Guild Wars 2

Several of my guildies and I have been discussing the weapon skins available to us, as of late, and after weeks of talking about it, the final verdict we’ve come down to is that we want more simple weapons.

Don’t get me wrong, the Black Lion Weapons are gorgeous. I loved the Dwayna and Balthazar weapons, and even some of the lesser used sets, like the Mordrem and Ley-Line Weapons are very interesting conceptually, but in the end, they feel very gimmicky. They have neat effects, cool glows, smoke coming off the handles, tassels flailing about, but what I’d really prefer are simple but elegant weapons.

We’ve already gotten a couple: Bonetti’s Rapier, Lord Faren’s Rapier, and praise the gods, the Gallant weapons set, but despite this, it feels, for the most part, that weapons can be divided into:

1) Crude/Rugged looking, like the Old Ascalonian Weapons, the majority of Level 80 Rare weapons, and almost all craftable weapons. These weapons look functional, but are often rusty, rugged, or old looking.

2) Fantastical Weapons, like the Pact and Orders of Tyria weapon sets, which look nice, but for the most part are just that, Fantastical. They don’t feel like a real weapon, but like a fantasy weapon, and of course.

3) The Glowy Weapons. I don’t think I need to list these. They are weapons with various glowing and particle effects, some of which are nice, some of which are kinda weird (Looking at you Scelerite Weapons), but are usually defined by their glow and particle effects.

What I’d like to see are weapons that are simple but elegant. Things like an officer’s saber sword skin, or our personal favorite a battle-axe hammer skin. The most difficult idea we had, but one of the best, is a crossbow pistol/rifle skin.

What do you think? What kind of weapons would you like to see? Do you think the number and designs of weapons we have now are good enough?

I’m glad more people have noticed this.

For me, this is by far the biggest and most negative visual change from Guild Wars 1, where only very few items are glowy (chaos gloves, axe, stormbows, fellblade being the few) to GW2 where 90% of the players dress like OTT Christmas trees.

I for one would like to see more racial themed weapons building on the existing factions. Actual believable armor and weapons, not rainbow vomiting light sticks surrounded by disembodied floating crystals (Anet seems obsessed by these for some reason)

In a way gemstores sales and NCsoft are to blame for a culture of wanting to include anything and everything in order to satisfy mainstream tastes, whether or not it has anything to do with the lore, this is also a commonly disgusting practice across Korean MMOs. But in doing so I feel that Anet is currently running into the danger of diluting their own IP brand.

I’m not sure “simple” design is the keyword, but rather something grounded and believable, and thematically related to the IP brand whist utilising strong archetypes both culturally and GW lore-wise.

It is often much more difficult to design something naturalistic and subtle while looking good. Trying to make up for the lack of a solid design by slapping over-the-top gimmicks is what inexperienced designers do (from my personal experience), and that is a hallmark I see over most of the BL weapons in recent years.

Bucket maces.

Chicken daggers. (with chicken sound effects)

Shovel hammer.

Stick Rifle (with character voice “pew pew” sound effects)

Yes I’m serious. Especially about the rifle.

I want a sleek updated not colorful SCYTHEEE. >:(

Middle Eastern inspired weaponry, like scimitars, curved greatswords, that kind of thing.

I just wish the crystalline sword didn’t look like it was made of plastic in GW2. :|

Strangely enough, I just want future weapons to have ergonomic handles. They did a fantastic job early on in the game with the standard GS and Aureate GS… But as time went on, they started to use perfectly cylindrical grips. Which are a huge pet peeve of mine… Because cylindrical grips lead to glancing blows as a result of the user not being able to “feel” where the edge of their blade is facing.

That being said, for some strange reason I can suspend my disbelief for weapon shapes. Just not the handles. I can accept that my character has superhuman strength, but for some reason I can’t fathom them swinging their weapons comfortably. shrug

I want a weapon called the BIIIIIIIIIGGGG Stick. Why? So I can go around saying, “Peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy, and I have a BIIIIIIIIIGGGG Stick!” Come on, you know you want it, too.

Is it too much to ask for a simple freakin sword that is shiny. All the simple swords in game are brown and grey and dirty as hell.