Guild Wars 2

Forgiven for awesome references
Still, I admit I’d like fishing in gw2. It would fit in really well I think!

Oh my no.. not splitting at ALL!
:) I have a ten day trial. And absolutely NO intention of returning to WoW ever. I was actually amused by the attitudes of friends who’d returned to WoW – as if once I touched it, I’d be back with no question.
And I won’t.
It’s not at ALL as good a game as GW2. If it was sub free I might say hi to friends there once a week or something. But the comic style isn’t my style, the story from all accounts as still as terribad as it was when I left (so NO thank you)..
I just couldn’t tolerate the crappy game mechanics.

But it got me to thinking about why on earth my friends HAVE returned to WoW. And the only things I could think of that WoW does slightly better than GW2 are what I noted. And three things better is NOT much.

This is also something of a love letter to ArenaNet, I’ll admit at the heading.
I recently accepted a free 10 day trial of WoW’s latest expansion. I’ll be honest: I was curious about how they’d updated the character models. As someone who invested seven years of my life into that game, and had max characters at max level when I quit in 2011, yes, I was curious.
I was also curious about why so many friends have returned to it.
The following is my own opinion, modified by my husband’s (he too started WoW in 2004, left in 2011, played Guild Wars 2 with me, but has since grown bored with it, unlike me, who adores it).
While Blizzard has undoubtedly stayed true to their franchise’s style and concept, it has no real pull for me whatsoever, I discovered over the last couple of days.
There is simply far too much that Guild Wars does right – to date, no other MMO has offered me so much content for no subscription.

That said, there are some things that wouldn’t hurt to think about.

• Something the husband wildly misses is fishing. It was a great way to sit and spend time in WoW for him, and he laments it to this day. His take is that if GW added it as a harmless activity, he’d be ecstatic.
• Druids. I confess I missed them myself. Husband did too. WoW has since broken them anyway, so it’s not a draw back in, but the mechanic of shapeshifting as an inherent part of combat was just.. amazing. If sylvari could transform into fernhounds or whatever as plants rewrapping themselves differently or whatever, it’d be glorious. Or norn stay in their shapeshifted forms. No idea. It was just something really special and fun, and I’ve not seen any other game (including later iterations of WoW) attempt it. Pipe dream? Yes. Just a thought.
• There was always an incentive to grind for top gear in WoW. Now, I’m extremely conflicted about this, because I truly think GW2 has made a vastly healthier world, with fairer PvP for all. The person living in a basement can’t simply ruin the playing experience for the person who has a family and job by dint of buying/grinding the best gear and griefing. But the flip side of that is that there’s no huge motivation to get the best possible gear. I don’t think there’s any workable solution on that front, but it’s an interesting reason I’ve heard from a lot of players who couldn’t get into GW2 – they wanted something to aim at or struggle for.

Bottom line:
ArenaNet, you did so much right. My gods you did so much right. Sharing participation for mob and boss kills. No node stealing. Dodging. Intuitive combat and playstyle. Gorgeous GORGEOUS graphics and incredible customization. Fabulous diversity permissible ingame.
Of the three sole things I miss about WoW (and not enough to warrant a subscription fee my gods NO), I think the only one that’s at all plausible in GW2 would be fishing. It’d be pretty fun for the folks who enjoy just chilling in a game.

So thank you for making a game which almost perfectly nails my idea of a perfect game, guys. I can’t wait for today’s announcement, and who knows? Maybe you’ll have sneakily added fishing, and my hubby can come play in my favourite game with me again!

There was an excellently worded post on, I THINK, Guru.. in which a player of Asian descent addressed the often unknown legacy of imperialism in East and south-East Asia, which fed a lot of problems with how Cantha was received.
To sum the bits I’m aware of.. Japan and China have a lengthy history of invasions and atrocities. Most recently in what was renamed Manuchuko (I think? Africanist here, not East Asian historian!) a.k.a Manchuria, during the middle of the last century, the Japanese treated the Chinese there in a fashion similar to those under the German boot of the same period. People suffered terribly. There’s some seriously bad blood there to this day – mixing up cultural indicators of China versus Japan is seriously.. well. To put it into something the west might grasp, it’d be like assuming that Jewish orthodox wear was a uniform with ‘SS’ stylized at the collar to a degree. That’s how hurt the feelings were. We say we’re cool with mixing cultural indicators but there’s stuff you don’t play with. Wearing an Aunt Jemima outfit, wearing the uniform of a certain regime that ruled in Germany and is censored by the forums..
Some things don’t mix well at all.
Evidently there was some element of that in how Factions was portraying Asia. It was a problem, as I understand, because not only was it at times simply hamfisted and laughably bad, but other times, yeah, it was in the ‘SS’ level of touchy things.

I’m not a member of any of the cultures in question here, so I’m a privileged person who can laugh off stereotypes about my non-oppressed culture. Joke about Scottish people and kilts and I’ll joke with you. I might react very differently if I was living during the Highland Clearances or the generation just after, if you get my drift?

I think ANet is being rightly careful in how they re-imagine Cantha, to go at it neither in a comically bad way for people who know the cultures, nor a downright insensitive way. I hope they take their time and get it right, because I know that they can, and I’d LOVE to see Kaineng again with the ‘jump’ key and jumping puzzles. Man oh man that’d be great!

Oh, I agree.. I WANT Cantha. I’m just going on the words of other fans who’ve clarified it from an Asian PoV.

GW1 was a superb model. Let’s not see it become the travesty WoW was. (Your god-dropped legendary amazing unique item is now junk, please replace with someone’s butt-scratcher from the new high lvl zone)

From what I understand, the issue with Cantha as it was represented in factions was that the blending was very poorly done to someone familiar with those cultures. Like having Abraham Lincoln dressed as a leprechaun with a French accent but in charge of the National Socialist Patry of Germany in terms of wtf mishmash and cultural insensitivity.
I loved factions myself, and would love ANet to invent a new Asian culture drawing more respectfully on real world inspirations as opposed to lifting bits without thinking.
like.. Shiro Tagachi is very Japanese, but samurai types (which he really seems to be) are not always a positive image in places which suffered under Japanese colonial ambitions. He’s right beside characters with VERY Chinese names, very Vietnamese names.. each just sort of lifting cultural concepts without really smoothing how they work together.

Thirded on the ingame book idea as a reward – some amazing deciphering!

Long answer..
I was a dyed-in-the-wool Blizzard lore nerd. I knew it, I read it, and as years passed, I raged more and more at it. In 2011, after getting the latest Elder Scrolls (Skyrim), which was my other great passion, I realized how utterly lacking the MMO I was playing was, and I unsubbed. I couldn’t justify paying 15 a month for a terrible game that made me angry every time I logged on.
I play games for story and immersion. Mechanics are important, and aesthetics are big. But story and characterization are crucial.
Well, I missed having a MMO, but no way was I returning to that kittenfest. I lurked on the WoW forums though, with no real idea what to try. I did try gw1 trial version, but Prophecies didn’t do much for me so I never got out of Ascalon city. I tried Aion but it was.. just.. yeah story? What story?
Someone on the Blizz Story Forum mentioned this game called GW2 though, and how they’d written the races the way Blizzard’s central races should have been done all along. So of course I was intrigued.
I started looking at this game, and the more I looked the more I fell in love.

I bought Guild wars 2 because it offered me strong, sympathetic female characters. As opposed to the frustrating adolescent male fantasy that Blizzard’s story certainly was by 2011, GW2 writes females as being considerably more than armcandy or crazy bishes. As a female gamer, that actually does matter to me a lot.

I love that the humans of Tyria aren’t all fantasy Europeans. They’re not all white! As someone who is a professional cultural historian of West Africa? Yeah, this matters. It matters a lot. Representing ethnic diversity in a game while being respectful is seriously a draw, and since I started playing, many players whose background isn’t white European have shared their feelings about this to me. Hint: IT’S A BIG DEAL!
It’s something the Guild wars universe has done superbly, and any expansion addressing it with a rich and diverse bunch of humans is going to go over very well, folks.

I swooned, literally swooned, when I read about the decision not to place wierd furry lumps on female charr chests. After seven years of WoW’s Tauren chicks and their.. I don’t even.. whatever those are on a bovine based thing… it was so utterly (udderly?) refreshing that game designers went for plausible instead of adolescent fanboi bait. I still swoon about this. Aesthetically, the design choices in GW2 remain drop-dead amazing. Stunning. I could run out of superlatives. No, it’s not modded Skyrim worthy, but for a MMO, the freedom I have to customize my character, the individuality available, and the gorgeous and ever-changing scenery? Not only was it a huge selling-point for me in 2012, it remains a reason I have zero interest in any other MMOs out there now.

So.. in the future? Strong female characters or any sexual orientation (LGBTQ male characters that aren’t sylvari would be cool too! LOVE how they were brought in. Love love love it). Anise is a stellar example of a compelling, strong, interesting female character I as a straight married female player think freaking rocks.

Ethnic diversity emphasized, and nuances in each race to replicate that. Never ever ever whitewash, Arenanet. Just don’t. Your games stand out from the crowd, and heading back in the direction of Nightfall’s skin tones wouldn’t be a bad idea. There are a lot of non-white players, or white players who don’t care to see a uniformly pale human contingent, and addressing that is a strong good call.

Keep up the aesthetics. They’re lovely!

Edit upon reading others, since I forgot: The not screwing other players over. Oh man yes. yes. YES. I can share bosses as opposed to rage at someone tagging my kill. I can get a node and not have someone train mobs over to kill me so they can get it instead. I’d actually forgotten what behaviour was encouraged way back when in the bad days.
And yes, no sub. I actually now say the following as a mantra: “I will never again pay a sub for any game that doesn’t come with a masseur in the box, because of HOW much content I’ve been given effectively for no charge!”

Guild V. Guild.
Guild halls!!
If this is a happy dream, playable ritualist profession!!
Sittable chairs, yes.

I think one series of assumptions might be whether IF it arises from a ritual employing a divine artifact (the sword) it is by definition divine in origin itself? If so, weaponize mayhap? Deities seem to have some intriguing preventative force so far:
Krait orb = Risen ward
Human divine magic = Mordrem ward.

Something just occurred to me as a series of suppositions.
IF the Pale Tree (and perhaps her fellow seeds) were cleansed due to contact with Ventari and Ronin, or Ventari performed some quasi-shamanistic ritual on them which we don’t really yet understand, effectively equivalent to the Forgotten ritual..

IF Wynne was seeking out the same remaining tribe of centaurs who might possess an understanding of whatever ritual it was (maybe inherited from the Forgotten/other ancient race?)

IF Caithe knew that while GLINT was purified, it doesn’t necessarily follow that her eggs are pure/OR her eggs are part of the purer Forgotten ritual used to free Glint…

What if Caithe is taking the Egg, seeking out the descendents of the centaur who once purified the Pale Tree, either to mend any holes in the imperfect ritual which is holding Mordey at bay or for some similar purpose?

Watch the trailer again – he’s definitely using it against mordrem.. I saw your post also and agree with you. Neat possibilities!

The question mark is because I’m not sure if this is or isn’t a spoiler, but it seems to be worth discussing/theorizing. During the trailer for HoT, Rytlock is swinging a fiery sword and Mordrem melt away.. much like the divine fire effect. Human gods’ power being channeled perhaps? A conduit to the Six gods?

Thoughts?

The Shadow of the Nightmare we fought back in pre-release as sylvari suggests there’s been something up since things began.. I just rolled a new sylvari today, and fighting that same fight again with new knowledge? Whole new nuance! I love it!

Honestly? I love this twist. It’s not a huge twist and it’s been a long-debated theory. I can see a great many ways that explanations can be worked through, but I’m absolutely behind it for a few reasons:
1 – It turns the Scarlet Briar arc into less of a kittenfest. Sorry, I hated her. She irked me to no end. Her being effectively not just possessed but.. if anything.. returning to what she should be… is actually kinda cool.
2 – It puts all sylvari into jeopardy and that’s frankly cool. Trahearne saying “fire” seemed tactically unwise.. who’s to say he was acting under his own bidding? /archbrow
I like that sort of suspicion.
3 – It makes sylvari playable for me. I’ve never been able to get into the ‘always Lawful Good unless neutral(Soundless) or Evil(NC) complete and replete with mustache-twirling insanity. Now we have an interesting reason WHY PC sylvari are such darling paladin Arthurian wet dream Polyannas: they have to be to break their inborn nature. That’s actually brilliant. It’s vastly more interesting than even the two dimensional villainy presented by the Nightmare always felt for me. With apologies for hauling the excrescence of WoW lore in, this feels like Draenei done RIGHT.
Being Lawful Good cause you’re nature’s precious baby heroes is tedious. Being Lawful Good because a ritual (I love the idea that repetition might have empowered it by the by) somehow freed your progenitor, whose mental shield wrapped you in safe Good to ward against your innate design to be plant automatons using intellect to be deadly killer minions… now THAT is much more intriguing.
The fact I’m finally playing my long-ignored sylvari character says lots to me.

Hi Gaile! 878447 is mine.

Figure I’ll weigh in and note that the issue began for me also yesterday and continues today. I’ve opened a ticket, so hoping it’ll be resolved.
:)

Some theories/thoughts:
1 – the Asura in Maguuma.. have they grown more technologically skilled since their resettlement there? Connection to Mordy? A bloodstone?
2. The Steam Brain is a key. What if IT is the champion? What if its replication requires a model to copy, and Glint’s egg would offer another type of dragon to absorb/replicate? That would be a potent tool, presumably.
3. What is Glint’s child? Glint threw off corruption herself.. did her offspring? Are dragons born corrupt or no? What is the link between Krakall, Glint and her child? Is the egg responsible for some of this?
4. Has anyone really considered the outcome of what comes of Asura and Sylvari meeting experimentally? I’m thinking of the foundation of the Nightmare Court after the Firstborn got experimented on (I know, Secondborn acting there but the impetus was that unfortunate first encounter).. I’m thinking of Scarlet’s ‘metamorphosis’.. are there elements in each race that ought not to combine? What became of that first experiment?

Just checked. For me anyway, TD procced on every mob kill, but never hit reflections, while every hit signet did proc reflect.
So Blurred Signets and Masterful Reflection were working. But not with TD.

Name: Aethgar.1784
Server: Tarnished Coast
Play: PvE, dungeons, WvW
Role: Tester, or Scholar
Playtime: EST, mostly daytime due to new baby evening bedtime

I have one of every profession and tend to play situationally, but I adore my mesmer and find none of my characters as much fun as him. That said I want to improve and try out new ideas and new specs, and use the class to its greatest ability.

Hawke.9013:

You’ve obviously never played a healer at endgame. It’s arguably one of the hardest of the three. The combat in WoW is much more fluid and moving than this, it is clunky to move, and ineffective.

A-Net wants everyone to work together, but personally I’d rather spend my three measly utility skills on saving my hide, (since I have to worry about that as theres no tanks or healers) than to waste one slot on others.

I have played endgame healer. Endgame tank. Endgame dps in WoW through classic, BC, Wrath and Cata. I remember in classic when druids in raids were all expected to be heals, and if you used your innervate on yourself you got raidkicked and gkicked.
I remember people’s specs being told to them on PvE servers, and I recall the very few who bucked the system and dared to play bear tanks before there really were those, or dps priests before they were permitted.

I do, very definitely, know whereof I speak.

And I love gw2. I love the combat methodology. Sure the encounters and bosses could be tweaked. No doubt. But what things do now is demand that players show an ounce of common sense.
No more rogues with their eyes locked on the DPSMeters trying to top the charts and draining healers’ mana.
No more tanks frothing at the lips because their assigned healer couldn’t keep them up through a cleave when they forgot to pop their blocks or soaks.
No more healers with eyes crossing staring at bars after hours in a raid wiping on a new encounter standing in fire healing themself because they didn’t even notice beyond the dropping hp.

I have a geared 80 of every profession in this game, just as I once did in WoW. Yes, my bunker shout spec guardian is in demand in dungeons because she can survive things and works mojo involving conditions to buffs.
But my ele is as viable in some dungeons, or my thief, or my mesmer, etc.

And I specced as I wanted. I love, LOVE, LOOOOOVE that every class can self heal. My good gods, how did I survive seven years in WoW without a self heal on my original and beloved hunter? I remember knowing to the marrow in MC that if I wanted to survive, it was a case of learning to bandage, because the heals went tanks-healers-anyone worthwhile. My job was to pull back then, and I cannot even believe I played for so long so UTTERLY dependent on other players to save my kitten if bandage was on cool down and FD got resisted. I like to play without needing others to keep me alive. I like my own skill to suffice. And as a hunter I generally did succeed at that bar some encounters. As a tank I was totally dependent on my healers not to let me die, and as a healer I relied on tanks and dps to make the mob die before my mana ran out.

I love this game. I love that every one of my characters can successfully dungeon run, solo, kite a mob to death, or explore without knowing I’m going to die shortly.

I could never – and will never – return to the Holy Trinity of Dependency.

The flavour text on the completed spinal blades intrigues me. It suggests that Scarlet saw something she had to do and went mad.. something which was a faustian deal? I don’t know.

I have another possible theory.. Scarlet kept on claiming again and again how she had some ulterior motive, and we never got her villainous rant.
My bet is that Mordremoth has been lying gathering strength, drawing on those leylines. The villainous rant may well have been that by disrupting them, she did, yes, force our hands by waking another ED. but has woken him prematurely this way, less powerful than he otherwise would have been.

I’m having similar issues. I literally just bought and built a new rig as of last Tuesday, and since that time I’ve had strange lagspikes without any good reason in Lion’s Arch, world questing and in explorables. My usual FPS is upwards of 60 in Lion’s Arch, but it drops for a while to 7 or 8, then back up intermittently for about an hour after I start playing, before things seem to.. I don’t know.. settle out?

Something’s off. And it’s only in gw2.

Rig:
ASUS Z87 mobo
Intel i5 4570 4th gen quad core cpu
8 GB RAM
1TB hybrid solidstate HDD
ASUS NVidia GeForce GTX660Ti graphics card
onboard sound

What’s so frustrating is that given the new machine, there shouldn’t be these maddening lagspikes!

I think something I’d really like in the sylvari is.. well.. thematically it lies between humanoid and creature. But something more savage. Not charr savage.

But let’s face it. These aren’t ‘humans’ despite their resemblance. Right now, on male and female, the starker options look more wizened than harshly forbidding. Having features that hint strongly at some of the alien but powerful imagery of the Green Man as portrayed throughout the British Isles, having faces which near human but have an austerity to them.. that’s what’s missing for me. The sylvari faces are a bit too approachable. They have a kind of childlike beauty.
And that works thematically and within the concept, but taking it to a level which captures the majesty of the plant kingdom, or how it can sometimes be threatening, or untouchable.. I’d really like that too.

puts on large flame kittenant hat I’ll be honest. I was wildly, passionately, madly in love with the original night elf concept in WC3. The idea of beings so attuned to the fundamentally gray morality of nature. Not good, not bad. Just… is what it is kind of thing. Primally beautiful, stark, potent. The majesty that leaves you a little breathless, but doesn’t welcome you in. When I first looked to sylvari, I hoped to find some hint of that same level of why an oak tree standing alone in a field can startle, or a gnarled pine clinging to a rockface can shake the viewer.

I seriously cannot wait to see the armour skins I’ve been hearing may be coming.

I’m also completely thrilled that as part of this experience, we might get to face skyship pirates. It’s like visual feast, fun achievements, neat rewards, and a great maybe-event to anticipate!

Really fun so far in terms of the effort being shown by the folks we’re facing! I admit to slightly missing SoR a bit, but holy crap SoS you guys have really gotten good at some of those tactics. I was sentry at Crag at one stage and when you rolled in there was no stopping you. Really impressive!
I was a little sadpanda trying to get map completion a few times when people decided to chase me on my way to a vista even if I /waved and didn’t try and interfere in a camp cap.

Ah well. Managed to get it eventually, which means I can go back to just enjoying the experience again! Can’t wait to see you both tomorrow.

Standing chatting in character on Tarnished Coast, it’s become almost a habit for me to have to jitter my character slightly if I don’t want to be force-DCd. I can be emoteing, speaking in /say, chatting in guild, whatever..
and I’ll be force DCd.

Can this be addressed? I’m pretty sure I was noting it back in beta!

<.<

>.>

Tovadaun, YES. Exactly. I’m an amateur artist to relax, and I know how much work it can be to make one of my crappy little drawings. So stepping into this gorgeous world with amazing neat little fine details and lovely touches? I know there are complainers. But ANet, you have a lot of people gobsmacked by how consistently beautiful what you give us is.

I just saw the streaming silvery ‘flames’ emerging from the dragon ‘heads’ strung up in Lion’s Arch this morning. And yeah, I LOVE the Mystic Forge makeover. Having the ‘tail’ emerging across the canal just adds such visual interest!

I think I love you, OP.

I was feeling the grr yesterday while sitting by holograms, then startled myself when I remembered – I have a bloody month to do this. So what if I haven’t got them all in one day? Holy crap! It’s just the obsessive grinder in me being a greedy sod.
Thank you for the perspective. It has to be restated!

Thanks all! It sounds plausible but unlikely and hard to say from what I’m reading. It’s plausible to have had criminals escape Cantha along with refugees, but there’s no mention made, which makes it less likely (or better hidden). Room for them to add something story hookwise in any case!

This comes about due to a discussion I was having with a guildmate some time ago while regarding the three heavy cargo ships docked at the Rata Sum port. The smaller vessels also docked all have masts and sails, showing how each is propelled.
But the really big ones have no masts. No oar holes. Only an odd platform atop the roof of each.
Would that platform be for a ship’s elementalist to employ their talents perhaps to moving such a massive vessel?
That was what we concluded, but I don’t know lorewise how plausible that might be. Going entirely on ingame models, and the detail ANet has put into them.

Interesting! Thanks Konig. I didn’t play the original.. I wanted to re-play it but the lack of a jump feature was a dealbreaker. kitten Morrowind for addicting me to jumping <.<

That said, I recall someone saying SOMETHING about an assassin of the Am Fah who fled to Kryta.. is that apocryphal or did that happen? I was considering both groups as being like real world gangs, and presumably having offshoots vastly changed from the original but maintaining warped traditions in modern times.

But do you think that both factions might still exist within Kryta in any form?
(sorry for necro.. been insanely busy and returned to playing my Canthan character, and I want to float this for further discussion from those who played the original game)

I would argue that Kryta is decidedly whitewashed, myself. If Kryta was originally formed as a colony of Elona, the nucleus of the culture is going to be fairly dark skinned. Yes, the representation of most re-used models in GW1 look dark skinned, usually adorned with body paints.

If I was going to compare it to any modern culture, I’d likely eye Brazil thoughtfully, given the impact of over 5 million enslaved Africans shipped over during the Trans-Atlantic Trade.(http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/assessment/estimates.faces) That is a society which subsequently had a great many European immigrants and individuals arriving from a very wide variety of cultures. Yet the Brazilians I’ve met TEND, very generally, to be darker skinned, ranging from light olive skinned to indistinguishable from one of my Congolese friends.
The argument that a huge influx of Ascalonians would equate to the majority of NPCs suddenly looking caucasian in their appearance is, I’m sorry to say, ahistorical. I’d love to see which modern culture you’d use to prove that one.
Jamaica, where the white elite vented every imaginable vice sexually upon their captive female population? Brazil, which I already mentioned? You can’t eradicate darker skinned individuals within a little over two centuries. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way in our world at least. The premise would also require the existing dark-skinned population to have no similarly dark-skinned influxes in the intervening years. The waves of refugees from Elona would suggest this could not be so.

Also, please. ‘African style’? I really take issue with that as an Africanist historian professionally. It’s not a country, people. Do you mean Maasai style? Xhosa style? Hausa style? Fulani style? Berber style? One thing I ADORE about the aesthetics of the original GW1 was the clear use of actual historical regions of influence in Elona. Kournan architecture bears some lovely similarities to the Mosque at Djenne, for one easy example.

But. To the OP’s point: absolutely. Kryta and the playable human race have bee whitewashed. You need only open up the character creation and consider the almost insane variety of caucasian skin tones available. From my own Scots paleness to albinism and every shade in between, yet when I go to create a really dark Elonian character, I have two very dark options only, one of which is inhumanly gray. If you’ve met people from Nigeria versus Senegal, Congo versus Sierra Leone, you’d know that ‘black’ can have blue undertones, red undertones, golden undertones, and can have some absolutely incredible tonal variations and really rich nuances. That is by no stretch of any imagination reflected in the choices for character creation. But every possible slight variation of ‘white’ definitely is. Midtones are also heavily under-represented, as when I’ve tried to make oldschool Krytans or darker Canthans. More options than really dark, yes, but nothing near the full row of pales and lights.

Yeah, I was also thinking of real world examples like the Triad.. or how the Yakuza has had, at times, a semi-hemi-demi altruistic bent in caring for people.

In Factions, we met the major criminal elements in the Canthan capital. Given that where refugees goes, often so too do the less savoury elements fleeing bad things and pogroms.. would the Am Fah and the Brotherhood presumably have sent cells or cadres to Kryta, or have rebuilt some level of themselves into the fabric of society?

We know there’s bandits, and street rats, and gangs. What about subtle and well hidden organized crime?

The same way as if someone deletes a character I would think.. that name is freed up right away, right?

I think the name change is BADLY needed.. mostly because of the gender change. If someone has a character called “Lord Joseph Placeholder”, and realizes a change is badly needed, and makes ‘him’ a female, we have an immediate issue.

Given the gender change element, a namechange seems fundamental.

I have to really disagree with a lot of people here. I’ve played all human options, two to 80, making a point of picking different options to experience every variant I can.

I loved the human male noble VO. I loved the acting, the way the lines were delivered. I loved the lines. I loved the wry good humour of dealing with Faren’s buffoonery. I laughed and cheered in delight at how the human male noble accepted the entitled behaviour of his friend, because in my books, that sealed the deal for him being a believeable character.
I very much enjoyed the human female commoner storyline. The actress was spunky, determined, and strong. The lines were plausible, empowered without being rebellious when she spoke with the Seraph Captain, deferential without being obsequious with Countess Anise, and generally level headed and a great female character.

Also…
The lines mentioned where you tell the Asuran woman her husband is dead were some of the best moments I’ve had in a game. her reaction is SO flat that it underscores the trauma. Her flat denial of forgiveness for the player, her total rejection? Freaking brilliant. Great script, amazing delivery.

The only complaint I honestly have, and it’s hardly one, is that playing 3 storylines, you’re going to repeat the voice actor eventually. It was wierd hearing my awesome human noble be a street rat!

Actually, a second. The name of the sister.
My human male noble is Ascalonian. I went with a Saxon name: Ahrwit. It combines terms relating to honour with a suffix for cunning.
So having Ahrwit blather about “Debs” kind of.. bugged me. I treat that section as not ‘me’.
<.<

fistpump I AND MY FRIENDS AREN’T THE ONLY ONES!!

I actually was looking at pitcher plants.. pondering ethical acquisition of animal proteins.. it’s logical. <.<

I swear I’m not a sicko. But I like to really understand the physics and mechanics of things as a rule. Like.. I want to know maximum lifespans of each race, whether charr have litters or singletons given the statement about ‘six or none’..

I’m curious, darn it.

I… I have to ask this. Because I have an obsessive attention to detail.

… I’m so sorry to ask this.. but I have to.

We know because ANet actually tells us these things that Sylvari replicate human anatomy, though via plant growth. We also know that they are anatomically correct, and have a vast thread on nipples indeed worrying about this. So.. sap… vis-a-vis their choice or not to engage in mimicry of, or actual enjoyment of, acts which we ALSO know have no direct benefit to them as organisms, as they are incapable of reproduction, more like sapient flowers or fruits.

Come on, has no one else wondered about the actual mechanics?

I tend to agree with Olithia that we need to see a wider spectrum in the human NPCs. I would like to see a greater density of darker skin tones in the Ossan, but also spread through the city. My hope is for ANet to recognize our concerns, and adjust whatever skin tone slider they have, or shift the skin tones on npcs in Ossan along the human skin range a few more notches. Whatever works. There are some fabulous faces that are decidedly non caucasian in the human generator, for which I am PROFOUNDLY grateful.. greater open ethnic diversity, visibly present in a city made of refugees.. would in my books very much increase my already considerable delight in this game.

With regard to Elona, the more I look at it, the more I find that Kourna seems to resemble an amalgam of the Fulbe along the sahel south of the Sahara, and likely other more warrior types from the same region, or groups known for martial prowess, like the Akan. The reason I mention it is because the screenshots I’ve seen thus far on the gw1 wiki for Kourna have architecture with a decided resemblance to the Great Mosque of Djenne.
Which is in Mali.
For the Istani, as a trading people, an island people.. I’m less certain of a similar African culture, but given skin tone and the reputation for scholarship, I’d say the Hausa who are tradespeople throughout West and West Central Africa seem a plausible fit, though they’re not hugely distinguishable from the various subgroups of Fulbe.. tilthand I’m not truthfully sure what fits best.