I mean if we’re talking immersion, why can’t HETE put my cerebral upload into whatever I choose? Seems like an arbitrary limitation for some high brow RP people more than anything.
I think a lot of people who are arguing against a change are doing it based on having personally seen the impact that's had in other games. But here's the thing: If you don't think race should matter... why would you want to change it?
I think a lot of people who are arguing against a change are doing it based on having personally seen the impact that's had in other games. But here's the thing: If you don't think race should matter... why would you want to change it?
I don't think anyone's saying it shouldn't matter at all, either.
For reference as well, I've been a Lusternia player for more years than I'd like to admit. I have also personally seen how shitty and pointless race has become because of the way it's treated there. Please realize that that's not at all what I'm proposing, as race as a concept is handled entirely different here. That's a good thing. I like that.
Since it has no mechanical benefit, I don't see any reason to not give a novice/time-played one-off reset with the option to purchase a one-use arti to swap. Something something HETE has to perform extra manipulation to your replicator so your body doesn't go insane or something. Hell, I wouldn't even mind a gem of transmutation.
That lets race stay 'relevant' while allowing some flexibility and unique narratives behind a paywall. Amnesiac body swaps! Start a Dolezal Dynasty! Customizable pleasure slaves! Etc etc.
The argument is that the race of your character should be important decision. If it becomes something you can easily, or at all, change, then it becomes irrelevant and inevitably leads to cheapening racial roleplay.
I honestly can't say I disagree. Mostly just think novices (and everyone who has participated in the beta) should have the opportunity to say once, 'Actually, you know what, I think that race over there fits my character better."
It's fine for people to place that kind of importance on their race, but it should also be fine for others to not be held to the same expectations. For some of us, it really is irrelevant to a point, and that should be okay. If you (the general you, not you you) don't like the potential ability to change your own race, don't change your own race, know what I mean?
I mean, if it's so irrelevant why do you need to change then?
I mean if we’re talking immersion, why can’t HETE put my cerebral upload into whatever I choose? Seems like an arbitrary limitation for some high brow RP people more than anything.
Altered Carbon has a potential answer for this.
From memory people that get dropped into different sleeves (bodies) from their original are at an increasing risk of going insane, still human bodies but there's the sense of self from like looking in the mirror and seeing your own face that you lose when you change even that along with the myriad other aspects of your body that make up you. Some people can deal with it, particularly with specialised training, but the vast majority can't deal with it. On the other hand, people that can afford clones of their original bodies are pretty much immortal because they're always coming back as themselves.
Take that concept and apply that to changing your species entirely, the sense of self of the character would likely be shattered but you also start running into the more significant physical changes. Look at the visible differences in each of the races, a Human swapping to a Nath'el is a major change, like they'd need to learn how to walk again with the wings and they're somewhat close unlike swapping to a W'hoorn or Krona.
That's also before you start thinking about how much is actually in the cerebral upload and the impact it could have on unconscious body functions. Like the flight or fight response could function differently for different races but your upload might try to trigger your born races responses after a swap and at best might be useless and at worst deadly to yourself.
So the possibility for multiple race changes post-novicehood/beta is there, it just becomes progressively more expensive as HETE seeks to squeeze as much as it can out of a very indecisive customer.
Mereas Eyrlock "They're excited, but poor." - Ilyos (August 2019)
I mean, if it's so irrelevant why do you need to change then?
I said some of us. Some of us. Some.
Of us.
Man, you guys really like to quibble
*shrug* I have the cameo of the changeling in Lusternia and there's a point to the artefact there.
Letting people have a change in case they made a mistake is an actual reason, there's a bunch of reasons why you might do so.
But there really doesn't seem to be any compelling point for more than that, especially if the only reason that seems to be coming up is because people aren't fussed about their characters species.
Not allowing it also provides limitations to the technology, it opens up story lines involving those limiters. There's a couple of neat plots that immediately come to mind involving it.
I mean if we’re talking immersion, why can’t HETE put my cerebral upload into whatever I choose? Seems like an arbitrary limitation for some high brow RP people more than anything.
In-game specifically, we use neural replicators and I have to assume that different species have sufficiently different neurology to make transfer extremely difficult, if not impossible.
More broadly speaking, cognition is embodied, at least in humans. An individual's thought, language, and perception are all rooted in the structure and operation of their body. (I may have a slight theoretical bias here because of my training *cough*).
"You know what the chain of command is? It’s the chain I go get and beat you with ’til you understand who’s in ruttin’ command here."
Some people don't want to rp as a human and would rather rp as a Amaian? I understand why people want to change races for rp reasons of course W'Hoorn master race
Some people don't want to rp as a human and would rather rp as a Amaian? I understand why people want to change races for rp reasons of course W'Hoorn master race
I feel like someone of race x wanting to be a member of a different race is potentially interesting and fun rp just thinking about it. (Have a mental image of an Elgan standing in the dirt with a headdress of leaves from thinking about it ) Much more so than just going up and swapping.
Some people don't want to rp as a human and would rather rp as a Amaian? I understand why people want to change races for rp reasons of course W'Hoorn master race
I feel like someone of race x wanting to be a member of a different race is potentially interesting and fun rp just thinking about it. (Have a mental image of an Elgan standing in the dirt with a headdress of leaves from thinking about it ) Much more so than just going up and swapping.
Well also because the races themselves don't hold any stat value you want to rp diversity. I remember for aetolia for example the mhuuns and humans were favored because of their 10 percent exp bonus
Some people don't want to rp as a human and would rather rp as a Amaian? I understand why people want to change races for rp reasons of course W'Hoorn master race
I feel like someone of race x wanting to be a member of a different race is potentially interesting and fun rp just thinking about it. (Have a mental image of an Elgan standing in the dirt with a headdress of leaves from thinking about it ) Much more so than just going up and swapping.
Nothing is stopping someone from doing that now, nor will the hypothetical option to swap stop anyone in the future.
Some people don't want to rp as a human and would rather rp as a Amaian? I understand why people want to change races for rp reasons of course W'Hoorn master race
I feel like someone of race x wanting to be a member of a different race is potentially interesting and fun rp just thinking about it. (Have a mental image of an Elgan standing in the dirt with a headdress of leaves from thinking about it ) Much more so than just going up and swapping.
Nothing is stopping someone from doing that now, nor will the hypothetical option to swap stop anyone in the future.
Well i'm in favor of race changing because they have no benefit from a game perspective and people want to rp
Some people don't want to rp as a human and would rather rp as a Amaian? I understand why people want to change races for rp reasons of course W'Hoorn master race
I feel like someone of race x wanting to be a member of a different race is potentially interesting and fun rp just thinking about it. (Have a mental image of an Elgan standing in the dirt with a headdress of leaves from thinking about it ) Much more so than just going up and swapping.
Well also because the races themselves don't hold any stat value you want to rp diversity. I remember for aetolia for example the mhuuns and humans were favored because of their 10 percent exp bonus
Yeah, everyone actually starts as a human on lusternia with the exp bonus. But then there's some pretty strong picks once you swap. And there's a bunch of other stuff to pretend to be a different race or get another races perks.
Some people don't want to rp as a human and would rather rp as a Amaian? I understand why people want to change races for rp reasons of course W'Hoorn master race
I feel like someone of race x wanting to be a member of a different race is potentially interesting and fun rp just thinking about it. (Have a mental image of an Elgan standing in the dirt with a headdress of leaves from thinking about it ) Much more so than just going up and swapping.
Nothing is stopping someone from doing that now, nor will the hypothetical option to swap stop anyone in the future.
Who said it would? It is however far more fun and if race swapping was introduced as suggested fewer people would go down other creative paths.
Again, there's no real mechanical reason to need to change (as opposed to the other games( so it's a purely rp thing but there doesn't appear to be any rp reasons actually being discussed aside from the generally agreed upon one that newbies should get one swap just in case.
The problem isn't with people changing into a race they will get better RP out of, I don't know about others but I'd want people in a race which they are excited to embrace racial RP. That said, its when repeated changes get allowed (ala Gem of Transmutation) that it starts diluting race as a choice for the world as a whole.
When people keep swapping you start to build a disconnect between a character and their race, and that is sucky for the world as a whole. For anyone who has played other IRE's, especially Achaea, ask yourself what race a lot of the top combatants are? Or even what race the artefact whales are? These are the people that swap more than anyone else and their race quickly becomes not even an after thought when imagining their character.
When people keep swapping you start to build a disconnect between a character and their race, and that is sucky for the world as a whole.
This is my only issue with repeated race swaps. I've made a mental image of what a lot of people look like. Darios is a Decheeran. When they post logs, I picture an armored treeperson fighting. Same for a lot of other people. If they swapped race constantly, I don't feel like I can picture what's happening because there's no consistency in my mind--it's just the same names but the visuals are all messed up. I stop picturing Darios the character and now just see the person controlling an arbitrary Darios avatar in a game.
Part of what makes a MUD fun for me is to be able to picture things beyond what graphics could do. If something messes with me being able to quickly paint a mental picture of it, the whole experience is lessened.
I'm all for newbie (and even beta) getting one race swap. But I like the consistency of a world where there are certain elements tied to your character and your identity that never change.
Its just my own opinion and personal preference though, and it's fine if you disagree.
I don’t want repeated changes. I personally just am not satisfied with the race I chose initially, and would like to change it to something else. It’s definitely because of rp/mindset of the race that I did choose, it’s not quite what I thought it would be. I could potentially be the one that hates the other 80%, but that doesn’t sound fun to me.
I'm kind of interested in how the races themselves would perceive somebody becoming one of them (my guess is "not well"), and also whether that would come with physiological changes. Would a human switching to a Ry'nari become tone-deaf? Would the opposite produce a facet of hearing the body-switcher had never before experienced?
That said, I'm of the opinion that if this is implemented it should have a significant cost associated with each swap. It shouldn't be something frivolously doable, and if anyone uses it after the newbie swap, it'd be interesting to have your race listed as "gene-altered (new race) so that people can see you used to be something else.
@yalau and @Albion I fully support one-time changes. The races, lore, planets, classes, etc were all very new to most of us, especially if we could not participate in closed beta. Many of us chose characters that we thought were a great concept but struggled to connect with once we actually started playing them. I started with Borok, the boisterous and friendly Krona Fury, but I didn't like the personality *or* the race *or* the class! I ended up rerolling since I was only like level 14.
But for those people who quickly made it to high levels and now find themselves playing a character they don't like... Yeah. I totally support a one time change for you all to find something that resonates with you.
If this ever comes to be, might want to somehow emphasize the importance of choosing a race you really want to play either in character creation or sometime in novicehood.
It would actually be a pretty kickass quest if you got a prompt to meet with a HETE representative on omni that suggests that your INR may have been loaded into the wrong body then, after a quick blurb about this being your last chance to change your race if you choose to, either do the change or lock you into your racial choice. This could be added to the novicehood questline.
Granted I've only taken a handful of philosophy classes, but my understanding is that postmodernism is a very broad range of approaches that deal with the nature of language and knowledge. Most famously, postmodern approaches deal with how language and imagery can be used to create and alter the meaning they are assumed to simply convey, and how that created meaning shapes the narratives that inform how we understand our material reality. To put that in today's terms, it is an attempt to understand how "alternative facts" shape our perceptions in this "post-truth" world, not an active endorsement of them.
Ironically, the term has since become politicized by people like Jordan Peterson, who have willfully misrepresented* the concept and crafted it into a derogatory word for any approach that questions or challenges the structures of power whose narratives, until recently, have dominated our discussions to the point of becoming taken for granted as an objective truth as opposed to messages that exist within a sociopolitical context.
* That or they legitimately do not understand it. Dude has a PhD though, so my bet is that it's willful.
"They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty." — Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before." — Margaret Atwood
I know that a lot of people have contacted me regarding a hasty race choice in the opening days of Starmourn, not knowing that this choice was immutable. We've added way to change your race a single time by visiting a HETE facility and RECOMBINE DNA INTO <race>
From here on out, this will become unavailable when a player hits level 20, but I've extended to our current players as a courtesy while beta is running.
Choose very wisely, we will not be granting additional changes.
The moment you make something about your character changeable at whim is the moment it becomes meaningless. It made sense in other IRE games because of the mechanical implications. Without those implications, all it does is serve to break immersion if someone is flip-flopping between races on-demand.
That said, I think the one-off is a good answer for those that were a little too hasty, or those that didn't have as deep an understanding of the lore.
Starmourn is a transhumanist setting with heavily invasive surgery being standard feature and advanced nanites literally up everyone's collective ass.
Cloning and body modification is normal, if anything I am surprised you can't flip flop between races on demand. Where "on demand" means "after paying a hefty amount of marks/credits" because something something money.
Where are you getting that it's a transhumanist setting? Nowhere in the lore does it mention total body reconstruction. The Bushraki are the closest to "total modification" and they're still Borg-levels of alteration. Nanites and clones exist, yes, but it's easy to print a photocopy of DNA compared to 3d printing a brand new body with entirely original gene sequences.
One time for beta and pre-level 20 is great, I think. I definitely was hasty and ended up regretting my decision but by that point I had already established my character enough I wasn't going to reroll, so this is great.
Comments
For reference as well, I've been a Lusternia player for more years than I'd like to admit. I have also personally seen how shitty and pointless race has become because of the way it's treated there. Please realize that that's not at all what I'm proposing, as race as a concept is handled entirely different here. That's a good thing. I like that.
That lets race stay 'relevant' while allowing some flexibility and unique narratives behind a paywall. Amnesiac body swaps! Start a Dolezal Dynasty! Customizable pleasure slaves! Etc etc.
Altered Carbon has a potential answer for this.
From memory people that get dropped into different sleeves (bodies) from their original are at an increasing risk of going insane, still human bodies but there's the sense of self from like looking in the mirror and seeing your own face that you lose when you change even that along with the myriad other aspects of your body that make up you. Some people can deal with it, particularly with specialised training, but the vast majority can't deal with it.
On the other hand, people that can afford clones of their original bodies are pretty much immortal because they're always coming back as themselves.
Take that concept and apply that to changing your species entirely, the sense of self of the character would likely be shattered but you also start running into the more significant physical changes. Look at the visible differences in each of the races, a Human swapping to a Nath'el is a major change, like they'd need to learn how to walk again with the wings and they're somewhat close unlike swapping to a W'hoorn or Krona.
That's also before you start thinking about how much is actually in the cerebral upload and the impact it could have on unconscious body functions. Like the flight or fight response could function differently for different races but your upload might try to trigger your born races responses after a swap and at best might be useless and at worst deadly to yourself.
Of us.
Man, you guys really like to quibble
Make the race-change artifact of Starmourn cost 100 credits + (x * 100000) marks.
For the first race change, x is at 1. Then it increases by x^2.
100 cr + 200k mk
100 cr + 400k mk
100 cr + 800k mk
...
So the possibility for multiple race changes post-novicehood/beta is there, it just becomes progressively more expensive as HETE seeks to squeeze as much as it can out of a very indecisive customer.
- Ilyos (August 2019)
Letting people have a change in case they made a mistake is an actual reason, there's a bunch of reasons why you might do so.
But there really doesn't seem to be any compelling point for more than that, especially if the only reason that seems to be coming up is because people aren't fussed about their characters species.
Not allowing it also provides limitations to the technology, it opens up story lines involving those limiters. There's a couple of neat plots that immediately come to mind involving it.
More broadly speaking, cognition is embodied, at least in humans. An individual's thought, language, and perception are all rooted in the structure and operation of their body. (I may have a slight theoretical bias here because of my training *cough*).
Who said it would? It is however far more fun and if race swapping was introduced as suggested fewer people would go down other creative paths.
Again, there's no real mechanical reason to need to change (as opposed to the other games( so it's a purely rp thing but there doesn't appear to be any rp reasons actually being discussed aside from the generally agreed upon one that newbies should get one swap just in case.
When people keep swapping you start to build a disconnect between a character and their race, and that is sucky for the world as a whole. For anyone who has played other IRE's, especially Achaea, ask yourself what race a lot of the top combatants are? Or even what race the artefact whales are? These are the people that swap more than anyone else and their race quickly becomes not even an after thought when imagining their character.
Part of what makes a MUD fun for me is to be able to picture things beyond what graphics could do. If something messes with me being able to quickly paint a mental picture of it, the whole experience is lessened.
I'm all for newbie (and even beta) getting one race swap. But I like the consistency of a world where there are certain elements tied to your character and your identity that never change.
Its just my own opinion and personal preference though, and it's fine if you disagree.
But for those people who quickly made it to high levels and now find themselves playing a character they don't like... Yeah. I totally support a one time change for you all to find something that resonates with you.
I do not want a race artifact or allowing to constantly change race, but just once to allow a bad choice. I love the above idea.
It would actually be a pretty kickass quest if you got a prompt to meet with a HETE representative on omni that suggests that your INR may have been loaded into the wrong body then, after a quick blurb about this being your last chance to change your race if you choose to, either do the change or lock you into your racial choice. This could be added to the novicehood questline.
"They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty."
— Oscar Wilde
"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood
That said, I think the one-off is a good answer for those that were a little too hasty, or those that didn't have as deep an understanding of the lore.