Showing Posts For escherbach.8376:
The most disappointing day ever. The Lost Shores event does not save this patch update for me.
sigh Yeah, sure. I agree.
9/11? It pales in comparison with today.
The day my pet rabbit, Boppsey, died from eating too much of her own poop, and I held her one last time before burying her and, at the tender age of 4, came to understand the meaning of the word “death?”
Pfffft… It was a breeze in comparison with the heartrending I’m experiencing as I type these words.
The day my parents told me that they had adopted me and that I was “a little bit of a letdown?”
I wish I could return to those halcyon days.
The day that I read that book about the genocide in Rwanda in the mid-90s and tried to imagine how one ethnic group could hack apart 800,000 of their friends and neighbors and co-workers with machetes in the space of 100 days?
Nope. Doesn’t really compare with today.
The day that I accidentally sawed off my hands? The day that I heard Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” for the first time? The day when I was an underdog female boxer and I managed to become a professional but then got sucker punched after my big fight and became a quadriplegic and eventually I had to get my limbs amputated and then, finally, my coach euthanasized me?
All walks in the park in comparison with today.
No, today was the most disappointing day ever. For today, friends, I felt let down by video game. It was an MMO. And it didn’t have a subscription. So, I wasn’t really paying for it. And, sure, there was lots to do in it. But, you see, one of the classes in the game…. I really wanted to like it. I really wanted to play this class. But it didn’t live up to my expectations. So, like, I waited for them to fix it. I waited something insane, like, two months. And then they said they were gonna fix it, but then, like, they didn’t. Not much anyway.
Most. Disappointing. Day. Ever.
Come on, people. Lighten up. Life is too short for this much negativity over a game.
Yeah, sorry, but I pretty much disagree with all of the OP’s points. I don’t find the NPCs to be bland. The customization is great. Just great. Naturally, more option in character customization is always great, so, yeah, sure I’d like more faces/hair options/etc. But Anet did a great job with the existing customization options for the sylvari.
I also disagree with the OP’s claim that human armor looks silly on sylvari. Mystic Starfish’s point is a good one: leave out the “us.” I, for one, love the way my sylvari toons look when they’re decked out in human armor. Would it be nice if there were more cultural armor options? Sure. More options is always good. But the existing options are just fine. I suppose that if I had to make a criticism of Anet, then I’d like some male armor options that showed a bit more skin. (I’d love to be able to show off more of my male toons’ glow effects.) And some female armor skins that showed off a little less skin. But, all in all, I think they did a great, amazing job with the sylvari.
I have to say that I don’t get a lot of the posts I see on these forums. It seems to me that people are really scratching the bottom of the barrel in trying to find stuff to criticize. Look over the forums and you’ll see people complaining on the forums for each profession and each race. A lot of it seems pretty silly to me, as if people felt compelled to complain about something, even when there’s not much to complain about.
I developed a similar back story for my warrior as the OP—kind of a cross between magical bionics and a magical version of Iron Man. But I also think that the Asura animations take some of the pressure off of us to come up with an elaborate, lore-appropriate justification. Weapons such as Great Sword and Hammer look crazy heavy when my Asura warrior swings them around. I love how she has to hurl herself up into the air with each swing of a thousand blades, and how she teeters around afterward while carrying the great sword. The animations make it look like she doesn’t have superhuman (err…. super-Asuran) strength, just a hell of a lot of determination.
I started a couple of norn toons but deleted them because the animations felt sluggish, even at the smallest height. Yeah, it felt like it took forever to run anywhere, and, yeah, combat felt less dynamic. But I also found that I was adapting my playing to fit the animations. I read about a phenomenon in game design a few years. People had been playing an MMO (COH?) and the animations for one of the attacks took a long time to complete. The attack itself was balanced: it damaged the target just as quickly as any other animation. It just looked like it was taking longer. The thing was, players subliminally slowed down their reaction times to fit the animation. I had the impression that the same thing kept happening with norn toons. If I played the same class as an asura or a sylvari, then I’d be dodge-rolling and weapon-switching like crazy, but I’d play a lot less dynamically as a norn.
@ applied disbelief: I actually LOVE the bark-face model for engineer. I don’t use it on my other sylvari toons, but I like how the bark-face compliments the steam punk look of engineers. My engineer looks like some sort of clockwork automaton.
That’s a fair response. I don’t think I intended to be quite so literal—i.e, that sylvari just are plant-based copies of humans buried under the tree—but I can see why my using a term like “clone” to describe them would suggest that to you. My suggestion was more that the Pale Tree has absorbed a range of experiences over the course of the 250+ years that she’s been around, that the Dream is a manifestation of these collective experiences, that what a sylvari witnesses in the Dream shapes their identity, and that the Pale Tree shapes this identity (which I liken to programming) by influencing what aspects of the Dream they experience in their prenatal stage. I still find that thinking of them as clone-like is helpful heuristic for me in terms of trying to get into their heads—trying to imagine what it would be like to be born with all of these confusing memories of things I’d witnessed in the dream, with a kind of abstract knowledge of the world around me but without having experienced it yet, and to be defined by an intense curiosity to better understand myself and my world. But, yeah, you’re right, I shouldn’t be suggesting that my sylvari is a plant-clone of a particular human being that once lived in Tyria.
@deepwinter. I don’t think my take on the Dream in incompatible with what you’re pointing out about character creation. I’m suggesting that the Dream is a state of quasi-consciousness in which the sylvari receive their “programming” for interacting with the world. This includes lots of things. They’re given basic survival skills and knowledge of the world by absorbing past memories, but, as you note, they’re also given visions of their future.
Not to sound too defensive, but I’m familiar with the wiki pages you linked. The first one supports me on this:
“In this state [the Dream], they experience visions of the outer world and become acquainted with it through the past experiences of other sylvari. In this way, they learn things both trivial and vital about their future lives.”
“The Dream is described as being like a well, into which memories and thoughts of sylvari are poured. "
So, yeah, I don’t see why we can’t both be right on this issue. You’re right that sylvari see visions of their future, but they’re also given a portion of their race’s collective past experiences. I think there’s some indication in the game, too, that they dabble in the memories of other races as well: the Pale Tree absorbed Ventari’s teachings, we see other races’ experiences/memories in the opening tutorial battle, etc.
One last point. I definitely do not mean to suggest that roleplay purists aren’t philosophical. I’m not trying to attack their character. I see the difference between improvisationalists and purists more as a matter of how they respond to the wiggle room within a game’s lore. The purist prefers to adhere pretty closely to the lore in order, as you put it, to avoid making grand assumptions. The improvisationalist like to riff on the lore in these cases. Don’t get me wrong. They respect lore. They don’t want do roleplaying that contradicts it. But they like exploring when something is left open a bit by the lore—seeing how great of range of stories they can tell within that wiggle room. I don’t think that one approach is necessarily any better than the other. They both have their pros and cons.
These are tough questions to answer, partly because I think people will approach them differently based on how they like to roleplay. I think of myself as a roleplay “improvisationalist.” I like to start off with a game’s lore but to get creative with it, to use it as a framework for telling my own stories, or for mulling over bigger questions within it. I find that a lot of roleplayers are what I call roleplay “purists.” They prefer to strictly adhere to the game’s cannon.
So, here’s how I’m inclined to approach your questions. I tend to think of the sylvari as being almost like artificial intelligences, like magical robots or clones. The Pale Tree absorbed all of these memories and experiences from the sapient life forms that inhabit Tyria. At a certain point, it began creating clone-like beings based on these imprints using plant-like material—beings whose personalities were shaped by what they’d witnessed in the Dream, i.e., the memories and experiences the Pale Tree had absorbed. I see sylvari as kind of being like recently awakened androids who know a lot about the world, and who have memories they’ve borrowed from others based on their imprinting in the dream, but who are experiencing the world for the first time, and trying to figure out, in a way, what it means to be sylvari.
(Incidentally I have to give credit to Braghi’s comments on this forum for inspiring how I think about the sylvari: http://guildwars2roleplayers.com/forum/m/2737230/viewthread/2329469-cant-decide-if-i-like-sylvari/page/2)
Anyhow, this approach shapes how I think about your questions. I’m inclined to say that there need not be biological explanations for why the syvlari are the way they are. What’s the biological explanation for why they grow leaves to cover up their private parts? Well, there isn’t one. They grow them so that they don’t offend the modesty of other races. Why do they drink and eat and whatnot? Well, because they’ve created to experience things in human-like ways, and eating and drinking are an important part of our life experiences. So, whenever someone raises this question about why sylvari eat food, or whether they have hearts, or whether they need sunlight, I’m inclined to say that there physiology doesn’t need to make sense. They’re magical beings who’ve been "programmed’ to experience things in person-like ways.
I approach stuff about gender from similar perspective. I’m roleplaying my sylvari as engaged in a philosophic quest to simply understand who he is—something that making him wrestle with the meanings of things he witnessed, but also with some of the questions involving gender that the OP raises. He’s male. But he’s trying to figure out what, if anything, that actually means to him.
Roleplay purists would probably disagree with me, though, on these issues. They’d probably say that there has to be a lore-appropriate explanation for why sylvari have hearts, or what gender means to them. That’s fine. I don’t see any problem with roleplaying them that way. Personally, though, I like to approach the lore surrounding them as a chance to think philosophically about, say, gender.
I think Ten’s point about suspension of disbelief is a good one. I do think there’s a way, though, to get the game’s lore to square up with the game mechanics. Here are my thoughts.
I love Braghi’s take on the Sylvari on this forum:
Basically, his suggestion is that you can think of the Pale Tree as a giant, biological computer—apropos Avatar—that got “programmed,” first, by absorbing the worldviews of a human and a centaur and, later on, by absorbing the memories and experiences and hopes and desires of other sentient beings. The sylvari are a kind of a clone army that it created by creating organisms based on these memories and experiences. (The Nightmare Court, in turn, are Sylvari who see the original programming of the Pale Tree by Ventari as corrupting their fundamental nature—a kind of virus that infected the computer.
Anyway, I love this account of the Sylvari, and it leads me to think of them as a life form that’s been created precisely to emulate humanity, and, consequently, the Pale Tree created them such that they’re biological processes mimic those of human beings. The reason why they bleed, eat, have sex, etc., is because they’ve been programmed to emulate humanity.
I think there’s some justification for this approach to Sylvari biology in the game’s lore. I read an interview with one of the game’s designers where she said that the Sylvari grow clothes to hide their nakedness so that they don’t offend other races. This makes it sound as though there physiology is sort of volitional—i.e., they don’t need to grow big leaves over their crotches, there’s no biological explanation for it, they just do it so they don’t freak out other races. Similarly, I think of their bleeding sap and eating food and getting drunk on of alcohol less as biological needs and more as ways in which they’ve programmed to emulate other lifeforms.
“As for last names/titles/etc. It’s possible that a Sylvari that spends it’s time around other races may end up earning a last name/title from the other races/friends. "
I like this idea. The way I see it, the Sylvari are a youthful enough race that they’re still inventing their culture.
They’ve only been around for a few decades. The world is still new to them. I’ve overheard a few NPC interactions in The Grove where Sylvari will talk about exploring the world and being awestruck at how other races live, bringing back souvenirs from their travels. So, in the same way, I can see the Sylvari borrowing conventions from the other races as they start to cobble together their own culture, returning from faraway lands decked out in odds combinations of clothes and sporting names inspired by what they’ve seen of the other races.
This is something I really like about the Sylvari lore in the game. The lore is flexible enough to allow you to rp them in a couple of ways. On the one hand, it’s possible to rp them as Fae-like beings, with Celtic names and courtly mannerism inspired by chivalric literate. Or, you can rp them as an intensely curious race, newly born, that’s trying to figure out what it means to be Sylvari. (Incidentally, I love how Anet tweaked fantasy conventions, so that the elf-like beings in the game are the youthful race, whereas the humans are the “old” race, whose glory days are fading. Take that Tolkien!)
Thief – Dusk Cycle
Dreamed of crows circling over a wheat field. It was daylight, but the sky was so thick with clouds that it could have been night. The wheat twisted in the wind. A well worn path disappeared into the wheat. He could feel that something was in the field, waiting for him.
Engineer – Dawn Cycle
In his dream, he is standing on a beach, looking out an ocean, a quiet cove protected from the surf. It is dawn. The ocean’s waves lap the shore. One by one, an army of clockwork puppets, of all shapes and sizes and designs, emerge from the tree line. They march down the beach, walk out on the water, and then, in unison, they turn around and dance for him.
Personally, I decided to improvise on the game’s lore. I think the standard view is that Sylvari names are supposed to be inspired by Celtic names/words. I like this idea because it accentuates how they’re more Fae- or Faerie-like than elves. But I decided to do something a bit different…
I read somewhere (I think it was in an interview with one of GW2’s designers) that Sylvari are born with an innate understanding of their names based on their experiences in The Dream. I love this idea. I also like how in the character creation we’re asked to choose a dream-experience or dream-image that expresses our character. Finally, I read in the lore that Sylvari are exposed to the emotions and memories and dreams and experiences of other sentient beings while they’re in the dream, and these things sort of “program” their identities.
So, mulling all of this over, I decided to use naming conventions that typically get associated with Native American cultures—the idea of a chosen name that’s descriptive of a meaningful, identity-defining life experience. I imagined my Sylvari waking up with these memories of things they’d seen in the dream and naming themselves based on an image or experience that they innately understood to epitomize their identities. So, for example, one of the last things my Sylvari thief saw before he woke was an image of crows circling above a wheat field. (The idea was inspired by a Van Gogh painting.) He took the name “Crows in the Wheat.” My Sylvari engineer is haunted be a memory of seeing a group of clockwork puppets dancing on water. He named himself “Dances on Water.”
So, yeah, I tried to riff a bit on the game’s lore, and I came up with a different set of naming conventions—names as little snippets of poetry that express my characters’ identities and experiences while in the dream. Also, it makes it a lot easier to find names that haven’t been poached by other players. (Not a lot of people running around with names like “Crows in the Wheat.”)