Jim Skamarakas

A typical design in MMO’s is to make a certain race the baseline. Game designers take the easy out and go with humans. Just to name two - Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online. Heck, Dark Age of Camelot has three realms, and makes all three of their humans the norm. Two games, and 4 examples

So why is human the norm? It makes it easy for the developer to explain the big hulk in relation to the human. The scrawny brainy one in relation to the human. Game developers are humans, and its easier for them to relate to a common species. And here is where they slack off and go the easy route.

For a player who doesnt want to be average, they are complelled to not go human. Average, The common, the largest in the universe, jack of al ltrades, master of none. These all point to “ughh don’t go human, go troll for tthe extra strength of a fighter”.

These design decision force players to take a race based upon the profession they are going to play, rather then the race they want to be. Its time we saw an end to this weak design decision, and a movement towards one suporting actual game research and back story development that makes every race different. Not just in looks and in +10 -10, but in their culture, history and behavior.

In EverQuest II, there are racial traits that provide bonus options based upon plyability. The goal is to make each race different. But we still see the troll fighter types, and elf mage types for that little extra bonus, and see stats differences for each race that support the typical player making those decisions.
The mold breaker - yes we see cleric trolls and big hulking healer types - these are players who look atthe stats and decide that extra health is always a good thing. Or extra strength means more physical hit damage.
The game’s mechanics are letting players make decisions to get the edge, rather then play a race.
Lets see a game where all races are the same 10 10 10 10 10 10
Give us development choices at toon creation based upon our personality - The Matrix Online is doing this, but they are so many other problems in The Matrix that its hard to know if this is panning out to be part of the problem, or if The Matrix Online is just a weak game (see full review)

Let us decide on our toons background story

• Dad was a jock in High School, Mom was a cheerleader - she went all the way at the prom - +10 strength
• Dad was a science geek in High School, Mom was a nerdy book worm - she went all the way at band camp - +10 Intelligence, -5 agility
• Mom was a tutor in math, Dad was an idiot on the football team. Mom helped him pass the final exam, and gave him a reward for passing the test - +10 strength -5 Intelligence
• Mom went to dinner with a guy from work, he slipped her a ruffy, banged her, then invited the guy from the motel room next door - +10 to wisdom because you had to listen to her *** you entire development life about how much a jerk that guy froim marketing was +5 to a random skill since we dont know who you dad was
• Mom met Dad, got married, did it on their honeymoon, had you, and lived a perfectly normal life - +0 to nothing -0 to nothing. Your just plain Vanilla and fine with eat.

We can see the practical applications of such a system. It will help those RP’ing impaired individuals create a background story, encourage the paying of all classes or professions by all races, and make for a more diverse game scene.

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