Guild Wars 2

I’d love it if they could make some Mordrem Guard combat tonics. We still have not a single tonic for those, and they have the same animations as Sylvari to begin with, so I suppose there wouldn’t be any extra work involved.

It would be great if the outfit’s headgears could be sold as standalone items, or even unlocked as an armor piece once you buy the outfit. The latter could be an incentive for people to actually buy some outfits, I know I would, some outfit headgears are top notch, while the outfits themselves aren’t necessarly interesting.
The outfits are already made of two parts, the head and the body, so it’s not like there’s a tons of work to do to make it happen.

( Reposted from https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/NPC-only-armors-and-faces-compilation )

There’s a ton of NPC-exclusive armors and faces ingame, and we still can’t get them. Most of the armors are Cultural. If Arenanet isn’t planning to give them to us in, what about just adding new Cultural vendors, or selling those in the gemstore ? It’s not like they have to work on creating them, they already exist to begin with.
Some of them look like outfit (some human dresses, for example), but some other seem to be regular armors, as some NPC even mix some parts. There’s clearly something to be done with those, plus it can be quite frustrating to see all those existing skins without a chance to unlock them.
They could just sell some of those as racial outfits like the wedding outfit. I just can’t believe that it would take them more time to do that than actually creating outfits from scratch.

There’s also some single headgears, and a few faces that are restricted to NPCs (and no, I don’t think that giving an unique face to an NPC like Blaize who only appears in the lv 10 human storyline and die is important. Even Trahearne has a face that’s used by other Sylvari NPCs.).
I can kind of understand why they want to keep the main NPCs unique and different, but it makes no sense when it’s for minor NPCs like Motto’s assistants, or the bandits who become completely irrelevant once you’ve done the lv.10 story part, and are still irrelevant for everyone who’s not doing the lv.10 human commoner story anyway.

Pictures attached, you’ll see that there’s a ton of NPC-exclusive stuff, and I’m quite sure I’ve forgot some (there may be some NPC-only Norn faces, but as I don’t play that race, I couldn’t tell).

@Amaimon
While I think you’re right in some way, it still makes no sense for some NPCs, as I pointed out in the picture:
-Trahearne, for example, never had an unique face to begin with, since you can see tons of random Sylvari NPCs with the same face, either in the Grove, or in Nightmare Court villages. I think you even turn into a Courtier with his face in Briarthorn Den, if you play a medium armor class.
-Moto’s krewe members don’t have a major role.
-The bandits from the lv.10 human storyline don’t have a major role, and they die anyway.

There are also a few Asura random NPCs in the latest living story episodes with unique faces, but I guess that’s because we may get those at some point.

Come on, Anet, some more cultural stuff would be amazing.

Okay, I just saw a screenshot of an Asura with the babyface and the legendary boobcups.
I was saying yes to the change because female armor on Charr look ridiculous, but seriously, now I’m saying yes also because I think it’s horrendous to see what look like a 4 years old with boobcups. ._.

Yes, please. Boobplates/bikini armors on Charrs look completely ridiculous, feels completely disconnected to their lore (they don’t even HAVE breasts in the first place), and completely disregard how you presented the race in the first place.

I’ve been buying gems with money regularly to get some cosmetic stuff, but this is going too far. They’re pretty much telling players to rely on their dumb RNG boxes to get the skins. If you want me to buy gems to get a skin, then don’t make these skins bound to RNG.

I don’t play fashion wars 2 to gamble with real money.

I love travel toys (I own the broom, the carpet, and the sonic tunneling tool), but I’ll never buy this one.
Why ? Because it’s lazy and ugly.
Mind you, I would love the idea of having my character float without any kind of object, which can be seen as lazy too. But here, while they could have just decided to give just access to a floating animation as some sort of alternate walk/run animation, they dedided to slap a super-obnoxious particle effect on it, which makes it look very awkward for me.
I saw it on other people, and I’m definitely not buying it, even the character animation doesn’t look interesting.
One thing I really love, especially with the riding broom, is that it gives your character different animations and (hilarious) facial expressions if you walk, or if you run with it. I’d love to see another toy that does that.

I understand that creating new emotes takes time, but what about just giving us moves that NPCs have already access to, as emotes (like the talking animations that you can see some NPCs do sometimes) , or action moves as emotes (like the harvesting or building moves, the tempest overload animations, the one we do when we gain a level, the SAB game over one, etc).

It’s not like Anet would need to make them from scratch since all those animations already exist, it would be a nice thing for players who’ve been asking for emotes for such a long time, and… it would be awesome for making machinimas.

Anet, please?

Thanks for taking your time to answer some questions, Scott McGough ! As a roleplayer, I couldn’t be more happy. :’p

I’d love to ask some clarification about Mordremoth’s influence on the Sylvari, seeing that this plot probably won’t be expanded further with the dragon’s death (well, I suppose so, I hope I’m wrong, though!).

-Mordremoth’s influence on Sylvari wasn’t actual dragon corruption, right ? What about the physical changes they went through as Mordrem Guard ? Is that a form of corruption, or is it just Mordremoth forcing them to use Sylvari’s ability to alter their appearance (like Canach or Caithe did, but in a more extreme way) ?

-We saw a wounded Mordrem Guard in one of the story instances that obviously seemed to have escaped the dragon’s influence for a short moment. Now that Mordremoth’s dead, is it fine to assume that some other Mordrem Guards have been freed from his control ? (I understand not seeing it ingame since the game maps are kind of locked it time, though) Could they regain back their Sylvari appearance too ?

-One of the Mordrem Champions (Stavemaster Adryn) uses fight taunts related to the Nightmare. Could you tell what was his backstory ?

And, some more generic questions regarding Sylvari :

-Is there some kind of reasearchers among Sylvari searching for a way to get back from the Nightmare ? Or are they all just like “no it can’t be cured because Caithe/The Pale Tree told us so”?

-Is it possible for a Sylvari to be born mute, or blind ? Or with a severe handicap? Can they be mentally deficient ? What happens if a pod falls from the tree too early?

-Is the long coma the Pale Tree’s been in affecting the newborn Sylvari saplings ?

-Mini Skelk (Reef skelk, skelk lurker, alpine skelk…)

-Mini Mordrem Guard (male, female. And also a tonic would be great. )

-Mini Mordrem Bomber

-Mini Mordrem Overseer Rannik

-Mini Mordrem Wolf

-Mini Vinewrath

-Mini Stavemaster Adryn

-Mini Shatterer

-Mini Claw of Jormag

-Mini Megadestroyer

-Mini Mushrooms (I think there’s only one as a mini, while there’s maybe 5 different type of them)

-Mini Nightmare Thorn Wolf

The only thing that really annoyed me about Taimi and how she’s been treated by the other characters was that episode in which we just let her limp her way between hundreds of acid-throwing giant insects. No matter if she’s a child or not, this was the dumbest thing we could have done in that situation, endangering her to satisfy her need to feel like a grown up or whatever. There are some times when you’ve got to forget about your ego for a moment and think about the risks and what’s best for your team, and this was clearly one of those moments. Not only she could have died, but her death could have also caused everybody to die there.
It may be the part in HoT’s story episodes that I hate the most, because of that.

ardhikaizecson.3697:

Can anybody tell me in which part of the HoT story that the Commander met with an escaping Mordrem Guard? because i just finished the storyline twice and I have yet to see that

It’s in the Rata Novus personal story instance, and meeting said Mordrem Guard is actually an achievement. You have to backtrack right at the beginning of the instance to see him, or else he’ll already be dead if you come later.

Well, there’s Mordrem guards that are regular Sylvari, and the ones that are clones made up from corpses (Diarmid) or living “templates” (Logan, Zojja), right ? Wouldn’t be surprised if the clones are the ones we would be fighting after Mordremoth’s death.
I hope the fate of the Mordrem guards that were former Sylvari is going to be one of the plot point of LS3, indeed. There’s no hive mind going on with them, so… while I can see some of them staying on Mordremoth’s side, there’s definitely some other that would want to live as Sylvari again, and would probably face some prejudice even within their own race.

Yeah, there’s no regular mini Mordrem Guards too. :/
In an expansion where they’re the main enemies, it’s a little frustrating not to have them as minis and tonics.

So, okay, it takes more time to make armor than outfits.
And outfits are made of two parts : headgear and body, hence why we can only hide the headgears.

…So why can’t we unlock the outfit’s headgears as armor headgears too, when we buy an outfit ? It would probably give another incentive to buy an outfit, and it doesn’t seem like it would cost Anet much time, since they’re already separated from the rest of the outfit.

Heck, Anet could even sell the headgears alone too !

He was also named “Nightmare Seer” on his character sheet. A shame they cut out what they planned to do about the Mordrem Commanders, because I was really interested in what difference it could make for a Mordrem Guard to be a former Nightmare Courtier.

Self repost from reddit :

First of all, with the continuation of the living story, I expect them to stop shying away from changing stuff in the 5 races cities. We get it, they can change stuff in Lion’s Arch, or add festival things in the main cities. But what about actually making story changes there ? I want to see Sylvari in the Grove being affected about HoT’s story and what happened to the Pale Tree. I want to see humans in DR talking about being afraid of another attack. I want to see Asura talking about Mordrem studies and Rata Novus. …I just want to feel like the story impacts on the main cities. It’s good what the living story can do with the other maps (looking at you, kessex hills), but I feel like the main towns are bubbles, completely disconnected from the rest, made to evolve through instancied content only.

I just hope they’re going to expand on the Sylvari lore (the other Pale Tree, Malyck, what’s the Dream, is the whole “we’re dragon minions” thing gonna have repercussions on Sylvari as a society ? I can see some of them actually thinking that killing Mordremoth was a bad idea, etc…) and Rata Novus (where are the survivors ? is Taimi going to find something actually useful there ?), while still going forward in the story (next dragon, I guess ?).

Someone please tell me that we can toggle off the Crystal Savant outfit’s shoulders.
They’re gigantic, and they arent even touching the whole set, they’re just floating things.

I think it’s mostly game mechanics, but Sylvari do seem to gain new skills (I’m thinking about the corrupted/poisoned ground AoE), or “powered-up” racial skills.

I was very eager to get that new outfit, but seeing it in a bundle only today was really disappointing.
Can’t say I don’t understand what’s Anet’s strategy here..I always buy outfits that I like, and a bunch of stuff on the gemstore (hairstyle kits, character slots, etc…), but this time I’ll pass : I won’t give them my money for that bundle of shinies just to get that one shiny I really want. :/
I hope they’ll sell those outfits without the bundles later.

Apparently :
“Fixed a shameful error in the Rata Novus study guide book “The Human Gods” that stated Kormir took Dhuum’s place rather than Abaddon’s.”
=> https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-November-17-2015

As a Sylvari player, when my group was separated in two (I think it’s when you have to choose between defending the Hylek village or search for the prisoners), I think I heard Rytlock (who was in the other group) discreetly asking someone to keep me under surveillance as he walked away. Can’t remember exactly what he was saying, though, I think it was just one line.

CureForLiving > Actually, the screenshot I posted earlier in this thread seems to prove otherwise, for Mordrem guards at least. :/ The Nightmare seems quite different.

I’m surprised I haven’t seen any, seeing that there’s exalted tonics, three different mushrooms tonics, scarabs tonics, and pre-HoT tonics for pretty much every mordrem creature.
As a tonic collector who really, really love the Mordrem Guards’ design, I’m hoping that it exists and may just be very rare, but seeing that there’s been rare mordrem champions weapons found and stuff, I’m actually starting to doubt about that.
As anyone seen one yet ?

It wouldn’t make sense that they would continue to serve Mordremoth, at all.
Have you tried talking to the Mordrem Guard in the Rata Novus instance ? He’s freed from Mordremoth’s influence for a little while just because its voice is weaker there.
Mordremoth’s control is something that it’s got to do actively.
So if we kill Mordremoth, I don’t see why it would be any different : he’s not calling anymore and invasing Sylvari’s minds, so Mordrem guards should be free.

However, it may be different for the ones that are clones and the dead/reanimated creatures he uses, seeing that the first ones are entirely made by him, and the second ones has been seen working for him even where his voice doesn’t reach (=Ascalon and the Shiverpeaks).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

• So we are told the Nightmare Court also resist Mordremoth… but where the hell were they?

Apart from Faolain, there’s ONE Nightmare Courtier in the story instance with Eir & Faolain. I actually didn’t see her on my first playthrough, I had to play a second time with another character to see her, and yeah, you can talk to her rather than insta-kill like most of the NC NPCs you met in the world. But yeah, no armies of Nightmare Courtiers like we saw in the first HoT Trailer (or they’re in an open world event that I haven’t seen yet, but I doubt about that).

-If obviously the Mordrem Guards can be freed from Mordremoth’s influence if they’re far enough (Rata Novus story instance), I guess his mind’s destruction also frees all the former Sylvari. But what about the clones ? Do they have the same memory as the originals ?

—…What about Malyck and his tree ? I thought this expansion would be finally where we get some answers, and… we got nothing.

-What about the Dream ? What is it ? Why can’t a Sylvari turn back from the Nightmare if obviously Mordrem Guards can be freed from the Dragon’s Influence ?

-Who is E ?

EDIT ! : Okay, so according to a friend, there are actually Nightmare Courtiers, and another NC duchess in the Mouth of Mordremoth meta event. This seem to be way more interesting than Faolain and that random NPC in the story instance. :p

Machine Hound.7401:

a frog could maybe nibble at your fingers?

While I see your point, I do think that frogs could be terrifying if they were this size. They’re predators and eat smaller living animals. I mean come on, the whole “deadly leap” aside, they don’t even need to come near your to do anything, they can just strike you with their tongue and swallow you in one second. I actually think it’s more unsettling than claws and fangs, and I kinda like the idea.

Actually, the thing that’s weird for me is that the Nuhoc and Itzel only seem to eat insects. Seeing how big they are, some Nuhoc could just swallow tigers.

LanfearShadowflame > Seeing that there’s a different amount of monsters if you’re less than 10, I actually think that they changed their mind about that.
The only thing that’s really gonna be a pain if you’re a small guild, is farming for the different guild features. But I totally understand why they couldn’t change the numbers depending of the size of your guild for that : people would have just abused it.

Even if you’re only 4 players, can’t you just ask some friends to help by inviting them just so you can claim a hall ?
We’re a small guild, and we actually managed to take a hall with just 7 people, some not even fully stuffed. Heck, I’m sure you could even ask in map chat some help and get a few players to come just for the guild claiming.
If you’re less than 10 people, you’ll only have one maw thingie to kill at a time.

Ah, yeah, I also felt like you relied to much on voiced scenes.
Most of the time, there were NPCs around me, but I couldn’t talk to them outside of their voiced scenes. What about dialog boxes, so I can learn more stuff ? Every NPC in the story instances should have a dialog box, you don’t have to fear adding the dialog boxes just because you know people prefer voiced stuff. It would have been a nice touch.
I really missed hanging around and trying to talk to everybody or check every object, like I could in the Priory Living Story instance. :/

Edit : nnngh sorry I can’t write properly in English.

I just finished the new personal story, so here’s my point of view about it. Don’t read if you haven’t finished the story yet.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Male medium has a hard time finding “sexy” armor. Long coats from here to the horizon with hardly a break.

True. I actually “cheat” when I want to make some revealing armor on my medium armor characters. And by cheating, I mean using the right dyes so I can pretend some parts are actually the character’s skin. It works better on dark-skinned humans or Sylvari, but it’s never gonna be perfect, of course. The Strider armor is actually fine if you want to pretend wearing fishnet.

BobbyStein.2315:

No. Any items that directly reference the HoT ending aren’t in the raid beta.

Thank you !

BobbyStein.2315:

Some notes regarding story presentation in raids:

• As stated in the Twitchcon interview, the first raid wing takes place shortly after the conclusion of the HoT story in the timeline.

But… wait, does this mean that if I try to do the first wing during the last Beta Weekend, I’ll be spoiled about HoT’s conclusion ? :/
I’m now very concerned about seeing story spoilers everywhere before HoT is even released.

Isredel > There’s this thread : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Bored-of-Hairstyles/page/7
There’s been lots of Sylvari hairstyles suggestions, and I think some even made it in the game !

Maybe it’s because Mordremoth waited to launch the full assault before actively transforming them ? Or Mordremoth has Mordrem guards, but also some other types of former-Sylvari minions, that aren’t supposed to be fighters and therefore don’t need to get buffed (infiltrated spies, for example ? :‘p).
I don’t know, the idea that he could choose to change some Sylvari’s appearance and not some others doesn’t seem far-fetched to me.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-mordrem-guard/

Well, seems like I was right about the whole “the Mordrem Guards are former Pact Sylvari”. :’p

As someone who’s got 19 Sylvari characters…
I must say, I’m a bit disappointed in this outfit. I get that it’s supposed to be over-the-top, but even as an over-the-top outfit, there’s some stuff that annoys me. :l

-The horns could have been great, but the weird barky stuff around the head ruins them for me. It makes it hard to find a face that fits with the whole look of the outfit.
I’d clearly hide the helmet most of the time if I had to buy this outfit (then rant about the fact that I can’t use regular armor headgears with outfits).

-For a plant outfit, I’m kinda disappointed that it doesn’t pick my Sylvari’s colors like the cultural armors.

-The little bark strip behind the outfit sticks out in a way that doesn’t look alright. It should have been linked to the buttcape to get the same physics.

-The dyes applies weirdly on it. I don’t know how to explain it though, it just seems off to me.

Also… I’m puzzled by the choice of colors for this outfit’s promotion… green and red/pink, seriously ? No wonder people think it’s horrible the instant they look at it. It’s a matter of taste, of course, but I also thought it was awful before I tried to change the colors. It should be in the outfit panel to let people check their dyes on it easily, rather than just in the gemstore panel (I know I can use the chatcode, then search for dyes previews in the trading post, but it’s annoying and not practical at all). Most of the Mordrems actually are grey or brown-ish, appart from the ones based on flowers, so it makes that choice of color even weirder.

I did the event, but I haven’t seen the part about Diarmid being a dead Sylvari. I actually think it’s quite strange, since other dialogs seem to indicate that the Mordrems take Sylvari as prisonner to convert them, and just use the corpses of other races.
I’m intrigued, now.
Or maybe they just kill Sylvari that they can’t turn to Mordremoth’s side, which would explain why Diarmid seems more like a “mindless” monster like the usual Mordrems rather than a Mordrem guard (unless she actually speaks and I missed her dialog).

(Diarmid screenshot attached for those who haven’t seen her.)

Unless there’s another dialog I missed, Aerin didn’t want to record his trip in the Dream, but in his journal.
=> Trader Aerin: “I shall record every moment in my journal so that even those who can’t access the Dream know the joy I’m experiencing.”

But, yeah, apart from that, his “Pale Tree guide me” line always bugged me.

All of those ?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/NPC-only-armors-and-faces-compilation

I’d rather get the NPC armors as armors, but seeing that Arenanet doesn’t seem to want to give them to use anyway, at least they could make them outfits.

I need that outfit for my male Asura, it’s gorgeous !
As someone who mostly play Sylvari, I’m a bit baffled by the male Sylvari version, though. It’s just an human formal suit made with leaves, I wish they did something more creative. :T
I’m still very happy about the fact that they remembered that cultural clothing was a thing, anyway !

Shame. Shame. Shame.
Ding.

Yello > Well, the males can also have beards. And they all got what looks like a bellybutton. So, why not breasts ? It’s not like all parts of their anatomy are supposed to be useful. :’p

Jake > Sure, but the weird thing is how he is perfectly similar to the other Sylvari. If he was humanoid, but slightly different, then yeah, the whole “it just works” argument could pass. But nope, he looks exactly like any other Sylvari.

Yes, it’s totally because of Scarlet. There’s prejudice against Sylvari.
I managed to find two idle dialogs about it : One is a Sylvari merchant telling that he’ll probably go back to the Grove because he can’t find much customer, being a Sylvari, and the other one has troubles to find a job, he talks to an Asura who hesitates to employ him before accepting because he doesn’t ask for much money.
I’ve got screenshots, but only in French, sorry. :p The names of said NPCs :
-Itheann & Lion Guard Hela (South, near the beach)
-Melydiod & Edda. (East of the portals)

Edit : There’s also a guy near the docks, telling a joke about burning Sylvari.

I’ve added the Asura faces !
I’ll do the same with the other armors once I’ll get some time. Don’t hesitate to share your screens if you find some other NPC-exclusive stuff !

Oh wow, I totally forgot about Motto’s crew ! I’ll add their faces to the first post once I’m back home, thank you !