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[GrayFox]

The race you choose will change the looks of some items you craft. And each race has its own architectural style. You can use the other races' stuff eventually by finding their blueprints, but it's supposed to be more difficult than finding your own race's stuff. 

[alexandertnt]

What is the roleplaying-esque theme that a player wants to embrace when they choose your race? What are the parts of your race that will make players have arguments with each other over which race is best? Will your race have fans that will hope to play it in future games, or will it be a throwaway that people just remember as Humanoid Plant Variant 84?

Guild Wars 2 is a recent example of a game that does this really well. Their races all have a theme behind their culture that's something players would want to be. You don't play a Norn because you want to be eight feet tall, you play a norn because the race is manly as fuck. They're loud, mean, they drink, and they settle everything by brawling. In a way they fit the common dwarf tropes, but that's a good thing. Those tropes are around because they're good enough to stick around.

"I want to be a really mean plant" just doesn't have the same appeal. I guess they sort of fill the feral, predatory mindset but they're too diluted with other things to really have that as their core.

I agree that the races are quite underdeveloped. I was quite dissapointed to see that a plant-race came out as green-skinned people that dont seem very much like plants at all.

On the other hand, To compare it to Guild Wars 2 is quite bizzare - It is not an mmo MMO. It is considerably cheaper than GW2. They are entirely different games, with entirely different mechanics, and entirely different purposes. It is like "comparing apples to oranges".

So I don't really see a problem with the races how they are. While they are not particularly original, it is a very small component of the game. The races are not too developed because they are not particularly focusing on them. They are there for a little bit of flavour, to complement the rest of the game somewhat.

If you are looking for roleplaying-incentives/an-RPG-feel then you are looking at the wrong game. The gameplay elements are just not focusing on story/roleplaying. If you do feel this way about the game, then it might just not be for you.

[Neonivek]

I thought the races being unoriginal was sort of the point.

A sort of Space Stone Soup (Steriotypical stuff intentionally)

[Kaitol]

+1 to basic races because they're not really a focus for the game outside of aesthetics.

Compare it to borderlands. The playable characters are only given a token lipservice backstory. Not many people care though, because that's not the focus of the game. Raging because every aspect of every game is not carefully constructed by a legendary craftsmen and menaces with spikes of Cat Leather is gonna leave you very unhappy.

[Devling]

I noticed something about the Florans text block.

"Despite this, individual Florans have been known to split apart from their society to lead their own lives in isolation or in the solace of other races, at the cost of being cut off from the collective and considered enemies of all flora for good."

Now all they need is the ability to dual wield...

[notquitethere]

Raging because every aspect of every game is not carefully constructed by a legendary craftsmen and menaces with spikes of Cat Leather is gonna leave you very unhappy.

Truer words were never spoken. For what it's worth, I love the idea of vicious plant people who don't understand meat can be people too.  It has nice parallels.

[beefy]

The Character Creator is live now!
You have to be a registered forum member though...

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?pages%2Fcharcreator%2F

Fun times!

[penguinofhonor]

On the other hand, To compare it to Guild Wars 2 is quite bizzare - It is not an mmo MMO. It is considerably cheaper than GW2. They are entirely different games, with entirely different mechanics, and entirely different purposes. It is like "comparing apples to oranges".

So I don't really see a problem with the races how they are. While they are not particularly original, it is a very small component of the game. The races are not too developed because they are not particularly focusing on them. They are there for a little bit of flavour, to complement the rest of the game somewhat.

If you are looking for roleplaying-incentives/an-RPG-feel then you are looking at the wrong game. The gameplay elements are just not focusing on story/roleplaying. If you do feel this way about the game, then it might just not be for you.

I don't think something should be in your game if it's half-assed. I understand this isn't a AAA MMO, and that's why I don't expect all the races to be fully rendered in 3D with  a ridiculously detailed character editor, to have tons of back story dating back hundreds of years, and all the other stuff that takes tons of effort and teams of people.

But I do expect them to have a decent concept. You don't need hundreds of people to do that. Tons of indie games have great stories and settings because being indie doesn't actually stop you from making any of that good. Just because it's indie doesn't mean it's fine to be crappily made. Indie games have done better than this.

Compare it to borderlands. The playable characters are only given a token lipservice backstory. Not many people care though, because that's not the focus of the game. Raging because every aspect of every game is not carefully constructed by a legendary craftsmen and menaces with spikes of Cat Leather is gonna leave you very unhappy.

Borderlands has mechanical differences between the characters. Their character differences are more like choosing a class than choosing a race. If the differences were purely aesthetic, then the light backstories would not be satisfactory. Starbound has already ditched the mechanical idea, though.

Character choices aren't just a thing you throw in a game for the sake of throwing it in. Mario doesn't have it because he doesn't need it. If there were a few crappy aesthetic Mario clones that you could choose from instead of him, Mario games would be worse games.

But honestly this

The race you choose will change the looks of some items you craft. And each race has its own architectural style. You can use the other races' stuff eventually by finding their blueprints, but it's supposed to be more difficult than finding your own race's stuff.

Come a lot closer to justifying Starbound's races to me. I didn't know it when I was posting last. But significant enough aesthetic differences (with effort required to overcome them) can make choosing your race actually a meaningful choice. Let's just hope they go far enough with it.

[BunnyBob77]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but your race doesn't only change the aesthetics of items, but each race's armor will also have a different special ability. Here's the list, copied form the forums:
    Avian: Allows you to glide
    Apex: Allows you to jump higher, maybe run faster
    Human: Allows you to carry more items "possibly"
    Robot: Allows you to mine faster
    Floran: Allows you to convert sunlight into extra energy
    Hylotl: Allows you to breathe underwater and swim faster

[Shadowlord]

What, no photogasms? 

[Frumple]

What, no photogasms? 

... izzat what the cannibal plants call it?

[Gunner-Chan]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but your race doesn't only change the aesthetics of items, but each race's armor will also have a different special ability. Here's the list, copied form the forums:
    Avian: Allows you to glide
    Apex: Allows you to jump higher, maybe run faster
    Human: Allows you to carry more items "possibly"
    Robot: Allows you to mine faster
    Floran: Allows you to convert sunlight into extra energy
    Hylotl: Allows you to breathe underwater and swim faster

Wait. Is that like starting armor? Or like racial crafted armor bonuses? Since if it's the latter and it applies to all armor you make then well, there's your racial bonuses right there. And in a way that it doesn't limit you if you like one aesthetic if you like a different ability.

[BunnyBob77]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but your race doesn't only change the aesthetics of items, but each race's armor will also have a different special ability. Here's the list, copied form the forums:
    Avian: Allows you to glide
    Apex: Allows you to jump higher, maybe run faster
    Human: Allows you to carry more items "possibly"
    Robot: Allows you to mine faster
    Floran: Allows you to convert sunlight into extra energy
    Hylotl: Allows you to breathe underwater and swim faster

Wait. Is that like starting armor? Or like racial crafted armor bonuses? Since if it's the latter and it applies to all armor you make then well, there's your racial bonuses right there. And in a way that it doesn't limit you if you like one aesthetic if you like a different ability.

It's more like starting armor. At the beginning you get blueprints for some items of your race that have those bonuses, but you can get more blueprints from quests and dungeons and that kind of thing, as far as I know.  I might be wrong on this though.
Also, if anyone is interested in various information about the game, here is the forums' pretty detailed thread about the known information about the game.

[sambojin]

On the racial identities debate, I think a lot of it is to not trap players into a certain character style. The race that the character comes from may have a predilection for light armour and laser weaponry, even the ability to generate more energy for said weapons, with much of their civ sites portraying that. But if the player's character wishes to shy away from their race's standard and become a heavily armoured, rocket launcher toting maniac or a happy-hippy, torch carrying medic for the other races, then there's nothing stopping that. I'm vaguely using the Florans as an example. It sounds like a nice, cohesive race, but the bonuses shouldn't ever be so overwhelming that this is "the only" way to play Florans.

When you come across NPC Floran sites, no doubt they'll follow their racial stereo-types, lots of energy based things and many people wearing their racial-designed gear. But the player themselves can do whatever they like, with a slight bonus to an area that their race is good at.

It comes down to the RPG dilemma. Why can't a player be a sword'n'board battlewizard instead of a cloth-armoured artillery peice? I hope that the bonuses in Starbound add some flavour, but not over-poweringly so. 

[alexandertnt]

I don't think something should be in your game if it's half-assed. I understand this isn't a AAA MMO, and that's why I don't expect all the races to be fully rendered in 3D with  a ridiculously detailed character editor, to have tons of back story dating back hundreds of years, and all the other stuff that takes tons of effort and teams of people.

But I do expect them to have a decent concept. You don't need hundreds of people to do that. Tons of indie games have great stories and settings because being indie doesn't actually stop you from making any of that good. Just because it's indie doesn't mean it's fine to be crappily made. Indie games have done better than this.

Indie does not stop anyone from making any of that good, that was never implied. What was implied was the lack of focus on stories and character in this particular indie game. It's just not part of the project's scope. They probably specifically avoid making elements like this particularly detailed to reduce scope creep. You don't need many people for improved RPG elements, but you do need many people to improve all elements beyond their intention. They only picked some game elements to focus work on, the character elements just diddn't make the cut.

The fact that other indie games have done RPG elements better than this does not mean very much, it is likely that this game has done some elements better then those games.

Character choices aren't just a thing you throw in a game for the sake of throwing it in. Mario doesn't have it because he doesn't need it. If there were a few crappy aesthetic Mario clones that you could choose from instead of him, Mario games would be worse games.

Why not? An all-or-nothing approach to software development (applied to each element, not just the story-and-character element, which is not an element deserving of special treatment) will quickly grind development to a halt. I also could not see how adding the ability to chose different aesthetic characters in Mario games would make it crappier, given it woulb be a superset of the original game - just chose Mario and enjoy the exact same experience.