Guild Wars 2

Probably one of my favorite “lesser races” as they call it. But i like playing humans and humans can’t help them.

Because they smell. :P

And also because they keep calling Balthazar “Badazar”. Sacrilege!

The humans don’t have any interactionable reason to. I think Asura, Charr, and Norn can talk with them (I know asura and norn can). Norn interact with them all the time, while Asura probably would study them for signs of intelligence. Humans, they share religious fervor i guess?

I’ll trade you Grawl with my Norn for Quaggans.

Quaggies <3

I’m happy enough with my Charr choosing them for racial sympathy. Let’s just say he feels a need to educate them on not needing to worship something to have a sense of purpose in their lives.

Zaxares.5419:

I’m happy enough with my Charr choosing them for racial sympathy. Let’s just say he feels a need to educate them on not needing to worship something to have a sense of purpose in their lives.

They worship your Norn now, don’t they? ;P

Oglaf.1074:

I’ll trade you Grawl with my Norn for Quaggans.

Quaggies <3

Agreement. I was highly disappointed when I found out that Norn couldn’t sympathize with Quaggans. Hylek just… they aren’t the same.

How many Grawl do you see in Kryta?

Well humans aren’t very fond of Grawl, they never were. Charr don’t like them too much either, but they were even during GW1’s times, known to ally with the Grawl due to their shared dislike for humans.

Btw: I liked that Norn couldn’t pick Quaggan, those cutie-pies have enough friends. Grawl ftw!
(Does anyone else think it’s unfair that 4 races can choose Hylek, but only 2 ogres?)

I believe the race selection mostly has to do with geographical location… to find grawl you basically have to run all the way over to charr territory, so they drew the short straw instead of races that humans would have more interaction with.

TheNextGuy.4521:

Probably one of my favorite “lesser races” as they call it. But i like playing humans and humans can’t help them.

Why can asura help grawl and quaggan. but not skritt which they deal with more? Why can norn help hylek? Why do hylek get four playable races able to help them but ogres get two?

The line up overall doesn’t make much sense, imo.

But this isn’t a case of lore.

@Sirius: Grawl are closer to humans (Ebonhawke) than asura, which have them as a racial sympathy – and human and sylvari sympathies are the same, whereas there’s two differences between those two and asura, despite the closeness between asura and sylvari compared to sylvari and human.

IMO, it’d make more sense as:

Charr: skritt, grawl, ogres (aka no change)
Norn: ogres, grawl, quaggan
Human: grawl, skritt, hylek
Sylvari: hylek, quaggan, ogres (yes, ogres don’t make much sense, but it’s the odd-man out to keep human and charr from being the same)
Asura: skritt, hylek, quaggan

Dustfinger.9510:

Zaxares.5419:

I’m happy enough with my Charr choosing them for racial sympathy. Let’s just say he feels a need to educate them on not needing to worship something to have a sense of purpose in their lives.

They worship your Norn now, don’t they? ;P

Well, her… “attributes” are rather divine. XD

Zaxares.5419:

Dustfinger.9510:

Zaxares.5419:

I’m happy enough with my Charr choosing them for racial sympathy. Let’s just say he feels a need to educate them on not needing to worship something to have a sense of purpose in their lives.

They worship your Norn now, don’t they? ;P

Well, her… “attributes” are rather divine. XD

Must be the jiggly rear during the Carlton’s dance. It mesmerizes everyone.

Sirius.4510:

I believe the race selection mostly has to do with geographical location… to find grawl you basically have to run all the way over to charr territory, so they drew the short straw instead of races that humans would have more interaction with.

If this were true then asura would have the option to aid the skritt. I was disappointed when I couldn’t choose to aid the skritt with my asura. They had me at “shinny”

darkace.8925:

If this were true then asura would have the option to aid the skritt. I was disappointed when I couldn’t choose to aid the skritt with my asura. They had me at “shinny”

Am I the only one not surprised by that? Jeff Grubb once even talked about how the Asura tried to commit genocide on the Skritt. The Asura see the Skritt at best as annoying pests that can be experimented on, at worst as something that has to be eradicated.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The Asura see the Skritt at best as annoying pests that can be experimented on, at worst as something that has to be eradicated.

I guess that explains all those “Charm” dialogue options I chose with my Asura when dealing with the Skritt.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Am I the only one not surprised by that? Jeff Grubb once even talked about how the Asura tried to commit genocide on the Skritt. The Asura see the Skritt at best as annoying pests that can be experimented on, at worst as something that has to be eradicated.

That was the old opinion of asura.

Look around in GW2, and see how many asura think that. No, just about every asura nowadays views them as two things:

1) Subjects of study, to figure out why they become smarter in groups (apparently asura aren’t smart enough to understand the concept of “very fast talking”).
2) Easy cheap labor (aka the Tyrian Mexicans – no offense intended to anyone)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

1) Subjects of study, to figure out why they become smarter in groups (apparently asura aren’t smart enough to understand the concept of “very fast talking”).

Actually, all the asura hearts or events I’ve seen that involve experimenting on the skritt already explain how the skritt get more intelligent, but are experimenting to find out the limits. One asura is gathering a bunch to find out just how intelligent they get per skritt added to the group, and has you ask them questions to test it (“Ha, mind reading isn’t real, you fail.”).

So they already understood the concept of ‘very fast talking’ ages ago; they’re just testing the limits and capabilities of it now.

If by “how” you mean “they get smarter when closer together” then, sure, you’re right.

Otherwise, I’ve never once seen an asura say “they get smarter because they talk fast.” It’s all about figuring out why they get smarter when together, the limits, and how they could duplicate it for the asura.

And I’ve gone though multiple events and hearts where they talk about skritt intelligence and experimenting on that principle.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Well humans aren’t very fond of Grawl, they never were. Charr don’t like them too much either, but they were even during GW1’s times, known to ally with the Grawl due to their shared dislike for humans.

Btw: I liked that Norn couldn’t pick Quaggan, those cutie-pies have enough friends. Grawl ftw!
(Does anyone else think it’s unfair that 4 races can choose Hylek, but only 2 ogres?)

pouts YES!!! I wanted to align with Ogres but noooooooo you’re a sylvari you can’t align with either of your two favorite races! Pick Quaggon, Hylek or Skritt instead!

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If by “how” you mean “they get smarter when closer together” then, sure, you’re right.

Otherwise, I’ve never once seen an asura say “they get smarter because they talk fast.” It’s all about figuring out why they get smarter when together, the limits, and how they could duplicate it for the asura.

And I’ve gone though multiple events and hearts where they talk about skritt intelligence and experimenting on that principle.

I did an event a few days ago where they discovered that skritt essentially work like Pylons in Star Craft where as long as there are some skritt within a certain proximity to a HUGE colony of them they will retain a vast majority of the intelligence they’d have in that colony.
(i believe it was in Brisban)

What I don’t understand is why humans have hylek instead of ogres. All lesser races appear 3 times, except hylek, who appear 4, and ogres, who appear 2.

You’d think ogres would be closer to human than hylek, huh.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Otherwise, I’ve never once seen an asura say “they get smarter because they talk fast.” It’s all about figuring out why they get smarter when together, the limits, and how they could duplicate it for the asura.

That’s not right. I’m positive that there was an event in the Asura 1-15 zone where one of the NPCs explicitly mentions that the skritt gain intelligence by communicating in chirps, and that they could use that to develop better golem technology.

Edit: Mm, wandered over to the zone quick and checked the nearest skritt heart. I found this, where an asura says the intelligence increase is caused by ‘expedient communication’. I feel like there’s another NPC who mentions high-pitched chirping, but I couldn’t find them in the ten minutes I glanced around.

Son of Elias.5420:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Otherwise, I’ve never once seen an asura say “they get smarter because they talk fast.” It’s all about figuring out why they get smarter when together, the limits, and how they could duplicate it for the asura.

That’s not right. I’m positive that there was an event in the Asura 1-15 zone where one of the NPCs explicitly mentions that the skritt gain intelligence by communicating in chirps, and that they could use that to develop better golem technology.

Edit: Mm, wandered over to the zone quick and checked the nearest skritt heart. I found this, where an asura says the intelligence increase is caused by ‘expedient communication’. I feel like there’s another NPC who mentions high-pitched chirping, but I couldn’t find them in the ten minutes I glanced around.

Oooooooh i know what you’re talking about!! Yeah they don’t say they’re -smarter- from that they say something about how they’re “geniuses” for making key plans in chirps, IE if they’re going to raid a camp they’ll plan it in chirps instead of in a language everyone else knows.

Yeah, I am pretty sure I have seen in dialogue many times that the increased intelligence of groups of skritt comes from their ability to communicate at rapid speeds. This allows their minds to somewhat network increasing their intelligence. Like, for example, if you video taped a bunch of game designers brainstorming a game, and then watched it in fast forward.

http://www.arena.net/blog/those-sneaky-sneaky-skritt
“Skritt are small, rat-like creatures in Guild Wars 2 who come from deep beneath the surface of Tyria. At first glance, these skittering fur balls may seem barely capable of rational speech, but they wield weapons and wear clothing and armor like more advanced races. Also, as the asura will tell you (or as any careful observer might note), the skritt actually gain intelligence when many of them congregate. Speaking in chirps and squeaks so fast that it sounds like buzzing to human ears, they share information, parse knowledge, and determine actions between themselves.”

Narcemus.1348:

Yeah, I am pretty sure I have seen in dialogue many times that the increased intelligence of groups of skritt comes from their ability to communicate at rapid speeds. This allows their minds to somewhat network increasing their intelligence. Like, for example, if you video taped a bunch of game designers brainstorming a game, and then watched it in fast forward.

http://www.arena.net/blog/those-sneaky-sneaky-skritt
“Skritt are small, rat-like creatures in Guild Wars 2 who come from deep beneath the surface of Tyria. At first glance, these skittering fur balls may seem barely capable of rational speech, but they wield weapons and wear clothing and armor like more advanced races. Also, as the asura will tell you (or as any careful observer might note), the skritt actually gain intelligence when many of them congregate. Speaking in chirps and squeaks so fast that it sounds like buzzing to human ears, they share information, parse knowledge, and determine actions between themselves.”

they aren’t -intelligent- because of the chirps, the chirps just make it so they can plan and advance so much faster than the other races, they actually gain intelligence just from being near each other, the chirps just greater increase it.

It’d be like if the smartest people in the world could communicate their ideas in seconds, they don’t actually become smarter by it, but they can share their ideas and advance faster due to it.

So you are saying they would be super intelligent if a bunch of skritt with no vocal chords came together in an area. They have no way to communicate, but they become super smart just by standing side by side? That makes no sense. I’m not saying that their communication is the only factor, but I am saying that it is a strong factor in their increased intelligence.

Narcemus.1348:

So you are saying they would be super intelligent if a bunch of skritt with no vocal chords came together in an area. They have no way to communicate, but they become super smart just by standing side by side? That makes no sense. I’m not saying that their communication is the only factor, but I am saying that it is a strong factor in their increased intelligence.

They are a hive mind race…. they grow in intelligence the more of them are nearby, even read the story about the skritt and the Kodan, he understood their philosophies fully with his friends around and as such wanted to stay near them because he thought it was REALLY interesting, his friends however, could care less about the Kodan and left. As soon as his friends were out of a certain range he couldn’t understand a single thing that those kodan were saying or doing.

They are not normal rat people, they are a hive mind, anet has flat out said in their blog post “No one really knows how the skritt hive-like intelligence works. The most likely theory is that the skritt simply communicate so rapidly that, when together.”

Narcemus.1348:

Yeah, I am pretty sure I have seen in dialogue many times that the increased intelligence of groups of skritt comes from their ability to communicate at rapid speeds. This allows their minds to somewhat network increasing their intelligence. Like, for example, if you video taped a bunch of game designers brainstorming a game, and then watched it in fast forward.

Yes, we know that’s why. The point I was making was that the asura don’t seem to know this.

Though it seems one or two may, but most who experiment – or any form of interaction – with skritt seem unknowing of this.

Durzlla.6295:

They are a hive mind race….

Actually, they aren’t. They’re a fast-communication race.

The difference is that hive minds are telepathic, but skritt are not. Their communication is in a fast speaking language which other races understand as chirping (they don’t actually chirp, they just talk very very fast). The reason why they become so smart in groups is because they discuss things very quickly – thus they build off of each others’ ideas and understandings of the same situation.

It creates a faux hive mind. When together, it seems like a hive mind, but it isn’t. Remove the skritt’s means of talking, and they’re all morons again. No matter how many you get together.

The only hive minds that exist in GW2 are the dragon minions.

ArenaNet creates a false comparison with calling them hive minds – just as they incorrectly state that Guild Wars didn’t have a hive mind race before the skritt (destroyers in Eye of the North were hive mind).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Humans not having quaggans wouldn’t make sense – it’s specifically stated in the quaggan blog that humans and quaggans that live close together have histories of cooperation, and we see examples of that in some events (in southern Hinterlands, for instance).

I think the sympathies as they currently stand are a mix of proximity and outlook. It’s probably no coincidence that it’s the two roughest races, norn and charr, that have what are probably the two roughest of the sympathy options – ogres and grawl. Sylvari and present-day humans, on the other hand, are probably among the races that value peace and cooperation the most, and so their sympathies are with races that are more inclined to cooperation.

That said, if I was to make the call, I’d have probably given the norn quaggans instead of hylek, due (again) to phsyical proximity. When it comes to humans and grawl specifically…

…it may be a question of the theme of the grawl story. The grawl story is essentially one of teaching the tribe in question to eschew gods – this fits the charr like a glove, it fits asura, and it kinda fits norn (while norn are spiritual, they treat the spirits more as friends and guides than beings to worship). Humans, on the other hand, could be expected, whether deliberately or otherwise, to end up encouraging the grawl to worship the Six.

Many of the sympthies are a bit… misplaced?

For example, Norn can help Hylek (those frogs got 4/5 friends), but not Quaggan, when there are a lot of Quaggans in their lands and I don’t remember seeing Hyleks in their lands. Also while they were enemies in the past, Asuras should be able to help Skritt given how currently they do work with them (or using them).

That chapter could really be made so everyone could pick every race, seeing how some of them are misplaced anyway, so you can go with the one you like the most.

loneknight.8425:

Zaxares.5419:

Dustfinger.9510:

Zaxares.5419:

I’m happy enough with my Charr choosing them for racial sympathy. Let’s just say he feels a need to educate them on not needing to worship something to have a sense of purpose in their lives.

They worship your Norn now, don’t they? ;P

Well, her… “attributes” are rather divine. XD

Must be the jiggly rear during the Carlton’s dance. It mesmerizes everyone.

grumbles
Lousy mesmerizing Norn women, I can’t properly fight with all that dancing.

I was kind of surprised that Asura couldn’t help the Skritt, yea they were enemies, but now they do seem to fall more towards the experiment on them side than the exterminate them one.

And although I love the Skritt I was equally surprised my Charr could help them. I mean, cats and mice, comon, that is one of those things that are soooooo cliche that its bizarre to not see it used. Before seeing that I would not have not batted an eye at Skritt kebabs as being some kind of Charr delicacy.

Narcemus.1348:

So you are saying they would be super intelligent if a bunch of skritt with no vocal chords came together in an area. They have no way to communicate, but they become super smart just by standing side by side? That makes no sense. I’m not saying that their communication is the only factor, but I am saying that it is a strong factor in their increased intelligence.

It doesn’t make obvious sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true and, in fact, is exactly what the game dialogue suggests.

In the human personal story, one of the main skritt you interact with exhibits greater command of syntax and grammar once you’ve helped him find his friends, which is not attributable to increased communication bandwidth.

There are a number of grawl factions throughout the game that you can recruit as allies and/or work with.
But they follow anyone who promises them a new God.
Same goes for skritt.
But they follow anyone with shinies.

Make a shiny god and you might get the two races to work together.

Well, given the skritt tendency to make big shiny things as cultural centres, and the grawl tendency to worship anything that looked suitably impressive, I certainly could see a situation where grawl and skritt are both paying their respects to the same big shiny.

Son of Elias.5420:

Make a shiny god and you might get the two races to work together.

Okay so Humans show them Lyssa!
Get to it! No excuses!

Except that the skritt would probably steal the statue to take it closer to their scratch, starting a racewar between Skritt and Grawl, causing the Skritt to design superpowered weaponry based on some kind of bizarre twins theme, wipe out the Grawl and then see that they are strong enough to take the major races shinies and go to war with us.

I for one welcome our new Skritt overlords.

Then the war is averted because the Asurans finally invented shiny keys and jingled them at the last minute.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Charr: skritt, grawl, ogres (aka no change)
Norn: ogres, grawl, quaggan
Human: grawl, skritt, hylek
Sylvari: hylek, quaggan, ogres (yes, ogres don’t make much sense, but it’s the odd-man out to keep human and charr from being the same)
Asura: skritt, hylek, quaggan

I think replacing human’s hyleks for ogres would leave it fine. After all, humans interact a lot with ogres in Ebonhawke’s lands, and there’s only one tribe of hylek on all of Kryta.

Anyway, Quaggan’s location is pretty weird, but I guess icebrood were the only underwater-working dragon minions… though we still have the risen… No idea, they still feel weird, clumped in that small lake.

Also, if you want to get deeper, you could consider something from a gameplay perspective: There’s 3 places to level up from 40 to 50:

• Harathi Hinterlands + Bloodtide Coast (Western)
• Dredgehaunt Cliffs (Central)
• Blazeridge Steppes (Eastern)

All races should have at least 1 minor race in each spot. To make it even you could add an extra race in some expansion, like some dredge rebels that are hiding around Blazeridge Steppes from their tyrannical leaders, which would work like this: (evened out with a new race like tengu, for example)

• Asura: Grawl, Hylek, Quaggan + Dredge (1W, 2C, 1E)
• Charr: Grawl, Ogre, Skritt + Dredge (1W, 1C, 2E)
• Human: Hylek, Quaggan, Skritt + Ogre (2W, 1C, 1E)
• Norn: Grawl, Hylek, Ogre + Quaggan (1W, 2C, 1E)
• Sylvari: Hylek, Quaggan, Skritt + Dredge (2W, 1C, 1E)
• Tengu: + Dredge, Grawl, Ogre, Skritt (1W, 1C, 2E)

We would suppose those extra options would be added with an expansion (thought the tengu ones don’t make too much sense). However, I think the best is to make all of them available for everyone, or filter them by previous decisions, like those that lead to meet some of them.