Off To The Races

When I checked my Feedly this morning the first thing I saw was this question from Keen:


What’s Your Favorite MMORPG Race and Why?


I immediately thought of the Lunar New Year's race through Divinity's Reach in GW2. I did that over and over and really enjoyed it. Did I enjoy it more than the aerial races organized by EQ2's gnomes for every City Festival, though? Or the many races around Metropolis and Gotham in DCUO? And what about that all-time classic, EverQuest's Naked Gnome Race from Ak'Anon to Freeport?

Then I read Keen's post and realized he didn't mean that kind of race at all. He meant the kind of race you choose at Character Creation. The one that decides whether you're short or tall, hated or admired, a genius or a dimwit. Whether you're covered in fur or scales, have a tail or wings. All that good stuff.

The term "Race", of course, is a bit of a misnomer as it's generally applied in MMORPGs. Sometimes it can be an accurate description, as in Vanguard, which has four "races" with the subtitle "Human", but usually it means Species. Then again, the species boundary gets very blurry in fantasy.

We tend to think of Humans, Elves and Orcs as genuinely disparate, separate species but that can hardly be the case when they can interbreed to give us Half-Orcs and Half Elves. Not to mention Half-Giants. The line fades to the point of invisibility when magic comes into the picture with races like EverQuest's Drakkin, "a human race" with "a touch of dragon blood...scaly skin, marking, hair and sometimes horns that mirror the dragon that gifted them their heritage".

Exactly how a dragon  "gifts" such a heritage is - probably wisely - left to the imagination. The more you ponder on all this, the less sense it seems to make. Why are there so many half elves but no "half-humans"? Is that just a naming convention or are the Elven parent's genes always dominant? If Elves and Humans can interbreed successfully, why not Gnomes and Dwarves? Or can they, but they just don't, for cultural reasons?

At first blush MMORPGs - particularly those with a fantasy setting - appear to offer a multiplicity of racial options but they tend to narrow down to a handful once you look at them closely. For a start, almost every Player Race in every MMO is bipedal. Istaria famously lets you play as a (four-legged) dragon, which was the game's primary USP back when it launched as Horizons. Project: Gorgon's Cows are another notable exception, although even there you can't actually roll a cow (!) at character creation. You have to become one by magic in game.

GW2's Charr are highly unusual in that, while bipedal in combat, they drop to all fours when running. It's one of the features that make them so appealing as a racial choice for me even though they are definitely on the larger end of the scale. I do cleave to the smaller races as a rule.

Many Western MMOs have a handful of options that at least attempt to add some variation to the "Short human", "tall human", "human with horns", "human with tail", "human with wings" palette seen in so many imports from the East. WoW has Bulls, Wolves, Goats, Pandas and Undead, all of which walk upright on two legs and look like humans dressed up for Mardi Gras.  

Allods, which modelled a deal of its visual appearance on WoW, took things a stage further with Gibberlings, who come in packs of three and are a lot closer to "animals dressed up as humans" than the other way round. Indeed, Gibberlings probably rest at the cusp of Fantasy and Anime, or Fantasy and Cartoon if you want to be Western about it, which is where the real non-human races come into their own.

There was that one MMO where I played as a rabbit. What was that one called? Eden Eternal, that's it! It's still running, too. There was also the similarly-named and much-missed Earth Eternal, an all-animal MMO I played in beta with some degree of enjoyment. Those animals still stood upright, though, unlike the deer in Endless Forest, a bizarre affair which has, astonishingly, spawned some kind of sub-genre that incudes Meadow and Wolfquest.

Plenty of choice if you cast your MMO net far enough. Closer to home, in the handful of MMOs we all talk about as though they represented the genre, not so much. Which brings me back to Keen's original question. So, what is my favorite MORPG race?

Just for once I can answer that question! In fact, I can list my top ten in order without having to think too hard about it.

1. Raki - Vanguard - Stocky foxes with a great backstory, characterful animations and the happiest faces.

2. Ratonga - EQ2 - Cute rats with another excellent backstory and the most endearing verbal tic in gaming.

3. Gnome - EverQuest - Short, smart, every one kinda likes them and they have the tickingest city in Norrath.

4. Charr - GW2 - Big cats that don't do the "catgirl/catman" thing, run on all fours and have the city Ak'Anon would be if it was a military-industrial complex.

5. Asura - GW2 - They're rats but they won't admit it. Why do you think they're so obsessed with the Skritt (who would totally be on this list if you could play them). Best animations and great voicework, too.

6. Gibberlings - Allods - Three demented gerbils for the price of one. What's not to love?

7. Vah'Shir - EverQuest - Another non-cute cat race. I never really took to the EQ2 version but I played a Vah'Shir Beastlord in EQ for many years and the combination of a tiger-person with a tiger pet is hard to top.

8. Goblin - Warhammer Online - Cowardly, obsequious, disgusting and only they can be the second-best class in any MMO, the Squig-Herder.

9. Dwarf - EverQuest - Just a classic. So solid, so reliable, so predictably gruff. Everything you want a dwarf to be and everything you don't.

 10. Riven - City of Steam - The race I wish I'd played more before the game closed down. Cool, stylish, mysterious, the Riven could have been so much more if only City of Steam had followed its original plan.

Well, that's the top ten today. Ask me tomorrow and it may have changed. Raki is always going to be number one, though. In my heart, anyway.

Pretty Green : City of Steam

The City of Steam Sneak Peak has been extended to Thursday, which gives me a chance to  try out the remaining two classes. There are four altogether: Warden, Gunner, Arcanist and Channeler. I'm a little hazy on how the roles fall out between them. The Warden is a tank, for sure. The Gunner is ranged DPS, I think, but so is the Arcanist. The Channeler is Healer/Support and also the one I've not tried yet.

Move Along, Citizen

Everyone but the Warder uses magic, even the Gunner. I thought they were just firing pistols and throwing bombs but it seems they're using their own blood to "transform their sidearms into occult implements". Is that legal? It makes more sense than the the Channeler job description, anyway, which claims they're bardic healers who use "battle-hardened musical instruments to turn the steel eye of the World Machine to the suffering of their companions". Run that by me again?

No-one is officially Melee DPS, although I think everyone can dual wield. Unless the Channeler can't. Hang on, let me make one... Yep. Dual-wields blunt weapons, starting out with Censers, incense optional. I was hoping he might clout ratlings upside the head with a brace of maracas. Maybe later. And yes, there are ratlings. They don't wear any clothes or talk, at least not the ones I've met (and by met I mean chopped up with a big sword). But, hey, they walk on two legs so they count.

The Warden and Gunner I covered last time. The Arcanist seems to be the classic glass cannon. She gets Fire, Ice and Electricity lines, heavy on the AE. The explosions are spectacular. Most solo fights end with her standing in the middle of a pile of dismantled clockworks, beating the flames out of her dress. I took mine down to level 14 of the Nexan Archives. and she didn't die once. She nearly died about twenty times. Not for the faint of heart.

And that's just the healer!

The Channeler gets Fire, Sound and Light lines with some very nice visual effects. All healing and damage derives from a multiple of weapon damage, which I think is true of all the classes. Everyone gets the same vast number of stats. Seven active, seven passive, ten resists making a grand total of twenty-four. That won't last. Items have negative as well as positive stats. Neither will that. Armor has three resistances, different to the ten general resistances. There are at least four grades of armor. Weapons and Armor have class restrictions. I said it was old school!

City of Steam is a real rpg statfest but the UI is so elegantly designed that I haven't found it in the least overwhelming or confusing. It's certainly counter-trend, though, which can't be said about the choice of races.

I don't want to breathe YOUR germs either

Steampunk does not say elves to me. Nor orcs. It might possibly say dwarves, at a push. CoS offers a choice of nine races and five of them are varieties of elf or greenskin. The three greenskins (they call themselves that and it's true) are Goblin, Orc and Hobbe. I'm guessing the Hobbe is a Hobgoblin although they're big enough to be ogres. I called mine Calvin. I assume everyone will.

Checks are in this century

The elves are the first elves I have seen in many years that I would willingly play. They look, sound and act more like pale, fin-de-siecle goths than elves. If they didn't occasionally mention their elvishness I'd have guessed they were vampires. They come in two flavors, Riven or Draug, the main difference between them being their lifespan, short for the Riven and long for the Draug. How that will impact gameplay I cannot say. Ask me in fifty years. Oh, and one kind is blue.

The rest of the races are humans of different regional background and attitude. I notice they are all White European in appearance. There's no option for skin color (so far) at character creation either.

I think the elves work. I remain to be convinced about the Greenskins. I'd have preferred Steam Dwarves as a playable race. Or ratlings, although that might just be me. Still, it's early days. Much could change and much remains to be revealed. The website suggests a considerable level of political intrigue to come, of which as yet there are barely hints in the game. 

There's no mention of crafting but I'm sure it's on the way. There are vendors for Oil and Coal. Also Pleap, Toap and Hawte which appear to be foods. Or diseases of the sheep. One or the other. On the subject of vendors, they all have a timer that tells you when the shop will restock, which suggests an interesting scarcity mechanic could be in the plan. A variety of "Repair Materials" drop in dungeons for which there is as yet no use. They look like crafting raws to me and I hope that's what they are but could they point to armor and weapon degradation. I hope they don't.

I could go on, and on. And on. But I won't. This is now my most-anticipated MMO save only for Guild Wars 2. I'm going to miss it when the server closes on Thursday. Here's hoping for an alpha invite in a month or so. More chance of that than a GW2 beta invite, that's for sure!