Guild Wars 2

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I’m black with white stripes. What’s your excuse?

Haha nice one

I’ve noticed that just about every second or third player-charr is either nearly or completely white-furred or “albino”. A lot of people seem to be fond of making their charr snowblind-white with no markings—or at least with a “white tiger” theme. Combine this with the three most popular male & female faces, and you have a ton of clones running around. I think everyone should make what they love, but I’m surprised at how popular the snow-white theme is. What are your thoughts?

I agree. I try to find my three charr the skimpiest armor possible—I like seeing the fur patterns and muscle structure I chose. Full-body armor covers what makes charr special.

Here’s what I’ve got on my light armored:

tom.7468:

Heres a problem with you’re statements Guild wars 2 is a game its not intended to be exactly like real life and people should separate game mechanics from real life physics.

The bodies in Guild Wars 2 are super-idealized. NOBODY looks like that for real.
- I tried to make a elementalist look exactly like myself and it got quite similar.
But you could make it quite unrealistic as well.
choices is what make players unique.
Looking to good in the game is not cruel and judgemental towards people who are not satisfied with their body in real life. if they feel that way they should seek therapy.

You’re misunderstanding the issue. Making an unrealisticly beautiful character in the game isn’t being cruel and judgemental—of course not. But unrealistic beauty is what people see on a regular basis. If a person grows up seeing ten images of impossible bodies for every two images of actual bodies, chances are they’re going to view the impossible bodies as normal, and the actual bodies—including their own and those of others—as abnormal.

This becomes a problem in real life because people try to obtain impossible bodies. Just look around at society—our obsession with plastic surgery, weight loss, diet, the bodies of celebrities and models, and so on. Men are pressured to body build and have a larger ****, and women are pressured to starve themselves, simply to feel comfortable in their own skin.

When I say “impossible bodies”, take a look at the pictures below to see what I mean. They’re heavily computer-edited. The vast majority of people can’t look like that without surgery, steroids, or long-term starvation. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t need to be another one in the millions of media outlets that cause society’s problem.

Laurelinde.4395:

I wonder…would all the very pro-nudity people feel the same way if it included something along the lines of a mod I remember coming out for Dragon Age: Origins which changed all the male character models to be nude with fully erect genitalia at all times? (Boy were there some weird and disturbing screenshots flying around using that mod.) I am guessing that people might not think it was so cute and harmless if a naked male character started following them around or making gestures at them.

I don’t want to get into a big derail deconstructing how female nudity/sexuality is perceived as passive and consumable vs. male nudity/sexuality being perceived as active and predatory, just putting that out there for consideration.

This is a really good point. I get the feeling that most of the pro-nudity people just want to see their female character’s ta-tas and aren’t thinking of the implications beyond that.

-I MISS THE KURZICKS. -Sigh- I loved those guys. Picked the goth face, guardian profession, and pale skin for my human female in honor of the kurzicks. Maybe when Cantha opens up, she’ll be able to reunite with the remnants of her long-lost ancestors.

-I miss Echovald Forest. Is it any wonder why my Kurzick human runs around Caledon Forest all the time? Nope.

-I miss killing Luxons :P The Nightmare Court will have to do, I suppose.

-I miss more mature storylines. The personal story in GW1 was better… even though it was the same for every character.

-I miss charr armor that consisted of only a loincloth. I want to see my charr’s fur pattern and muscles!

-I miss Jade Quarry. So repetetive, so boring, so addictive XD

It’s not exactly a bug, but I have been getting slammed by gold sellers on these forums. My profile seems to get a private message from a gold seller every few hours. I report them, but they just keep coming back. Anyone else having this issue?

The problem with more revealing clothing is the message it sends. Consider a charr woman in a loincloth, a human man in a loincloth, and a human woman in a loincloth. What’s the difference? The message.

A charr woman in a loincloth is just a ferocious creature with a colorful fur pelt—the message you get might be “beastlike”, or “tribal”, or “cool”.

A human man in a loincloth is seen as masculine—the message would be “I’m confident”, “I’m strong”, or “I’m daring”

A human woman in a loincloth, on the other hand, sends the message “My body is an object”, “I am here to please you”, “My butt and boobs are all that matter”.

Call it politically incorrect, or crude, or unfair, or whatever you want—but that’s how it goes. One way to fix this problem is to give everybody the same revealing armor—if a female character gets a chainmail bikini, the male counterpart needs a chainmail codpiece. Unfortunatley, games don’t roll that way, so I figure it’s better just to avoid the problem all together.

Mirta.5029:

Evelynddra.9265:

Uhh….I don’t get why the game needs nudity. I’m cool with it, but it really doesn’t add or take away anything in the game. So….why does GW2 (or fantasy games in general) need more nudity? Games are already highly sexualized, do we really need to add full on nudity as well? And don’t tell me this isn’t about it being sexualized. There is zero reason for nudity to exist in this game’s environment. I feel the same about skimpy armor, but I think GW2 has a very good balance between skimpy and not skimpy.

The way you use the term “sexualized” gives me the impression that you think it’s inherently bad, almost like comparing it to actual harmful things.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with nudity and sexualisation as long as it’s done equally for all and with the option to filter it in the options, the same way we do for language. I would then warmly welcome it. However it’s not very much needed but I do like having my characters look good

Sexuality and sexualization are not inherently bad—you’re correct. The issue is that sexualization is often used to dehumanize. If sexualization is used to portray someone as an object to be used, or a lesser human being, that’s an issue. Even though nudity would be available to all characters, you’d still be treading rocky territory when you consider issues like the portrayal of naked children or women…

If people want to create their own private nudity mods, great. They have the freedom to do so. But I don’t think it’s wise to include nudity as a public thing, and I think Arenanet realizes this also.

Zoid.2568:

Logan Thackeray: “My, my own…my precioussss”

Queen Jennah: “Get that MONSTER away from me!”

Logan Thackeray runs away crying and squealing

Smeagol <3
Haha this one is my favorite.

Here are the problems with nudity:

1. There are too many people who would use it to be obscene or perverted. Like someone above said, there would be too many young male players running around with female characters, screaming “BEWBS, BEWBS”. As a female player, I am offended by how often females are degraded into nothing more than sex objects. While there’s nothing wrong with nudity in itself, there is a problem with how people use nudity.

2. Arenanet is trying to appeal to people and cultures around the world. There are nudists playing side-by-side with ultra-conservative religious people. The company is trying to appeal to multiple cultures—and allowing nudity in any form isn’t the way to do that. If they did, they would lose some of the player base—and earn less money—as a result.

3. It’s a teen-rated game. While the rating allows for the portrayal of sexuality, violence, drugs, ect. to an extent—Arenanet is basically trying to make their game child-friendly. They want to appeal to youth, and to parents.

4. In western countries, eating disorders are on the rise. This is because the media portrays the human body—male and female—in a very unrealistic manner. From a young age, people see many more fake bodies from media, then they do real life bodies. As a result, they come to believe that bodies in the media are normal, when in truth they are edited by computers, and physically impossible for a real person to get. This not only causes people to be uncomfortable with their own bodies, but to be cruel and judgemental about the bodies of others.
The bodies in Guild Wars 2 are super-idealized. NOBODY looks like that for real. We don’t need another media outlet warping people’s perception and causing mental health problems.

Get a Tier 3 shirt. It doesn’t have the god-awful tail-clipping robes. Your charr will just wear pants with the shirt, and it won’t clip.

I signed the petition.

I’ve noticed that my female charr, and my very thin male charr, have a lot less trouble looking good in light armor. This is because they’re slender and don’t have a ton of muscle bulk. The poorly-executed light armor hides muscular bulk, and just makes bigger charr look like fat blobs.

By contrast, it’s much easier to make heavy armor look good on bulky females and average to bulky males—it doesn’t do any favors for a slender charr frame.

And shoulder pads, oh my gosh. They always look horrid, no matter what.

Tail clipping issues make me want to beat my head against the wall. I worked very hard to get my charr elementalist a particular loincloth, but her tail clips through the back of it. When she runs, I have to stare at her tail flop in-and-out, in-and-out, of the fabric in a clipping nightmare.

Amaethon.8710:

I definitely like it more than the female Sylvari voice (bleh). And the female Human voice is just… boring. Same with female Norn. But anyway, who am I to complain – my main is a Human female.

I think the human female voice is ok (but yeah, kind of bland), but I hate the human female attitude. Every time she accomplishes something, she makes arrogant comments about how awesome she is. That and her confident-flirty idle animation. Haha it’s very at odds with how I envisioned my character.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

We shouldn’t digress into off-topic stuff here, but I think you are giving the human species less credit than it deserves. Of course intelligence is not a stable value, so some tribes might have not known, but sooner or later some one will point out the connection. You know we are kitten sapiens for a reason. (seriously the latin word for human get’s replaced with kitten?)
And as I said, even if that is true (which I still don’t believe and, even though I’m not an expert on that area, I have done quite some research in that field myself), it’s still not the reason of inequality between the sexes.

It’s not the only reason for inequality, true. At any rate, we’ll agree to disagree.

In terms of Balthea, perhaps we’ll get more details about her in further expansions. Balthea was Blood Legion, and so was Kalla Scorchrazor. The Blood Legion homelands are still closed to players, but I’ll bet Blood takes great pride in the fact that two of the great heroines from charr history were from their Legion. So perhaps Blood Legion will be able to answer some of our questions.

A couple theories could be as follows.
1. Flame Legion was already sexist. It seems like the Shaman Caste must have been composed only of males. No female shaman would have accepted the enslavement of her gender and loss of her power. So perhaps Flame females were already restricted before Flame came into power.
2. Modern charr society has no gender roles, but maybe ancient charr society did. They could have functioned like a pride of lions—where males and females are equal in warfare, but mostly males hold leadership positions. If this was the case, females would be the primary hunters and food-providers—and despite not being leaders, their important role would have made them equal without question. However, once the charr advanced from hunting to herding, that could mean females would stay home as herders more and more. If it became tradition for females to stay at home to tend the herds and raise the cubs, that could be the beginning of a society with sexist ideas of what a woman should/shouldn’t do. Especially if status comes from being a warrior, and less females are joining the warbands because of responsiblity at home.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Weindrasi.3805:

people also did not know that sex resulted in babies—they just thought women became pregnant due to the will of the gods or some other reasons.

What? No! You can say many things what people did and didn’t know in ancient times, but this one is most certainly not true. Not only could people see the direct connection by their own species, but also with their cattle and if you want to go even further back, by animals they hunted.

I know it sounds dumb, but don’t dismiss something and argue against it just because it doesn’t sound viable at first sight. I’ve studied human sexuality and anthroplogy some—I’m by no means an expert, but the lack of knowledge early humans had is true. Do some research for yourself—I suggest ‘Sex in History’ by Reay Tannahill.
In early societies, yes, women did stay home with children. But unlike today, raising children was a thing looked at with respect and honor. Motherhood was greatly respected, and as a result, women were greatly respected too. They held leadership positions and had equal say in society. Now, there were other factors besides discovering the connection between sexuality and pregnancy which led to the loss of women’s status—but the discovery certainly played a role.

Caedmon.6798:

Because dark places are so awesome….No.Btw there’s enough dark ,gritty places imo,The balance between these types are fine as it is.Each map has great variety in detail and effects,no map looks the same.I think its all good as it is.If you want dark,gritty,go Orr and have fun.

Ronah.2869:

You want dark places, you have Orr with its regions. Play there if you like but I prefer Queensdale and other cheerful, joyful and colorful zones. If these zones don’t fit for your style than there is The Secret World mmo just for your taste.

You’ve named the problem, actually. I don’t want them to change Queensdale or Divinity’s Reach—those places are amazing as they are. But Orr isn’t dark or scary at all. Orr is certainly an interesting map, but it feels more like a halloween theme park then a desolate zombie wasteland. I would love it if places like orr, the brand, and so on had a gritty, creeping horror feeling. Like I said, I don’t want ALL of guild wars 2 to be dark and depressing—but I would certainly like to see that in some places.

Elspeth Tiriel.9243:

One thing was a little disappointing with personal story. You have sooo many options… but all of them are to be the good guy. Even if you are Brute Thief… Even if you are a Charr Warrior who overthrows a bad warband leader via murder you are still inherently a good guy doing good positive things. I wish there was a route for the meniacle and malicious maybe I like to play the hero but I also like to play the villain or at least be self serving.

Completely agree. The “hero” storyline only fits my goody-goody characters. My grey-area characters, or my outright bad characters, really have no place in Guild Wars 2 and that’s a shame.

Tarvok.4206:

Hey, the ’90s called. They want their “Darker and Edgier” back.

Really, spend some time in Orr, and tell me it isn’t dark enough.

Alright, I will. :P Orr isn’t dark enough. See my comments above.

The world of Guild Wars 2 is so detailed, it has a lot of potential. However, I’ve found that both the personal story, and much of the in-world content, is way too pleasant and sunny. As a result, the stories feel childish, unrealistic, and lacking in depth.

The world is being destroyed by dragons. Millions of people have died, and hundreds more are dying every day in open warfare. The land is plauged by the living dead, ghosts, and horrific mindless monsters who used to be your friends & loved ones. To top it all off, your respective race is torn by infighting and civil war. Issues such as roving gangs, corrupted power-holders, unethical torture, violence against women, and terrorism are rampant.

Despite this, the game goes along like a kid’s saturday morning cartoon. If people aren’t acting bright and happy, they’re either acting like mindless noble heroes (You and Trahearne), or throwing tantrums about hurt feelings (Destiny’s Edge). It all feels very superficial. I’m not saying the story should be grisly and depressing all the time, but it really ought to dig a little deeper into the darkness and emotion of Tyria.

Curae.1837:

Hea there, I feel your pain with the personal story… As someone who writes a lot I’ve based my ingame characters of the characters in the story I’m writing. However none of them would reply the way they do ingame…
I decided to look at the personal story in a different way instead.
Per example… My thief. In my own story he’s trained an assassin from a very young age. Helping people and becoming a hero would not something he would do because ‘the world has to be saved’.
So instead I decided to see the story from a different point of view. My thief has some personal goals, and instead of helping all those people, he’s just acting. The people he helps? They are all part of his ‘big plan’.

Try to give it your own twist, why is your character suddenly behaving like that? Surely he or she must have a reason

You sound like me. This is exactly what I did—after I wrote the stories for my characters, I was really dissapointed by the fact that they acted completely different from how they ought to. Luckily for my main, she’s always been manipulative and sneaky. I figured she was just acting all “heroic” because she knows that it’s the best thing she can do socially to gain trust/loyalty. Once she gets it, she’ll use it for her own evil plans XD

So yeah, I agree with the OP. I’m not interested in controlling what happens to my character. What I want to control is how my character reacts after something happens—the words that come from her mouth, the feelings she has, the morals she decides to follow.

I agree completely and I’ve made threads about this very problem on other websites. My argument didn’t get very much attention, but I still wonder at this. You said it perfectly, it makes no sense.

Women in real life were oppressed over a long period of time. In the earliest societies, men and women were equal. However, people also did not know that sex resulted in babies—they just thought women became pregnant due to the will of the gods or some other reasons. This resulted in a society where women and men could have sex with whoever they chose, without any social taboo. However, when people found out that sex makes babies, men became jealous of the women they were mated to. The men wanted the children in the house to be their offspring. So, they forced the women to be sexually exclusive (this is why, if women have sex today, they are called slu*). They also took the women’s power by creating social taboos and separating women from their families (The female bride goes to live in the man’s house). This way, the men forced women to be dependant on them, for easy control.

This occured slowly over many generations. You don’t go from a sex-positive society where women hold equal power, to an abusive male-dominated society overnight. And charr society before flame legion took power was just that—equal.

What made male oppression of women in real life possible was probably the fact that men are, on average, stronger and faster. However, in charr society, this wasn’t the case—and that’s another reason why it’s weird that Flame was able to enslave women. While Charr women are weaker then Charr men, they are faster and more coordinated. This puts them on a pretty equal playing field, physically. So the Charr men wouldn’t have been able to physically force their will. Even in real life society, where men could force their will through physical power, it took hundreds of years. So yeah, weird.

I have Nyoka up here, but not Albane. This must be fixed!

Fook.3914:

the female charr should sound like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORWnRWt9p4s

I threw up in my mouth and then died a little on the inside. Thank you very much XD

Erik the Dauntless.4063:

Just another pic i wanted to share, my warrior Silky Yarnballs in Orr.
Greetings from Underworld

Love her design and colors!

rajjy.4832:

Personally I just want uglier options for all races.

Agree!

Rin.1046:

Sex sells (I think it has something to do with 99% of people loving it so much).
The majority of computer game players are male (sorry ladies, but it’s true).
The majority of males prefer to look at women rather than men and visa versa.
It’s just a game, nothing in it is REAL.
Guild Wars 2 is set in a fantasy world, with magic and dragons (which I’m pretty sure are not real), yet the realismists do not seem to complain about that.
We have the internet.

My only argument against this is that guys can get eye candy, and sex can sell so to speak, without the women being degraded. It would take a little more creativity on the part of the game developers, to design sexy content without the women being lowered to pleasure objects… but heck, if they’ve imagined an entire fantasy world, it ought not to be too difficult.
Although it’s just a game, issues such as portrayal of women do matter in real life. The games we play reflect the society we live in. Unfortunatley, in real life, a woman’s worth is often based on how she looks, and sexual violence against women is common. If the media we view (such as games) starts portraying women in a sex-positive, equal light—that could have a very positive impact on real life society.

Feni.4306

It’s been scientifically proven time and time again that men are naturally stronger than women. I love how this somehow makes me sexist in your eyes. To begin with you aren’t even replying to my argument, mine was about genetics and you retorted with some nonsense about how some women work out while some men don’t at all. There are plenty of women who could beat the life out of me, that still has nothing to do with what I said.

I can already tell you’re a radical so this is the last time I’ll respond to you. I’ll lay one last example on you. You’re saying the boob claw and frilly clothes could be overlooked by you if men also had such revealing clothing, and then in the same breath you go on about how the gaming community is sexist and SOCIETY is as well. See where I’m going with this? If men also had revealing clothes leveling the playing field, then you would have never even considered calling the gaming community sexist. It’s honestly amazing how little it takes for you to put down the entire male gaming community.

If possible could you go quell your anger somewhere else? Take up a sport as a hobby, maybe MMA. Build up that female strength you’re so proud of so you can destroy me and somehow prove that I was wrong in everything by doing so.

Feni, the one who is being radical and rediculous is YOU. Your statements are borderline sexist, and now that you’ve been backed into a corner, you’re trying to cover up your flawed argument by using biology which you know very little about. You are also trying to portray the other person as being illogical, by putting words in their mouth.

No one is arguing against the fact that men are stronger then women. Never ONCE was that said. The area where your argument slips into sexism is where you suggest that women are unfit to fight. Could a woman build her strength enough to fight in heavy armor with a metal weapon? Yes she could. Could a woman run across rough terrain for many miles in heavy gear? Yes she could. Obviously, she’s not going to gain the physical strength of a male two feet taller then she, and twice her weight—but she doesn’t have to. The physical abilities required of a fighter are within the reach of both females and males.

As for the rest of your argument, it slips into angry ranting and childish insults, so it doesn’t merit reply.

Town clothing is very limited. It is silly to give someone a costume they can only wear in town, because “In-Town” is such a tiny part of the game. Unless people are standing around waiting for a party, doing crafting, or making bank deposits, they won’t even be in town. And when they ARE in town, doing the aforementioned activities, the last thing they’ll care about is putting on a silly outfit.
As it is, the town clothing slots are a waste of space. In Guild Wars 1, characters had a costume slot so that they could wear their holiday outfits over their regular armor—while still recieving the armor benefits. I think a similar slot should be implimented for Guild Wars 2—let us wear our town clothing all the time in PvE.
In my own personal experience, I puchased a pair of glasses for my character. The glasses were meant to be a defining part of his appearance, but they have been a huge dissapointment, since I can’t wear them regularly.

Cushnahan.7058:

Improve it.

Human characters have a huge range of hairstyles and the likes to choose from. Other races are very very limited.

Sylvari:
‘Hair’ styles are very limited. I think there should be something as ‘flower hair’. Just look at a lily, or a daisy. Something like that. As well as on-skin-pattern, I’d like flowers, moss, random twigs and such. Or mushroom ears.

Norn:
Hair styles are all ugly, Norn men ALWAYS have chest hair. Male norn head looks ridiculously small even on the thinnest and most slender body form.

Charr:
The difference between male/female charr is merely the voice.

I’d be happy if we could get more hairstyles (especially for norn and sylvari), as well as the option to have a small-built hairless Norn man, and more ‘fragile’ body builds for Norn men too. Not ALL of the norn men could have been born huge, could they? In general, improve Norn, Sylvari and Charr character creation.

The Sylvari actually have much better options then humans. They have so many skin and hair colors to pick from, the other races pale by comparison. In addition, their facial sliders actually DO SOMETHING. Human facial sliders do almost nothing because arenanet wants all the humans to look like bland supermodels. Sylvari facial sliders, on the other hand, can give them some very exotic and unusual features. That said, more hair styles would be nice.

The Charr genders are VERY, VERY distinctive and different. Their faces are totally different, their horns are different, their tails are different, and their body builds are different. Females have much smaller shoulders and thinner waists. In addition, their muscles are softer and less defined. They don’t have “boobs”, but if you look at the distinctive features of females versus males, then you can tell them apart instantly.

That said, Charr are severely lacking in face and horn options. They are pitifully limited compared to the other races. As a result, the majority of players pick the same two “popular” charr faces, and you get a ton of clones running around.

The male norn definatley need bigger heads! Their heads are tiny in comparison to their bodies and it looks very stupid. So I’d say they need to make male norn heads bigger. However, since norn are meant to be giants, I think it’d be a bad idea to give them skinny bodies. In fact, I think it’s the female norn who have the problem—they’re so darn skinny, they look like frail humans. Females need a lot of bulking up in general, and males need bigger heads.

The problem with skimpy armor on female characters isn’t that it’s unrealistic.
The problem is that it’s not equal.
While the male gets covering, unsexualized armor, the female gets skimpy sexualized armor. This sends the message that females don’t matter as much, and are only there for sex.
I think it’s fine for females to have skimpy armor, as long as the male counterpart is ALSO skimpy. So in this case, I disagree unless they sex up the male armor too.

That’s true—they ought to add it to all armors. That said, the fire tails have a glitch where the tail on a female charr just turns into a male tail—so that needs to be worked out. Also, they might be limiting the use of fire tails because human, norn, sylvari, and asura players who buy CoF armor might feel shafted. They have no tails at all

Maloy.1249:

I don’t associate those with feminine qualities, and I often get annoyed with female Charr npcs in-game as they attempt to use masculine voices

They’re not attempting to use masculine voices. It’s natural that they have deeper voices, because they’re huge cat-beasts. If a high-pitched human female voice came out of a giant monster’s throat, now THAT would be annoying.

I’m a female and for female humanoid characters, I NEVER pick revealing armor. I want to portray my female characters as people—valued for strength, intellegence, and personality. Not just a pair of boobs designed to service men.

On the other hand, for my charr characters, I try to find the most revealing armor possible. The charr have really cool fur patterns, and I like to see the details of the fur pattern. Also, I’M SO GLAD the charr have the same armor for male and female. Arenanet worked so hard to make the female charr cool—giving them armor that is in any way less kitten then the male armor would be a shame.

There’s nothing wrong with exposing or unrealistic armor, and there’s nothing wrong with attractive looking characters. The problem comes in when some armors send the message “My body is a toy, my only purpose (as a female) is to pleasure you”

That said, Guild Wars 2 has a decent selection of armors. It’s much easier for male characters to have non-skimpy armor then female—but it’s not hard for females to find something covering. I think it’s ok the way it is, because people can choose what they want to wear. The one thing they could change is to make light female starter armor more reasonable. It should look like the starter male armor—maybe with some cleavage to compromise between “modest” and “revealing”, but right now it’s rediculous.

I think it’s a great idea. Arenanet has made once-good people or groups evil in the past. Look at what happened with the White Mantle, Kourna, and the Ministry of Purity in Guild Wars 1. Those were great storylines.
Also, in making Trahearne and the Pact evil, Arenanet could give the player control of their own character again. It seems like once you got to the Pact, whatever personality you had developed for your character in the early personal story was forcibly cast aside. Suddenly, your character becomes the goody-two-shoes drone, the noble lacky, ect. If the Pact becomes the enemy, Arenanet could let you control how your character reacts to the betrayal—not only choosing what action to take, but what emotions the character feels. You’d have room to stop being the noble dimwit, and react as a genunine person—with rage, or anguish, or terror, ect.

Harpies and Jotun can’t be playable for pretty much the same reason. For Jotun, it’s stated in lore that they restrict the females in the home and keep them hidden away. They’d have to have a female uprising like the charr, and this unlikely because the Jotun have no great amount of social organization. One uprising would only affect one small family or tribe.
Harpies are female-dominated. We don’t know if their males even exist, but if they do they’re probably like the female Jotun—restrained in the home. Also, from observing Harpy behavior in Guild Wars 1, it seems very likely that Harpies have no males at all and instead mate with Griffons.
And both Harpies and Jotun lack technology and a united society. They’re spread out in primitive tribes.

My three would be: Tengu, Largos, and Naga

Tengu: Plently of customization, good social organization and technology, equal genders, strong lore, four separate houses, huge home city, already planned to be playable.
Largos: Since we know next to nothing about them, there’s lots of room to add everything they need to make them playable.
Naga: Kind of a combination of Tengu reasons and Largos reasons. They have interesting lore, and are proven to be organized and intellegent, but we also know little about them—so there’s room to make them playable.

Also, less likely, but awesome would be if the Mursatt became playable. MURSATT FOR THE WIN! But Arenanet stated they already have plans for the Mursatt and White Mantle so I’m not going to let my hopes go too high.

Albane Memorykeeper for the win!

cmlanton.3496:

Okay, here’s my proposal:

Since there’s no way they can undo what has already been done, ANet needs to work with what they have. So what do you do when the personal story is over, and no one is satisfied? Release expansion content! The way I see it, Trahearne is in the perfect position to be a super villain. He’s disliked by most of the player base, and for good reason. He’s in a position of power. He’s well liked by the npcs. He’s got the Disney villain thing going on with his voice. He’s got the undying trust of everyone. He’s shuffled your character underfoot, and has taken your credit and respect.

If Trahearne was a villain, it would mean you would have a reason to be “the hero” again. It wouldn’t even need to start all at once. Your character could notice slow changes in Trahearne’s character – the Pale Tree could show concern. There could be a whole campaign against your character by Trahearne’s loyals when you refuse to be his yes-man, and old friends could reappear out of the woodwork to offer their support. Hell, for all I care, your mentor could miraculously still be alive. The orders could, at some point, gain independence again, while the Pact could remain Trahearne’s army. Destiny’s Edge could be your best friend.
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I SECOND THIS

Like everyone else, I wasn’t impressed with him. Here’s what you need to do, Arenanet.

1. You need to have him get horribly crippled in some terrible accident. HORRIBLY CRIPPLED. As in he can’t move and has speech problems.
2. You need to have him despair over his pitiful state, go into deep depression, and then start obsessivley studying the necromancer arts for a way to heal his wasted body
3. He needs to tap into corrupted dragon power, whether accidentally, or intentionally (driven by desparation), and become corrupt
4. He will regain use of his body and become super powerful as a result of the magic, but he has become corrupted and turns into the most awesome super villian ever. New Dragon Champion!

Do that, and you’ll redeem him.

oneinfinity.9406:

I just noticed something and I’m surprised no one else has brought this up yet, but don’t you think that worshiping the Destroyers might unconsciously turn the Flame Legion into minions of Primordus? Granted, they either don’t know of the Elder Dragons or don’t care, but it seems quite likely that once it becomes clear to them who is behind their “gods” they would become similar to the Sons of Svanir. Or they could even get unconsciously corrupted by using Destroyer magic. What the Flame Legion does to the landscape already looks quite similar to Elder Dragon corruption. Their shamans already look strange, being apparently completely furless, with glowing red eyes and limbs that look like they are made of molten rock.

The one thing that speaks against this theory is the fact that Primordus seems to corrupt only non-living things. However, it could be possible that the use of his magic somehow has a bad influence on the Flame Legion. Notice how only the magic users look kind of corrupted? Maybe Primordus doesn’t even notice that he’s turning them into his minions. The Flame Legion themselves certainly don’t seem to know the full scope of what they’re tapping into. I’ll certainly be looking forward to any development in this direction.

Any thoughts on this?

The two things that go against this are that first, Flame Legion doesn’t worship outside forces anymore. They learned their lesson. They worship a charr named Gaheron as their God. Also, in terms of the Shamans having no hair and molten limbs, it’s specifically mentioned at some point in the game that they go through rituals to mutilate their bodies—so the rituals would account for that.

Panzerjaeger.7612:

Warmaster Efut trumps all

My vote’s with Efut. Zojja’s alright, but the blonde one is trying too hard to look like a human female. The result is creepy. Efut, on the other hand, is unique. And, by asuran standards of beauty, probably really hot. The blonde one probably gets teased for looking like a “Bookah”

I think that Jormag can and does corrupt women. The Sons of Svanir are drawn to dragon for the promise of power—but women can also be tempted by power. So wouldn’t there be women who seek dragon’s power too? Obviously, they can’t go to the Sons of Svanir, but I bet plenty of power-hungry women seek out dragon on their own. Since the female servants of dragon have to seek power individually and alone, they are probably virtually unheard-of. They probably keep their activities hidden, instead of being loud and obvious about it as the Sons are.
Another possibility is that dragon keeps his female servants hidden. This could be for a number of reasons.
1. Jormag knows that it can weaken the Norn by dividing the men and women. So if it allows its Sons of Svanir to spread sexist ideas among the Norn, this creates contention and divides the Norn as a people. If they become too focused on Men VS Women or Oppression VS Equality, they’ll be easier to destroy. In this case, it may be more useful for Jormag to only corrupt men. Or if it does corrupt women, it keeps them far away so the Sons of Svanir don’t know about them.
2. Jormag has a use for female servants that we don’t know about. Maybe the corruption of a female body allows it to do something a male body can’t. Spawn icebrood at will? If that were the case, Jormag would keep the female servants close by as its army-making-machines. Or, maybe they act as the “Mouths of Jormag” the way Zhaitan has a Mouth. Maybe females make better “Mouths of Jormag” because of some magical umbilical cord connection to Jormag himself. It’s possible lol

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Umm, what I said still makes perfect sense. Elexus Shredskin sounds like a woman trying too hard to be a man. In all legions but Flame (Elexus is Blood), there is no reason for this as males and females are equal. The female Charr PC voice just sounds like a woman who is serious about her duties.

Elexus actually has the worst female charr voice in the game.

Actually, that’s the actress’s real voice. When they interviewed some of the voice actors live, I knew she was Elexus as soon as she spoke. It’s not a fake attempt at being masculine, the lady honestly has a very deep voice.
Also, while men and women are equal in the three united Legions, Elexus herself has good reason to be bitter and distrustful towards men. Her apparently all-male warband betrayed her for Flame Legion, and expected her to submit her equality and go along with them. This suggests there may have been some rare sexism in her warband even before they defected to Flame. If this is the case, it’s understandable why she tries hard to be assertive.

After much consideration, I decided to use a makeover kit and edit my elementalist’s coloring. Beforehand, she was light orange with reddish-orange highlights around the face, but I decided the effect wasn’t noticable enough. So, here’s Albane Memorykeeper after her revamp.

The Flame Legion Shamans do what they do for power, that’s true. But being obsessed with power doesn’t always allow you to see things clearly. Even if putting women in the armies would make Flame Legion more powerful on the battlefield, doing so means giving up the power Flame Legion men have over Flame Legion women—and after holding that particular power so long, giving it up would be very challenging for the men. Essentially, it would mean giving up personal power for the good of the Legion. As we both know, people (charr included) are greedy, flawed creatures, and giving up personal power for the good of the whole isn’t easy for anybody.

Concerning the soldiers and general population of Flame Legion, they are very devout. Many of the Shamans only use religion to stay in control, but for the lower parts of society, Gaheron is God and their faith is a real thing. So I’d say it could be very sentimental. That, and the same personal power VS greater good conflict comes in.

All in all, you’re right that there is a clear path to victory and prosperity, but since we’re not culturally or emotionally invested, it’s easier for us to see. The charr who actually live their lives day by day are only human (ha-ha) and as a result, they aren’t always logical. And they have multiple ideas of “victory”

I think the charr have grown “softer”, but I don’t think they’ll ever become “soft”. They are predators by nature—their instincts drive them to fight, kill, and dominate from birth in a way that humans will never understand. But like humans, they also know that following your base instincts doesn’t always work in a modern world. By human standards, they’ll always be a violent military culture—but since they’ve decided to work together with humans and the other races, they have to be open to new ideas. Making an alliance with Flame Legion would require being open to new ideas as well, but that’s a far deeper and more personal affair—which makes it much harder.

OTGBionicArm.2417:

If the voice wasn’t feminine sounding, what would be the point in even playing a female Charr?

The voice and their overall size is the only thing that is actually different between a male and female Charr.

Well, I guess the females do look more like actual cats too, but that’s besides the point.

Well of course the voice needs to sound female. That’s not what the OP meant. Sounding “female” and sounding “feminine” aren’t the same thing. “Feminine” implies that the voice sounds girly, happy, graceful or delicate. And Charr as a race don’t bring to mind happy, delicate things at all. A voice that sounds “female” doesn’t have to sound “feminine”—what the OP is asking for is a voice that sounds female, but more harsh, since Charr are a harsh race.

That said, in my personal opinion the female charr voice isn’t that bad. I have two female charr—one of them is an evil-minded villian intent on bending others to her will. The other is a spiritual and thoughtful leader who loves to learn. The female charr voice fits my “spiritual and thoughtful leader” character, but not my “villian” character—and I don’t think it fits the average charr female either. Overall though, it’s a strong voice and it’s all right.

We’ll probably get more information once the Blood Legion Homelands open up for exploration. I always assumed Hrangmer and the Flame Citadel were one and the same because of what some above have said. Flame Legion has been so decimated that they can’t have much territory—how many volcano-citadels could they possibly have? Not many, I’d think. Also because there don’t seem to be many volcanoes in the region, from a geographical standpoint.
However, there are many holes in information. Like where the Plains of Golghein are (not shown), and the “north-east” specification. So yeah, I’d wait until Blood Legion Homelands open before making any more guesses.

I think you’re oversimplifying Charr culture. “Victory” has multiple meanings. For the Flame Legion, giving up cultural and religious values for an alliance and a powerful nation may not be “victory” at all. Rather, they may consider that a horrible defeat—giving up everything they are. For them, “victory at any cost” could mean being destroyed rather then compromising their views—whether those views be related to gender, religion, ethics, or otherwise.

Also, although the Charr are warlike, they are evolving culturally and gaining new ideas regarding warfare and ethics. In large part, the united Legions have moved beyond slavery and inhumane sacrifice. Legion discipline is still harsh, but it is far less brutal then it used to be in Guild Wars 1. (Note the mine slaves you mentioned are only temporarily there, being punished for crimes. They get out after serving their time.) At any rate, going backwards culturally for the promise of power would not be a victory in the eyes of some, but a defeat.

At the end of the day, “victory at any cost” could mean any number of things, and I bet the Charr legions would be divided a hundred different ways on just what the meaning is. That in itself is going to make uniting near-impossible. Getting a Khan-Ur among the united Legions is a lot easier then joining with Flame Legion, and they haven’t even managed that in hundreds of years.

Maybe an alliance could be made one day, but I imagine the Khan Ur would have to come first, and that’s far from happening at this point in time.

Manijin.3428:

Female Charr: “Man, look at the pair on that male! He can gore me any time…”

Haha

Male Charr: "Dude, that female has one sexy tail! "

I don’t think it’s possible at this point because of the clash of cultures.

The three united Legions hate the idea of worshipping Gods, and hate (dislike at the very least) those who practice God-worship. In addition, they believe in equal rights for women (and are far more advanced in this area then any culture in the real world). Humans are bearable because they don’t let God-worship get in the way of their common sense.

Flame Legion, however, is fanatical—using Gods as an excuse to enslave women, kill others as “sacrifice”, destroy the environment beyond use, enslave non-Charr, and mutilate their own bodies. Each of these practices is so deeply ingrained in Flame Legion culture, there’s not a chance in h*ll they’d change them.

Flame Legion uniting with the other three is like the Taliban uniting with the United States.

Now if Flame decided the dragons were the main threat, there could be a temporary cease-fire between themselves and the united Legions, but I think that’s as far as it would go.
If the united Legions want to gain Flame Legion’s magical knowledge, they will have to conquer Flame Legion and force the information out of its Shamans.

Ben K.6238:

CharrGirl.7896:

Even their large teeth make no sense. They wouldn’t be able to speak with such large teeth or develop large brains…why do you think we humans have such tiny teeth? Yea so our brains could get more space in our skull and therefore our jaw muscles grew weak.

There isn’t a fixed volume limit for skulls. Humans can afford smaller and weaker jaws because we don’t kill things with them anymore, Ozzy Osbourne excepted. Charr brains look to be larger than an entire human skull (simply because their heads are bigger).

In addition, a brain’s size does not nessecarily determine intellegence or complexity. There are limitless ways in which something can evolve and gain intellegence—the way we have is just one

This is an assortment of armor pieces I’ve found as I’ve played. The top is an exotic karma piece you get from orr after completing certain dynamic event chains—it costs 42,000 karma per piece. The bottoms are given as a reward for some heart quests, although I don’t recall which. The hands and feet are T-2 cultural. It isn’t flashy or super expensive, but it looks good.