Humans: A dying race?

Humans: A dying race?

in Human

Posted by: The Brigadier.3847

The Brigadier.3847

Cantha is so heavily based on the Tokugawa Shogunate it is ridiculous. From being Xenophobic, Uniting 2 factions and the icing on the cake the game take 250 years after the first game. The Tokugawa shogunate lasts about 250 years(268) I sense the cantha expansion will be Samurai inspired.

Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear, For I am the Law and the Law is not mocked.

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

I didn’t like Pyre either. Some of his flavour dialogue made me raise an eyebrow and a lot of similar dialogue can be found in GW2. I’m not going to beat around the bush here, since I’ve already seen one MMO drop the ball with its lore in order to play favourites with playable races. I’m not going to ask for humans to be ‘better’ or more prominent than the charr, though I do expect Arena Net to treat the human lore with the same amount of passion they are quite readily throwing in the direction of the charr.

I think that’s one of the big beefs human fans have had, actually. ArenaNet has been putting a lot of passion into charr, asura, and sylvari lore, but situations where humans should have attained the spotlight have been squandered.

(And the sad thing is that they’ve already squandered what was probably the best chance to give humans a spotlight, being Orr. Going back to their holy city should have been a big thing for humans and an opportunity to make use of human knowledge of the gods, but in the way Orr is treated it might as well have been the ruins of a city inhabited by a completely different race with its own pantheon – there’s no sense of shared history between Orr and modern humans.)

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

(edited by draxynnic.3719)

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Jermoe Morrow.9501

Jermoe Morrow.9501

It really bothered me playing a human going into Orr, because I had all these asura, charr, and sylvari talking about the place as if my race was extinct. Almost as annoying as asura and sylvari telling me my gods don’t exist when I literaly can call divine wrath down upon them on a whim with slot and elite skills.

Ok, so we lost 1 and a half kingdoms since GW1. Kryta is looking at least as strong as the charr(who have lost ground due to dragons), and Ebonhawke was easily holding back the charr with little more than a stone wall (the charr’s kryptonite). And if Cantah was able to unify (which involved subduing siege turtles comparable to charr tanks and golems comparable to asuran tech) and kick out the non humans, then they are almost certainly holding their own against whatever dragon force attacked them. Elona is not looking to good, but it seems unlikely to me that Palo Joko would have exterminated humans if he could simply subjugate them. All in all, humans are looking pretty good. Not total domination of the world like gw1, but certainly not on the decline.

SLIGHTLY UNRELATED NOTE: but what is with people saying that humans need to abandon their gods to advance. The gods literaly do exist, and literaly do answer prayers. It is the most sensical beliefe system in the game, followed perhaps by the norn spirits (who don’t generaly answer prayers)

80s(name-race/class):Jermoe Morrow(main) – H/Ra
Blue Dorito-S/Re|Transitor-S/En |Tina Feyspirit-N/M|
Bmoe-A/T|Peter Whatsherface-H/G|Acolyte Rin-H/N

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Chaosbroker.3860

Chaosbroker.3860

Honestly as far as Charr perceived intelligence in GW1 goes it’s actually fairly understandable. You have a few people at the top convincing their entire race to give them all the power because they alone can talk to their “gods”. The last thing they’re going to do is encourage the value of a good education.

As to their sudden leap forward in technology, the Charr are easily the most warlike race in Guild Wars … take a guess where most of humanity’s big leaps forward in technology have come from. To this day the biggest technological motivator is still thinking of a new way to blow the other guy up otherwise he might think of it first.

Callo Merlose – Revenant
Envy – Fort Aspenwood
“Believe in yourself … because the rest of us think you’re an idiot”

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Obsidian.1328

Obsidian.1328

@Chaosbroker

If that were true, the humans would have followed suit with technology. I mean, they were at war with those Charr that whole time, and for a long time before that in the guild wars while the Charr were idle. And the simple act of throwing off the shackles of an evil diety shouldn’t make a race 10 times smarter than they were. ANet needed a steampunk race to fill that niche in the lore and the Charr were it.

Obsidian Sky – SoR
I troll because I care

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

It’s probably more that once the charr made enemies of most of their magic users, they had a strong incentive to find something else to keep them on a level playing field that wasn’t magic. Humanity never had such an ostracism of their magic-users, so they could continue relying on magic for the things they traditionally relied on magic for rather than looking for alternatives.

Humans will adopt a technological solution if there’s one that already exists or it proves easier or more convenient than a magical one, but they’ll use magic if that’s easier. Charr, on the other hand, are trying to minimise their reliance on magic, so they’ll go for the technological solution and regard magical solutions more as stopgaps than a final solution. With this greater focus on nonmagical solutions, if we assume roughly equal intelligence it’s actually not surprising the charr have moved forward faster than humans, technologically speaking.

It probably also contributes that the charr view industry as a thing of beauty in and of itself, while to human aesthetics it often appears ugly or even (given that one of their deities is the goddess of nature) blasphemous.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Chaosbroker.3860

Chaosbroker.3860

There’s also the fact that each Charr as a rite of passage are expected to design some new technological advancement that helps the race as a whole. Seems like a pretty strong driving force for their explosive scientific advancement.

Callo Merlose – Revenant
Envy – Fort Aspenwood
“Believe in yourself … because the rest of us think you’re an idiot”

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Dreamwalker.3617

Dreamwalker.3617

Charr haters…charr haters everywhere…

C’mon guys. I honestly love the charr. The fact that they were the big bad guys back in Gw1 just makes the race that much more realistic, interesting, and believable. My main’s a sylvari, but still…charr for the win.

That was so funny, I laughed twice.

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: endeavor.7530

endeavor.7530

Humans and Charr have always had a rocky relationship and rightfully so;
*EDIT NOTE*
Now it’s Human and Centaur
*END EDIT NOTE*

The Humans originally came from a more eastern location than that of Ascalon and moved west (into Charr lands) and conquered the region and forming the kingdom of Ascalon. With time, Humans spread out further and wherever they went, they conquered. It’s important to note however, one of the main reasons Humans were able to conquer the way they did is because they were the youngest race and also they had their gods present (in Orr). It seems as though once the gods left, the might of Humans slowly diminished into what it is now. In Nightfall (Elona), the success of the champion was helped indirectly by the gods and by the end of it, Kormir became a goddess, the destruction of an entire kingdom and saving of others in such a brief window shows how powerful the humans can be when helped by their gods. Tyria hosts more sentient beings than any other landmass and it’ll be interesting how different Cantha and Elona have become, Cantha being more human dominated as opposed to undead (not servants of Zhaitan) in Elona.

Server: Fort Aspenwood
Main: Endeavorr

(edited by endeavor.7530)

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Eaglebach.7593

Eaglebach.7593

Guess what, in the first expansion of GW2, the continent of Cantha will become available and Tyria will be flooded with products “Made in Cantha.” There will be arm race between Canthan human and the charr/asura. Not to mention they’ve been pumping most of their money into nuclear weapon!

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Alsonia.4753

Alsonia.4753

We don’t know what is going on in Elona or Cantha. I’M pretty sure that Elona is a mess (thanks to our brave heroes in GW1 who didn’t stop Palawa Joko on time!), but we don’t know anything about Cantha. For all that we know, they might be thriving in a mighty empire there

Luxons and Kurzicks were stomped out and Imperial law became the standard. Kaineng still exists as a major population more than likely.

Gloria Taril | Guardian of [ICoa]
Repping Beastgate since day 1.

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

@endeavor: Nothing we’ve had indicates that humans came from the east – in fact, what we do have suggests they came from the south, while there have been some indications that east might be charr territory. The humans that invaded/founded Ascalon seem to have come from Orr, with Doric being king of all Tyrian humans at the time.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

Humans: A dying race?

in Human

Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

@Chaosbroker

If that were true, the humans would have followed suit with technology. I mean, they were at war with those Charr that whole time, and for a long time before that in the guild wars while the Charr were idle. And the simple act of throwing off the shackles of an evil diety shouldn’t make a race 10 times smarter than they were. ANet needed a steampunk race to fill that niche in the lore and the Charr were it.

Except the humans, until basically now, already had a very powerful and readily available weapon in the form of divine magic. It’s the same reason those newfangled asura didn’t gravitate toward steam engines and tanks, they have a pan-useful technology of metamagical science that does an equivalent job.

Norn didn’t invent new technologies at all because, well, they’re Norn, they’re freakin’ huge and turn in to stuff an in their limited scope of the world as presented when they were invented. They’d never had a proper war (or city, or police force, or anything else resembling a planned society) until Jormag basically forced it on them for survival.

Thematically (though not perhaps always in terms of game play) the humans of that era, and moving forward, had no incentive to develop the technologies that the Charr did because they never vilified the magic they’d been using for hundreds of years. It was and still is a tool that works, and discovering that it may or may not be grounded in the human gods themselves doesn’t change the hundreds of years of study in that department. Also, as we’ve seen countless times, humans are more content to be “civilians” and live quiet agrarian lives in peasant jobs than any other race. This is actually the really unique thing about humans compared to their peers in GW2.

Charr society is inherantly militant. Even if you’re a farmer, you’re a farmer FOR THE WAR EFFORT! Human society is only necessarily militant. Human farmers are farmers because they like it, or because that’s what their family does. Humans only learn war when they need to, and the concept of heroism is more uniquely human than it does belong to any other race.

Humans are the only race wherin it’s not only normal, but expected to have a marked distinction between the military and civilian population because humans have a much different sense of concepts like duty and fealty. Thus, not every human spends a ton of time (like the Charr do) thinking of how their lives will impact whatever war they’re in, and this further stratifies their society in to political, military, and civilian camps. Thus, the military and civilian parts of that society are highly specialized, efficient, and most of all revered.

The Charr, as a race, are on average more proficient at war, and thus the design of machines that can be operated by the majority of the population made sense. Humans, on the other hand, are more individually proficient at specific disciplines, and so their specialists tend to stick with and refine whatever that specialty is. This can be seen in the legendary exploits of the Ebon vanguard, or multiple instances of human magic users (living, dead, or somewhere in between) throughout history.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

…or multiple instances of human magic users (living, dead, or somewhere in between) throughout history.

It’s actually been a suspicion of mine for a while that, while no asura would actually admit it, humans might actually have more innate magical potential than the asura.

While the asura no doubt have a greater grasp on the fundamentals of magic, including the creation of magical artifacts, when an asura is regarded as ‘great’ it’s usually because of the magical inventions they’ve created. I don’t think I’ve ever come across an instance of an asura turning the tide of a conflict through some great display of magical power that comes purely from their own reserve rather than the use of magitech. Human history, however, is littered with such examples – sometimes at the cost of the life of the one who performed it, but not always. It’s therefor possible that humans have the potential to contain and wield a greater concentration of magical power through their own natural abilities, while asura need to store energy in magical devices in order to reach the same level of achievement.

The thing is, of course, that few humans manage to reach the heights of human magical potential, while most asura have the ability to build the odd technomagical device or use one made by another asura.

PS: Waaaaait a second… does the word “Quills” mean anything to you?

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Torrad.1075

Torrad.1075

It seems every thread that mentions charr and humans eventually gets hijacked by controversy. It’s a great dynamic in GW2 when it’s for the right reasons.

From the who’s right perspective I find the topic delicious, because it’s not clearcut black and white following traditional tropes. There’s some merits and complexity on both sides of the issue as to who is right, who is good and who is evil. There’s an actual debate that carries over into the game itself. It makes for a lot of interesting atmosphere in places such as the Fields of Ruin. Those are the right sort of reasons for controversy.

Though when you go further outside that looking at the game’s overall meta plot and calling foul on the writers for contriving things, that’s uglier. It throws into question the internal consistency and integrity of the setting. I personally find the charr’s position in GW2 to be very interesting. The question is if how things have played out makes internal sense. I think it does.

Living in our modern world with all its inter-dependencies and globalized trade, it’s hard for us to imagine that information, goods and technology can’t eventually spread everywhere. The idea that everyone should or does progress at the same speed is not inherently correct though. There are numerous large, stable and ancient states that historically fell well behind the bleeding edge. The most obvious ones suffered rather badly at the hands of the European powers following the industrial revolution and it echoes still today. To some people 250 years may not seem like much, but it encompasses for example the entire existence of the United States. Or the total span of the industrial revolution and the rise of the British Empire. It’s more than enough time to grow a powerful nation from nothing.

There also has been a degree of technological crossover. For example, humans have adopted rifles, which in the lore are a Charr invention. I think most people get hung up on the fact that these changes aren’t really represented in the pastoral countryside or the old cities. The simple fact is in GW2 humans have not embraced industry in all its filth, grit and ugliness. Despite the fact humans have been steadily losing ground, the one surviving nation hasn’t really suffered a shock big enough to take the initial steps. Kryta’s main enemies aren’t any more advanced than they are technologically, and at least in GW2 there’s two divergent means of accomplishing things – technology and magic. So long as magic keeps working, there’s no real pressure for them to undergo large-scale change. We could also argue that humanity may simply be unable to mass the resources for large projects. Kryta didn’t rebuild its former capital after all, a bunch of pirates did.

The charr on the other hand have suffered a complete cultural shock. Ever since humans existed, they’ve been an enemy. A powerful enemy. One that always pushed them further and further back. Where GW1 is concerned, their entire mandate was to destroy humans. That was the one thing the efforts of their whole society was bent on. Keep in mind they’d been steadily losing ground to humans for hundreds of years. Overcoming humans by any means was a huge accomplishment, and it probably didn’t matter how barbaric it was. Humans didn’t think much of charr either, and people can make excuses for a lot of cruelty in an atmosphere of mutual animosity like that.

The bigger issue is that the charr’s grasp at ultimate power failed. Their armies were still wiped out and their gods killed. The civil war indicates that they threw out a lot of their old culture with the former leadership and went in a completely new direction. In that light it’s not really right to look at GW2’s charr as a natural outgrowth of what they were in GW1. To compare with humans, the legitimate successor to GW1 charr, the flame legion, haven’t really advanced much at all either except for also adopting rifles.

So for the tl:dr version, it’s not all that unreasonable for nations to have completely different rates of advancement, particularly over such a long timespan and considering isolation. It also doesn’t justify sentiment that the developers are sidelining humanity on purpose. Liking the charr is a matter of opinion, which means they’ve done their job correctly. They’re not necessarily nice people and are actually proud of their few victories over humans, no matter how ugly they were. That much is flavor, and nobody’s obligated to agree with it being right or good. That’s what makes it interesting. I think the dynamic between charr and humans adds more to the game in its current form than it ever would have if they remained one-dimensional evil NPCs.

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

I think the dynamic between charr and humans adds more to the game in its current form than it ever would have if they remained one-dimensional evil NPCs.

This is most definitely true. Despite how improbable the entire peace accord, or indeed many of the events crossing the last 250 years of tyrian history are, it’s not suprising that the Charr were chosen for a major playable race. GW2 is a spiritual successor to the original prophecies campaign just as much as EOTN was a conscious foreshadowing of many of its major events. What’s refreshing is that the Charr as they exist in GW2 aren’t simply neutered of the ferocity and malice with which they were presented, but rather that the writers have channeled that ferocity in to equal parts strength and weakness.

It would have been easy to make a peace treaty a footnote in history, and have the two races happily holdng hands on daisy street, musing about the horribleness of the past. The decision to place them politically as they are was the best one. It pays homage to the important plot arc of prophecies, places them in a position to actually be a cooperative playable race with humans, and gives the opportunity to tell stories about hope and forgiveness that resonate with those familiar with the franchise in a way that no new race really could. Nobody remembers primordius pushing up the Asura, or Jormag eating some elder spirits, or Ventari planting the tree that birthed the sylvari. These are events that, while important are relegated to short lines of dialogue and text in the memories of players.

I remember the sort of sadness walking around charr ascalon, or how much I really just plain dislike the Urban Battlefield Fractal. These are both emotions designed in to the game for someone who played the original. Stormcaller’s presence in the Black Citadel isn’t there for Charr players. It’s there for human ones, to remind them that they’re supposed to hate the Charr while the world tells them to forgive it. The tanks and memorial to the fallen are there for Charr players. Walking by that memorial as a human PC, and as a player of the original I just think “cute, like vietnam” but for someone freshly born to the franchise with all the flash and sunder of the Charr starting experience I’d imagine its a farily somber place. (This is, of course, speaking of players who care or pay attention to things like lore and story) This is no accident this is designed in to the system just as much as Meatoberfest and the Cattlepult are designed to give me something to actually like about them.

Players do however remember the ascalonian war and the searing as a living and breathing thing that many of them were a part of. Placing those same players in a situation to hear two children talk about their friendships and puzzle at why their parents hate one another so much becomes powerful because of that experienced event, working for peace becomes meaningful because of that experienced event. Playing a human in GW2 after playing one in the first game is an often somber experience simply because of that lived through history. Placing Charr where they are creates an attractive steampunk/warrior race in the hands of devil’s advocates and those new to the franchise, but the real service is to the long time players of the original. Every Charr player character is a reminder of just how important the game’s theme of unity against a greater foe is supposed to be.

I have a feeling, if I know guild wars, that humanity will eventually have its time in the spotlight, and that time may be littered with clumsy dialogue and a few plot holes, but it will certainly be memorable if only because the GW2 we have now is so determined to impress upon humans how far they have fallen.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

(edited by PopeUrban.2578)

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

It also doesn’t justify sentiment that the developers are sidelining humanity on purpose.

That’s actually not where the sentiment is coming from. It’s that at times it feels like the devs have bent over backwards to marginalise humans even in what’s supposed to be their area of expertise – the gods.


The Priory story step after the fall of Claw Island – has the opportunity to be a big Heck Yeah for humans, but it’s presided over by an asura who shows utter contempt for the power being invoked. In the Ossuary of the Unquiet Dead, it’s Trahearne that uncovers the Lyssan burial rituals, when they could instead have provided a Lyssan priest(ess) to invoke the temple’s powers. Later, in the Cathedral of Silence, you do a priestess of the appropriate god along… but instead of that priestess being able to say “Hey, I’ve got this!”, she needs to rely on another contemptuous asura to learn how to perform a ritual that is simply a reenactment of an event that was plastered on every statue of the appropriate god in Guild Wars 1. Even the mechanic of the cathedrals being shut down could have been handled differently – they’re all based around simply shutting down the statues, often done by a charr or asura, but why couldn’t human priests have taken possession of the altars and turned the effects of the statues around to work against instead of for the Risen? We get our noses rubbed in charr and asura inventions at every opportunity – while I’m not saying that they don’t deserve the spotlight, would it have killed ArenaNet to make human contributions a little more visible in what used to be their own holy city?

Really, short of going to the homes of the gods themselves, Arah was probably the best chance ArenaNet had at giving humans a share of the spotlight, and they just threw it away.

When it comes to humans adopting technology on a large scale, I think this might be the key sentence:

“The simple fact is in GW2 humans have not embraced industry in all its filth, grit and ugliness. "

Keeping in mind that one of the members of the pantheon is a goddess of nature, humans might simply have decided that industrialising at the level of the charr just wasn’t worth the aesthetic and environmental costs.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Torrad.1075

Torrad.1075

That’s actually not where the sentiment is coming from. It’s that at times it feels like the devs have bent over backwards to marginalise humans even in what’s supposed to be their area of expertise – the gods.

I read things a little differently. The bigger grief I saw was the power of humans in general rather than their prominence in the story. It’s taken a blow for sure, but again, one has to wonder if it’s all that unreasonable. The biggest disasters to human power came through GW1’s own story. The only real tipping point in the interim was the ultimate fate of Ascalon. I doubt that was welcome by GW1 players, since it spits in the face of a lot of the in-game accomplishments. Though again it’s not unreasonable that Ascalon ultimately lost since its king had always refused to accept help from Kryta and the events of GW1 had already broken its defenses. People can argue it could’ve gone the other way, but it doesn’t seem contrived.

The bits about humans being marginalized in their prominence in GW2 events seems a bit nitpicky to me though. Orr and everything in it is obviously human-centric. The whole premise of the pact was that everybody was getting together to save the day. No one race actually has a show-stealer there. The technology features prominently because it’s cool, and because it’s more rational to expect that against such an enemy you need to have more kit than infantry. I can concede points about humans not knowing human-centric things like they should, but in the grand scheme of things that seems minor to me. Since all the orders are made up of every race, there’s no real expectation that the experts in human stuff should all be humans. At least not to me, since if the information is available to anyone, it’s just a matter of who is most intent on studying it.

And while it seems a bit wrong to respond to PopeUrban’s wall of text with only a few lines here, I tend to agree in general that the situation as it is now is best for the narrative, particularly for people who didn’t play the original. The only point I have to make though is that GW1 players tend to bring the GW1 events into prominence a lot more than they really should where they affect GW2. While the players remember, a span of 250 years makes a lot of it ancient history. It’s just so far removed from the game present that it doesn’t influence the NPCs and politics as much as some people think it should. For example, the peace treaty isn’t really all that improbable. It might seem like that from the perspective of what the GW1 charr were like. But current-era humans are ruled by Kryta, which overall isn’t particularly invested in the conflict. Protecting Ebonhawke is a drain on resources that are needed elsewhere.

The charr may be proud, but one of their traits is also pragmatism. Destroying the last vestiges of humans in Ascalon isn’t really a huge priority given all their other enemies. As I see it, the charr view it as taking more resources than it’s worth to actually finish it, as they already have the lands they want. Kryta also offered them a carrot to sate their pride. Ebonhawke itself only survived due to outside intervention. I’m assuming outside pride the only reason Ebonhawke would have for continuing to fight is to retake the Ascalonian lands. But it’s pretty clear that they would never be able to do that on their own seeing as they’ve made no headway since the siege began. While it’s understandable they’re weary, it’s also too big a potential gain to just pass up.

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

But that’s the thing. It’s ‘obviously’ human-centric, but when you actually play it, Orr might as well have been an ancient Forgotten nation for all the connection there is between modern humans and what happens in Orr. It should have been a spotlight for humans, but it really, really isn’t.

Instead, the one time where it’s actually relevant that an NPC is human is in the Cathedral of Silence story step, and even then, when she praises Grenth for successful completion of the mission objective, there’s a loudmouth asura there to correct her and claim the credit for himself… right in front of the representative of Grenth that doesn’t bat an eyelid at said asura telling off a priestess of Grenth for praising Grenth.

Yes, it would make sense that other races would know something of human history, but really, who’s going to know more about human religion and rituals – the human priests who actually honestly believe in this, or those of other races that view it purely as an academic curiousity? Furthermore, no other race gets their area of expertise muscled in on as much as humans – things relating to magitech are always presided over by asura, things related to regular technology is handled by a charr 90% of the time, and things related to the Dream or the animal spirits are always going to be handled by sylvari or norn respectively. So why is it that when we come to the gods, something that’s supposed to be special to humanity, we end up needing the asura to shut down Zhaitan’s control over the cathedrals of Radiance and Verdance and a charr of all races for Silence?

I acknowledge that the big guns of the asura and charr are going to play a big role when it comes to the military campaign, but when it came to neutralising the cathedrals, that could have been the chance for humans to step in and say “We’ve got this”. Instead, for three out of five, it’s oops, no, time for the asura and charr to get to shine even more. While the other two seem to be basically just ‘kill this thing’.

And the really sad thing here is that ArenaNet is not going to get another such opportunity to make humans relevant as anything other than warm bodies. If they can’t manage to make themselves useful in a war fought in their ancient holy city soaked with the magic of their gods, what chance are they going to have when we’re going after Jormag in the ancestral hunting grounds of the norn, let alone Primordus in the ruins of ancient asura civilisation?

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

Humans: A dying race?

in Human

Posted by: Lutinz.6915

Lutinz.6915

A good comparison would be if we went to the lands of the other charr Legions and had all the experts on charr history and technology be primarily human or norn. Theres a difference between balance and connecting relevant lore.

Orr ended up being alot about anceint human culture and the gods but very little about modern humans. If we look at humanities part in the whole plot, its seems very minor even when Arenanet devs turn around and tell us humans played a major role.

Honestly it may have been a mistake for Arenanet to make so much of the mordern human themes be connected to their gods cause in the end they have avoided playing up when they had the chance. Humanities devotions to their gods honestly make them seem more like they are stuck in the past and are unable to move on into a world where their gods have left them.

Humans: A dying race?

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Posted by: Obsidian.1328

Obsidian.1328

@PopeUrban “This is most definitely true. Despite…” (sorry, the combined length of our two posts exceeded the post limit so I had to just allude to yours here)

Hmm, speak for yourself on this one. Many players didn’t give the Charr a second glance when it came to possible playable races until EotN came out. And many would strongly disagree GW2 is a spiritual successor to GW, or even a nuanced one. Guild Wars was a highly original, human-centric narrative involving complex power relationships between all the various human cultures on Tyria. It showed intrigue and betrayal, courage and desparation, triumph and destruction. It invited us to participate in that narrative through interesting and believable writing. In other words, it was realistic.

You don’t have that in GW2. Now there’s the dragons on one side…and then mostly everyone else on the other. And every “race” has their own neat and tidy personal antagonist: Sylvari—Nightmare Court, Asura—Inquest, Norn—Sons of Svanir, Charr—Flame Legion, Humans—White Mantle. 5 races, 5 dragons, and 5 minor antagonists which don’t really play into the main plotline at all after a certain point. Then there’s the 3 orders, with the 3 personality traits that mirror those Orders’ styles…but don’t actually do anything themselves, and the 3 mentors(who all 3 die at the same point in the story).

It’s like the GW2 writers went to extraordinary lengths to make everything and everyone be…not the same exactly…but equal. Whatever divergent choices you make in the personal story don’t make a difference at all after a few more missions, you just converge back to the main point. I’m not saying GW1 had choices in this regard…it mostly didn’t. The only real choice of consequence you had in GW1 was Kurzik or Luxon, and that one choice actually made a difference in gameplay when it came to pvp factions. But GW2 was partly sold on the promise of playing it “your way” and having choices that mean something. We could probably all agree that is not the case.

The current storyline doesn’t pay homage to the old lore past a loose connection to people and places that seem so far removed from the modern situation as to seem foreign. They are very different in their approaches to a story narrative. Granted EotN had begun that shift years ago…but that expansion was specifically made to try and fuse the gaps between GW1 & 2. ANet produced a game that put mass appeal first and foremost. To get those masses, they let you choose between 5 different “flavors” of races…none of which actually make a difference to gameplay, but all of which make a difference to story. The lore of GW1 was really the only thing the devs said they would stay faithful to…I find it hard to see that they’ve accomplished that.

It’s really the addition of the 4 other races that has everything to do with the “human” situation. By promoting these new 4, and putting them on equal ground, they had to, by necessity, downplay human import. Because they didn’t want one race to seem more important than the others…even though, if you go by game history, the humans are more important. But I think what ANet failed to understand by putting everyone on equal ground, is that it had the dual effect of diminishing the richness and grandeur of a race that dominated all of history, and made these new upstart races seem contrived and artificial. With the possible exception of the Charr, they are foreigners on Tyria in almost every way.

Keep in mind this all started with the release of EotN, not GW2. My point in all this is simple: don’t claim to base this game on the history and lore of the original, when you are doing so much to the contrary. At no point in Prophesies, Factions, or Nightfall do we get any inkling of other races popping up that would be on par with the humans in terms of Tyrian culture, society, and politics…even the Charr. When EotN is released as a sort of prequel to GW2, all 4 of the new races are either suddenly introduced(Norn, Asura), changed(Charr) or alluded to(Sylvari). In one expansion they begun the systematic change of the soul of Tyrian culture and its social dynamics.

And why? For two reasons: to express the writers’ own individual creativity, and for customers. I don’t blame them for wanting to be original, or even wanting to make money…we all do. But when you use another body of work as the basis for your own story, you should do well to honor that original art. Because that’s what the story of Guild Wars 1 Tyria is…Art. It’s an artform rich in it’s own right, with all the joys and sadness of a well-written fantasy novel.

Embrace that art…don’t diminish it.

Obsidian Sky – SoR
I troll because I care

(edited by Obsidian.1328)

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Posted by: Kreslin.6832

Kreslin.6832

@ Obsidian.1328

You are forgetting something. Guild Wars 1 is a pretty small project. Guild Wars 2 project is larger, much larger. And GW2 is very, very young. Give it time. Don’t blame GW2 plot, it’s too early to blame it.

I’m not saying that it is okay right now, I’m a bit disappointed too with some aspects, but I will wait a year, and will see, what plot we will have. I’ll give Arena time, because it’s just a beginning. Maybe later you and I, will be satisfied.

In GW1 we didn’t really have our character history. He just appeared in a middle of historical event. Where did he/she from, who is he/she? Plot didn’t tell us. We just arrived at Ascalon City and join the war against Charr.

But in GW2, we do have prologue. Now we have this prologue, and on the future must be this epic plot, we are all waiting for.

Give it time, and we will see. It is early to blame Arena. You don’t know, what it is on Arena mind, you don’t know what ideas they have.

For now, we have very small part of GW2 plot. So small, so you can’t compare it with none of GW1 campaigns. It’s too small comparing to Prophecies, Factions or Nightfall.

Because in GW2 we have a big prologue for each playable race. So our playable heroes have history, have home, have personality. In GW1 we didn’t have it. We had character without his/her past. We didn’t have foundation of their personality. We didn’t know them, they just appear from nowhere, and silently join plot and did grate things, but still, we didn’t have their own history.

In GW2 we have it, that’s why, we haven’t seen epic plot, which we are expected to see. But I think we will on the next expansions (free and payable).

GW1 was telling us about humanity. Humans were the main heroes in GW1. But now, story tells us about other races, which have right for existence. Races, who were in a shadow in GW1.

My point is, don’t blame plot right now. Maybe when we’ll see future expansions we will jump with a joy.
Guild Wars 2 is only starting to make it’s steps. This project have future. So we will see.
Scale of this project is very large. Much larger than GW1 project. And because of that, results are slower. So, give it time.

Seize the day.

(edited by Kreslin.6832)

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Posted by: Maximillian Greil.1965

Maximillian Greil.1965

There’s a whole other continent full of Humans called Cantha. HUGE human city there.

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Posted by: Tarvok.4206

Tarvok.4206

This is the first time I’ve actually read through an entire three page thread I didn’t get in on before the first page was up. Good material. I can’t really comment on how faithful to GW1’s lore they’ve been, as I never played it. However, having been a long time Elder Scrolls fan who’s MO was to figure out how the lore of the different games fit together (even when the Dev’s didn’t really intend it to do so, as they basically did a lore re-boot with Redguard) rather than how they didn’t fit together, I suspect I’d be among those saying the Devs have done right by it.

The Charr/Human controversy is interesting. I see a lot of bitterness and pleas for understanding and forgiveness. I take the role of one of those kids, the ones who didn’t even fight in the recent wars, let alone the Ascalonian conflict. And in reply, I say, sure, the war was horrible… but it’s all better now, isn’t it? Isn’t peace better than war?

I think probably the reason a lot of people have trouble with the rise of the Charr is that they have cast the Charr in the same role as many of our own real-world ancestors. The rise of Europe is a very close analogy. A warlike people, united by religion, torn apart by internecine warfare, incredibly backward by the standards of the people of the East (whether we’re talking about the Caliphate or the Chinese Empire), who suddenly adopt technology and go forth, now a full fledged civilization, militarily, commercially, and industrially superior, but still culturally brutal. And so they took US, but didn’t cast US as Humans, as most games do. They cast US as humanity’s most bitter former enemy.

The future of the Sylvari is also rife with possibility. They are the “young nation”, rising out of the verdant wood. In a way, they might be compared to an early United States, with one of their own being sufficiently competant, and sufficiently culturally neutral, to head a difficult alliance.

Story spoilers ahead, in case anyone cares.

Unlike most, I do not hate Traehearne. He was the right man in the right place. Even if someone else was more technically qualified (and, indeed, the Commander—we, that is—is obviously the “manager” of the operation), only someone like Traehearne could serve as the head. As specifically mentioned in the story itself, he had never joined any of the three Orders, and thus was outside their own rivalry. He was neither Human nor Charr, meaning his appointment would not alienate the other group. He’s tall and attractive, not runty and ugly, which means he could be cast for the role even were it just a movie… unlike an Asura. And the Norn… forgive me, but were it not for their sheer size, I doubt they could contribute as equals.

I like humans. Thus far, I’ve only really played one character, a human male elementalist. I will admit, there was a moment during the storyline when I was really hoping for a divine encounter (that underwater temple to a lost god). But my disappointment can be called “in character”, not out-of-character. It isn’t as if the developers were deliberately taking my candy away because they’re mean people. :p

It’ll be interesting to see what our people accomplish once we’ve finished dealing with the Centaurs… and Caudecus.

(edited by Tarvok.4206)

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

I’ve actually made an observation that, ironically enough, if you look at the Five Races trope from the perspective of someone from about a hundred or two hundred years ago, the charr are the race that fits the ‘mundane’ trope once you get past the felinity and the militarism. From an Industrial Age perspective, the charr are probably more relatable than the older-fashioned humans, sylvari and norn or the technomagical asura.

Humans, on the other hand, fit many of the associations of the High Men/High Elf trope. A little old-fashioned, more mystical, more spiritual, more complicated politics, and a history where they used to pretty much rule the world but were driven out, often through a combination of being worn down through fighting greater threats while other races (often including the mundane one) take advantage of their preoccupation.

And incidentally, I’m pretty sure myself that the centaurs only had the success they did because of Caudecus. (I think the Harathi Hinterlands final event is also supposed to be essentially the end of the centaur war, but it isn’t clear – and ANet has a habit of making seemingly decisive victories prove to be cases of the heroes declaring victory prematurely.)

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

(edited by draxynnic.3719)

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Posted by: Ruruuiye.8912

Ruruuiye.8912

I think the pooing all over the humans in the story and blaming them for everything is intentional because they know full well people (GW1 veterans if nobody else) will play humans no matter how badly they’re written whereas with the other races they have something to sell you. If I were to say there was a Mary Sue race it wouldn’t be the Humans OR the Charr, It’d be the Sylvari.

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Posted by: Chrone.6809

Chrone.6809

I really appreciate the game’s take on Humans in GW2. So often in fantasy the Humans are newest of the races, and they are the leading power which is pushing older races aside. In Tyria, Humans are the race of decline, similar to an Elven archetype often seen in games like this. I think it gives excellent perspective to a Human character of any type.

The finest stories of success come from the depths of challenge and misfortune. Decline is a very interesting starting point for any character’s background.

Once again, I find it unique that Guild Wars 2 has Humans as its falling race.

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Posted by: Obsidian.1328

Obsidian.1328

I agree it is an interesting and unique concept the way they portray humans in a typically “elvish decline” role. I’m just wondering why they introduced new playable races in the first place? I mean it worked pretty darn well in GW1, and, let’s face it, being able to play only humans is a unique concept in its own right compared to dozens of other MMO’s. It just feels like they tried to go so mainstream with it.

Obsidian Sky – SoR
I troll because I care

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Posted by: JohnLShannonhouse.1820

JohnLShannonhouse.1820

I felt the game should have treated humans in GW2 like the forgotten in GW1: an ancient race with many strange, powerful magics and secrets who used to rule a lot more territory than they do now. I think GW2’s take on humans had more to do with making room for other races and providing the devastation necessary for lots of lands to adventure and fight in.

GW2 is certainly not the first game or setting to portray humans as ancient or being pushed aside in games or stories (e.g., Warhammer fantasy, Gamma World, I Am Legend novel). It is not the first game where players had to play humans (Ultima 5 and later, and probably others, as well).

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Posted by: ComeAndSee.1356

ComeAndSee.1356

It’s like the Elves in Dragon Age. Due to LOTR + DnD lore you have the expectations that Elves are all powerful, but then you see them in DA as a slave race and its a nice twist.

Sha Nari – 80 Guardian (http://bit.ly/12RNvtK)
Lorella Windrunner – 80 Thief
Shayera Nightfall – 80 Mesmer

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

Warhammer is so not portraying humans as ancient or being pushed aside. They’re the youngest of the races of civilisation and the only one that isn’t portrayed as having been in decline ever since a golden age that predated human civilisation.

In terms of relationships with other races, humans in warhammer are very mainstream – the time of the elder races (dwarves, elves, and lizardmen) have passed, and while those races still have something to contribute, the overall theme is that the growing nations of humanity are the world’s last hope of holding back the darkness.

However, I do agree with the rest, up to a point. Humans shouldn’t be TOO strange and powerful, but their connection with the gods should have been played up more once we got to areas where that would logically have been relevant – such as Orr. They could possibly have also played up that humans, while generally less technomagically oriented than the asura, might have access to magical artifacts like the Sceptre of Orr that are beyond what the asura can do. (That they’re also beyond what modern humans can do would help keep humans from taking more than their fair share of the spotlight, but currently humans and norn seem to have distinctly less.)

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

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Posted by: helosie.4781

helosie.4781

The Foefire basicly doomed all human souls to be bound to that plain of existence and to keep fighting a war they already lost and can never realize this. Even when defeated, they simply reform after a short amount of time and keep fighting the same battle over and over.
I donno about you, But I call this a fate worse then dead.

Iron-Bound [IB]
Gate of Madness

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Posted by: JohnLShannonhouse.1820

JohnLShannonhouse.1820

Warhammer is so not portraying humans as ancient or being pushed aside. They’re the youngest of the races of civilisation and the only one that isn’t portrayed as having been in decline ever since a golden age that predated human civilisation.

I was being generic. I mentioned various stories that strayed from the Tolkein or young humanity model. In “I Am Legend,” as far as the reader knows there is one human left and everybody fears him as a super intelligent, deadly primordial monster. In “Gamma World” humans are the ancient race and the others are new. In “Warhammer,” humanity is one of several races declining and being inescapably pushed towards extinction and many races are newer than humans. Sorry if that was not clear.

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

As far as I know, nowhere in WHF does it say that humans are in decline.

There are younger races, but apart from ogres and halflings they were all created as a result of Chaos and thus can be lumped in the category of ‘bad guys’. Of the civilised races – between low fertility and attrition the elven population has been shrinking such that large portions of their cities have been left vacant, the leadership caste of the Lizardmen hasn’t reproduced in living memory, and the dwarves retain only a fraction of their former empire and, while they were the pioneers of technology in the Warhammer world, have adopted cultural mores that encourage stagnation.

Humans, by contrast, are depicted as growing. The Empire has effectively gone into a renaissance since Magnus the Pious, advancing in technology to roughly match the dwarves (and looking to advance further where dwarves looking to innovate face major obstacles) and having recently acquired magic. While elves, dwarves and lizardmen are all looking back to the peaks of their power in the distant past, Imperial citizens regard the Empire as the strongest it’s ever been. More enlightened members of other races are grudgingly acknowledging that as they decline and humans grow, sooner or later humans are going to inherit the world, while less enlightened humans are eagerly looking forward to when they’ll be the top dogs in the setting. This is all pretty standard fantasy fare when looking at the interactions between humans and other good races.

The fly in the ointment is that the forces of evil are rising faster. The Skaven are possibly increasing in power faster than the Empire, and the overall theme of the setting is that Chaos is growing at an exponential rate and if a decisive, miraculous victory over Chaos doesn’t come in the next few centuries, it’s going to overwhelm the civilised races in the next few centuries. This is where the feel that humans are facing extinction along with the rest of the civilised races are coming from (although, arguably, given how many humans are in the forces of Chaos it’s probably not humanity that would be rendered extinct, but civilisation). Unlike the other races, though, humans aren’t facing inevitable defeat because they’ve been in a slow decline for millenia, but because their enemies have been growing in power faster. This is also pretty standard fantasy fare, where the good races are in a position that looks hopeless until some great heroes get together and manage to defeat the threat in some climatic confrontation, and the elder races finally pass off stewardship of the world to humanity.

In fact, if you compare to Lord of the Rings, humans are if anything better off. In LotR, even the human nations had been in decline for centuries or millenia by the time of the books, and it was pretty clear to everyone that a military victory over Sauron simply wasn’t possible – nothing short of the massive gamble represented by the quest to destroy the Ring or direct intervention from the Valar was going to stop Sauron from taking over Middle-Earth, it was just a matter of time. And we know how that one worked out in the end. The distinction is that the Warhammer Fantasy timeline is poised at least a century or two before the point at which a military victory becomes clearly impossible, and the Empire has been growing (in terms of military power if not territory) where Gondor has just been holding on and growing weaker and weaker.

TL;DR: The relationships between humans and other races is pretty standard fantasy trope fare. Elves have been in steady decline and are no longer in a position to take the lead in defending the world except through passing on their knowledge to others, dwarven power has been shattered through centuries of fighting losing battles with orcs and other things that live in dark cavarns, a dark power is rising that promises to destroy everything – and if through some miracle that dark power is destroyed, humans are poised to inherit the world.

By contrast, in GW2 humans are the only major race that is viewed as being in decline – asura and norn have had setbacks but aren’t regarded as being in decline the way humans are. There is the distinction that typically in the case of elves there is some magical reason for their decline that makes it irrecoverable, while in GW2 it’s more of a case of not having been cut a break since the Guild Wars and thus, theoretically, given an opportunity to build back into strength they could do so.

The takeaway message here, though, is that there’s a big difference between being in decline, and having a threat hanging over your head that threatens to destroy you even though your civilisation is actually growing in strength. GW2 humans are in the first category, while Warhammer humans are in the second.

That said, though, if we’re to go much further discussing things in other settings, we should probably consider taking it to PM.

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

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Posted by: Wretchedscar.4796

Wretchedscar.4796

Look Humans, as Soon as the Dragons are gone, the Charr will finish you off, just be patient.

On a more serious note, go hang out int he black citadel, listen tot he charr, read thier lore about the horn Rurik blew to make it rain. 250 years a lot can happen, Charr history is not human History. There is a lot of skew and bias with both races. Hell Humans aren’t even native to this planet apparently. The Charr are a warlike race, they dont apologize for it, and likely never will.

Humans being a dying race is /awesome/. Sure I get it, were human, so we should be all ‘go humanity!’ but these arent us, this sint Earth. Think of them as Krytans, or Tyrians. As a seperate race that looks like us (I mean I cant throw fireballs). The Lore in this game is rich and awesome, and the Charr then are the Charr now, but seen as an actual race, seen uner different light, as a whole people, not just their front line soldiers.

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Posted by: Dustfinger.9510

Dustfinger.9510

I love that humans aren’t the dominant race in GW2. In most every other fanasy, humans are the most well rounded and that is why they dominate against evryone else. In GW2, humans dominated for a time thanks to the backing of their gods. the gods “abandoned” them and they went into decline, much the same way Thruln described it happening to the giant races. (Whether you trust his account or not, the similarity is there).

In GW2 humans aren’t the youngest or the most overtly well rounded race. i think it helps them fit in the world better than how some other fantasy setting do. Here they are a race like any other. susceptable to damage from the other races.

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Posted by: Lutinz.6915

Lutinz.6915

Actually one of the biggest causes for the decline of human’s on Tyria was because of one of their gods acting against them rather than the other gods abandoning them. The most crippling blow to humanity in Tyria was caused by Abaddon though the Charr invasion and the destruction of Orr.

To be honest, calling them a dying race is probably a bit too strong. Humanity has held its own pretty well for the last 100 years or so since it stopped getting blasted by disasters and betrayal. Ironicly they have probably been better off since their gods when silent than much of the time leading up to said silence.

I think people often dont consider how badly Kryta got smashed by Zhaitan’s rise. Kryta lost its capitol and much of its southern coastline due to the rise of Orr.

Its also both ironic and curious that it seems that many of the biggest problems that humanity is having now seems likely caused by members of their own race. The centaur have been getting substancial help. The bandits are also clearly organised. Its possible all this is old enemies coming back to haunt Kryta.

If Id say theres an issue with humans in GW2 it would be that their strengths have been poorly presented.