for me. You might see more racial diversity if people weren't married to horrible stat spreads, at least.
Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com
"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs
Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com
"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs
BADGOPHER
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 05:28 PM CDT
If I'm not 'more stealthy' for playing a short character, or penalized in charisma for playing an ugly one, or so on, I'm also fine with race being a purely cosmetic choice. Rebalance everyone to human-normal for stats, or allow people to pick an 'array' that mimics our current choices.
So I pick my race, my features, etc., then just pick an array of stats that mimics the racial choices we have now (smart and weak, stupid and strong, etc.), nothing lost and suddenly it's viable to play a Tog.
So I pick my race, my features, etc., then just pick an array of stats that mimics the racial choices we have now (smart and weak, stupid and strong, etc.), nothing lost and suddenly it's viable to play a Tog.
FAMEBRIGHT
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 05:40 PM CDT
I would never be 100% sure all the race-related adjustments were gone... but they probably are.
Re: Life mana Spell preps
You raise your hands in the air. You wave them like you just don't care. Somebody says, "Hey!" Somebody says, "Ho!" Somebody screams.
Re: Life mana Spell preps
You raise your hands in the air. You wave them like you just don't care. Somebody says, "Hey!" Somebody says, "Ho!" Somebody screams.
GABRIEL4
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 05:48 PM CDT
<<You might see more racial diversity if people weren't married to horrible stat spreads, at least.
Sort of. If it was cosmetic only then you would probably see a surface level of increased diversity, but every barbarian would be a gor-tog or kaldar and every moon mage would be a gnome or elothean mechanically and the only difference would be when you looked at them to see a different race.
Sort of. If it was cosmetic only then you would probably see a surface level of increased diversity, but every barbarian would be a gor-tog or kaldar and every moon mage would be a gnome or elothean mechanically and the only difference would be when you looked at them to see a different race.
ISHARON
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 05:52 PM CDT
>>Thayet: The concept of decoupling stats from race doesn't exactly offend me, so I can't say that would be a hangup for me.
It has been suggested several times, but I am still not fond of the idea. To me, the lore and culture of a race includes its physiology and mental makeup (as reflected mechanically in stat costs). Take Gor'Togs, for example. Part of their lore is that they are strong and enduring. Removing all stat cost modifiers (or letting Gor'Togs operate under the Gnome stat spread) would undermine that aspect of their lore (especially among players who don't consider the game's setting unless it's reinforced mechanically).
Decoupling stats from race would also diminish the novelty of unusual race/guild combinations.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!
sortable list of all Trader-owned shops and inventory: http://www.elanthia.org/TraderShops/
armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide
It has been suggested several times, but I am still not fond of the idea. To me, the lore and culture of a race includes its physiology and mental makeup (as reflected mechanically in stat costs). Take Gor'Togs, for example. Part of their lore is that they are strong and enduring. Removing all stat cost modifiers (or letting Gor'Togs operate under the Gnome stat spread) would undermine that aspect of their lore (especially among players who don't consider the game's setting unless it's reinforced mechanically).
Decoupling stats from race would also diminish the novelty of unusual race/guild combinations.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!
sortable list of all Trader-owned shops and inventory: http://www.elanthia.org/TraderShops/
armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide
FATBOY30269
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/16/2016 09:16 PM CDT
Not going to lie, I would be doing the change for mechanical reasons, the minus to intel and wis when they affect exp like they do just sucks as a gor'tog, and in a game in where it takes years to progress, the gor'tog choice only serves as a reminder of a bad choice. But, outside of mechanical choices, I don't rp as a tog, big dumb brute is only so interesting, especially when said brute is 100% weaker than 70% of the people you run into. I just figured with sex changes, people selling and buying characters where they do 180s from what they were once like, it woulnd't be a big deal to change race. Also sucks to have a list of race specific verbs that either make you look like a giant green toddler, or a constant reminder that big buy is big.
DISCOTEQ21
Re: Ability to Change Race
03/17/2016 08:28 AM CDT
Race change has been brought up many times and the answer is always that its never going to happen.
That being said I love my togs. You don't have to RP a big dumb brute, I'm not sure what guild you play, but Strength actually is very useful now especially endgame.
Strength : 112 Reflex : 100 +
Agility : 100 Charisma : 100
Discipline : 110 Wisdom : 100
Intelligence : 100 Stamina : 100 +
I love me some tog.
Don't forget to vote for dragonrealms:
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html
That being said I love my togs. You don't have to RP a big dumb brute, I'm not sure what guild you play, but Strength actually is very useful now especially endgame.
Strength : 112 Reflex : 100 +
Agility : 100 Charisma : 100
Discipline : 110 Wisdom : 100
Intelligence : 100 Stamina : 100 +
I love me some tog.
Don't forget to vote for dragonrealms:
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html
