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More discussion of Factions and Races (long)

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More discussion of Factions and Races (long)

from JoeUser Forums

 

AllyDragon

…In the beginning there were Men and Dragons…

When the Titans came, they saw the creatures of the world as building blocks and created many new creatures from them. These creatures are called (by men) “The Fallen”.  There are four known sentient races of The Fallen (see the Lore for more details).

In previous discussions, we have used analogies to Middle Earth.  In Middle Earth, Illuvatar created only two sentient races. The Elves and then Men.  All other sentient races were created “unnaturally” (the dwarves and Orcs being the best example. The origin of halflings is unknown). 

In Elemental, there are more factions than there are races. This is similar to Sins of a Solar Empire where there are many factions but only 3 races.

When we use the term “race” we really mean species in the specific sense that they cannot interbreed except for Channelers and their offspring.

...Fitting Lore into a Game...

SciFi/fantasy lore that evolved outside a game (as was the case with both Galactic Civilizations and Elemental) can be difficult to fit into a game universe.

In Galactic Civilizations, the universe -- its lore, was never published so I had a free hand to tweak all the civilizations to fit the needs of the game.

Elemental is a bit different because its lore is being presented in a book (Elemental: Destiny's Embers).  In the book, it's fairly straight forward. You've got two general aligments - The Kingdoms and the Empires.  The Empires are dominated by races of the Fallen and the Kingdoms are dominated by the races of Men. Simple right? Well... Read on to see the complexities and why we're brainstorming with you guys on other directions.

 

image….Pre-made Races vs. Player Created Races…

Yesterday we discussed what priority should custom art assets versus canon art assets should take. If we focus primarily on canon factions and their corresponding races, we can greatly expand their stories and the art assets for them.  However, if we focus less on the canon factions and more on providing assets we can let players create their own unique races and factions that are more rewarding visually and game play wise.

The question thus becomes which direction to take? 

…Understanding Game Development…

By the end of this journey, I suspect many of you will have a much better understanding of what game development is like.  The “game” itself is the tip of the iceberg. What you see in these betas is only a tiny piece of the whole “product”. Underneath the covers is the engine and art assets. The game itself we can monkey around with any dozens of ways based on player feedback.  The expensive part is building the engine (which isn’t even in the beta yet) and creating the art assets (only a bit are in the beta).

Thus, once we begin to commit to things that involve changing the game engine or the art assets, they’re pretty much set in stone. By contrast, changing research or economy or spells or what have you is largely just changing text in XML.

So we are reaching the point where we will have to make decisions on whether to focus more on canon assets or assets to be used by players to create their own world.  I.e. Dragon Age (canon centric) or Spore (non-canon centric).

We don’t have to go to either extreme.

…Fantasy Races…

In traditional high fantasy, you’ve got men, dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins. People have a pretty good idea the pros and cons of them because they appear in so many games.  In our world, we don’t have dwarves or elves or orcs.  We have the natural races and the races made by the Titans. They’re not good or evil based on their race but rather on their faction. The Krax are men but they’re real bastards. There are Fallen races out there that aren’t evil at all (but they don’t come into our particular tale right now, you’ll need to read the book).

…Complexity…

We don’t want to “dumb down” the game in any way but at the same time, we don’t want to have unnecessary complexity. The fact that we have Empires/Kingdoms and then Factions and then Races is pretty complicated as is.  It would be so much easier if the Empires were all Fallen and the Kingdoms were men but that would be simplistic and frankly, to me, distasteful. It’s bad enough that the unnatural sentients are called Fallen but that’s only because our tale is told from the point of view of man and thus can identify their bias on our own.

In our game, there are 5 true races (Men, Urxen, Trogs, Magnars, and Wraiths).  But even amongst these 5 there are sub-groups (The Ironeers if Gilden and the Krax are visually very distinctive but genetically compatible).

You can see how this gets complex in a hurry and why there is the urge to simplify to appeal to a wider audience. Will the fantasy strategy buying public be interested in learning the intricacies of the lore that’s been developed here over the past two decades? Or would they prefer us to simplify it into a couple of basic races (Men and Fallen) and let people get on to making their own races.  You would still have the same factions, they’d simply just be made up of two races (men and fallen) and then players could make their own races.

So that’s the discussion we have going on.  My bias is to focus on our own canon and introduce players to it. Players could still create their own races but they’re not going to be making any half-dragon half man races or Ents or what have you.  That’s my bias on it because that sort of thing can be added later in post-release if the game’s successful whereas we only get one opportunity to really explore the depths of the rift between say Kraxis and Capitar or the doom of Pariden and Procipinee.

…Implementation…

Here’s how races could be implemented:

image

First, when creating a faction you would have a new tab called “race”. The existing races would be there. 

You would choose a specific (easy to understand) ability that makes that race unique. Hard Workers might produce pioneers that get more out of resources. Fierce Warriors might get a combat speed boost. Good Traders might be the only ones who can reach paved roads. Fast Travelers go faster. Great Archers can shoot further (maybe attack on the strategic map from a tile away even).   The difference would be significant.

Then you pick the Appearance and that’s where we really hit the art asset budget. Skeletons are expensive because you then have the clothes and equipment to go on them (in Spore, you may have noticed nobody had clothes you could put on them).  The rest is fairly easy. But obviously no Centaurs or Quaddies.

image

Then in your cities, you would see next to the current owner of the city what race populates the city. A faction may conquer another city but the race in the city remains the same.  The part with enchantments you should ignore – you don’t know about that yet.

Now obviously, people can get into mixing (ala Civ IV and such) but there is so much going on in the world that we want to try to avoid having potentially 30+ different races making up a city (i.e. if we let players create their own races as well as factions, we have to be careful about how convoluted it gets).

Your thoughts

I hope you guys are enjoying these journals and their peak at the kinds of things that go on during game development. Marketing hates these journals because they expose the world to the “sausage factory” that is commercial game development.

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

204,390 views 104 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

My bias is to focus on our own canon and introduce players to it. Players could still create their own races but they’re not going to be making any half-dragon half man races or Ents or what have you. That’s my bias on it because that sort of thing can be added later in post-release if the game’s successful whereas we only get one opportunity to really explore the depths of the rift between say Kraxis and Capitar or the doom of Pariden and Procipinee.

Frogboy, I agree with your bias towards focusing on your own canon.  I think that it is essential that Elemental have a strong and rich world that is absorbing to play in without having to do any modding at all.  I believe that the best way to obtain a strong and rich world is to focus on the canon assets and focus on enriching the game with the stories and histories of the canon factions.  I want to be sucked into the world of Elemental when I play my first game right out of the box.

I actually think that the emphasis on canon is even more important since you guys have done such great work in developing a fantasy world that is somewhat out of the mainstream, cookie-cutter high fantasy setting.  If I start playing a game with men, elves, dwarves, orcs, etc., I don't need as much lore to draw me into the game's world because I've already played a hundred games with men, elves, dwarves, orcs, etc.  But with Elemental, I'm going to be starting from scratch.  I will be playing in a world that I don't really know much about, and I will need a fully developed world with focus on that world's canon in order to immerse myself in that world.

Finally, I would highlight my agreement with your final point in the quote above.  It will be relatively easy to add in enhanced modding capabilities and assets in a future expansion(s).  But you only really get one chance to develop the canon of the Elemental world.  I think you should focus your efforts on developing that canon.  It will be worth it.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm not sure i understand why it has to be one or the other.

The canon is already there for the game isnt it? Why wouldnt you be able to make the canon races using the tools you make for players to make their own races?

Edit:

After re-reading i guess what im suggesting is, get all the assets in for the canon stuff and add assets for non canon with what ever time/resources are left. Hopefully that would still give people a lot to play with, i would imagine thered be lots of interesting ways to mix up the canon assets.

I do really want my trolls, but i want a rich game to put them in, so id be happy to wait for expansions before i get them.

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

Please do not shy away from including lots and lots of Elemental lore. I would be very disappointed if you guys have thought up all this lore to simply not include it in the game because some people might be confused. The uniqueness of the story in Elemental(IE not using the stale orcs, elves, ect) is one of the main reasons I'm so interested in the game. Please make each faction detailed and immersive so it really feels like you're playing a different people and not the same faction with some different bonuses.

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

Frogboy,

To the player, it doesn't matter what the enemies are. Are they sentient brocolli descended from the Rivencrack of Auberon? Doesn't matter, they are my enemy. Are they hyperstrong bear-men from the west? Doesn't matter, still my enemy.

A player that doesn't care about lore, or doesn't care to take the time to understand it, is not negatively impacted by the lore being in the game. In an action movie you don't need to understand that Nazi Germany was at war with Communist Russia to understand that the bad guy is who the Hero is fighting.

Those with the historical prespective to understand that no, Prussia is not a misprounounciation of Russia will appreciate that you take the effort, but it won't turn off people who don't care. So long as you aren't hitting them over the head about it. Don't simplify just to satisfy part of the playerbase. : )

 

 

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

I think you are overestimating Players are willing to go through the trouble of modding, especially immeadiately once the game is released. The galciv 2 mod community wasn't very vibrant and seemed to die around the release to TOA.

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

 

Lastly I still really think you can get a lot of milleage out of the factions/races as AI players. Even though we players want to make our own, we still want our enemies to seem alive, have flavour, have characteristics. It's difficult to have that if they're all randomly generated.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm with Frogboy on this.  Go the canon races first.  Look at how MOO 2 did "race" creation.   Really, you had 18 or so race pics with little city population icons, along with 18 premade "races".   You could pick ANY of those "races" and customise their strengths and weaknesses, but you were stuck with the pics in the game.  This was gerat!  In Elemental, having set "races" with all the graphics already done, not being able to make a half dragon race is PERFECT because I can modify the strengths and weaknesses through the faction they are.

I'm not going to spend the time each time I play to make a new look race.  I'll spend all my time on deciding how I want to play the next game and design the weaknesses and strengths to suit.  Therefore all I need is the faction customisation in Elemental.

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top


I hope you guys are enjoying these journals and their peak at the kinds of things that go on during game development. Marketing hates these journals because they expose the world to the “sausage factory” that is commercial game development.

Forgot to respond to this part as well as I had intended to..

 

Vehemently, YES. I <3 the Journal's so much, keeps me checking the site very frequently for new ones. :) Have always particularly enjoyed the level of detail Stardock puts into their news, From GalCiv through to now.

Especially love the gameplay stories as well, so hope to see some of those in the future when the game is at a more appropriate place to support these. :)

Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

My suggestion is to go for a "sweet spot". Let me tell you where MY "sweet spot" is.

Any remarks on how gay that sounds - well just be aware I am already aware....X|

I'm with you in that I would love to see the canon factions REALLY fleshed out and made very solid with lore and that should be revealed during the campaign. I am all about the sandbox, but a campaign to introduce me to the world is really a big plus.

So, with that said what can be done to help the create your own race people (of which I almost certainly will end up!) without requiring a HUGE amount of additional art assets? Well, realize that I am making some huge assumptions about the nuts and bolts of skins and making a piece of armor "fit" various bodies.

First thing, i was severely disappointed in Spore, BUT there was some cool stuff that I think could be implemented from that which could make create your own race pretty easy. And would be the same tools that you guys could use to build your canon races.

The first question that really determines where to go from here, is will armor pieces be able to "mold" themselves to various shaped torsos, or are they relatively fixed 3-D objects that get laid over the model?

If they are fixed items, then it seems like the route to go is to create a standard torso (OK one for male, one for female). That torso should be the same from the neck down, out to about the elbows, and down to roughly the knees.Then you could have various heads, arms, and legs ala Spore to attach. you could make passable orcs, birdmen, lizardmen, dragonmen and even tree men and tons more. you could even attach rules like if they put birdmen feet then that race cannot wear footwear. Also maybe the possibility to add various types of wings like birdmen vs dragonmen. That should cost a LOT of points if it actually gives them flight ala MoM. Anyway the point being is by using a fixed torso, you don't have to make all the different armor assets etc for each race - all races would need to fit within the parameters of wearing human-ish armor. So the extra work for you guys would be adding the head, arm, leg and wing art.

 

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

I really hope that you are restricted to a very limited preset range of troops i.e 'Footsoldier, archer etc' for units made in conquered towns inhabited by other races. I didn't like MoM's system of 'capture town->create all their units' as it really took away my interest in playing other races if I'd already produced their best units, and as there were so many in MoM it narrowed the experiance for me somewhat. Taking a Trog city and designing lots of units as well as for my human ones would make me less interested in playing a campaign as the Trogs. Maybe it's just me.

Also making troops from conquered cities have poor morale/morale penalty would make you rely more on homegrown troops and add more of a challenge. There are loads of examples of military leaders getting further and further from home and having armies far less homogenous and more 'mongrel' making it difficult to command and retain troops, which I would like to see in Elemental.

This is a very good point.  Chosing a faction/race or whatever should mean you are mainly using their units, strengths and weaknesses.  Allowing you to use all the strengths of a conquered people tends to make all the games feel similar which isn't a good direction to go in.  I also become less interested in playing other factions if I felt I already experienced what they have to offer in another game.

It's been a while but Age of Wonders had a pretty interesting system with regards to conquered people.  If I remember you could immigrate in your own peoples but it took a long time or you could work with the conquered race.  I believe there were also penalities for using other peoples based on alignment or something.  Something along these lines would work well for Elemental I think.

Reply #36 from Sins Forums Top

Stardock,

Very much appreciate the journals. I vote for indepth lore with however many races/factions are needed to get the story across. As I understand it each race has a (single?) set of  core compentencies (that have coded things) and each faction (xml options) within that race is a listing of strength and weakness options for variety. Some races will also be a single faction.

The real delima then is allocating production budget and time. There is probably more long term value to have the races done well with as much factional support as can be spared than to trim the number of races. Modding and or expansion packs can suppliment the faction options. This course of action maximizes game depth and allows Stardock to reasonably budget the money and artist hours still shooting for a CY 10 Q3 release.

If the two race option with lots of factional support is chosen it will likely hurt sales and the announcment of a micro "Fallen Races" expansion pack may not be enough to rescue flagging initial sales. Where as a "Faction" micro expansion will be of keen interest to Elemental purchasers, esp if lots of new art work is in the offering.

Darvroth

Reply #37 from Elemental Forums Top

Strongly pro-canon development here.

 

As I understand it, though, modders should be able to add in those other optional custom races anyway. Or Stardock can add new custom assets post-release. Even if most players end up creating custom assets at some point, there needs to be a reason to get sucked into the world and get to the point of wanting to create those custom bits.

Reply #38 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, here's my take.

 

I think it's wrong to assume people will use mods.  Many don't.

 

I'd rather have a fleshed out base game.  I've learned never to underestimate modders- they'll find a way to do what they want to do, especially if things are open and documented.  You can always improve modding via patch/expansion later on.  It's harder to improve the base canon post-release.

Go for the canon first, with the main tweaks being for balance.   The more lore the better in my eyes, it's charm- and charm is what makes a good game great.  There's a reason GalCiv II went from good to great with Twilight- it's because you added a lot of charm to the game in TA.

Also +1 for the Age of Wonders system of handling conquered people- you should be able when you conquer a city to choose between

razing, looting, enslaving, migrating, or cooperating.  Each with its own pluses and minuses.

 

Reply #39 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting psu81, reply 14
Personally, I am hoping for a great campaign game to play, so the more in-depth stock races/factions there are, the better.  I do not use PMEM, am not personally a modder, and have had no success even trying to install the work of others.  However, I believe that others of my same ilk are more numerous than assumed.  We are not the squeaky wheels that so many modders seem to be, so it is easy to overlook us.  This should NOT be considered an attack on modders.  I am simply stating that there is a group of gamers who want to make a purchase and play the game as is, and it would be nice to have a game to really dig into.

Agreed. Generally speaking I fit into this category. It is possible that after a good number of games I might install mods.

For example I have recently tried a few mods in Civ 4 now, but only after several dozen games with the core game and expansions.

The core game needs to be kick ass and interesting before you get sufficient interest for everyone to be making/hunting mods in my view. Making the core game too anaemic will kill it before you even get to that stage - conversely making the core game rich will virtually ensure a modding community is  viable.

All IMHO of course!

Reply #40 from Elemental Forums Top

Perhaps I don't see the big picture (I got problems doing that but I'm great at details) but do you wonder if we want welldeveloped canon races or 5 extra races that the community will choose?

 

The way I see your question, is that you either focus on the canon races OR focus less on them AND develop 5 other races that have a differing bodyshape from Men and Fallen (that we'll vote for amongst 50 finalists?) like Skeletons, Goblins, Ogres, Lizardmen and some 4-armed monster race.

I wonder what impact that would have. Skeletons, Goblins and 4-armed monsters look quite different from Men and Fallen but their abilities would still be picked from a pool which you can do with ANY faction and Sovereign already, right?

So couldn't I just choose Porcupinee (it's too hard to remember how the name is spelled), the Goblin race and give them "Master Trader" and "Magic specialists"?

 

If that's the case, then I don't see what the big deal is and custom races would not be worth so much to me and my decision thus becomes easy: Canon races all the way.

 

 

And like Arstal says above me, "I think it's wrong to assume people will use mods. Many don't".

I for instance am interested in competition, superb gameplay and diverse factions (races, species whatever you want to call them) so therefore any mods in MP would have to have great balance AND be accepted by both the MP community and the metaverse.

About the journals, love'em! :)

Reply #41 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting leeboy26, reply 23

I really hope that you are restricted to a very limited preset range of troops i.e 'Footsoldier, archer etc' for units made in conquered towns inhabited by other races. I didn't like MoM's system of 'capture town->create all their units' as it really took away my interest in playing other races if I'd already produced their best units, and as there were so many in MoM it narrowed the experiance for me somewhat. Taking a Trog city and designing lots of units as well as for my human ones would make me less interested in playing a campaign as the Trogs. Maybe it's just me.

Also making troops from conquered cities have poor morale/morale penalty would make you rely more on homegrown troops and add more of a challenge. There are loads of examples of military leaders getting further and further from home and having armies far less homogenous and more 'mongrel' making it difficult to command and retain troops, which I would like to see in Elemental.

The way I see it as working the slickest, is that since we use the unit creator for all units anyway, you are able to make trog units from that one city to the tech level of your empire? can you make human paladins? well now you can make trog paladis eh?

Reply #42 from Elemental Forums Top

Story is hugely important to any fantasy based game. The story should be strong and the main campaign needs to really deliver.

That said, does creating a tool, which you could use to build the main story assets and allow players to do some themselves, take away that much development for the core assets?

Quoting Denryu, reply 34

First thing, i was severely disappointed in Spore, BUT there was some cool stuff that I think could be implemented from that which could make create your own race pretty easy. And would be the same tools that you guys could use to build your canon races. 

As Denryu mentions it could really depend on how the modeling system works.

 

TONS of story, super cRaZy race asset tool or meet somewhere in the middle?

That's a tough call. 

 

I'm somewhere in the middle leaning toward story.

Reply #43 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Ashbery76, reply 4
Honestly if this game ships with no lore or developed factions I sence a huge fail.I have already paid but in hindsight I would not have if this is the case.

Yes. It's all or nothing. The game will not ship with any lore at all. In fact, we're going to dispense with factions and simply refer to them as numerical codes.

 

Reply #44 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Raven, reply 17
Hmm, should have seen where this post would head when you made it, Frogboy. You scared everyone. Now they think if you add more Race Customization all the storyline and everything you have NOW is just going to disappear..

I'm seeing that as well. People tend to quickly go into black or white.

There's no scenario where we're going to drop our factions and our lore.

The question is what level of complexity should be introduced. Do we have Factions AND Races that are distinct or do we simplify and simply talk about factions.

The lore is going to be there regardless. 

But from these two threads I've seen people jump in and say "Oh, so it's just going to be generic factions." We'd have to rip stuff out to do that and we're not about to do that.

 

Reply #45 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting edpfister, reply 35
Allowing you to use all the strengths of a conquered people tends to make all the games feel similar which isn't a good direction to go in.

I agree entirely. If late game everyone has all their front line troops as Orcs, their ranged troops as Elves, their spellcasters as Humans, etc to max out the appropriate bonuses then that is boring and removes many interested factors from the game.

Reply #46 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 44

Quoting Raven X, reply 17Hmm, should have seen where this post would head when you made it, Frogboy. You scared everyone. Now they think if you add more Race Customization all the storyline and everything you have NOW is just going to disappear..
I'm seeing that as well. People tend to quickly go into black or white.

There's no scenario where we're going to drop our factions and our lore.

The question is what level of complexity should be introduced. Do we have Factions AND Races that are distinct or do we simplify and simply talk about factions.

The lore is going to be there regardless. 

But from these two threads I've seen people jump in and say "Oh, so it's just going to be generic factions." We'd have to rip stuff out to do that and we're not about to do that.

Ahh. I'm not really sure even I took that from what was written properly then.

In that case, don't simplify this. Keep races in as well. Keep custom races as well, even. But don't sacrifice too much in other areas just in the name of allowing non-humanoid races.

I mean, if a magical well of time opens and grants you more than planned, then huzzah! Hehe

Reply #47 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting edpfister, reply 35


This is a very good point.  Chosing a faction/race or whatever should mean you are mainly using their units, strengths and weaknesses.  Allowing you to use all the strengths of a conquered people tends to make all the games feel similar which isn't a good direction to go in.  I also become less interested in playing other factions if I felt I already experienced what they have to offer in another game.

It's been a while but Age of Wonders had a pretty interesting system with regards to conquered people.  If I remember you could immigrate in your own peoples but it took a long time or you could work with the conquered race.  I believe there were also penalities for using other peoples based on alignment or something.  Something along these lines would work well for Elemental I think.

I agree. There is no point in having different races/factions if you can use units from every race/faction anyways. If that is where we are going, the penalties and limits ought to be steep for having a smorgasbord army.

You are also correct on the Age of Wonders scheme for integrating races. That game introduced a morale system, where recruiting units from races of the same alignment carried few penalties, but problems emerged the further away you went from your alignment in terms of recruitment--including outright desertion.

Reply #48 from Elemental Forums Top

A quick addendum:

It appears that the developer(s)' presumption is that extra modding will increase the game's appeal to the casual gamers. I find this presumption rather counter-intuitive as well as belied by my own experience. Granted that personal anecdotes are never determinative, but do I have a lot of casual gamer friends, and I cannot imagine a single one among them preferring to waste endless hours to mod essential game facets, as opposed to having the basic game fully-fleshed out for them, ready to play. Further, fantasy strategy games also attract many humanities types--like me--who are not exactly adept at programming, however simple.These people will be alienated by an over-emphasis on modding over the basic game as well.

 

Reply #49 from Elemental Forums Top

I like the very distinctive play-styles for the races in the Fall from Heaven 2 (FfH2) mod for CIV 4. The races are unbalanced on purpose and force me to accept attributes (good, bad, and just weird ones) that I would not choose or think-of in a sand-box game.

The role-playing gamer in me would really like distinct, well developed and thought out races/factions while leaving the sandbox capability to modding your own races/factions. On the other hand, I really like to customizing my Sovereign as much as possible.

Reply #50 from Stardock Forums Top

  I guess I disagree with many of the posters here(not sure of that though).  To me it seems like the best thing to do is make the gameplay fun and then create the lore/canon afterwards.  It seems like there have been several games that tried to say here is the canon, ie Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, etc. then made games to fit that were not any fun.  Thought we were all about gameplay first, then the immersive aspects of story and plot development would then be added.  Since it is a completely new work of fiction then there is no canon set in stone..yet. 

  Reading your description of how we might make our own races doesn't sound exciting or interesting to me. 

"Players could still create their own races but they’re not going to be making any half-dragon half man races or Ents or what have you"

"When we use the term “race” we really mean species in the specific sense that they cannot interbreed"

"First, when creating a faction you would have a new tab called “race”. The existing races would be there." 

"You would choose a specific (easy to understand) ability that makes that race unique."

  Don't want to sound negative Frogboy.  Your work and effort should be appreciated by everyone here.  Your description of how we might make our own individual races sound very limited in what we would actually be able to do.  If its too much to get a complex racial makeup which would allow for races to have wings(for flying or not), webbed hands and feet, gills, scales and other alternative skins, horns, suctions cups, irises, ears(pointies), etc. and it still something you would attempt in EWoM expansion pack I would be content until that arrived. 

  If I could..     In Soverign creation I would like the option of stock Soverigns and stock races(already in to some degree).  I would also want in Soverign creation to create my race as well.

  The racial creator screen should have many, many options. 

 • Sizes(from really small or miniature to really large or Giant in size)  Should be able to use a slider for this as many will want to scale and rescale their creation for looks, appearances to get the right size they want.

 • Body types

 • Skins(human, scales, shells, veins, membranes, horned, rotting flesh[for those undead Soverigns], bones(same reason), see through exo-skin, barkskin, etc)

 • Color pigmentation/hues-from solid colors to various combinations, should include things like spots, stripes, multi-colored and to detail various limbs, etc.

 • Limbs(clawed pincers, tentacles, bird feet, elephant style legs/feet, etc)

 • Heads(reptillian, birdlike, apelike, multiples or single(thinking Ettins here), fishlike, bulbous, etc)

 • Accessories(some overlap in my descriptions here but think you get the gist of what I'm talking about, horns, wings(for flying or otherwise, batlike membranes to various feathered types, gills, etc.  The accessories could have an effect or no effect depending on the creator's wish.  So I could have wings and pick from a: Wings allow flight, b: Wings are just cosmetic and provide no bonus.  The same with gills and horns, they could be useful or just a cosmetic depending on the users wants. 

 • Racial modifiers/enhancements-nightsight or infravision, keen hearing, flying, breathe water(the gilled among us), keen sense of smell, etc.

  Here's a sample created Soverign with our idea-

  I pick a man-sized or slightly larger than mansized size.  Then I pick a humanoid body type, followed by membrane skin. Next I pick tentacle limbs for arms followed by quantity.  In this case I will stick with the default 2 limbs for arms and 2 for legs.  You should be able to pick how many limbs your new race will have(obviously would need some limitating devise so not all of us would have a thousand arms or what have you). For legs I pick humanoid.  For head I pick bulbous type.  As accessories I pick more small sized tentacles to place on bulbous head to recreate the look from Pirates of the Carribean.  The accessories on my head I give no bonus to stats or abilities.  For color I give my Soverign a greenish-opaque white blend.

  I receive a racial bonus of excellent climber/water breather.  My Soverign now has negative reaction modifier to flying races.(The negative modifiers I should also be able to configure).  My Soverign is now susceptible to extra damage taken from fire. 

  That Soverign I just created should give me the option to copy that template for my starting race if I want.  It should not be mandatory that I do so.  I might want an entirely different race than my Soverign's race.  And finally, if my race I pick is humanoid then I should be able to roughly interbreed with other humanoids and get halfbreeds of whatever combinations we mix unless there is some sort of racial enmity or other impediments.

  After this then I would move on to my faction creation.  Some of which would be easier understood and have a basis for meaning by how I created my racial path.  Some would be excluded from certain paths and some would help you decide what faction types you would pick or gain.

  Hope your all having FUN!

 

 

:X