Guild Wars 2

There are some people who do not fear the darkness. Instead we bathe in it, we writhe in it, we become reborn as terror incarnate. Guild Wars 2 only fed our cravings of darkness, and yet, Wooden potatoes said that the spider mount has been abandoned because it is too creepy and may be hard for arachnophobes to deal with.

We ask of you Anet, please include the spider mount in all its creepiness and wall scaling abilities. it is a glorious thing, and it would be terrible to deny us it. Make it large, and creepy, and terrifying. Its not like there isn’t already spider mobs everywhere.

To other players: please rally around this, make as many posts as you can begging for the spider mount in all its horrific glory. I have yet to hear from even one person against the spider mount, i have even found arachnaphobes in support of it.

Long live the children of darkness, and praise be to the lord of death, the great god Grenth.

I support this of my own free will. Grenth did not influence my decision or threaten to eat my soul.

As a necromancer im deeply offended if we dont get a spider mount

The game has the perfect spider mount model already, the mini Toxic Spider Queen with its poisonous green glow.

My necro neeeeds this mount.

I’ve seen many people post the toxic queen spider as an example. But wouldn’t it be way more awesome to have a fluffy, hairy spider as a mount?

I would love to have an adorable spider mount like this:

Well, if its hair you want….

There’s hair

And there’s the Peacoc’k Spider.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Well, if its hair you want….

There’s hair

And there’s the Peacoc’k Spider.

Would definitely be in-favour of a peakitten spider mount.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Well, if its hair you want….

There’s hair

And there’s the Peacoc’k Spider.

That’s a nice spider, too. Now imagine instead of it’s usual texture, the spider showed your guild’s logo. That would be a pretty cool mount.

I like the idea of a spider mount and the climbing walls ability. Or the mount using draconis’ mastery with silk !

Having a spider mount ship with the expansion is a really bad idea because there’s only a handful of mounts coming with it. That means you’d see tons of people swarming everywhere on those horrid things.

It took Blizzard 9 years or so before they made a spider mount in World of Warcraft because of concerns with arachnophobia, and when they finally did implement it, the mount was a massive gold sink. (2-million gold) I’m not guessing their motivations for this either. Their game director explicitly stated this is the reason why.

Besides, think of it as a favor to all the arachnophobes out there – do you really want massive spiders skittering around everywhere?

I’m sure I’m going to attract tons of WoW-haters though by even mentioning this other game. “But this isn’t WoW! It’s Guild Wars 2! It’s different!” No, it’s not… Sorry but if you are so desperate for this mount, you either (1) don’t care about what impact it would have on the game, from (2) its effect on others or (3) don’t know about (1) or (2).

What’s most troubling for me though is the fact that some developers at ArenaNet even considered a spider mount in a game with a choice of 4 mounts. It shows a quite a bit of ignorance on their part when it’s their job to make informed decisions, but at least in the end this divisive thing was shelved.

Whilst a spider would greatly increase, for one thing, a sense of fear amongst our enemies, I would perhaps prefer not to have to keep resummoning our minions every time we move from map to map.

My minions exist purely to serve and are ground under foot at the slightest of transgressions but… I am hard and they do not like me. I am hard but I am fair and in this instance their point is valid. The constant resummong is frustrating and affects morale; there will come a point an insurrection may arise.

Hmm, guess ai am going to have to oppose the plea. Really dont appreciate someone claiming to speak for me.

Although people want a spider here, I’d rather have a Black Scorpion

My necromancer is actually terrified of spiders (like me) so…

…ew!

I prefer a mount with an endoskeleton rather than exoskeleton. Much more reliable.

what about a more SAB themed spider?

Yeaaaaah….. wall climbing ability….cool….. giant spiders everywhere…..no so

I agree with their decision to pull the Spider mount, arachnophobia is a thing for a lot of people and it wouldn’t do to make the game physically repellent to a significant proportion of the player base.

That said…

A wall-climbing mount sounds awesome! It doesn’t have to be a spider, does it? How about an ape? Or a giant mantis? Or, heck, a mastery that grants your characters their own climbing abilities?

Khisanth.2948:

<Troll Dev> Hey I heard you like climbing on walls. Here is a gecko mount.

Give us a gecko mount, and then a mount skin that makes it a spider, win win

I’m good with a spider mount for my necromancer.

So long as I can dye it fluorescent pink.

Jethro.9376:

what about a more SAB themed spider?

Wouldn’t you get dizzy from all the spinning? And impatient with all the posing? =D

Durzlla.6295:

Khisanth.2948:

<Troll Dev> Hey I heard you like climbing on walls. Here is a gecko mount.

Give us a gecko mount, and then a mount skin that makes it a spider, win win

I would actually love a wall-climbing lizard mount!

Spider mount would be cool but I agree with the person who said about going the web spinner rather than wall climber route with them.

No spider please >.<
Scorpion is a good alternative.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Well, if its hair you want….

There’s hair

And there’s the Peacoc’k Spider.

The first one needs top hat

As a necromancer, I refuse to entertain the notion of a spider mount. Pink fluffy unicorn or nothing.

Well I guess anet should only release the cutest and fluffiest mounts then. Who knows, there might be a number of players that have phobias on reptiles, birds of prey, or other mean looking creatures. It would alienate them too.

I would prefer a bone dragon mount. Like, GW1 bone dragon.

You know, i made up an elite spec a while ago for mesmers, based on the Nightmare Spores of season 1:
Besides Cryophobia, Hemophobia, i added Arachnophobia, a bunch of spiders only the victim can see and target, and they inflict poison, torment and cripple

Here’s a spider for the ages —- if you can catch it!

From the short wearing arm of the brotherhood we would raise concerns on the abrasive nature of said mount on one’s legs. I fear that our enemies might have an edge on us as we are scratching and soothing ride-burns self inflicted by transferring the terrain so proper gear would be required if actions were taken in this direction.

On a side note don’t have dog in the race but I have had guildies that wouldn’t do content with spiders as silly as it may seem, so don’t underestimate people’s phobias these days. Good hunting!

How about we all just agree on saying no to mounts as a whole?

Honestly, they should have just released horses as the only mounts, and then they could have released skins for them that were more favorable to the classes.

A horse of the riders of the apocalypse fits the necromancer very, very well. Rugged steeds for warriors, a lithe black mare for thief, an armored one for rev, summoned elemental one for ele, etc.

Bunnies and kitten? For real?

I’d rather have my shroud back instead of an edgelord’s litterbox.

Gimmicky Mounts are gimmicky, no matter the wireframe.

Spiders can be cute.

Note: I don’t care either way about spider mounts.
TLDR: I think its probably just marketing scheme by withholding a desired object to boost reputation in the short term by showing sympathy to a minority group, and in the long term to be able to later release said object to greater success/sales due to people having wanted it and worked themselves up over it for so long. I fully expect to see it release in the future after the good guy anet benefit from withholding it now wears off.

OriOri.8724:

So you honestly think that the 1 in 10 people who are scared of spiders should result to paying a professional to “cure” themselves just so you can have a spider mount?

That’s pretty kitten entitled. And fyi, no one asked the devs to remove spider mounts, teh devs decided internally to never even release it in the first place. Its 2 different things

So you really think that no one should be able to enjoy a spider mount because a small portion of the general population have unresolved personal issues they can’t be bothered to solve?

That’s pretty kitten entitled. And fyi, there are spiders in almost if not all core Tyria maps, which makes the entire argument silly.

[I use mimicry as a form of flattering here. <3]

Nokaru.7831:

Thanks for the “insight”, but I’d rather trust a large and successful business like Blizzard Entertainment and their psychoanalytical and market research instead of… well, you. It’s easy to see (for most people anyways) what they learned on the matter by taking a few moments by taking a look at their decision-making about spider mounts and arachnophobia. It seems like ArenaNet also likewise learned a hard lesson in it.

There are various stores (including toy stores) that stock extremely realistic (far more so than one in this video game) plastic/rubber spiders/lizard/snake/rodent/scary-thing, prominently displaying said goods on their shelves and in their advertising. Some of these stores are part of far more successful businesses (we’re talking magnitudes of order here even) with even larger marketing research than Blizzard. However, both your argument and my counterargument are dependent on the same fallacy of assuming the real result of the research by interpreting the actions taken by the researchers.

For example, you seem to be assuming that Blizzards research said spiders is bad, so they didn’t do it to protect sales. I would like to put forward that it is also possible that the research said spiders won’t actually do squat, but pretending to be sympathetic to a minority group would increase reputation that will results that will outweigh the benefits of including the spiders. Furthermore, withholding something to increase the desire and demand for it before releasing it could also be a factor, thus getting twofold benefit with this strategy.
Indeed, based on the fact Guild Wars 2 is already riddled with spiders, I find my suggested research outcome being more plausible/applicable for the GW2 situation, which everyone may disagree with of course, because it is still just guesswork.

Game of Bones.8975:

Here’s a spider for the ages —- if you can catch it!

Skulltula!!! yes omg so much yes!

I get the spider mount and the love/hate surrounding the idea. Im not sure that I understand not wanting one when there are huge spiders in a lot of other areas of the game. Like the one in the new map up by Grenths Reliquary mastery point ITS HUGE.

That being said I do hope to see one in game be it florescent pink or not. Id also love to see a large devourer like the one that spawns in Diessa at the Hero Point!

The more variety of mounts the better I say

You know there’s going to be 700 million gem store skins. And Halloween will happen shortly after release…
…so…
o__~

YES PLS give us spoder mount. Atleast Devs when younare gonna do the mount guild xhat pls do show us the spider mount at w/e stage you left it.

Doggie.3184:

Spiders can be cute.

Oh wow thats actually cute af

Snow.2048:

There are various stores (including toy stores) that stock extremely realistic (far more so than one in this video game) plastic/rubber spiders/lizard/snake/rodent/scary-thing, prominently displaying said goods on their shelves and in their advertising.

You’re comparing a contained environment of a MMO to… real life? As a gentle reminder in case you forgot, real life is much bigger so it’s easier to avoid. A MMO is a much smaller environment. Both ArenaNet and Blizzard came to this conclusion, but for some reason you (and a few others) seem to think you know better.

Nokaru.7831:

Snow.2048:

There are various stores (including toy stores) that stock extremely realistic (far more so than one in this video game) plastic/rubber spiders/lizard/snake/rodent/scary-thing, prominently displaying said goods on their shelves and in their advertising.

You’re comparing a contained environment of a MMO to… real life? As a gentle reminder, real life is much bigger so it’s easier to avoid. A MMO is a much smaller environment. Both ArenaNet and Blizzard came to this conclusion, but for some reason you (and a few others) seem to think you know better.

No. A game is way easier to avoid than massive store chains that are killing off all their small competition. You also missed the point completely and are still assuming the market research is saying something you are not privy to knowing and misusing it as fact.

Also read the rest because you seem to have missed other points that invalidate your statements. For example, you yourself can go log into the game and walk into almost any cave in any core tyria map and have spiders creepily ambush you from the ceiling or wander past.Or visit almost any forest. Seriously spiders are one of the most common mobs. Good luck avoiding all the spiders, you’d be stuck in the major cities and pvp. (wvw is crawling with um too)

Stop avoiding the important arguments stated, and instead start reasoning to answer questions like “Why are they ok, and suddenly the line must be drawn at mounts?”

You can attack my character as much as you want, I don’t care but at least bring some real meat to this conversation, because empty attacks on people personally don’t add anything and make you look bad. Especially when said attacks are based on poor reasoning on top of it. (see my previous post if you don’t understand why)

Snow.2048:

There are various stores (including toy stores) that stock extremely realistic (far more so than one in this video game) plastic/rubber spiders/lizard/snake/rodent/scary-thing, prominently displaying said goods on their shelves and in their advertising. Some of these stores are part of far more successful businesses (we’re talking magnitudes of order here even) with even larger marketing research than Blizzard. However, both your argument and my counterargument are dependent on the same fallacy of assuming the real result of the research by interpreting the actions taken by the researchers.

To be fair, toy stores are not selling to customer A in a circumstance where customer B, who is phobic, might then be expected to be exposed to person A’s purchase on an ongoing basis.

Snow.2048:

To those with the fear

hide spoiler

As a side note, to no one in particular, preventing exposure to someone’s irrational fear is not helping them, you are at best maintaining the bad situation. You might actually even be making it worse. For those of you fighting irrational fear, you should really try to beat it. I know personal story/expereinces but in the case of spiders, I got my girlfriend to hold a big hairy spider in a safe environment through gentle encouragement and she is no longer afraid of them. Still doesn’t like them, but I find that healthy survival instinct myself.
Another little example, when I was a kid I was terrified of the dark. When I started getting older (but still a kid) I would stay up and stare into the dark to overcome that fear, because I found it embarrassing. I was able to figure it out as a kid how to beat my own fears, its not complex science (psychology rarely is). If a nerdy little child can do it, so can you. And you’ll probably feel really good about yourself afterwards.

This matches my own experience in dealing with a fear of heights. Keep in mind though that, for some people, your described approach can actually make matters worse. And sometimes, much, much worse.

I don’t understand how you are associating necromancy with spiders. If necromancers are associated with any animal it would be rats.

The Charr could build a mechanical spider like in wild wild west.

I don’t care either way about spider mounts, but I’d like to chime in on the phobia topic and some of the outlandish claims in this thread.

We have spider enemies, tame-able spiders for Rangers as well as spider minis. You can’t avoid them, so citing arachnophobia as a point against them becoming mounts doesn’t really work.

If your phobias happen to be severe enough to carry over into virtual spaces then you may want to stay away from broader video games, because they are not designed to be a safe space for you and your particular issue(s). (Unless a product is marketed as such, of course)
But, for the sake of argument: If we start with censoring spider-themed content, where do we stop? There are phobias for EVERYTHING. Water, heights, caves, darkness, zombies, rats and the list goes on. To create a safe space for EVERYBODY you’d have to cut a massive amount of any game’s content. An option to turn creature-based sources of phobia into other creatures (like the Skyrim mod that turns spiders into bears, for example) would be a great option to have, but I don’t agree with outright censoring content for everybody because a select few cannot deal with it.

Also, the comment about arachnophobia being the reason for no spider mounts in Blizzard’s MMO is nonsense. In fact, there are multiple official posts about them wanting to put spiders up as mounts. Ion Hazzikostas (one of the game’s main directors) even went into long detail on why the mount was so expensive – and it wasn’t for fear of triggering arachnophobia if too many people had it. Around the time of the spider mount’s reveal there even was a change org petition to have it removed from the game – which Blizzard clearly didn’t pay any heed, since the mount is still here. The whole “Blizzard learned from their spider mount disaster” statement somebody put up here is nonsense.

i think a balanced compromise will be spider mounts as seasonal gem shop or black lion rewards.

they would make money for anet who probably doesnt want to waste the amazing talent and hard work they already did when they created the spider mounts.

they also wouldn’t be so accessible that every other person was using them.

never mind that it is ridiculous to punish everyone just to cater to people with irrational fears. whats next, do we get rid of the awesome mesmer / necro couple because some people are homophobic? what about racist grandmothers who play guildwars who are deathly afraid of non-whites?

for the record, i had such a grandmother, who played GW2 almost until she passed away, and she would literally rage/fear log if a black character joined her party, though for reasons i dont understand, asura’s with the giant afro hairstyle were okay.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Arachnophobia is a thing, yes. Getting anxiety over a 3D fictitious representation of a spider? Not so much. The people who do claim to be triggered by such things aren’t really triggered, they’re just attention-seeking [insert the other word for kittens here] with a victim complex.

You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about and you’re really lucky to not be affected by it at all. Even some pictures posted here are affecting me. Hopefully, they are small enough for me to avoid looking at them for too long.

But to be honest, I don’t care about people having an ugly spider mount as long as:
1. I get a graphical option to see something else instead (a scorpion, a gecko, a beetle or even a pink flying pig would do)
2. That option is enabled by default or at least I get a popup to ask me if I want to enable it the first time it would be added to the game

TLDR People who are scared of spiders to the point that the mount would distress them probably dropped this game before they ever reach the mount

Ashen.2907:

Snow.2048:

There are various stores (including toy stores) that stock extremely realistic (far more so than one in this video game) plastic/rubber spiders/lizard/snake/rodent/scary-thing, prominently displaying said goods on their shelves and in their advertising. Some of these stores are part of far more successful businesses (we’re talking magnitudes of order here even) with even larger marketing research than Blizzard. However, both your argument and my counterargument are dependent on the same fallacy of assuming the real result of the research by interpreting the actions taken by the researchers.

To be fair, toy stores are not selling to customer A in a circumstance where customer B, who is phobic, might then be expected to be exposed to person A’s purchase on an ongoing basis.

Again, see almost every core map forest and cave has spiders, and not just ambient but giant ones that drop from the ceiling intenting to kill and eat you. [I say almost because I’m too lazy to check but it would not shock me it its 100% every core map has spiders].
Your analogy should be Customer A buy a product with potential phobic triggers in most of its content, including huge amounts this specific trigger. Customer B buys same product and is distressed. The store promises not to include any extra of this specific trigger, ignoring all other potential triggers and also ignoring the copious amounts of the trigger already present that will remain present. Customer C says, hey I liked that aspect and looked forward to seeing more. Can you please not cancel it? Now customer D is saying, “Hey C, that’s lame and mean of you! Don’t you care about B?”

Truth is, B probably has had enough and got his refund before C and D even started arguing. But the company’s stance and C’s claims now make the product look like it is not going to trigger anyone else every again when nothing has actually been changed.

Taking the scenario into the possible long term, this could bring future customers with similar problems to B into the nasty scenario in which they are exposed to the trigger unexpectedly. The company decision also opens doors for things like people with other triggers (eg heights) demanding or expecting their fears to be worked around (no gliding). Which is why some of the people on D’s side are speaking out against this illogical pampering behaviour now.

Snow.2048:

To those with the fear

hide spoiler

As a side note, to no one in particular, preventing exposure to someone’s irrational fear is not helping them, you are at best maintaining the bad situation. You might actually even be making it worse. For those of you fighting irrational fear, you should really try to beat it. I know personal story/expereinces but in the case of spiders, I got my girlfriend to hold a big hairy spider in a safe environment through gentle encouragement and she is no longer afraid of them. Still doesn’t like them, but I find that healthy survival instinct myself.
Another little example, when I was a kid I was terrified of the dark. When I started getting older (but still a kid) I would stay up and stare into the dark to overcome that fear, because I found it embarrassing. I was able to figure it out as a kid how to beat my own fears, its not complex science (psychology rarely is). If a nerdy little child can do it, so can you. And you’ll probably feel really good about yourself afterwards.

This matches my own experience in dealing with a fear of heights. Keep in mind though that, for some people, your described approach can actually make matters worse. And sometimes, much, much worse.[/quote]

I can agree with you fully on this.
However, I’m more callous in that regard and have little respect for those who won’t even try, because the risk of it getting worse to me does not outweigh letting it fester and potentially get worse on its own. But I’m sure some people benefit greatly from avoidance and get out of it on their own, and conquering the fear, no matter how you do it, is the key thing here.

Yunjii Sun.3512:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Arachnophobia is a thing, yes. Getting anxiety over a 3D fictitious representation of a spider? Not so much. The people who do claim to be triggered by such things aren’t really triggered, they’re just attention-seeking [insert the other word for kittens here] with a victim complex.

You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about and you’re really lucky to not be affected by it at all. Even some pictures posted here are affecting me. Hopefully, they are small enough for me to avoid looking at them for too long.

But to be honest, I don’t care about people having an ugly spider mount as long as:
1. I get a graphical option to see something else instead (a scorpion, a gecko, a beetle or even a pink flying pig would do)
2. That option is enabled by default or at least I get a popup to ask me if I want to enable it the first time it would be added to the game

Finally someone with the actual problem.

How do you deal with spiders making up a huge portion of core content and why is the mount the line for you?

Raven.9603:

never mind that it is ridiculous to punish everyone just to cater to people with irrational fears. whats next, do we get rid of the awesome mesmer / necro couple because some people are homophobic? what about racist grandmothers who play guildwars who are deathly afraid of non-whites?

for the record, i had such a grandmother, who played GW2 almost until she passed away, and she would literally rage/fear log if a black character joined her party, though for reasons i dont understand, asura’s with the giant afro hairstyle were okay.

Wow. To compare people with fear to homophobia or intolerance that’s… quite horrible instead. You’re a horrible person.

Snow.2048:

Finally someone with the actual problem.

How do you deal with spiders making up a huge portion of core content and why is the mount the line for you?

Actually the fear is triggered when the spider looks too realistic and/or is too big. As long as it stays small or doesn’t enter into the realistic category, I can deal with it.

In the GW2 core, some rare vets really meet that requirement. The black widow pet doesn’t trigger any fear because she is not big enought (but I do find it very repulsive).

In the past I played Warhammer Online and the boss I hated the most because I spend the whole fight looking at the screen from the side was a giant spider in the Lost Vale

Anyway, as I stated before, I don’t see why the mount couldn’t be introduced because of arachnophobia, as long as you can disable the sight of it. I mean they did that with special effects already even if the reason why they did it is not the same.