Arelith

It tells us in-game that award races are regularly rotated to introduce new options and replace old ones. After half-giants were removed though, nothing else was really added to replace them. We got new minor and normal reward options, but nothing new for greater or major awards. In addition to this, further restrictions were placed on existing options, and vampire might as well not even be listed since only so many people get to play them and there is already a queue for applications. My question is, when can we expect to see more options for major awards?

The rest of this post is my own personal feedback and opinion so reading it is optional.

I've been sitting on a major award for a while, already have an avariel, and don't know if any of the other options are something I'd really like to play. RDD is very restrictive since it is a class, not a race, that also requires you to pick one of two other classes to select, so right off the bat your choice of (actually viable) builds is extremely limited. I also find it uneven that DM's are willing to deal with fail RP on a case by case basis with some classes (RDD) but not others (Rakshasa/Fey'ri). If anything I would think RDD should require greater scrutiny since I don't see a whole lot of people playing it well. (metallics and chromatics are seen chatting in public spaces acting all chummy with each other cuz they are dragon pals when they should probably be threatening to kill each other according to the lore..)

The tricky thing is at this point, what else can we add without making Arelith even more of a menagerie?* Options have to be balanced, sensible, and in-keeping with lore- but also attractive.

We could add another ten different sentient humanoid monster races but based on the numbers those aren't going to fill the niche.

Rotated doesn't just mean new for old, it can also mean old for old, and I'm wary of seeing more added at this stage.

* Edit: This is rhetorical. Please do not list suggestions under my post i swear to-

Thing is, we didn't get old for old, we got nothing. And I don't suspect we will actually be getting old reward options rotated back in because they are even more exotic. (Lythari, Cambion, Dragon... Yeah doubt I get to play any of those cool things.)

In my day holds old persons stick and waves it The 'rotation' mostly meant shifting one or two greater options up, and one or two major options down. We tried to do that every six months. It didn't always involve adding or removing new options.

I susspect if/when new options are added, it will mostly be none-racial award things. Options to have pets, or extra crafting points, or something like that.

Disappointing but alright. My question has been answered.

Peacewhisper wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2024 1:11 pm

Disappointing but alright. My question has been answered.

Please note, I've 0 intimate knowledge of what the admins want any more. This is very much a 'I susspect' - that we're moving a bit away from purely racial to adding more other awards. I could well be wrong. crosses fingers for Lycanthropes

The GrumpyCat wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2024 11:57 am

Options to have pets, or extra crafting points, or something like that.

Kuma wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:16 am

* Edit: This is rhetorical. Please do not list suggestions under my post i swear to-

Catfolk, Dragonborn and Bananas in Pajamas. Do it now.

The GrumpyCat wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2024 1:37 pm

Peacewhisper wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2024 1:11 pm

Disappointing but alright. My question has been answered.

Please note, I've 0 intimate knowledge of what the admins want any more.

Yikes! Any chance you could twist their arms an see if they wouldnt mind chiming in then?

I think another way to look at the problem comes to developer time. Developers are volunteers with limited time available, and awards (especially higher tier awards) are content which can only be enjoyed by a limited audience.

I hope we don't see too many more races.

Hey, let's make some of the various subraces rotation only!

No sun elves for this six months, or gold dwarves (for example).

It might be worth rotating anything that isn’t a NWN base race.

edit: Another idea is to add alternatives for things that exist already. For example, we already have the Good-Badguyrace award @ Normal level. That's for typically evil races who are available without a reward. You could add a Good Gnoll/Troglodyte/Derro/SnowGoblin @ Greater level, and Good Ogre/GroddGoblin @ Major level, following the pattern of the good alignment being 2 award tiers higher than the available race.