Guild Wars 2

Hello Tyrians,

I was wondering where did the inspiration for the Mesmer start? Why are Mesmers ( Human Mesmers mostly), so into high fashion, the arts, and beauty? Who designed the concept, from the combat style, to the lore? Who had such a vision? Why the butterflies?

If anyone at Arena Net ( Cough Cough, Robert Gee) or anyone else could answer this post for me that would be great. I’am a huge fan of the Mesmer, and I’ve mained the profession since GW2 began!

-Purecura

Purecura.1795:

Hello Tyrians,

I was wondering where did the inspiration for the Mesmer start? Why are Mesmers ( Human Mesmers mostly), so into high fashion, the arts, and beauty? Who designed the concept, from the combat style, to the lore? Who had such a vision? Why the butterflies?

If anyone at Arena Net ( Cough Cough, Robert Gee) or anyone else could answer this post for me that would be great. I’am a huge fan of the Mesmer, and I’ve mained the profession since GW2 began!

-Purecura

Mesmers have been around since GW1.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mesmer
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mesmer

I’m not sure if there’s anything dedicated specifically to their lore.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/19/massively-talks-mesmer-our-exclusive-interview-with-guild-wars/

I think a lot of this is generalization.

But the butterfly inspiration would be interesting to hear about. It’s my favorite animation for my Mesmer. ^.^

This is just conjecture, but I look at it like this: The butterfly is both beautiful, and fragile. Just like the illusions that mesmers produce. Having the butterfly effect I think provides symbolism in this instance, as it literally is the perfect symbol for such a class.

CandyHearts.6025:

I think a lot of this is generalization.

But the butterfly inspiration would be interesting to hear about. It’s my favorite animation for my Mesmer. ^.^

I’ve seen people bring up the butterfly effect but I haven’t seen anything specifically from Anet.

I’m just going to throw in another reply in case an actual dev doesn’t answer. However, some of this is just speculation that I have heard before.

1. Mesmers have been associated with illusionary magic and deception since gw1, just not in the exact same way.

2. I heard somewhere that mesmer’s used to be associated with circuses. Perhaps this is because the circus is one of the best places to use illusionary magic to deceive people.

3. I don’t know why, but the devs decided to strongly tie one of the human gods to this class. Lyssa is the goddess of beauty, water, and illusion. She is also heavily associated with chaos. Lyssa’s association with illusion, chaos, and beauty may also be one of the reasons why mesmers are associated with fashion, art, and beauty.

In one story, she took on the appearance as a twisted women with a flesh eating disease, but it turned out to be Lyssa. Lyssa said, “True beauty is measured not by appearance but by actions and deeds. Many have eyes, but few have seen. Of all here, you saw the beauty behind the illusion. And you alone shall be blessed with My gifts.”

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lyssa

Is this where the first mesmers came from? What is Lyssa’s true appearance? No one knows. We have all heard the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Perhaps this makes it easy for mesmers to use beauty against people. In fact, many mesmers may use magic to change their appearance. One of them is Countess Anise. During the world summit, Canach said he wonders if she is “really as young” as she looks.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Countess_Anise
at the bottom

Mesmers may also naturally be very good at determining the presence of illusions, similar to how Sara determined that the plagued Lady was an illusion and was really Lyssa in the story I told you. One example of mesmers determining the presence of illusions is when the mesmer collective sent members to investigate the veil surrounding Viathan Lake that turned out to be the Tower of Nightmares.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mesmer_Collective

4. I have also heard before that they may use a butterfly to symbolize mesmers because of the so called “butterfly effect.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
This is depicted in many areas of pop culture. For example, in one of the treehouse of horror episodes of the Simpsons, Homer used a time machine to go back in time. However, he accidentally stepped on a mosquito. When he returned, Flanders was dictator of the whole world. This was a parody of the story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury. In chaos theory, the butterfly effect basically states that small changes now can lead to very, very large differences in the future. For example, the detailed path of a Hurricane may have changed because earlier a butterfly was flapping its wings at a distant location.

Therefore, the use of a butterfly as a symbol may tie into the mesmer’s association with both chaos and beauty. Stories using the butterfly effect like “A Sound of Thunder” also sets up the class specialization nicely for its role in controlling time.

Items that associate Lyssa with chaos or mesmers include
Chaos of Lyssa
The pistols Ilya and Lyss
and Runes of Lyssa

I think the Mesmer worships Lyssa, the goddess of Beauty and Illusion.

Butterflies are often associated with the psyche/the soul as well as transformation. I always felt this tied in nicely with the Mesmer lore.

Ah yes, an ugly caterpillar transforming into a beautiful butterfly, just like Lyssa. I never thought of that.

Oh ya, but also forgot to mention that Chaos once said he heard that Robert Gee worked on the mesmer in gw1 as well. However, the original mesmer was more than likely a group effort with ideas coming from many people. However, none the less, it was still genius.

Xstein.2187:

I’m just going to throw in another reply in case an actual dev doesn’t answer. However, some of this is just speculation that I have heard before.

1. Mesmers have been associated with illusionary magic and deception since gw1, just not in the exact same way.

2. I heard somewhere that mesmer’s used to be associated with circuses. Perhaps this is because the circus is one of the best places to use illusionary magic to deceive people.

3. I don’t know why, but the devs decided to strongly tie one of the human gods to this class. Lyssa is the goddess of beauty, water, and illusion. She is also heavily associated with chaos. Lyssa’s association with illusion, chaos, and beauty may also be one of the reasons why mesmers are associated with fashion, art, and beauty.

In one story, she took on the appearance as a twisted women with a flesh eating disease, but it turned out to be Lyssa. Lyssa said, “True beauty is measured not by appearance but by actions and deeds. Many have eyes, but few have seen. Of all here, you saw the beauty behind the illusion. And you alone shall be blessed with My gifts.”

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lyssa

Is this where the first mesmers came from? What is Lyssa’s true appearance? No one knows. We have all heard the saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Perhaps this makes it easy for mesmers to use beauty against people. In fact, many mesmers may use magic to change their appearance. One of them is Countess Anise. During the world summit, Canach said he wonders if she is “really as young” as she looks.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Countess_Anise
at the bottom

Mesmers may also naturally be very good at determining the presence of illusions, similar to how Sara determined that the plagued Lady was an illusion and was really Lyssa in the story I told you. One example of mesmers determining the presence of illusions is when the mesmer collective sent members to investigate the veil surrounding Viathan Lake that turned out to be the Tower of Nightmares.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mesmer_Collective

4. I have also heard before that they may use a butterfly to symbolize mesmers because of the so called “butterfly effect.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
This is depicted in many areas of pop culture. For example, in one of the treehouse of horror episodes of the Simpsons, Homer used a time machine to go back in time. However, he accidentally stepped on a mosquito. When he returned, Flanders was dictator of the whole world. This was a parody of the story “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury. In chaos theory, the butterfly effect basically states that small changes now can lead to very, very large differences in the future. For example, the detailed path of a Hurricane may have changed because earlier a butterfly was flapping its wings at a distant location.

Therefore, the use of a butterfly as a symbol may tie into the mesmer’s association with both chaos and beauty. Stories using the butterfly effect like “A Sound of Thunder” also sets up the class specialization nicely for its role in controlling time.

Items that associate Lyssa with chaos or mesmers include
Chaos of Lyssa
The pistols Ilya and Lyss
and Runes of Lyssa

Very informative, while I’am highly knowledgeable on the LORE of the Mesmer profession, my main thing is why the class was created, and why it is the way it is in regard to its interest in beauty, illusions, etc. I hope we can get a DEV to answer this question.

Well, in GW1 it had a unique purpose as a “mind games” style caster rather than a more straightforward nuker. The high fashion and all that stems from the original mesmers all being more performance artists than researchers or warriors. GW1 mesmers were all about illusions, but also mental effects, the ability to interrupt skills, and basically do other psychic nastiness. The mesmer skill pool had an effective set of tools to completely lock down any other character if they built for it, but due to the way GW1 was designed they couldn’t build to lock down all types of characters at the same time.

Since they removed so much of the complexity from the combat system, but felt mesmer was unique to the world they wanted to keep the core theme of mesmers as alluring mind games casters with a side of chaos, so they invented the clone mechanic since they decided to make an easier game with less fulfilling and challenging combat. Along with the illusion theme, they felt it appropriate to continue to portray the class as that sort of aristocratic high stage magician.

As for the butterflies, they come from some iconic mesmer hexes in the first game like pacifism that basically did what cofusion does, only more directed and a lot more painful (e.g. a curse that only hurts you when you make physical attacks, a curse that only hurts you when you cast spells, etc.) and I’m guessing they felt it was pretty on theme for mesmers to keep the pink/purple theme that the old curse icons had since pink is a “pretty” color and would contrast well against the other skill effects.

Kind of related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TczkHagUW3k

Are you looking for why the GW1 or GW2 version was created?

Xstein.2187:

3. I don’t know why, but the devs decided to strongly tie one of the human gods to this class. Lyssa is the goddess of beauty, water, and illusion. She is also heavily associated with chaos. Lyssa’s association with illusion, chaos, and beauty may also be one of the reasons why mesmers are associated with fashion, art, and beauty.

Almost all of the core GW1 professions were linked to one of the “original” Five Gods:

• Warriors to Balthazar

• Rangers to Melandru

• Monks to Dwayna

• Necromancers to Grenth

• Mesmers to Lyssa

Mesmers were linked to Chaos magic in the original Guild Wars since it was one of the few kinds of damage that were not reduced by armor, and most of the mesmer skills that did damage ignored armor.

The link to butterflies started when one of the Mesmers’ core and one of their most iconic skills, Soothing Images, had butterflies in its animation, as may be seen here.

For the design decisions behind the mesmer, well, you would have to look for the interviews predating the release of the original Guild Wars, which means before 2005. I wouldn’t be surprised if the original Mesmer designers weren’t even working at ArenaNet anymore today.

Mesmers are into the arts and stuff because of Lyssa, who was the patron goddess of Beauty and illusions, and arguably sparked the first mesmers. Also, historically mesmers are usually noble humans, so…. (the other races having mesmers because of mechanics, lore-wise it doesn’t really “fit” into their lore)

the butterflies, well….I’m not sure. flare? fragile and pretty.

Also, I believe Lyssa is the patron god of Actors in the Guild Wars setting. So many of the greatest mesmers were entertainers, and very fashion oriented.

We’re playboy duelists who have a passion for fashion and flair.

Also, we’re named after Mesmerism, which is derived from Franz Mesmer who theorized animal magnetism. His secondary passion for astronomy may also have a connection to GW2’s Mesmer and its ability to manipulate space and time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer

As for butterflies, the designer of the profession may have researched Project MONARCH: a supposed CIA program, which involved mind control.

Some believe butterflies also symbolize metamorphosis and mimicry:

http://www.magicoflife.org/symbol.html

“The Greeks likened the butterfly’s constant flitting from flower to flower to the restlessness of the mind: constantly changing from subject to subject. Indeed, the Greek word for butterfly is ‘psyche’ from where we get our word ‘psychology’ – the study of the mind.”

I love the whole glkittentering pink buterflies concept. I dont really like magic corientes classes but mesmer is so pretty and fun to play

Makai.3429:

Also, we’re named after Mesmerism, which is derived from Franz Mesmer who theorized animal magnetism. His secondary passion for astronomy may also have a connection to GW2’s Mesmer and its ability to manipulate space and time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer

As for butterflies, the designer of the profession may have researched Project MONARCH: a supposed CIA program, which involved mind control.

Some believe butterflies also symbolize metamorphosis and mimicry:

http://www.magicoflife.org/symbol.html

“The Greeks likened the butterfly’s constant flitting from flower to flower to the restlessness of the mind: constantly changing from subject to subject. Indeed, the Greek word for butterfly is ‘psyche’ from where we get our word ‘psychology’ – the study of the mind.”

Right on there, the Mesmer name was very deliberately chosen for it’s link to mesmerism and by extension hypnosis and the mental manipulation that comes with such things.

I didn’t know that about the butterflies but that does seem like one of the strongest links I’ve seen for that symbolism.

As for the style choices of mesmer it mainly comes from a few different sources, first and foremost is actors and theaters. The very first mesmer you could meet in all of Guild Wars was Lady Althea, who could be found near her own theater just outside of Ascalon City. The second major style mesmers have is the masquerade mask, in GW2 these masks are just generic light armor headpieces but in GW1 they were exclusive to the mesmer. Both of these fashions are very heavily tied to the idea and practice of illusions, deceptions, and false realities.

The answer in a nutshell.

Magician + purple everything = mesmer!

CandyHearts.6025:

I think a lot of this is generalization.

But the butterfly inspiration would be interesting to hear about. It’s my favorite animation for my Mesmer. ^.^

The butterflies came from a Hex in GW1 called Soothing Images, it stopped those affected gaining Adrenaline. Butterflies are too pretty to get angry over.

There are 4 schools of magic in the Guild Wars universe, aggression, destruction, preservation, and denial.

The Mesmer was created to fill the “denial” school. The whole point of the Mesmer isn’t to deal damage to the enemy; it’s to thwart their plans, wreck their combinations, weaken their warriors, and deny them their spellcasting ability. The Mesmer is playing mind tricks and confusing the enemies as an “illusionist” or “magician”.

The Mesmers in GW1 didn’t have clones and phantasms, instead they focused on denial skills, messing with the opponent’s plan. Their skills had a purple hue, all professions had a different color for their skills.

The play style of the GW2 Mesmer was created for Minister Reiko, the final released boss in GW1, who used skills very similar to a GW2 Mesmer. If I recall the last episode of Wings of Change (with Reiko as the final boss) was released during the Mesmer reveal for GW2. In other words Reiko was supposed to give a taste to players of how GW2 mesmers will play like. Of course she was much more awesome than any GW2 mesmer.

An interesting bit from the GW1 wiki:

During early concept development, Mesmers were called Sorcerers.

Mesmers aka illusionists have been a Dungeons and Dragons class specialization for literally decades, with many terms straight up taken/borrowed (as far back as the mid 1970s)

There isn’t much uniqueness going on except for the purple color and butterflies

Scientia.8924:

Mesmers aka illusionists have been a Dungeons and Dragons class specialization for literally decades, with many terms straight up taken/borrowed (as far back as the mid 1970s)

There isn’t much uniqueness going on except for the purple color and butterflies

This is true. I played as an illusionist in Everquest 2 and an Enchanter in Ever Quest 1. But its so rare to see classes like that in MMOs nowadays. Difference with the mesmer is that, they have a emphasis on loving the arts and fashion. Other illusionist classes didnt really focus on that.

Well assuming if you played GW from the very start or not, before 2 and the expansion (Faction and Nightfall), there were only six professions-

Warrior
Monk
Necromancer
Elementalist
Ranger
Mesmer

Since this was during the trinity era, you can pretty much tell what each professions did in the game however Mesmer was the most unquie in the game. Warrior melee, Monk heal and etc but for Mesmer, they interrupt enemy skill and did damager for it aswell.

Even then isn’t Mesmer is short for the word “Mesmerising” which means-

verb (used with object), mesmerized, mesmerizing.
1. to hypnotize.
2. to spellbind; fascinate.
3. to compel by fascination.

Ok sure in the game, they don’t hypnotize but the word does related to visual and Mesmer can make illusions.

Renkencen.6127:

Well assuming if you played GW from the very start or not, before 2 and the expansion (Faction and Nightfall), there were only six professions-

Warrior
Monk
Necromancer
Elementalist
Ranger
Mesmer

Since this was during the trinity era, you can pretty much tell what each professions did in the game however Mesmer was the most unquie in the game. Warrior melee, Monk heal and etc but for Mesmer, they interrupt enemy skill and did damager for it aswell.

Even then isn’t Mesmer is short for the word “Mesmerising” which means-

verb (used with object), mesmerized, mesmerizing.
1. to hypnotize.
2. to spellbind; fascinate.
3. to compel by fascination.

Ok sure in the game, they don’t hypnotize but the word does related to visual and Mesmer can make illusions.

Well they do hypnotize in a way… I think lol.

Photobucket.

Renkencen.6127:

Ok sure in the game, they don’t hypnotize but the word does related to visual and Mesmer can make illusions.

I’d argue that non-physical interrupts and slow count as temporary hypnosis.