Guild Wars 2

Ehh beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Congrats on getting a character you love!
For me, it’s really really hard to make a human female I consider beautiful, because all the faces look like dolls and nearly all the bodies look anorexic.
My female norn:

Emiko.3217:

I rather like the differences in between male and female. Call me old-school, but I"m glad there are at least physical differences, and no one can deny that.

Physical differences are totally different from what’s being discussed here. Physical differences are real—boys have wee-wees and girls have lady bits. Boys have big shoulders and flat chests, girls have big hips and squishy chest bits. That’s our biology.

Differences like “blue=boy, pink=girl” are not real—they’re just weird, counterproductive “rules” that humans created because humans are strange.

So no, it’s not old-fashioned to want physical differences. I think everybody wants that. The alternative would be playing a bunch of sexless robots. People just don’t want to be forced to have a certain color, or type of clothes, because of their biology or their character’s biology.

Daroon.1736:

Weindrasi.3805:

Introducing a major character just to kill it a few weeks later is flawed writing. Considering anet’s writers do this for a living, they no-doubt understand all the unspoken rules of story-crafting.

I have to fully agree with Shiren regarding your first sentence – To go back to my original Game of Thrones reference, one of the reasons why it has become so popular is that one does feel genuine peril for the characters when watching or viewing because those ‘unspoken rules’ of not killing off characters unexpectedly, don’t apply.

It’s not about the character itself, but about the character’s usefulness. If a character’s only use is “die real quick so players feel bad”, it’s still flawed writing. To date, Taimi has done nothing truly useful. She has showed up at events and given us a taste of her personality—that’s it. To kill her off now, just because it would make people sad, is a lazy way of creating drama. Ultimately, said drama would only affect the player base—not the characters and world—because Taimi hasn’t made any lasting marks in it.

I don’t craft. I will never craft. I may never get ascended gear—but that’s all right. My exotics work fine. I’m not interested enough in ascended gear to craft for it.

The problem for me, and for many people like me, is that we have stacks and stacks and stacks of unused ascended crafting materials.
I will never use any of my bloodstone dust, or dragonite ore, or shards. Yet, I keep getting more. and more. and MORE. Stack upon stack of it, filling up my inventory.

I don’t want to delete these mats, because I know they are valuable. You don’t just throw something of value in the trash, even if you don’t use it. An alternative is desperately needed.

An exchange system needs to be implemented. It should give non-crafting players something valuable in exchange for their mats—a form of currency they will actually use.

I’ve heard that an exchange system for extra blade shards is in the works. This is great, because I have stacks of them which I will not use otherwise. How could this system be extended to ascended mats?

bullyrook.2165:

You have Trahearne, isn’t that enough? Leader of the Pact forces and all that jazz?

No that isn’t enough. All sylvari are pansexual—that’s just fact. Because Trahearne is sylvari, Trahearne has the potential to be in a male-male relationship. However, he is not in one and he is not gay—he’s just sylvari.
So Trahearne COULD be in a gay relationship. But, he will not count as a gay-representative character unless that happens—due to the fact that pansexuality is a universal sylvari trait.
On the other hand, if a prominent character of any other race was out and gay—that would count regardless of their relationship status (single or taken), because the normal sexuality of other races is not pan.

EX: Caithe and Faolin only count as “lesbian” when they are in a relationship together. As singles, they are just sylvari like all sylvari.
Kasmeer, on the other hand, would count as lesbian no matter what, because her attractions are not universal to all humans

I agree but I don’t want them to add that couple just “to support LBGT diversity”
The gay couple needs to fit in to the story—and that means they’ll need to wait a good while before introducing them.

Kasmeer and Marjory are still pretty recent, and Caithe and Faolin are iconic. If they added another prominent LBGT couple so soon, it would seem strange. It would have a negative effect on the story and the couple, and we want a positive one.

Honestly, I’d say don’t expect it for at least a year. Anet will have enough on their plate developing the Kas/Jory relationship, in addition to Taimi, Rox, Braham, Canach, and Destiny’s Edge. Until those things are done well, I’m not open to any major new character additions, whether they be gay or straight, taken or single.

Of the characters we already have, Canach and Trahearne would be the most likely to have same-sex partners, but like you said, they wouldn’t push the envelope as much since they’re sylvari

I don’t think they planned to kill off Taimi. Sure, she is well liked, but she is also extremely new.

Introducing a major character just to kill it a few weeks later is flawed writing. Considering anet’s writers do this for a living, they no-doubt understand all the unspoken rules of story-crafting.

Also, they gave us a ton of hints into Taimi’s background. Her illness, being an orphan, having Zojja as a mentor. Those all tell us that there are future plans for Taimi’s character development—if she had been created to die, time would not have been wasted on them.

Taimi wasn’t at the final confrontation because 1.she is new, and 2.she is a child.

Before you develop a brand new character, you have to make sure the old characters are well-rounded. Putting Taimi in the confrontation would have drawn vital attention away from Kasmeer, Marjory, Braham, and Rox.

As for Taimi being a child—do you honestly think the adult characters would allow her to come? Heck no. They may not be as uptight as Logan, but they’re not idiots either. They would never allow a little kid to confront the most deadly villain Tyria has seen in centuries—no matter how talented that kid is.

Not only would bringing Taimi go against the characters’ morals, it would go against their common sense. Nobody is going to trust a child to have their back in deadly combat. Would you?

I don’t think game ratings have anything to do with it. It’s about the characters.

Taimi may die at a later date. Heck, any of them could. But we’ll no doubt see a lot more development before that time.

The concept of “this thing is for boys, that thing is for girls” is dying.
Being a man or woman shouldn’t be based on whether you like bats or butterflies, blue or pink—or anything else. A mage who uses illusionary butterflies is no less a man then a mage who uses fireballs—both get the job done. And if anybody thinks to laugh at the Mesmer—bad idea. He can use one of those butterflies to make your brain explode.
Making stuff explode is pretty manly

That said, for people who want a Mesmer, but don’t like the traditional “purple and pink” vibe, there’s lots you can do. For your husband, I suggest he takes his Mesmer to the PVP locker to look at armor combinations. The right armor and the right dye colors will have his Mesmer looking masculine and vicious in no time.

I didn’t like the traditional Mesmer look myself—here’s a thing I came up with.

The Norn will take the Black Citadel—and every last draught of ale within! BEAR!! BEAR AND ALE!

Henrietta Sonflayer
A Mesmer with a taste for close combat—and Svanir blood

8/10
Excellent scenery to match your norn’s colors. My one tip is to give his armor a little more contrast—just a little bit of gold would look nice against the white, for instance.

Marjory is a small human, maybe 120-150 pounds.
Braham is a huge muscled norn, say 500 pounds.
Norn are super strong. Their physical power is greater then any other race, even charr, and they live their whole lives in the harsh Shiverpeak mountains, hunting and fighting monsters. Marjory is physically fit, but she couldn’t compare to even a weak norn, and Braham is definitely not a weak norn. His body is much more durable than hers, and he can no doubt withstand a lot more without being hurt. He’s probably also better at dealing with pain then most—when they had to get out of the breachmaker, he stood up and walked on that broken leg. Owch!

I agree completely. Honestly, I never understood this Scarlet-hate. I suspect that a lot of people were on the fence, but when they saw others hating on Scarlet they thought—“Oh hey, better jump on the bandwagon!”
I honestly felt bad when I killed Scarlet. There’s no possible way she can be redeemed after her actions, but it still made me sad her life had to end that way.

RIP Scarlet—you’ll always be my favorite :;(

I thought it was funny. It makes her more real—everyone has their little quirks and tics. Hers is nervous hiccups XD

Konig Des Todes.2086:

So I guess that those fighting Jormag and his minions – in the quoted cases, homestead owners and a Claw of Koda – wouldn’t think to call Jormag a she?

And apparently you missed my point entirely. You said the Elder Dragons are never referred to with a gender – as in, never – but only as an it. I proved you wrong, they are referred to with genders. I never said they had genders just that they’re referred to with such.

My initial posting was never intended to be based in hard facts, or to be the subject of debate. It was a brief, tongue-in-cheek, admittedly lazy way of making a point. That point being that 1. The dragons don’t have a physical sex, and 2. The dragons don’t talk -to us-. Their mentality is so drastically different from ours that, even if they have the intellect to do so, they never would.

When I saw that, yes, my lazy little post had gained critical response, I replied with a more accurate layout of my opinion.
So yes, the statement “everyone in-game refers to the dragons as ‘it’” was wrong.
The -poorly communicated- point behind the statement is not.

So I’ll re-state: I don’t think the elder dragons will have voices, except through their minions. And the minions could be of either sex. I will give the OP this: Zhaitan’s prominent minions were mostly male… or at least voiced as male (the wraiths, the various Orrian royals we fought, the Mouth, the Eye). So, for a future elder dragon, a prominent female minion could be featured. It would be ironic if it were a minion of Jormag.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Weindrasi.3805:

This is silly. The dragons have no sex, everyone in game refers to them as “It”. Only players refer to the dragon as “he” because most people have the habit of calling ungendered things “he”
Also, the dragons don’t have voices, they don’t talk.
Female dragon minions? Yeah. Female dragon? No, its an it

Uh…
<PlayerName>, what a pleasure to have worked with you. Although Dragon’s influence continues to spread, with your help we’ve slowed the spread of his corruption. Thank you! _
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fightthe_ice_dragon%27s_corruption

Son of Svanir: We must make Jormag’s strength our own.
Svanir Initiate: Jormag is strength. Jormag is power.
Son of Svanir: Breathe in his power. Devour his strength.
Svanir Initiate: We will be transformed. We will reign supreme!
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Highpeaks

Wollam the Plunderer: Jormag has no need for your soft words. Balance means nothing compared to his power.
Wollam the Plunderer: I will make him more powerful with your relics, and earn his favor with your head.

Honor’s Claw: And their master in the north laughs. Listen to my words. Jormag threatens us all. And we must be ready for him.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Honor_of_the_Waves_%28explorable%29

Just three of many cases where Jormag’s called a he. Kralkatorrik is also called a he, by Glint in Edge of Destiny, such as this line on Page 340:

“At first, for centuries, I defended my master. But I could hear his thoughts, too, and I knew that if he rose again, all good things would come to an end.”

And dragons have voices. It’s just that, thus far, we’ve only heard them roar. If they can make verbal noises (roaring included), and if intelligent enough, they can speak. And given that they know all that their minions know and knew, then they know many different languages – both young and old.

DarcShriek.5829:

@Konig – Hurricanes are referred by both male and female names.

Only since 1978 though. Women names were used since 1953. If my facts aren’t wrong. And still, it’s more often to be women names, is it not?

Still, point stands. People do refer to natural disasters with masculine or feminine terms.

Honestly, I don’t think you can even count what the Sons of Svanir say, because they would never in any stretch of the imagination refer to Jormag as “She” or think of Jormag as “She”, and if Jormag was a “She”, their heads would probably explode. lol.

As for Glint in Edge of Destiny, that book was not only written while the game was still in development, but it was written very poorly. And since the dragons have been stated by the devs to be sexless, we can assume that Glint’s and Honor’s Claw’s use of male terminology is purely habitual to the character, or accidental on the writer’s part—not a factual indicator of the dragon’s sex.

As for speech, I tend to agree with the above posters. Except for the need to communicate through their minions, the dragons aren’t going to strike up a conversation with us lowly germ-people.

;) Perhaps the next time I take an antibiotic for an infection, I’ll declare “Now listen here, you lowly germs, this is your last chance! Flee before my power or face the wrath of my medication!”

This is a picture of my female norn. She’s actually a Mesmer with a necromancer mask. She was really difficult to find clothing for. I didn’t want anything skimpy or sexual in the least, because in my mind that not only degrades, but makes the character less scary and I was going for scary. Also, I wanted her to have pants. Skirts are fine, but I just couldn’t see my big angry murder machine wearing them.
She has a seers shirt, ascalonian catacombs pants, trickster shoes, and a devout mantle.

This is silly. The dragons have no sex, everyone in game refers to them as “It”. Only players refer to the dragon as “he” because most people have the habit of calling ungendered things “he”
Also, the dragons don’t have voices, they don’t talk.
Female dragon minions? Yeah. Female dragon? No, its an it

Largos are awful. I hope they don’t become a playable race, and if they do, I’ll hunt them down in WvW and slaughter them.
No offense to the people who like them—I just don’t. Here’s why.
They just look like humans with elf ears, fairy wings, and bondage gear. It’s like someone decided to take all the things that 14-year-old emo kids like, and glue them together. Dark elves + assassins + angst + fairies + hawt bodies= horray!

The concept of a deep sea race whose honor is based on their feats as a killer is a very cool one—it had a lot of potential. However, that race would look nothing like the Largos. Their manta-ray fins would attach all the way down their spine, and look like RAY FINS, not FAIRY WINGS. Also, they certainly wouldn’t have the anatomy of human fashion models—for a race that lives deep in the seas, that crosses the line into ridiculous. Largos need to be far more alien. Just look at other water races—krait, quaggan, hylek. They aren’t remotely human looking. For me to take the Largos seriously, they would have to be similar.

Nyoka Gorefell’s view of humans isn’t any different from her view of anyone else—even her own people. To her, all beings are inferiors to be controlled. She does not care about such petty things as race—her only concern is gaining power in any way possible. The treaty is a benefit to her power—for now. By working with and interacting with humans, she spreads her reputation and sphere of influence. However, once the dragon threat is lessened and the charr’s borders are secured, she intends to aim for the title of Imperator—and then Khan Ur. Once the charr are in a position of power, she intends to turn her people against the treaty—not out of any hatred for humans, but for the sake of her own dominion.

Thorn Gorecrow, on the other hand, hates humans, and hates Smodur and the Iron Legion for forming the alliance. She is reckless in her loathing, and holds the traditional view that charr are meant to rule all. She believes the treaty has made the charr weak. She serves under Nyoka, holding to the promise that if Nyoka’s bid for power succeeds, the treaty will be weakened. Unlike Nyoka, Thorn does not care for power. Rather, she believes firmly in the rightness of her own viewpoint. She feels like she has a duty to save her race from the human taint.

Most of my charr are variations of “bad guys”, and as such don’t like the treaty, or just don’t like humans, for different reasons. The one exception is Albane Memorykeeper—who is extremely open-minded and who cannot understand people’s prejudices.

I really like the armor on charr. Charr have needed skimpy armor to show off their fur patterns, and look more bestial, for a long time. The problem, then, is that the blue skin covers up the fur pattern. I’d love to see a second set of this armor, without the blue skin, for those who just want the clothing style.
Overall though, good job Anet. This set is very unique!

They gave the Medium Ascalonian Catacombs armor a fix too. Before, it was flat against my charr’s body, and didn’t add natural bulk as much as clothing would. Now it does add that bulk, and the stretching issues are less. However, it has a few new small clipping issues around the shoulders and tail.
So, more good then bad, but still needs some work.
I wonder if they did it to all dungeon armors?

I noticed today that the glitch which came with the new female charr faces has been fixed—but it ruined my thief hood in the process. The back of the hood now clips with my charr’s neck! Can you please fix this new error?
As you can see, the place where the hood should meet the neck of my armor has this gap. As she moves her head around, the gap becomes worse. Before the fix, this gap did not exist.

I noticed today that the glitch which came with the new female charr faces has been fixed—but it ruined my thief hood in the process. The back of the hood now clips with my charr’s neck! Can you please fix this new error?
As you can see, the place where the hood should meet the neck of my armor has this gap. As she moves her head around, the gap becomes worse. Before the fix, this gap did not exist.

“Your face looks funny! All squished an- weird!”
“The bank collapsed on it”

Maybe we’ll finally see that norn’s drunk husband. He’ll wake up in Vigil Keep like “Where the hell am I?” And she’ll be all “I had to carry your drunk butt all the way here!”

Oh my goodness I’m so excited! Guess I better get ahead in all my classes so I can go into recluse-mode for a day or two when this releases.

I really love how Guild Wars 2 has improved over the past half-year. When it first released I was indescribably excited. Over the first few months, my excitement dulled a bit because the game was less than what we were promised.

Yet, with time, the game has become more polished. Most of the things that bugged me before have been addressed. And now, the game is really starting to feel like what I dreamed it would be during those hopeful pre-release days. For the first time, I feel excited as if the game were brand new again—and I love that.

I think arenanet is doing a wonderful job. From me, they’ve gained an ardent supporter. I look forward to enjoying Guild Wars 2 in the years to come.

It could be that, at one time, humanity did ride horses. Perhaps the majority of domesticated horses died off in warfare, or became the mounts of undead minions. Or perhaps they were unsuitable for crossing the Shiverpeaks, and dolyaks were a more efficient creature overall. It could be both of these things. So horses in Tyria could currently be a wild animal, like a deer, who no one is interested in domesticating.
Plus, the other four races wouldn’t use horses. The norn and charr are too large—they need hardier animals to carry supplies (dolyaks and cows) and to ride (giant devourers). The asura are too small, and golems are far better anyway. And the sylvari have mosshearts, plus access to the pack animals of other races if they desire.

I would like to see more of Ascalon—specifically its northern reaches—the Blood Legion homelands. Additionally, there will probably be more story regarding the new alliance between Ebonhawk and the charr, since Ebonhawk is controlling the entrance to the crystal desert and whenever that opens up, it will require political moves on the part of charr and humans, mainly.

It’s not sudden at all, you’ve just been very very blind. They’ve been flirting with each other for a long time now—since the Tower of Nightmares. Even before then, when Kasmeer first appeared at Southsun, her repeated rejections of Lord Faren were telling us something. This has been building for months.

Doodle I did between classes.
I used my dog’s face, but altered it a bit to have a hint of feline for charr

No. My humans would actively fight against the human empire—they’d join the charr. By breaking the treaty, the Queen would be endangering all of Tyria. The races would unite against her. Also, my human characters never had a strong loyalty to Kryta or a strong hatred for Charr.

Wynne is a descendent of the Kurzicks—an ethnic group from Cantha. She has no ascalonian blood or heritage. She grew up in a small community in Caledon Forest until the Nightmare Court attacked. She was rescued by Pale Tree sylvari, and lived out her teenage years in the Grove. Only recently, as she’s reached adulthood, has she left Caledon and seen Kryta. It’s essentially a foreign land to her, and many human viewpoints and biases are also foreign.
Her sense of morality is strong, while her feelings of “racial sympathy” are fairly weak. From a moral standpoint, she would see a human attack on the charr as wrong, and would therefore work against it.

My other human, Nergal Junior, is actually somewhat bitter against the human nobility. He is the son of a disgraced nobleman. When he was a child, his undeveloped necromancer powers led to the death of another boy. Ultimately, his actions caused his father to be banished from the nobility and they were forced to flee to Lion’s Arch and live in poverty.
Nergal Junior is still young, immature, and angry—but he has a strong sense of justice. As he sees it, his people already threw him out. Although he is desperate to redeem himself, and be seen as a hero—he has no hatred for charr and couldn’t go out to slaughter another people—so he would also fight against his race.

Human character creation options in general are bad—both male and female.
My human male character was meant to look like a child cartoon character from The Grim Adventures. I didn’t mind the young faces because it’s what I was going for. But yeah—older, more war-torn features are definitely needed—for both sexes!

http://i817.photobucket.com/albums/zz95/mcjarubas/the%20grim%20adventures%20of%20billy%20and%20mandy/nergaljr.jpg

Nergal Junior, looking awesome!

Hello, mounts thread number 248975283475187519.
Mounts are juvenile.
Clearly, no amount of logic will get through—the pro-mounts brigade would scream “MOUNTS!!” even if it meant destroying the game. They wouldn’t care as long as they had their neon bee-dog-dragon-pony to ride.
No doubt, 5 years from now, when mounts still haven’t been implemented, the pro-mounts brigade will still be filling up the forums with this nonsense.

The complaints over 500 gems are silly. The mask is purely cosmetic, so we’re lucky they didn’t price it at 2,000 gems. When the thing came out, I spent a couple days and earned 40g, traded it for gems, and got the mask. If you want special cosmetic gear, take some time to work for it.

Has anyone else tried out those new scar pattern masks (Wanderer and Silent) on their charr? I’ve bought them for most of my charr—they make the characters look more war-torn.

I have everything done for hints completion except for one thing: I need to fire a treb in PvP. Thing is, I HAVE fired a treb in PvP. I’ve fired it in the battle of Khylo and hit both buildings and people. Yet, the hint completion section will not register it. This has been the case for months. I tried again yesterday with the same result.

If I ever make another charr, his name will be Slumberchops the Unhappy, and he will look like this

Today I was playing around in the makeover kit and I noticed something shocking. Depending on which face you choose for your female charr—the shape and thickness of her neck changes. For male charr, I tried the same thing, but I was disappointed to find that no matter what male face you pick—their neck stays the same.
I have always wanted a slenderer, less-buff neck for my male charr. I was disappointed to find that female charr have this cool feature, but male charr do not. Please, allow male charr new necks as well.

Look at the necks in the attachment below. Note that the charr has the exact same body type in each image—the only difference is her facial option.

I don’t think she’s trying to kill the dragons at all. I don’t think she wants them to be killed.
If Scarlet is targeting Lions Arch, and the three Orders—it looks like she’s trying to weaken or destroy the Pact.

Her Aetherblades attacked Lion’s Arch during dragon bash, and she attacked the human kingdom just as they sought to celebrate their power. She is distracting people’s focus away from the dragons, onto herself. And whenever people try to celebrate their resistance against the dragons, she comes in and crushes their morale.

At the same time, she is gathering all power and technology to herself. She is trying to weaken Tyria so much that nobody—except for her—stands a chance against the dragons. Because she doesn’t want them dead.

The dragons are tied into the world’s magic. She wants to use the dragons for something, and she needs them alive for it. Alive, and under her control.

I love this patch! I have loved Scarlet all along. People come on here to b*tch and complain, but they are a minority. Most people love the game—therefore they’re in the game playing it. Also, most people don’t give a rat’s behind about the forums. ultimately, the forums are not an accurate indication of what people think.

OH MY GOSH I LOVE DEBI DERRYBERRY! Taimi just became my favorite character

My favorite is definitely heirloom. It’s the darkest red in the game and there’s a lot it can go well with.

1155 hours, 1098 deaths, 508 days.
No need to include a screenshot since I didn’t win.
Oh well, at least I’ve played the longest XD

As charr go he looks fine, but he does look like every other player male-charr. Most players give their charr the biggest teeth and horns possible, black fur or white fur, a big head, and flames. The forward pointing horns are also a common choice. Basically, everybody wants their charr to be as big-mean-and-dark as possible, and you end up with a lot of same-ish looking characters.

My tip is to go to the charr screenshot thread, as well as Lion’s Arch, and take a look at the charr running around. You’ll start to see what gets overused. I think the key in making a charr is to use balance. Some big bold features, and some more subtle or soft features.
Utimately, however, it comes down to what you personally like looking at. And if this character is your ideal charr, that’s what’s most important.

It would be nice if Arenanet made gems more easily available in-game, but I honestly don’t mind the high prices for cosmetic gear. I bought two of the masks. It cost about 80g total, which I earned through selling my mats and farming wvw loot bags. Saving up your gold to transfer into gems is like saving up for any rare or special item—it just takes some time.
With a little dye experimentation, depending on your character’s species and color, you can get the mask to look like a real scar as opposed to red paint.

I’m a female gamer. There’s probably a lot more around then it would appear. Many female gamers have had negative experiences in the past—sexual harassment and so on—so they are wary of revealing their gender in the game.
People usually assume I’m male unless I state otherwise. Some players stand out as more “feminine” or “masculine”, and you can make a guess at their gender, but most people don’t present as either.

There was a study done that found the numbers of male to female players in WoW were almost 50/50. As I haven’t seen the study myself, I can’t confirm this, but it does make sense. Tons of women play video games, but discrimination can get so bad that few are totally comfortable admitting it. GW2 is a step in the right direction—there is a lot less negativity here.

I like Scarlet a lot. I never had a problem with her.

Nekomi.9562:

Raises Brow

H’orly?

lol that facial expression!