64-bit potential: Original new race & class ideas for future xpacs

I proposed adding new races by adding a hidden and stacking buff slot for illusions. The starting city would be reflective of the base race.

So say for example, they added vampires, they overlay the existing vampire illusion over the dark elf and hide it, allowing another illusion to stack over it. They would start in Neriak and do neriak newbie quests. The game would see vampire as illusion and react to the vampire faction modifiers, but you could still stack another illusion on top of it, allowing clickies to work.

Really all races in the game are just skins with various faction modifiers. Working around the system could probably be done in any number of ways.

As for classes, I think we have enough. I don't really see a benefit to adding more classes. Really if you look at it, most of the suggestions are just slight modifications of existing classes. Like someone mentioned Tamers, which is just a beastlord played differently. Adding more BST specific pet illusion quests through out the game would accomplish basically the same thing.

Unfortunately, writing quests costs and adding races cost money, and adding illusion items to the DBC store makes money.

Your idea is interesting.

This part I disagree with. Every race has a starting city (well, the Frogloks are an exception) and quests just for them. They have cultural recipes. In addition to the faction modifiers, many NPCs also put in various, "Hello Fanra, you <race> have started to visit us here."

All the items that say DRK would also either need to say VMP as well, or instead, if there are items that VMP can use that DRK can't figure out how to do that. All those items also check to make sure you are the correct race before you can use them.

There are many things involved with adding another race.

Just re-do Drakkin, nobody plays as one.

All very good points. The basis of the work around I proposed would be upon the idea that identifying another race is impossible, so adding such things as VMP to items would not work. However, adding starting cities and quests would be possible, as it would be as simple as adding a character flag the same as a quest. I thought that NPC would respond to illusions, but maybe I am wrong, and they only respond to the base adventurer illusions.

I do however feel that in the modern Post Drakkin and Tutorial Norrath, and how so little of gameplay is a factor of race, that starting cities and newbie quests is a somewhat obsolete concept, though I am not discrediting the value, and I do believe they are important, just not necessarily required to be successful.

The armor though, that is a big problem, since additional tags can't be added for cultural items. The only work around I could see is adding races like vampires, which would function completely off their base race, which could really be all of them. I could see something like a newbie area for vampires where, like the mines of the glooming deep, you have to complete a quest to escape. The quest identifies the race you were before you changed and that would identify your base race for things like armor. You would then exit to Glooming Deep, a starting City or Crescent Reach.

There are a lot of options under this structure...
Vampire
Zombie
Werewolf
Changeling (instead of fae)
Hybrid creatures like minotaurs or centaur, etc

I think in this concept, that the biggest change in gameplay would be based upon factions. Dark Elf Changelings might start in human cities and be seen as good, allowed to worship Tunare, play as a druid, and so forth. (It is priority of mine to obtain the DEF mask for my non-DEF alts ASAP, I almost exclusively play DEF.). A High Elf Vampire might start in evil cities like Oggok, be seen as evil and be able to worship Innorok. This could create some substantial problems with cultural and diety based items as they exist currently, and perhaps some issues with lore, although new items could be added. I see it as a way to upcycle content, and releasing content like this along side of an expansion launch, or 6 months after / half cycle, might be a way to draw additional attention to the game with less Dev time than an entire launch.

It's also an interesting concept for a progression server, as it would allow race/class/diety mixing on launch.

Just thoughts, I know some of them are not the greatest.

Akhevan Bards!
Can wield 2 instruments and 2 swords.

It's so unfair when NPCs get to have extra arms and your characters don't.