Anyone else feel the cultures of the five races have lost too much of what they were in the past?

[perilisk.1874]

@Castigator.3470 said:

@perilisk.1874 said:Good thing humans left their cows behind when they left, I guess. Or maybe Charr already had their own cows, I dunno.

The charr have their own cows. Though it could be argued that they took over the cattle, when they conquered Ascalon. (I'm afraid we have no sources to confirm or deny the origin of cows in Tyria.)In case you didn't visit Diessa Plateau, they have a lot of ranches, where they breed their cattle. Smokestead has a cattle pen right next to the starting area. And the charr like to eat. Poultry, beef, pork, mutton, venison, including deer or rabbit, drake, devourer (eggs), all kinds of fish, large birds like moa, if it has meat a charr will probably have eaten it at some point.

I'm aware they have a lot of cows in GW2 as a main food source, I just don't remember seeing them with any in GW1. The humans had them, since one of the initial pre-searing quests involved a bull. So maybe the Charr started breeding cows left by humans, or maybe they already had their own and we just didn't see them.

[Kovac.4372]

@perilisk.1874 said:I'm aware they have a lot of cows in GW2 as a main food source, I just don't remember seeing them with any in GW1. The humans had them, since one of the initial pre-searing quests involved a bull. So maybe the Charr started breeding cows left by humans, or maybe they already had their own and we just didn't see them.

Charr might have just been eating humans or grawl.

[witcher.3197]

This is most apparent in character interactions. 99% of human and charr get along just fine which makes no sense. A thousand years of hatred does not go away in ~5 years especially when much of the land is still disputed and skirmishes happen on a daily basis.

There's next to no difference between the interactions of any two races. Remember those blood legion charr in the silverwastes complaining about having to take orders from "mice and talking cabbages"? Now realistically THAT is how charr should view others.

Fields of Ruin is actually great at tackling this issue and the beginning of an uneasy alliance, but it doesn't really spill over to any other part of the world or the story (and even there characters forget and forgive a bit too easily for the sake of the plot).

The Vigil/Whispers/Priory thing watered down the races way too much IMO, not to mention the Pact. We should be moving away from it.

[Jokubas.4265]

The original post starts out by saying that humans don't really matter because they're generic anyway. One of the things I absolutely loved about Guild Wars 1 was that humans weren't "generic", because each campaign focused on a totally different culture (and even Ascalon and Kryta were very noticeably different). I was really excited to finally return to Elona in Path of Fire for this reason, but it didn't turn out as I hoped (although I loved the expansion overall). I realized a major reason why, though, which might help Arena.net out in the future.

In Guild Wars 1, even if you used your existing character for a different campaign's story, the story was still a standalone story (for the most part) told from the perspective of a new cast from that culture. In Guild Wars 2, the entire game is one giant linear plot that follows the exact same cast (of course, characters do come and go). So when we do go somewhere like Elona, we're not seeing it from their perspective. Sure, there were new characters from Elona, but they're still "foreign" from the perspective of our recurring ones. I think this drastically limits how much we can explore these new lands and people.

The other difference between the two games is, of course, that Guild Wars 1 only allowed you to play humans. This definitely helped encourage the stories to try to make different groups of the same race (humans) feel distinct from each other. Guild Wars 2 unfortunately has leaned on the stereotypical fantasy crutch of each race being a stand-in for a culture instead of each race having their own diversity of cultures (including blurring several of the old human cultures together). I personally wasn't that big of a fan of Sandswept Isles and the story felt like a detour to me, but I definitely appreciated the fact that it introduced a different ethnicity of Charr.

I think game balance also contributes, but it's not a reason it has to happen. Player Norn, for instance, need to be on the same level as other players. This doesn't need to be true for NPCs, though. There's no reason we couldn't be seeing a lot fewer Norn NPCs, but the ones we do all be Veterans at minimum, or maybe even Champions. The racial abilities are a big issue here. They were made more or less useless so that people wouldn't pick race based on abilities, but the shapeshifting used to be a major element of the Norn. I can't help but feel the relative uselessness of the abilities for players has led to Arena.net to slowly get used to the idea of Norn not doing those things. It always seemed weird that Eir didn't shapeshift for an epic last stand, and has Braham done it ever?

Sure, being away from their homeland and being forced to interact with a lot of other races is going to blur these lines, but it's not going to eradicate them. Also, it just makes things boring. Norns without shapeshifting are just big humans. The Norn had their goofy side in Eye of the North, but it feels like they don't have anything else now. I almost was going to say that Asura have it okay because we see their unique style a lot, but even that has changed. In Guild Wars 1, they borrowed from the planned Utopia ideas and I really liked their look. In Guild Wars 2, however, they seem to have no character outside of being mad scientists.

When it comes to NPCs, being careful on where we see them also makes a big difference. Some races should rarely or never show up in certain roles, not because they can't, but because it detracts from what makes them special. Being careful of audience perception here is more important than what's actually canonical. It might seem counter-intuitive to say that you show cultural diversity by showing less variety in choices, but it's a matter of letting them shine. If you see everyone doing everything, then everyone starts to feel the same and you don't get a sense of their history and their people.

So yes, I do feel that the cultures of the races have lost too much of what they were in the past. A lot of things have contributed, but I think they're mostly solvable. Don't worry so much about how the NPCs are portrayed compared to the player (Norn NPCs can be rarer and tougher than other NPCs). Don't forget to highlight what makes them special (have Norn shapeshift more often) without making it cartoonish. Throw a bone here and there about distinct cultures for the other races (the Olmakhan were a good start), but be careful to give them breathing room (I don't want to return to Cantha, for instance, and focus more on some new ethnicity of Asura than the human cultures that haven't gotten exposure yet). Finally, consider giving us a standalone story in the future with a new cast (I don't mind a few hand waves if I use an existing character for such a story).

As a side note, I'm still disappointed that new races were invented in Eye of the North in preparation for Guild Wars 2, rather than using the ones that already had presence in Guild Wars 1 (outside of charr). I'd still really appreciate seeing the tengu like we used to and show a side of the centaur that doesn't just make them look like a generic enemy.

[Leo G.4501]

@Kovac.4372 said:I could skip humans and sylvari as the first are quite generic anyway and the latter are new in Tyria and still shaping.

However the others:

• The norn used to be solitary hunters, seekers of fame and glory, each hunter a one-man army basically as seen at the end of GW1 when only a couple join you to fight the Great Destroyer. What we have though is a pretty large population of them, scattered about Kryta mostly, evenly spread out in the three orders and in the Pact ... completely domesticated compared to their ancestors, wearing uniforms and following orders as part of a hierarchy ... if we went into it too much we could even imagine norn dishwashers, because hey someone has to do that job in the Pact as well.

• the charr basically united into a great military machine, finally liberated Ascalon, an unstoppable force that was only stopped by the waking of the dragons. However NOW, as the threat doesn't seem that much serious anymore, where's the renewed drive to continue the campaign that was halted because of the Mursaat and that whole thing? Charr are predators, not some tame kittens. If not on the official front, there should at least be widespread discontent and conservative factions rising up among the charr, calling for war. Plus the same about the orders as with the norn.

• the asura were forced to the surface by the Destroyers and basically Primordus. They immediately took control of their surroundings and assumed an intellectually superior position towards the other races. The others were inferior and not equal. Did that change? Their cultural stance should be supremacist, distrustful to the other races. Maybe they're not inclined for conquest but there should be a more defensive approach to dealing with bookahs. Maybe building a wall? Like the tengu did? Also it wouldn't be farfetched to picture the asura dreaming of being the masters of Tyria, as they are superior to everyone else.

Politics.

You should figure if you're going to use that little political jab there toward the end.

A lot of your points have obvious political events covered in the game that help explain the shifts. Are they organic shifts? Perhaps not, but I can suspend my disbelief when the concept of forces of nature seeking the destruction of all civilization is the driving force of the story plot.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@Jokubas.4265 said:

I think game balance also contributes, but it's not a reason it has to happen. Player Norn, for instance, need to be on the same level as other players. This doesn't need to be true for NPCs, though. There's no reason we couldn't be seeing a lot fewer Norn NPCs, but the ones we do all be Veterans at minimum, or maybe even Champions. The racial abilities are a big issue here. They were made more or less useless so that people wouldn't pick race based on abilities, but the shapeshifting used to be a major element of the Norn. I can't help but feel the relative uselessness of the abilities for players has led to Arena.net to slowly get used to the idea of Norn not doing those things. It always seemed weird that Eir didn't shapeshift for an epic last stand, and has Braham done it ever?

Yeah this is precisely the thing that I think gets right to the heart of the matter. Yes, player-character balance requires every race be essentially identical in terms of combat (aside from the unique racial abilities that are hardly worth mentioning, as they're usually not worth equipping, ever). However, that need not prevent NPCs of different races from following more of their own racial archetypes.

[Vancho.8750]

Would be cool if the norn elites were just turned into cosmetic thing where it changes your arms into paws and head in the spirit you chose when creating the character with 15 second duration and 5 minute cooldown and maybe able to change this cosmetic at Hoealbrack in the Spirit halls with the shamans.Or a new cultural/Legendary armor that transforms from time to time.

[Third Eye Spy.4389]

@Kovac.4372 said:I could skip humans and sylvari as the first are quite generic anyway and the latter are new in Tyria and still shaping.

However the others:

• The norn used to be solitary hunters, seekers of fame and glory, each hunter a one-man army basically as seen at the end of GW1 when only a couple join you to fight the Great Destroyer. What we have though is a pretty large population of them, scattered about Kryta mostly, evenly spread out in the three orders and in the Pact ... completely domesticated compared to their ancestors, wearing uniforms and following orders as part of a hierarchy ... if we went into it too much we could even imagine norn dishwashers, because hey someone has to do that job in the Pact as well.

Well, I imagine norn society experienced radical changes after being made into refugees by Jormag. Having to start anew however would be at odds with their loner nature that you spoke about , might be why the norn are scattered everywhere and would join up an organisation essentially being useful due to their inhumane strength

[dusanyu.4057]

The asura are smart but they are no dummies being overly defensive would comprise the monopoly they have on transporting goods and people quickly ((the even explore the Asura's reluctance to show a side in the book "Edge of Destiny" showing that the Asura were reluctant to put a gate into ebonhawk due to worries that it would antagonize the charr the gate in ebonhawk took a lot of diplomatic posturing from the human queen.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can be is Neutral especially if you operate the transportation network.