Guild Wars 2

Henge seems dead? I still like it. Come across people fairly regularly. There’s a bit of a bias right now because people have been doing the limited time Halloween content and thus I haven’t been surprised to find the rest of the world emptier.

SoS is an unofficial Oceanic server, and I play Henge from Oceania too, so maybe I’m getting a different view anyway >.< Best of luck finding a home if you do leave Henge!

The real question regarding Mad King Thorn’s nature, I feel, is: has he changed the Mad Realm in accordance with his own personality? Or has the Mad Realm changed him? Because they mirror each other in imagery.

Some things, like the pumpkin imagery, got some reference in Thorn’s biography, so they might have come to the Mad Realm through his influence. The candy corn doesn’t seem to have any reference to the living Oswald Thorn and can probably be assumed as part of the Mad Realm generally. Things like the clock tower – well, could be either. Thorn’s particular idea of a joke, or a Mad Realm feature that would be there whether Thorn was or not.

I think it’s flawed reasoning to say that one or another is ‘more advanced’ – especially when you’re basing it on how similar it is to modern technology. That assumes an inevitable one-way development, and I just don’t think that’s how it works.

The charr are certainly more industrial, and masters of machinery and gunpowder tech. You don’t really see asura using that (player engineers aside). The asura are more magic-focused and their inventions often seem to grow out of that – think how much asura stuff is effectively useless, like the floating cubes. Charr would never go for that, they’re too practical. Asura are more likely to do stuff just because they can, or to show off :P

I agree with Konig, there’s not really any incentive for space travel in Tyria. They don’t seem to have discovered anything via astronomy that they would want to go and find or check out. The Mists are a much more intriging puzzle; investigating the place where (so-called) gods seem to come from? We’d have done that before Mars, if we could!

TL;DR: Technological development is not linear, and Western science is not the inevitable end point for all cultures.

Certainly I agree, I’d be extremely surprised to see Citadel charr celebrating Halloween, but in Lion’s Arch if the humans started having a fun festival I’m sure the locals of all races would get into it

The whole ‘time when the veil between Tyria and the Mists grows thin’ thing, I think of much like a solstice – an observable natural occurance, which is likely to be marked in some way, but doesn’t have to be. Mad King Thorn is really just local colour in Lion’s Arch, but presumably the veil grows thin all over, and potentially other stuff could happen (though I don’t think we have any evidence that it does).

For Wintersday, spring will transition to winter whatever happens – with the gods portrayed as they are I’m not even sure how much influence they really have over the transition (although I’m sure there’s some connection to their domains of power). Characterising it as Grenth vs. Dwayna is a local human thing, so we’ll see how that works out.

I don’t think it’s a holiday about the Mists; the Mists are just there, they’re a thing, a part of the world. Just like there is such a thing as charr scholars (they’re not all brutish warriors, naturally!), I would imagine the charr are at least aware of the Mists and the powers within them which can influence the world (Six Gods included, although they’re safely ignored these days). Heck, at the very least I would imagine someone investigated whether the Mists could be weaponized!

Anyway, the Mad King Thorn stuff has been strongly tied to Lion’s Arch, appropriately so since he was always linked with that city in the past. Kryta got stuff because it was his kingdom, but Halloween barely has a presence in Divinity’s Reach itself. I think it’s safe to assume most festivals will be centred on Lion’s Arch, unless they introduce racial festivals as Lande suggests (which I would love to see!).

When you run out of pre-programmed sources of entertainment, the most variable, unpredictable and lasting source of entertainment will be other people. This requires you to a) find other people, and b) find people who are amenable to this sort of thing, so it’s not always something you can plan for. When it happens, though, the potential really shines through.

One time I was in Kessex Hills with my warrior, and an event popped up saying ettins had blocked a road. I was the only person around, so I thought I might just leave it – but then a necromancer turned up. Without exchanging words, I pulled out my rifle and picked out one ettin from the cliff atop the road where we were. It ran up to us, and the necro laid down a bunch of marks which I led it through, then we finished it off. We picked another ettin. By the time we were almost done with the event, we had a finely tuned system of ettin disposal, just the two of us. When three more people busted through to help finish the last ones off, I think we were both a little disappointed, because it was working so well despite us being out-numbered.

Another time I was in Fields of Ruin with me elementalist, and a giant siege devourer was up. I had passed it, seen no one else around, and thought “kitten that.” When I came past again, though, there were two female character valiantly battling away. Well, I couldn’t just leave them! So I jumped in. With three people (none of us heavy armoured) we were having a hard time, but whenever someone went down, we got them back up. It took AGES, but eventually, finally, the thing died. The three of us cheered and thanked each other, totally stoked that we had managed it.

These aren’t role-play stories, or elaborate player-driven schemes. Those would be fun too – I’d be all for it. But whatever happens, the thing that make a virtual world feel lively and dynamic is always the players. Every now and then, everything comes together organically, and it’s really, really cool.

So why am i still restricted to the ’’traditional’’ cloth armour for my classs.?Why cant we all wear whatever armour we like.

The professions are ideally supposed to have equal potential – in that they can in theory each fill any of the trinity roles – but they’re not supposed to be the same. Each profession should have a distinctive play style (so a guardian tank, a necromancer tank and an engineer tank should all play pretty differently, not with the same “push button to aggro” mechanic). The armour types, in my opinion, are part of that – playing a heavy armoured tank vs. a light armoured tank are very different. Sure, heavy might be easier, but ideally, light should be just as viable if you’re very good.

We have different armour types for the same reason we have classes at all – different play styles, different priorities, different ways of tackling the same problems. And as for why can’t you put on a certain set, because mechanics say, D&D tradition says, and because a person can only learn so much in one lifetime, and wearing heavy armour (and actually doing anything in it) does, in fact, take some training.

It (or parts of it) are featured on NPCs, so if it’s not currently available in the game, it may be in future in some form. Certainly the models for it exist!

I don’t know of any way to get it, sorry.

Choosing an order is a story choice, and like other story choices, it’s exclusive and permanent on that character. So short answer, no. And I’m pretty sure you can’t buy the weapons of an order you don’t belong to. Rehashed is right though, if you make a Priory character you could probably buy the weapons with them and transmute the skins.

The idea with Guild Wars 2 is that the professions should have at least two or three roles which you could build them for, depending on trait set-ups, skill choices, etc. It’s harder t say “mesmers should be doing this”, although I’m sure someone more familiar with the state of the PvP meta-game could tell you what people tend to use each class for at the moment.

I’m not a PvPer so I’ll let someone else answer this, but do keep in mind the classes are flexible – you might want to consider the class-specific mechanics each one has, and which of those you like, then work into a role you like from there.

Elementalist – attunement switching
Necromancer – death shroud, minions, marks
Mesmer – clones, phantasms, mantras

To give you some ideas of the more unique points.

The gods don’t need to be part of other races’ lore to be the centrepiece of Wintersday, nor do I think they should be. Wintersday could be a Lion’s Arch centred thing – it seems likely that humans in LA would spread the festival, since the people there seem happy to take up any excuse for a party. I mean, many non-Christians partake in Christmas festivities to some degree or other, such things become community festivals.

I certainly wouldn’t expect Wintersday decorations in the Black Citadel (although maybe one guy in the gladium quarter, haha) – but I would expect to see it celebrated in Lion’s Arch. Even the charr would be up for eggnog and snowball fights, surely!

I’m just agreeing with the consensus above, but yeah, Guild Wars 1 was never pay to play, it’s not ArenaNet’s style or their chosen business model, so don’t expect to see it change.

I dont mind the cash shop – even though it is rather “rich!” to ask people to buy in game items after allready buying the game!

While most MMORPGs on the market expect you to buy the game and then make it so that the game client is useless without further payments for a subscription, I think GW2 has it pretty good, really. At least you can play just fine without spending further cash, if you choose to. If ArenaNet can fund themselves on people purchasing vanity items and stuff, I’m very happy for that to happen.

Ratphink…that’s genius. I will be highly amused if it proves to be the case! (But nonetheless I suspect ArenaNet have a longer story in mind).

I’m basing this purely on speculation and no lore basis, so fill me in if there’s stuff to disprove it, but I always thought of the Mad Realm as something of the Mists – a reflection of the phenomenon of madness. Like Delerium of the Endless. As in, it was always there, as long as madness has existed among sentient beings, but a particularly powerful soul with close ties to its nature (e.g., a psychopathic king) could rise to rule and represent it. That would support the idea that rebellion is certainly possible, if not likely, just like it is among the Six Gods (also sort of elemental representations of concepts, or rather, the current embodiments of those concepts’ power – we know others can take that power over).

The comments above are correct in pointing out that Halloween survived just fine (in fact it became the holiday Halloween, instead of just Mad King’s Day, while Thorn himself was absent) – and I’m certain that humans have continued to celebrate Wintersday. But it is also true that the presence of the avatars of Grenth and Dwayna, and their supernatural minions, was the centrepiece of Wintersday in GW1. I too am very interested in what happens for it this year, given that the gods don’t show themselves even in avatar form these days.

I won’t be surprised if there’s a plot similiar to the Mad King’s one, potentially one which could continue to develop each year. It seems like they have plans for the Six Gods, and the information in GW2 seems to go some way to demistifying them and explaining their nature and origin more, rather than just saying “they’re gods, end of story.” We’re learning more about them, notably Grenth, so maybe Wintersday will reflect an ongoing story involving them.

If there’s anything to speculation about unrest in the Underworld (Mad King aside, though he’s certainly a symptom) that may play out through Wintersday too – although I doubt they’ll abandon the Grenth/Dwayna, winter/spring dichotomies. It’s also possible that we’ll have no gods (at least at first), just very determined cult followers making their own conflict!

Presumably because they thought it would be cool, and/or they added jumping in response to requests and figured that if they were going to have jumping, they might as well make use of it.

It’s unfortunate if it’s not something you enjoy, but that is a risk in any game design decision – some people won’t be fans of what they choose to do. Also, just a pet peeve, but you shouldn’t conflate NCSoft with ArenaNet – NCSoft don’t make that kind of decision for games, I’m pretty sure

Yeah I take it that the loot potential is pretty good, as large world events like that will often drop a chest with a lot of good stuff for you.

But mostly… I want to fight a dragon! Killing them should be epic and fulfilling in itself.

I’m not sure about dungeons, but it should be possible to join party members in the same overflow server (I can’t say for sure if that’s true even if they’re on different home worlds, but I would think so?). If it’s not working for you right now I’d say that’s the system messing up, because it’s worked fine for me. Last I checked you weren’t able to join someone in their main server, only in an overflow.

Konig – I haven’t done that event, but I can’t help wondering, the rebel faction could be in favour of Palawa Joko, couldn’t it? A younger, fresher undead lord for a new era of the Lunatic Court? Well, it’s a stretch, but that would make for interesting developments.

sCor, Guild Wars festivals in the past have often let you pick a side (or put you on a side) with both sides being playable regardless of whether one seems evidently the ‘bad guys’. It makes PvP events easier if nothing else! But it is interesting that Mad King Thorn is coming off as much more of a real danger now, rather than in GW1 where he was more of an amusing oddity, never really seeming dangerous to us mortals.

The fact that ArenaNet have always referred to Menzies as Balthazar’s half-brother is rather striking – if they had just said brother, I might have argued for a non-literal interpreation (like they both sprang from the same primal stuff), but as it is it does invite questions regarding their parents, and I suspect that’s not really an accident.

As for Menzies, well, my take on it is that the gods of Tyria are a group that splintered off from a pantheon in another world; Balthazar carrying his father’s head suggests a pitched battle

This combined with the idea of half-brothers (likely one father, different mothers, though not necessarily) begins to sound a lot like a Greek/Near-Eastern ‘succession of the gods’ myth, with Balthazar in the Cronos/Zeus role of the son who rises up to overthrow his father and take his power. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see this kind of story emerge in the future.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if ArenaNet muddies the waters a bit by suggesting that neither Balthazar nor Menzies is guiltless, even if Menzies is more the bad guy these days. After all, now we have more than just the worshipful human perspective, and GW2 has already gone some way to de-mystifying the Six Gods.

Yes, I would go with ‘warm-sapped’, to the extent that sylvari are comparable with, say, mammals. They are plants but operate in imitation of humans (for the most part), and they move quickly enough that I would expect they produce and give off some heat.

Yep, agreeing with others above, what you want is the little icon that looks like an eye dropper – if you go to the ‘hero’ panel, it’s on the left, above where the icons for your currently equipped gear are. That switches you to ‘dye mode’, and any dye colours that character has unlocked you can use as many times as you like, any time, forever.

Yeah the DSD is closely linked to largos, krait and quaggan right now, but none of the current playables. My money’s on largos as a playable race one day down the line, in a DSD expansion.

I agree that Primordus has always been chiefly the asura’s concern (out of the playables – the skritt are also very close to Primordus’s problems as Konig says) and Jormag is obviously connected to the norn. I think if we’re predicting, we need to look at the stories to be told. A Primordus story could deal with the asura/skritt conflict, and/or the past of the asura underground (their lost cities).

Most interesting to me is Kralkatorrik. The gate to the Crystal Desert we’ve seen is near Ebonhawke, and Ebonhawke and the charr are the people most dealing with the Dragonbrand. Plus there’s Logan and Rytlock’s history. So I’d put money on a Kralkatorrik expansion dealing with the charr/human conflict and true, maybe even resolving the truce situation more.

I enjoyed the lore about the brothers, Os and Ewan. And how Ewan sounds like a nice young man who would have made a good and benevolent king… those boys never make it to the throne, haha.

Yeah, the nature of magic and how it came to the world, and how the different kinds are distinguished from each other, are actually pretty well fleshed out in the lore – things like the Bloodtsones are integral to it and played a large part in GW1. How people learn magic these days, and how much it’s instinctive vs. taught, it more vague.

I always thought that the ‘adventurer’ professions – thief, engineer, ranger – were pretty non-magical or at least low-magic. They tend to use technology and technique to achieve their effects – with a few grey areas like ranger spirits. ‘Scholar’ or caster professions are obviously all strongly tied to Bloodstone-type magic. Then among the ‘soldier’ or heavy armour classes, we have one very non-magic (the warrior) and one very magical (the guardian).

Really, it all comes from D&D traditions (things like rangers and paladins having small amounts of magic) but that doesn’t help in a lore sense. But magic is kind of all over the place in Tyria – peoples other than the playable races can use it, so it’s unlikely it always requires years of schooling.

Yeah there are little signals – costumed trick-or-treaters and such – in other areas, but Lion’s Arch is festival central. Plus, Mad King Thorn is kind of connected to Lion’s Arch specifically, so it makes sense that his legacy would be most celebrated there. Although I’d laugh to see a little encampment of humans determined to celebrate Halloween in Rata Sum despite the asura not knowing the festival at all!

Of course Act 1 feels like a pre-event stage, it’s over a week before Halloween! Nothing wrong with building up to the main event(s) in my mind, it makes it feel seasonal rather than just like temporary content.

But then, I love fluff. I don’t see any problem with being handed Mad King fluff and some little amusements. In fact, that’s probably what I’d most like. So maybe we’re just not on the same page.

They are empty because they are far out of the way, making them expensive to waypoint.

I think this is actually a good point. I found that the charr maps were the ones I neglected the most, because unless I was playing a charr character and heading out from the Citadel, the Ascalon maps aren’t really on the way to anywhere. You don’t pass through them or accidentally end up in them from anywhere else, except maybe Snowden Drifts. Other maps are more central to all the racial cities.

It’s generally said that people like the least humanoid races the least, statistically. I guess we can relate to them less, whereas anything that looks basically human is more like us and is less of a fantasy in terms of avatar embodiment. I know a lot of people who prefer humans because they prefer the armour – it’s stuff they’d like to wear.

@FalconDance – as a GW1 player myself I love what they’ve done with the charr because it complicates the setting so nicely. Hearing the charr talk about humans makes me think more about human history and such, you know? But bias is ok too :P

Yes, people buying gold from external sources is the problem, and if they stopped, botting wouldn’t be worth the effort. However, apparently people are buying gold. I’m not sure how to stop them. They’re obviously not the people who really want to see the game succeed… maybe if we lose some of the more impatient and competitive players over time, the demand for external gold-sellers will die down.

Also:

The only fix and also the easiest method is target Arenanet employers such as Eva. And killing them.

Wha…what?

Oh come on Focksbot, that kind of thing has been integral to video games for years

They’re not puzzles in a grand, Myst-like sense… but I don’t think it’s feasible for them to be. Figuring out the route is enough for me. Yes, sometimes I fall or make stupid mistakes and have to start over, but isn’t that the nature of platforming? If it gets too frustrating, I just go away and resolve to try another day if I’m in the area.

While soloing or roaming between groups my elementalist relied quite a lot on getting downed, fighting and getting back up without being defeated. Without Grasping Earth on number 2 I’m having to change my tactics. I don’t think it’s made it impossible to do it, I just can’t do it like I used to and it’s going to take practice to figure out what works now.

Yes you can switch server for free, once per day at the moment (but this is temporary). What you can’t do is make a character on a different server – all your characters are tied to one home world.

At a later date we will have guesting, where you can bring a character from your home world into another one for a while to play, but that’s not available yet. So just be aware that whatever world you’re on, all your stuff is there until you shift.

Yeah, the change to elementalists is permanent, and done for a reason (i.e. that Grasping Earth is no longer one of the skills we can spam while downed, instead it’s in the number 3 slot we can’t use as often).

I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that you’re playing less than you were. GW2 is very well suited to casual play – log in, run across a map doing whatever takes your fancy (for me it’s often searching for cooking ingredients), letting two or three events sweep you up on the way. The lack of treadmill means it may not get played as heavily as some MMOs, but again, I think that’s a design difference not a failing.

There were new events added with the Halloween stuff (among other things) so if you re-roll later on, hopefully the early zones will be slightly different from how you remember them. I think for many of us who followed all the news and played in the betas, we just know everything too well now and have re-played the same stuff too much. Give it a while until the game can surprise you again! Playing casually is ok.

Agreed that all the mentor figures are awesome! I played Priory first but after accompanying people through the other ones, I do think they’re well-written characters (it’s hard not to love Tybalt).

Sieran was made more awesome by her interactions with Gixx – without that she’d be amusingly crazy-happy, but with Gixx as the straight man she’s hilarious.

Agreeing with those above, although the Order of Whispers may seem shadowy, they’re really just about finding subtle and devious ways around things, working from the shadows rather than confronting things head on – and yes, they’re quite politically focused. They do have origins in dealing with dark mystical secrets… but the modern Tyrian order doesn’t show much of that.

The Priory is a good bet because their scholars (much like academics in our world) have a diverse range of interests. Any individual scholar is likely to have a pet project or special interest. They’re also quite into the practical applications of knowledge – not to mention the going out and finding things. Your necro might appreciate the excuse to legitimately poke around a bunch of ancient tombs!

Lore aside, you might also want to check out the armour sets each order offers, as they’re about the only exclusive thing resulting from your choice But lore-wise I’d recommend Priory.

Irnhide, what server are you on? Map chat’s not always perfect but I’ve had some excellent conversations with randoms on my server (Henge of Denravi if you’re interested). People are pretty alright, really.

If you don’t enjoy the gameplay, maybe you shouldn’t play, but I agree that having people to play with is what makes an MMO. I hope you can find some people, or at least have enough positive random encounters and chats to make playing alone engaging for you.

slazzy, I agree with the principle of internal value, and the example comparison you give shows some great game design. However, I think by applying this argument to an MMO you’re discounting the social elements an online game introduces far too much. Re-playing content, changing your armour skin – those things are not the same as just beating a high score because there are other people involved. Show off you new armour combo to your guildmates; challenge yourself to beat an event in an emptier zone with just your three friends. These things do not rely on the value of your loot, they rely on the people you’re doing it with. An MMO cannot keep building ever upward (i.e. stats can’t get infinitely higher – causes balance issues!) – and yet it can’t have an end point, either, which a single player game can. Instead, we need something more than better gear to constitute endgame.

This is where the ‘massively’ in MMO comes in. Believe it or not, for a good social endgame, I think we have to make our own fun to some extent. But I study games from a social sciences angle, so maybe that’s just my perspective

It seems more likely to me that Mellaggan is a quaggan deity, and the statue of Melandru that we recognise has just been associated with Mellagan – it seems quite clear that the statue in the lake in Gendarran Fields is an old human one, and not of quaggan workmanship. Quaggan have been driven out of their homes into mainland Tyria, so they would have left their own statues and cult objects behind. If they found this sunken statue, they might see it as Mellaggan and use it as such.

Much like the Spirits of the Wild that died holding back Jormag so that the norn could retreat, it makes sense that the quaggan would mythologize their people being driven out from their own bounteous homeland by the krait by saying that Mellaggan was slain by them.

I can’t comment with any real authority on gold sellers/buyers, but it seems to me that a game like GW2 (large budget, existing fanbase, hype) is going to be a huge target for botting and gold selling. Where the players go, so do these hangers-on. So ArenaNet are probably dealing with a large and ever-shifting problem, as opposed to a smaller, less well-known MMO which will be less of a target (but good for those games who can stamp out gold buying if they can do it!)

And modern video games being dumbed down? Does not just relate to GW2. Does not just relate to MMOs. And has been said for years by many, many people. It’s a clear industry trend. GW2 may be part of it, but I don’t think you can lay videos like this at ArenaNet’s doorstep as if it’s secretly all directed at them.

a) Your thread title does not include the word ‘loot’, so forgive us for not immediately assuming we could only talk about loot here.

b) I don’t play this game for loot. It’s cool, sure, but it’s not what brings me back every evening. Each to their own play-style, but I think it’s kind of unfortunate if all gamers are expected to only play for the quest of getting bigger pluses on their virtual items.

I have not spent any money on Black Lion keys. I doubt I will. I don’t have the money to spare for RNG rewards right now. Easy as that.

I would imagine that if these skins remain very rare and expensive on the TP, they will probably be back next year. If I play GW2 for nearly as long as I played GW1, every Halloween will be an opportunity to get one of these super-rare skins, and I probably won’t get one, but you know what? That’s what makes them super-rare and exciting. If you could straight buy them, seriously, everyone would seem to have them.

I’m also unsure where this stuff falls in relations to RL gambling laws, that’s my only iffy area. But in general, if you don’t want to gamble, don’t buy the keys.

It’s obvious now that GW2 is the typical asian MMORPG where they make $$$ with gambling.

- This is what annoys me. This is not a core mechanic in GW2, but more to the point, just because a game is published by NCSoft, doesn’t mean it’s designed in Korea -_-;

Be aware that armour sets at the max level will have generally the same kind of stats – the cooler armours are desirable for their appearance (which can be transmuted only any set whose stats you like) not for their stats. So acquire your max armour with the right bonuses on it however you like, then decide what you want it to look like

I don’t run dungeons really at the moment so I’m not sure, but speaking from personal experience of playing alongside a toughness-focused guardian, I think it’s a very handy thing to have around! I doubt you’d have trouble finding groups (especially since those who want tanks tend to favour guardians, I think).

I’m sure someone can help you find them if you can tell us which ones in particular you’re after? Listing all of them would be kind of impractical.

from what i can tell it’s been a ploy to get people buying costumes and keys from the item shop.

I hope that was meant to be facetious. It’s never going to be ‘just a ploy’. I myself am wondering, however, if some of the quest stuff is not working as well as it could do in very crowded zones (i.e., Lion’s Arch, everywhere). Perhaps that’s making things (like the ghosts) not show up as reliably as they should? It’s possible that I’m just doing it wrong, but the crowds can’t help.

In the meantime I’d say if you want something to do and can’t get the LA quest to work, go out and mine candy corn, and just play normally while you collect it, then check back later!

That depends if you want lore-accurate names, or just cool ones?

Charr names tend to have a first name and then a two part surname, half of which is the warband name and half of which is a personal indicator. So in GW1, Pyre Fierceshot was a member of the Fierce warband.

If you want a lore-ish name, I’d go with Tyndir something-something. But it’s really up to you!

That’s a pity Shooopa. It really depends on where you are and when, I’ll admit map chatter has lessened of late but if someone says something, I often find three or four people will chip in and suddenly you’ve got a map-wide conversation. Don’t be afraid to make a comment.

Focksbot – sadly that’s a little too specific and irrelevant for most players to make it to character creation. The best thing to do (I know, it’s too late to say this now!) would be to look at the wiki or any of the other excellent resources created while the game was in development. A Google search for ‘guild wars 2 race names’ already turns stuff up.

GW1 fans were well trained, I think, by the fact that that game required your character to have two names. Giving your character a surname makes it MUCH more likely you’ll get the name you want!

As a player from New Zealand, I’ve always been amused at the inclusion of moas in GW1 and GW2.

If you’ve ever seen pictures of what real moas are like, they’re much scarier! Apparently the largest kinds could be 4 metres tall! In NZ we had birds to fill most of our ecological niches, and very few mammals.

Why thank you The fact that people being helpful encourages people to be helpful is the best part!