Check it here: http://strawpoll.me/1490897
This topic has been around for a long time, but I haven’t seen any polls on it yet. As seen by the Flamekissed incident, people take it very seriously, some hating on the current situation and others hating on it changing to a free for all.
Some people were asking for limitations on buying the armor, like requiring a lvl 80 character of the original race to be able to buy the armors, so I’ve included that option in the poll, too.
I think it’s an interesting debate now that the wardrobe is about to be released, and it could be a good gold sink. Right now pretty much no one can’t use all of the armors there (No one has 15 characters, 3 of each race of each weight).
However, for some people that’s the point, that it isn’t used too much (No matter you’ll end up seeing lot of players of your race wearing it, so I would argue if it’s prestigious anymore, like legendaries who lost it long ago).
Cultural armor galleries for reference:
(Click on the galleries of each weight to see all of them, there’s 9 armors unique to each race)
Edit: Changed the link so it goes directly to the poll and not the reddit post. Reddit post here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/22x41w/poll_cultural_armor_and_availability/ for those interested.
(edited by Lonami.2987)
I don’t think the issue with Flamekissed was that cultural was available to all. The issue was it was an “improved” (subjective) version of Human T3, for cheaper & usable to all. If every cultural armor was usable by every race, sure it loses its “cultural” nature, but nobody would be feeling cheated.
I’d like Asura T3 for my Human Warrior, but not something I ever expect.
(No one has 15 characters, 3 of each race of each weight).
Yes they do.
The issue was it was an “improved” (subjective) version of Human T3, for cheaper & usable to all.
Exactly. I wouldn’t mind having cultural armor available to each and every race. After all it’s CULTURAL armor, and NOT RACIAL armor.
(No one has 15 characters, 3 of each race of each weight).
orly? I have 17 characters.
The issue was it was an “improved” (subjective) version of Human T3, for cheaper & usable to all.
Exactly. I wouldn’t mind having cultural armor available to each and every race. After all it’s CULTURAL armor, and NOT RACIAL armor.
(No one has 15 characters, 3 of each race of each weight).
orly? I have 17 characters.
Lol yes. You´re really trying to tell me that an Asuran Ele can be part of a Blood Legion Warband CULTURE?
Seriously? There are reasons why those are called Cultural, because it does mean that it is separated to the cultures available in each race. And if you check for the names, they give pretty much of a cultural name for each of those groups.
The issue was it was an “improved” (subjective) version of Human T3, for cheaper & usable to all.
Exactly. I wouldn’t mind having cultural armor available to each and every race. After all it’s CULTURAL armor, and NOT RACIAL armor.
(No one has 15 characters, 3 of each race of each weight).
orly? I have 17 characters.
Lol yes. You´re really trying to tell me that an Asuran Ele can be part of a Blood Legion Warband CULTURE?
Seriously? There are reasons why those are called Cultural, because it does mean that it is separated to the cultures available in each race. And if you check for the names, they give pretty much of a cultural name for each of those groups.
Councillor Flax head of the Asura goverment and Captain Shud (asura) member of the captains council wear human cultural armor. Your argument is invalid.
There’s also a human mother in Gandarren Fields who raises a Norn, Asura and Charr kid. They are from another race, yet are raised in human culture. Why should they be denied to wear human cultural gear?
I think the “cultural” part is that it represents a specific culture, not that it should be usable by those only. You can look at, for example, Norn Stag armor and see that is represents a Norn’s culture.
Why would the Norn insist “We will only make this to fit Norn” when the armorsmiths would become rich by diversifying their potential customers just by offering to fit to other races too.
I don’t care about the lore at all, there’s just too much silliness in the game to take things like that seriously. I do like dressing my ’toons up though, it would be great if all armour sets were available to everyone.
Not as a free-for-all, mind you. There should be some fairly rigorous grinding for some form of reputation points in order to make that stuff available. That way when you see a Human or Sylvari in Asuran gear it’s like ‘kitten , that guy is hardcore.’
I think the “cultural” part is that it represents a specific culture, not that it should be usable by those only. You can look at, for example, Norn Stag armor and see that is represents a Norn’s culture.
Why would the Norn insist “We will only make this to fit Norn” when the armorsmiths would become rich by diversifying their potential customers just by offering to fit to other races too.
Not to mention that several dungeon armors are also made according to a specific culture:
Caudacus Manor and Orrian armors belong to the human culture.
Crucible of Eternity armor belongs to the Asura culture.
The list goes on
Yet anyone can wear them.
Not as a free-for-all, mind you. There should be some fairly rigorous grinding for some form of reputation points in order to make that stuff available. That way when you see a Human or Sylvari in Asuran gear it’s like ‘kitten , that guy is hardcore.’
As long as it doesn’t involve crafting or the mystic forge..
Why get rid of the only thing that actually makes Races unique? Why get rid of the last shred of lore based game play people can actually have. I like that my characters are all different with their individual cultural pieces that set them apart from other races. It’s the only reason to have multiple races, to make them all unique in their own right.
I never thought of it that way. You do make a good point. However, it’s because there’s not really a whole lot going on in GW2. We just want more stuff to do, basically. Ever notice how this game’s main forum is mainly players complaining or coming up with ideas and suggestions, rather than discussing the game itself?
Why get rid of the only thing that actually makes Races unique? Why get rid of the last shred of lore based game play people can actually have. I like that my characters are all different with their individual cultural pieces that set them apart from other races. It’s the only reason to have multiple races, to make them all unique in their own right.
Visual appearance, personal story, flavor text and racial skills.
But let’s keep on “cultural” armor and lore. The Asura and Sylvari design make sense, same for the Norn.
But Humans ? Aside from being dressed like the Seraph, the other sets have nothing “cultural” about them.
And Charr are the worse…did you see a a GW1 charr ? Where is the link betwen this or this and their cultural armor… The Charr cultural armor would fit other races better…
The issue was it was an “improved” (subjective) version of Human T3, for cheaper & usable to all.
Exactly. I wouldn’t mind having cultural armor available to each and every race. After all it’s CULTURAL armor, and NOT RACIAL armor.
(No one has 15 characters, 3 of each race of each weight).
orly? I have 17 characters.
Lol yes. You´re really trying to tell me that an Asuran Ele can be part of a Blood Legion Warband CULTURE?
Seriously? There are reasons why those are called Cultural, because it does mean that it is separated to the cultures available in each race. And if you check for the names, they give pretty much of a cultural name for each of those groups.
Councillor Flax head of the Asura goverment and Captain Shud (asura) member of the captains council wear human cultural armor. Your argument is invalid.
There’s also a human mother in Gandarren Fields who raises a Norn, Asura and Charr kid. They are from another race, yet are raised in human culture. Why should they be denied to wear human cultural gear?
Non
Playable
Character.
You cannot take the actions applied to NPCs and apply them to players. Most of the armor has cultural distinctions, but some of them DO have racial distinctions. Sylvari for example. They arent wearing anything. ALL Sylvari cultural armor is the literal extension of the Sylvari’s body. They grow the armor. None of the other 4 races can “grow” their armor on their bodies. A sylvari walking around in cultural armor is quite literally walking around naked. Sure it’s not like you see nipples and crotches, but what they “wear” is a physical part of their body.
cultural armour, should stay cultural…or it will no longer matter ‘where’ that armour came from or that it’s “cultural”.
How is Charr armor cultural ? In GW1 no Charr wore anything close to that.
How is Charr armor cultural ? In GW1 no Charr wore anything close to that.
Dont compare the 2 games. Disregarding appearances character-wise, there is actually a massive chunk of time between the settings for GW1 and GW2. Society and Culture can evolve in the matter of decades (look at US history), let alone what can happen a decade or two in the future.
The issue was it was an “improved” (subjective) version of Human T3, for cheaper & usable to all.
Exactly. I wouldn’t mind having cultural armor available to each and every race. After all it’s CULTURAL armor, and NOT RACIAL armor.
(No one has 15 characters, 3 of each race of each weight).
orly? I have 17 characters.
Lol yes. You´re really trying to tell me that an Asuran Ele can be part of a Blood Legion Warband CULTURE?
Seriously? There are reasons why those are called Cultural, because it does mean that it is separated to the cultures available in each race. And if you check for the names, they give pretty much of a cultural name for each of those groups.
Councillor Flax head of the Asura goverment and Captain Shud (asura) member of the captains council wear human cultural armor. Your argument is invalid.
There’s also a human mother in Gandarren Fields who raises a Norn, Asura and Charr kid. They are from another race, yet are raised in human culture. Why should they be denied to wear human cultural gear?
Non
Playable
Character.You cannot take the actions applied to NPCs and apply them to players. Most of the armor has cultural distinctions, but some of them DO have racial distinctions. Sylvari for example. They arent wearing anything. ALL Sylvari cultural armor is the literal extension of the Sylvari’s body. They grow the armor. None of the other 4 races can “grow” their armor on their bodies. A sylvari walking around in cultural armor is quite literally walking around naked. Sure it’s not like you see nipples and crotches, but what they “wear” is a physical part of their body.
So people can use lore reasons against cultural armor being available to everyone, but I can’t use lore reasons to support this?
My argument stands.
Also when it comes to sylvari armor, it shouldn’t be too hard for a sylvari blacksmith to make adjustments to their armor. After all, members of every race can wear Twilight Arbor armor as well.
You cannot take the actions applied to NPCs and apply them to players.
As long as people keep being against this because of lore reasons, I can.
npc’s wearing cultural gear of other races and npc’s being raised by another culture shows that cultural gear being available to more than one race is lore friendly.
cultural armour, should stay cultural…or it will no longer matter ‘where’ that armour came from or that it’s “cultural”.
And no matter who wears it, it will always stay cultural.
Because it’s cultural, not racial.
(edited by Windu The Forbidden One.6045)
How is Charr armor cultural ? In GW1 no Charr wore anything close to that.
Dont compare the 2 games. Disregarding appearances character-wise, there is actually a massive chunk of time between the settings for GW1 and GW2. Society and Culture can evolve in the matter of decades (look at US history), let alone what can happen a decade or two in the future.
Then tell me what makes Charr armor unique to Charr, and while you are at it, same question for human armor (except the heavy T3 which is obvious). The only reason I’m not asking this for Norn and Asura is because they do have a unique way to design armor, which by the way is possible to find similarities in GW1.
But I really don’t get where the inspiration for this : http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/7/75/Archon_armor_light_charr_both_front.jpg came from.
Councillor Flax head of the Asura goverment and Captain Shud (asura) member of the captains council wear human cultural armor. Your argument is invalid.
There’s also a human mother in Gandarren Fields who raises a Norn, Asura and Charr kid. They are from another race, yet are raised in human culture. Why should they be denied to wear human cultural gear?
There’s also a sylvari raising a Norn, charr, and Skritt child, in a norn lodge of all places. And Sylvari can’t even have kids. There’s a human missionary of the six gods in Hoelbrak, a human delegation, and one Charr merchant. There are frequent non-sylvari visitors to the grove, as well as sylvari travelers to… everywhere. And Rata Sum made the gate system to trade and travel with every other major city and race. In fact the black citadel is really the only one with no cultural mixing, and that is because, so far as the games storyline goes, the cease-fire with humankind happened just before the start of the story.
(edited by Conncept.7638)
Trying to find lore reasons to be against cultural armor being available for everyone is kinda dumb if you ask me.
So, when we loot Twilight Arbor, we find armor anyone can wear. Looted sylvari-specific armor can be used by any race, even charr. Then we get to The Grove and surprise! Armor crafted there can be used by sylvari only. Same for Sorrow’s Embrace armor, norn can wear that when it’s asura-only?
And same for all the other dungeon armor. We steal it from specific races, but everyone can wear it. And then when we get to blacksmiths that produce the armor, meaning they should be able to produce it the size they want… Nope, only one race. Maybe looted armor is magic and adapts to the body of the looter. No idea.
So yeah, don’t use lore against “free for all” cultural armor.
I kind of like what someone said here, that it isn’t ‘Racial’ Armor but ‘Cultural’ armor. Cultures can be integrated into and shared.
So… how would one make a culture available in terms of armor without hampering the uniqueness and individuality of certain races?
Simple… maybe just maybe, they should make something along the lines of “Ambassador” armor? An armor set for each weight class, that can be worn by all the races, but is in the same design theme as the cultural sets for each race.
So like, the Norn Ambassador set might be a fur and wintercoat, or hunter based armor that any race can wear. (Something like Braham’s set?) This would preserve the unique cultural armor and keep it ‘special’ but also give people a chance to explore different racial ‘cultures’ with their characters. I for one would love this, my human in norn style armor which I have always loved but wanted on a differently proportioned character.
What do you guys think? It could even tie in with a living story style update, where a big festival is held to celebrate union in Tyria, and the armor’s are unveiled one by one in the Event as a gift from each race’s higher ups to the effort of working together?
No on integration, I like having a set of armor for each race to be proud of, it gives a real sense of culture to each races and adds depth to the game. Moreover, it does make sense for there to be char Seraph, does it? So why would they be granted Seraph armor? Cultural armor is like the armor of each nations army, and that is not something they give freely to their own people, not to mention other races. So to change that would break immersion. Leave it as it is.
No on integration, I like having a set of armor for each race to be proud of, it gives a real sense of culture to each races and adds depth to the game. Moreover, it does make sense for there to be char Seraph, does it? So why would they be granted Seraph armor? Cultural armor is like the armor of each nations army, and that is not something they give freely to their own people, not to mention other races. So to change that would break immersion. Leave it as it is.
My human toons are not members of the Seraph either, yet they can still wear Seraph armor. That also doesn’t makes sense.
Story and gameplay segration my friend.
No on integration, I like having a set of armor for each race to be proud of, it gives a real sense of culture to each races and adds depth to the game.
At last, someone with a good and valid reason against having cultural armor being available for every race.
I still want cultural armor to be available for each race, but at least that’s a good reason not to have it. Unlike those lore reasons.
(edited by Windu The Forbidden One.6045)
Also when it comes to sylvari armor, it shouldn’t be too hard for a sylvari blacksmith to make adjustments to their armor. After all, members of every race can wear Twilight Arbor armor as well.
There’s a difference between armor that’s made like that you can get in Twilight Arbor, and armor that is grown by your character out of their body. The TA armor is what’s made, and if you look at it on any race other than a Sylvari, TA armor looks no different than any other armor. Cultural armor is grown, and when you pay the price to “buy” the piece of cultural armor, you’re merely paying how to “learn” to grow said piece of armor.
As interesting as it would be to the Inquest to see a charr growing plants out of their flesh, it’s unlikely to ever happen because it’s illogical, pure and simple.
Also when it comes to sylvari armor, it shouldn’t be too hard for a sylvari blacksmith to make adjustments to their armor. After all, members of every race can wear Twilight Arbor armor as well.
There’s a difference between armor that’s made like that you can get in Twilight Arbor, and armor that is grown by your character out of their body. The TA armor is what’s made, and if you look at it on any race other than a Sylvari, TA armor looks no different than any other armor. Cultural armor is grown, and when you pay the price to “buy” the piece of cultural armor, you’re merely paying how to “learn” to grow said piece of armor.
As interesting as it would be to the Inquest to see a charr growing plants out of their flesh, it’s unlikely to ever happen because it’s illogical, pure and simple.
That why I said blacksmiths can easily change to armor in such a way everyone can wear it. Or use their materials to create armor that looks just like silvary cultural armor. Just like Twilight Arbor armor. It’s not rocket science you know.
cultural armour was best when you could work around and put it on any other race but they’d be naked XD (literally naked! no underwear!)
I am not opposed to releasing the restrictions cultural armor currently have. I wouldn’t mind a reason behind it either, something like a rep building track.
As far as the restriction goes, I don’t even want weight restrictions, so of course I want more options when “skinning” my characters.
Armor isn’t what makes me feel like I’m playing that race, simply walking around as said race does. Cultural armor isn’t the only armor in the game. Am I supposed to be less Norn because I’m in Ascalonian armor or Whisper’s of Secrets armor (of which I may or may not be a whispers agent) when standing next to a Norn in T3?
Cultural Weapons don’t have the same restrictions, why must the armor? I’m thinking it probably had more to do with issues on the technical side than for lore reasons. Things probably weren’t complete for each item per race.
The only restrictions I’m for are having particular skins bound to certain content like the fractal weapon skins and dungeon armor. I’d take wvw only skins and will take spvp only skins which has been a long time coming.
I would definitely like this to happen. I feel the problem with flamekissed armor, as mentioned before, is that it only “devalued” one particular cultural set. If every race could use other cultural armors…that would be amazing. Would definitely make me enjoy this game a bit more than I do.
My human toons are not members of the Seraph either, yet they can still wear Seraph armor. That also doesn’t makes sense.
I disagree, it may not be stated directly, but if human characters are not a full-fledged seraph, than they are at least honorary ones, for at the beginning, you take orders from and go on missions for Logan, at times fighting with a full regiment of seraph as if they are your own men/comrades. So at the very least for your services to the crown -if not actual employment to- you are judged worthy to wear the armor.
At last, someone with a good and valid reason… unlike those lore reasons.
Once again, I have to disagree, for lore is a very good reason. In fact, my three reasons that you so happen to approve of: that they are the uniform of the army, and thus are rarely given to civilians, forget outsiders; they are something for each race to be proud of; and they define and deepen each culture; are all lore reasons.
Cultural armor is like the armor of each nations army, and that is not something they give freely to their own people, not to mention other races. So to change that would break immersion. Leave it as it is.
Thing is, cultural armor isn’t such a standard uniform. Across each race, yes it’s worn by a lot of them, but some members also wear mixes of other armor, such as a Charr wearing Ascalonian pants. Plus T3 barely makes sense : aside from the set which is worn by the DE representative, the 2 other weights are sometime randomly distributed, such as an Iron Legion Soldier wearing medium T3.
It’s even worse for Humans. The seraph is either wearing T3, gladiator or CM… Shining blades are wearing Banded armor. Right now, I can’t even recall any human NPC wearing light T2 and T3, any medium and heavy T1 and T2. I’m sure there’s at least one example, but my mind is a total blank.
for at the beginning, you take orders from and go on missions for Logan,
At one point, Logan outright states he cannot order you to do anything because you are not one of his Seraph, so he asks you. (I forgot which mission though).
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