Guild Wars 2

Watching WP’s recent video about new races really made me crystallize some thoughts that I’ve had for a long time.

Watch it yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oVADcOSTeY

The game is struggling with the production of cosmetic items and one of the main reasons is the fact that it has too many races.
The main culprits here are the Charr – but every race’s particularities have some part in slowing down the process of creating new armor.
This is a problem because armor and cosmetics are the primary driving force that keeps people going in GW2. It’s not gear grild – it’s skin grind – and we’ve got very very little skins.

The game released with a good abundance of skins – but ever since we’ve had too little come into the game either through the gem store or other means.

That aside I also feel the story could have been much more interesting, focused and well written if they didn’t have to write a neutral 5-race story and by doing so distanced themselves quite a lot from the franchise’s original lore and setting.

I don’t hate the non-human races – In fact they could have had just as much story and lore expanding their stories in the game but the only playable race should have been limited to humans – for practical reasons.
Humans are already the most popular race in-game and were so even close after launch.

I’m actually curious how others feel. Do you like the fact that we have 4 other races even if it means we get armor very very very rarely? Do you think it was worth it?

Well, if Charr weren’t a playable race, I’d probably have more of a life, and much larger bank. And the forums would be completely free of any of my posts.

I think playing through the personal stories of all the races is an essential feature of the game. That being said, Charr are impossible to clothe. They are large, hunched and have a substantial tail. Anything I put on them looks awful, which is disappointing for a game so heavily rooted in chasing skins.

The same can be said for the Asura. Their compact, little bodies don’t carry most skins and armors well at all.

This is a big reason why I main human characters exclusively…

If it weren’t for the Charr and Asura, I wouldn’t have bothered even trying GW2.

Humans-only was the reason I never bothered with GW1.

~EW

Actually, I only made a human character after making characters for all the other races first, and that was because I wanted to pay homage to an NPC. I consider humans pretty boring.

Yea if it was human only I wouldent have bothered with it

GW1 was human only … and players wanted more options.

Players got more options with GW2.

Evolution. Let’s not go back to the stone age.

GW2 should have been Charr only. GW1 was human only already

Charr and Asura were my first two characters and my two most played. I’d have been bored to tears in a all-human game.

As an asura main, I don’t agree with you. More races means more character diversity, and overall it makes the game more interesting and appealing to new players. I’ve also been quite enjoying the begining story for each race. And if only human were playable, it’s only natural that their lore will be prefered over other races. And I don’t like that. I actually like human lore, but I guess there are many people who just prefer lore of other races (and it’s not only the lore, but there are also people who prefer other races over humans in general, and they are not few. In fact some people told me they find human boring, or they started playing gw2 because of asura, charr, etc.) And the fact that these races are playable gives them much more opportunity to expand their lore.
So no, even if it could mean more armors, I wouldn’t trade these 4 races for that. Especially not my beloved asura…

carabidus.6214:

I think playing through the personal stories of all the races is an essential feature of the game. That being said, Charr are impossible to clothe. They are large, hunched and have a substantial tail. Anything I put on them looks awful, which is disappointing for a game so heavily rooted in chasing skins.

The same can be said for the Asura. Their compact, little bodies don’t carry most skins and armors well at all.

This is a big reason why I main human characters exclusively…

Pretty much. The two races were well designed and interesting from a lore and narrative perspective in the first game but structurally neither of them was conceived with the idea of creating in-game assets (skins) for them as playable races.

And that’s why today’s system is a mess.

GW1 was uninteresting to me partly because it was human-only. I love my charr characters in GW2, and they’re a huge reason why I keep playing.

Echoing everyone who said they would be bored to tears in an all-human game.

I agree with the more options argument people put out but more options can also mean different groups of humans with different backgrounds.

If you mean more options visually – I get that too – but I think charr and asura were a step too far. If you must have more races then at least make sure they’re very similar to human so you can actually produce skins for them.

I get that other races were the reason some people played the game – I get that some of you find humans boring but the majority of players are actually human.
Because humans are the thing we can most easily identify with.

Torzini.1523:

GW1 was uninteresting to me partly because it was human-only. I love my charr characters in GW2, and they’re a huge reason why I keep playing.

Echoing everyone who said they would be bored to tears in an all-human game.

Why would you be bored? Because of the visuals or because of the story?

I really don’t understand why a human-only game would be boring.

I see your point, but I remember the first time I saw the trailer and that you could make a Charr. I was so hyped I probably replayed the video a dozen times that day.

I wouldn’t have wanted it another way. I love the variety and, as a GW1 player, being able to play as a Charr was something I went crazy for.

Harper.4173:

I get that other races were the reason some people played the game – I get that some of you find humans boring but the majority of players are actually human.
Because humans are the thing we can most easily identify with.

That’s exactly why some of us prefer not to play humans in games. I already am a human in real life, so playing one in games is boring and redundant to me.

I don’t know about you, but I have no trouble identifying with, for example, non-human Disney characters. How many of us cried when Mufasa died? Just because a character isn’t human doesn’t mean it can’t also easily be identified with. That argument has always been nonsense to me.

#asuramasterrace

We don’t all enjoy playing the human female meta. Without Asura, I wouldn’t even bother logging again.

Had the races been the same frame with only the scale changing, they could have multiple races with one set of armor. Char obviously wouldn’t work but the others would.

Harper.4173:

Torzini.1523:

GW1 was uninteresting to me partly because it was human-only. I love my charr characters in GW2, and they’re a huge reason why I keep playing.

Echoing everyone who said they would be bored to tears in an all-human game.

I really don’t understand why a human-only game would be boring.

…Because racial diversity and options are interesting?

I can’t properly keep up with the pace of this thread right now because I’m raiding, but the answer should be pretty self-evident.

To this post I will just reply:

ASURA MASTER RACE!

Basically I’m just getting a lot of “I like X race” but do you think that it’s worth it in the long run? Look at how pitifully few armor skins HoT came with?

I can see both sides of the issue. Variety in terms of race options likely make the game appeal to more potential players. That can generate a larger player-base. More skins to pursue more often would also appeal to a broad spectrum of players. That would help with retention. Both are important to an MMO’s health.

Would a human-only game be boring? That’s very much a personal preference issue. I can see people being bored with humans as a racial option. Not only are humans features in almost every RPG out there, people get the human experience in RL. Some players are going to prefer different, some won’t care.

Me? I’ve played through the L30 story as Charr and Asura only to get the achievements. I then deleted the characters. Neither race appeals. I’ve got, I think, 3 Norn, 1 Sylvari and 8 humans. So, a human’s only game would have been fine with me.

With regard to tailoring armor or outfits to different races, the Asura and Charr are the races which are most different from humans. I wouldn’t mind them never having been in the game. The Charr have undergone a transformation between GW and GW2. In fact, it’s very reminiscent of the change in perception from Star Trek Klingons to the Next Gen ones. While that has some appeal for me, I don’t find the race visually appealing in the slightest.

As to Asura, well, I find the mix of the mad/absent minded scientist trope and the classic over-compensating small person trope leave me cold. They are also not visually appealing. In fact, their only redeeming quality in my eyes is their dodge animation.

Ommv.

Harper.4173:

Basically I’m just getting a lot of “I like X race” but do you think that it’s worth it in the long run? Look at how pitifully few armor skins HoT came with?

For some of us it’s not about the armor skins.

~EW

Dantert.1803:

To this post I will just reply:

ASURA MASTER RACE!

I think you meant… “ASURA MASTER RATS”

I’d have been happy with human only as well, with greater emphasis placed on the varying human cultures – Kryta, Elona and yes…Cantha. Would’ve been pretty amazing.

Or at least stick to the non-human races that could use similar frames (Human, Norn and Sylvari). I’d definitely play a Norn male if they were just taller humans with better hairstyles and tattoos.

I disagree. I only have Sylvari characters because I can make them colorful. I have never played a human over lvl 10… They look sooo boring.

Harper.4173:

Torzini.1523:

GW1 was uninteresting to me partly because it was human-only. I love my charr characters in GW2, and they’re a huge reason why I keep playing.

Echoing everyone who said they would be bored to tears in an all-human game.

Why would you be bored? Because of the visuals or because of the story?

I really don’t understand why a human-only game would be boring.

the gw2 story has never been it’s strongpoint anyway so…i mean i have charr characters myself and making them look less ridiculous is always a challenge. but kitties still need hugs so i have three of them.

Dantert.1803:

To this post I will just reply:

ASURA MASTER RACE!

^this

Honestly, only two races cause any problems with cosmetics. Those would be Charr & Asura.

They are the only two races that don’t conform to the human body type.

Even with that, new armors that come out are nearly identical from race to race. So I don’t really see too many races as the problem with cosmetics.

As an asura main (well 3 asura mains really), I cannot disagree with this more.

Humans, IMO, are the weakest of the races, lore and design wise. That armor is tweaked to suit them first instead of made as it should (one diferent frame for every race) is unfortunate and sad. But an only human game would be sadder.
I have 2 of every race in the game, but play Asura and Silvary the most. Armor is always nice, but in the endi it doesn’t determine which characters I like or play the most.

The armors I’ve done for my Asura and Charr are magnificent, despite the lazyness of Anet about making stuff for them. My humans are well dressed too: well dressed mules I hardly play.

Check other games around. Look for well developed, interesting and fun races, visual and lore wise. You’ll find GW2’s Asura and Charr take the crown without effort. Humans, on the other hand, are the same generic, standard, no-risk, boring dolls in almost every single game.

Jahroots.6791:

I’d have been happy with human only as well, with greater emphasis placed on the varying human cultures – Kryta, Elona and yes…Cantha. Would’ve been pretty amazing.

Or at least stick to the non-human races that could use similar frames (Human, Norn and Sylvari). I’d definitely play a Norn male if they were just taller humans with better hairstyles and tattoos.

Pretty much this – would have had diversity and skins.

All of the in-game races are not significantly different from human factions they could have made. Apart from the visuals and the skins ( or lack there of).

Off-topic – norn are too bulky – I agree with you.

Ardid.7203:

Humans, IMO, are the weakest of the races, lore and design wise. That armor is tweaked to suit them first instead of made as it should (one diferent frame for every race) is unfortunate and sad. But an only human game would be sadder.
I have 2 of every race in the game, but play Asura and Silvary the most. Armor is always nice, but in the endi it doesn’t determine which characters I like or play the most.

The armors I’ve done for my Asura and Charr are magnificent, despite the lazyness of Anet about making stuff for them. My humans are well dressed too: well dressed mules I hardly play.

Check other games around. Look for well developed, interesting and fun races, visual and lore wise. You’ll find GW2’s Asura and Charr take the crown without effort. Humans, on the other hand, are the same generic, standard, no-risk, boring dolls in almost every single game.

Did you play GW1? It was all-human and the race was not boring.
The only reason you consider GW2 humans boring is because a lot of what could have been written in for humans or human factions has been distributed to the other races.

Heavily militarized warlike faction? That could have easily been a human sub-faction and not the Charr.

Highly-advanced magic-users that value technology? Could have been humans but instead this was used for Asura.

While I would argue GW2’s humans are not boring they are made more boring by having stuff they could have incorporated given out to the other “non-boring” races.

Doubt I would have gotten into GW2 if it were nothing but boring human things. The lore is much richer for the variety. I can just hope they’ll get around to advancing the other races in storyline now that Mordy’s deaders.

And, while I’m having trouble finding “good” skins, that’s not a fault of the development cycle and needing to fit several races. It’s the fault of buttcapes and chainmail skirts and too many armors looking similar to one another or just ranging in bad-to-godsawful. It’s looking at half of the outfits that came out in the past year and wincing, because bird-shoulders, junk plate armor, and boob wings. And if there are numerous “good” skins for an armor weight, they don’t dye the same way or their gloss makes them different, so the lauded mix-and-match ideal just gets more difficult anyway.

I don’t want more armor skins, I want better and more coherent armor skin design.

Night elves, humans, draenei, blood elves, trolls, tauren, goblins, worgen, orc, undead, pandaren, gnomes, and dwarves. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about the lack of armor or variety of armor in WoW… and they have many, many more races than GW2 has.

It’s not the races in GW2 that slow down the production of armor. If I had to guess, I would say the reason we receive so little armor additions is because Anet is spread too thin. One of the developers mentioned that it takes upwards of 9 months to create one armor set in GW2… and meanwhile Rift, Lineage, WoW, Aion, and many more MMO’s (including F2P) pop out an armor set every couple of months. The only logical explanation is that the armor people at Anet are working on something else.

Harper.4173:

That aside I also feel the story could have been much more interesting, focused and well written if they didn’t have to write a neutral 5-race story and by doing so distanced themselves quite a lot from the franchise’s original lore and setting.

Those racial storylines are the best part. You get to choose your own adventure. Playing Sylvari story feels quite different from Charr story. Claw Island and forward it becomes just another pompous save the world cliché. I don’t think I’ve even bothered to finish the personal story.

I hope we get more playable races, actually.

2 things:

1.
Human race most popular race? Like any proofs that it is true or just guessing?

2.
Gear have gone from something that would look good in a fantasy mmo, to something that reminds me of Power Ranger suits……I would personally rather have them focus on content rather than endless skin grinding

3.
Practical reasons? no offence, but if this game only had 1 playable race.. then there might have been a massive chance for me and a whole lot more not playing or even noticing this game, which would put it in what I would call the “Wildstar zone”

Sartharina.3542:

Well, if Charr weren’t a playable race, I’d probably have more of a life, and much larger bank. And the forums would be completely free of any of my posts.

Same for me, except asura instead of charr.

Half of what sold me on this game was the aesthetics of the asura – the character styles, the personalities, the lore/social structure and the architecture.

I would have never started playing this game if asura were not playable – in hindsight maybe would have been a good thing.

The asura personal stories are genius – so funny and entertaining. The characters – both npc and player are fantastic.

Nevermind animations – asura and charr animations are godkitten awesome. For everything. I love it.

zengara.8301:

Human race most popular race? Like any proofs that it is true or just guessing?

Old, but true then.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/

Humans 36%. Other races ranging for 13% to 19%.

Why Human only? If your (rather silly) reasoning is that it’s so much easier to make skins when there’s just a single race, then it should have been Asura only. Asura master race.

IndigoSundown.5419:

zengara.8301:

Human race most popular race? Like any proofs that it is true or just guessing?

Old, but true then.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/

Humans 36%. Other races ranging for 13% to 19%.

well normally I would be concerned that the link is around 3 years old (a lot have happend in 3 years) but if I have to be honest, I do believe that humans still are amazingly high in the choosing of races

Even though i have 4 human characters out of my 9 slots, i still think it’s a good idea that this game has a variety of races. I actually want MORE races, to get more lore from those races that we could play.

struggling with the production of cosmetic items? this game already has more cosmetic choices than most other games I’ve played, it might even have the most aside from games where you can import custom things

Upon clicking this thread I assumed it would be a troll thread attacking the other races and I am glad to see it was not. I think the OP has a point – designing armors and outfits for multiple different races surely slows down the development. Perhaps it doesn’t take 5 times as long, but I would venture a guess of at least double? (No data backing this up, purely speculation and assumption).

I don’t think the story would be drastically different with one race vs multiple, except in our interactions with other races (ie. If the Pact commander were always Sylvari, HoT would have been very different and very interesting). It still has to encompass both genders and a wide variety of personalities. Perhaps it would have been fun to have played more on the Ferocity – Dignity – Charisma aspects and have different voice actors and/or variants on scenes for each (rather than small, nearly irrelevant choices).

All of that said, I love the different races of Tyria. There is something about each that I find fascinating. I really enjoy playing through the personal stories and learning about the cultures. They are each unique but still share similarities that make them relatable to one another.

I’m quite happy with the way GW2 is and I don’t think I’d trade the other races for more outfits and a more involved story, but it is interesting to think about what could have been.

I absolutely disagree, and I think the complaints about cosmetic issues on charr and other races are overrated.
I have 17 charr. Each one is dressed differently. Not a single one has serious clipping issues (and many have no clipping at all), and they all look very good. Light, Medium, and Heavy armor alike.
Sure there are a number of pieces with clipping issues in the game. I suppose the biggest complaint is that a lot of the shoulder pads and helms don’t look good, but I have honestly found that easy to work around.
Additionally, GW2 is improving in this area. Whereas they used to release armors and outfits that did not incorporate charr tails, most of the recent releases do incorporate tails.

The bland, neutral personal story is the product of sub-par writing—not a result of having multiple races.

When GW2 was released there were a ton of other MMOs coming out close to the same time frame, I don’t think I would’ve looked at it as hard had there been only a human race option. Humans are perhaps the only race consistent in ALL MMOs, which, honestly makes many start to look the same even more so than the MMO conventions in the game. I would’ve put my money towards something else, just cause they gave me another option than human, and even adding in various culturally different ethnicity, it would’ve been plain old vanilla human. I actually appreciate all the hard work that went into coding the way the different races behave, the way they move, the cultural armor of those races, even if the only thing we got added that looked different culturally was the wedding attire. It gives everyone different flavor. And every race completely stands out compared to the next. If we had gone all humans it would be another play on earthly races. They all have flavor to them that makes Tyria a vivid place.

Harper.4173:

Basically I’m just getting a lot of “I like X race” but do you think that it’s worth it in the long run? Look at how pitifully few armor skins HoT came with?

Yes, because without Charr, there would BE no “Long Run”.

GW2: Where players ask for less features in game.

Vote no to feature reduction, down with all feature removal threads