Before I begin, allow me to say that I have been one of the long time nay-sayers (get it? Nay? Like a horse? Get it? … never mind) regarding mounts because I recall hearing that Guild Wars 2 would ‘never’ implement mounts no matter what due to the Waypoint system. However, while I was in the shower today, I conjured a thought that might make mounts entirely possible. And while the events surrounding my genius thoughts may be farfetched, I urge you to continue reading as you might like what you see.
That said, consider the current skill bar for all characters. You have the five weapon skills, the endurance bar for dodging, your health bar, attunements / virtues / belt skills / etc., and then your utility skills which are purchased via the skill points dotting the maps and when you gain levels. You start with a healing skill (able to obtain up to 3 different healing skills), and then you can obtain racial skills on top of the skills for your class. And then of course there’s the Elite skill bar which allows you to select one Elite skill which you may cast when your other utilities may not help in the scenario (or if you’re like me and have a god complex so you decide to go Rambo on anything in your path).
What if there were a skill slot for a mount? Now I know it has been discussed before with the possibility of mounts being like signets having a speed boost increase and being obtained via skill points, but what if they weren’t even used for that purpose? What if mounts were purely for cosmetic appearance? The idea would work very similar to how the Elementalist would transform into a tornado for the Tornado elite skill, where the person using the mount would basically ‘transform’ into a mode where they are riding around on a mount instead of walking around like they usually would. The idea is that the mounts would also work very similar to the Asura golem skills, where you walk over to them and ‘hop on’ where it then allows you to walk / run around on the back of these creatures. Granted there would need to be some limitations, which I know Arena Net tries to avoid. However, much like how each race has their own racial skills, each race would have their own mounts they can ride.
For example, you might not see a Charr riding around on a Moa, but you might see a Human on one. And you might not see a Human riding around on a Chicken, but an Asura probably would. Can you imagine Snaff charging into battle against the dragons while riding his trusty chicken? Ah! Truly a thing of genius!
“Onward, Sir Kluc Salot!”
And maybe the animation issue is going to be a problem. Well, no problem! Charr will have their own personal siege tank ATV vehicle thingies that work very much like an Asura golem where it hides the Asura’s body within the golem and allows you to move about. The Charr would be hidden inside of their little hell on wheels ATV with… I don’t know, a giant fork on the front, or perhaps a Human Separatist. Or both! Why not?
Plus Arena Net could later on offer exclusive gem store skins much like they do with town clothes, where people can purchase available mount skins that are multi-racial, such as… I don’t know, a Phoenix, or maybe a Jellyfish. “On-sting-ward, Val-sting-iant… passes out! … sting”
Also Arena Net wouldn’t really need to add that many new animations beyond raising where the character is and their legs twitching about as the mount moves. I’m not saying to add horses or anything currently not in the game, therefore being able to recycle animations for, say, the Salamanders as being mounts or whatever.
And DO NOT add a movement boost. It’s for cosmetic reasons, not to give the players an advantage over other players.
Give the players a ‘vanilla’ mount that all races can use, such as a Drake or perhaps a Bear, and then go out into the world to ‘tame’ new mounts. Again, not all creatures in the game need to be available in-world for people to ‘tame’; there can be gem store variants too.
So uh… thoughts?
(edited by Gray.1704)