Humans

There i was collecting things a gifts for aurene with my human revenant and then i started to think. Every race has something that makes them special. something that lets them lorewise stand out from:

Charr: A Warrior race which exells at warfare both technologically and tacticallyNorn: A Hunter race, with a strong bond to the spirits of the animals and a strong will to become an eternal legendAsura: A race of little people but unbelievably high intellect, with high understanding of both magic and technology alikeSylvari: A young, currious race with a special bond to nature and tyria

But there i was asking myself, what does humans make special? Their Faith in the gods? Their versitile personality? what do you think ?

the religious race past their glory days. believed by some to be going extinct. (though not at a critical rate yet)

What derd said, and their legacy. Their ruins, their history... the calendar and the alphabet that every race now uses. The mark they've left on the world, for good and ill- it's not played up in-game, but leading up to launch, the devs made a big deal about how it's the human legends, the human heroes, that all races hear stories of growing up.

That, and population. Between Kryta, Ebonhawke, Amnoon, Elona, and probably Cantha, humans are kinda the rabbits of Tyria.

"going extinct""still more populous than any of the other races"

does not add up

humans are the premier magical race however

@"ThatOddOne.4387" said:"going extinct""still more populous than any of the other races"

does not add up

humans are the premier magical race however

They’re still a lot lesser than the used to be

Well, humans do have the ability to percieve and utilize a mysterious creature called "horse". It has not been described by a nonhuman, but humans insist that these "horses" exist on Tyria and are able to carry a human, aswell as travel as fast, or faster than a centaur.

@"ThatOddOne.4387" said:"going extinct""still more populous than any of the other races"

does not add up

humans are the premier magical race however

That's where the 'believed' comes in. Their population has taken some serious hits in recent centuries, but they had such an overwhelming advantage before that that they could afford to lose a kingdom or two. A norn or asura could point to Kryta and Ebonhawke and sneer at all they've lost, but they only got away with extrapolating that to humans as a whole because the real heavy-hitters were cut off. (Granted, Joko has not done any favours for Elona's population, but given that it's the largest nation in the known world, even a thinned out population is considerable by Tyrian standards.)

the days of glory and power are a thing of the past. our numbers lower. a legacy lost in ruins and stripped of power. but not all is lost. our power does not reside in big machinery or the ultimate magical potential. it is our hearts that define us, it what we believe in that gives us strength, it is our will that keeps us from falling appart, it is our dream of restoration of our former glory, that lets us keep pushing foreward.

@"ThatOddOne.4387" said:"going extinct""still more populous than any of the other races"

does not add up

it's believed to be going extinct, not because of their low numbers but because of their dwindling numbers and territory

Originally during pre-release news, humans were announced to basically give what elves give in other fantasy situations - historical knowledge and foundation awareness.

Of course, with release, it turns out that 85% of all human history was fabricated or altered in some way, apparently, with an ever increasing amount as we go into more details. And despite going to Orr, the need of human expertise effectively amounts to zero because everything was handled by charr, sylvari, and asura almost exclusively.

Both norn and humans give next to nothing to the overarching plot.

@"ThatOddOne.4387" said:"going extinct""still more populous than any of the other races"

does not add up

humans are the premier magical race however

Are they the most populous anymore though? Can't really make a judgement because we have no idea what the state of Cantha is, and Elona's population has almost certainly been hurt by the war's and Joko's rule if the judges in Vabbi are anything to go by- unless you count the awakened as part of the population. With revelations like the Olmakhan and how Inquest labs seem to pop up.. everywhere, we also don't know how widespread Charr and Asura are either.

@Lucas.3718 said:the days of glory and power are a thing of the past. our numbers lower. a legacy lost in ruins and stripped of power. but not all is lost. our power does not reside in big machinery or the ultimate magical potential. it is our hearts that define us, it what we believe in that gives us strength, it is our will that keeps us from falling appart, it is our dream of restoration of our former glory, that lets us keep pushing foreward.

Basically a race that lacks the intelligence and aptitude for science and magic, but has a lot of good will xd.Human in gw2 = tryhards.

Seriously humans have good artistic taste, DR is really beautiful.They don't stand out because their culture is very similar to real life humans; charr, asura, norn and silvari differ in some extravaganzas or a lot of points.Humans are flexible and well balanced (here we arent nocive generally).

umh sweety to say the humans have no aptitude for magic or even science is false

watchknights and every major character that's cast impressive magic without the help of magitech or an artifact being human for a start

I think there is a degree to which humans have provided the background foundation for Tyrian civilisation - the OP has listed a series of things which everybody thinks of as being the contributions of those races, but the human contributions are things that people often don't think of as being of human origin because they've become universal. Their calendar and language are those that everybody else uses when they want to be understood by members of other races, for instance, as mentioned by Aaron above. Two of the three major multiracial organisations were founded by humans, and you could say something similar of Lion's Arch as well. The connection to Tyria's history, while downplayed in the original release, has been coming up more since as well - it's no coincidence that it's humans that the dwarves and Forgotten have passed the torch to when it comes to Glint's legacy. Finally, the magic that most races use is largely based off human traditions.

If you're looking for something more inherent rather than a largely historical basis for their relevance, one thing I would comment on is that the blessing of the gods is probably underrated. It's easy to write it off as empty words (especially since you tend not to see NPCs using human racial skills like you see norn shifting forms), but Tyrian humans do seem to have a tendency to be more effective than you'd expect by looking at them.

They also seem to be community-builders, albeit not without their flaws. The fact that a lot of the rest of the races show human influence is probably not entirely through historical accident: humans are good at playing politics and getting disparate groups to work together. This is a double-edged sword, because they're also good at betraying others (including each other), but when they put their mind to it, it's often humans that are responsible for bringing disparate groups together.

They also tend to be the race that is most inclined to become ghosts after death, even in the absence of artificial triggers such as the Foefire. Whether this is a good thing is up to interpretation, but there have been a few times when ghosts have served as an auxiliary army or as a source of valuable intelligence.

Finally, while the asura probably make the most out of magic, there is circumstantial evidence that humans are inherently better at it, although they might be squandering a lot of that potential. I've commented a few times that scary asura tend to be scary because of their magitech. Scary humans, on the other hand, are often powerful due to raw magical power. There aren't many humans that reach that level, of course, but there are enough to set a trend.

Admittedly, a couple of the above also apply to sylvari, but that's probably not surprising, since the sylvari appear to have been based off a human template to begin with.

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@"ThatOddOne.4387" said:"going extinct""still more populous than any of the other races"

does not add up

humans are the premier magical race however

Population is difficult to judge. However, it is worth noting that humans are the only playable race we see with more than one major population center.

Asura are confined to Rata Sum and their various labs - and while there are a lot of Inquest labs around the world in the game, I don't think that translates into a high asura population. The Inquest labs don't appear to have significant noncombatant populations, so unlike the major cities, there probably isn't a significant hidden noncombatant population at any of those labs. Furthermore, Inquest labs tend to be a sequence of 'one gets destroyed, and the Inquest packs up and makes another lab somewhere else': the various Inquest labs we see around the world are unlikely to have all been simultaneously active.

The sylvari sphere of influence is mostly confined to the Grove and the Caledon region, which is smaller than Kryta alone. They have a few outposts elsewhere, but they mostly seem to be expeditions for a specific purpose rather than population centers. There's still the mystery of Malyck's tree, although we don't know its status.

Norn are spread across the Shiverpeaks, but sparsely so: Norn do not gather in large cities the way other races do. Even Hoelbrak is themed more as a particularly large lodge more than a city per se.

Charr are probably the main competition for 'most populous', largely because we can only judge them by the territory of one legion (the Olmakhan seem to be a relatively small offshoot). The Iron Legion do seem to have a lower population than Tyrian humans: they have the Black Citadel, but none of their settlements outside of it seem to be on par with the larger human settlements such as Ebonhawke or Beetletun. Adding Blood and Ash will expand that significantly, however. One thing to keep in mind with the charr, though, is that the combination of larger size and a more meat-based diet means that less charr can be supported in the same amount of land as humans.

In the case of humans... humans have a lot of towns and even small cities outside of Divinity's Reach. Ebonhawke is the obvious one, but Beetletun and the Ascalon Settlement are both more significant than any of the outposts or villages that I can think of that other races have outside their capital (although there are some charr settlements that come close). Elona, for all that it's probably been significantly impacted by Joko's reign, also appears to still have major settlements in Vabbi (despite the Branding of the Kodash) and Istan, and there's still quite a bit of Elona we haven't seen in GW2 yet.

And while we don't know much about Cantha, there's also not much to suggest that it's no longer the teeming mess that we saw in GW1. The Zephyrites have visited Cantha, and they haven't mentioned any disasters there... although that could be ArenaNet keeping their proverbial cards close to their chests.

@draxynnic.3719 said:I think there is a degree to which humans have provided the background foundation for Tyrian civilisation - the OP has listed a series of things which everybody thinks of as being the contributions of those races, but the human contributions are things that people often don't think of as being of human origin because they've become universal. Their calendar and language are those that everybody else uses when they want to be understood by members of other races, for instance. Two of the three major multiracial organisations were founded by humans, and you could say something similar of Lion's Arch as well. The connection to Tyria's history, while downplayed in the original release, has been coming up more since as well - it's no coincidence that it's humans that the dwarves and Forgotten have passed the torch to when it comes to Glint's legacy. Finally, the magic that most races use is largely based off human traditions.

If you're looking for something more inherent rather than a largely historical basis for their relevance, one thing I would comment on is that the blessing of the gods is probably underrated. It's easy to write it off as empty words (especially since you tend not to see NPCs using human racial skills like you see norn shifting forms), but Tyrian humans do seem to have a tendency to be more effective than you'd expect by looking at them.

They also seem to be community-builders, albeit not without their flaws. The fact that a lot of the rest of the races show human influence is probably not entirely through historical accident: humans are good at playing politics and getting disparate groups to work together. This is a double-edged sword, because they're also good at betraying others (including each other), but when they put their mind to it, it's often humans that are responsible for bringing disparate groups together.

They also tend to be the race that is most inclined to become ghosts after death, even in the absence of artificial triggers such as the Foefire. Whether this is a good thing is up to interpretation, but there have been a few times when ghosts have served as an auxiliary army or as a source of valuable intelligence.

Finally, while the asura probably make the most out of magic, there is circumstantial evidence that humans are inherently better at it, although they might be squandering a lot of that potential. I've commented a few times that scary asura tend to be scary because of their magitech. Scary humans, on the other hand, are often powerful due to raw magical power. There aren't many humans that reach that level, of course, but there are enough to set a trend.

Admittedly, a couple of the above also apply to sylvari, but that's probably not surprising, since the sylvari appear to have been based off a human template to begin with.

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@"ThatOddOne.4387" said:"going extinct""still more populous than any of the other races"

does not add up

humans are the premier magical race however

Humans didn't take up Glint's Legacy though, the exalted were assigned to guard the legacy and the player + friends are the ones trying to fulfil it. Also we do see other Asura population centers as well, Rata Primus counts especially when you consider how many awakened inquest Joko is able to field, and it was previously unknown so we can hardly say how many unheard of cities and megalabs like Rata Primus there is. Rata Novus too, it was wiped out but it shows there were likely more cities. There's just too many variables to have a definitive answer.

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:I think there is a degree to which humans have provided the background foundation for Tyrian civilisation - the OP has listed a series of things which everybody thinks of as being the contributions of those races, but the human contributions are things that people often don't think of as being of human origin

because they've become universal.

Their calendar and language are those that everybody else uses when they want to be understood by members of other races, for instance. Two of the three major multiracial organisations were founded by humans, and you could say something similar of Lion's Arch as well. The connection to Tyria's history, while downplayed in the original release, has been coming up more since as well - it's no coincidence that it's humans that the dwarves and Forgotten have passed the torch to when it comes to Glint's legacy. Finally, the magic that most races use is largely based off human traditions.

If you're looking for something more inherent rather than a largely historical basis for their relevance, one thing I would comment on is that the blessing of the gods is probably underrated. It's easy to write it off as empty words (especially since you tend not to see NPCs using human racial skills like you see norn shifting forms), but Tyrian humans do seem to have a tendency to be more effective than you'd expect by looking at them.

They also seem to be community-builders, albeit not without their flaws. The fact that a lot of the rest of the races show human influence is probably not entirely through historical accident: humans are good at playing politics and getting disparate groups to work together. This is a double-edged sword, because they're also good at betraying others (including each other), but when they put their mind to it, it's often humans that are responsible for bringing disparate groups together.

They also tend to be the race that is most inclined to become ghosts after death, even in the absence of artificial triggers such as the Foefire. Whether this is a good thing is up to interpretation, but there have been a few times when ghosts have served as an auxiliary army or as a source of valuable intelligence.

Finally, while the asura probably make the most out of magic, there is circumstantial evidence that humans are inherently

better

at it, although they might be squandering a lot of that potential. I've commented a few times that scary asura tend to be scary because of their magitech. Scary humans, on the other hand, are often powerful due to raw magical power. There aren't many humans that reach that level, of course, but there are enough to set a trend.

Admittedly, a couple of the above also apply to sylvari, but that's probably not surprising, since the sylvari appear to have been based off a human template to begin with.

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@"ThatOddOne.4387" said:"going extinct""still more populous than any of the other races"

does not add up

humans are the premier magical race however

The Exalted ARE ex-humans, though - the Forgotten recruited from humans to create the Exalted. The Zephyrites are also involved. The Commander and Dragon's Watch might be forming the tip of the spear now, but they're building on work that the Zephyrites and Exalted have put in over the centuries.

Regarding the Ratas:

Rata Novus is, as you say, wiped out, as is Rata Arcanum and Rata Pten. There is evidence of cities the asura used to have all around the place, but I don't think ruins count for estimating the current asura population any more than human ruins do. We don't count Ascalon City or Rin in estimates of current human populations, and we shouldn't do so for Rata Novus or other destroyed asura cities.

In Rata Primus's case... we're essentially looking at the tendency for scales to be warped for the sake of the game. Genuine cities tend to downsized and/or have unreachable residential areas for the sake of not creating massive maps where not much happens, while combat areas tend to be upscaled compared to the general open world (consider, for instance, the size of the Arah dungeon map compared to the amount of space left in between the Orr maps). Rata Primus is definitely a combat area, and from what I've seen, there aren't any hidden areas. It's very likely that what we see in Rata Primus is what's actually there lorewise: mostly labs, and the Inquest we fight is an accurate reflection of the population of Rata Primus. Residential settlements, on the other hand, are usually shown much smaller than they actually are.

You can apply the sanity test here: The Inquest are an offset of the Rata Sum asura. They're not going to have a lab in Elona which has a population that even comes close to Rata Sum, however big it's shown to be on the map.

Now, maybe there are teeming hordes of asura everywhere that we haven't been yet... but that's the sort of 'maybe' that goes hand-in-hand with 'maybe there's a city of six billion hylek on the opposite side of the world' and 'maybe Cantha has been completely wiped out and nobody, including the Zephyrites that have been there in living memory, has thought to mention it'. We can only go with the information we have, and the information we have indicates that Rata Sum is the only major city the asura have right now, while humans have multiple nations. We can go on and on about unknown variables, but at the end of the line, we can only work with the evidence we have, and the evidence we have indicates that there are significantly more humans in the known world than asura.

@draxynnic.3719 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:I think there is a degree to which humans have provided the background foundation for Tyrian civilisation - the OP has listed a series of things which everybody thinks of as being the contributions of those races, but the human contributions are things that people often don't think of as being of human origin

because they've become universal.

Their calendar and language are those that everybody else uses when they want to be understood by members of other races, for instance. Two of the three major multiracial organisations were founded by humans, and you could say something similar of Lion's Arch as well. The connection to Tyria's history, while downplayed in the original release, has been coming up more since as well - it's no coincidence that it's humans that the dwarves and Forgotten have passed the torch to when it comes to Glint's legacy. Finally, the magic that most races use is largely based off human traditions.

If you're looking for something more inherent rather than a largely historical basis for their relevance, one thing I would comment on is that the blessing of the gods is probably underrated. It's easy to write it off as empty words (especially since you tend not to see NPCs using human racial skills like you see norn shifting forms), but Tyrian humans do seem to have a tendency to be more effective than you'd expect by looking at them.

They also seem to be community-builders, albeit not without their flaws. The fact that a lot of the rest of the races show human influence is probably not entirely through historical accident: humans are good at playing politics and getting disparate groups to work together. This is a double-edged sword, because they're also good at betraying others (including each other), but when they put their mind to it, it's often humans that are responsible for bringing disparate groups together.

They also tend to be the race that is most inclined to become ghosts after death, even in the absence of artificial triggers such as the Foefire. Whether this is a good thing is up to interpretation, but there have been a few times when ghosts have served as an auxiliary army or as a source of valuable intelligence.

Finally, while the asura probably make the most out of magic, there is circumstantial evidence that humans are inherently

better

at it, although they might be squandering a lot of that potential. I've commented a few times that scary asura tend to be scary because of their magitech. Scary humans, on the other hand, are often powerful due to raw magical power. There aren't many humans that reach that level, of course, but there are enough to set a trend.

Admittedly, a couple of the above also apply to sylvari, but that's probably not surprising, since the sylvari appear to have been based off a human template to begin with.

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@"ThatOddOne.4387" said:"going extinct""still more populous than any of the other races"

does not add up

humans are the premier magical race however

Rata Novus is being restored and repopulated as well though, and if we bring say, Charr into this.. We only ever see the territory of one legion, Iron, the other two legions presumably have their own cities like black citadel and populations. There's a good portion of the map we haven't gone to. I'm not arguing that the Asura outnumber humans, I'm arguing that we have no idea if humans are still the most populated and likely won't know unless a dev confirms it.

Exalted might be ex-humans, but they also might have been drawn from other races, and I wouldn't call them humans in their current state. Regardless, it's a multi-racial coalition that is behind Glint's legacy right now, not humans.

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:Rata Novus is being restored and repopulated as well though, and if we bring say, Charr into this.. We only ever see the territory of one legion, Iron, the other two legions presumably have their own cities like black citadel and populations. There's a good portion of the map we haven't gone to. I'm not arguing that the Asura outnumber humans, I'm arguing that we have no idea if humans are still the most populated and likely won't know unless a dev confirms it.

Exalted might be ex-humans, but they also might have been drawn from other races, and I wouldn't call them humans in their current state. Regardless, it's a multi-racial coalition that is behind Glint's legacy right now, not humans.

Rata Novus isn't really being repopulated. It's being treated as an excavation site and a lab for asura from Rata Sum. It'll take a few generations for any repopulation there to really make a difference in asuran population numbers.

And the Exalted have been confirmed to come from the same selection pool as the earliest generation of Zephyrites, who were 100% humans (primarily Elonians at that). And if you can consider Joko to still be human as you do in the other thread, then Exalted would still be humans as well. Exalted were never multi-racial - the Zephyrites, however, have become such.

a single Rytlock phrase about Arah sums up all about humans.

What do you know about this place?Rytlock: It's a testament to the folly of the humans and their gods. They say Arah was sacred, but all I see is one big dragon nest.

As Konig said. Even if Rata Novus was repopulated, that would be at the expense of Rata Sum's population: this isn't a strategy game where a new city suddenly reaches its maximum population overnight just because it's taken. If, hypothetically, Kryta was to recolonise Orr, that doesn't change the human population as of right now, since the people in Orr would have come from Kryta, where a guesstimate of their relative numbers has already been made.

While the preservation of Glint's legacy has been on humans, ex-humans, and Forgotten since the dwarves left the surface, until the Pact got involved in Season 2. Even now, there are way more Zephyrites and Exalted than there are Dragon's Watch. The Pact Commander is probably the most important person in the effort right now behind Aurene herself, but it's still been largely humans there for most of the gap between the two games, and until and unless the Pact gets fully behind it (right now the Pact seems to have accepted that the dragons shouldn't be killed, but doesn't seem to be actively part of the legacy project yet. That might change, but it's been Zephyrites (human-only until recently) and Exalted (drawn from the same pool as the Zephyrites, and therefore of human origin)

On top of that, I'd also note that I indicated myself that the charr were the main contender for 'most populous' - mostly because we know that there are two other primary legions plus the Flame (which seems to be more of a guerilla force nowadays) and an unknown number of minor legions.

Like I said, though, we can probably guesstimate at their numbers.

Let's see:

The Iron Legion has the following residential areas that can currently be located:

The Black Citadel (large city)Butcher's Block (village)Nageling (village)Scalecatch (village)Dewclaw (village)Warhound (village)Cowlfang's Star (town)Ferrusatos (village)

Note that I'm not considering residential areas that are right up against the Black Citadel such as Smokestead and Nolan, since I view them as the outskirts of that city. I'm also not including locations that appear to be purely functional in nature (Ashford, for instance, appears to be a training post, not a residential settlement).

By comparison, Kryta has the following:Divinity's Reach (large city)Claypool (village)Beetletun (town)Triskell Quay (village - I'm counting Quarryside as being adjacent)Garrenhoff (village - Krytan by law and human majority population, even if functionally independent)Nebo Terrace (village)Ascalon Settlement (town)

Similar observations as for the analysis of the Iron Legion - Shaemoor and Lake Doric settlements are viewed as outskirts of Divinity's Reach.

Taking into account that there may still be regions of both that we haven't seen (but that according to ArenaNet, what we've seen is the important parts), this seems to imply that, if you assume that charr require the same living space as humans (it's likely that they actually need more) the population of Kryta - not including Ebonhawke - is roughly the same as the Iron Legion.

The three allied legions seem to be at about roughly the same strength, so between them that probably makes about three Krytas. Add the Flame and assorted minor legions, you're probably looking at about four Krytas in total.

For humans:Ebonhawke has a 'small city' status. I'd guesstimate that counts for roughly a third of a Kryta. (Any outer settlements are recent migrations from Ebonhawke or Kryta and are therefore already accounted for).

Elona has the following known settlements:Amnoon (small city - taking into account that the northern portion was recently buried by a sandstorm according to ambient chatter, but the people who used to live there appear to have mostly survived)Zephyr's Trace (village)Makali Outpost (village - while called an 'outpost', it's made clear in the story that most of the people there aren't fighters)Gladefields (village)Purity (village)Vehjin Palace (probably roughly the equivalent of a village in terms of actual population)Kodash/Vehtendi (hard to judge, since it's half Branded but the other half still seems to be occupied - I'm going to guesstimate 'town', although it was probably originally 'large city')Arkjok (village)Palawadan (town)Champion's Dawn (village)

Given that there's still a lot of Elona that we haven't seen as well, I'd say that a conservative guesstimate is that the human population of Elona is at least a Kryta. So that makes a total of... at least 2.3 Krytas.

And then we get Cantha. Which has a densely populated city about the size of Kryta. In land area, not population. And assorted other population centers elsewhere.

So, under a fairly Charr-favouring set of estimates (odds are that Elona is actually more than a Kryta, and odds are that charr settlements of similar size to human settlements actually have a smaller population), Kryta, Ebonhawke, and Elona combined are at least close to the charr. When you add Cantha there's really no contest unless you assume that Cantha has been devastated since, and we have no reason to believe that to be the case.

Asura and sylvari... aren't even close.

@draxynnic.3719 said:And assorted other population centers elsewhere._Who knows what sort of human civilization exists on that other landmass that the Battle Isles apparently had trade routes to.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:And assorted other population centers elsewhere._Who knows what sort of human civilization exists on that other landmass that the Battle Isles apparently had trade routes to.

True, although I was referring to smaller population centers in Cantha (such as on Shing Jea, the Jade Sea, and the Echovald Forest), although those are probably dwarfed into insignificance by Kaineng anyway. Kaining is just... crazy.

Other landmasses are murky to cite since we don't know what other races might be there either. There could be just about anything on those other landmasses, and the ancient asura seemed to be widespread enough that there being other asura populations on other continents can't be ruled out.

@Lucas.3718 said:There i was collecting things a gifts for aurene with my human revenant and then i started to think. Every race has something that makes them special. something that lets them lorewise stand out from:

Charr: A Warrior race which exells at warfare both technologically and tacticallyNorn: A Hunter race, with a strong bond to the spirits of the animals and a strong will to become an eternal legendAsura: A race of little people but unbelievably high intellect, with high understanding of both magic and technology alikeSylvari: A young, currious race with a special bond to nature and tyria

But there i was asking myself, what does humans make special? Their Faith in the gods? Their versitile personality? what do you think ?

All of that. Humans are all of that combinedIts quite common trope in Sci-Fi and fantasy to make your races modeled on humans. Writers take few human characteristics and tune them to 11 and that's how you get a new race. The only game developer that I am aware of that doesn't follow this trope is BioWare and actually tries to portray races as having a multidimensional and plural culture and society.

I would argue that Arena net does fairly ok job at this, but IMO some races are way to one-dimensional. While other races have been made into comic relief.If you play norn and actually go and talk with NPCs you will see that norn arent just some egomaniacal hunters. Norn are actually extremely spiritual and philosophical race. They are prone to productivity, enterprenourship and commerce. They value individuality but in the context of collective effort. But unless you actually play through norn starting areas as a norn, norn as a reace will seem as just a bunch of drunk giants.

Humans so far seem to be one the most consequential races in the game. Existance of Sylvari, foefire, undead of Orr... All of these are result of human historical activity. Order of Whispers and Priory were both founded by humans. Lion's Arch was mostly founded by human pirates.

More importantly you also learn from Myr that Norn women have awful judgement in character.

No seriously.

Like terrible.

It's just....just bad.

....

Really bad.

We give the best thing of all.

The feeling of playing as aliens [since Humans are literally NOT from Tyria].