Guild Wars 2

You are an ANet employee whose job it is to design a new How to Dance book available for purchase in the gem store. You may include any 3 dances you choose. Which dances would you include and why?

Gangnam Style: Because it would be awesome!!
Napoleons dance from Napoleon Dynamite: Sheer epicness!!!
Dub Step: Becuase I want to see an Asura have a seizure. :P

Can we start with How to Emote book? >_>

Though, to answer the question:

Breakdance
Conga line (that other people can stack on and follow~)
Lock & Pop

Plie – I want to see a charr do this more than you could possibly know
Elementalist Shakira shake from GW1
Jig – otherwise known as Irish dancing or Riverdance

Charleston
Tango
Tap dance

(I’d say jig but shogei got to it first)

edit: Why? Charleston is just so fun. My arches aren’t up to it any more, so I could do it pixelated instead. Plus it’s a dance that works solo, in couples facing each other or side by side, and in groups.

Tango would allow for a bit more sexy yet classy moves. Given how the How to Dance works, I’d imagine people could stand facing each other, trigger it, and do a tandem tango. Much easier way to get ballroom dance in than trying to create a waltz (I’ve wanted waltzing in games forever, it just has a ton of issues because it pairs people up).

Tap dance — looks good solo and jig was taken.

(Yeah, I adore vintage dancing, or did when I was physically fitter. MMO dancing usually annoys me with being silly pop dances that don’t suit the setting — though I must admit Charleston was definitely a fad of pop culture in its day).

-Moonwalking. Just for some sillyness, to be honest I just want my characters to be able to retreat while moonwaling.

-I’d love to see some tap dancing too ! I always thought it looked really nice, seeing it ingame would be awesome.

-And some nice belly dancing ! I really love it, no matter if the dancers are males or females, it’s always really enjoyable to watch.

GW2 animators are really great at making good looking emotes/animations, it’s a pity there isn’t more of those !

So many great ideas here!
Naturally, I posted this already having my own ideas for what I would include. I was thinking…

Gangnam Style, because it clearly sells.

Conga line, because that is exactly what every social game needs. (Also, I’d love to see an inappropriately timed Conga line breaking out in the middle of a Tequatl fight.)

And finally, the Haruhi Suzumiya dance. I’ve never even seen the show, but I don’t think I could resist including this on account of the fangasming and rage it would cause in those with strong feelings about it. Besides, if you got a group of Charr doing this, I think I would die laughing. (Call it the “Charruhi Suzumiya”.)

Donari.5237:

Charleston

Kudos to you, Donari, for remembering the Charleston. That is such a great idea, I would happily cut out one of my own lineup to make room for it.

Nox Lucis.8341:

Kudos to you, Donari, for remembering the Charleston. That is such a great idea, I would happily cut out one of my own lineup to make room for it.

Just remember, ANet, it’s Charleston, like the city, not Carlton, like the nerd.
Norn dancing makes me sad.

Thanks for the shout out, Nox Lucis, but it’s not hard to remember a dance I actually did dance for a while. I used to go ballroom dancing every Sunday night at a friend’s house; they’d had it built with a 50’ long sprung-floor high ceilinged integrated sound system in place of a family room and garage. My wedding reception was there! Waltz was always my fave but tango, schottische, swing, polka, one step, two step, grand march, we did it all. Then my arches went bad and the fun of dance was eclipsed by the agonizing night-long pain afterwards

So I really hope for some good MMO dances some day. I like how LotRO and TESO have appropriate dances for their milieus, and Fallen Earth had a ton (even the Charleston, which made me so very happy). Given the general feel of Tyria, I’d think Victorian through Roaring 20’s dancing would fit right in, within the constraints of game mechanics that prevent couples-dancing.