Guild Wars 2

Has anyone else noticed the mysterious lack of horses in the game? They certainly mention horses in item names and names of places but there are no horses anywhere in Tyria. Not a single one.

Could the Tyrian breed of horses have gone extinct in the Searing? Ascalon seems like the most likely natural habitat for horses in this game. Yet there aren’t any.

Rebelling in Harathi Hinterlands.
I mean, I don’t think we’ve ever seen horses in gw1, they weren’t in view even before the searing

Amaimon.7823:

Rebelling in Harathi Hinterlands.
I mean, I don’t think we’ve ever seen horses in gw1, they weren’t in view even before the searing

There are indications that horses do/did exist in Tyria. Centaur relations with horses is speculated, there are places named after them, etc. I mean, if horses never existed, how would they know what a horse is?

There’s The Dreamer, and a Zodiac weapon skin. That’s all I know of.

Come to think of it, does anyone ride anything? The occasional war machine, including some vehicles car-like enough for drunk norn and charr to go joyriding, but that’s all that comes to mind. Animals seem to be exclusively freight.

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

There’s The Dreamer, and a Zodiac weapon skin. That’s all I know of.

Come to think of it, does anyone ride anything? The occasional war machine, including some vehicles car-like enough for drunk norn and charr to go joyriding, but that’s all that comes to mind. Animals seem to be exclusively freight.

More common in GW1, I think, as there were Stone Summit riding dolyaks, and there were also Skeletal Horsemen.

I do believe that in lore, horses exist because, as mentioned, there are several references to horses and not centaurs.

However, I think that it was an intentional design decision to not include horses in the playable world of Tyria because players would be begging for mounts. Players already do that, so it kind of failed in that respect, but I can almost guarantee you that if horses existed, there would be many more players asking for mounts in many more posts.

(Which is strange considering the beetle riding hylek and the saurian riding mordrem in Heart of Thorns, where we were assured by devs that there would be no mounts for players and that it does not mean mounts were coming to the game)

Horses 100% exist in lore. They’re mentioned by NPCs, in the novels (well, at least Edge of Destiny – and, iirc, the horses were shown to be in Kryta at that), and in out-of-game lore documents.

We also had undead horses in GW1 (the only actual horses shown in the game), which originate from Orr (lore also puts horses in, as said, Kryta and also in Cantha; beyond that, horses may not be native).

ArenaNet has long ago stated that they do not bother with creating “all wildlife” in the same way they do not try to accurately represent populations with model placement – because then things would get too crowded.

Horses were one of the things ArenaNet chose to exempt (perhaps in a hopeful bid to help dilute the outcries for mounts – something unnecessary in GW2, for player characters at least – let NPCs have all the mounts they desire!).

Someday, we’ll get a tonic which is a single model showing a skritt riding atop of a dolyak. Why? IDK. But we will. Someday.

I dunno what it is, I accepted horses once existed, but called them extinct for now.. not that I have any proof for anything.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

(well, at least Edge of Destiny – and, iirc, the horses were shown to be in Kryta at that)

Not in Kryta specifically, just “a grassy plain where wild horses ran”. Could be Kryta, could be… just about anywhere else that has grass, really.

On the bigger discussion- personally, I don’t think arguing they’re extinct gets us very far. To my knowledge, they were never indicated to be in Ascalon, and the Orrian ones are naturally dead, but we know that Kryta had them five hundred years ago, and there’s been no event in the intervening time that seems like it could’ve wiped out a species of domestic animal. I think the most lore-friendly way of reconciling things is to say that they’re just rare enough in Kryta to be restricted to the nobility, perhaps a status symbol initially imported from Orr, and that we don’t see them because we never see nobles traveling from place to place (maybe with some labor breeds available to farmers). Not entirely satisfactory… but it beats saying that the roads of Kryta are regularly traversed by horses and we just always happen on the parties who are traveling by foot.

I recall Logan then shouting “that’s Kryta!” to that depiction with the horses, but it’s been a while since I read the novel so I could easily be misremembering – either way, they do go through the gate into an area which is a grassy plain.

On the topic of extinction: given the aforementioned comparison to a draft horse as if it’s common knowledge, I would argue that they are neither extinct nor rare. Just… not depicted by ArenaNet.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I recall Logan then shouting “that’s Kryta!” to that depiction with the horses, but it’s been a while since I read the novel so I could easily be misremembering – either way, they do go through the gate into an area which is a grassy plain.

That was a bit later, when the gate cycled to Divinity’s Reach.

Maybe horses were too sensitive to magic fluctuation and died when the first dragon began to move again. From the population point of view, horses suffered from a sudden and mortal desease. And… thats all I can think right now.

It’s my headcanon that the horses were eaten by the Charr during the Searing, and they liked it so much they hunted them to extinction.

What I want to know is where are the beavers? And there has to be more than just like 3 turkeys in the entirety of Tyria right? Yet they are only seen in that 1 room in Ascalon Catacombs! There is a lot of missing wildlife, missing doesn’t mean dead, just means not important.

they either extinct or the invisible to mortals eye. thats why you see wagons w/ horses

They went out of phase with Tyria during the last dragon uprising and betrayed the other elder animals like dolyak, sheep, dog, cat, and mouse.

All the horses got killed off shortly after Edge of Destiny came out, thanks to all the arguments about Logan and Jennah repeated ad nauseam.

Trying to think of a sensible answer, but got none. I suspect that castlemaniac got it right. Why give them a reason to ask for something that is totally and utmost useless and binds resources best used for other things? I still wonder what keeps people from asking for Moa mounts…

Speaking of which, has no one wondered why there are Moas literally everywhere in the game? It’s almost like Moas are the true master race because they are everywhere and nobody suspects them to be the true rulers of Tyria. Same applies for Quaggans…

Oh wait i re-use my old post about quaggans. Just a sec… (searching sounds)

Avast ye. I told ye this old salt tale of the journey me had on the ship of me captain Weyandt. That day me own good eye saw it!
“Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen!” Whit me always scream we left. Our honest labour’s journey was at its end while we were departin from Lion’s Arch, leavin behind that scallywag son of a biscuit eater first mate Shane, or how we called him, “the thinker”, to keep company to the little captain pet Chompy.
Our man-o-war was ready so we left the rum to the landlubber in town. As usual most of the crew was three sheets to the wind, but still the little Bess crossed smoothly on the sea. Our destination was our cove, near those flammery skullish islands of the southwest, to make sure to grab some booty from the merchants that tried that route from Cantha.
Days later someone from the deck spotted dark clouds ahead. The old coxswain howled at us:“Batten down the hatches, ye seadogs! Storm approachin! Heater, me dear Heater. Do not worry me girl. That storm’s nothin we haven’t already dealt with…”.
I told ya this. Girls on board are bad luck. Ye think a captain know that, don’t ye think too? But that journey our captain decided to brin he last girl on board. Whatcha was he thinkin, ahh me don’t know. Our helmsman was keeping the Bess on route while all hands were hoay, old salts doin they parts to keep the old Bess together for the whole day.
And it was then at night that we saw it!! “Thar she blows! Ahead of us, captain! She must be big one!” someone from the deck screamed. At first all we thinked that was a big whale ahead comin on surface. But no whale was never be so big, as the creature that went towards us. “Shiver me timbers! What is that? Reverse the route now, fast you scallywag dogs!” screamed the captain. But was it too late.
The most giant creature me eye have ever seen, erupted from the water half a mile away from us. It was high night but the lightnin of the storm illuminated the beast ahead, if only for a slightly moment. But, blimey, my good eye saw it! A dark bluish head eruptin from the sea, two rounded menacing eyes starin at us from that distance. The beast had noticed us and was headin our way, opened it’s mouth and howled at us with its mighty scream.
Still me old salt remember its terrible howl, a howl comin from the darkest halls of the darkish Grenth: “CoooOOOOooooooOOOOOoooooooooo!!”. “Grenth be praise, turn the poop deck to that thing! Heater, where are ye girl?!” The captain screamed at us to turn and flee from the monster, while he was searchin he girl. We turned our back and sailed the farest we could, even after the fifth later day came we kept sailin on the same route, sure that the beast was still after us. Only later when finally we reached back to Lion’s Arch, we discovered the captain girl fell off the deck durin the storm. The sensation of the beast followin us all the way back to the Lion’s port kept me old salt on land from that day forward.
Avast ye. Let me told ye this. Beware of the little CooOOoo scurvy dogs, because me old salt know they are the real threat of this world! Soon the beast will rose again and Lion’s Arch will be meet Davy Jones another time. Because i knew it is comin. It want me old bones, buried here! Even in death the beast still want us who saw it that day!

Shortly: quaggan=sea dragon minions and the dragon itself is a quaggan and the sea has no true oneside magic so the sea dragon minions can be corrupted by other dragons

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

they either extinct or the invisible to mortals eye. thats why you see wagons w/ horses

Actually… Mad King Thorn has a pony named Gum Drops, the Noble Steed who is invisible, so you are correct in that the only known horse in Guild Wars is invisible.

Only named horse, but far from only known.

They’re always around….

at the corner of your eyes where you never look.

These two things I think are the closest we’ve ever come to seeing horses in Tyria.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Banished_Dream_Rider
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Necrid_Horseman

As someone said above me, ANet wont bother creating all wildlife animals?
Ehhhhhh....... okay...

We still have cows... atleast that’s something..

I mean, how hard is it to create a horse?! We have Tamini but they wont bother to create a house? They literally have the horse body, all they need to do is re-create the upper half of the shape.
Jesus christ..

But guys, it’s ANet we’re talking about here....

Alga.6498:

As someone said above me, ANet wont bother creating all wildlife animals?
Ehhhhhh……. okay…

We still have cows… atleast that’s something..

I mean, how hard is it to create a horse?! We have Tamini but they wont bother to create a house? They literally have the horse body, all they need to do is re-create the upper half of the shape.
Jesus christ..

But guys, it’s ANet we’re talking about here….

As someone with knowledge in 3D modelling and animation, it’s not that simple no matter how much you wish it to be simple. If you want to know how hard it is to model a horse using 3D software, texture it, create the bones (not actual bones, the 3D software equivalent of bones), skin it (another 3D term that doesn’t involve the actual taking off the skin of an animal), animate it for every possible scenario (including idle, walking, running, attacking, dying, along with unique death animations for fire, choking, lightning etc.), you should learn it yourself before saying how ‘simple’ it is. Also, to my memory, every centaur has some type of clothing covering the body, so there have to be adjustments there too. It in fact would be much easier to create a horse from scratch rather than take a centaur model and just change the human like torso.

We don’t see every type of insect, amphibian, reptile or just animal in general for a reason. In real life there’s simply way too many animals to place within a video game that would be needed for ‘realism’ or whatever the player may want. ArenaNet prioritised certain animals over others and for one reason or another didn’t include horses. Calling ArenaNet ‘lazy’ or whatever term you want to use for them because they didn’t include a specific animal you want in the game is just silly, because having horses physically present in the game does not objectively improve the game in any way, shape or form. In fact, adding horses that players can’t ride would probably make matters worse because everyone would cry about being unable to ride horses. ArenaNet can’t fully populate the world, even with all the creatures present in the game currently, because putting that much effort to populate the game more than it currently is would be detrimental to the performance of the game. Cities the size of actual cities would take FAR too long to traverse in game, so everything is built and created to be at manageable levels. There’s a reason why we barely see children of all races and creatures out in tyria, because doing a true population count would be impossible to do with current technology, and doing true sizes for landscapes and cities would also be detrimental to the actual gameplay. So horses are just something that never make a physical appearance in game because there were other things prioritised over them, as there exists a multitude of other things that were prioritised over to provide the game experience we currently have (like sheep, goats, geese, ducks, turkey and a bunch of other animals that don’t appear). In fact, theres a certain feathered friend that begins with ‘pea’ that would be censored on the forums but has a scepter skin based off of their feathers that doesn’t actually appear in game, furthermore proving the point that the devs just physically or financially can’t create everything that, lorewise, exists in game. And this isn’t exclusive to ArenaNet, but it happens in every rpg and mmorpg. Want to blame something for the shortage of animal and npc appearances in games? Blame the current level of technology and the financially focused markets of the modern age, not the devs.

Like castlemaniac said, making a horse model wound’t be as simple as taking the centaur model and changing the human part to a horse head and removing clothing. While such could be done, it’d take just about as much work as to make a horse from scrap.

And even making a single model is not so simple as Alga.6498 is making it out to be for something as complex as an animal.

Granted, making a horse wouldn’t be that much harder than making a cow, but making both a horse and a cow is basically doubling workload. Trying to make every bit of wildlife would be about a hundred times the workload, and we’re not talking about a single day’s workload being exemplified – we’re talking multiple people spending multiple days minimum.

Plus, if they did that, without expanding the size of game maps, they’d be making every single model they make so rare as to make their worth of making the models not worth the effort. It’s natural that they’d cut some over others.

And horses have more reason to be cut then other animals, due to certain “controversial” topics in this community.

castlemanic.3198:

Alga.6498:

As someone said above me, ANet wont bother creating all wildlife animals?
Ehhhhhh....... okay...

We still have cows... atleast that’s something..

I mean, how hard is it to create a horse?! We have Tamini but they wont bother to create a house? They literally have the horse body, all they need to do is re-create the upper half of the shape.
Jesus christ..

But guys, it’s ANet we’re talking about here....

As someone with knowledge in 3D modelling and animation, it’s not that simple no matter..........................
...................................
Wall of text basically.

The base model of the Tamini is a horse, right?
Remove the upper part of it and re-work it to an actual horse part.

Can’t be that hard really.
And as for the ’’armor, clothes’’ part as you said, I’m pretty sure they created the base model of the Tamini, without the armor and clothes, surely it can be easily removed.

Of course it’s a computer made 3D concept, not an actual skin or bone constructed... why would you even think games have to skin animals and use their bones for the actual GAME 3D model?! lmao,
But oh well, I don’t really want to start a flame war between your wall of texts.

Alga.6498:

castlemanic.3198:

Alga.6498:

As someone said above me, ANet wont bother creating all wildlife animals?
Ehhhhhh……. okay…

We still have cows… atleast that’s something..

I mean, how hard is it to create a horse?! We have Tamini but they wont bother to create a house? They literally have the horse body, all they need to do is re-create the upper half of the shape.
Jesus christ..

But guys, it’s ANet we’re talking about here….

As someone with knowledge in 3D modelling and animation, it’s not that simple no matter……………………..
……………………………..
Wall of text basically.

The base model of the Tamini is a horse, right?
Remove the upper part of it and re-work it to an actual horse part.

Can’t be that hard really.
And as for the ‘’armor, clothes’’ part as you said, I’m pretty sure they created the base model of the Tamini, without the armor and clothes, surely it can be easily removed.

Of course it’s a computer made 3D concept, not an actual skin or bone constructed… why would you even think games have to skin animals and use their bones for the actual GAME 3D model?! lmao,
But oh well, I don’t really want to start a flame war between your wall of texts.

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, but if not- ‘skin’ and ‘bones’ are actual terms for the visible surface of a 3D model and the animation framework for the 3D model, respectively.

@Alga so basically you read my post and decided to ignore everything I said. That’s the only reason I can think of for you literally repeating your arguments despite my straight up saying “it’s easier to start from scratch than to rework a 3D model”. It IS harder to rework a century into a horse than just making a horse from scratch. It also looks like the clothes are part of the base model at a glance, not additions like the player race models and armour. Until I can physically see the models in a 3D program with it’s topology though, I can’t say. Until you learn about 3D models by actually creating them, you will never know how hard it is and how much work it is to rework an already made model as opposed to starting from scratch.

Waiting in gemstore for xpac 2 so you can buy them as skin