Massively Overthinking: How often do you play human MMO characters when you have other choices?

I’ve been thinking about this question a bit lately, partly owing to Stars Reach and partly to Project Gorgon. Playable Worlds says Stars Reach will have only humanoid characters, specifically to make cosmetics and wearables easy to rig. Makes sense, though part of me is a little bit sad not to have some out-there races (y’all know I love my Star Wars Galaxies Ithorians). And yet, Project Gorgon was this past week tempting me with its about-to-be-discontinued addon package, and I passed on it because I know I won’t play the Orc. I’ll keep playing my (boring) human. But I love the game that lets us play cows and spiders, so maybe I just don’t like Orcs? Except I’ve played Orcs in other games. What is going on here?

I want to talk about this for Massively Overthinking this week, in light of what we know about ourselves and about the characters that other people play. How often do you play human MMO characters when you have other choices? Are you the type of MMO gamer who plays only humans? Plays anything but humans? Plays a little of everything? Plays only giant toons or shorties? Or plays the weirdo race/species only if it has some sort of specific appeal to you? Why are you like this? And what about your fellow gamers – do you think it’s worth it for MMORPG studios to spend resources now and in the future to make and maintain unusual races?

Andy McAdams: I like playing non-human characters, but it also depends on how the other races look. I tend towards thin, tall, lithe races and don’t get the same sense of… attachment maybe? Self? when playing bulkier classes. So in WoW, I loved Blood Elves because I liked the way they looked more than, say, Trolls, and definitely more than Orcs. Not say that they looked bad or anything; it’s purely a taste thing.

But I also have the problem where sometimes the humans look beefier than I can easily identify with. Which is stupid, I know but I see myself a dex monkey or ninja IRL, and that’s how I like to relate to my characters in game. In FFXIV, I play an Au Ra but often think of going back to Miqo’te or even gasp Viera. I really like Hrothgar, but again… beefy. In Guild Wars 2, though, I play my favorite fantasy race ever, the lettuce people.

Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): I go through phases, honestly. When I started MMOs in Ultima Online, the only option back then was human, not that you could really tell. I might have kept going with that, except in EverQuest, the humans were much more fugly than elves, so my mains were a wood elf, half elf, high elf, and a gnome to boot. After a few years of that, I actually wanted to get out of the elf business and played more human characters in Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies. By World of Warcraft, my main was a human, but I had a bunch of elves, gnomes, and a draenei too, though many of my choices back then were more about the class than the race. Later, SWG added Ithorians (sort of an ugly cross between a turtle and a hammerhead shark?), and I have rolled more of them than I can count. In Guild Wars 2, my top four toons are a Sylvari, Charr, human, and Asura. In LOTRO, I have a mix of races, though my hobbits are my favorites.

All of this is to say, I guess play a mix depending on what appeals to me in that specific game. Good hair makes a huge difference in whether I’ll go human!

Carlo Lacsina (@UltraMudkipEX, YouTube, Twitch): Yenno, it’s not species that counts for me. It’s how they’re animated. Earliest example: Argonians from Morrowind. Hands down they had the best animations in any game, and they looked cool holding their weapons. The Charr of GW2 also come to mind. I love the way they hold their weapons, especially the greatsword. They also have a cool run animation, so I stick to that.

The opposite is true for me too; I avoid specific species with animations that I don’t like. Male Au Ra come to mind. I just cant stand their default standing animation. I was never a fan of that pose where both feet are together. Always looked weird to me. Yes, yes, I know I can always change the pose, but even that zeptosecond they’re in that pose bugs me.

Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): I definitely love the alternate humanoid races, whether it’s the Galka of Final Fantasy XI, the Roegadyn of Final Fantasy XIV, or the Charr in Guild Wars 2.

As for why, it’s really just a matter of fantasy: These games are always meant to be a form of escapism (and in my case a storytelling exercise via roleplay), and so generally I tend to dive headlong into that “out there” options if I’m presented with them. Or at least I tend to look at them first. Also it’s an aesthetic choice – a way to sort of stand out and make something really unique from a cosmetic/dress-up standpoint.

To that point, I would certainly prefer it if more MMORPGs decided to include additional unique choices, but I also don’t really hate the rationale regarding rigging and animation. This stuff is a lot of work.

Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): My general preferences are toward the shorter races, such as Gnomes, Hobbits, and Dwarves. Maybe I identify more with shorties, but I like to think that I pick these because it feels more epic for someone small to overcome massive foes.

I do think that the MMO market is flooded with far too many human and human-ish characters (humans with pointed ears! Blue humans! Red humans! Humans with tails!), which is a shame because we used to happily play video games with all sorts of wacky main characters. But give us the choice of an avatar, and the majority rushes to the safe, boring choice of familiarity.

Yes, I’d love to see more MMOs introduce interesting and varied races. Some do. World of Warcraft weirdly gets high marks in this category, as do both EverQuest titles. I do wish that Guild Wars 2 would leverage its amazing assortment of races to give us some better playable options than human, big human, leafy human, cats, and grotesque nightmare Stitches.

Sam Kash (@thesamkash): I really do like alternative options for hero types, but if I think about what I play in most games, it’s mostly humanoid. I don’t know if I’m just boring (I am), but I tend to really identify myself with my characters. I usually even try to adjust their features to look similar to mine too. I don’t know.

So when I see a studio say that it’ll focus only on humanoids, I can’t blame it. Plus I know I’m not going to be using anything else much either, and that might result in better designs for the characters overall. So I think I’m going to be OK with it.

Tyler Edwards (blog): I usually avoid playing human characters when given the option, though there are some big asterisks on that. In WoW, my main and one of my more-played alts are both humans, though that’s more an accident of history than something I did on purpose. I’ve also played a fair bit of humans in GW2 because I genuinely think they have the most interesting backstory of the playable races in that setting.

But I do generally find non-humans more appealing. Maybe because my mind doesn’t work like most people’s, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of intelligences that are not quite like ours.

For this reason I tend to care more about how culturally and psychologically different races are rather than how physically different they are. I get mildly peeved when people says Elves are boring because they’re just humans with pointy ears. Maybe in some settings that’s true, but often they’re the farthest from humans in terms of how they think and experience life.

I love the idea of non-humanoid or bestial races, but I’ll admit I don’t play them as much. I think it can be hard to connect to characters without a humanoid face. I still play them at times, though, and I love seeing other people play them. It makes games feel a lot more colourful.

I do wish more games offered a wide variety of strange and exotic races. It’s one of the few things I miss about old school MMOs. I think GW2 was the last major western release to include significantly non-human options, and that was over a decade ago. I get it’s a lot harder in terms of animations and gear models, but there’s special about having like twenty different race options, including many that are far from human.

For a good example of my overall preferences, the racial spread of the characters I played through Legion’s class stories in WoW was: four Blood Elves, one Night Elf, one Worgen, two humans, one Dwarf, one Tauren, one Orc, and one Nightborne.

Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!