Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

For example, the Harry Potter stories (and the Harry Dresden ones, too, for that matter) invent a new sort of magic whenever the story requires it. Any consistency is either coincidental or a result of an amazing memory (or note taking ability) of the author (and their editors). On the other hand, Larry Niven goes out of his way in his Gil Hamilton (and Magic Goes Away) stories to provide all the science (or magic) needed to solve mysteries long before the end of each tale.

I’d say this is something completely different than trying to apply scientific principles to magical beings. It looks like you’re talking about whether a particular story remains internally consistent or not. Does it have rules it sticks with, or does it make stuff up to suit where the creator wants to take the plot?

Fairy tales, one of the roots of what we call fantasy, have rules, and stick with them. They’re just not the rules of science. A creature can be covered in eyes because it is a manifestation of its ability to perceive truth, and it doesn’t make any sense to point out that after the first half dozen or so, any other eyes are just redundant.

So, yeah. I wasn’t saying that fantasy means “make it up as you go along”. I’m saying that wings make things fly, because that’s what they are for. It doesn’t matter if the creature is too big for the physics, the wings wrongly placed on the body, or if the wings are way too small in proportion to the creature that uses them.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Tequatl is not normal everyday magic.

I’ve always hated normal, everyday magic. Kinda takes the wonder out if it.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

No, it’s poor design for arrows to be infinite and for Charr tanks to have no real physics (you can go through them in quests, they have no gravity, 100% scripted)

Then please don’t watch Star Wars, because space craft can’t move like that in the vacuum of space. And womprats are indeed impossible to hit on a moving speeder.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Floating rocks could use some wings, but they are fine like this.

Science has yet to discover winged rocks.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Tequatl is not normal everyday magic.

I agree. Dragons are no David Blaine or Criss Angel.

Why doesn’t my character ever have to use the bathroom?

Is that normal, everyday magic?

Gibson.4036:

Why doesn’t my character ever have to use the bathroom?

Is that normal, everyday magic?

I can’t believe that I’m not allowed to marry my homosexual in-game partner. Science can’t explain that.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

I think that it’s very much possible to design a dragon in game that looks terrifying and would actually be capable of flight in real life.

Devs did try that with Zhaitan, from what i remember from one of the “design stories” they shared. Single wing ended up taking half the instance space, and (in addition of dragon being too huge to see properly) this caused some heavy performance hit.

So, Tequatl flies, because he is a dragon – a flying creature. His wings are too small to realistically support him, because otherwise he’d be either too big for the game’s ability to properly represent, or his body would be too small to cause the effect they wanted. Just as with many other places, reality in this case got trumped by utility and Rule of Cool.

I’m giving 10 gold to whoever makes the 200th post. No joke.

Also, Star Wars technology is still more believable than Tequatl.

Actually Tequatl suffers from severe bloating and flatulence due to the enormous amount of bacteria inside its intestines (if you stay under its breath you know what I am talking about). If you watch Tequatl closely you will notice that its flatulence provides propulsion and allows it to fly, overcoming its excessive size and mass.

I can’t believe this topic exists.
The ‘unrealistic’ things in this game far outweigh the things that are ‘realistic’. How did the blocks float in Mario Bros? More importantly, who cares? Mario was never claiming to be based in reality and neither is GW2. Why would you come to a fantasy game, filled with dragons, magic, talking cats and where imagination is the only limit and look for ‘realism’? And even appear upset, not at the fact that its an undead dragon, in a fantasy world, being taken down by talking cats and munchkins, but that it can fly? That’s where the line is drawn? LOL
Since you were keeping score, it sounds to me that with your apparant lack of imagination, you are the one losing.

Other than magic, another explanation could be that in their world, gravity is lower. Which would also explain other things like being able to jump off many high cliffs unharmed.

MrRuin.9740:

I can’t believe this topic exists.
The ‘unrealistic’ things in this game far outweigh the things that are ‘realistic’. How did the blocks float in Mario Bros? More importantly, who cares? Mario was never claiming to be based in reality and neither is GW2. Why would you come to a fantasy game, filled with dragons, magic, talking cats and where imagination is the only limit and look for ‘realism’? And even appear upset, not at the fact that its an undead dragon, in a fantasy world, being taken down by talking cats and munchkins, but that it can fly? That’s where the line is drawn? LOL
Since you were keeping score, it sounds to me that with your apparant lack of imagination, you are the one losing.

Well actually I am winning because I still don’t see Tequatl having a keel anywhere in his body.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Also, Star Wars technology is still more believable than Tequatl.

Lifting a space ship out of a swamp just by using “The Force” is more believable?
I don’t think so.

Its just another kind of magic.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Well yes, because here’s the thing. Those things are normal magic. But Tequatl actually has wings and actually flaps his wings to fly, so I assume that he’s using his wings to fly, not magic. I don’t see him summon a magic carpet to fly or a broomstick, he clearly uses his physical (in game) wings to fly. The wings would never work, you have to admit that.

You know what they say about when you assume things…. something about kittens.

The reason those those wings look like they wouldn’t be able to fly is because you’re right, he can’t fly. But also, they aren’t really wings, they’re magic gravity appendages that don’t push Teq into the air, they force the entire planet down. How silly you look thinking he could fly…

Zok.4956:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Also, Star Wars technology is still more believable than Tequatl.

Lifting a space ship out of a swamp just by using “The Force” is more believable?
I don’t think so.

Its just another kind of magic.

it’s dark matter and that is most certainly not just a fantasy, we just call it differently.
also, he was talking about the technology, not the force.

Gibson.4036:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Tequatl is not normal everyday magic.

I’ve always hated normal, everyday magic. Kinda takes the wonder out if it.

I thought “normal, everyday magic” was with playing cards and pulling quarters out of ears.

Actually Tequatle operates under real Tyrian physics. In Tyria earth is lighter than air while in the presence of a strong magical field and over water. As a result of their undeath the dragons are constantly in a strong magical field and also count as and contain a large quantity of earth. Since the undead dragons tend to operate almost exclusively around large concentrations of water their mass is negated by this physical property of Tyria.

DragonflyDusk.6582:

Gibson.4036:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Tequatl is not normal everyday magic.

I’ve always hated normal, everyday magic. Kinda takes the wonder out if it.

I thought “normal, everyday magic” was with playing cards and pulling quarters out of ears.

No I meant floating rocks are normal everyday magic.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

DragonflyDusk.6582:

Gibson.4036:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Tequatl is not normal everyday magic.

I’ve always hated normal, everyday magic. Kinda takes the wonder out if it.

I thought “normal, everyday magic” was with playing cards and pulling quarters out of ears.

No I meant floating rocks are normal everyday magic.

Actually, based on what I just posted, yes he is.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Actually Tequatle operates under real Tyrian physics. In Tyria earth is lighter than air while in the presence of a strong magical field and over water. As a result of their undeath the dragons are constantly in a strong magical field and also count as and contain a large quantity of earth. Since the undead dragons tend to operate almost exclusively around large concentrations of water their mass is negated by this physical property of Tyria.

Do you have a source to backup these claims? Or are you just inventing this as you go?

MrRuin.9740:

Since you were keeping score, it sounds to me that with your apparant lack of imagination, you are the one losing.

Actually, the fact that we keep engaging his silliness, and the thread keeps going, is a kind of win for Dawnbreaker.

Still waiting for the answer on how DB goes about breaking dawn. Hope I didn’t miss it somewhere back in the last two pages.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Actually Tequatle operates under real Tyrian physics. In Tyria earth is lighter than air while in the presence of a strong magical field and over water. As a result of their undeath the dragons are constantly in a strong magical field and also count as and contain a large quantity of earth. Since the undead dragons tend to operate almost exclusively around large concentrations of water their mass is negated by this physical property of Tyria.

Do you have a source to backup these claims? Or are you just inventing this as you go?

Maybe someone can convince the Priory to set up some of their glowy technomagical widgets that they like to scatter about Tyria to collect data so we can find out.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

There is no way in hell something as big as Tequatl can fly.

Guys, I think we’ve been missing something very important in the OP.

We could have pointed out that Tequatl flies in Sparkfly Fen, not Hell, and avoided this whole three page thread.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

DragonflyDusk.6582:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Tequatl is not normal everyday magic.

I thought “normal, everyday magic” was with playing cards and pulling quarters out of ears.

No I meant floating rocks are normal everyday magic.

“I can’t believe its not butter” is still more believable than teq if you base it on earth.

It’s magic. You have a world where rocks will float, where human girls can shoot fire and lightning out of their hands while somehow not setting fire to buildings, where there are giant talking cats.

“Yea skyrim is host to giant firebreathing dragons and you’re surprised by me? Yes I’m talking and am continuing to do so… name’s Barbas”. Same idea.

It’s a world where little gray goblins inexplicably have advanced computers and stock tickers yet somehow haven’t advanced weapon tech beyond bows and arrows. This one always bothered me. Asuran military tech doesn’t advance beyond human sized robots. I’d like to say my asurans built an aircraft carrier with jets mounted with laser guided missiles because that tech is OLDER than the tech that they display in Rata Sum. Meanwhile the best i can do for a ride is a used 2007 golem with 88,000 miles on it and a weird rattling sound from the muffler.

This is world were the salad bar woke up and has an attitude to the point where it gets a hold of a drill and clears out the center of the harbor. A gigantic flying drill which is held up by propeller tech. This similar to how the Shield helicarrier is held up in the avengers. There was math done on it and the amount of air displaced by such a huge vessel would destroy anything beneath it. Scarlet wouldn’t have to drill into Lion’s Arch to destroy it. All she would have to do is fly over it and let the 300+mph winds off the drill’s propellers take care of it.

I’d think that Tyria magic is as common as electricity (Asurans even have reactors to generate it) so it stands to reason that a dragon who consumes magic, even a bone one, should be able to replace lift surface in his wings with magic force fields. Teq doesn’t have to be believable, he just has to be awesome. Coming ashore like Godzilla makes him awesome.

Gibson.4036:

MrRuin.9740:

Since you were keeping score, it sounds to me that with your apparant lack of imagination, you are the one losing.

Actually, the fact that we keep engaging his silliness, and the thread keeps going, is a kind of win for Dawnbreaker.

Still waiting for the answer on how DB goes about breaking dawn. Hope I didn’t miss it somewhere back in the last two pages.

Well it’s a very long story and I wish I had a board here to make a drawing for you, but I don’t, so I will have to use ascii instead. See, first you have to understand that I don’t break the dawn. I break way for the dawn. I make the dawn happen. That’s how my name is supposed to be understood.

Now, you see, you have to understand it this way. Think that this symbol is the sun’s rays: O, this symbol is me, a warrior with a sword: /, and this is the night wall: |

See, we are all on the surface of the planet, right? So the planet is rotating, and the sun rays are illuminating the part of the Earth which is turned to the Sun. But the problem is, there are night walls preventing the Earth from rotating, so I run around the earth breaking the walls for the dawn to arrive.

O —--> / —-—> |

There are 10 such night walls around the Earth, and each time one of them is aligned with the Sun, it locks the Earths rotation and I have to continue my journey around the Earth to break the next wall so as to unlock the Earth’s rotation and keep it spinning, allowing for the dawn to get to all the parts of the world. It is a very busy job.

I think this might have been confusing but you get the general idea I hope.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Actually Tequatle operates under real Tyrian physics. In Tyria earth is lighter than air while in the presence of a strong magical field and over water. As a result of their undeath the dragons are constantly in a strong magical field and also count as and contain a large quantity of earth. Since the undead dragons tend to operate almost exclusively around large concentrations of water their mass is negated by this physical property of Tyria.

Do you have a source to backup these claims? Or are you just inventing this as you go?

It isn’t specifically referenced, as far as I am aware, but is the result of observational data. Wherever you find a strong magical presence and water you find floating rocks. That is the primary reason they’re so prevalent in Maguuma. It’s a rain forest, so there is an excess of water and it is very highly magical thanks to the Sylvari and Asura presence as well as just regular background magic.

Putting all the facts together, you see a continuing pattern in which a fantastical phenomenon actually makes sense. This is the resulting theory for a natural law of this particular world. It really is just everyday magic, because in Tyria magic is commonplace.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Gibson.4036:

MrRuin.9740:

Since you were keeping score, it sounds to me that with your apparant lack of imagination, you are the one losing.

Actually, the fact that we keep engaging his silliness, and the thread keeps going, is a kind of win for Dawnbreaker.

Still waiting for the answer on how DB goes about breaking dawn. Hope I didn’t miss it somewhere back in the last two pages.

Well it’s a very long story and I wish I had a board here to make a drawing for you, but I don’t, so I will have to use ascii instead. See, first you have to understand that I don’t break the dawn. I break way for the dawn. I make the dawn happen. That’s how my name is supposed to be understood.

Now, you see, you have to understand it this way. Think that this symbol is the sun’s rays: O, this symbol is me, a warrior with a sword: /, and this is the night wall: |

See, we are all on the surface of the planet, right? So the planet is rotating, and the sun rays are illuminating the part of the Earth which is turned to the Sun. But the problem is, there are night walls preventing the Earth from rotating, so I run around the earth breaking the walls for the dawn to arrive.

O —--> / —-—> |

There are 10 such night walls around the Earth, and each time one of them is aligned with the Sun, it locks the Earths rotation and I have to continue my journey around the Earth to break the next wall so as to unlock the Earth’s rotation and keep it spinning, allowing for the dawn to get to all the parts of the world. It is a very busy job.

I think this might have been confusing but you get the general idea I hope.

Dude… what the absolute kitten? You’re going to put out this as an explanation of your name, but Tequatle is a problem for you? Seriously?

Dawnbreaker, do you realize you are playing a game with tons of magical and fantasy stuff? Using real life logic does not make sense compared to this nope. Teq can fly cause he is part of a fantasy game. Or can you run nonstop in real life as your toon can? Can you take waypoints or ress someone in real life?

Kal Spiro.9745:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Gibson.4036:

MrRuin.9740:

Since you were keeping score, it sounds to me that with your apparant lack of imagination, you are the one losing.

Actually, the fact that we keep engaging his silliness, and the thread keeps going, is a kind of win for Dawnbreaker.

Still waiting for the answer on how DB goes about breaking dawn. Hope I didn’t miss it somewhere back in the last two pages.

Well it’s a very long story and I wish I had a board here to make a drawing for you, but I don’t, so I will have to use ascii instead. See, first you have to understand that I don’t break the dawn. I break way for the dawn. I make the dawn happen. That’s how my name is supposed to be understood.

Now, you see, you have to understand it this way. Think that this symbol is the sun’s rays: O, this symbol is me, a warrior with a sword: /, and this is the night wall: |

See, we are all on the surface of the planet, right? So the planet is rotating, and the sun rays are illuminating the part of the Earth which is turned to the Sun. But the problem is, there are night walls preventing the Earth from rotating, so I run around the earth breaking the walls for the dawn to arrive.

O —--> / —-—> |

There are 10 such night walls around the Earth, and each time one of them is aligned with the Sun, it locks the Earths rotation and I have to continue my journey around the Earth to break the next wall so as to unlock the Earth’s rotation and keep it spinning, allowing for the dawn to get to all the parts of the world. It is a very busy job.

I think this might have been confusing but you get the general idea I hope.

Dude… what the absolute kitten? You’re going to put out this as an explanation of your name, but Tequatle is a problem for you? Seriously?

My story is more coherent.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Do you have a source to backup these claims? Or are you just inventing this as you go?

You mean like your definition of what constitutes “normal, everyday” magic?

Hmm, i don’t think Teq flaps his wings to fly. I think he just farts his way upward. Like others have said. Magical farts.

Chuck Norris. Magic farts. I have a feeling this thread will be closed soon due to derail

Dawnbreaker.6215:

My story is more coherent.

Your “story” is just proof that you’re trolling here.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

I think this might have been confusing but you get the general idea I hope.

No, thank you. It brings incredible clarity to this thread.

And I thank you for your work in making sure we get sunshine daily.

What?! Fantasy world with magic? I thought this game was LSD trip simulator.

Hence you have flying lizards, talking frogs, human-sized rats and other strange creatures that you meet while “adventuring”…

This is how, duh.

“Dragons are beings of magic.”

I’m gonna go with this. Now, setting aside the “it’s a fantasy setting, logic need not apply”, dragons (in this game) are magic. They can get away with more than most fantasy things.

I do NOT believe we can entirely discard logic; the setting needs to have its own internal logic that it will adhere to. In other words, “magic has rules”. At least a few. And GW2 does. Thing is, the more magic you pour into something, the more it can bend the “physical” rules. Elder Dragons eat magic for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A mass of vaguel draconic skeletons woven into a gigantic dragon form, for example, is the kind of stuff Zhaitan can get away with. His premier lieutenants can at least get away with flying.

In some fantasy games, there are spells that can be used to make the caster fly, no matter their size or shape. If nothing else, we can apply this to explain Teq.

“Drake: Another distant relative to dragons. Even less intelligent than wyverns. Generally wingless.”

In most settings, “drake” seems to be “young dragon”. “Wyrmling” is a term I don’t believe I’ve seen more than a handful of times, although “hatchling” is commonly used (but generally refers to complete infancy).

“’But there’s gravity in game just like in real life…’
NOT ANYMORE
Meet CHRONOMANCER "

That’s a mesmer. Mesmers don’t follow rules. Physics, nature, magic, reality…. mesmers tell them all to sit down and shut up. (And no, don’t say they follow the rules of fashion. They MAKE the rules of fashion.)

(to be continued)

“If GW2 had earth’s mechanics, then (even assuming you could still cast spells):”

All that, and you didn’t even mention the use of lightning spells underwater? For shame.

“Dragonflies wouldn’t be bigger than asura (since surface area:mass ratio would prevent them from having enough energy to survive).”

Bad example. Dragonflies can get pretty big. As it is, we’ve got ones with bodies a foot long, and prehistorically, we’ve evidence for ones that are presumed to have weighed over a pound (about .45 kg) and been the size of “a crow” (real helpful).

The inverse square law would kick in eventually, but they might be able to reach asuran size…. they’d probably have to eat asura, though.

“Gravity in Tyria is not universal but only comes into play when you are trying to make that last delicate jump to complete an annoying JP or Vista so it doesn’t effect Tequatl abilty to fly.”

Best post in thread. (Runner up: “I believe Tequatl can fly” song at end of page 1.)

“But then if Tequatl can fly anytime then why does it land at all? Couldn’t it just grab something really big with its mouth and drop it on the megalazer? Or on the crowd of players?…”

Magic takes energy. Magical energy, but still.

“It’s impossible to “break” the dawn. Please explain me your name.”

Possbly means salvaging the exotic greatsword, Dawn. I’m sure that’s very possible.

“For that matter, my mesmer makes a greatsword levitate and shoot a purple ray at things. I believe at the moment that is also impossible according to our understanding of physics.”

As I said: mesmers.

“It’s like living material but it has decayed.”

Birds are living material, and have different bone densities than other living material even of similar size. Many birds are considerably larger than mice. They can fly. Mice cannot.

(okay, this will take one more)

“The dragons and giant enemies are just fog banks, buildings, or parade floats, and this world has thousands of delusional Don Quixotes on their own adventures!”

Since someone else already brought xkcd into this: https://xkcd.com/556/

““The DeLorean cannot time travel because it’s made of low grade aluminum and not high conductive unobtanium which is used to time travel.””

The Flux Capacitor is what makes time travel possible! And, if you’re going to build a time machine out of a car, you may as well do it with some style.

“Why can I rub people’s toes to bring them back to life?”

You should move closer to them before hitting F. Corpses get more action than the people playing them.

“I can’t believe someone made a thread about this and it’s still on the first page and going on three pages long”

I can’t believe I was on the second page before noticing how old the posts I’m replying to are…. and it’s STILL on the front page!

“On the other hand, Larry Niven goes out of his way in his Gil Hamilton (and Magic Goes Away) stories to provide all the science (or magic) needed to solve mysteries long before the end of each tale.”

We’re skirting very close to Clarke’s 3rd, aren’t we?

“‘Floating rocks could use some wings, but they are fine like this.’
Science has yet to discover winged rocks.”

Science is slacking off. I demand winged rocks! DWAYNAAAAAAAAAAA!

“‘Tequatl is not normal everyday magic.’
I agree. Dragons are no David Blaine or Criss Angel.”

What ever happened to Harry Blackstone?

“Well actually I am winning because I still don’t see Tequatl having a keel anywhere in his body.”

Winning how? Ignoring all arguments about why it is theoretically possible in a magical setting doesn’t mean you’re winning.

Also, since when is a keel needed for flight? Owls don’t have keels. Bats don’t have keels. Eagles don’t, either. Dragonflies don’t. Bumblebees certainly don’t.

Besides. Ellen Kiel can’t fly, so having a “keel” (same pronunciation!) is no guarantee.

“Also, Star Wars technology is still more believable than Tequatl.”

Tequatl is magical, not technological, so obviously. But as they went on to mention the Force, I wonder if you find that as believable?

“it’s dark matter and that is most certainly not just a fantasy, we just call it differently.
also, he was talking about the technology, not the force.”

Doesn’t mean you can ignore the fact that someone levitated a crashed ship with the power of his mind.

“Do you have a source to backup these claims? Or are you just inventing this as you go?”

You have not yet proven that magic cannot imbue Tequatl with flight.

“Actually, the fact that we keep engaging his silliness, and the thread keeps going, is a kind of win for Dawnbreaker.
Still waiting for the answer on how DB goes about breaking dawn. Hope I didn’t miss it somewhere back in the last two pages.”

I just answered it today. He salvaged Dawn, breaking it into components. Hope it was worth the wait.

And yes, I realized half a page ago the point of this thread. Oh well.

" I have to continue my journey around the Earth to break the next wall so as to unlock the Earth’s rotation and keep it spinning, allowing for the dawn to get to all the parts of the world. It is a very busy job."

………..

And you have the gall to not believe Tequatl can fly!?

I believe someone once said “Do you have a source to backup these claims? Or are you just inventing this as you go?”

Also, I find your ascii diagram untenable. It’s clearly a straight line, when, as we all know, the surface of the Earth is curved. That diagram throws your coherence straight out.

I logged in just to post that I think this thread is great and very amusing and you guys gave me a good laugh. Keep the ball rolling lol…

Simply thinking about applying normal logic is great, produces laughs left and right.
IE: An Asuran Warrior swinging a toothpick and holding a poker chip, in comparison to a Charr or Norn of course. :P
The size and weight of some weapons, you’d swing yourself with it, which makes me think of the best scenarios.
Not being smashed by things that should logically flatten you with little effort, primarily applying to PvE, but the same can go for PvP. :P

Keep ‘er goin.’

No dragon in anything ever should be able to fly. The largest thing that ever could fly was a quetzalcoatlus. It was the size of a giraffe, and even that was an absolute marvel. It practically needed a runway to take off, had extremely fragile bones and very thin skin. It had to be very careful not to break itself. It was a terror of the skies, but ONLY because it could fly in a world where other predators were earthbound. (there were other flying pterasaurs, but they were small and ate mostly bugs or scavenged) If it had to ever fight something, it would break in half. But no one ever complains about the iron thick scales and monstrous size and ultra-muscular bulk of any other dragon. In literally anything ever.

Mourningcry.9428:

Obviously it’s magic… too bad it doesn’t extend to his feet…

How else would such a force be defeated from severe toe trauma?

just reading through these and this made me laugh ..

THERE is also the point that Shatterer NEVER looks to the right .. heck we pummel the heck out of him always from the right so shy doesn’t he just turn and smack us all one..

BOTTOM LINE you can’t make sense of a game where a person can conjure weapons and fireballs at will by real world standards (IF you think that people can do this in the real world I think it might be time for the nice men in white jackets to come get you)

Danikat.8537:

On Tyria it’s entirely possible some animals that look similar to earth tetrapods actually evolved to have 6 limbs.

Yup, considering the sheer amount of creatures in Tyria who have 4 limbs + wings (there are Gryphons, Harpies and Largos for example), this is likely the case! It’s likely due to the fact, magic exists and alters the physical environment that creatures evolved to be able to perform multiple tasks (such as movement and manipulation with their limbs) and has shown to be a continued useful trait: Harpies can fly and wield weapons, gryphons can glide through the air and pounce, Largos can manipulate their direction in more ways as well as wield weapons.

Why this isn’t existent on Earth is likely a better question. Surely a bat with wings on its back + limbs to manipulate objects is more effective. But it’s likely that it’s not efficient because extra limbs require more energy to be consumed. Since the only means of attaining energy is through consuming calories, it’s more biologically economical to dual-purpose your feet as extra hands or something.

But in Tyria, energy can be obtained through other means, for instance, the draw points of power the players can commune with. So a more interesting question (rather than the OP’s mocking scoreboard) would be what other means of energy consumption/acquisition/retention exists and what sort of effects does it have on the environment? Consider Giganticus Lupicus: is of an ancient race of now extinct creature. How the heck can its form still exist in this age without being mummified? Obviously, energy can be retained over long periods of time and likely forego the need to consume actual food or at the very least, gain more nutrition from food thus needing to consume food less often.

Some of the arguments in this post XD
Man sometimes i really just love the guild wars community.

“Aerodynamically, the bumble bee Tequatl shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumble bee Tequatl doesn’t know it so it goes on flying anyway.”
[Bookah] Mary Kay Ash

This question is like finding a bone in an egg…..

I like how all the assumptions made by the OP are automatically assuming Tyrian physics works the same as Earth physics, even though there’s mountains of evidence to the contrary.

I wonder why people keep mistaking a computer game for real life. Next they’ll be wondering why ArenaNet doesn’t force us to take our characters to use the toilet every hour or so.

“They have to go sometime, right?” <—- The logic of someone who does not understand what fantasy means.

Logically? He is a dragon, kitten happens. <3