Guild Wars 2

Hoping someone at anet reads this…. but I wanted to point out several of the names you assigned to these weapons are the wrong taxa to their corresponding insect (or other arthropod.)

I’m on my phone now so I can’t look them all up, but from general entomology knowledge I can tell you the following

Blattodea/termite: blattodea is the order that consists of kittenroaches. Termites are in isoptera.

Hymenoptera/mosquito: hymenoptera consists of bees, ants, and wasps. Mosquitoes belong in Diptera with flies.

I’m not as familiar with taxa for non-insect arthropods and like I said can’t really look them up at the moment. I really applaud anet’s design here and its a cool idea. I’m just requesting that the names be corrected if it doesn’t take too much time or resources (I can’t imagine it would.)

This may seem too nitpicky to some, and to a point I understand, but this is what I and I’m sure others here do as a living and its almost like nails on chalkboard! I wish I could think of a common example for context in another profession, perhaps something IT, I’m sure that is common here!

But even for the sake of general knowledge, many players are going to learn these names quick and it would be incorrect information. Reminds me of a time I was at the zoo and saw mother point at a pelican and tell her son it was a swan, and I wondered how long this kid would call pelicans swans until he was corrected.

Well, if you read this, thanks for listening!

Edit: haha, kittenroaches…

I know nothing about entomology but strongly support correcting the names, assuming they are indeed wrong.

Now that I think about it, the termite weapon could easily just be changed to Isoptera and the mosquito weapon could become diptera, whereas the weapon with the grubs could become hymenoptera as those insects still have a similar larval form. And for consistency, rename blatellidae to ‘blattodea’. Food for thought.

I am also a biologist and I work with insects; I agree that this is cringe-inducing. I work with flies that are closely related to mosquitoes, so that one is literally (read: not literally) killing me.

Also, +1 to you, OP, for “kittenroaches,” though I guess I should be +1’ing the forum filter.

Facepunch.5710:

I am also a biologist and I work with insects; I agree that this is cringe-inducing. I work with flies that are closely related to mosquitoes, so that one is literally (read: not literally) killing me.

Also, +1 to you, OP, for “kittenroaches,” though I guess I should be +1’ing the forum filter.

Haha ty, it was totally the filter though. I’m soooo happy I got a response like this and the previous, so as a fellow biologist you totally get it. Last time I made a thread remotely similar to this in another mmo I was super flamed for it.

On one hand it’s nitpicky as it is specialized knowledge and someone like me would never notice. On the other, it makes ANet look sloppy that they spent all that time designing the weapons and couldn’t spend the few seconds needed to google the proper names. It shows a continuing problem with quality control. The mini male Charr (Tybalt) with a female tail is another example. This is a mini of one of their most well known NPCs and they messed it up.

I agree, they should fix this. Sloppy work is sloppy work.

I had no idea about the tybalt mini. I agree though, that’s a shame it went through like that.

While I think about it, Iwonder if I filed a bug report if they would change it… haha, I kill myself sometimes… <_<

I know nothing about proper classifications for this, but am throwing my support in for correcting them anyway.

Shut up and take my support!

The devil is in the details, as they say. A mix-up like this just looks sloppy. Anything worth doing well is worth doing right.

Correction: termites were part of the order Isoptera, but were reclassified as Blattodea in 2007. Here’s the study. So that one’s correct.

Additionally, are we sure those recipes are correct? The staff looks more like a wasp than a mosquito to me.

Visteri.3821:

Correction: termites were part of the order Isoptera, but were reclassified as Blattodea in 2007. Here’s the study. So that one’s correct.

Additionally, are we sure those recipes are correct? The staff looks more like a wasp than a mosquito to me.

I wasn’t aware of this, what I listed were names I learned in an entomology course and as a biologist I definitely know how often Linnean classification gets reorganized and reorganized again. So if I’m wrong, then good to know they got that right.

I suppose the mosquito could be a wasp, but I think they already have a wasp weapon and I believe the item to make it is ‘fossilized mosquito’.

Lindelle.3718:

Visteri.3821:

Correction: termites were part of the order Isoptera, but were reclassified as Blattodea in 2007. Here’s the study. So that one’s correct.

Additionally, are we sure those recipes are correct? The staff looks more like a wasp than a mosquito to me.

I wasn’t aware of this, what I listed were names I learned in an entomology course and as a biologist I definitely know how often Linnean classification gets reorganized and reorganized again. So if I’m wrong, then good to know they got that right.

I suppose the mosquito could be a wasp, but I think they already have a wasp weapon and I believe the item to make it is ‘fossilized mosquito’.

Well, as far as I know, we don’t know which recipes make which weapons yet. At least, I think the Reddit post was speculation—I don’t know if anyone has confirmed it yet.

But you are right, there is a fossilized mosquito and it’s used for one of the weapons, which is probably not Diptera since that one looks like it uses the fossilized grub. So one of them is probably wrong.

Heh, kittenroach. That would be a good name for a charr.

Kittenroaches O_O someone’s been a bad kitty if kitten roach hybrids are runnin’ around.

Recent DNA evidence has lead to termites to be reclassified as Termitidae within the order of Blattodea, so that one is actually taxonomically correct.

Diptera would be right if they referred to it as a fossilised maggot (fly larva) rather than a fossilised grub (beetle larva), of course, it would be a better name for the fossilised Mosquito.

If Diptera referred to the Mosquito rather than the grub/larva that would make life a bit simpler as Larva can cover multiple insects and an unused taxonomic name ought to be available that would work. Endopterygota (or Holometabola) would probably be a good choice .

So..

Diptera gets renamed Endopterygota (or Holometabola)
Hymenoptera gets renamed Diptera

and all is well.

I thought of the grub thing as well… but thought if I started nitpicking larval classification I might get too much flack from my OP. But yeah grub belong in coleoptera. As you said, name the mosquito weapon Diptera and the grub weapon a certain beetle family, and that would totally work.