Only me who wants more interaction with the lesser races?

I've been pondering the world of Tyria a bit and come to the conclusion that we have too many doom scenarios and too few stories about the non-player races of Tyria. We have a lot of interesting things - the remarkably resilient and wise quaggans (for their size) with the own brand of connection to the worlds magic, the kodan who has an entire history and religion and their quite powerful magic of Koda's flame, the assassin slash warrior race of Largos, and the Skritt, who gets smarter the more there are together, with no documented upper limit. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Which makes me wonder - let's pretend ANet has time and resources to spare even in the face of layoffs and being panned by their own community, would you all want a sort of mini stories thing separate from the living world story and the expansion story that is just dedicated to exploring all these cool races, learning of their history and their connection to the world and its magic? I for one sure would.

They have this already. Play multiple characters, you choose various paths depending on your race and choices. You eventually help most of the races you listed there except Kodan and largos.

Kodan have been in the game you can learn more from the dungeon Honour of the waves, bitter frost frontier and bjora marches.

Largos are a mysterious race to everyone. They more than likely will be explored once we meet Bubbles (Selbbub) aka DSD.

Those are one off missons. I'm talking arcs dedicated to understanding their culture, religions, and magics in depth.

I want this too, but I'm not very picky about how it gets delivered. Maybe they should commission some authors and put together a collection of Tales of Tyria novellas delving deeper into lore that's happening in between all the big ticket things the commander is up to?

Tell us the story of a heavily-populated Skritt scratch where the citizens can outclass an Asura and the biggest problem facing them is outwitting the bandits. Tell us the story of Duchess Chrysanthea, how she came to power, and what she was doing during Heart of Thorns. Give us a Norn coming of age story that isn't about Braham. Give us a Charr story narrated by an old grandpa cat who still remembers his cub days that examines how Charr society has changed since he was an anklebiter. Tell us more about the Harpies and explore their history and origins.

Like, it's not just lesser races I want, but really just a deeper exploration of any interesting lore aspects that either don't have a place in the main narrative or that wouldn't be worth implementing as game content. If they wrote all that up and released it as physical books or a collected tome, you know I'd be throwing my money down for that in a heartbeat.

All honesty and being blunt from a personal side. When we have had personal story involving say the Skritt, Kodan, frog men or dumb whales I've had very little interest in them, they always felt like a tacked on factor to the story. Id rather the game focuses on the core races and gets it right, then focus on every single race making the story wafer thin.

Knowing how anet will do it will be the ham fisted way like the introduction of the dwarves... 'Oh look dragon attacking, WOW! Dwarf people are here and instant allies, with no build up, no real introduction to them or backing.' This kind of story telling is jarring and feels really weak. If this is how it will be telling the story of lesser races, then there is no point adding it to the game as it weakens what Anet got right in the previous story telling.

@Smoosh.2718 said:All honesty and being blunt from a personal side. When we have had personal story involving say the Skritt, Kodan, frog men or dumb whales I've had very little interest in them, they always felt like a tacked on factor to the story. Id rather the game focuses on the core races and gets it right, then focus on every single race making the story wafer thin.

Knowing how anet will do it will be the ham fisted way like the introduction of the dwarves... 'Oh look dragon attacking, WOW! Dwarf people are here and instant allies, with no build up, no real introduction to them or backing.' This kind of story telling is jarring and feels really weak. If this is how it will be telling the story of lesser races, then there is no point adding it to the game as it weakens what Anet got right in the previous story telling.

While I get understand that many people have an affinity for many of the side races, I personally agree with this. I'd rather have primary focus on the ones the story revolves around the most and are at the most interesting moment in their histories.

Also quaggan and skritt conversation just isn't that stimulating. I also have a bunch of frogs that loiter around my home instance and I really wish they would help plant crops or chop some trees while I'm gone.

Of course neither should come at the expense of each other. As I make clear in the original post, this is just a statement of interest, and everyone knows ANet does not have the time or resources to focus fully on two sides. However, someday in the future they might add something about the non-player races once they are done with the core ones. Not everybody cares about that, but I believe enough people does for there to be merit for it, at some point.

I understand your interest in wanting more story and interaction with other races throughout Tyria, and it would be interesting for those who would like more to have access to such perhaps.

For me personally, I don't really find many of them interesting, and am comfortable with just passing by, helping them out, and going about my way. I like not knowing much about some of them, and their suspicions and stand offishness I find interesting in a world of alliances. If they drop by and help me out occasionally, cool.

They are as interesting as the stories written about them. How interesting is the base concept of scandinavia viking era people (norns) or plant elves (sylvari)? Each race is a potential for stories only limited by the writers, and the mere fact that their culture is hinted at yet never properly explored is a springboard waiting for stories to be told. All it needs is the will to do so and the proper storytelling. I'll be honest - if ANet ever does this it will likely be years. However, if they plan to keep this game going then they need ideas. Deepening the understanding of the various races of Tyria can do them nothing but good, assuming they do it well.But bad writing will torpedo any story, regardless of race.

Your mindset shouldn't be "this race is not interesting" because nothing is with nothing said or done. It should be "do I want more stories?". Limiting yourself to just the ones with a good story is self defeating because they would not be interesting without that story. And a good story can be written about basically anything.

Only if their inclusion added to the story and not added just for lip service like they did with the Dwarves this season and what will probably happen with the Tengu too.

I think they did pretty well with the Kodan this season although there is scope for more. And HoT did mostly a decent job given its limitations in giving the three new Hylek tribes a platform.

If they gave the time and effort we saw in core maps and even how the Norn were utilised in GW: EotN, then yes I'd be happy to see more of the lesser races

Right. That is what I want as well.

An in-depth storyline for Choya and the Commander. I’d play that.

Replace Choya with anything else tho and the idea is terribad.

Jokes aside, Choya or nothing.

@"Oxstar.7643" said:I've been pondering the world of Tyria a bit and come to the conclusion that we have too many doom scenarios and too few stories about the non-player races of Tyria. We have a lot of interesting things - the remarkably resilient and wise quaggans (for their size) with the own brand of connection to the worlds magic, the kodan who has an entire history and religion and their quite powerful magic of Koda's flame, the assassin slash warrior race of Largos, and the Skritt, who gets smarter the more there are together, with no documented upper limit. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Which makes me wonder - let's pretend ANet has time and resources to spare even in the face of layoffs and being panned by their own community, would you all want a sort of mini stories thing separate from the living world story and the expansion story that is just dedicated to exploring all these cool races, learning of their history and their connection to the world and its magic? I for one sure would.

Hey! If the commander isn't rescuing the entire world from certain doom, maybe they'll have time for introspection. The commander would realize that the world is no better off, and is actually much worse off thanks to aurene being omnipotent, and it's far too late for regrets. The lesser races can join everyone else in appeasing aurenes wrath and keeping it entertained however it wishes, cause otherwise they are all doomed, and the commander as aurenes "champion" can do nothing to stop it.

Sigh i HATE aurene. Anyway, yes, less world ending threats, more anything else.

Look. Aurene is a benevolent ED. She is on our side. It doesn't matter if you don't like her. However, with no greater threats to unify the races of Tyria they might fight amonst themselves, but her task is also to maintain balance so we will see.

Anyways, that's not the topic of the thread. If your hatred for a fictonal character is so strong that you'd derail a thread to talk about it then I... urge you to reconsider. Let's keep it to the races. I've said it before but I would like more done with the Kodan. Part of it is likely due to me just being close to northen themed stuff due to being scandinavia, but I also find their religion and their magic, and their connection to the world and history with it facsinating.

I would like to see more about the Skritt and Hylek.

Problem is, not everyone likes the same races. Make a storyline covering a specific race, and you will get a lot of responses of "But why X?" or "Why not Y instead?". We're already hearing some of those with the main race storyline focusing, but at least we have only 5 main races, so everyone can always hope that "their" race will be next. There's a lot more than 5 of the non-playable races, and not every one is equally liked (or disliked).Also, last time people asked for a Mursaat storyline, Anet obliged... by removing the race from the game. Shortly after we learned the same happened to the Forgotten, which some other players wanted to see more of. Same with a certain dragon....so, be very careful what you ask for.

Pick an easy favorite pick, like the skritt, to start with and show you can make it work, then work your way to the more obscure ones once you've gained faith.Don't pay and mind to those who want every decision to be about what pleases specifically then, those people won't ever be happy.

I would love to interact with the grawls, give them some story. They always seem to be disrespected by the intelligent races, especially the charr in the past, who decimated and enslaved them for years, and drove them away from their homelands. They havent evolved or very little over the last 250 years and many before that. They could use some education (if capable of it) or end up with the same fate as the gw 1 Gargoyles. On the other hand, they may turn against us in the process :p

I would love for the story to spend less time fighting the apocalypse and more time delving into the world of Tyria. Our characters join one of the orders, the vigil, the order of whispers, the priory, but never do anything with them except fight Zhaitan. I was actually looking forward to exploring the lore of Tyria and digging up cool artifacts in the priory, or snooping around the political scene in the whispers, when I first played the game. That did not really happen. I think it would be great for them to write some stories where we are investigating the politics, history and lore of Tyria, and bring in some of these relationships with lesser races into the mix. Maybe we are searching for artifacts that the skritt know things about. Maybe the grawl are plotting things to disrupt diplomacy between norn and humans.

You get hints at all this interesting stuff that is going on with the lesser races, and they have interesting backstories and knowledge. It is all superficial right now, though. Personally, I’m tired of the world ending. I’d love to see more depth built into the civilizations of Tyria.

@"Oxstar.7643" said:Look. Aurene is a benevolent ED. She is on our side. It doesn't matter if you don't like her. However, with no greater threats to unify the races of Tyria they might fight amonst themselves, but her task is also to maintain balance so we will see.

Anyways, that's not the topic of the thread. If your hatred for a fictonal character is so strong that you'd derail a thread to talk about it then I... urge you to reconsider. Let's keep it to the races. I've said it before but I would like more done with the Kodan. Part of it is likely due to me just being close to northen themed stuff due to being scandinavia, but I also find their religion and their magic, and their connection to the world and history with it facsinating.

Why do you pretend to direct you post to me and then don't even quote my post? If you have something to say, say it.

The lesse races don't matter, 'cause they are lesser and unplayable. Since anet hasn't even made an expansion focusing on Asura, Charr or Norn, and the next one will be probably about Humans again, the lesse races are not even on the list of important races, and they never were. They were set up to give life to tyria, and they do, so YOU, the HERO can save them. Besides, i doubt any game developers will ever do anything less than "It's doomsday again, people!" scenario, because for some reason people like being the center of the universe who is the only one who can do it, while at the same time being the chosen puppet whos only purpose is to hit the thing until it stops twitching. And then just wait for the next thing to hit, because only a hero can. Pfft...

As i said, anything else would be nice, but the chances of that happening are astronomically low.

The icebrood saga IS focused on the Norn... you go up north to their old homelands, talk with the spirits of the wild, go through trials, and learn the fate of the Norn who foilowed Braham north after he cracked the tooth. Focusing on doesn't mean being the ONLY focus.

And regardless, there is clearly some level of interest into learning more about the lesser races. I've even seen some people who wants to play as them.Like I said - it isn't on their top priority now and it likely won't ever be, but it's still a chance to them to create more stories that people actually want.