Guild Wars 2

Can we have human ancestry (ascalonian, elonian, etc) as a personal story instead of the carnival, dead parent sister ones? Those last three doesn’t really do jusctice to the history of humanity in tyria.

Ancestry would give human more depth and at the same time give non-GW1 players some more lore education.

I was hopig that it would be developed more after choosing one in the Dead Sister story but turns out otherwise.

While we’re at it can we get a more epic boss in the tutorial? Idk, maybe an actual golem insted of just 2 hands that pops out like daisies.

TL;DR human personal story needs more love

The problem is from what the NPCs say most humans (except for those who are citizens of Lions Arch and some of the Ascalonians) seem to think of themselves as Krytan in the first instance, even if their ancestors are mainly from Cantha or Elona or wherever. They acknowledge their ancestry but it’s not a part of their daily life so I’m not sure there could be much of a story relating to it.

During the story line to find your dead sister, you actually do get asked what ancestry you are both from, but it has nothing to do with the story line from what I can tell. It would be nice if you could pick your ancestry to be a bigger part of the personal story.

@Calysto – her (sister) appearance changes based on the answer you choose…granted nothing of significance.

Yeah I think it’s just to make sure your character and your sister look similar. It’d be a bit strange if your character was black and your sister was white and blonde or whatever.

I think they took the design decision to avoid it so that we could fill in the blanks ourselves and decide where our characters came from and how they got to be where they are today in Divinity’s Reach.

I had a lot of fun filling in the backstory for my characters without having to worry that Arenanet were going to dictate it. But I can see what you mean, for those who want the option it would be nice to have it.

They dont put a link to your toon and maybe your gw1 toons cuz its totally up to u if u want them to be descendants of some hero from gw1.

Choosing your ancestry originally was part of the human background and affected where your home instance was, but this got cut because the effort needed to make it wasn’t deemed worth it. It seems they still like the concept though.

http://thepaletree.net/2012/05/15/writing-your-story-an-interview-with-the-writers-of-guild-wars-2/

I think another part of the problem with this suggestion is that it would “imbalance” humans as far as their story choices go since humans would get four choices; since, there are four major ancestries: Krytan, Ascalonian, Canthan, and Elonian. I personally play a Krytan, so if they only included three, most likely Ascalonian, Canthan, and Elonian since humans are all from Kryta now, my human’s story would be left in the dust.

There’s way too many human cultures. There isn’t just Canthan, there’s also Kurzick and Luxon. There isn’t Elonian, there’s Istan, Vabbi, and Kourna. That plus the regular Ascalonian and Krytan, we’re talking 8 different branches.

In my head, my female human mesmer is the descendant of my Ascaloian female warrior and Talhkora. Would it be awesome if that was in the game somehow? Oh yeah! However, the fact that I know it is good enough for now.

Thia.4891:

In my head, my female human mesmer is the descendant of my Ascaloian female warrior and Talhkora.

Uhhh… You sure Koss wasn’t just hiding in the closet somewhere?

>.>

<.<

Another problem I would see with the suggestion is that by this point in history, most humans probably have some level of mixed ancestry. I doubt it’s all just Ascalonians reproducing with other Ascalonians, Canthans with other Canthans, etc. after families have been living in Kryta for many generations by now.

It makes sense to try to have the sister look something like the player character, but beyond that, going too far into ancestry would make Kryta seem creepily segregated (and rather inbred) if ancestry was never mixed but always just a single choice from the game menu.

Zaxares.5419:

Thia.4891:

In my head, my female human mesmer is the descendant of my Ascaloian female warrior and Talhkora.

Uhhh… You sure Koss wasn’t just hiding in the closet somewhere?

>.>

<.<

Nope. It’s a land of magic and wonder. Plus, after all I’ve done, I’m pretty sure the gods owe me AT LEAST this.

(Also, spoiler alert, that mesmer is going to wind-up with my female Norn ranger :p)

Thia.4891:

Plus, after all I’ve done, I’m pretty sure the gods owe me AT LEAST this.

Hehe, true. Kormir does owe you a pretty darn big favour after Nightfall.

Thia.4891:

(Also, spoiler alert, that mesmer is going to wind-up with my female Norn ranger :p)

Hey, that’s no worse than my Human female Mesmer winding up with my giant male Charr Warrior who’s like 3 times her size. XD

There are no interracial relations with offspring in Tyria.

It seems likely that, at this point, many Krytan family-trees have Elonians, Ascalons and Canthans as members.