Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: A serious proposal for player species switches (new market potential)
This sounds like an excellent idea. I guess the way to treat the name thing would be to keep the first name, since that is what everything is based on, and give an option to change the last name, if there is one. Though it would be funny to run into a Mon Cal named "Somethingbacca."I could see image designers and doctors camped close at hand and this would be an advantage for them too. I would vote for a two-week interval. A month sounds too long and a week sounds too short. I don't see any problem with the faction issue. Anything you've bought stays bought and anything you buy comes at the new price. Two weeks is long enough to discourage dabblers.
I see this as especially useful for people who have chosen a species that is not well-suited to their profession. How many of us knew what we were going to be when we grew up and how the stats would effect that choice? If it's our first character, probably not very many.
It might even be an interesting thing for "married" couples. They can switch to the same species and share the same last name. You could start a whole family with people you've met, adopting brothers and sisters etc.
I'm not a BE yet, but almost there! 
I love the idea of experienced BEs being able to change the race of their clients. Would be difficult, but so long as it is doable we'd really have something unique and sought for. Would make perfect gaming sense that we should be able to do it, simply because we are supposed to be working with tissues and organic chemistry.
Seeing as you can only have one char per server, and there are advantages to being a specific race (most notably joining the Empire) it would be a wellwelcomed service.
Perhaps players should be allowed to change their last names, not first names. But this sounds more like the area of the future Politician profession. Since politicians are usually associated with law, it should be their field to change the names of players not Bio-Engineers.
One thing I would say to add in class dependancy is to add in a part from a droid engeneer to house copy of the persons concious while between bodys.
And I imagin no the empire would not be able to tell you from any other human as on any medical scan you wold be a human now.
I think this is a very good idea.
However i feel that the waiting period should definitely be longer then 24 hours. 1 month sounds good, that way you have to be completely certain about changing your race because you won't be able to change back, or to another species, for a while.
When you change species you should be able to (or have to) change your name, because not all species have both first and last names (i.e. wookiees don't have last names). And to prevent any exploit with factions you should lose any and all faction standings. You are essentially becoming a new person with a new identity.
The major wounds when successful and death when not is a good idea. You are, as others stated, completely altering a living body. Plus it gives medics a role in the alteration of race.
I really like the idea of a hard and expensive way to change your species.
Your correspondent should bring it up in the next report.
/agree
well thought out argument tal. the only forseeable reason i can think of that the devs will say 'no' to this idea is the age old parent out, ''because i said so''. in other words, there is no good reason why this should not be implemented. bravo!
perhaps you should make this topic in the main message board to generate more traffic & more classes opinions?
Very interesting idea, I hope its given some serious consideration by the devs. Trying to look at the possible pitfalls and counter-arguements that could be made;
Name - would almost certainly have to stay the same. This is mainly for community reasons - scamming, harrassment etc. Even when names were eventually allowed to be changed in EQ it cost the player $50 I think it was real money, and even that I personally disagreed with. SWG has seen probably the lowest rate of griefing in any MMO I have played, in a large part due imo to SCS and the concept that you cannot be a jerk then go hide in a 'different' character. Using this to change a name negates part of that advantage. And quite apart from anything else, as someone mentioned earlier, name changing would be something much more along the lines of something for a politician since it is a legal process, not a physical one.
Faction - tough call, so we should err on the side of making things harder for the player rather than easier. Set expectations low then, if the process gets approval, look to tweak it once it is in play for a while. That being said, I think that changing race would only be possible for a neutral character, given both the factions have a stance against it (ignore clone centres in each town, that is a game mechanic). I'm not sure what that means in terms of faction points but basically a person should have little or no standing with either faction (or loses the points automatically during the process) to be able to change race. They should also not be able to keep any faction pets or installations, but maybe allowed to keep weapons and armor.
Time between changes - needs to start long, then we can argue for it to be reduced once the mechanic is in game AND working. I would say absolute minimum would be 2 weeks to prevent situational changes, but I would actually prefer longer personally. Changing race isn't the same as switching to new clothes, it has to mean something. To slightly tweak someone elses suggestion, maybe allow a change back to the original race after 2 weeks, but can only change to a new race after 1 month. This means people have to think hard before committing but can, once they have tried things out for a bit, change their mind and switch back.
Other than that, I think you've come up with an excellent idea that incorporates several different professions. Hope to see this get serious consideration at some point by the devs 