The Creatures of Guild Wars

The Creatures of Guild Wars

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: TheBlackLeech.9360

TheBlackLeech.9360

Hey guys….. if you are anything like me, then you are a huge Guild Wars fan, and you have played and loved both the original Guild Wars campaigns as well as Guild Wars 2.

As you may or may not know, Guild Wars 2 takes place 250 years after the events that took place in the original Guild Wars…

…but it is still a big mystery what exactly happened during this time period. Particularly… What happened to the creatures/races of the Guild Wars world? Some of them were changed drastically or even removed entirely from the world of Tyria as we know it in Guild Wars 2.

I want to start a discussion about the creatures of Tyria and see what you guys have to say about what happened to them.

I’d really appreciate any comments or ideas you may have, so feel free to contribute your two cents!

I’ll try and stay away from creatures that are found in areas that we haven’t seen or have been able to access yet in guild wars 2.

…and this is by no means a complete list.

Why are they so different from Guild Wars vs Guild Wars 2:

Skelk
(used to have several different types… now has one appearance and it looks more like a behemoth gravebane of GW:Nightfall than any of the Skelk from Guild Wars… )

Krait
(was a shapeshifting race, that no longer transforms….. and now acts more like the Naga of GW:Factions…. aquatic, builds structures, etc.)

undead
(no skeletons…. no phantoms…. why all recently dead, humanoid ghost, or orrian zombies?)

What happened to…?:

Behemoths (stationary snakelike creatures with legs)
Aloes
Gargoyles
Nightmares/Vaettir (Ascalon Catacombs just don’t feel complete without the Gargoyles and Nightmares!)
Scarabs
Mursaat
The Seers
Reed Stalkers
The Stone Summit Dwarves
Hydras
The Forgotten & Enchanted races
Mandragors
Exotic Elementals such as flowstones, burning spirits, Wisps, Avalanches

Why does it look so different now?:

Ogres
Irukanji
Skelk
Trolls
Giants
Krait

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Posted by: laokoko.7403

laokoko.7403

Unfortunately some of the species have come to extinction after over farming.

And the reason some of the species looks so different is because of evolution.

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Posted by: narwhalsbend.7059

narwhalsbend.7059

Hey guys….. if you are anything like me, then you are a huge Guild Wars fan, and you have played and loved both the original Guild Wars campaigns as well as Guild Wars 2.

As you may or may not know, Guild Wars 2 takes place 250 years after the events that took place in the original Guild Wars…

…but it is still a big mystery what exactly happened during this time period. Particularly… What happened to the creatures/races of the Guild Wars world? Some of them were changed drastically or even removed entirely from the world of Tyria as we know it in Guild Wars 2.

I want to start a discussion about the creatures of Tyria and see what you guys have to say about what happened to them.

I’d really appreciate any comments or ideas you may have, so feel free to contribute your two cents!

I’ll try and stay away from creatures that are found in areas that we haven’t seen or have been able to access yet in guild wars 2.

…and this is by no means a complete list.

Why are they so different from Guild Wars vs Guild Wars 2:

Skelk
(used to have several different types… now has one appearance and it looks more like a behemoth gravebane of GW:Nightfall than any of the Skelk from Guild Wars… )

Krait
(was a shapeshifting race, that no longer transforms….. and now acts more like the Naga of GW:Factions…. aquatic, builds structures, etc.)

undead
(no skeletons…. no phantoms…. why all recently dead, humanoid ghost, or orrian zombies?)

What happened to…?:

Behemoths (stationary snakelike creatures with legs)
Aloes
Gargoyles
Nightmares/Vaettir (Ascalon Catacombs just don’t feel complete without the Gargoyles and Nightmares!)
Scarabs
Mursaat
The Seers
Reed Stalkers
The Stone Summit Dwarves
Hydras
The Forgotten & Enchanted races
Mandragors
Exotic Elementals such as flowstones, burning spirits, Wisps, Avalanches

Why does it look so different now?:

Ogres
Irukanji
Skelk
Trolls
Giants
Krait

I agree, but on the topic of the undead:
It’s important to remember that the undead we saw in Kryta were Orrian undead that were raised by the Cataclism/Vizier Khilbron and were likely all killed by the time we see in this game.

Many other races are just dead or nearly dead. All Stone Summit were killed in the war with the Deldromor, the Forgotten probably never left the Crystal Desert, there is only one Mursaat that escaped the Battle of LA, there were only two known seers to begin with, both in places that are now innaccepible, and we still do have elementals.

I do agree that we strangely don’t have some things such as aloe and scarabs, which were so present before, but then you look at the lands that are now Kryta, and except for the sparse instances of swamp, one can hardly tell that it was Kryta at all. In addition, the GW2 “Maguuma Wastes” looks nothing like the GW1 Maguuma Wastes.

It’s disappointing, but not everything is the same.

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Posted by: NoxInfernus.2361

NoxInfernus.2361

2 reasons:

1) Massive environmental and geographical changes caused by the dragons rising eliminated the natural environments of many of the creatures that you listed
2) Those that did not die off were forced to adapt/evolve into the creatures we have today.

Some of the absent creatures that you listed were explained (i.e Mursaat and Seers – who were very rare even in GW), or purposely left as a mystery for players to ponder i.e. Gargoyles. T

The Stone Summit likely just imploded after some human adventures killed off their leadership from over-farming Sorrows Furnace again and again.

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Posted by: ipan.4356

ipan.4356

Simplest reason:

Reusing models over and over is cheaper.

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Posted by: Lisa.6102

Lisa.6102

Carbon, Ozone layer, global warming and the Kardashians.

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Posted by: Blue Magnolia.5207

Blue Magnolia.5207

Yeah it would definitely have been nice to have similarities

Also evolution doesn’t really take place in 250 years – not to this scale

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Posted by: Jahroots.6791

Jahroots.6791

It would’ve been nice just to have some more variety. There’s a lot of under utilized but interesting creature types.

Demons, branded and watchwork/steam creatures are all pretty cool.

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Posted by: Xiahou Mao.9701

Xiahou Mao.9701

Gargoyles are specifically posited as a mystery in this game as to why they all suddenly vanished. That said, they do appear at Hallowe’en in Mad King Thorn’s realm, along with traditional skeletons/mummies.

(and for the person talking about re-using models, the Gargoyles use the Harpy/Risen Knight model)

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Posted by: Orpheal.8263

Orpheal.8263

I hope that we will see most of these creatures again back in the game, when ANet adds more explorable places.
This way anet just kept those creatures back in the line, so that they have a pool left open for reuse so that it’s easier for them to have some creatures for added new maps that are easier to implement, than to come up with completely new creatures that have to be designed from scratch new. So my educated guess is:

Aloes = Will we see back in some kind of new Maguuma Jungle Maps, when we get deep into the jungle, like Magus Falls deep …
Gargoyles = Will we see back in the Underworld and otherwise at Halloween
Behemoth = Will we see back in the Crystal Desert and or the deep Maguuma Djungle/Wastelands
Scarabs = Deep Maguuma Djungle/Wastelands and Crystal Desert
Mursaat =Guess, we won’t see them back, before we haven’t finished off all the Elder Dragons first, because they are like a completely new threat to the world of Tyria
Seers I just hope never, completely obsolete meaningless creatures that play no role.
Reed Stalkers = Deep Maguuma Djungle/Wastelands, North of Kryta in the unexplorable woodland part
Dwarves = god darn it, forget this crap finally and forever, they won’t return ever and if, then just only as NPCs in the like Kill Primordus Campaign supporting us there
Hydras = Crystal Desert and Ring of Fire (you know, you ask for alot of creatures, from areas which aren’t mostly explorable yet, do you ??)
Forgotten = hopefully never just like Seers, they were totally meaningless and obsolete
Mandragors = North Shiverpeaks
High Elementals/ i.E. Djinns = Crystal Desert (Air), Ring of Fire (Fire), North Shiverpeaks (Water), Deep Maguuma Djungle (Earth)would I guess makes sense
—-

Howeve,r before ANet addes these creatures through new added explorable maps, I#d like to see ANet adding first some new creatures for all the existing maps, liek for example giving all maps a complete different environmental feeling when day and nighttime switch, that you see completely new creatures, when the day changes to night and vice versa. That would be a first great step forward in making Tyria more full of life and a more trustworthy environmenta in general.

Personally I like the idea behind sub classes ~ quoted from Chris Whiteside

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Posted by: locoman.1974

locoman.1974

Yeah it would definitely have been nice to have similarities

Also evolution doesn’t really take place in 250 years – not to this scale

Doesn’t happen on earth, we’re talking about a completely different planet (or even dimension?) where cataclysmic events have happened during those 250 years (awakening of the elder dragons) that not only completely changed or destroyed several enviroments, also introduced lots of foreign and dangerous beings that didn’t follow normal natural selection (branded, destroyers, risen, etc). Also take into account that magic is common in this world, to the point where several creatures that could be considered non sentient use it regularly (skales, basylisks, wind riders, etc)

Another thing to take into account, sometimes because a creature shares the same name doesn’t mean it’s the same. For all we know, for example, the species we knew as Krait in GW1 went extinct in the followind 250 years, and during that time the GW2 Krait started to appear being driven form their home in the unending ocean by the awakening of the deep sea dragon, and when the tyrian races saw them they though they were similar to the older krait and started to call them by the same name (for all we know their name in their original language might be completely different).

It’s a pile of Elonian protection magic, mixed with a little monk training,
wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha.
A real grab bag of ‘you can’t hurt me. They’re called Guardians.

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Posted by: Zardul.3952

Zardul.3952

MURSAAT. all Disapeared….

or so you think

( Rata sum = Mursaat)

Main: lvl 80 Ranger ,
Alt: lvl 80 Mesmer

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

Why are they so different from Guild Wars vs Guild Wars 2:

Skelk
(used to have several different types… now has one appearance and it looks more like a behemoth gravebane of GW:Nightfall than any of the Skelk from Guild Wars… )

Krait
(was a shapeshifting race, that no longer transforms….. and now acts more like the Naga of GW:Factions…. aquatic, builds structures, etc.)

undead
(no skeletons…. no phantoms…. why all recently dead, humanoid ghost, or orrian zombies?)

  • Skelk were just one of many creatures streamlined to make it more sense for them to be a single species. You couldn’t really consider this to be related to this could you? Same with skale – this could hardly be considered the same species as this
  • Krait, lorewise, still do transform. I think the official explanation is that there was a lack of time during development to give them their transformations. The Toxic Hybrid is meant to show that krait can metamorphosize still – as that is literally a krait that transformed into having a more plant-like appearance.
  • Undead were pretty much wiped out. They weren’t exactly common in Tyria (world) beyond the Orrian army that was decimated with Prophecies and Eye of the North (the latter apparently mopping up its remnants).

What happened to…?:

Behemoths (stationary snakelike creatures with legs)
Aloes
Gargoyles
Nightmares/Vaettir (Ascalon Catacombs just don’t feel complete without the Gargoyles and Nightmares!)
Scarabs
Mursaat
The Seers
Reed Stalkers
The Stone Summit Dwarves
Hydras
The Forgotten & Enchanted races
Mandragors
Exotic Elementals such as flowstones, burning spirits, Wisps, Avalanches

If you go to Aurora’s Remains, during the event chain there will be a ghostly behemoth – though it uses the wurm model. So take that as you will.

Aloes, nadda.

Gargoyles have a lore point of suddenly vanishing. Fun fact: this was trivial that was placed in due to large news talks about massive amounts of birds disappear (iirc that’s what it was) inspiring Matthew Medina.

Scarabs – we haven’t been anywhere they’ve been in.

Mursaat were almost all wiped out. Only one known living mrusaat. Thank you, GW1, for the genocide.

Seers were also mostly wiped out, even before GW1’s time, and in GW1 we only met 1 – possibly 2 – seers.

Stalkers, no clue.

All Dwarves – Stone Summit included – underwent the Rite of the Great Dwarf approximately 50 years after Eye of the North.

Hydras, sans Ascalon, we haven’t been to anywhere they live – and they were only in Ascalon when it was a burnt wasteland. Flush lands may not be their natural habitat.

The Forgotten – similarly, we haven’t been to where they were in GW1, and even then most Crystal Desert Forgotten were likely wiped out, thanks to our GW1 characters, seeing how there’s no hide nor hair of them in Edge of Destiny. Same goes with enchanted armor.

Mandragors – we haven’t been to the lands they lived in.

“Burning Spirits” and “Wisps” were djinn, technically, not elementals – and we haven’t been to the places where they lived. Other “exotic” elementals are no different, supposedly, than any other elemental; just a case of not being near their element.

Why does it look so different now?:

Ogres
Irukanji
Skelk
Trolls
Giants
Krait

Technically, we never saw ogres in GW1 – not the ones we call ogres in GW2, at least. In GW1, ogres was purely mechanical. Though one can argue that the Crystal Desert giants and ogres are the same, given that the Crystal Giant ogres (Sand Giants) were on occasion seen with Minotaur “pets”.

Irukanji – well, the Mists don’t create perfect copies, ya know… and we haven’t been to Cantha.

Skelk, Trolls, Giants, Krait – likely a design choice. Krait never made sense to be deep water creatures with those flamboyant feathers anyways. You have to keep in mind that Prophecies’ designs for trolls and giants were done by very different mentalities and with a lot smaller budget.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.