Classes and Races

[Tiger]

Right now we're going to say for sure, the old Races will be implemented into Yserbius 2. This includes, but is not limited to:

Elf, Human, Halfing, Dwarf, Gnome, Troll, Gremlin and Orc

What are your thoughts on these races? Should we have them have sub-races? For example, Elf could have a Sub-Race of Half-Elf, or Tree Elf, ect. What, if any significance should race or sub-race play?

What about Classes? What Classes would you like to see? The original few such as Knight, Barb, Thief, Mage or Cleric? Should those be the major types, with archetypes such as Knight can become a Dark Knight with each evil deed? Let us know what you think.

 

[Lord_Cie]

The classic races should be there, definetely, but I do think we should add a few more, even if we're hard-pressed to figure out stats for them, or racial traits in-game. It's The Return after all, it should have more stuff

And yes, I know more /= better . I still think we need half-elves, Ents, etc

 

[PYRO]

I would keep this races the way they are (that about covers everything) and if you're going to make any changes on the races, maybe cover half-breeds (half human, half elf, etc). I think we should add another class or two, but I'm not sure what we could add...hmmmmm...have to think about it.

 

[Kryghton]

Races look good but...Gremlin? Bah! I'd rather see troglodytes or another lizard type playable race.

Sub-races would really start to complicate things. Remember the developers words to live be...K.I.S.S.



-Meph

 

[Navic]

I'm not too keen on the gremlin race. Maybe use it for GM's only?

Here's a "Classic" Yserbius lizard-type race... Coelus... I was so envious of thier tongue action

 

[Kryghton]

Here's a "Classic" Yserbius lizard-type race... Coelus... I was so envious of thier tongue action

ROFL!!


-Meph

 

[Dewm]

I would say stick with the old races as well, the amount we had in old YS gave you some choice, but also gave you not too many to play them all

 

[Navic]

Elf, Human, Halfing, Dwarf, Gnome, Troll, Gremlin

Ya forgot the bloody Orc's! I say dump the Gremlins. Maybe make Barbarian a player race rather then class.

Yserbius classes; Barbarian (Or Warrior), Knight, Ranger, Thief, Cleric and Wizard.

Navic's proposal: Add Bard's and Druid's. It seems those two classes complete the character class spectrum... fill in the gaps... or whatever...
Warrior<->Ranger<->Thief<->Bard<->Wizard<->Druid<->Cleric<->Paladin<-> back to Warrior.

Just my 2 copper!

 

[ZaneDWagner]

The original eight races (grouped by 'first cousins', as in the manual) were:

Humans and Orcs
Elves and Trolls
Dwarves and Gnomes
Halflings and Gremlins

Obviously, these are four traditionally 'good' races, and four traditionally 'evil' races (gnomes are similar to goblins in some mythos).

But, oh my goodness, can you imagine doing the equipment models for all eight of these races? You would have to do 16 models for every piece of armor (8 races x 2 genders). The amount of extra work entailed by puting in 8 races would be staggering.

 

[Tiger]

Ok, I've been trying to stay out of these discussion for professional reasons... But I Gotta ask...

Should we change Gnomes into Goblins then?

To me, Gnomes are Halflings anyway... (Alignment wise)

Personally, I think we should stick with the main eight, but add sub Races (Half-Elf, High Elf, Tree Elf, ect.).

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[ZaneDWagner]

Subraces are an excellent idea, and would help alleviate the problem I mentioned above.

As I wrote, having to create 16 different 3D models for each type of armor (since there's 16 different base body models over which those 3D models have to fit), would be very taxing, especially for such a small development group (not to mention that you have to individually texture each model; even if you're using the same texture image, you still have to hand-tweak the UV coordinates).

However, if you have subraces, then you could just use the same models, but scale them to different sizes. So, the wood elf models would be the same as the hgh elf models, just scaled to be shorter.

Thus, you could drop the number of races to 4 instead of eight, and give those 4 races 2 or three subraces each, and save yourself a lot of work whilst retaining the illusion of many different races. =)

 

[Tiger]

Since I'm doin the 3D modeling and texturing, right now I'm not worried about that... I have a plan... LOL :roll:

Anyway, my main concern and questions are with their interactivity and roll. Should we use Goblins instead of Gnomes? (As I mentioned above) or something else?

 

[Navic]

You would have to do 16 models for every piece of armor (8 races x 2 genders). The amount of extra work entailed by puting in 8 races would be staggering.

I didn't think about that... then again I'm not doing the modeling

 

[ZaneDWagner]

Since I'm doin the 3D modeling and texturing, right now I'm not worried about that... I have a plan... LOL

lol, well, I'll leave it to you, then! I only mention it because recently, SOE released a statement that the EQ2 development cycle was being held up by the amount of modeling they had to... so they're revising all the body models so that in the future, they'll only have to create a small number of models per piece of armor. If Sony has trouble creating all the models neccesary, then Yserbius Entertainment might want to take heed. =D

Role of races is an interesting point - why do you have all these different races? Ideally, each one should have its own purpose in the game world; adding races just for races sake is just feature-glut and an excuse to double or triple the amount of content needed (So, we have drow, high elves, and wood elves? You'll need to plan out, model, texture, and populate the respective cities of all three subraces!).

I'm sure you'll be able to manage it. =) I have faith in y'all!

 

[Navic]

Good points Zane... thanx for your input

 

[Tiger]

Excellent points... And I'd like to address the race cities...

In Yserbius, from what I understand and gather from the story line... Is a port city... It's an island that was abandond and basicly destroyed... We, I feel, are not limited to make cities for each race....

Uhm... Maybe I've said to much... lol

 

[Navic]

Don't give everything away Tig... people may think we're doing something :wink:

 

[Nyzzrym]

Wher be the Pirates!? Blast'd land lubbars! Raise the Jolly Roger mates, it be time for ship to ship battles in thee land of Yserbius!

 

[Xargen]

I say if you want different styles for the same races, you could set them up with different ancestories, that way you wouldn't even have to change the models, but would still be able to give access to different skills/abilities as they're raised differently, for example, a human knight would have three ancestories, something like Fighter, Holy Warrior and Dark Knight, the Fighter being mainly a physical styled character with a bit of backup magic and offensive skills, the Holy Warrior brandishing things such as Flaming Weapon for added magical damage on his blade and other magics, still a competent physical fighter, just not quite as good as the Fighter ancestory, and the Dark Knight, who's just plain evil, with leaching moves and the ability to deal extra damage at the cost of his/her own health.

Also for this, you could have the ancestories allignment locked, Harmony characters can be either a Holy Warrior or a Fighter, but not a Dark Knight, Chaos characters can be a Fighter or Dark Knight, but not a Holy Warrior, and maybe neutral characters could either be all three or just a Fighter

That is... if this project is even still going... it's been a couple of years since the last post =(

 

[Tiger]

Those are very interesting idea's... As for still working on it... I don't know, it's been awhile since any of us core members have spoken, so I don't know where things stand. I still contemplate stuff like this, but mostly to myself, wondering how things could be if we had a good support backbone.