Guild Wars 2

Here i stand after 6-7 years of waiting for the brilliant game called Guild Wars 2, and i am still waiting for the thing i was waiting for. That was shown to us.

Dont get me wrong, turn on the “Fear not this Night” extended version from youtube, and read this. You will realize, i am not here to qq moan or troll aimlessly…i am here to help this game. Why? Because i have faith in the devs and the company. Why? Because they provided Gw1 whitch was not as brilliant at first, but they realized the mistakes they made and improved the game to the point, it became amazing with the first expansion.

Long story short, the main topic on this thread is Artwork Vs current game theme and art style.
If you waited for the game with me and seen them, you know what i am feeling, for sure. You might be hooked up to the game (like me), but you still feel the same strange tingly feeling.
If you did not, you propably seen artworks from the game, and even trough you feel amazed by the stunning detailed maps, (that i might say are the best any mmo can offer right now), or the fluid and well made animations, but you also get the feeling, this is not exacly what i assumed from the “preview”, that would have been cooler.

I wont post all the masterfull artworks i want to make as example…anyone can find them anywhere.
So, my question is (trough i wont make this as a question thread, since i am more interested in your opinions then awnsers on this) Why is Gw2 artwork so extremely deep feeling, when the game itself feels a kittenildish, and broad?
When i look at the pictures of Daniel Dociu i get this deep fantasy feeling. When i look at the game, i get this “Mainstream general mmo” feeling.
Guild Wars was supposed to be special even among the mmo-s. (like the first one).

Exuse my terrible english. I humbly ask for your opinions.
Would the game be better if it would be a bit more closer to the artwork style?

no

When i see the artwork for this game, i see the industry of the charr, the mystic of the Sylvari, the renaissance world of the Humans.
And i see everything of that in game.

Maybe your problem could be that the current story is pretty much science-fiction and not classical fantasy. (Something I think is very interesting.)

The game’s artwork and theme is one of the main things that I think they did right. No other game has so closely replicated it’s concept art in my opinion. The world is beautiful and vivid.

The problem is that the gameplay and details detract from that experience.

Nekroseth.5186:

You will realize, i am not here to qq moan or troll aimlessly…i am here to help this game. Why? Because i have faith in the devs and the company. Why? Because they provided Gw1 whitch was not as brilliant at first, but they realized the mistakes they made and improved the game to the point, it became amazing with the first expansion.

GW1 was AWESOME when there were no expansions yet. OMG i miss those days, running with my W/Mo warrior to droknar & from Deldrimor warcamp to Granite Citadel with my SB Mo/R monk,, farming like a nooby for totem axes griphons & trolls for money. Gooooooood times :P The only good that came after that was the assassin, super fun class to farm greenies & groups of mobs, after that speedclears came, which were AWESOME i never really got in to DoA, i didn’t meet the right people =/ Just saying, before expansion, there was alot of fun,, & DYE farming :o forgot about that :P But overal, i missed the running for gold, it died shortly after the first expansion

The only thing I can think of when I see artwork in this game is how terribly placed everything is. When I walk through a forest, it doesn’t feel like a forest because the trees are so sparse. I also hate how there is a clear path through the forest in Queensdale, yet there is a tree right in the middle of the path, growing right on the dirt. I can’t remember where, but I also saw a rock right in front of a cave and the only way to get into the cave was to hop over the rock.

Villages don’t feel like villages, and cities don’t feel like cities because all of the npc’s are so weirdly placed.

You’re not alone, I also get the “This is just another MMO” feeling.

The problem for me is that there is barely any lore behind anything, and barely any depth to the stories that are presented to me. I can’t take any races in this game seriously because one race is a furball, one race is made of leaves, and another looks like a rat with massive ears. I feel like I’m playing a little kid’s game when I actually do play. That’s the problem for me anyway.

It had good art at the start… then I think they confused their art book with wow’s art book and did the wrong model… Wings and other atrocities started to appear and now we have this Korean cheap game with more flashes than a nipple slip at the red carpet.

Yeah I understand your point OP. Back when they first started revealing everything it looked like this game was going to be a serious gritty game. GW1 was not a super serious game, but compared to most fantasy games it seems more mature. Fast foward to today and I swear the company was bought by Disney. Everyone is goofy, nobody takes anything serious. Every other dialog line is either a cringe worthy joke, or a horrible reference to pop culture. Hell, I take that back Disney makes more mature themes than the writers of this game. I don’t even want to start with Scarlet because we already have more threads than guam about her.

Yeah, i can understand all your points. I also had many issues with the NPC “acting” and theme.
I must admit. Gw1 had a lot better selection. Not to mention the cutscenes are basically a waste of effort. The “action” oriented cutscenes are a lot better. I even seen 1 in Gw2, dont understand why did they not keep “what is good in gw1” …as actually they promised this, almost exacly like this -_-

At any rate, i could start on with combat to almost any other part of the game, but i started this on artwork vs current game theme and wish to keep it that way.

So basically i agree with Dr Ritter. The game theme was alredy altered to worse before release, why make it worse? Dont devs see its bad for the game? More profit by more “kids style?” . I dont think so. Guild Wars was alredy a bit more directed at “elder” or more indepth fantasy players. Why destroy the original community, that was alredy faithfull, to get new non certaint ones?

Ill post 2 pictures, and check for yourself, why i am talking abaut Old-New artwork and ingame reality….
The first is the original Sylvari concept, that was called “sidhe” (something like fey or fary). I really liked it. They look exotic, but still generally adventuring type.
The second one is a “new” reworked Sylvary concept, that is the current one. Its is also fine, buti its way to “cute” and “enchanted” . It does not look like a real “adventuring” character. More like a “for show”.
The last is the well known “trailer” screenshot, but i chose it because its still perfectly represents what igame is actually like compared to the amazing artwork.

Nekroseth.5186:

Ill post 2 pictures, and check for yourself, why i am talking abaut Old-New artwork and ingame reality….
The first is the original Sylvari concept, that was called “sidhe” (something like fey or fary). I really liked it. They look exotic, but still generally adventuring type.
The second one is a “new” reworked Sylvary concept, that is the current one. Its is also fine, buti its way to “cute” and “enchanted” . It does not look like a real “adventuring” character. More like a “for show”.
The last is the well known “trailer” screenshot, but i chose it because its still perfectly represents what igame is actually like compared to the amazing artwork.

Are you sure the second image is the new look? She just looks like a little girl in green clothes and somewhat leafy hair, and the redesign of the sylvari was what lead to the more plant-like designs we have now, with leaves, veins, bark, etc. She has smooth, pink skin and human ears, and…really just doesn’t look like a modern sylvari at all.

Kristen Perry’s article on the sylvari redesign[bad link] is no longer available, but I’m pretty sure this concept art is quite a bit older than it is. It’s kinda my go-to example for why sylvari needed a redesign.

That might be true, i admit it i did not want to fuss abaut details (i do like to, trough thats a problem usually). I basically wanted to make an example “how” its changing.

and i agree, that second artwork seems a bit off to actuall Sylvari-s. You can see “Anime” tipe of artworks and all kinds of artworks, but that one was official back in the days, so thats why i wanted to post that one.

Even so if you purely focus on the depth and atmosphere of the artwork (or might as well says scetch of the game-s visuals) it clearly is not as good as the “original” artwork, they made us wait for. And even considering its still changing in theme and style…i am not sure its a good thing.

Redenaz.8631:

Nekroseth.5186:

Ill post 2 pictures, and check for yourself, why i am talking abaut Old-New artwork and ingame reality….
The first is the original Sylvari concept, that was called “sidhe” (something like fey or fary). I really liked it. They look exotic, but still generally adventuring type.
The second one is a “new” reworked Sylvary concept, that is the current one. Its is also fine, buti its way to “cute” and “enchanted” . It does not look like a real “adventuring” character. More like a “for show”.
The last is the well known “trailer” screenshot, but i chose it because its still perfectly represents what igame is actually like compared to the amazing artwork.

Are you sure the second image is the new look? She just looks like a little girl in green clothes and somewhat leafy hair, and the redesign of the sylvari was what lead to the more plant-like designs we have now, with leaves, veins, bark, etc. She has smooth, pink skin and human ears, and…really just doesn’t look like a modern sylvari at all.

Kristen Perry’s article on the sylvari redesign[bad link] is no longer available, but I’m pretty sure this concept art is quite a bit older than it is. It’s kinda my go-to example for why sylvari needed a redesign.

Here you go: http://web.archive.org/web/20110823192737/http://www.arena.net/blog/kristen-perry-on-designing-and-redesigning-the-sylvari

I see all of the art in the game. Maybe you have low graphic settings?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-gw2-cartoony/first#post3333891

My opinion on the cartoony style, but in the end I think it’s the game engine not able to handle detailed armor and so on like in the concept art, on a LS side check my post I talk about it.