Have to admit it . . . GW2 may replace COH for me

How do you always find yourself on the ends of these types of discussions!?

But anyway, your brand of anthropomorphic is fine and all but not the only (or best, IMO) version. What you're seeking is non-humans that emote like humans. The Charr are monster-like and emote in their own special ways which is a very good thing to me. They don't have the same grin/smile and all that like a human because they'll emote their own way like with snarls, growls, baring teeth, purrs and so forth.

Not that I don't like human-faced anthros but I tend to imagine such creatures as such to look less like a human and not particularly just to add other-creature details to a human.


*shrug* Isn't that how it's suppose to work? Giants are simply scaled up humans. I guess Anet could have went the crazy route and made Norn super-scaled dwarves but maybe they didn't want to be that cliche.

Anyway, guess what my favorite character's race is....


Made an Asura male and have to admit, I like the character himself. Not sure how, but when I imagined the character's personality (aggressive, arrogant and yet intellectual), the male Asura the devs 'wrote' for the personal story seems to fit perfectly even the voice. And he's *hard* to play. But I always enjoyed challenge. I actually heard Elementalists are underpowered currently, so maybe they'll get some attention later on.

Nothing like my Charr warrior who I wanted to have less of an aggressive streak and be a tad suave and animated, he's stuck in the Kitty-Spartan mold which I guess isn't horrible but becomes grating after listening to NPC dialog (and the cubs talking about fighting and killing is a bit creepy).

They're reaaaaallllly not. My elementalist is my highest-level character and she's an absolute powerhouse. There's a steep learning curve, but my god are they awesome!

That's part of my problem - I don't like any of them. It has less to do with their design and more with my general extreme dislike of the concept of "races," for the simple fact that - as demonstrated - I tend to have my own preferences for what kind of race I want my characters to belong to. As broad as developers might be, they'll never get it right, which is why I prefer to define my own.

I don't like the Char because I don't like how they look and walk. Personal preference, but just don't find that "attractive" in any sense of the word. I dislike the Asura because I don't like the personality of the characters as written. I don't like the Norn because they're pretty much as typical Fantasy as it gets, and I don't like the humans because... They're humans. I've seen that. I might consider the Silvari an option, but I just don't know enough about them.

At most, I might be able to make a single character worth sticking with in Guild Wars, and that's just not enough to pay money for, in my opinion. Not for an RPG. Any more than that one character just ends up with me wanting to break the whole setting and introduce aliens or demons or time-travellers.

Mine do. It's why I like them. The face, I mean.

I don't know about "best." It's a matter of taste. That's what I want out of a game, simply put. Specifically, that's what I want out of character design. You can always have the player control just a straight-up animal, like Nanaki/XIII in Final Fantasy VII, but that just doesn't work for me. It's the same reason I don't like bird and fish people - I just don't like the animals themselves and don't enjoy characters styled after them.

I've always enjoyed a half-way point between human and monstrous. Lean too much in one direction and it's boring and trite. Lean too much in the other direction and it's just weird and uncomfortable. Strike that middle ground of dissonance, though, and that's where I'm happy.

And Guild Wars 2 doesn't strike that balance in the slightest. It's either mostly human or mostly not human, with only the Silvari somewhat in the middle. There's really no way to change my preferences, so I just have to pick a game that either matches mine, or that lets me customize, and Guild Wars 2 really doesn't let me customize by much.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I assume the Pale Tree is using humans as template, so yeah. I like how they do have physical genders, but don't have emotional genders, so to speak. So I think they nailed that part.

Apparently only if you're female. Compare a male human to a male Norn. Then compare a human female to a Norn female. I think they got the male Norn just right. The female Norn are lacking. Not that I blame them, it's not an easy balance to get just right. I just think something is off when the Norn are prettier than the dandy humans.

Perhaps because my Elementalist specializes in Dagger/Dagger. I don't care much for the scepter or focus and I do keep a staff around when getting into melee is just too suicidal even for me...but I can definitely say Elementalist is hard-mode. It's definitely not as easy as Guardian or Warrior which are the only other classes I got around to trying.

And I didn't say Elementalist was 'weak', just that it might be underpowered compared. It probably has to do with their survivability...

*shrugs* Doesn't a race stop being a race when there's only one in existence ever?

I think you miss the point of the concept of races in a game. One can tell a world's history and mold expectations when a world has set races. Even CoH technically had to do it with the human, Kheld and Rikti races instilled in a war among specific factions.

It's understandable that you want to make your own race but you have to create a world where literally *ANY* race is accepted but that doesn't translate to that race having any important role in said world and its events.

So the game doesn't strike a balance...until it does with Sylvari? So it doesn't and it does?

That said, I'm hoping they add Skritt as a playable race. Cute funny rat people obsessed with shines. Makes the perfect thief, IMO.


I don't think you can simply say 'I don't like bird and fish people period'. Maybe you might not like the ones you've seen so far, but I'm certain there's a way to grasp the elements of those creatures in a design you'd enjoy.

How is this the craziest thing in the world? The point is that both games are a royal pain in the *** to play. And yes, I played EQ1 for 9 months, enough time for me to decide to get out. DAOC was a refreshing change of pace for about 2 years afterwords.

I'm not finding that to be the case in the leve 75+ zones. Spawn rates and sizes are definitely designed for groups. And I agree with you, at times I prefer to solo - but I prefer a game that doesnt repeatedly swarm you with unbeatable odds when you choose to do so.

Oh, did you ever play FFXI? Not sure about EQ but I know damned well FF was tailor made to consume your life with its time sinks, farming, camping, can-barely-solo-easy-prey-15lvls-below-you gameplay and so utterly focused on gear, you practically have a whole separate suit for each spell you cast.

Then Ninjas came along and everything was okay...then they nerfed my Beastmaster and pissed me off

I'm still playing it, but I'm totally nuts.

Dagger/dagger FOR LYFE!! And honestly, I find my Elementalist to feel much more fun and powerful than my guardian. Just dinged 80 on the Ele and not even a little tired of her
30 fire/30 Water/10 Arcane spec, I never even touch Air or Earth.

YES! I can't wait for them to add Skritt. They've got Kodan and Tengu obviously positioned, but man, I want SKRITT!!

Actually, I think he can say exactly that. In fact, I wish that folks would say things like "I don't like X" rather than "the game/devs screwed up with X." So you don't like monster races - that's cool. You're entitled. However, that doesn't mean the game screwed up, the setting is bad, the devs missed a mark, etc. It means you don't like what they're offering. And that's totally cool. There's a game out there for just about everyone. (One less now )

Because classic EQ1 was all about high-end raids and tagging the spawned boss before anyone else did, it was all about grinding the same things over and over for literally hours on end, with your whole guild, in an effort to get one rare thing to drop. This bears literally no resemblance to GW2.

I duo and solo every single zone, on a light-armor elementalist (which is reputed to be underpowered!) and don't find that much of a problem. Yeah, the mob density is greater, but it's usually not overwhelming if you don't just run face-first into everything. (My character tends to run face-first into everything >.>)

Yes, for the upper-level zones, people tend to group up. If nothing else, the events need large numbers of people. However, I think the game kinda assumes you made a friend or two, or can find someone to group with, by the time you're 80, if that's a thing you want.

Not sure exactly where you're going awry. I assume you've set up your account, input your serial code, and you're downloading from "https://account.guildwars2.com/download"? Have you tried saving the download and running the gw2setup.exe out of the download folder?

Just wanted to say I really like the character design and concept behind Praxis. It is very good inspiration, pity COH may not be around much longer.

It reminds me of an extra-dimensional entity whose true form is utterly alien and incomprehensible. But takes on a supposingly humanoid form to either mock humanity or to manipulate them.
Alternatively, it appears humanoid to humans because humans do not possess the ability to comprehend its form in its entirety without going mad.

I appreciate the levelless feel of the game but at times it can get frustrating. Especially when I'm just trying to get to a node of raw materials with the constant respawning of the mobs around me. Its not so bad in Queensdale or Wayfarer's hills. But it is real nightmare when for my elementalist in Charr starter lands. The mobs aggro easily, respawns almost instantly by the time i killed the first one & to top it off the zone is quite deserted. (Maybe less people play charr?)


Are you on Tarnished Coast server? I heard it is the designated unofficial RP server.


I think its because I played GW1 Prophecy and I got to see first-hand what the Charr did to Ascalon, that I empathize with humans more. Poor Lady Althea

Bringing my human elementalist to Charr lands was an emotional experience. Seeing the once glorious kingdom of Ascalon brought to ruins & its defenders raised as vengeful wraiths. Although the human king (Eldebrak?) was responsible for such turning them into undead, I can't help but feel it was the Charr that drove humanity to this point.
I finding the elementalist rather challenging to play. Not only that I also found that the traits do not synergize well with each other. Suffice to say, I need to put in considerably more effort to accomplish the same on my elementalist as compared to my Guardian or Ranger. I have played an elementalist in GW1 and the Elementalist in GW2 feels completely different. It feels more like the Warrior in Wow where you are expected to constantly "stance dance" to be truly effective.

I want Centaurs. If anyone can break the 'biped cultural imperialism', it's the 'MMO Revolution'.

(I'm not holding my breath though)

Apologies if this is an obvious question (though you do say CoH was the only video game you'd played, so maybe not), but have you made sure your firewall is set to allow GW2 access? If everything else is connecting fine but GW2 is acting like you're offline that would seem the most likely explanation.

Yup, Charr and Asura are the least-played races. Most-played is Human, which boggles me. I'm a human every day!

And yeah, that's kinda the point of the levelless system. You're not supposed to be able to just run around scot-free and stripmine the lower level zones. You're supposed to be playing them! Personally, I like it. Lower-level mob drops are worth WAY more than the ore ever will be, anyway. If it aggs on me, I need to kill it and strip off its hide!

Sure am! Just like Virtue! *RPer gangsigns*

And the flip side of that is that the humans drove the charrs to the point where the whole Foefire had to happen, so the root of the problem was still the humans showing up and stealing the Charr land and shoving them out, IMO. The race is SO well designed, and I really their their story-quest is the best-written in the game (not alone in that thought, either!) They're just such a well-rounded race.

Yup, that's certainly true. Though I stick to only 2 attunements (TBH, I would probably be twice as effective if I'd bother to learn the skills from all 4 of my attunements, but I cannot be arsed to do so. Fire/Water 4ever! LOL) there is quite a bit of dancing between them. It's fire to zip around and get crazy with the mobility and damage, water when my partner and I start taking heavy damage or need to kite (yay chill!) and then back to fire as needed. I also run with Arcane Shield, Sigil of Storms and Signet of Air, with the Druid or flower turrets as my elite. Works really well, for me anyway.

That's part of what I love about the game - I've yet to meet anyone else who plays their Ele EXACTLY the way I do. There's no one true path/spec. No one yet has hollered at me in a group because I wasn't in Water attunement and "let" them die by blasting instead of supporting. It's kinda great!

Gah, yes, I'd LOVE that. I've wanted centaur toons in some game - any game - for ages! And the centaurs are really well-developed, AND there's several examples (Ventari, the ones with the treaty with Lion's Arch) who give a good story "in" to having a friendly faction.

I will pray for this, yes indeed. BUT I still want Skritt first >.> Sorry, I love rats!

This is also why I can't get into playing necromancers. I'm a necr... uh, never mind.

Anyway! Here's a graph that was current as of Sept. 14th.



Charr are a little behind (but not as much as you might expect) which could be due to the horrible and random lag in the Black Citadel, or the bug that prevented Charr from completing the tutorial for, like, the first day. Followed by Asura and Sylvari in equal measures, then a small peak for Norn and a gigantic peak for humans. I guess people really like boring farmland and doing chores.

Skritt needs to be more Skaven-like (and Games Workshop can just shut their faces.) Everything needs to be more Skaven-like. Um, I might be slightly biased here.

Also, we can logically conclude that everyone who doesn't play games by NCSoft are crazy fruit baskets. Because us vs. them mentality is really healthy.

I'm going to assume you're kidding rather than, you know, being an idiot, and just have to say: Not funny bro.

As boring as humans are, they also don't shoehorn you into very specific predesigned racial lore/backstory/concept as much as certain other races do.

I can't for the life of me get into a charr character because of freakishly ugly they are, nor do I like techy backgrounds. I like Asura mostly just because they are tiny, but otherwise they have serious customization issues and I would have much preffered Skritt anyways as a tiny race. Norn and Sylvari are alright IMO, but I can see people not liking them too.

WTB Skritt as playable race. Kodan and Hylek would be cool too, or better yet just more customization on existing races.

Yeah, that's kind of the point. I don't want my characters to have an important role in the world, because for that to happen, many aspects of my character have to be written for me. Kingdom of Amalur ALMOST pulled off a miracle with the whole "You don't know who you are, so you could be anyone" deal... Right up until the end where it turns around and basically tells me what my story is, and it's nowhere near as exciting as I imagined it might be. It's downright dull, as a point of fact.

City of Heroes taught me a valuable lesson - the less the fictional world tries to tie ME into it, the more leeway I have to imagine. Inversely, the more the world tried to assume about my character for the sake of "immersion," the more uncomfortable I became. It's why I despise the basic setting of DC Online, where my origin is always "Exobites," with an implied pre-origin of "human." Well, that's 3/4 of my characters down the drain right there. Same for the Secret World, same for Guild Wars.

I games giving me a discrete choice between several predetermined concepts, is what I'm saying, and that's precisely what races are. Sure, Human, Kheldian and Rikti are statically defined in CoH lore... Which is why I never made any Kheldian and Rikti characters, and why most of my humans tend to be from alternate dimensions or timelines, and the ones that are from "here and now" tend to more or less disregard the game's story but for the broadest of strokes. Basically, I account for "the great disaster" in general terms and that's about it.

No game with races will ever work for me, and that's just a simple fact. Not after City of Heroes. I prefer a game to focus on building up an engaging world that I have reason to care for, but also make no effort to tie me into it. Give me the playground and I'll figure out whether I want to swing on the swing set or climb the jungle gym, or maybe even just sit on a bench and look into the distance. The more games try to "engage" me, the less engaged I am because I'm constantly butting heads with the narrative. The only way this works is if you can get me to switch mental gears and just accept I'm playing someone else's character in someone else's story, like I would be in Oni, say, but that's a very different type of game that I wouldn't want to play in RPG form.

More or less. One race will give me pretty much one character (I don't like to repeat races if I can avoid it), and one character is not worth getting invested into a game for, especially a game whose gameplay I don't actually like. I don't really like the gameplay in City of Heroes all that much, but it's given me eight years of character concepts, and that's more than just one.

True, true. I tend to not like birds as characters in general, but Kung Fu Panda 2 REALLY sold me on the character of Shen. I don't really know what it is about him - it's partly his writing and partly that they did manage to make a frail stork look like a legitimate threat and probably THE strongest fighter in the movie, aside from Po himself. But that's incredibly rare, and to a large extent it's achieved by compromising what makes him a bird by hiding his wings and torso in large robes, as well as giving him a VERY expressive face.

So it's not an impossibility, just a general rule of thumb thing. Something extrodinary would have to happen for me to give a character bird feet or fish fins, is what I'm saying.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Yeah even I had to change some stuff to get it to download properly - weird, but I got it straight from the source and haven't had a problem since.