Guild Wars 2

Now that I have my Arah Dungeon armor set I plan on first completing everything in the Charr areas. It is my favorite area in the game. It’s very artistic, gritty, smokey, I just love it….too bad no one else does. Yesterday I began my quest to complete every possible thing there, but as I began my journey I noticed something…….(que the cricket sounds) I’m very very alone…….

I read an article on PCgamer about how some of Anet developers are sad that the Charr and Asura are not very popular among char selections in GW2…..well I’m a Charr and I love my character…I’ll list some of the reasons why I think many people chose not to be a charr starting with the most glarring…

1. Animations
2. Armor
3. Lore

For me it’s the Armor that I’m most disappointed with in the Medium department it’s just not very good, it’s true…most helms look a bit ugly.

Players love to trick out there characters with the best armor and often change it out and mix armors but the medium armor for Charr is just not that good. Animation wise jumping is a pain with the Charr.

Back to the areas….I know it hurts Anet that they took such care and time to create the charr areas only to find out that they are now desolate…..What’s more glarring is that it’s so early in the game…in GW1 we all had one path to lead through and finish so everyone visited the area albeit alone now in GW2 we have more choices and people are choosing to not visit the charr areas anymore and this is just depressing. It’s not a cut and paste area…it’s very unique…but as a level 80 player what is their incentive to revisit ANET? This is something you guys have to figure out if you want this are to still populate. I just wanted to point this out and see what you guys are seeing on your sever….I’m on yaks bend.

…and before you guys point out that the Halloween event is taking precedent…I also visited the level 50 areas last week to farm gold, same thing…and yesterday Cursed Shore was packed…so the Halloween events have no effect here….

I also love the char areas- I think they have a unique beauty.
Fire Heart Rise and Iron Marches are my favorite in the whole game.
I also love the Charr themselves , they have a very dry type of humor that I really like
After visiting them on our Main characters, my husband and I level our alts, a Human Thief and Norn Guardian in the char zones.
We did do most of the maps on our lvl 80’s as well.

That said I don’t find them empty at all, the maps seem just as full as any other. The population on my server seems to be spread out across all maps so nowhere is ever really empty.
Gunnar’s Hold here

About a week ago there was an article on pcgamer.com where an Anet staff (can’t remember the name) was talking about how the great majority of the players created human characters and how charr and azura were the least created. Maybe that’s why their initial areas are empty.

Last night I went to Queensdale and had to wait in overflow.

They are empty because they are far out of the way, making them expensive to waypoint. You could mine and log everything in Frostgorge then make an easy round through the Charr lands from there so long as you avoid hordes of ghosts (with blocks that inflict burning, a lot of ranged, etc., so they contribute to the emptiness too).

Calavera.1086:

About a week ago there was an article on pcgamer.com where an Anet staff (can’t remember the name) was talking about how the great majority of the players created human characters and how charr and azura were the least created. Maybe that’s why their initial areas are empty.

Last night I went to Queensdale and had to wait in overflow.

I remember being eager to create my Asura elementalist because the race is just too cute! There is a certain insufferable genius quality to Asura combined with their cuteness that makes them a great race. I also played a Charr warrior in beta and I remember how tough the quests were (especially fire shaman) and how annoying and even difficult the ghosts and sometimes even ogres were to deal with.

I think the majority are rolling humans because they want to firmly establish their mains (full exotic on a level 80 at least, in addition to some skins they want) before moving onto alts of other races. Heck, my new main is a human thief, leaving my old character behind (at least temporarily), most especially due to the whirlpool nerf and extra skill needed for minimal rewards (he has great support, but supporting doesn’t contribute to rewards =( )

You also have to consider the men who roll female characters, and as humans ourselves IRL what race do you think would have the most sex appeal?

Agemnon.4608:

I think the majority are rolling humans because they want to firmly establish their mains

I don’t think that’s good logic. Why would human be a “better” choice to main than any other race?

My main is Asura, in fact, I never play humans at all if the option exists. I play a human in real life, it’s nice to have a change of pace

I’m an RPG racist. I don’t like the looks of those ugly freak non-human races.

Elf-type characters are barely ok if their hairstyle hides their ears. Norns are ok if I set the height slider to minimum.

I’m an RPG racist. I imagine there are many more like me, which is why the Charr area has much fewer players.

Must be a low pop server or something, Charr stomping grounds always have plenty of activity going on Desolation.

Aren’t they empty because the story lines actually don’t go there (yet)?

"

I’m an RPG racist. I don’t like the looks of those ugly freak non-human races.

Elf-type characters are barely ok if their hairstyle hides their ears. Norns are ok if I set the height slider to minimum.

I’m an RPG racist. I imagine there are many more like me, which is why the Charr area has much fewer players."

Still, seven feet tall is still freakishly tall (or is the Norn minimum 6’5" or whatever? hard to get a GW2 scale to real life scale conversion though I estimate the average human male in this game is 5’8", like IRL) =) Still, traditionally the other races typically either hate or think they’re so superior to humans, so I understand where you’re coming from, but their anti-human racism is done in an endearing way, like racism Asura has against humans, and the hate Charr typically have.

Charr are not popular because the armor is nothing but clipping. Seriously, I’ve never seen such bad art in a game.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/races/charr/The-ammount-of-clipping-issues-is-kitten-hig/

Go to the charr forum and see the huge amount of examples. I hate my charr, I like the game but I want a new character. I base my armor off what does not clip rather then what looks good.

Culture armor even clips.

I don’t think race has anything to do with it as nothing prevents you from traveling where you want. The game directs you towards Orr through personal story, and that may be why you see more people in those zones. I think most of the problem has to do with meta-event content. At the moment meta-events that get the most attention tend to be more epic in scale, like the dragons, which have their own timer sites dedicated to letting players know when their events will be up and the various risen priests/priestesses. If all zones contained interesting/challenging meta-events that rewarded large shiny trunks capable of containing high-level loot and those zones had resource nodes that had a chance of dropping high-level resources (with the right gathering tools equipped), players might spread out more. Though typical MMO psychology of “I should be in the max level zone” might prevail even if this were the case.

I think its sad too! Plains of Ashford is among my favourite zones, I love Diessa Plateau too. I think its a matter of most players liking the “traditional” beauty of Caledorn Forest and Queensdale. I can see why. But I love the rolling plains and chaos going on in the Charr lands and there are definitely moments of beauty there too. The Asura zones I admit I don’t particularly like. I don’t like the layout and I never liked the excessively arrogant nature of the Asura either shrugs

I love my charr, I have three and I have a terrible feeling I’m going to spend more gold for more slots for more charr.

I also love the Ascalon zones, especially ones that had the Brand push through them, it makes me sad they emptied out pretty quickly after launch. I love the perpetual autumn colors and seeing all the ruins that represent the history since GW1.

Having played MMOs and RPGs in general since I was small, I suppose I’ve grown weary of places like Caledon, it just feels like I’ve already been there. I always save it for last now when I do map completions.

Thats because people seem to think that once they hit lvl 80 the only place they are allowed to play is in the lvl 80 zones =(

I feel bad for them honestly,. Hopefully Anet gives them more incentive to go out into the world instead of limiting themselves in 1 area to “maximize” their rewards.

I think another thing players could dislike is the difficulty. I went in these zones with a character lvl 70-80 and even with a full exotic stuff, the ghosts are very hard to kill.

But the charr area is really beautiful, and deserve more people to be interested in.

Personnaly i prefered this zone rather than the human one because of the ennemies which are more charismatic, the panoramas, the dragon brand and the shatterer, and also because i did not think the area of Ascalon could reborn after the searing in GW1.

I started with an Asura, love the attitude and Mad Scientist thing, and after seeing Metrica Province was a bit disappointed with the Human, Norn and Charr lands I have seen. They seemed sort of “generic fantasy”, whereas the Asuran structures at least seemed distinct. My second favorite was the Sylvari lands, again they seemed to have a distinct style and flavor. That said, even the most generic of the lands and artwork seem to be quite nicely done, a lot of attention to detail.

That said, I was also surprised at how bustling the starting human zone was compared to what I had seen in Metrica. I think they are right that a lot of people start with those.

It would be nice if the devs could tweak the rewards in Orr and in the “mid range lands” so that some of the level 80 folks would spread out, it would give a more populated feel to all the zones. As I’m getting to zones in the 40-60 range there seem to be fewer people at DEs then in starting zones, as I’d heard.

I tried a charr, but I can’t quite get into it – and Black Citadel tanks my framerate.

I think it’s probably just due to the regular disincentives to visit lower level zones plus the fact that the Charr areas are out of the way (and thus have high waypoint costs).

Right now as a level 80, if you aren’t in Orr you’re losing potential money due to the low level drops (and lack of level 80 blues and greens, seems to go up to level 78 only in non-80 zones). If you’ve completed the map, it’s even less desirable to be there.

Combine that with the high waypoint costs to out-of-the-way areas and you have a recipe for empty zones.

I’ve noticed (by playing all the races at least a little) that the human personal story seems to be the most thought out – and it feels as if the game really was built around the human element. Of course, I could be wrong, but that’s been my impression since beta.

Personally, I don’t like the way the Charr look, move or sound. I don’t even like their overall view of other races, especially humans —- but then again, I’m a veteran of GW1 and may be just a little bit prejudiced against them.

They are empty because they are far out of the way, making them expensive to waypoint.

I think this is actually a good point. I found that the charr maps were the ones I neglected the most, because unless I was playing a charr character and heading out from the Citadel, the Ascalon maps aren’t really on the way to anywhere. You don’t pass through them or accidentally end up in them from anywhere else, except maybe Snowden Drifts. Other maps are more central to all the racial cities.

It’s generally said that people like the least humanoid races the least, statistically. I guess we can relate to them less, whereas anything that looks basically human is more like us and is less of a fantasy in terms of avatar embodiment. I know a lot of people who prefer humans because they prefer the armour – it’s stuff they’d like to wear.

@FalconDance – as a GW1 player myself I love what they’ve done with the charr because it complicates the setting so nicely. Hearing the charr talk about humans makes me think more about human history and such, you know? But bias is ok too :P

I like the charr area,but to be truthful its not very good on my fps.
any other area i hit 50-60 fps without a prob.
but soon as i quest in the charr lands,i hit 20-30 fps.

So that alone puts me off going there.
i don;t think that area is optimised very well tbh.

I wont play the non-human races till I can actually make a non-human race that ‘fits’ in with their racial NPCs.
Seeing a Norn, Charr or Sylvari in human armor completely ruins the entertainment factor for me. I gave feedback towards this in BWE1 and was told it gets better “later” – that’s nice… don’t care though. The races should look at least like their NPC counterparts from the start – and while traveling in other racial areas; it would make sense to find and use armor designs from those cultures. So, for myself, that’s why 3/5 of my characters are human and it will stay that way since it’s “Working as intended”. /shrug

As for the areas. I LOVE the charr areas. So much fun. The Charr Effigies and evil furry flame throwing Charr always give me a run for my money. In fact, I find the high level Charr area FAR more challenging and interesting than all of Orr… but that’s mostly because I think the Risen are just stupidly designed and behave like a bad Three Stooges skit rather than a dread foe…
However, like the OP mentioned; those Charr areas are pretty empty. I am leveling a (human) necro now and entered (forget the name now, it’s coffee hour) the Charr zone bordering Frostgorge. Didn’t see another player for over three hours. When I finally saw one, we ended up getting owned by Effigies. lol

Charr areas are relatively empty because stories don’t usually go there and because they are so far away from civilized areas.

Blazeridge has some traffic on Henge, but only because of the Shatterer. Fireheart Rise gets some traffic due to the Citadel of Flame dungeon. The Plains of Ashford always has at least a bit of traffic, but granted a bit less than Caledon or Queensdale.

The other areas, unfortunately, the OP is right. I still prefer running those areas, and with the small population things get a bit more challenging and satisfying. The Branded Army event in Iron Marches is quite fun with 3 or 4 people.

I play a lot of alts. None are human, most are Asura plus one Norn and one Charr, but he’s been mothballed. I’ve tried to like the Charr but for some reason they just don’t grab me. I deleted my Charr Ranger (due to the armour and animations) and re-rolled him as an Asura. I created a Charr Warrior, but mothballed him and created an Asura Warrior instead who has now superceded the Charr. I’d like a Charr on my character selection screen but I’m running out of classes which I feel they suit.

Character generation – there’s lots of options but it’s hard to get a Charr to look just as you want, they all seem to end up looking similar. I think it’s because the sliders don’t actually do very much and fur colourings and markings aren’t that distinctive.

Armour – medium armour doesn’t look good on a Charr. Light armour is so-so. Even much of the heavy armour doesn’t seem to suit either. The heavy cultural armour does however look awesome, because it was designed specifically for Charr rather than shoehorned on like all the other types.

Animations – this is a matter of taste, but I just don’t like the way they run and fight. Also, jumping puzzles as a Charr is a nightmare compared to smaller races (Norn share this problem).

On the plus side, I think the Charr zones and lore are great and I love the voice acting which is some of the best in the game, second only to the Asura. But is this enough to keep playing a Charr? For me, sadly no because the visual issues outweigh all this.

I think Charr & Asura are least played races because of armor & appearance. Charr are a bit awkward imo and all hunched over and I hate that they gallop on all 4’s. Asura are awesome little guys, but because they’re tiny they don’t look as awesome in their exotic gear & their weps seem like miniature versions. I saw an Asuran Guardian rocking a greatsword that wasn’t much bigger than my Human’s Krytan dagger. Also, I think Asura have fewer options at character creation than all races. Humans have like 20 different hair styles to choose from…Asura have about 9. Both races have great stories and lore, but their appearances leave a lot to be desired. Sylvari, Human, & Norn give players a beautiful canvas upon which they can display their armor and epic weapons.

Drok Kindleshot.1496:

Now that I have my Arah Dungeon armor set I plan on first completing everything in the Charr areas. It is my favorite area in the game. It’s very artistic, gritty, smokey, I just love it….too bad no one else does. Yesterday I began my quest to complete every possible thing there, but as I began my journey I noticed something…….(que the cricket sounds) I’m very very alone…….

I read an article on PCgamer about how some of Anet developers are sad that the Charr and Asura are not very popular among char selections in GW2…..well I’m a Charr and I love my character…I’ll list some of the reasons why I think many people chose not to be a charr starting with the most glarring…

1. Animations
2. Armor
3. Lore

For me it’s the Armor that I’m most disappointed with in the Medium department it’s just not very good, it’s true…most helms look a bit ugly.

Players love to trick out there characters with the best armor and often change it out and mix armors but the medium armor for Charr is just not that good. Animation wise jumping is a pain with the Charr.

Back to the areas….I know it hurts Anet that they took such care and time to create the charr areas only to find out that they are now desolate…..What’s more glarring is that it’s so early in the game…in GW1 we all had one path to lead through and finish so everyone visited the area albeit alone now in GW2 we have more choices and people are choosing to not visit the charr areas anymore and this is just depressing. It’s not a cut and paste area…it’s very unique…but as a level 80 player what is their incentive to revisit ANET? This is something you guys have to figure out if you want this are to still populate. I just wanted to point this out and see what you guys are seeing on your sever….I’m on yaks bend.

I really wanted to comment on this. On day one, I rolled 5 characters. I played all the characters through the initial area then rolled the next. The last one I rolled was a Charr (Warrior if you’re interested)

I thought the Charr was going to be the character I liked the least. To my surprise (and delight) The Charr and the W profession quickly became my favorite. He wound up being my first level 80.

I also liked the charr areas best. Very cool, but like you said, very empty. In fairness, I’ve seen this in other areas too. This is especially true for areas about level 40. I think its a problem that willl get worse as people get more and more of their characters to max level.

My husband plays nothing but human males. He has 7 last count, 2 warriors and I can’t for the life of me understand why.
I have one character for every race, each playing a different profession. They are all female, which I haven’t deviated from but plan too.

First, think of what we call Charr, Asuran and Sylvari on the forums, “Toons”, brings to mind that these races are “Furry” intoning grief and the negative myths associated it.
The Syilvari are somewhat more playable because they are recognizably humanoid, but are too quirky for some, and Norn though still humanoid with a propensity to go bestial if you want to, or never want to.
Second, is imagination. Not everyone can see themselves as anything other than what’s in the mirror. There are players that will only play humans of the same gender with their name or nickname cause that is all they know.
Third is, believe it or not, sex appeal.
The physical difference of gender is very subtle, and I personally like that design. A female Charr isn’t Felicia from Darkstalkers. She is only considered beautiful to a male Charr, even if she has a husky voice and scars across her face.
Fourth is the lore and culture.
Charr are a nation driven by war, and if you played the first Guild Wars, you may even not like the Charr just because of that and what happened to Gwen! The culture also seems strict.
Asurans are haughty know-it-alls. Their culture and dialogue seems detached and cool compared to say, Norn “Beer, Brawl and Bear” warmth.
There are some players that will welcome this as a creative challenge, but most want to just play a game.
Last is the difficulty of the design of the game vs. these races.
Whether it be the armor or camera angles, people still want to visually find something to like about a character they are going to spend hundreds of hours with. Clipping and uninspired armor selections don’t make it easy to like them.

I love all the designs of the races. The diversity is a testament to the creativity of the designers and writers. Ambitious enough to hope the players would step outside their comfort zone and try something completely different from the traditional RPG races.

It could take some getting used too.

I’ve nearly got 100% completion on all the Char zones, but I hated suffering through them. My problem is mainly that every Char zone feels exactly like the one before it. Its a problem with all racial zones, but it seems amplified with the Char. Same exact wilderness, same general level of conflict, same enemies etc. Also, lots of dense areas of roaming mobs. Everything is doom and gloom, Char apparently never have fun.

Curuniel.4830:

@FalconDance – as a GW1 player myself I love what they’ve done with the charr because it complicates the setting so nicely. Hearing the charr talk about humans makes me think more about human history and such, you know? But bias is ok too :P

Oh, I agree that it adds dimension. ‘The other side of the story’, so to speak.

That’s a shame I really like ascalon, even if the once blasted wasteland hasn’t fully recovered. Next to magooma it was my favorite place in prophecies (pre searing ofc), I simply love the autumn colors.
Never was a big fan of kryta then and now, just to green for my taste, like someone took a verdant landscape and toned down all the red colors and overdosed in green.
So far I’ve rarely gone there because it’s so removed from all the rest, and my personal story never led there. I do intend to explore it fully later though!

I really like the Charr areas (and the Norn ones too). I actually prefer them to the human and swamp lands.

But yeah, the Charr areas are pretty darn empty. Well actually I mostly just see bots in them.