Guild Wars 2

Rauderi.8706:

Also, Charr are much more steam-era Romans than the noble tribal-savages that are in the Horde. It’s a refreshing distinction, actually.

I usually describe Charr culture as “Klingons without the %*&@$ing stupid. Not so much a ‘warrior culture’ as a ‘military culture’ that respects logistics and technical know-how, and appreciates that without ranchers, nobody fights… Now pass me some meat!”

I like them quite a bit and the non-human posture is a significant’ plus in my eyes.

The Charr is superb as a race.

But here is a tip for you, OP: If you want something that looks like a human, roll one.

Torenn.2598:

Charr have the best music.

This statement is 100% correct.

Love my Charr!

Anet has a thing with hunch-backs, don’t you know. Regardless of races. Ever seen a human with a staff? Isn’t one of the staff function is to aid your posture’s stability? But no, humans hunch when they weld a staff, or even with a greatsword , for godsake.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Torenn.2598:

Charr have the best music.

This statement is 100% correct.

Love my Charr!

Best music, amazing design.
Overall like others been saying “Charr the master race”

Putting that aside… wagging tails… really? Comparing it to a dog?
My cats wag their tail almost all the time! Go find some cats or a cat video and see if they won’t wag their lil o’ tails

And to add my beautiful good o’ charr:

GUTB.8436:

Okay guys, rant post.

The Charr. Let’s be charitable and NOT say that they are a Orc-Tauren mix, and say instead that they are beast race for those of us who don’t want to be Barbie dolls, and also not ugly midgets. As there seems to be no racial bonuses at all in this game, it seems to boil down to aesthetics and story. So far, the Charr story is okay — the ghost invasion thing from the prior human kingdom that got wrekt by the Charr at some point in the past is a little bad, but not terribad. The Legion lore seems cool. The aesthetics, though….

….wow, is it BAD!

Far from being a fearsome beast of war, the Charr simply resemble rat-men with cat faces. This image is promoted by the very unfortunate hunch-backs, skinny legs and arms, the rodent-like stride when doing the run animation — I suppose it is supposed to look cat-like, but due to it’s glacial slowness it just reminds me of a rat. The one feature of the race that doesn’t remind me of rats, besides the cat-faces are the….

Tails.

Wagging tails.

Wagging tails EVERYWHERE.

The extremely prominent swishing of tails, jammed in your face at all times, does nothing except remind me of a happy dog. Swish, swish, swish.

I don’t want to be a Barbie doll. I don’t want to be a ugly midget. Maybe I should roll Norn?

you did bad at your character creation then

you should have maybe chosen the biggest bodyform
and a beast like face… because those definitly exist

i agree with you though that there are many charr npcs who dont look so beast like at all … and look a bit weird especially when they have the skinny bodies…

but it is definitly possible possible to create a scary/evil/beast like looking charr
and with the correct armorsets you can make up for what you still think is too skinny about the body form

Kill all Charr you say? You have my axe!!

#rememberAscalon

Randulf.7614:

Kill all Charr you say? You have my axe!!

#rememberAscalon

Hey… we’ve got another one. Bring the kits around, they’re about to see a historical re-enactment… The part where we won.

I SOOO want a new fractal that’s playing the flip side of the Ascalon fractal – everyone turns into a human and you fight a series of battles falling back to the courtyard where you finally get a ‘kill as many as you can before you die’ event with endlessly escalating waves of Charr.

stale.9785:

this is how charr ought to look…

They’re so beautiful. ;-;

Nike.2631:

Rauderi.8706:

Also, Charr are much more steam-era Romans than the noble tribal-savages that are in the Horde. It’s a refreshing distinction, actually.

I usually describe Charr culture as “Klingons without the %*&@$ing stupid. Not so much a ‘warrior culture’ as a ‘military culture’ that respects logistics and technical know-how, and appreciates that without ranchers, nobody fights… Now pass me some meat!”

I like them quite a bit and the non-human posture is a significant’ plus in my eyes.

Part of the reason I bring up the Romans. They were the military complex state of their day. Even the names occasionally speak to it. When the names aren’t “Slash Killbite” or something more visceral, it’s common to find Latin roots in their terminology and names: Legion, Imperator, and so on.

And yes, those names! I pity Sylvari for their one-word names, and for such an intelligent, research-driven race, the Asura are implausibly dense to choose one- or two-syllable names. Their research papers and patent systems must be a mess.

Charr names? Those tell stories. In a simple three words (well, two: one word plus a compound word), you know a good deal of who you’re dealing with.

Nike.2631:

Randulf.7614:

Kill all Charr you say? You have my axe!!

#rememberAscalon

Hey… we’ve got another one. Bring the kits around, they’re about to see a historical re-enactment… The part where we won.

I SOOO want a new fractal that’s playing the flip side of the Ascalon fractal – everyone turns into a human and you fight a series of battles falling back to the courtyard where you finally get a ‘kill as many as you can before you die’ event with endlessly escalating waves of Charr.

I would never leave that fractal…

If these gvg guild halls are implemented in such a way, Im sure I could envisage Human Vs Charr battles happening through the guilds. That would be awesome

Charr are awesome, what are you talking about OP.

And the Black Citadel isn’t the death star..

guys.

it’s a giant cat toy. I thought that was obvious from the start. (also the underside reminds me of Cantha and that’s awesome)

It’s ALMOST as if people have different tastes, fascinating.

Ice.5162:

It’s ALMOST as if people have different tastes, fascinating.

Blasphemy!

That’s impossible!

I like them. Hell 7/12 of my characters are charr just because I like them. If you don’t like them, cool don’t pay them then nobody’s forcing you to. Only thing I get annoyed with is how bad halv the stretched out clipping armor looks on them, but I know anet doesn’t really care to fix it so I just try to find something that works.
Have fun with your babies and your gremlins. Ill be on my cat warrior. (Of course this is an opinion just like half these )
Even had friend get an artist to do an awesome picture of my main.

One of the first thoughts I had upon encountering the Charr in Guild Wars 1 was that if I was covered in a luxurious pelt of fur the last thing I’d want to get near was open flame.

Nike.2631:

You are officially invited to my warband.

Only if you provide paper bags and glittery pompoms as recruitment benefits.

Bobby.3721:

Even had friend get an artist to do an awesome picture of my main.

Same here. Of course, I paid her to do it, but still…

Nike.2631:

Rauderi.8706:

Also, Charr are much more steam-era Romans than the noble tribal-savages that are in the Horde. It’s a refreshing distinction, actually.

I usually describe Charr culture as “Klingons without the %*&@$ing stupid. Not so much a ‘warrior culture’ as a ‘military culture’ that respects logistics and technical know-how, and appreciates that without ranchers, nobody fights… Now pass me some meat!”

Personally, I go with post-WW2 National Socialist German Workers’ Party members who are incredibly proud of their past while ignoring that everything they have can be attributed to another race’s efforts in said past.

Saw the talk about Charr vs Asura tech…

Computer tech the Asura win hands down. They have stock tickers in the market and particle accelerators in the field.

War technology however the Charr beat the Asura hands down with the sole exception of the mega lasers.

Lioka started her career inventing a teleportation gun. She then continued to fight… with swords and hammers. Not even laser swords (light sabers) or rocket charged hammers. You know… a Hammer with a rocket thruster on one end of it. Instead i fight with medieval weaponry at its finest. Pistols? No laser blasters, only flintlock guns like everyone else. My engineer worked in the finest tech of the 1700s (irl) instead of inventing new laser guns or artillery.

Here you have a race where their technology mirrors today’s tech in a world that resembles late Renaissance tech overall and there is not a shred of modern day weaponry among it. They have computers, science labs. They have a particle accelerator experiment like the hadron collider.

Meanwhile you have the Charr whose tech resembles the late industrial period war tech starting the 20th century up through WW2. Tanks, helicopters, machine gun turrets, airships with cannons. Not only does their tech fly (with asurans it’s limited to platforms and buildings) but it has lots of artillery on it.

When (spoiler alert for 3 yr old content) I fought myself at the end of the infinity ball episode all the technology there is what asuran war technology should have looked like currently. Robotic creatures and all. What Asura have instead is a ridiculous lack of vision when it comes to applying technology to self defense. They might be “smart” but all that knowledge won’t stop the Charr from leveling Rata Sum if they wanted to.

on topic: I may have played a charr if i started with one. The area they’re in is like a trip down memory lane trying to find all the old locations. They look cool. I personally found the Asura starting more comical though.

Pretty much agree with the OP. I think that if they ran upright and didn’t have such weird hyena necks that more people would like them.

I doubt those minor changes would make the people that love them already love them less.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Garm.9750:

Charr running animation is quite stupid really. First off, it doesn’t make character go any faster, so it feels really awkward. I see the reasoning, but when you play as charr that doesn’t make any sense and breaks up immersion. The second thing is that is the only animation which makes character run on his fours. If you strafe right/left character will suddenly go bipedal, if you get slow/chill condition character will use bipedal animation as well. Walking? Bipedal. Standing? Bipedal. Not to mention NPCs, I never seen them running on fours.

What you’re seeing there is a mechanics/lore disconnect for the sake of balance. Canonically, charr can outrun any other sapient race on Tyria. In Ghosts of Ascalon, Ember Doomforge uses this to her advantage and outrun basically every ghost in Ascalon City at once. Buuut, we can’t have one race running so much faster than all the rest for reasons of game balance.

As for strafing, that one is simple. Quadrupedal stances don’t strafe well. Since Charr are capable of walking on two legs, they do so to strafe much faster.

Before you say that running is the only animation that has a charr run on all fours, pick up a Greatsword on your Guardian, Ranger, or Warrior and use the dash skill. Or give them a banner and use that dash. The “surprised” emote also has them standing on all fours.

Yes, we can’t have a race which does something better, so we better else have one animation that ruins the immersion. Great stuff.

On strafing point, that could’ve been alright… But there’s no real transition between two states, same with running/standing. Character just jumps into another state as if he’s some sort of spring under high tension. When you draw a weapon there’s at least, somewhat awkward but still, a transition.

I have no free slots and my only charr is engi, so for me it’s still the only gameplay animation as long as I keep my engi weapons. Didn’t know about emote, never used them.

For me running animation looks really disjointed and artificial. My main characters are norn and sylvari, their animations look fluid and solid in comparison. And as I mentioned my charr char is an engi, so it really makes little sense for him to run on his fours, since chances are terrain isn’t that clean, and keeping hands clean helps with precision and all that stuff you need for constructing / making potions etc.

GUTB.8436:

Far from being a fearsome beast of war, the Charr simply resemble rat-men with cat faces. This image is promoted by the very unfortunate hunch-backs, skinny legs and arms, the rodent-like stride when doing the run animation — I suppose it is supposed to look cat-like, but due to it’s glacial slowness it just reminds me of a rat. The one feature of the race that doesn’t remind me of rats, besides the cat-faces are the….

Tails.

Wagging tails.

Wagging tails EVERYWHERE.

The extremely prominent swishing of tails, jammed in your face at all times, does nothing except remind me of a happy dog. Swish, swish, swish.

What I’m getting from this post is that OP has never actually seen a rat, a cat, or a dog.

I think really what we have here is people trying to “humanize” a creature so they can relate to it more. Lets put it this way, if your suggest for the change in looks can have this tag line added in.

“They need to walk more upright (like a human)”

sure, in GW1 they looked a little different, but there may be had to been some constraints, and that’s what made the charr look like they did then.

Me, personally, I like a bestial race looking more bestial and less human. I get bored when playing a human race again and again

Tldr about halfway down the page.

Aesthetics aside and taking into consideration lore=\= game mechanics (in lore Norn are by far the most physically powerful race, Asura the smartest, charr distrust magic, Norn don’t seem to have a genuine concept of Mesmer magic)

OP seems to know nothing about gw1. The black citadel was created on top of the city of Rin, it is metal I believe because the iron legion is the one who primarily build it. It’s also more of a fortress than a proper city, as it is fully armed and even has a very large gun at its base.

In GW1 the charr standing upright was probably for sake of primitive animations along with distinguishing the shamans from the rest of the charr(the legions as they are now weren’t really a thing in gw1).

Also. The hunch, they have extremely powerful back muscles like most large cats might(lions) but that doesn’t mean their arms and legs are massive with muscle. That’s not how that animal body structure works.

I’m indifferent to their animations as I don’t play them. But if you’d like them to be more “realistic” or 100% match your perception of the lore….then player and npc charr shouldn’t be allowed to use any magic based classes, as the npc charr would most likely not trust them, especially elementalists.

I digress. I think the charr are fine. A little comical for my taste but they also wanted to humanize them so people wouldn’t hate them…you know, given up until gw2 they were evil.

Also like someone right above me said. I like them looking bestial.

Let’s not have ESO’s khajit be a mark for what they should be….human body cat hat.

Nike.2631:

There is no MMO universe where making non-human races look and act more human is a good thing. We get FAR too many watered down pseudo-humans as it is.

Agreed, though this goes more for video games in general, not MMOs. I love how bestial and hulking the charr are, it really sets them apart from other races. And I totally respect that Anet was willing to put in the effort of giving them animal legs and paws with unique animations and armor, instead of lazily pasting on human legs and feet (once again, looking at you, Elder Scrolls …)

The only things I don’t like about the charr design are the 2 pairs of ears AND horns which makes their head really cluttered and clunky, and the tail clipping on many armors. Come on … it’s not hard to include a little slit in the back of the coat/pants for the tail to stick out of.

That and most of the charr face models look absolutely ugly. And not even in the good way. Ugh.

And just another little 2 cents on hunches in other races. Have you ever seen a fighter ? Boxing, mma, anything short of fancy fencing and dueling. Hunching slightly allows for better upper body mobility in human creatures, it allows the weight of your body to shift faster, with more precision, and with more weight behind it. That’s why in combat most of the races shift to a slight hunch, to create a lower center of gravity and because that’s a stronger “battle stance”

cadmiumgreen.8712:

I guess you haven’t gotten to the part where the Tribunes are having a cat fight over which is the best- plastic bags, cardboard boxes or laser pointers. The Iron Legion prefers laser pointers, of course. Technology and well.. lasers. The Blood Legion prefers plastic bags since they make the most noise when you attack them in the dead of night. Ash Legion prefers cardboard boxes because they make the best places to set up an ambush. You as the player must settle these differences and pick the best. I went with laser pointers. It was a tough choice though as the case for cardboard boxes was pretty compelling.

Oh man. I’ve never been able to complete that one. The questgiver NPC suddenly runs out of the room for NO APPARENT REASON.

Superfrick.1536:

Oh man. I’ve never been able to complete that one. The questgiver NPC suddenly runs out of the room for NO APPARENT REASON.

Were you doing the quest between 9 and 10pm server time? That’s when Rocket Charr Hour begins and they all have to be somewhere else right now. It’s impossible to get anything done in the Black Citadel during that time.

Frequently people who want the Charr to be humanized want an upright body with an animal head stuck on top, which is essentially a human body with an animal head. It’s an old typical way to model non human races. Personally I’m glad ANet didn’t go down this route. Too upright, and they are furry humans with animal heads.

cadmiumgreen.8712:

Nike.2631:

You are officially invited to my warband.

Only if you provide paper bags and glittery pompoms as recruitment benefits.

I’m to assume the guild hall will have as many bunks as necessary. Window sills for Blood, keyboards for Iron, and cardboard boxes for Ash.

If I wanted to play a furry, I’d play… hell, I dono. Furries go to Narnia. But hey, if you’re into that…

Personally, I like the Charr a bit different. Makes em a lot better.

Sol.6213:

Pretty much agree with the OP. I think that if they ran upright and didn’t have such weird hyena necks that more people would like them.

I doubt those minor changes would make the people that love them already love them less.

Sorry to say, but if the charr got more “humanized” they would loose their charm for me. Roll a human bro.

Rauderi.8706:

I’m to assume the guild hall will have as many bunks as necessary. Window sills for Blood, keyboards for Iron, and cardboard boxes for Ash.

I’m not sure I can support a guild hall devoid of laser pointers. The keyboards are a nice touch.

GUTB.8436:

I don’t need them to look like furry Orcs. But note that Orcs, who are hunchbacks, have huge muscular arms ready to smash things. It makes them look like brutes. The Charr have these skinny arms and legs that make them look like the unfortunate result of a genetic disorder.

I don’t know what you’re on about, my Charr Warrior has massive arms, he has massive everything because I make him the most muscular body type and made him as large as possible.

No skinny anythings.

I think you just built yours wrong.

They actually did straighten the noncaster build from Guild Wars 1.

The first one is Pyre Fierceshot, a ranger hero in Guild Wars 1. The second is a medium armor Charr in Guild Wars 2. As you can see the Guild Wars 2 model is more upright and is in between the caster and noncaster Guild Wars 1 models.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They actually did straighten the noncaster build from Guild Wars 1.

The first one is Pyre Fierceshot, a ranger hero in Guild Wars 1. The second is a medium armor Charr in Guild Wars 2. As you can see the Guild Wars 2 model is more upright and is in between the caster and noncaster Guild Wars 1 models.

With so many years having passed since GW1 and 2, we can attribute that to evolution

Serophous.9085:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

They actually did straighten the noncaster build from Guild Wars 1.

The first one is Pyre Fierceshot, a ranger hero in Guild Wars 1. The second is a medium armor Charr in Guild Wars 2. As you can see the Guild Wars 2 model is more upright and is in between the caster and noncaster Guild Wars 1 models.

With so many years having passed since GW1 and 2, we can attribute that to evolution

There are so many things wrong with that statement.

Also…. I’m just going to leave this here.

OP and anyone who has a problem with charr needs to jump off a bridge, into a fire or in front of a modrem.

Charr master race > y’all

Charr’s are awesome, you are clearly wrong!

/topic

Iron Legion 4 lyf.

I love the look and the animations of the Charr as-is. MUCH better than standing upright, even if that does cause issues with us being able to have capes. The worst thing about them is the armor selection. Almost everything in every weight class is a poofy skirt. Thpppt!

As far as the tail-wagging goes, you have it all wrong, OP. Don’t look at it like a puppy dog who’s happy to see his master. Charr are closer to cats, and cats swish their tails when they’re getting irritated and ready to demonstrate how their claws work.

My charr looks pretty legit tbh.