Comments from users:

I've changed the page in an effort to declutter and segregate. ..and I like the Talpan description a whole lot. I'm putting it in!

Looking great so far. Quite exciting, watching everything slowly come together. -- Pauan 19:44, 5 July 2007 (CEST)

Suggestion for Talpan Description/Racial Traits

Talpan are as tough as a pile of stones, and as steady as the turning of the earth. The Talpan culture values consistancy and stability. These beings tend to look at the world from a predominantly practical point of view. Where some people would spend their lives pursuing beauty, travel, or adventure a Talpan would be much more content at home, living out his life with his close family. These being rarely venture very far from their homes unless they absolutely must. This isn't to say that you'll never meet a Talpan abroad, but it will explain why unless you get near their lands, you'll very likely only meet a few in your lifetime.

Other races tend to view the Talpan as very down to earth. They are slow to pass judgment, and far slower to act on it, but when they decide to do something they are nearly unstoppable. The Talpan are considered by most to be rather plain in the department of looks. Their skin is usually a dull Grey earth tone, and their eyes tend to be very dark. Talpan tend towards simple hair styles and manners of dress. They are usually easy to talk to, as they are very good listeners, typically being willing to sit and listen to another person talk for hours on end, only speaking if asked a question or otherwise prompted to speak. The Talpan tend to be trim and muscular, due to their practical lifestyles. They are perfectly happy doing manual labor, and most of them do it often.

required traits: horns and scales of stone on their backs
special optional traits: Shoulder spikes, Extra stone plates (On commonly used muscles like forearms and pectorals)

IRC log from September 10th 2006

This is the discussion about races that has been initialized by Dabes article World backstory (irrelevant side discussions omitted):

[15:36] Crush__: dabe just posted a world creation story on the wiki. i really like it: http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/World_backstory
[15:50] b_lindeijer: Crush__: Yeah, I like it too.
[15:50] Crush__: What i like especially is that the truth about the creation of the world is not known to the humans and that their believes are false. So we can create an epic quest line about finding out the truth about the nature of the world and its creation step by step.
[15:51] Crush__: this could be directly linked to the quest to develop magic skills. the player researches the nature of the elements to gain more powerful spells and during this process he finds out that everything he seemed to know about the world was false
[15:53] b_lindeijer: Yeah might be a nice idea. Seems complex to realize in practice though.
[15:55] Crush__: i imagine it that way:
[15:55] Crush__: there are a lot of mage npc's that give you a tutorial about magic in general and give you the first elemental spell
[15:56] Crush__: and then they tell you to visit the temple of the element to learn better spells
[15:56] Crush__: in the temple a priest tells you to do some quests
[15:56] Crush__: to gain better spells
[15:57] Crush__: during these quests you learn pieces after pieces about the history
[15:57] Crush__:  you learn about the ancient race of the specific element and eventually you even meet the spirit
[15:58] Crush__: when you met the spirits of all death elements or all life elements you culd do a quest to even meet the spirits of life and death in person
[15:58] Crush__: and thus learning the ultimate spells
[16:00] b_lindeijer: Alright.
[16:00] b_lindeijer: As I understood it though, the player will be able to choose any of the 10 races eventually.
[16:00] b_lindeijer: But most of this could still be done.
[16:00] silene: it's a bit sad that world history is restricted to mage players (or do we expect every player to use magic?)
[16:01] Crush__: i undersood it that the races are extinct and only humans exist as the offsprings of the races.
[16:01] b_lindeijer: There are the 8 races, the humans and the demons.
[16:01] Crush__: maybe fighter characters could learn special attacks instead
[16:02] b_lindeijer: Together they banish the gods.
[16:03] silene: at least that's what they believe, maybe the gods banished them in an isolated world
[16:03] b_lindeijer: Uh the backstory is what we should take as truth I think. :)
[16:04] ElvenProgrammer: you call it faith
[16:04] b_lindeijer: What man believes is described in "Man Rebuilds Civilization".
[16:04] b_lindeijer: They don't really know that they banished the gods, actually.
[16:11] Crush__: well, maybe i just imagined to read that the old races are all extinct because i don't like the idea of batmen and turtlemen running around and like extinct races because they give some mystical flair to it
[16:12] Crush__: why isn't dabe here? he could clarify it.
[16:15] b_lindeijer: I actually know Dabe didn't mean the races to die, since he has also described attribute modifiers for each of these races.
[16:16] Crush__: where did he do this?
[16:16] b_lindeijer: Still, the story is open for criticism so if you want to suggest them to be extinct you can do that.
[16:16] Crush__: i'm doing
[16:16] b_lindeijer: Not all his work is open for criticism yet, he publishes as he wishes.
[16:18] b_lindeijer: Would you prefer there to be no different races to choose from?
[16:19] Crush__: well, i think some of the races are quite unplayable
[16:19] b_lindeijer: The idea is that they're all rather alike. They'll all have to fit basically the same clothes, for example.
[16:20] Crush__: rather alike? to me it sounds as if some of the races are not even humanoid.
[16:21] Modanung: I'm not sure if this is the latest version, but this is how I see them: http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/Modanung/tmw_races.png
[16:22] Modanung: Space without the fuzzy effect though
[16:22] Modanung: And not sure about time yet either
[16:22] ElvenProgrammer: where did this one came out? impressive
[16:22] Modanung: (He basically has a clock slammed into his forehead)
[16:23] ElvenProgrammer: Modanung: i really love you
[16:24] Platyna: Modanung: Nice, but could we have some non spooky races too?
[16:24] b_lindeijer: Modanung: Yeah, the story describes the time race as being turtle-like. :)
[16:24] Platyna: For girls?
[16:24] Modanung: Platyna: There will be female variants
[16:24] Modanung: b_lindeijer: Hm ok
[16:24] Platyna: I don't want to look like a reptile...
[16:24] Platyna: Or a Frankenstein.
[16:24] Modanung: Platyna: Then don't be fire race
[16:24] Platyna: Modanung: Yes, but these races are spooky.
[16:24] ElvenProgrammer: Platyna: then choose human race
[16:25] Platyna: Great, o we will have a choice - look like a bad guy from Star Wars or to be a human?
[16:25] ElvenProgrammer: exactly
[16:25] Platyna: :(
[16:25] b_lindeijer: I really like them. I just don't get why they are all wearing exactly the same underwear.
[16:25] Crush__: there are some rather nice looking races between them
[16:26] Platyna: That red guy looks like our vice-prime minister Andrzej Lepper.
[16:26] Crush__: like the light race or the birdmen race
[16:26] ElvenProgrammer: yeah the one i like the less ;P
[16:26] ElvenProgrammer: or maybe least
[16:26] Modanung: b_lindeijer: You want water race to have seaweed pants and earth race to have no pants because they're blind anyway?
[16:27] Crush__: the underwear is quite secondary considering that it will be covered by the equipment most of the time
[16:27] b_lindeijer: I think none of them should wear underwear. :P
[16:28] b_lindeijer: Oh that Lepper seems like a friendly guy.
[16:28] Modanung: b_lindeijer: I don't think any of them should be scottish
[16:29] b_lindeijer: I just want to have the freedom to wear a slip without having a boxers showing through.
[16:30] Modanung: b_lindeijer: Then create a female character :)
[16:30] b_lindeijer: Oh this game has no room for creativity!
[16:30] Crush__: to get back about the elemental races topic
[16:30] Crush__: and their playability
[16:30] Modanung: Crush__: Please do :)
[16:31] Crush__: how about that the races are extinct but the quest is about reviewing them
[16:31] Crush__: so at the beginning everyone can only create human characters
[16:31] Modanung: I think they should be playable
[16:31] Crush__: and you unlock the ability to create non human characters
[16:31] ElvenProgrammer: i guess our players will have no time to play if we allow so much customization :P
[16:31] Crush__: by doing quests
[16:31] Crush__: so you basically have to earn the privilege to create non human characters
[16:32] m[a]tt: Modanung: cool@races oO i want the wingsone
[16:32] Crush__: so we make sure that most player characters will be human
[16:33] b_lindeijer: Alright, well I think it's an interesting idea anyway.
[16:36] Modanung: Yea, but it would mean humans would be the main race in all realms...
[16:37] Modanung: And only players could be different races
[16:44] b_lindeijer: I think it would be interesting to have each race to be rather prominent in his own realm, and that there could be hostilities between them.
[16:47] silene: hostilities between races or between realms (i would prefer it if it was hostilities between realms)
[16:48] Modanung: Agreed with both
[16:49] b_lindeijer: Both kind of hostilities could exist simultaneously, which can make things interesting.
[16:49] ElvenProgrammer: then let's work hard to make this happen
[16:51] silene: b_lindeijer: the one i'm not really happy with is racial hostility, i wouldn't mind guild (or whatever) hostility, for example, to have two kinds of hostility
[16:52] Modanung: silene: What wrong with racial hostility? I mean not that I approve of racism. But it's as real as inter realm hostility.
[16:53] Modanung: silene: Expecially before modern times
[16:54] silene: Modanung: that's more of an ethic point of view, we won't have control over how old (as in influencable) people who play the game are; but this is not a strong point of view, i can live with racial hostility
[16:55] Modanung: silene: Ok... I think it's ok as long as we don't have real-world races or religions
[16:56] b_lindeijer: silene: Ah true, the combination I proposed might as well be region and guild based, since they are also rather independent of each other.
[16:57] b_lindeijer: Indeed region based hostility will have rather the same meaning as racial hostility, but well less explicitly so.
[17:25] Crush__: hostilities between races, hostilities between realms, hostilities between guilds, hostilities between organisations... isn't that a little bit too much conflict?
[17:26] b_lindeijer: Crush__: We discussed only two as far as I know.
[17:27] Crush__: two also lead to awkward situations. what is when someone is my enemy race but in the same realm like me? is he my friend or my enemy?
[17:27] b_lindeijer: Crush__: Yep, that's actually what makes it more interesting.
[17:28] Crush__: so you basically find a reason to attack anyone. pvp anarchy. hooray.
[17:28] b_lindeijer: Not really.
[17:29] Crush__: so how do you think that it will work in practice?
[17:29] b_lindeijer: So we were considering conflicts between regions and conflicts between guilds, as far as I  know.
[17:31] b_lindeijer: Other than that, what do I know about how it would work?
[17:33] Crush__: well, you all know my opinion about faction vs. faction pvp
[17:34] Modanung: b_lindeijer: Nope
[17:35] b_lindeijer: I can't really say I do. But well, there's just too many discussion going on about PvP systems since at least a year already, and as far as I know we're still not even close to implementing any of that.
[17:35] Crush__: well, then we should maybe go back to the races idea
[17:35] b_lindeijer: Let's first get PvP combat to work nicely in the first place, and then look into deciding how and where players can actually fight.
[17:35] b_lindeijer: That's not really part of either server or client development anyway.
[17:36] Modanung: I think racial conflict is more of a social thing... no big battle or something... just brawls and prejudice...
[17:36] Modanung: And maybe bonuses
[17:37] Modanung: Like the trait system we discussed
[17:37] Crush__: about my proposal earlier that the races are extinct or almost extinct and player have to reanimate them by making quests to gain the ability to create them...
[17:38] Crush__: it would mean that in the beginning all charachters will play humans but over the time more and more other race chars will appear
[17:38] Crush__: and in the end the humans will only be a minority
[17:38] Crush__: this has two big advantages
[17:38] Crush__: a) the players actions change the world
[17:39] Crush__: b) more complexity for advanced players, less complexity for beginners
[17:39] Modanung: Different races doesn't have to make things more complex
[17:39] b_lindeijer: What about the thing about the timespan of a player being maybe one week up to one month (some rare cases longer), and players joining continuously?
[17:40] b_lindeijer: How does that work with races distribution globally?
[17:40] silene: b_lindeijer: you mean that your character dies after one month?
[17:40] Crush__: lifespan? do you intend that player characters die after some time?
[17:40] b_lindeijer: No I mean I think most people get bored with the game after one month.
[17:40] Modanung: b_lindeijer: That's rare with MMORPGs :)
[17:40] b_lindeijer: Not with this one.
[17:41] silene: too bad, i thought it was actually a good idea :)
[17:41] b_lindeijer: At least not at the moment. But well we can all go blame that on the alpha status, sure.
[17:41] Modanung: b_lindeijer: Not even now
[17:41] Crush__: most people play mmorpgs for months or even years
[17:41] m[a]tt: silene: yeah. the beginning is the often the funniest part
[17:41] Modanung: b_lindeijer: We have adicts even now
[17:41] m[a]tt: b_lindeijer: yeah like me
[17:41] Modanung: Like m[a]tt
[17:42] b_lindeijer: Modanung: It's very easy to know that addicts are the rare cases I mentioned. You can probably count them on two hands, all addicts we gathered after two years.
[17:42] Modanung: And because it's free people won't stop for financial reasons
[17:43] Crush__: bjorn, the current game is boring as hell. i can't understand the people who are playing it anyway.
[17:43] b_lindeijer: While we have 18.000 accounts now on the server.
[17:43] b_lindeijer: Crush__: Indeed.
[17:43] Modanung: Of which maybe 100-200 can be called active
[17:44] m[a]tt: b_lindeijer: how many of then were active in the last motnhs?
[17:44] b_lindeijer: Modanung: I think that's a rather high estimate.
[17:44] b_lindeijer: m[a]tt: I don't know whether eAthena keeps those statistics.
[17:44] m[a]tt: oO no pixel based movement :/
[17:44] b_lindeijer: And I'd have to parse this rather strange file...
[17:47] Crush__: about the global distribution of not human races: when only player characters are nonhuman they would be equally distributed over the whole world. even when they spawn at different locations. the only way to archive a concentration of races in different areas would be to make them so differently in gameplay that they are optimized for different level areas
[17:47] Crush__: but the question is: do we want that? isn't a multicultural mix more interesting?
[17:48] silene: Crush__: they don't have to be optimized, they could simply get better prices in store of their realms/races
[17:50] Modanung: Crush__: I think it would be interesting to have semi-multicultural realms
[17:50] Crush__: having common npc's of nonhuman races from the beginnig would be quite awkward when the races are meant to be extinct
[17:50] b_lindeijer: Also, they might heal most when eating their own kinds of food, which would be cheap and abundant in their own realm.
[17:50] Modanung: And the race you choose defines the place you start.
[17:51] Crush__: but how about that: immunity to weather effects in their region
[17:51] Modanung: I think Dabe also suggest better mobility
[17:51] Crush__: there could be weather effects that give a malus to everyone  but certain races are immune against them
[17:51] b_lindeijer: Dabe had the idea to reduce cost of moving in own region.
[17:52] Crush__: earth creatures are immune against sandstorms in the earth region, ice men against blizards in the ice region, fire men immune against fire storms in the fire region and so on
[17:52] m[a]tt: we could predefine that race a is a enemy of race b, players could try to change that...or not(like in gta with that respect point thingys)..
[17:55] Crush__: we got opposing elements so it would just be logical that the same applies to the races. like dark men and light men are enemies or water men and fire men.
[17:56] Crush__: i'll edit the races article to mention the races in the world backstory. i will also collect the ideas posted here and put them there as optional suggestions
[17:57] silene: i wouldn't mind better race names than "dark men", "light men", "fire men", "water men", etc :)
[18:12] Crush__: but we all agree on that the elemental races should have a bonus on using and defending against their element and a malus on using and defending against other elements.
[18:12] Crush__: don't we?
[18:15] b_lindeijer: Crush__: Yeah, I think we do.
[18:51] d4BE: Crush: about your idea for unlocking, I had a very similar idea that Rapier always shoots down (I tried to apply it to a MUD we were working on once) .. where you would grow as a user-level as well as on a character-level..
[18:51] d4BE: Your account would begin only allowing Humans and possibly Demons.. perhaps starting in different locations.. as you progressed, you would be allowed more character slots and more choices for races.