Guild Wars 2

Hello ANet Team,

this is not a bug report, but a suggestion … I posted it here, since there is no suggestions subforum (you should add one!)

Anyhow I was playing the game and I encountered Vigil Crusaders …
and I think that it’s not a good thing to call them Crusaders.

A Crusader is – by definition – a knight, who participated in the Crusades, which were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Catholic Church. Now, since the Catholic Faith or the real life events of the Crusades are not part of the Guild Wars Lore, there is no way that the word “Crusader” would be a part of the vocabulary of the people in the Guild Wars Universe. Therefore, this word breaks the immersion and is out of place.

This may be nitpicking but I think, it’s important to keep the lore / the game free of such errors … and at the same time, you don’t want users to have InGame-Names that refer to a religion or to religious people, so why implement NPC characters that refer to a religious faith and – more importantly – to a religious war? In my opinion, you should consider renaming the Vigil Crusaders.

Thank you for your time.

That definition is really old and out of date.

A crusader is someone who fights for a specific set of beliefs. (and is recognized by the organization/belief set they fight for as a defender of the beliefs) That is the current definition that is especially prevalent in games and media.

Hello Vampirial,

thanks for your posting and I respect your opinion. However, I want to counter your argument with the following points:

a) the term “crusader” is still a reference to a real world religious war and since ANet is so strict on using religious terms as InGame-Names etc. (and they are right about that!), they should use the same policy for their NPCs

b) the word “Crusade” comes from “Crux” – the cloth cross the Crusaders had on their clothes – and since the crucifix has no meaning in the GW universe (and is therefore never mentioned or referenced), the people of the Guild Wars Universe would never call their knights crusaders even if we “real life people” changed the meaning of the word … the “Guild Wars people” would never thought up that word in the first place, therefore it just feels wrong to be in the game.

I don’t know if they used other words for the Vigil Crusader in other languages, but for example the german translation for Crusader is “Kreuzritter” – if you would translate “Kreuzritter” literally, it would translate to “Knight of the Cross”. So if they went with “Kreuzritter” in the german version of the game, the reference is very obvious and even more out of place than the english word. And I think you agree with me that “Vigil Knight of the Cross” would seem very weird in the GW universe And by the way, the french word for Crusader is “[chevalier] croisé” (I’m from Luxembourg so I’m fluent in german and french) which literally means “Crossed Knight” … again, if they used the word “croisé” in the french version of the game, it’s even more out of place than the english word. And believe me: “Kreuzritter” or “chevalier croisé” don’t have another meaning in the respectives languages than the good, old crusader from the religious crusades. So even though it may not be a “real” problem in English – since you claim that nowadays it means a knight who fights for his belief – it may be problematic in other languages.

c) the argument that other games and media do the same is not really a valid one, since it doesn’t change my point and you know … just because others do something, it’s not automatically right

Maybe it’s true that the meaning changed over the time (although I cannot find a single [online] dictionary or source claiming that the term “crusader” has a modernised meaning nowadays…) but the fact remains that the origin of the word derives from the catholic church and since it’s not present in the GW lore, “they” wouldn’t even know about this word and definitely not use it.

Besides that: it’s really not an original name in a fantasy world full of Asuras, Sylvani, Charrs, Norn and many msyterious creatures, it’s a bit dull to name something “crusader” when you could use like a billion fantasy names for that particular unit

Thanks for your time. I tend to write a lot and get carried away sometimes … thank you for bearing with me

You’re quite right on that, it hadn’t even occured to me untill now.
However, wasn’t the vigil already in GW1? (not sure since I never played it)
It has been mentioned in the first novel: “Crusader Riona Grady of the Vigil”

I’m afraid it might be strange/confuse a lot of people if it’s changed now since the name has been around quite a while. However, you do have a valid point! ^^

Do not confuse definition with origin. While that may be its origin, in modern times bot the words “crusade” and “crusader” are only roughly connected to the origin of the word. Over time the definition has become much broader then it originally was.

oh and from dictionary.com
Crusade
3.
any vigorous, aggressive movement for the defense or advancement of an idea, cause, etc.: a crusade against child abuse.