Hey guys,
Does it bother you that your aristocratic human acts a bit shifty? Does your nightblossom sylvari not slide through the shadows? How about that male norn who follows Wolf but moves like they follow Bear? It’s time to pitch: base animation packs.
Character Creation
So, one of the things that’s bothered me about character creation since beta 4 years ago now, was that although I could pick various physiques for my characters I couldn’t choose how they moved.
You’d normally want that big bulky character to be all stompy and that lithe character to be all slinky, especially if you wanted them to act in character. Take the male norn as a good example. The animations for your idle, walk and run are perfect for a follower of Bear, but if you want a follower of Wolf or Snow Leopard then you need your big bulky guy to move more like water, flowing through the wilderness like a predator.
Animation Styles
I like to use a Street Fighter analogy. In that game you have your Zangief, which is basically your default male norn (Bear). Then you have 3 other massive male characters who move completely differently: Bison who is like Raven, Sagat who is like Wolf and Vega who is like Snow Leopard. These are all massive guys who embody very different characteristics based on the way they move.
That’s the norn with their spirit themes. What about the other races?
You have humans, with the styles of aristocrat, commoner and thug.
Sylvari embody a particular mood depending on their time of birth. You have dawn, noon, dusk and night. These could be animated in the mode of cheerful, bold, philosophical and secretive respectively.
Then we have the asura and their college affiliation defining their animation. The statics are stoic, dynamics hyperactive and the synergetics dreamy.
Charr are defined by their legion. Blood legion could be animated to be more gung-ho, Ash as slinky and Iron as workman-like.
A Realistic Scope
I’d like to bring some of that extra “character” to Guild Wars 2, because we watch our characters animate for hundreds or even thousands of hours. We’re looking at each race getting new variants of some of the base animations: idle, walk and run.
That’s 3 animations, multiplied by races and styles. The combat animations wouldn’t get touched. Perhaps you can make an argument for some of the dodges on a case-by-case basis, and perhaps there’s an argument to use the same animation for a particular race and style where there isn’t enough difference to express.
What Do You Think?
So, are you happy with how your character moves or would you be up for seeing this? Possibly this is expansion content or it could be a “when it’s ready” addition. Support this if you like it.