Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Why no hybrids?


DaVid Darksoul.4985

Recommended Posts

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:

@"DaVid Darksoul.4985" said:Why do we see no hybrids such as a norn/charr or asuran/human? That would be awesome to have, although sylvaria would not be included since they don't reproduce sexually. It would be solely cosmetic since all races and classes have the same base stats, with the possibility of different elites. I also would really love to have split classes such as GW1 had, my toon was necro/ele, very strong. Different base stats system such as used by D&D games could also be applied to hybrids maybe? Would be a way to break the mundane. Sylvaria maybe could be included if a way to merge souls to create a lifeform was invented. Just rambling thoughts here ojn making GW2 more interesting.

Unlike D&D, GW upholds the rationality of biology, and not "humans can mix with anything because reasons!" This means the only hybrids that will exist will be like mules or ligers - only possible through closely related species, and most (if not all) hybrids being sterile.

Humans are aliens to the world. They're not closely related biologically to any species in Tyria. Even if norn look like "big humans", they're actually cousin species to either the jotun and ogres, or to the kodan (the lore isn't entirely clear) - if hybrids are possible, then between those species is the most likely. Asura are of the rodent genus, while charr of feline genus. So charr, norn, and asura - being basically cats, bears/giants, and mice, are too distant to be capable of producing hybrids.

Though, perhaps, there's a close enough relation between asura and skritt - in a bit of irony.

Outside of the lore, there's the cost for all the new models and the potential issues that may be born for armor or animation rigging.

@"DeanBB.4268" said:We have class merging already. It's called Elite Specializations. It turns an elementalist into a sword-wielding battlemage, for example.

What you are asking for would be a re-do of the game systems, and I think it is far too late for any such considerations.

Wouldn't be an entire re-do of the game systems to allow secondary professions.
.

@"Brimstone.3807" said:If you want to mix with Sylvari you gotta pollinate the Pale Tree with some kind of mammal dna which would be um weird. Sylvari anatomy does not have a reproductive function.Not really. The Pale Tree was never "pollinated" by humans - the Pale Tree chose to use the humanoid shape and based their appearance off of what she saw. In theory, the Pale Tree could make sylvari look like anything, just as we had Blighting Trees in HoT producing mordrem that looked like wolves, trolls, raptors, colocals, etc.

@"Palador.2170" said:While it wasn't possible when the game started, it's TECHNICALLY possible now. The skyscale creation proved that if you get just the right things in the presence of just the right amount of magic (ie.: One kitten-load of), you can create something new based off of whatever the magic has to template off of. So a couple of, say, a charr and a human being together near enough magic could 'create' the baby in that way. However, that would require a LOT of research and work.

Far, FAR simpler would be for someone to create a more advanced transformation potion and use that to turn the male of the two into the same species as the female. The child would be the mom's species, but still influenced by the father's attributes. In a M Charr/ F Human pair, the kid would be human but their hair might be the color of the charr's mane and they may be a bit sharp of tooth. You'd never notice that they're not baseline human from just meeting them on the street, though, so you could be walking past hybrids all the time and not know.

(Also worthy of note is the fact that the potion idea would allow female/female to have a kid. Or even sylvari/non-sylvari.)

That's not really hybrids really, the skyscales was the Mists creating something using Kralkatorrik as a template. This is the exact same thing as
from GW1, and is really the same as Fractals except Fractals copy entire space-time events, and not simply using one individual or group of individuals in random creation.

And it has nothing for "just the right amount of magic" - The Mists isn't made of magic, it's made of proto-matter. And isn't very controllable.

@Xervite.5493 said:I think you are confusing the term race with species, idk why these tyrian categories are termed as races when it should be species.GW2W does label them as species.

@"Tommo Chocolate.5870" said:A lot of the answers here focus on the lore reason behind this, and while they're interesting to read, I don't think it really answers the question – if the writers/designers had wanted to include hybrids, they would have changed the lore to accommodate that. As far as I know we don't have an official explanation as to why they decided to make the lore that way, so we can only speculate, really.But the fact that ANet writers had established lore explaining why there's no hybrids, established that ANet has decided they don't want to accommodate the existence of hybrids.

No, I'd argue that 'race' is the correct word here. Races in fantasy are more closely connected to classes of mythological creatures than they are to species of animals, and the word 'race' has been used in that context (referring to the races of angels, demigods, giants, satyrs, etc.) continuously since the 16th century. Also bear in mind that "correct" English is determined by usage, and basically all fantasy literature uses 'race' rather than 'species'. In the case of Guild Wars specifically, the game itself uses the word 'race', for example, asking you to "select race" (rather than species) at character creation.It'd be correct - to various degrees - for D&D, but not GW.

Asura aren't rodents, the teeth are all wrong. Skritt and Dredge might be closer.

The various puns in Dredge territory suggests strongly that they are (communist) moles, not rodents.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Astralporing.1957 said:We don't see them, because, according to devs, mixed race pairings do not produce offspring. Might have something to do with small things like Sylvari being plants, and Humans not being native to tyria, but a race that was brought there from some other world.

@Astyrah.4015 said:that said, the closest species in GW2, atleast biologically, would probably be Norn and Human (basing it purely on their physiology, appearance, etc.)Ironically, of the 5 player races, Humans are the only one (as far as we know) that isn't native to this world, and as such they are probably much, much further biologically from Norn than the Charr, Asura and even Sylvari.

It's been years since I read about this - but there's some ascpects of our core DNA structure that are a lot like binary toggles this or that way. There's one core toggle to the whole structure that goes a certain way for all life. Now imagine landing on an alien world where it flips the other way - that said if this was the case the humans would not even be able to digest food on Tyria.

That said... maybe more like Earthlings and Gallifrey of Dr Who. As much as they look alike on the outside their radically different internally.

Charr and Asura may or may not be mammals - despite what they look like. Norn are 'mammal equivalent'. Sylvarri are plants.

The norn may have come up filling the same 'niche' as humans - an intelligent primate. But it ends there.

If we were on Earth, the Norn would actually die off. Their too large for their structure. Something is different about Tyria that let it's primate species get to that size. This same something might have adjusted the humans. The first generation of humans to arrive might have found themselves on a world with lower gravity to which they had bones and muscles that made them radically stronger than the humans and charr - an advantage that would fade in only a few short years. If you watch the show 'The Expanse' - there are a few scenes where someone born and raised on Earth gets into a physical conflict with a person born and raised in space and the results are devastating to the spacer...

Consider that a human and a chimpanzee have about 96% of their DNA in common. Humans and housecats are about 90% alike. Humans and humans are 99.9% alike.

Humans and Norn are 0% alike in DNA.

Yet a Norn and a Sylvarri are probably around 60% - just as a human and a banana are 60% identical.

Your typical Tyrian human has more in common with one of Tybalt's apples than he does with Tybalt...

How many half apple / half human people do you know?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:Asura aren't rodents, the teeth are all wrong. Skritt and Dredge might be closer.Asura are called rodents several times in the game, particularly ever since Season 4. Albeit this is done in an insulting fashion so there is a chance is inaccurate. Their teeth are caused by their natural environment underground which consisted of eating tough mushrooms - an evolutionary effect on their environment, and has little do to with their biological tree.

Dredge, as mentioned, are moles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:Asura aren't rodents, the teeth are all wrong. Skritt and Dredge might be closer.Asura are called rodents several times in the game, particularly ever since Season 4. Albeit this is done in an insulting fashion so there is a chance is inaccurate. Their teeth are caused by their natural environment underground which consisted of eating tough mushrooms - an evolutionary effect on their environment, and has little do to with their biological tree.

Dredge, as mentioned, are moles.

No dredge are naked mole rats which are a type of rodent. Asura have no rodent features, it's definitely done as a derogative thing similar to Charr calling humans mice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly not sure how an Asura would burrow, dredge have teeth like naked mole rats use to burrow, actual moles use chunky claws. Asura have neither, I guess they'd stick to natural caverns. They don't really line up taxonomically with rodents regardless. They come off as similar to goblins, just no green skin or hook noses. Their feet are weird too, looking like the kind usually found on larger mammals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Yasai.3549" said:

Norns - Looks like a human, but they descended from Giants probably. I think there were some hints that maybe Norn and humans could interbreed, but in GW2 it's a hard no in lore.

Im pretty sure they've sown more seeds for them to be related to kodan, rather than actual giants. It seems that they have no links to giants at all and it is believed that perhaps they had more animalistic shapes and have "devolved" into their current state. At least the kodan believe so anyhow and as far as I recall the priory had some throw-away lines about the norns potential origins. However this is subjective, we know they came from further north so we'd need to head up there to perhaps their ancestral lands and find where they originally came from. They aren't jotuun because those were here long before the norn were; In-fact if memory serves the Norn technically "invaded" Jotuun lands even though they could not be maintained by the Jotuun anymore. And no im pretty sure it was debunked that norn can breed with humans, as far as I remember in a stream durring the infancy of guild wars 2 they said none of the races could intermingle and create offspring. Honestly I like it like that, I dont want them to dilute the player races/lore with one anothers? I mean I know norn LOOK like big humans but they are vastly different, and I would hate for the humans to just consume the norn into their abundance of diversity for the sake of it ya'know? Some scary stuff as a norn main....

http://archive.is/9r1NG Found it.

! The main aim of Saturday was to finally get a hold of Jeff Grubb and ask him the infamous “half-norn” question that has boiled in the lore community for the past few years. Not only DID I get an answer, Jeff also talked about Norn burial practices, and how their families work!! The Saturday Interview with Jeff Grubb! The Interview with Jeff was much clearer than the one with David Wilson. Note there will not be a transcription for this interview as it would take several hours to write down word for word what Jeff is saying.! The Summary of the Interview is this! Jeff says that Inter-species hybridization is not plausible, there are no half-norn, half-charr, half-sylvari and so on.! The Norn do appear similar to the humans, but ArenaNet at this point does not have a definite decision if they are related species. Jeff mentions the Kodan again and points out the Bear relationship.! Jeff says that Norn and others in the current age immolate the dead because of Zhaitan, he also considered the idea that some norn / norn communities might use sky burials where the dead body is left open to the elements. There is no definite answer about norn burial practices (burning seems the most plausible for now, Jeff does mention Viking funerals).! Norn families are not really standardized. Knut’s sons live with him in Hoelbrak where as their mother lives outside the city. Norn might live together or live apart, they might have parent of either gender raising the children at a given time, they just seem to go with whatever the individual parents parents decide.! Norn courtship is pretty much shown in Hearts of the North, they try to compete with each other, possibly even boasting about how awesome their legend is.! Norn do adopt, such as adopting the children of a dead relative, they do not have orphanages however.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While the game references inter species relationships....I'm looking at you Joko...the devs have said no children have come from it. Enough said, you can love who or what you love but as of now no magic exist to help make an Asuran/Sylvari or Char/human hybrid or any other combinations just like how irl we have no human/sharks or human/dog hybrids.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

The wiki does not include the little readables you find in the area you fight her. She used Ploint's Norn growth hormone on herself to become a massive asura. I mean that is technically gene therapy but also technically almost a hybrid!

no, it is not. It is tchnically using hormone therapy. Not a hybrid and genetics play no role in it at all.

This. They are basically just using steroids, but steroids are not gene therapy in any way and also doesn't make them a hybrid in the slightest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...