Hello, I was wondering how much your racial story affects your character later on.
Is this game like other games where you start your character in its racial starting area for the first 10-20 levels, then go off into the world and never see anything about your race again?
Or will my racial personal story carry throughout the levels up to 80?
I am a new player and I think I picked a mismatching character and story. I made a Norn female mesmer and it feels out of place. She is running around in her skimpy purple panties and neglige in the middle of the arctic north with this butch sounding female voice that sounds like her name should be Bertha going on a big animal game hunt to prove her strength. Which doesnt really seem something a mesmer would do.
If I will be doing this kind of story till lvl 80 then I would want to re roll a human mesmer and instead make your standard barbarian theme character for Norn.
Every starting story starts at the end of a branch, and as you progress, you move further up the branch, and they begin to merge.
At 30, you pick one of three orders, and your racial story ends.
At 60ish, your order no longer matters, and everyone is on the same path, with some minor choices for events here and there.
Ok so up till lvl 30, I will be doing a northern arctic barbarian themed story?
Then after 30, no more barbarian stuff and it doesnt matter that im an out of place Norn mesmer?
Every starting story starts at the end of a branch, and as you progress, you move further up the branch, and they begin to merge.
At 30, you pick one of three orders, and your racial story ends.
At 60ish, your order no longer matters, and everyone is on the same path, with some minor choices for events here and there.
I didn’t know this, thanks for sharing. I just assumed they went to 80.
Ok so up till lvl 30, I will be doing a northern arctic barbarian themed story?
Then after 30, no more barbarian stuff and it doesnt matter that im an out of place Norn mesmer?
I am a new player and I think I picked a mismatching character and story. I made a Norn female mesmer and it feels out of place. She is running around in her skimpy purple panties and neglige in the middle of the arctic north with this butch sounding female voice that sounds like her name should be Bertha going on a big animal game hunt to prove her strength. Which doesnt really seem something a mesmer would do.
If I will be doing this kind of story till lvl 80 then I would want to re roll a human mesmer and instead make your standard barbarian theme character for Norn.
I suppose you could argue that followers of say, Raven might value cunning and mesmer illusions could fit well into that, but ultimately when I think of a typical Norn, I think of a hunter like Eir or a warrior like Jora from the old game. Apart from humans who are more jack of all trades, all the races have some professions that don’t meld too well with the culture. I guess ANet wanted everyone to play whatever combination they wanted, and anyway every society is going to have those who go against the grain.
But if you don’t feel comfortable as a norn mesmer and you’re still low level, why not reroll? It won’t take you that long to get to where you were if you haven’t started the faction stories yet. Human or asura feel like the most perfect fit for the class, but anything but Charr will do (you won’t have a frilly garter, but again the profession doesn’t really fit the culture, since they distrust mages anyway.
I am a new player and I think I picked a mismatching character and story. I made a Norn female mesmer and it feels out of place. She is running around in her skimpy purple panties and neglige in the middle of the arctic north with this butch sounding female voice that sounds like her name should be Bertha going on a big animal game hunt to prove her strength. Which doesnt really seem something a mesmer would do.
If I will be doing this kind of story till lvl 80 then I would want to re roll a human mesmer and instead make your standard barbarian theme character for Norn.
I suppose you could argue that followers of say, Raven might value cunning and mesmer illusions could fit well into that, but ultimately when I think of a typical Norn, I think of a hunter like Eir or a warrior like Jora from the old game. Apart from humans who are more jack of all trades, all the races have some professions that don’t meld too well with the culture. I guess ANet wanted everyone to play whatever combination they wanted, and anyway every society is going to have those who go against the grain.
But if you don’t feel comfortable as a norn mesmer and you’re still low level, why not reroll? It won’t take you that long to get to where you were if you haven’t started the faction stories yet. Human or asura feel like the most perfect fit for the class, but anything but Charr will do (you won’t have a frilly garter, but again the profession doesn’t really fit the culture, since they distrust mages anyway.
I made a Norn mesmer because I wanted a humanoid character but I already made a human engineer since dual pistol barbarian didnt fit, so Norn seemed the next best choice for a mesmer. I also had the idea of a northern raven witch, but the story doesnt match that at all.
The other reason is that I would like to see all the different starting areas and wanted to avoid doing the same human starting area a second time.
If I only have to do a barbarian themed storyline up to lvl 30 then thats not so bad.
But what about the voice? The butch barbarian female voice doesnt match. Will I be seeing cut scenes with my characters voice talking all the way to lvl 80? Are there any group cut scenes where other players will here my voice?
So far these seem to be the mismatching professions and racial stories –
Char – Thief, Elementalist, Mesmer or Necro
Norn – Mesmer, Engineer, Thief, any other casters
Sylvari – Necro, Engineer
Any others?
To answer your questions related to the voice:
Yes, your character will have the same voice all the way to the big bad at 80.
And yes, other players may see your character speaking for the group if you do a story mode dungeon.
Also, Charr have an entire legion dedicated to stealth and thievery.
I have a low-level Charr thief and yes, I chose Ash Legion.
If you hate your voice that much, definitely reroll. Her storyline will change but her voice won’t. I like the voice fine on my warrior.
Also you don’t have to play your racial starting area at all save for any personal storylines you have there. You can go through the Asura gate in your main city that takes you to Lion’s Arch. From there you can go to any other main city and do the renown hearts and dynamic events.
So far these seem to be the mismatching professions and racial stories –
Char – Thief, Elementalist, Mesmer or Necro
Norn – Mesmer, Engineer, Thief, any other casters
Sylvari – Necro, Engineer
Any others?
Every race has its own members of every class, nobody is really out of place. Literally the most important Sylvari in the game is a necromancer. Charr thieves obviously have a place (Ash Legion), and while the Charr might not love magic, they spent enough time under the yoke of the Flame Legion to see where it can be useful; in GW1 you saw Charr of every starting class. I admit Norn doesn’t perfectly fit with their aesthetic, but the norn spirits respect cunning, intelligence and stealth.
Yes I actually like it that each of the races can be any profession without any restrictions.
The only one that kind of stands out as kind of weird to me is the Sylvari Necromancer. As a new player to the guild wars universe, I am curious what the lore reason for a main Sylvari character being a necromancer, because Sylvari look like a good natural plant type race and Necromancers seem to be undead and demon raising evil guys which doesnt seem to fit.
But its the starting area racial stories that I find mismatch certain professions. It seems like some of the racial personal stories are geared towards certain professions.
Like I have decided to continue with my Norn mesmer, even though the barbarian warrior voice still kind of bugs me, and I am now doing a quest to gather materials to craft a metal blade that can “cut through mountains” and test my might. But my Mesmer does not equip blades and uses a wooden staff to focus magic attacks. So I am not sure what my mesmer is going to do with this mighty blade when its crafted. Which causes me to be detached from my personal story since it doesnt seem to fit.
I also just made an asura to try them out and the storyline seems geared towards engineers, I am being sent out to repair and attack robots, everything looks mechanical. Even in character creation you are asked what your first invention was. For this storyline I have decided that my Asura Ranger really is an engineer that just happens to like pets and has a faithful companion!
The only racial story line so far that can fit any profession is the human one.
I havent yet tried out the other racial stories to see how they fit with all the professions.
Raven and Snow Leopard say that mesmer and thief are perfectly natural paths for Norn! Raven loves riddles, and solving problems (“with a gun; and if that don’t work… use more gun”) are what engineers are all about.
Just because your mesmer doesn’t use blades doesn’t mean they can’t; they can even equip a sword in main hand and off hand at the same time, and that’s a lot of swords! The right tool for the right situation seems to be what GW2 gameplay is geared for, what with the weapon-switching and vast array of weapon skills, so your rejection of blades is a little uncharacteristic. Perfectly possible, but not necessarily typical.
Also, I think that the best portrayal of Sylvari necromancers is in the first Guild Wars 2 book, ‘Ghosts of Ascalon.’ Killeen is the most adorable creepy deathmonger that I have ever seen, who makes it clear that death and decay are just as much a part of life as, well, life is. I think there’s a difference between a necromancer and a WoW warlock; I think necros don’t actually, like, pledge allegiance to demonic powers et cetera.
