Guild Wars 2

Is it just me who feels like the writers failed miserably in implementing Charr (and in some cases even Norn) player characters propely into the story? I already didn’t enjoy much playing my Norn’s personal story, for it felt too two-dimensional and very underdeveloped, and didn’t truly translate the feeling of being Norn into the plot.

Now that I started a Charr, I feel even more let down. While the character was still behaving like a true Charr during the personal story, he lost his edge, all that makes him Charr, once he transcended on to the general story path.

I got the same dialogues like when I was playing through that part of the story with a Human or Asuran character. However, a Charr would never behave like that, acting and talking like a compassionate, tender-hearted, empathic human. Where is the spark, the roughness, the edge and pride that is typical for that race?

I wonder…

It’s like the writers’ interest stopped at some point.

Of course they have no character. Everyone knows that Charrs are just a bunch of taped together Asurans wrapped in a full body suit made of Norn chest hair.

Dawdler.8521:

Of course they have no character. Everyone knows that Charrs are just a bunch of taped together Asurans wrapped in a full body suit made of Norn chest hair.

Thanks, I really needed that laugh right now.

well yea, in gw1 they were supporting characters with profound and deep lore
but in gw2 all were playable, so all races had to be watered down a 3.5% beer with little flavor in order for them to fit universally in a single story line.

Once you have a single storyline for all races then of course racial specific influences will be gone. The story and races will be homogenized to a default human way of looking at the world . The only other way would be to have completely separate story lines and that’s not going to happen. It’s an expected development from having humans play different races on a single, non race specific storyline.

Which biography choices did you make for your charr?

I really don’t like the Blood Legion story, it’s probably one of my least favourite of all the personal story options precisely because everyone is constantly acting like stereotypical brutish, angry soldiers all the time.

I much prefer the Ash and Iron legion stories where the focus is more on what I think of as the charr’s positive aspects – cooperation, creativity and respect for each other. While enjoying a good fight of course.

There are things about the later story that bother me. In particular my Ash Legion thief making such a mess of his first meeting with Tybalt. He’s been doing covert missions since he was a cub, he should actually be better at it than some gear-brained Iron Legion drop-out who’s been stuck in the archives for years. And yet all of a sudden he acts like he’d never even heard of subtlety before being recruited into the Order of Whispers.

But in general I think it worked. I’d love more race-specific dialogue (and profession specific) but I still feel like playing the story on my charr thief was different to doing it on my human ranger or any of my other characters.

I’ve been thinking for a while of trying to come up with a range of “best” paths through the personal story. Things like the maximum number of reoccurring characters, or ones to suit different personalities. Maybe race/biography choice appropriate could be another one to add to the list.

Amaimon.7823:

well yea, in gw1 they were supporting characters with profound and deep lore
but in gw2 all were playable, so all races had to be watered down a 3.5% beer with little flavor in order for them to fit universally in a single story line.

Hardly. When Prophecies was released the “lore” for the charr was pretty much “they are monsters from…somewhere up north, probably, who worship…umm…bigger monsters, made of fire! They are bad and attack everyone!”

It was only really when Eye of the North was released – as a prelude to GW2 and the charr being playable – that they got some proper lore and any information about their culture. Before then there was no mention of the legions or even the sharman caste taking control of their culture, the absence of females in combat roles and the only thing we knew about their history was that they were given magic around the same time as humans and had been at war with them pretty much forever.

If you don’t believe me here’s the GW1 wiki’s article on the charr from shortly before Eye of the North was released: https://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Charr&oldid=125363

I personally like the Charr integration in GW2, they feel like they have a nice range of examples of the race to show different facets. I completely agree with the Norn, they really need their culture to be presented more. They are so plain and boring in GW2.

Amaimon.7823:

well yea, in gw1 they were supporting characters with profound and deep lore
but in gw2 all were playable, so all races had to be watered down a 3.5% beer with little flavor in order for them to fit universally in a single story line.

Yes, I understand that, and it’s exactly what I am criticizing: there could have been race-specific modifications to the dialogue in order to better reflect and represent that race’s agenda towards the outside world as well as their inherited morale understanding and their cultural manners.

P.S. Doing it in a similar fashion as all Norn NPCs, who are frequently yelling “Ja!” at the end of each sentence, is not what I meant, because that is just ridiculous as nobody talks like that. Nope, neither Skandinavians nor us German speaking folk do that, but I know it’s a silly American cliché about our languages.

Moonyeti.3296:

I personally like the Charr integration in GW2, they feel like they have a nice range of examples of the race to show different facets. I completely agree with the Norn, they really need their culture to be presented more. They are so plain and boring in GW2.

Uhm, you like how your Charr PC talks like a softie human in most of the dialogue? How is that “authentic” and “showing facets of their cultural demeanor”?

Danikat.8537:

If you don’t believe me here’s the GW1 wiki’s article on the charr from shortly before Eye of the North was released: https://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Charr&oldid=125363

And this is why I was opposed to the Charr becoming a playable race. I only changed my mind last week, when I created one and discovered it was kind of fun to play the GW2 version of a Charr.

Yeah, after the opening chapters of the personal story, race does just become cosmetic. Unfortunately the armour designs help to remove the distinction between races even more.

I’ve long since stopped noticing the more minor continuity issues with playing a charr. I play Ash legion as well, and when I think about it the story is riddled with them.

• The three orders – Forgal treats you like a fresh recruit, despite having a lifelong military background. Tybalt’s idea of spying is an embarrassment and realistically he’d be the one following directions of an Ash expert. Sieran’s failure to respect authority would be so objectionable to a charr that she wouldn’t be working with one past the first mission.

• Rytlock would not be assigning Iron or Ash soldiers to any of the orders. That’d be the job of their respective tribunes. Ash would expect intel in return – yet we never hear from Desertgrave again. For 4 years.

• After defeating Zhaitan, you’d figure a charr would report back to their legion before running around the countryside chasing Scarlet’s minions. It’s practically like the legions forgot our characters exist.

• Ditto after Mordremoth. And Caudecus (this one would be particularly important given the treaty).

I’d have to go through the personal story line-by-line to find all the places where the dialogue doesn’t sound right for a charr, so I won’t do that here. Let’s just say that the last episode had too many… for anyone familiar with charr lore, the reason is obvious.

I don’t think retconning past problems away makes any sense from a business perspective, but I’d like to hope that ANet can throw in the odd branch here and there in future just to give the character more grounding in its world.

Ben K.6238:

Yeah, after the opening chapters of the personal story, race does just become cosmetic. Unfortunately the armour designs help to remove the distinction between races even more.

I’ve long since stopped noticing the more minor continuity issues with playing a charr. I play Ash legion as well, and when I think about it the story is riddled with them.

• The three orders – Forgal treats you like a fresh recruit, despite having a lifelong military background. Tybalt’s idea of spying is an embarrassment and realistically he’d be the one following directions of an Ash expert. Sieran’s failure to respect authority would be so objectionable to a charr that she wouldn’t be working with one past the first mission.

• Rytlock would not be assigning Iron or Ash soldiers to any of the orders. That’d be the job of their respective tribunes. Ash would expect intel in return – yet we never hear from Desertgrave again. For 4 years.

• After defeating Zhaitan, you’d figure a charr would report back to their legion before running around the countryside chasing Scarlet’s minions. It’s practically like the legions forgot our characters exist.

• Ditto after Mordremoth. And Caudecus (this one would be particularly important given the treaty).

I’d have to go through the personal story line-by-line to find all the places where the dialogue doesn’t sound right for a charr, so I won’t do that here. Let’s just say that the last episode had too many… for anyone familiar with charr lore, the reason is obvious.

I don’t think retconning past problems away makes any sense from a business perspective, but I’d like to hope that ANet can throw in the odd branch here and there in future just to give the character more grounding in its world.

I think it goes some Charr are permitted to leave the legions permanently, and not be labeled gladum.

I mean, other Charr left and joined the orders (one being a founder) or don’t deal with the black citadel anymore.

I assume the rules and laws laxed a bit over time, especially after the treaty.

Serophous.9085:

I think it goes some Charr are permitted to leave the legions permanently, and not be labeled gladum.

I mean, other Charr left and joined the orders (one being a founder) or don’t deal with the black citadel anymore.

I assume the rules and laws laxed a bit over time, especially after the treaty.

That might be the case, but it is still no explanation for the complete “cuddly-wuddly” out-of-character behavior of Charr player characters beyond the Personal Story Chapters.

The problem is, there is no “100% win” scenario here… Or even a 75% win. Because what is appropriate for some won’t be appropriate for another. Every player and character has their own circumstances that differ. Although the main voice I find has been fully adopted by my main (asura ele) and translates well to my 2ndary (charr war), it doesn’t fit for any of my other characters.

At some point, you just have to learn to understand and separate what would be optimal from what is feasible. For those circumstances where it won’t work for a character, the simplest solution is to rewrite what is said and done to close fit with the decisions of your character but within the limits of the story.

Leo G.4501:

For those circumstances where it won’t work for a character, the simplest solution is to rewrite what is said and done to close fit with the decisions of your character but within the limits of the story.

Well… would it have been such a problem for the devs to alter text with the same content in ways that made it sound race-conform? You can say something that leads to the same result in a million ways, and a Charr would say them in a rough, warrior-minded manner rather than sounding like an empathic psychologist, no?

Danikat.8537:

Which biography choices did you make for your charr?

I really don’t like the Blood Legion story, it’s probably one of my least favourite of all the personal story options precisely because everyone is constantly acting like stereotypical brutish, angry soldiers all the time.

I much prefer the Ash and Iron legion stories where the focus is more on what I think of as the charr’s positive aspects – cooperation, creativity and respect for each other. While enjoying a good fight of course.

There are things about the later story that bother me. In particular my Ash Legion thief making such a mess of his first meeting with Tybalt. He’s been doing covert missions since he was a cub, he should actually be better at it than some gear-brained Iron Legion drop-out who’s been stuck in the archives for years. And yet all of a sudden he acts like he’d never even heard of subtlety before being recruited into the Order of Whispers.

But in general I think it worked. I’d love more race-specific dialogue (and profession specific) but I still feel like playing the story on my charr thief was different to doing it on my human ranger or any of my other characters.

I’ve been thinking for a while of trying to come up with a range of “best” paths through the personal story. Things like the maximum number of reoccurring characters, or ones to suit different personalities. Maybe race/biography choice appropriate could be another one to add to the list.

Amaimon.7823:

well yea, in gw1 they were supporting characters with profound and deep lore
but in gw2 all were playable, so all races had to be watered down a 3.5% beer with little flavor in order for them to fit universally in a single story line.

Hardly. When Prophecies was released the “lore” for the charr was pretty much “they are monsters from…somewhere up north, probably, who worship…umm…bigger monsters, made of fire! They are bad and attack everyone!”

It was only really when Eye of the North was released – as a prelude to GW2 and the charr being playable – that they got some proper lore and any information about their culture. Before then there was no mention of the legions or even the sharman caste taking control of their culture, the absence of females in combat roles and the only thing we knew about their history was that they were given magic around the same time as humans and had been at war with them pretty much forever.

If you don’t believe me here’s the GW1 wiki’s article on the charr from shortly before Eye of the North was released: https://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Charr&oldid=125363

well, yea, since they became allies in EotN they got a lot more lore, but imo they already quite a bit of lore in the Prophecies campaign as well. The titans were mentioned, their history was mentioned, yes, given, you had to read a lot of dialogues, but they weren’t random monsters. The designers did everything in their power to make you feel threatened by them, to make you understand what they are. If you felt nothing for the Charr after the first arc of Prophecies, I feel for you, man. They were enemies, but enemies you could sympathize with. They felt a lot more alive than the Mursaat, whose intentions were a cloud until you were at their doorstep.

Feel for the Charr in GW1? I don’t know what game you played, but the one I played had them portrayed as wild, zealot beasts serving some fake flame gods. There was nothing to sympathize with, you were supposed to hate them.

Anything about their “real” culture (as in “Not the Charrs that we saw attacking Ascalon, but the civilized ones far, far away”) we learnt very late into the game (it had been out for years at the time). It felt like it was made up out of thin air in order to have a good explanation why “a cool cat-beast race” would become a playable one in GW2.

I felt much more for the Centaurs, whom I would have loved to see as a playable race in GW2.

As someone who played a Charr who killed her own father for treason, I’m wondering why the hell my character let Caithe survive LS2 (Killing her and recovering the egg should have had priorty over the Shadow of the Dragon in that instance) and defending Valette Wi instead of advocating for her immediate execution.

Uhm, you like how your Charr PC talks like a softie human in most of the dialogue? How is that “authentic” and “showing facets of their cultural demeanor”?

Yeah, I don’t mind the change. He started out typical Charr-like, as the story progressed he was exposed to things well beyond the concerns of just Charr, same as any other PC hero. As a result his outlook grows beyond the specific concerns of his home race. We aren’t the typical representative of any of the races as the PC. I would be pretty disappointed if the PC acted like a typical Charr (or whatever race) by the end of the PS.

What I was talking about are the non PC Charr – settlements around ascalon and the rest of Tyria. The ambient dialog and different events for me painted a nice picture of how far the Charr have come since GW1. Obviously you disagree with my opinion, that’s fine.

TBH you really shouldn’t be expecting much in terms of the story regarding your character, aside from one or two unique racial options/dialog options that may appear. All 5 race characters share the same scene after all. It’s just best to think of your character as Anet’s character for telling/progressing story, and it’s kinda immersion breaking to have every player character as Commander/Guild Leader/Dragon Slaying Demigod Savior.

(the following has been channeled by Arcos Shiningpaw, Charr ranger and well-known drunkard and rabble rouser in Divinity’s Reach and translated for your pleasure) Of course Charr now sound like mice! That’s civilization for you! This treaty has done more damage than good, and if it wasn’t for the fact that some of my favorite most sacking spots were in Human lands you would not catch me within a league of any of them – rich pickings or not.

Moonyeti.3296:

Yeah, I don’t mind the change. He started out typical Charr-like, as the story progressed he was exposed to things well beyond the concerns of just Charr, same as any other PC hero. As a result his outlook grows beyond the specific concerns of his home race.

Obviously, some don’t get my actual point: it’s all about the tone, i.e. the wording and voice acting (I thought my last few posts had made that very clear). A Charr responds a lot rougher, not like a softie.

Speaking of the childish lines my Charr babbles when fighting, I had to deactivate player chatter. Norn and Charr both sound equally ridiculous, both in regard of text as well as pronunciation — female Norn saying stuff like “Might makes me right!” is beyond funny (unfortunately I cannot deactivate their fighting noises which sound like noise one would only make in one’s own bedroom, if you catch my drift), and the texts for both race’s player chatter in general sound like out of a bad Marvel comic/cartoon/movie.

Don’t those proud fighter races deserve better than being reduced to jokes? It is funny when an Asura (a somewhat cute race) says something like “I feel six feet tall!”, or when a human states a pesudo-cool “Armored up!”, but for a Norn or a Charr to say childish stuff is beyond my comprehension.

Lucentfir.7430:

TBH you really shouldn’t be expecting much in terms of the story regarding your character

I get that, but they could have at least done something about their dialogue.

Maybe I just have lower standards for this stuff? I’ve played a lot of RPGs so I’ve gotten used to tailoring the character to the game rather than expecting the developers to have known and accommodated how I envisaged my character speaking and acting while they were developing the game.

I think the one that really brought the point home was Baldur’s Gate. I’d made up this whole backstory for my character – who her parents were, how they met, how they died, how she came to be living in Candle Keep…then I played the main storyline and found out that no, I was not allowed any of that, the game had a very definite idea of your characters heritage, there was no conceivable way to ignore it and there was no room in it for my ideas.

After that I learned to keep it open and hold off on adding my own ideas until I was certain it wouldn’t interfere with what the game was giving me. I let my characters be shaped by the game, and build around that rather than trying to start from scratch and then end up frustrated that the character I want to make won’t work with the game.

It frustrates me when the game contradicts itself (like the earlier example of an Ash Legion charr going in the Order of Whispers), but if how I envisaged my character doesn’t fit the game that just means it’s time to change the character.

Danikat.8537:

Maybe I just have lower standards for this stuff? I’ve played a lot of RPGs so I’ve gotten used to tailoring the character to the game rather than expecting the developers to have known and accommodated how I envisaged my character speaking and acting while they were developing the game.

It is not what I envisioned but what the game, its personal story missions, the race’s capitals and Tyrian lore (all created by the devs), had taught me about the races! Then they nihilated all that by making the PC dialogues and reactions “uni-race”.

Danikat.8537:

It frustrates me when the game contradicts itself (like the earlier example of an Ash Legion charr going in the Order of Whispers), but if how I envisaged my character doesn’t fit the game that just means it’s time to change the character.

So everyone practically needs to play humans only.

Ashantara.8731:

Feel for the Charr in GW1? I don’t know what game you played, but the one I played had them portrayed as wild, zealot beasts serving some fake flame gods. There was nothing to sympathize with, you were supposed to hate them.

Anything about their “real” culture (as in “Not the Charrs that we saw attacking Ascalon, but the civilized ones far, far away”) we learnt very late into the game (it had been out for years at the time). It felt like it was made up out of thin air in order to have a good explanation why “a cool cat-beast race” would become a playable one in GW2.

I felt much more for the Centaurs, whom I would have loved to see as a playable race in GW2.

I don’t mean feel for the charr like you feel for a friend, I meant that as in a villain you love to hate. There are villains for the sake of villainy with all god powers and divine motives, and then there were just the charr fighting to reclaim there home. I mean, they were wrong to come back generations later, but it’s not like they just came out of nowhere and went all apex on us

Ashantara.8731:

Leo G.4501:

For those circumstances where it won’t work for a character, the simplest solution is to rewrite what is said and done to close fit with the decisions of your character but within the limits of the story.

Well… would it have been such a problem for the devs to alter text with the same content in ways that made it sound race-conform? You can say something that leads to the same result in a million ways, and a Charr would say them in a rough, warrior-minded manner rather than sounding like an empathic psychologist, no?

Well the thing I’m getting at is that, of course it would be nice but it’s just not feasible! Not to mention, not all Charr speak or act the same. Like I mentioned before, the voice of the main character actually does fit my Charr but then he’s not some nationalist type who holds onto old grudges, questions tradition and simply has different values but even then, he isn’t the Pact Commander, he’s just a Charr that likes to craft and helps fight. My Charr Thief may sound like a more traditional Charr but she was created quite a bit after my Warrior and she has her own personality quirks that slant her slightly different than what you’d typically run into in Black Citadel.

Ashantara.8731:

Don’t those proud fighter races deserve better than being reduced to jokes? It is funny when an Asura (a somewhat cute race) says something like “I feel six feet tall!”, or when a human states a pesudo-cool “Armored up!”, but for a Norn or a Charr to say childish stuff is beyond my comprehension.

The entire tone of the game is like that though. Banter, quips and semi-serious-to-serious dialog is pretty much what everyone gets, even the passive-aggressive, narcissistic Asura.

Ashantara.8731:

Leo G.4501:

For those circumstances where it won’t work for a character, the simplest solution is to rewrite what is said and done to close fit with the decisions of your character but within the limits of the story.

Well… would it have been such a problem for the devs to alter text with the same content in ways that made it sound race-conform? You can say something that leads to the same result in a million ways, and a Charr would say them in a rough, warrior-minded manner rather than sounding like an empathic psychologist, no?

That’s been pretty much my thinking. The different races all have different voice acting anyway, so it doesn’t seem like it should be too difficult to give them subtly different lines when appropriate. We saw this in the exploration phase of Out of the Shadows, for instance.

Obviously, it wouldn’t be feasible for different races to go down entirely different story paths, and the NPCs are still only voice acted once, but they can work in variations that still fit with the voiced responses. This was particularly noticeable in the first instance of the most recent release – there should have been one race that was more hesitant and one that was more gung-ho about it, even if both have to come to the same conclusion before the next NPC response.

Ashantara.8731:

Moonyeti.3296:

Yeah, I don’t mind the change. He started out typical Charr-like, as the story progressed he was exposed to things well beyond the concerns of just Charr, same as any other PC hero. As a result his outlook grows beyond the specific concerns of his home race.

Obviously, some don’t get my actual point: it’s all about the tone, i.e. the wording and voice acting (I thought my last few posts had made that very clear). A Charr responds a lot rougher, not like a softie.

Speaking of the childish lines my Charr babbles when fighting, I had to deactivate player chatter. Norn and Charr both sound equally ridiculous, both in regard of text as well as pronunciation — female Norn saying stuff like “Might makes me right!” is beyond funny (unfortunately I cannot deactivate their fighting noises which sound like noise one would only make in one’s own bedroom, if you catch my drift), and the texts for both race’s player chatter in general sound like out of a bad Marvel comic/cartoon/movie.

Don’t those proud fighter races deserve better than being reduced to jokes? It is funny when an Asura (a somewhat cute race) says something like “I feel six feet tall!”, or when a human states a pesudo-cool “Armored up!”, but for a Norn or a Charr to say childish stuff is beyond my comprehension.

Lucentfir.7430:

TBH you really shouldn’t be expecting much in terms of the story regarding your character

I get that, but they could have at least done something about their dialogue.

OH! You are talking about those combat comments and the like. Yeah, those are pretty irritating at times. All the races suffer there for me. One of the worst was when my human ranger female went through HoT, the scene where Eir dies and you fight the Vinetooth that killed her. My pet died right before the vinetooth, then the vinetooth’s death triggers the mourning scene with Braham at her body. Right in the middle of his moment of silence my pet recovers and that triggers one of those speech events and my ranger blurts out “Oh, so you were just playing dead.” I admit I laughed, but that sure brought me out of the moment.

Lucentfir.7430:

and it’s kinda immersion breaking to have every player character as Commander/Guild Leader/Dragon Slaying Demigod Savior.

That’s a problem with all MMOs that try to make the PC into a “special snowflake.” A prime offender for example is Blade and Souls: Your character is the last survivor of the Hong Moon school, yet as soon as out of the personal instances, you see – of course – hundreds of other “sole survivors” running around. But on the other hand people will complain like madmen when they are NOT special snowflakes; see all the pre-HoT hateposts and QQs about Treaharne “stealing” your accomplishments and Caladbolg from you.

Mahou.3924:

Lucentfir.7430:

and it’s kinda immersion breaking to have every player character as Commander/Guild Leader/Dragon Slaying Demigod Savior.

That’s a problem with all MMOs that try to make the PC into a “special snowflake.” A prime offender for example is Blade and Souls: Your character is the last survivor of the Hong Moon school, yet as soon as out of the personal instances, you see – of course – hundreds of other “sole survivors” running around. But on the other hand people will complain like madmen when they are NOT special snowflakes; see all the pre-HoT hateposts and QQs about Treaharne “stealing” your accomplishments and Caladbolg from you.

Excellent point! This is one of those things where there really is no way to please everyone.

Leo G.4501:

The entire tone of the game is like that though. Banter, quips and semi-serious-to-serious dialog is pretty much what everyone gets, even the passive-aggressive, narcissistic Asura.

You can do that with class, too, instead of childish humor that only a ten-year old would find hysterical…

Vesuvius.9874:

Excellent point! This is one of those things where there really is no way to please everyone.

Like I stated many times in my previous posts: It can’t be that hard (as in, yes, it is feasible) to slightly differ the dialogue for every race to fit their racial demeanor and tone (so that, for instance, a Charr character wouldn’t come across as a teddy bear). It is not that hard to set flags in programming that say, “If character Charr, then select response #3.” They can speak the same in content, but phrase it according to their race. Not that difficult, really.

Ashantara.8731:

Vesuvius.9874:

Excellent point! This is one of those things where there really is no way to please everyone.

Like I stated many times in my previous posts: It can’t be that hard (as in, yes, it is feasible) to slightly differ the dialogue for every race to fit their racial demeanor and tone (so that, for instance, a Charr character wouldn’t come across as a teddy bear). It is not that hard to set flags in programming that say, “If character Charr, then select response #3.” They can speak the same in content, but phrase it according to their race. Not that difficult, really.

Oh I was referring to the community that complains when ANET makes us a special snowflake and then still complains when we’re not that special snowflake anymore. I totally agree that racial dialogues can be implemented and in fact we’ve already seen this on numerous occasions. I don’t think it would be hard, but I do think it’s a fair bit of work due to the sheer number of race and gender combinations.

Ashantara.8731:

Leo G.4501:

The entire tone of the game is like that though. Banter, quips and semi-serious-to-serious dialog is pretty much what everyone gets, even the passive-aggressive, narcissistic Asura.

You can do that with class, too, instead of childish humor that only a ten-year old would find hysterical…

Vesuvius.9874:

Excellent point! This is one of those things where there really is no way to please everyone.

Like I stated many times in my previous posts: It can’t be that hard (as in, yes, it is feasible) to slightly differ the dialogue for every race to fit their racial demeanor and tone (so that, for instance, a Charr character wouldn’t come across as a teddy bear). It is not that hard to set flags in programming that say, “If character Charr, then select response #3.” They can speak the same in content, but phrase it according to their race. Not that difficult, really.

Not only should it be feasible, Anet proved they can do it as episode 4 had a bunch of this stuff; lines that changed a bit depending on race / personal story choices but still led to the same story. But the are not consistent at all. Episode 5 with the Balthazar reveal and nobody has unique dialogue, not even humans that picked blessing of Balthazar at character creation.

My biggest facepalm was when my Blood Legion warrior gave Forgal the same “I don’t understand why they can’t just hug and be friends” speech about the human/charr peace talks as my barely a few months old idealistic sylvari who was never personally involved in that ugly conflict did. :p

I still like the first chapter of the personal story better than anything else in the game because it’s pretty much the only time where you get to feel like a sylvari/charr/norn instead of a generic human. Afterwards, at least a sylvari occasionally has their Wyld Hunt acknowledged (though no word on it in LS3) and the sylvari-specific bits in HoT were good … but norn and especially charr get zip and that’s a crying shame.

More dialogues and NPC reactions that depend on race, PS choices and also the personality system (I was glad to see that return when convincing Phlunt this last episode) would add a lot, IMO. Class as well, that was a neat addition to the last part of Ep4, though not for all classes.

As an observation…

We’re picking on ‘generic human’ here, but it isn’t even that – humans should have their own special responses from time to time too. For instance, Chadramar’s example about the “why can’t they be friends” speech in the Vigil arc would be just as bad coming out of a human’s mouth as a charr’s. Sure, the human is most likely Krytan and therefore at a bit of a remove from the conflict, but it’s still been Kryta that’s been at war with the charr for centuries – a human should at least know enough to know it’s not that simple.

It’s more that in many of those storylines, the PC is a generic blob that has no history before the storyline in question. They’re not even a generic human because one thing that ArenaNet’s background lore team has done well has been to make it so that their humans aren’t generic (even if sometimes they do feel a bit like redheaded stepchildren… possibly largely because human lore is mostly GW1 lore, and let’s face it, most of the GW1 lore writers have left).

Ashantara.8731:

Vesuvius.9874:

Excellent point! This is one of those things where there really is no way to please everyone.

Like I stated many times in my previous posts: It can’t be that hard (as in, yes, it is feasible) to slightly differ the dialogue for every race to fit their racial demeanor and tone (so that, for instance, a Charr character wouldn’t come across as a teddy bear). It is not that hard to set flags in programming that say, “If character Charr, then select response #3.” They can speak the same in content, but phrase it according to their race. Not that difficult, really.

These small-ish changes shouldn’t indeed be that hard to implement in my nooby opinion. I remember the small misgiving of players during the main-HoT story, where the Asura PC acted technically unsavy during the Auric Basin part of the story, for example, yet on the other hand HoT was obviously Sylvari focused with the different story instances where the Sylvari PC responded (slightly) differently or was here and there influenced by Fatty Dragon.

So yes, it would be a great idea to have racial responses with a different flair. Even better would be if the tone was based on the long-forgotten Charisma and the other two traits. With that it wouldn’t be too far-fetched for a Charr to sound more diplomatic, for example, without it being the standard attitude. At least he wouldn’t stammer around (and I keep nagging about that detail as a socially introverted computer addict) as with the Braham disaster in EP3 and similar cases, especially as the outcome will be the same.

Like I stated many times in my previous posts: It can’t be that hard (as in, yes, it is feasible) to slightly differ the dialogue for every race to fit their racial demeanor and tone

Keeping in mind of course that each additional line of dialogue needs to be recorded (and paid for) by 40 different voice actors. (5 races x 2 sexes x 4 languages). It’s an additional cost and time added to the budget of the game. Of which these costs, since the budget is a finite amount, is then subtracted from the budgets of all the other work that needs to be done.

tanstaafl

(there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch)

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Like I stated many times in my previous posts: It can’t be that hard (as in, yes, it is feasible) to slightly differ the dialogue for every race to fit their racial demeanor and tone

Keeping in mind of course that each additional line of dialogue needs to be recorded (and paid for) by 40 different voice actors. (5 races x 2 sexes x 4 languages). It’s an additional cost and time added to the budget of the game. Of which these costs, since the budget is a finite amount, is then subtracted from the budgets of all the other work that needs to be done.

tanstaafl

(there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch)

That’s pretty much the point. They’re ALREADY having to get all those voice actors in, so having some of them speak slightly different lines isn’t actually that much of an extra effort.

In fact, we see it later in the episode – asura get different lines every so often, including when interacting with MOX. Missing out on giving charr and humans a slightly different response when a god shows up does become a significant oversight in that context.

draxynnic.3719:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Like I stated many times in my previous posts: It can’t be that hard (as in, yes, it is feasible) to slightly differ the dialogue for every race to fit their racial demeanor and tone

Keeping in mind of course that each additional line of dialogue needs to be recorded (and paid for) by 40 different voice actors. (5 races x 2 sexes x 4 languages). It’s an additional cost and time added to the budget of the game. Of which these costs, since the budget is a finite amount, is then subtracted from the budgets of all the other work that needs to be done.

tanstaafl

(there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch)

That’s pretty much the point. They’re ALREADY having to get all those voice actors in, so having some of them speak slightly different lines isn’t actually that much of an extra effort.

In fact, we see it later in the episode – asura get different lines every so often, including when interacting with MOX. Missing out on giving charr and humans a slightly different response when a god shows up does become a significant oversight in that context.

It’s good to know that all the extra lines for each char times 40 will be cheap and easy to do.

Sir Flesh Wound, the player characters’ voice actors are already paid. There is no “additional cost and time” added to the budget if the only thing was separating lines for race or gender.

The additional cost would be if NPCs change responses to the player’s race/gender differences, however. This can easily be avoided, however, as proven by Bioware quite frequently.

The only real extra work falls onto the writers, who’d have to make up multiple variations.

Now, if you were to have different lines based on profession, order, biography, or even personality (still a system in the game, though it’s now hidden), then it’d be extra cost for the voice actors – but not by an overall large amount.

Actually, Sir Flesh Wound, the player characters’ voice actors are already paid.

Source? I like to add it to my saved quotes.

Well given that they have a job, they have to be getting payment.

They’re going to be paid the same whether the line they’re saying is the same as what the other actors are saying, or is different.

They’re not recording any extra lines from the individual voice actor’s perspective – and even then, unlike the CoE announcer voice actors don’t get paid by the word (I believe they get paid by either the session, or the project, depending on contract).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Well given that they have a job, they have to be getting payment.

They’re going to be paid the same whether the line they’re saying is the same as what the other actors are saying, or is different.

They’re not recording any extra lines from the individual voice actor’s perspective – and even then, unlike the CoE announcer voice actors don’t get paid by the word (I believe they get paid by either the session, or the project, depending on contract).

And yet it’s not being done even though it may be easy enough to add and logical, since each race is different. Which suggests to me that there are costs involved that’s stopping it. It may be no more than the cost in writer’s time to think of lore abiding lines for 5 races x the number of lines plus the cost, however minimal, in keeping 5 different dialogue scrips ongoing and separate instead of one script. When you consider that they’ve repeatedly said how stretched they are in how many things they need to do in how much time, even those additional lines may be adding to much to do in the time they’ve allotted themselves to do each episode and now the new expansion.

Again, to my mind, it comes down to tannstaafl.

Except it is being done. There are quite a few points where one race has different dialogue to the generic dialogue. Here, however, they dropped the ball. To add insult to injury, there’s the example I cited – asura have different lines to MOX than other races, simply because it happened to be an asura that a spider ate.

draxynnic.3719:

Except it is being done. There are quite a few points where one race has different dialogue to the generic dialogue. Here, however, they dropped the ball. To add insult to injury, there’s the example I cited – asura have different lines to MOX than other races, simply because it happened to be an asura that a spider ate.

Well then, I’m sure that many more lines will be added since it’s already being done and the cost is low enough.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

draxynnic.3719:

Except it is being done. There are quite a few points where one race has different dialogue to the generic dialogue. Here, however, they dropped the ball. To add insult to injury, there’s the example I cited – asura have different lines to MOX than other races, simply because it happened to be an asura that a spider ate.

Well then, I’m sure that many more lines will be added since it’s already being done and the cost is low enough.

That’s the thing. They’ve done it for some pretty minor things, and didn’t do it for the first appearance of a being that is literally one of the gods of one of the races, and likely highly significant in the history of another.

If an asura can get a different line for telling MOX to leave a spider behind, not having different lines for charr and humans coming face to face with Balthazar is totally dropping the ball.

Also, not everything needs to be voiced. A charr and human’s immediate reaction to Balthazar? Absolutely. Race-specific lines with a tertiary background character? Eh. Nor did the Charm/Dignity/Ferocity approach to convincing Phlunt to shove off feel out of place unvoiced, IMO.

Ashantara.8731:

Leo G.4501:

The entire tone of the game is like that though. Banter, quips and semi-serious-to-serious dialog is pretty much what everyone gets, even the passive-aggressive, narcissistic Asura.

You can do that with class, too, instead of childish humor that only a ten-year old would find hysterical…

Vesuvius.9874:

Excellent point! This is one of those things where there really is no way to please everyone.

Like I stated many times in my previous posts: It can’t be that hard (as in, yes, it is feasible) to slightly differ the dialogue for every race to fit their racial demeanor and tone (so that, for instance, a Charr character wouldn’t come across as a teddy bear). It is not that hard to set flags in programming that say, “If character Charr, then select response #3.” They can speak the same in content, but phrase it according to their race. Not that difficult, really.

I’m nearly sixty and it makes me laugh. And my wife, who’s a couple of years behind me. Humor’s like that – appeals to some and not to others.

As for it being hard to do variant dialog, of course it’s not hard. What it is is expensive. Voice acting is one of the most costly aspects of video games. Don’t forget that it all needs to be done in several languages too.

Cost is the explanation for most of the things that seem easy to do but aren’t being done in this game, most likely.

Tiny Doom.4380:

What it is is expensive.

Recording the same line 10 times by 10 different VAs for each race/gender is expensive. But having each of those 10 VAs record one of 10 different lines doesn’t seem like it would be that much more expensive.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And yet it’s not being done even though it may be easy enough to add and logical, since each race is different. Which suggests to me that there are costs involved that’s stopping it. It may be no more than the cost in writer’s time to think of lore abiding lines for 5 races x the number of lines plus the cost, however minimal, in keeping 5 different dialogue scrips ongoing and separate instead of one script. When you consider that they’ve repeatedly said how stretched they are in how many things they need to do in how much time, even those additional lines may be adding to much to do in the time they’ve allotted themselves to do each episode and now the new expansion.

Again, to my mind, it comes down to tannstaafl.

The point of the thread is that people want it done more, and that – despite the fact there’d only be more work for writers (and not by much, speaking as a writer) – there is no reason (obvious to players at least) for this not to be done more.

It is done, but to a minimal amount – and barely so in the personal story, which is the first interaction people get with the unified storyline.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And yet it’s not being done even though it may be easy enough to add and logical, since each race is different. Which suggests to me that there are costs involved that’s stopping it. It may be no more than the cost in writer’s time to think of lore abiding lines for 5 races x the number of lines plus the cost, however minimal, in keeping 5 different dialogue scrips ongoing and separate instead of one script. When you consider that they’ve repeatedly said how stretched they are in how many things they need to do in how much time, even those additional lines may be adding to much to do in the time they’ve allotted themselves to do each episode and now the new expansion.

Again, to my mind, it comes down to tannstaafl.

The point of the thread is that people want it done more, and that – despite the fact there’d only be more work for writers (and not by much, speaking as a writer) – there is no reason (obvious to players at least) for this not to be done more.

It is done, but to a minimal amount – and barely so in the personal story, which is the first interaction people get with the unified storyline.

Of course. If its both cheap and easy to do (as far as players can tell) that players want, I’m sure the Devs will at least consider it.

But then of course there are lots of things that players want. Every day there’s new things added to the list and old things brought up. A veritable flood of suggestions is flowing in for Devs to do. Devs that still have the same number of hours to budget for the work they already do. And when you take into consideration the remarks about how each dev has a full plate already with a list of more that could be done. The remarks about the prioritizing to get the most done for the time invested then even things that that are easy to add (as far as players can tell) might not make the list due to sheer volume of requests to add things, all of which are wanted.

But time will tell. They have added new race specific dialog. Maybe the new expansion will have as much as people want.

I think the extra expenditure is going to come in two places – the writers have to create a few more unique lines, and likewise for the translators.

Unless they add more dialogue per character, the voice actors will still do the same number of lines each, they just won’t be identical to each other with a different voice anymore.

Of course I’m biased, but I think it’d be worth the extra expenditure. Without the multiple playable races in GW2, I would have left within the first year after release. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for each race to reclaim its unique perspective from the level 1-30 storyline.