Guild Wars 2

I would love to see more emotes in the game.
There seem to be some emotes that technically exist but have no animation.
I hope we see them next year.

So what emotes would you love to see in the game?

/eat
/drink
/flirt (should be very cute with Asura)
/yawn
/stretch onself
/sigh
/lean

Different /sit choices would also be very nice.

I will stop there … I could very easily make a huge list of desired animated emotes. One thing to consider, though, is that the larger the options, the more need for a quick way to access them. Fallen Earth did it by a popup tree so you picked the category you wanted and then the specific emote. Even that can take too long to get the emote off at the right time. So I would also consider making the emote commands as short as possible, and publishing a list (or having it on a hero panel tab) of all those available so people can keep it handy for reference.

/me then describe the aforementioned emotes with all the details.

so type this “/me eats a delicious, yet sour, Omnomberry Tart!” hit enter-It will say it like you type it and it will appear as if it is a emote to everyone else. Yes I do realize there will not be an animation to coincide with the eating. But for me the /me emote is better than adding 1000 emotes as I can perform the emote the way I want and not a predetermined set.

List of emotes that were in GW1 but are not in GW2 (Grabbed from each wiki – I removed ones from the GW1 list that were in the GW2 list as well. Also removed a few promotional ones like /aion and /dancenew and ones that could not apply in GW2 like /zaishen or /zrank [or /jump – lol]):

You can compare the lists for yourself if you like ( http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Emote ) and ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Emote ) respectively.

/agree: [Character] agrees.
/attention: [Character] comes to attention!
/beg: [Character] begs.
/boo or /scare: [Character] scares you!
/bored: [Character] is bored.
/bowhead or /head: [Character] bows his/her head.
/catchbreath or /breath: [Character] stops to catch his/her breath. (Note: This will use the his/her to match the character created-Not the current model. For example, If a male character is made, then a Zaishen Tonic is used to turn into the Archer Form, a female, the chat log will still say “His”.
/clap: [Character] claps.
/congrats: [Character] offers congratulations.
/cough: [Character] coughs.
/doh: [Character] smacks his/her head. Doh!
/doubletake: [Character] does a double take.
/drums or /drum: [Character] plays the drums.
/excited: [Character] is excited!
/fame or /rank: Character performs a special iconic animated emote. Must be rank 3 of Hero or higher.
/fistshake: [Character] shakes a fist angrily.
/flex: [Character] flexes.
/flute: [Character] plays the flute.
/goteam or /encourage: [Character] cheers wildly, “Go Team!”
/guild, /ladder, or /champion: Character performs a special animated emote based on guild ladder ranking.
/guitar or /airguitar: [Character] plays a mean air guitar.
/helpme: [Character] requests help!
/highfive or /five: [Character] says, “High Five!”
/moan: [Character] moans.
/paper: [Character] plays rock, paper, scissors. (Character lands on paper.)
/pickme: [Character] says, “Pick me!”
/pout: [Character] pouts.
/ready: [Character] is ready for action!
/roar: [Character] roars.
/rock: [Character] plays rock, paper, scissors. (Character lands on rock.)
/scissors or /scis: [Character] plays rock, paper, scissors. (Character lands on scissors.)
/scratch: [Character] scratches.
/shoo: [Character] shoos you away.
/sigh: [Character] sighs.
/sorry: [Character] apologizes.
/stand: Character stands from a sitting position.
/taunt or /rude: [Character] taunts you.
/violin: [Character] plays the violin sadly.
/yawn: [Character] yawns.

It is important to note that if you try to enter many (maybe all?) of these emotes into GW2, it does not return the usual error message (try it!) This suggests that at least at one time in GW2’s development the dev team wanted to add these emotes. The idea probably got lost among the countless other issues reasonably related to launching a huge MMO like GW2. And that’s fine. But I like to imagine and even hope there’s some half-(or maybe even almost fully-)written code to implement these emotes into GW2 that was simply forgotten. I know many would not even mind if they just used the identical character rigging from GW1 for these emotes.

A lot of people would be happy if these emotes made it into GW2. I’m not a role-player but I respect that crowd, and to be perfectly honest I used emotes a ton more in GW1 than I did in GW2. It makes the world a little more fun. And since the evidence suggested that the developers themselves wanted to add these emotes, but the idea got lost in the craziness that is launching a game, I’d like to see the idea get some more traction again.

I fully support this thread and would love to see more emotes in GW2.

I want voice emotes.

Not only would they be easy to implement, as they’d require no model editing for additional animations, but there are already voice lines in game, just almost never utilized.

See this older thread on emotes for some of my own suggestions, and a link to a some rarely heard voice lines.

I definitely would love to see all of the emotes from GW1 come to GW2. Oddly enough, the two emotes that stand out the most to me in GW1 are the /sit and /stand emotes. Characters in GW1 took time to /sit down properly instead of floating to the ground with feet sliding into position unrealistically like characters in GW2; additionally, the /stand emote completed the simple experience of resting.

Naturally I’d like to see all the GW1 emotes, but mostly I’d personally like to see the /stand emote and a revamped and more realistic /sit emote. These are my personal opinions and desires on the matter.

AlienMenace.7516:

List of emotes that were in GW1 but are not in GW2 (Grabbed from each wiki – I removed ones from the GW1 list that were in the GW2 list as well. Also removed a few promotional ones like /aion and /dancenew and ones that could not apply in GW2 like /zaishen or /zrank [or /jump – lol]):[…]

While I’m all for more emotes, three are in GW2 and a few seem to have been replaced by more generic emotes.

Already in game:
/agree (as /yes)
/fame or /rank (/rank shows your PvP rank)
/flute (replaced by actual instruments)

Replaced by more generic emotes:
/attention (arguably replaced by /salute, since that’s the animation NPCs use when standing at attention)
/congrats, /excited, /goteam, and /encourage (replaced by /cheer)
/fistshake, /taunt, and /rude (replaced by /threaten)

Halcyon.7352:

I want voice emotes.

Agree.
I have found that there probably was this emotion /toast but don’t know anything more.

I’d definitely like to see more emotes in game. I’d also like, in a lot of cases, female emote animations to be available to males, and vice versa.

I’d like to have something like /blowkiss, and /beg and /angry (muttering and making gestures as if being generally kittened ioff) and /yawn, and ofc /flex…. when u wanna show off a new armour piece

/flex was awesome. Remember the male Monk? There were some cool moves.

+1 thread

I kinda miss roar, and the humanfemale /laugh and /no could use an overhaul, so over the top I don’t like them. They sound like a sassy black woman laughing at herself when she goes “oooh hell no”

/apologize
/angry
/beg
/bite
/blush
/bored
/bounce
/bow
/burp
/bye
/charge
/cheer
/chicken
/clap
/confused
/cringe
/curtsey
/drool
/facepalm
/flex
/flirt
/frown
/gasp
/giggle
/greet
/grin
/grovel
/guffaw
/happy
/hello
/helpme
/hug
/kiss
/laydown
/lick
/lol
/mourn
/nod
/poke
/pout
/pray
/rofl
/rude
/sad
/shiver
/sigh
/silly
/slap
/smile
/snarl
/snicker
/sniff
/strut
/talk
/tap
/tease
/thank
/tickle
/wave
/welcome
/whistle
/yawn

(and more ways to /sit)

One of the best games for immersive role playing I ever seen was Star Wars Galaxies. It had so many animated emotes. I think it was /tiphat that was one of my favorites on my smuggler. It went perfectly with the hat he wore.

Also moods! Your mood could be switched with a simple menu or text command and whatever your said was prefixed by your mood.

Normally when a player would speak, it was “Player says: Whatever.”

With one’s mood set to sad, it was “Player sadly says: Whatever.”

With one’s mood set to sad, one’s character also had a slump to the shoulders and a sad look on their face. They looked the part as well.

yet another thing that keeps GW2 away from my “great” game list.. hoping for this to hit the game one day tho.

While I know I’m necrorising this thread, I think the suggestion appears often enough to have a good represetnative discussion in the front of the forums.
(I have found at least another 6 less interesting threads covering this subject, and people also ask periodically for emotes in all the “new ideas”, “new gemstore items” and “missing stuff” ones).

What I would like to discuss today is this quote from Regina B, taken from the “dev Quotes from Reddit” thread.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Armor and emotes

Regina B

GimmeSylvari

…
Also, seeing that the animators do such a great job in GW2, why can’t we get more emotes ? (Could even be a gemstore thing, as long as it’s not a book thingie that we have to take everywhere, but something that unlocks new emote commands instead ?)

…
Resources and priority comes up with animation and emotes as well. Yes, we can technically create new emotes, but they need to be prioritized over other needs. Do new player emotes take priority over animation for creatures in (as an example) the next raid? If game directors believe that this is a good use of our limited resources, then then this would be prioritized and resources would be allocated accordingly. It would be awesome to have new player-character emotes, but we don’t have unlimited animators, and they may have other other priorities that supersede the desire for new emotes.

I would like to answer the hypotetical question from Regina.
YES.
I do think player emotes should take priority over raid animations, for the simple reason that the new emotes will add to the experience of every GW2 player, while raids only affect a group. Emotes also would aid RPs, another group integral to the community, one who ahvent seen any support since a loooong time.

I’m not saying raids are bad. I like them, and I think they add a new aspect to the game that is needed. But I think they should NOT exist at the expense of other much simpler, open to all and fun content.

I also understand Regina is just saying this as an example. But I think the example sounds too specific and real to ignore. I think a relevant company like Anet should be able to split resources for areas so different, but if I’m forced to choose between Emotes and Raids, I DO prefer emotes.

What do you think?

I like your question, Adrid: it would be good if the devs struck a balance. I agree with them that new content should have priority, I just wonder why there’s no chance to add a few emotes a few times a year.

That was a very nice and informative post, Regina, but I do believe it’s prime time we had an actual discussion about this and whether the playerbase wants it. I’ve talked about it to quite a few people and have repeatedly stumbled upon such threads and I can safely say the demand is there. Why does a SEQUEL four year after launch have less emotes than the original at launch? That makes no sense to me. In fact GW2 has the least emotes out of any major MMO I have ever played. And I have played quite a lot.

Naturally such decisions aren’t made on a whim. However, could you or anyone at Anet just poke the right people so that we could have said discussion? This might seem like a relatively small upgrade, but surely as the people who created GW2 you know that it’s exactly such QoL changes that make people come back to the game year after year. And I am pretty sure adding new simple emotes doesn’t require that much resources and time.

Here to add my two cents.
Adding the rest of the emotes from GW1 that don’t work in GW2 would be so, so great for me. /roar is a personal fave and I’m upset all over again being reminded that it didn’t make it to GW2.
At one time I read a suggestion about unlocking emotes via achievements or the gem store and quite frankly, I’m all for it.
On a similar train of thought, there was a suggestion for different character stances for certain weapons that folks were willing to pay gems for. Again, all for it.
I also wanna acknowledge that, while seemingly logically simple, might take some time.

Trade-offs is rather hard to grasp as a consumer at times. It’s easy for us to say do that or do this without thinking what it actually takes, what it can take away, or what it actually adds.

There’s a running joke around the World of Warcraft community, which is; do you want X? It will cost a raid tier. With that, players jokingly make their own lists of what they would like to have in sacrifice of a raid tier.

Emotes are fun. Yes, they are fun, but the question I raise is; if there is a trade-off, what can we get instead? It’s easy to imagine if ArenaNet decided to make a list. Telling us three things they can make, but they have to sacrifice this for a while longer to make this other thing.

Of course, no company would do that. Instead, they won’t tell what they “sacrifice” to make something else, and instead go what they find is the most popular demand by the playerbase, or what they themselves think is needed for the game to make their vision complete.

Emotes over class balance? No I’d say, but people working on emotes and such might not be fit for class balancing. That was a silly example, but I hope you get the point.

Roleplaying! Yes, I love stories, and having a role in a set world. I roleplayed a lot in World of Warcraft, and I still do log in every now and then when I have that roleplay need. World of Warcraft got very good basic features to make it a good game to actually roleplay in.

I haven’t tried roleplay in Guild Wars 2 yet, because I feel spoiled by World of Warcraft’s system. Emotes with animations is not one of them, but (without AddOns) it got a well functioning chat system, with class colours to make out names easier, an emote system that isn’t far too large in range—as I have noticed with Guild Wars 2—and that’s the basics for that.

If anything about emotes, I would love myself if they changed to actually still show the weapons you got instead of making them disappear when you make an emote, that alone would help roleplaying, because it feels very odd to see the weapons disappear to just reappear again when you sit down or lie down (despite clipping or not.)

On top of that, perhaps seeing your character’s mouth moving when you send a text in /say chat would be a cool idea, or a more subtle talk animation when you do say things in /say chat. It helps seeing who talks, and the characters feel more alive with such.

At this point, I’d rather not give up new content for emotes. Maybe, sometime down the road, when there’s not been such a long time between content releases. But, for now? I’d rather not have anything delayed while they work on something else, like emotes. Much as I enjoy some of the emotes we used to have.

Would also love to see more of GW1’s emotes come back. I miss /flute (loved staring at my rit hop X3), /stand, /catchbreath, /doubletake, /flex, /rock (hugs!), /paper, /scissors, and of course, /bowhead (so I liked pretending I was peeing in bushes <__________<; Don’t judge me >___________>; )

And honestly, I agree with Ardid. I know it was just an example off the top of Regina’s head, but still. If adding the emotes back would cost some other animation in the game, raid animations would probably be the best to hit, and for the reasons given.

Well, that, or reducing the flashiness of future skill animations, assuming that they’re done by the same animators.

I would like to see map chat smileys like the ones Wonderland Online has.

^sadly i dont agree with this. i have this weird thing that when i see chat boxes with faces, makes me think that game is cheap. sorry. its something in my head, no offense.

Ardid.7203:

new emotes will add to the experience of every GW2 player

Technically, in the sense that everyone will be able to use them but is it a worthwhile addition? How often do most players even use emotes beyond dance when they’re bored and waiting for something to happen? I would like to have more emotes but it’s very very very low on the priority list.

Demented Sheep.1642:

Ardid.7203:

new emotes will add to the experience of every GW2 player

Technically, in the sense that everyone will be able to use them but is it a worthwhile addition? How often do most players even use emotes beyond dance when they’re bored and waiting for something to happen? I would like to have more emotes but it’s very very very low on the priority list.

I think that brings up a good question of what emotes would be the most useful? Not only for players, but for the devs as well?

A “juggling kittens” emote might be entertaining, but it’s really not of much use to the devs. An emote of leaning against a wall, or counting stuff and marking it off on a clipboard, however, could be used by NPCs in a lot of places.

Palador.2170:

Demented Sheep.1642:

Ardid.7203:

new emotes will add to the experience of every GW2 player

Technically, in the sense that everyone will be able to use them but is it a worthwhile addition? How often do most players even use emotes beyond dance when they’re bored and waiting for something to happen? I would like to have more emotes but it’s very very very low on the priority list.

I think that brings up a good question of what emotes would be the most useful? Not only for players, but for the devs as well?

A “juggling kittens” emote might be entertaining, but it’s really not of much use to the devs. An emote of leaning against a wall, or counting stuff and marking it off on a clipboard, however, could be used by NPCs in a lot of places.

Perhaps, more emotes for NPC would make the world feel more alive and if you make them for the NPCs you might as well let the player use them…although that might be more work than it sounds because I don’t think all the different races can use the same animations.

If adding a few more emotes is taking away precious resources, then this game is in big trouble. After all apparently 6 people can deliver a raid according to you guys. There is a staff of about 300 approx? So whats everyone else doing..Half working on content, half working on balance? Oh I forgot, the rest are all making full weapon sets for the gem store on a fortnightyl basis, while legendaries come out at a trickle….

IDL…..Doesn’t fill me full of confidence about the future of the game, especially given the defensive nature of Regina’s comments.

Demented Sheep.1642:

Ardid.7203:

new emotes will add to the experience of every GW2 player

Technically, in the sense that everyone will be able to use them but is it a worthwhile addition? How often do most players even use emotes beyond dance when they’re bored and waiting for something to happen? I would like to have more emotes but it’s very very very low on the priority list.

Emotes could be a wothwhile addition not just because some players wants them. They could be integrated into gameplay like they are in a few places already, like in the mad king says ( Kinda bland with the amount of emotes available) , the langmar’s estate guild misssion or the place that only opens when you write /threaten, but my favorite example is from GW1, when a mission bonus objective was to copy a mime’s actions using emotes.

Shortly my point emotes like most thing can be worthwhile to do depending on how you use them. NPC uses, interactions with the world, puzzles or simply roleplaying.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

IMO it would generate quite a lot of profit.
I will literally buy anything and everything that makes my Charr say and/or do things I never seen them do or hear them say before.

What about creating a lot of such content, then selling it out slowly over time in batches?

I never see many of such requests around forums or reddit, but we keep talking about it with friends. We all are going to buy them!

Please add more emotes. This game has such good animations but so little ways for our characters to express themselves! It would improve the experience SO much!

Well then, why don’t we press for such an update then? We could have in the future, a quarterly update focused on Rping and immersion, adding new emotes, maybe making certain npcs more alive, improving on the Hot storyline, and other stuff of that kind. Now THAT would be a lot of new content, and even if it’s just implicitly shown, I would enjoy searching for said improvements (I liked finding an NPC in Tyria who recognised me as a Scrapper)

The only way to raise awareness is basically make our wishes known to Anet. So yeah, let’s keep doing that. It really is one of those things that’s always in the back of my head and always irks me.

I would happily sacrifice a few raid wings, gem store items and PvP seasons for basic things like emotes and QoL updates. That’s just me though.

I just want to /hug people I’ve killed. Is that too much to ask?

I want the rock parer shissors back in gw2! Not for deciding stuff, just to hug random players!

One of my favorite memories from playing AC2 was the /gokart emote. When you use it, your character will take up a sitting position as though s/he is driving a go kart; and retain that position as you moved around. Thus you’d look like you’re driving an invisible go kart while traveling normally. When you’d couple this with the /follow emote, you’d have a huge train of people go-karting across the cities and lands. Absolutely fun to watch and to participate in.

I’m not suggesting GW2 implement that… I’m just giving another illustration as to how awesome emote variety can be.

~EW

/idle: just a new bunch of random idle animations.
/afk: automatically prompted when the user don’t activate any command for a time. The character sleeps standing, drooling and making slow circles with the head.
/inventary: also automatic when you spend more than 30 secs on your inventary. The character unpacks and search things in its clothes and bags.