Guild Wars 2

In WP’s stream, Bog Otter talked about how there was once a Spider Mount being tested, and it was dropped because of aracnophobia concerns. I can 100% understand this.

However.

What if they put it back in, but “instanced?”

Like what if they added it in, but have a “spider toggle” in the options, and if you have this turned off, then instead of seeing a spider, you would see something else, maybe a mechanical device, or some animal that doesn’t look like a spider. Then people prone to being triggered could avoid that worry entirely, while players who like spiders could have a cool spider mount.

Given how much other content in GW2 is only on a client-side basis, like Heart Quest elements, certain spell visuals, etc., it doesn’t seem so unreasonable to believe that this would be possible, although of course game design is full of things that defy common sense. Just a thought.

Removed because of arachnophobia? Sure. That makes sense. Because I wasn’t afraid of the countless champion spiders littering Orr that were 3 times my size and literally trying to kill me. I’m just afraid of the tame spiders that allow me to ride them.

I have raptorphobia, bunnyphobia and mantaphobia could they please reconsider the new mounts?

Agree with Squee, there are enough spiders in a LOT of games. I once saw someone claim they were afraid of spiders in Diablo 2, and you literally can’t even make it out of beginner mode without accessing a cave full of nothing but spiders.

I mean almost everyone is slightly squirmish around spiders unless you’re a biologist, suck it up. That’s the point. Do you think you want to see a kitten zombie in your living room?

I have kittenphobia but did they care about me? No!

Kittens! Kittens everywhere!!!

Also there are already tons of spiders in the game so I really dont understand…

But for real I am arachnophobic. I have had a long-standing fear of spiders since I was a child. I will involuntarily freeze in place at the sight of one any larger than a dime. I check my clothes, shoes and bedclothes with a flashlight before I put them on/get into them. Every time.

That said, I have no problem with spiders in games or used as mounts. Bring ’em on

Vindicus.2130:

But for real I am arachnophobic. I have had a long-standing fear of spiders since I was a child. I will involuntarily freeze in place at the sight of one any larger than a dime. I check my clothes, shoes and bedclothes with a flashlight before I put them on/get into them. Every time.

That said, I have no problem with spiders in games or used as mounts. Bring ’em on

You definetly dont want to visit my garage then. Not to long ago I killed one with a shovel. Purely in self defense of course, it was reaching for a weapon.

I wonder how how terrifying is that spider mount looks like, so scary that they have to remove it?

Scarier than this?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Champion_Toxic_Spider_Queen
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Webby_Hatchling

But yeah, it’s definitely better seeing qt bunny jump than a spider jump

Dawdler.8521:

Vindicus.2130:

But for real I am arachnophobic. I have had a long-standing fear of spiders since I was a child. I will involuntarily freeze in place at the sight of one any larger than a dime. I check my clothes, shoes and bedclothes with a flashlight before I put them on/get into them. Every time.

That said, I have no problem with spiders in games or used as mounts. Bring ’em on

You definetly dont want to visit my garage then. Not to long ago I killed one with a shovel. Purely in self defense of course, it was reaching for a weapon.

I don’t do garages, or basements, or crawl spaces or attics or various other spidery places :p

Also, I salute you for the service you performed with your shovel.

A spider you have to kill is different to a spider that is your comrade. A Peppa Pig episode that featured a friendly spider has been banned in Australia. They didn’t want to have their kids play with spiders and be careless, since many spiders over there can kill you. Sure, this is not the same target audience (average MMO player is about 30 I think), just remembered that killing spiders is fine. So even if we have many spiders in the game already, they are not the same as a spider pet.

I despise spiders, but wouldn’t mind having one as pet in a game. What I don’t like is being forced to use specific things. As far as understood the presentation, we have to hop around with a bunny to get to places. This bunny thing feels out of place, it’s a gimmick, I wouldn’t ride it. It’s Elonia’s Segway.

Just to play devil’s advocate here to all the people that say “eh, spiders, no big deal,” but maybe the difference here is that the spider is not only gigantic, but also could be anywhere, since it’s player controlled. I mean, I could see people being willing to actively avoid enemy spiders, or at the very least they could be prepared for them, psyched up for them, but being at the bunk and someone rolls up on a 10ft Spider, that might freak them out. I’ve never had issues with spiders myself, but I get it.

Also, it should be noted that if a spider was a mount, within the context of how this game uses mounts, then players would have to use them themselves to get past certain content, and that might also be a bridge too far. I think the “instanced alternative” would work fine though. If it’s technically feasible.

Just said this in another thread, but can you imagine a spider mount with Oakheart’s Reach ability? Would be pretty awesome. Especially if combined with wall/cliff scaling.

akenoyuki.8210:

I wonder how how terrifying is that spider mount looks like, so scary that they have to remove it?

Scarier than this?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Champion_Toxic_Spider_Queen
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Webby_Hatchling

But yeah, it’s definitely better seeing qt bunny jump than a spider jump

Bunnies are evil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLMaSII_URU

Faaris.8013:

A spider you have to kill is different to a spider that is your comrade. A Peppa Pig episode that featured a friendly spider has been banned in Australia. They didn’t want to have their kids play with spiders and be careless, since many spiders over there can kill you. Sure, this is not the same target audience (average MMO player is about 30 I think), just remembered that killing spiders is fine. So even if we have many spiders in the game already, they are not the same as a spider pet.

I despise spiders, but wouldn’t mind having one as pet in a game. What I don’t like is being forced to use specific things. As far as understood the presentation, we have to hop around with a bunny to get to places. This bunny thing feels out of place, it’s a gimmick, I wouldn’t ride it. It’s Elonia’s Segway.

Still makes no sense as by that logic, you would encourage kids to pet raptors. And I dont know about you, but I am not sure enemy raptors and pet raptors will be very different.

Fantasy animal you say? Well then I say not even australia have 1.5m tall spiders you can ride.

Uuuuh… well at least I dont think so. Do you have them?

I’d like to see them, as long as they are pale and as big as hounds.

I have a mild case of aracnophobia, but even still, I would have LOVED a spider mount please reconsider bringing it in soon ANET.

Spider mount that’s alright.

I scare a lot of roamers running double spider pets.

Im terrified of spiders, but id def have a spider mount. Whilst like any phobia it is inconsistent, mine can distinguish between a real spider and a video game one. I think part of that is because the look and movement is near impossible to accurately recreate and the knowledge it isnt going to break the fourth wall and come near me…

Randulf.7614:

I think part of that is because the look and movement is near impossible to accurately recreate and the knowledge it isnt going to break the fourth wall and come near me…

… yet.

GW2 VR, now with accurate leghair physics.

Ohoni.6057:

In WP’s stream, Bog Otter talked about how there was once a Spider Mount being tested, and it was dropped because of aracnophobia concerns.

Wow. As an arachnophobe who is really sick of devs throwing spiders into everything for the stupidly cheap creep factor, I do appreciate that considerate gesture even though I think the GW2 spiders thankfully aren’t particularly bad. Still wouldn’t want to skitter around on one.

Players whos say that it doesnt matter because there are already spider ingame.
I have a mild-medium arachnophobia and I dont have a problem with most spiders ingame but I still hate fighting them. The only spider im afraid of are the bitterfrost
Frontier spiders because they look kind of hairy. If devs at arenanet said the spider was too creepy maybe their design was similiar to the bitterfrostfrontier ones which would make a huge problem for arachnophobes. And arachnophobia is way more common than sakaliphobia or leporiphobia.

Vote for Spiderpig!

Chadramar.8156:

Ohoni.6057:

In WP’s stream, Bog Otter talked about how there was once a Spider Mount being tested, and it was dropped because of aracnophobia concerns.

Wow. As an arachnophobe who is really sick of devs throwing spiders into everything for the stupidly cheap creep factor, I do appreciate that considerate gesture even though I think the GW2 spiders thankfully aren’t particularly bad. Still wouldn’t want to skitter around on one.

Relevant comic:
http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/conspiracies-abound

As one of the people with arachnophobia I’m really happy they considered this.

Yes there are already quite a few spiders in the game but on the whole they’re in specific locations. You get to know where they are and then can avoid them or psych your self up to deal with it. There’s definitely been times when I’ve put off doing a heart, or gone the long way around an area, because I know it involves spiders and I just didn’t want to deal with them at that time. (And times I’ve moved away from the TP or bank or something else I was using because someone with a spider pet, especially the black widow which is the worst for me, was right beside me.)

But also there is a huge difference between fighting a spider enemy, who may only be on screen for a few seconds and your character sitting on top of a spider (which would have to be several times bigger than most spiders in this game). Especially because it sounds like the way mounts are set up you’re going to be required to use them in certain areas, and probably for extended periods of time.

When I do have to fight them I use ranged weapons and stay as far away as possible, and I’m careful to keep the camera fully zoomed out and angled so it’s high up. I also use tab targeting and place ground-targeted skills off to one side because as stupid as I’m sure it sounds putting the cursor over them is too much like touching them. Nothing like that would work with a mount.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that giant spiders in fantasy are inevitable (thanks Tolkien) just like I’m resigned to the fact that I cannot avoid seeing them in real life. But that doesn’t mean I want a massive spider under my character, in the middle of the screen, for long periods of time.

Having said all that…I Love the OP’s suggestion of an option to hide them. There was a mod for Dragon Age Origins that changed all the spiders into dogs – they still functioned exactly the same, but they looked and sounded like dogs which I, and apparently many other people, found much easier to deal with. If they could do something like that in this game I’d be all for it.

Fluffball.8307:

I mean almost everyone is slightly squirmish around spiders unless you’re a biologist,

These two aren’t mutually exclusive. Plenty of biologists are scared of spiders, myself included. Others are afraid of snakes, dogs, centipedes, fish, and all sorts of other animals. Fortunately ‘biologist’ is like ‘teacher’ or ‘mechanic’ – in practice you specialise in an area of biology so avoiding species you don’t like isn’t usually a problem.

i have arachnophobia my self, when playing skyrim i avoid spiders like the plague.
however, GW2 spiders are hardly scary, more likely cute.

I have arachnophobia and spider mounts would be a complete deal breaker for me. The moment a game requires me to have a spider around me I cannot play it anymore. Ranger spider pets are bad enough for me and much easier to avoid. Spider mounts would be larger, much more focus on the movement animation (which is where a lot of my phobia comes from, the movement patterns of spiders). From what I understand you will be expected to use all your mounts to get to new areas, which means more people using spider mounts and I would most likely have to use one too. I cannot see a way of being able to enjoy the game under these circumstances.
Now if GW2 allowed mods like other games with spiders in it, this would not be a problem. But they don’t.

Now to those questioning why we can deal with the current enemy spiders in GW2 but not mounts, it all comes down to mental exhaustion. Having a couple enemy spiders I need to kill, all I need to do usually is close my eyes, press 1, everything is okay. Even without closing my eyes I can generally keep myself together enough for 1 minute to kill the spiders or run past them. This takes a fair amount of mental effort to do still but not so much that I feel much different afterwards, maybe slightly shaky hands, maybe a tight chest but not too bad. Now with a mount I am riding it, so my character is actually touching it, it is larger than my character and I am seeing it for way more than 1-2 minutes at a time… the amount of mental effort to keep myself together is so much more. Every second I am near that thing I need to prevent myself from launching into a serious state of uncontrollable panic and every extra minute that gets more and more difficult until I am double checking my roof and hair for spiders compulsively. If it goes on longer than that I do end up in a full scale panic attack where I am unable to breathe or think rationally. Even now typing this out I am double checking my roof in my room for spiders and I’m just talking about them.

I don’t think anyone would put themselves through this kind of mental distress just for a video game and that is why personally for me it is very important for there to not be spider mounts and I would have to give up on a game I enjoy so very very much if they were ever introduced without a way for me to never ever ever see or use them.

If they add a spider mount, it will be gem store with no more than cosmetic benefits. Animating so many legs at once would cost a lot to do properly.

sorudo.9054:

i have arachnophobia my self, when playing skyrim i avoid spiders like the plague.
however, GW2 spiders are hardly scary, more likely cute.

I have a Skyrim mod to make them all look like goats. I recommend it, though it may make you scared of goats! Something similar could work; make them giant beetles (no new model needed).

I think the gist behind what they were saying on the post-show was more that while the existing spiders are ‘fantasy spiders’ the mount was a lot more realistic, including movement (which sets of my arachnophobia) – the movement animations we saw on the raptor were pretty detailed so assuming a similar level of work on the spider might have put it over the edge.

Mogsterfortytwo.6712:

sorudo.9054:

i have arachnophobia my self, when playing skyrim i avoid spiders like the plague.
however, GW2 spiders are hardly scary, more likely cute.

I have a Skyrim mod to make them all look like goats. I recommend it, though it may make you scared of goats! Something similar could work; make them giant beetles (no new model needed).

I think the gist behind what they were saying on the post-show was more that while the existing spiders are ‘fantasy spiders’ the mount was a lot more realistic, including movement (which sets of my arachnophobia) – the movement animations we saw on the raptor were pretty detailed so assuming a similar level of work on the spider might have put it over the edge.

the animation of already in-game spiders are fine to me, no need to make new ones just for a mount.

the reason why i want a spider mount is because out of all of the mounts none have a necro feeling, maybe a bone spider or something like that to balance both views on the matter.

“the animation of already in-game spiders are fine to me, no need to make new ones just for a mount.”
No, a mount would need new ones.

We can’t ban everything that scares someone. But surely you should not be forced to use it. Just give the spider mount baseline and give a bunny skin to everyone. What is there to loose ? The spider is already animated. Everyone is happy.

just make the spider cute

boom, problem solved

Jokes aside there are hundreds of scary spiders in the game already, chances are if someone could die from it they are long dead, plus there are no reports of dead World of Warcraft players due to spider mounts

To me it sounds like an excuse because they couldn’t animate it well.

Sorry, I do not buy the “too scary” argument. There are spiders all over the game, some that will realistically drop down from above etc. Several major branches of the Arachnid family are represented even. From wolf spiders to the widow family, and more.
I was hoping we’d eventually get a huge Jumping Spider as a mount (Castle Roogna anyone?)

Just to satisfy my needs!