While BioWare hasn’t released the full list of races for SWTOR, the ones that are available aren’t exactly a state secret at this point. There’s a little bit of a range going on here, but when you look at them all objectively, you’ll notice that they’re all the Star Wars races that are either human or as close to human as possible.
In other words, players won’t be stepping into the shoes of a Yoda, Chewbacca, Admiral Ackbar, or any of the more “exotic” species that have been both on screen, in comics, and in games. This strikes me as pretty anti-Star Wars after a fashion, because the franchise has always been steeped in bizarre alien creatures that go far above and beyond what, say, Star Trek did. Even Star Wars Galaxies would let you choose some of these more alien races, and if the race you wanted wasn’t available on the character select screen, you could get disguises or somesuch that would alter your appearance so you could be that Jedi Jawa you’ve always wanted to be.
But not in Star Wars: The Old Republic, where it seems as though the developers are practicing a not-so-subtle form of racism (speciesism?) — the humans and their close cousins are the good stock, and the strange aliens and droids are the undesirable second-string players not good enough for a starring role.
Now, I’m not going to project my “I wanna play [race X] or I’m going to throw a tantrum!” desire to play a Hutt or something. I understand that with a game universe this big and a game project where choices have to be made, it makes sense to play safe and go for the races that will probably be picked the most anyway. Still, it seems as though BioWare is not giving players enough credit for being willing to play unconventional races, especially in light of the entire MMO genre, where MOST games feature several unconventional races — and those get played.
Let’s go to the pertinent quotes by Daniel Erickson:
Lead characters in an RPG must be something the player can relate to. There has never been a movie or major Star Wars series with a complete freak job as the lead and that’s because dramatically it doesn’t work. We don’t understand what it means to be a giant lizard or a droid or a walking ball of jelly. We love the weird characters but they are always the sidekicks, not the emotional connection in the movie…
In the future I can see a day where we would do a Trandoshan or Wookiee type story but it would have to be just that. Not a simple graphic swap where now your smuggler is a giant lizard man and nobody notices but a full class story where you learn what it means to be this strange alien and deal with the rest of the galaxy and their reactions. For the present, however, our heroes are our projections of self, headed into a galaxy of wonders and adventures.
I know that this isn’t what some people want but I hope it helps them understand that game design isn’t simply throwing random features into a game because they seem cool. You have to have a goal, a final holistic ideal that you’re trying to hit. The Old Republic is, and always has been, about starring in your own version of a Star Wars movie.
Again, I’m torn on agreeing with the logistics of pouring in efforts into races that a majority of players might not even touch, but I really do disagree with his perspective here. Star Wars isn’t about humans doing human things and everyone else is just background players. Sure, most of the original trilogy featured humans in lead roles, but it was in a universe where races freely intermingled and there wasn’t a hint of racial superiority. And when you go to the prequels, where the Jedi counsel was practically a who’s-who of aliens, it’s hard to hold to Erickson’s argument.
For a game that’s trying hard to be the next generation of WoW, there’s a shocking lack of understanding as to just how capable players are at stepping into the skin of non-traditional races. The “RP” in “MMORPG” means that you are taking on a role that is something other than yourself and hopefully not just a Mary Sue situation. You get to explore a world through a different perspective and in a different body than your own. Whether this comes as a human, elf, dragon, giant cow-person, or a robot hasn’t presented a hardship because we have imaginations to allow us to slip into these roles. Video gamers have been doing it for years, so why would BioWare think that we’re now going to balk at the prospect of playing a Mon Calimari as if we’ve never seen a character option other than “humanish” before?
Non-conventional racial choices could have been a neat area for BioWare to be bold in, but instead — as with so much of SWTOR — the company is playing it conservatively and then trying to justify it by putting words in our mouth by saying we wouldn’t be able to relate unless it’s a spitting cousin of what we are in real life. Maybe I’m making a big deal out of what is really nothing, but it does irk me that the company didn’t just stop at “We’re putting our resources to what we think will be most played” but had to follow that up by implying that their customers are just plumb unable to roleplay anything other than a human. Or a blue human. Or a human with tails on their head. Or a red human. Or a human with a blindfold.
It’s a little sad that the vision for games like these is more concerned with unoffensive, mass-market appeal than creating an RPG first and foremost. SWTOR isn’t the only title that’s fallen into this (RIFT is an equal offender in the bland-as-crap racial choices), it just serves to highlight just how unwilling modern devs are at trying to branch out from anything other than the safest possible choices.
Unless, of course, you’re ArenaNet and are planning a game full of giant vikings, sentient plant people, small alienish engineers, and beast men. But we’ll probably not be able to relate to them at all because our minds are so fragile and we want a personal story that’s all about us, the humans!
Hopefully expansion packs will bring us more daring choices that will break down the walls of segregation between the “real” races and their token minority friends.
Video games! They’re edgy!
Erm… No. in the SW universe there is racism, but its treated just like human to human racism. Giant lizards are common honestly, so, there wouldnt be much story difference…
“Again, I’m torn on agreeing with the logistics of pouring in efforts into races that a majority of players might not even touch”
I don’t think this is what he’s saying, at least not entirely.
The point Erickson’s trying to make is that a Human Smuggler’s story shouldn’t be the same as a Mon Calamari Smuggler’s story. Thrawn is a great example of this – his story was unique, because the Imperial Navy was so human-centric. You couldn’t make the same story by swapping in random races.
I think this is a side effect of the story-heavy emphasis. Most MMOs treat race as utterly meaningless – you may have a slightly different ability, or some NPC won’t give you the same quests until you get your rep up, but it doesn’t really matter. Bioware wants the character to fit in the story, and you can’t do that with Jawa Jedi running around.
So to a certain extent it is a logistics issue, but if the amount of story they have for each class is even close to accurate, and you assume that they’d feel the need to do a separate story for each race in each class… It’s an understandable casualty, I think.
Imagine a hundred hours of your Wookie talking.
Buhallin above has a good point I never thought about: some races would not make sense being inserted in to the story lines they currently have written.
But aside from that, telling people they wouldn’t be able to relate to alien races is crap. It was one of several comments that made me decide I will not play this game. I’m a writer and a student of literature, so don’t tell me I can’t relate to a fictional alien race written by a human being for the end of entertaining human beings. I found that explanation insulting and think anyone of average or better intelligence should as well.
Tough talk from somebody who hates elves.
Every company has their way of seeing the world. If past BioWare games had been rife with oddball alien, or at least non-human choices, then I might join in with you.
But how many alien races were there in Mass Effect? And how many were YOU allowed to play?
I know, MA is not an MMO, but BioWare is a company about story, something people often can’t go a paragraph without mentioning. And with story being the big selling point and their big strength and they have strong views on the subject.
So, as stated previously, I don’t think they are saying anything like the players are too dumb to play a Wookie, but that the story you would be thrown into wouldn’t make sense if you were a Wookie. And, to then round it into the point you were hoping they would make, they probably do not have the resources to make unique stories for other choices.
Not yet, anyway.
This whole character thing is a key indicator of how different TOR will be from SWG. SWG, with its sandbox nature, was about you making your own story about your character. Being a bit odd-ball was fine, because you could run with it. TOR will be very much about experiencing a story written for you, and BioWare wants the story to be solid.
Now, will there be enough story… or stories I guess… so that we don’t end up looking like a clone army standing around together? That is the question about which I worry.
Another point is that this probably saves Bioware a lot of art-development time. All the art would have to be redone for models that are significantly different than humans.
Plus, would wookies be the feral druids of ToR, where their art never changes regardless of what you equip?
Finally, it’s a really good element to hold back for the inevitable expansion. Star Wars: Revenge of the Ewoks, coming in 2013.
“There has never been a movie or major Star Wars series with a complete freak job as the lead and that’s because dramatically it doesn’t work.”
This is just incorrect. The main character in A New Hope was R2-D2 and the story unfolds from his perspective.
http://cheeseburgerbrown.com/Darth_Vader/R2-D2_Fulcrum_of_the_Force.html
This is a little disappointing. Hadn’t given it much thought that there would be such a limited race selection in the MMO. I was really hoping to play a rodian or maybe a kel dor.
Funny to read how I wouldn’t get into playing a non-human character. The tauren was one of the big selling points for me in vanilla WoW and I couldn’t stand playing the Alliance until the Draenei were introduced.
Excellent article.
While they make excellent design points. But I still think they are leaving room for new races that can speak common (english?). I think the main difference is that those races would require more work to get the gear looking properly on them, thus, not something to easily do, but will require time. They seemed to stick more with what was easiest to do for them graphically.
Unless, of course, you’re ArenaNet and are planning a game full of giant vikings, sentient plant people, small alienish engineers, and beast men. But we’ll probably not be able to relate to them at all because our minds are so fragile and we want a personal story that’s all about us, the humans!
Of course, you’ll notice that the plant people have two arms, two legs, and conveniently-placed foliage covering up their objectively pointless mammary glands. I don’t see any non-humanoids in the GW2 roster, and in fact, I see painstaking artistic detail making every race more human than less. Hell, this is from an interview with Kristin Perry:
“Much of the problem was in making the female charr more universally attractive, which leans towards a more human appearance. Those initial designs explored the tension between an acceptable human notion of beauty and an animalistic design that is cool, but just too “creature” for the average player to find engaging.”
That interview ended with the titular “either Charr females get six breasts or none!” quote, indicating they did ended up with a less human-ish design. But the point is that you cannot really hold ArenaNet up as some kind of sterling example of non-human narrative design.
Indeed, as some have already commented, it is not so much that BioWare thinks the players are incapable of empathizing (or roleplaying) with nonhumans, it is that they don’t want Mad Lib-style lazy characterizations where choosing a race boils down to a different appearance and maybe racial bonuses. Tauren are in WoW, but outside of the starting zone does one’s race ever matter in any way whatsoever? No. BioWare wants race to matter, to have some impact to the story, and that’s hard to do with nonhumans without half-assed hand-waving like what occurs in all those other MMOs you talk about.
Pretty huge savings on art, animations, stories, level design, etc. this way.
In a super story heavy game, it is really tough to have player character choices that are heavily divergent.
Why has no-one pointed out the seemingly obvious here?
Bioware only want near-human PCs because their romance scenes dont work otherwise.
Another example of a design element being sacrificed on the altar of “story”.
Yes I will play it anyway, its Star Wars
All good points and I agree wholeheartedly. Also, I think Bioware explicitly did say what Remi pointed out above (though perhaps they said it tongue-in-cheek).
Good point of view, and I have to admit I am torn myself. On one end, it makes very little sense to me that a developer should simply recolor a skin, and add one racially unique ability just to have a “cool, unique” race to play in the game, and yes, the human connection is essential to drama.
But then look at all the (playable) races in WoW. Granted they all have two arms and are bipedal, but the lore, looks, racial abilities and starting areas are what set them apart and give them a unique feel. So while it makes sense to not slap on a new skin for a new race, slapping on a new skin does not breathe any real life into the being.
I feel your guys pain, I really wanted a Nautolen so I could be cool like Kit Fisto but they aren’t one of the choices. I can understand why Bioware did it though. Hopefully we see some in future expansions.
I can tell you that you will see plenty of species as commanding officers or Jedi masters and receive quests from them so at least we get to see and hear them in that way.
More fuel to add to the fire of the anti SWTOR camp, even if it is a minority voice comprised of bitter ex SWG fans and players.
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Unfortunately the same economics apply to games as do to films. Bipedal humanoid characters of approximately the same height make a lot of things a lot easier.
Animation’s easier – most animators are good at human-sized and shaped things. Animating something with four legs, or something three times as large, is much harder to do well – balance points change, body language is massively different, inertia and snap change.
Animation interactions become much, much easier, as people have mentioned above. it’s not just romance – I can tell you from recent experience that matching a human character’s movements with something twice their size in a fight scene is a long, slow pain in the ass of a process. MMOs can play this a bit faster and looser, but if Bioware are hoping to raise the bar on MMO interaction in romance, combat or anything else, it’ll be a lot easier if everyone’s roughly the same size.
And so on.
Nonetheless, this is still a disappointment. SWTOR has the budget as well as the universe to really do something different – it’s a pity they seem to be steering toward the conservative.
(BTW, nice post – I’ve featured it on the Melting Pot today)
I always thought it funny in Star Trek just how prolific humans were. Everywhere you looked, there seemed to be a near-human. In Star Trek, humans must have been breeding like rabbits because they took up most of the Federation!
That’s where Star Wars shined. You could look in any cantina and find a Bith, Ithorian, or Some other alien that looked remarkably different from humans.
I can understand why Bioware is sticking to the human palette of race choices. Like others have said, it makes development easier from all angles – including animation, texturing, voiceovers, and storylines.
I just wish Bioware didn’t try to convince us that we can only empathize with near-humans, and were just honest with us in saying “hey, it’s just a lot easier”.
I still wish that they would have choosen at least one or two more of the iconic aliens we all know and love. Not these obscure ones we’ve hardly heard of, other than in KOTOR.
I was very disappointed by the bland races in Rift and it saddens me that SWTOR is going the boring route too. Most of the “exotic” races in Star Wars are still humanoid, and less distant from human than something like a Tauren. But nobody ever played those guys, right?
The way I look at it is simple. KotOR 1&2 had plain old boring humans, and only humans, as the player character. As SWTOR is more or less the MMO extension of KotOR, anything beyond the basic human race (no matter how human-like they are) is just bonus in my eyes. Sure, more ‘interesting’ races would be great – personal I kill to play as Yoda’s race – but I completely understand the reasons for what they’ve decided to go with.