Guild Wars 2

Bhawb.7408:

There really isn’t any gameplay comparison between Astral Form and Shroud, except the fact that they are transforms gated behind a resource you have to build, like Berserker is. Otherwise, Astral Form is very different than Shroud. Don’t see any reason to feel shafted that Rangers also got something cool for once.

Seeing the Astral form made me glad lad I’d leveled up a Ranger. It looks like it might be fun to play with. I don’t feel like Druid’s getting Astral Form hurts Necromancers either. I want to be able to do neat things no matter what class I’m playing on.

Against a single target I really like the little chaining scythe attack the focus brings. I used to like it with the axe, but I haven’t used the axe in awhile because some encounters really want you to have that 1200 range the staff has. It’s a shame because I like the concept of the axe, even if the axe animations are pretty wonky these days.

I don’t know if an elite well should or shouldn’t exist, or of what type, but the image of an extra big well looks pretty neat in my head, that’s for sure.

Kumion.7580:

Data-mining has revealed new hairstyles and faces are coming. There weren’t any textures, so no previews are available.

Mind sharing source of this information?

Redenaz.8631:

I am krait and want to make friendsss.

I have come to Divinity’ss Reach to make friendss and learn to ssociety. I have learned the human language.

What sshould I ssee? What is bessst in human life?

Pleasse, I need your help!

Get off my land beast.

Terazeal.1976:

Ripping off reality in no way makes a game compelling. As far as I’m concerned, humans should never have been a part of Guild Wars or indeed any work of fiction set in another universe.

Every single non-Human race, from Charr, to Sylvari to Asura and onward – they’re just Humans with a visual skin. Everything that inspired them is from the actual Human world, our world. Things humans know about plants and animals in our world inspired them. Cultural and religious ideas from Human cultures, religions and civilizations in general, throughout history, inspired them. There’s not a single aspect of the non-Human races that isn’t somehow “Human”. If they were Human, and identified as a separate race of Human, nothing about them would change. The direct links to Human influences, in the real world, on each non-Human race is obvious.

The non-Human races aren’t interesting. Humans are. That’s what GW1 realized and got right. The Asura are a prime example of this, as their very make up is partially made from remnants of a fourth human culture that would have been in the Utopia expansion. The Charr as well, with their legion mentality. Even the Sylvari are, what they are, visually because of Human influence, not just from the real world, but from within the world of Tyria itself – as their form was dictated by the mass grave beneath the tree on some level.

Humans are interesting, and the non-Human races are just reskinned, interesting, Humans, that have been made to look non-Human.

In my mind exploring the variety and richness of Humanity would have been a far better thing than adding in non-Human playable races. Everything from human customization to human class selection to human story and more have all suffered because of the time and resources and effort that needs to be spent on the non-Human races. This was predicted before GW2 was released, and issues like this where people make arguments against going to Cantha because, “That’s Human stuff” are just another example of why non-Humans were a terrible idea.

Getting to see what’s become of Cantha, Elona, and more, as well as getting to finally see the Human, south-american inspired, culture that the Asura got in the way of are all far more interesting prospects than anything the non-Human races offer.

South-American inspired cultures in fantasy, especially well done ones, are too rare in the first place, but especially too rare to see them replaced by the Asura. That had to be one of the darkest moments in GW1’s development history. At least we got a proper African inspired people, which is also rare, but how well that was done only shows how terrible it was to never see Utopia realized, and wasted on the Asura instead.

Factions and Nightfall are RPG gems because of the chances they took by expanding upon Humans rather than piling on more races, and it’s one of the very few flaws I find in GW2 that the development team just didn’t realize that, nor did they do anything to grab that potential and turn it into something even greater. I like this game, but that will always be something that I view as a flaw, the playable non-Human races.

8/10 Looks quite nice, I like your hair style. I’m bias though, my Mesmer has that hair style. I like it.

This is the shot from Beta I used as a reference when I remade my character after release. With the exact setting cut out. :p

The running animation being changed I can see as annoying. But, more importantly, I’d certainly be upset if the developers decided a modest or small breasted option a player picked should suddenly be huge. I’d quite purposefully went small on my Human females, because I’m sick of all the forced large breasted character models in games.

I love playing as Humans. The thing that would make my day is to see GW1 style customization options for the face, eyes, hair, hair color, skin color and body/face shapes added. I’d pay for them. Real money. No question, no doubt.

In GW1 one of the interesting things about its Humans is that, well, some of them looked like you’d expect Humans to look, but others did not. Humans of classes associated with certain Gods often seemed, “corrupted” or, “influenced” by the power of their God. I’ll give some examples:

1. GW1 hair styles. The GW1 Humans had some great, terrible and ‘unique’ hair styles. I’d love to see updated GW2 versions of these from all three GW1 Human races. I’d love to see those weird hair ornaments and tied up, and braided and Tyrian Gods know what styles. The really strange hair colors they could have are another thing I’d like to see make a come back. Particularly the the Necromancer, Dervish and Elementalist hair colors and styles.

2. Necromancers and Ritualists often had these weird fingers that ended in points like claws. It was a strange touch, but it was also nice variety. Being able to pay to add this customization to the list of body options would be nice.

3. Necromancers, particularly the males for some reason, had a hunched animation, but both male and females had strange skin color options. Especially the males. Then ashen gray variants of dark skin tones, these near ghostly white skin tones and the strange decaying look the male skin could have. This would be a nice ‘option’ to pay for, and add. This is what the cash shop is for, no?

Not only Necromancers had this, just look at the elementalists. The palest skin tone option in GW1 is this near luminescent white skin tone, that makes the Elementalist look almost airy. Strange and unique things influenced by either your class or your faith or something, I don’t know what was supposed to cause it – but it was neat.

4. Eyes. I don’t know why, I always associated it with their gods but Necromancers, Elementalists, Dervishes and a few other classes could often have their strange eyes. Not just strange colors, but strange pupil and irish shapes, even the sclera could be a strange color. This is yet another customization option from GW1 I’d pay to have back in GW2.

5. Scar Patterns, Facial Scar Patterns, Body Paint, Face/Head Tattoos and more are all things Humans in GW1 had. From monks to necromancers to ritualists and more. Seeing these sorts of customization options make a come back in the gemstore, that I could buy to have back again in GW2, would be lovely. And I would pay.

To me this is one of the promises of the gem store. Paying for more customization. Supporting your product at my leisure, but supporting it. And, I think you already know, in order to put my money toward your game, I need to have things to buy. We all need things to buy. Customization options, for me, are the primary thing I look to buy in the gem store, and GW1’s customization options are some of my favorites from any online RPG I’ve come across. It just had really neat visuals it presented, from hair styles, strange color decisions, neat ornaments, scar patterns, tattoos, strange inhuman eyes and more.

Things I want to pay for, but can’t, because they just aren’t there. You haven’t presented nearly enough in the range of new character customization options. Please A.net, can we have some more? In the gem shop? Where we can pay you for your work?
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I’m talking a lot about Humans, but near every race can be classes associated with these corruptions and strange visual elements. They may not come from the Human Gods, if they’re non-Humans, but seeing extra customization options for sale, all around, is something I’d like to think everyone, regardless of the race they play, would want coming their way. I play Humans. I’m coming from that perspective, but know there are people out there that want more for the other races too, to buy from the gem store.

The edit function for my post isn’t working for some reason, so I’ll add this here:

Canthan, Luxon, Kurzick, Elonan, Ascalon and Krytan as Guild Wars peoples were amongst the best and culturally diverse Humans that have ever graced an online RPG in my mind. I adore what was originally done with them. A South-American inspired race of Humans would have been the perfect top to a glorious cake.

The non-Human races cannot be salvaged in my mind, nothing will ever make me like or play as one. I love a great many aspects of Guild Wars 2, but the non-Human races simply cannot, and will not count amongst them. The only way they could possibly improve the non-Human races in my mind is to remove all the non-Human races from being playable, permanently. That is my honest feeling. I’m sorry if other feel different, that’s fine, I won’t argue the matter, but I just did not need, and never did want, playable non-Humans in GW2 or GW1. If other people enjoy them, so be it, I’m glad even, I’m only speaking to my personal preference.

Vis.8471:

LINK:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/16/guild-wars-2-designer/
(And by “disappointed” I am referring to the statement of ““people avoiding charr & asura are missing the strongest story stuff””)

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I chose a human due to the fact that I wanted to play a Norn or a Charr however the Norn males are hideous and their animations are god awful. Charr’s cant hold a shield without it clipping through or way off their arm and their tail goes through most armors by clipping etc etc. And they are both SLOW. So I went with the boring old human.

The most likely race to be released next is the Tengu which is just yet again another large animal race so I’ll just stick with my human after them as well. I’m waiting for a magical race. Something like the largos etc.

This is the first MMO I have ever rolled a human. I only did it due to the Norn males having worse hairstyles, movements, animations than any other MMO race I have ever seen.

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TL;DR?

Were you forced into playing a human due to something?
OR
Did you choose a human simply because you wanted to roll a human?

Well, firstly, I find it really strange they specify, ““people avoiding charr & asura are missing the strongest story stuff” in the first place.

Why? Why do this? Why put the strongest story stuff on the non-Human races? Guild Wars started out, primarily, with Humans. People, in mass, in every MMO I’m aware of, choose Humans over the other races available. This is pretty consistent. People like playing as Humans, and shouldn’t be punished with the, “Lesser story stuff” because they didn’t play as another race.

Now, with that off my shoulders, I came from GW1. Directly. I have 30 points in the HoM. I didn’t go over that for one reason, and that’s because the physical rewards stopped at 30 – the titled beyond 30 didn’t interest me. In GW1 we were met with 3 races of Humans, and technically a forth if you count the Krytans separate from Ascalonians, which they were.

Then there was Utopia, which didn’t happen, sadly. It really annoyed me actually, it annoys me even more when people say, “That content got turned into the Asura, and Asura areas/enemies” . . . that really annoys me. I can’t say it enough. GW1 was very Human centric, and I preferred that.

When it was announced we’d be getting extra races, I was afraid that Human storylines would become lesser, as a result, and that seems to be exactly what happened in many aspects. So many races to keep track of limit class options that would Human specific, and all manner of issues. On top of thta we have a developer outright saying they gave preference to the non-Human races in story, giving them the, “stronger story stuff” and I find that outright offense.

The reality is I would have been happier if we’d gotten Utopia, and moved onto this game with five distinct Human races with their own classes and racial characteristics and architecture. I’d have preferred four strong storylines on Human issues in the GW2 world, and for there to be a unique expansion for each Human race in question. I’d have preferred non-Human races never be a playable option. I’d have preferred the Asura never have existed. The Charr were a great addition in GW1, and I’d want more of them in GW2, but not as a playable option. Rather a strong story and dialogue point, at various points, to interact with. I think that would have been great.

I really was not forced into playing a Human.

Indeed there was never a single chance that I would play anything but a Human, and if they’d not included Humans at all I simply would never have bought the game. I always play Humans. Humans are just more interesting.

All the racial characteristics, all the cultural characteristics – every single thing about the non-Human races in the game are inspired by Human things. The Asura show this the best because the Asura really are just a mish mash of ideas originally meant for a race of Humans in GW1. The Charr themselves are massively Human inspired. For me if every single non-Human race stayed the same, except they were suddenly Human, NOTHING WOULD CHANGE for me. Nothing. At all. Because the things that make them what they are, are Human things. Even the Charr eating people – guess what, cannibals exist. The end. Just Human inspirations. All that variety they have is Human variety. Human this. Human that. Human everything. The most varied and wonderful and complex and culturally diverse thing we know of – Human.

Humans are interesting, and I always love playing as them, even when developers have an insane bias toward non-Human races.