One of the most interesting things about Guild Wars 2 is how diverse and widespread the races coming with the game are shaping up to be. In today's Guild Wars 2 column, we take a look at that broad diversity. Read on!

Guild Wars 2 is shaping up to be a very diverse MMORPG, and by that I mean its races. Races are an important part of MMOs. They offer options to the player and help make the in game world feel whole. We have gone over the races that we will have the opportunity to play as, but many of us have forgotten about the other races. We will be able to explore their villages and cities, accept quests from them, and even meet them on the battlefield. Given all this interaction with them, it makes sense that a lot goes into these races, even if we won’t be playing as them. So let’s go over what makes these races awesome, and not just a random race put in for players to get a few quests from.

Read more of David North's Guild Wars 2: More Than Quest Givers.

There is nothing more I am looking forward to in 2012 than GuildWars 2.  The diversity of professions and the fact that you can be any race with any profession, is awesome.  And with all the talk of how Bioware overused storytelling in SWTOR, I think GuildWars 2 is shaping up to use it just enough, not too much in your face, and not too little that it doesn't matter.  Making a story matter, making your personal story an epic progression of your time spent in a game is what its all about.  Not the gear grind, not the million dungeon runs, but the fact that your weeks, months, years in the game mattered in the end and helped shape an actual lifetime, that's what epic is to me.  I personally cannot wait to see how this game does, and regardless, I will have my money ready day one and it will be worth every single penny!  ArenaNet, you have my utmost thanks for all your hard work!

I loved the piece on the skritt in the blog, the story of how a group had gone to join another race and then subsequently left, leaving behind a lone skritt who had decided  to stay and study the race they had joined, of course, being skritt, once left on his/her own that poor skrit no longer had the intelligence to understand the idea of studying another culture and was left wondering why he/she was there, a poignant little tale.

Well, a good back story never hurts as long as I don't have to listen to someone telling me his peoples entire story in a long cut scene...

I'm excited about the game, but this is starting to sound like it will NOT be released in 2012.

Originally posted by Vorthanion

I'm excited about the game, but this is starting to sound like it will NOT be released in 2012.

 

Well the fact that they are starting internal VERY limited testing is a good sign.  Closed beta invites can't be too far away, at least that's the hope.  I'm sure they have been testing internally for a long time and have been balancing the professions, now its just a matter of polish, stress testing on the server and bugfix.  From eveything they have shown and allowed people to play at game conventions, they can't be far from some major milestones to get the game in our hands  :)

Originally posted by Loke666

Well, a good back story never hurts as long as I don't have to listen to someone telling me his peoples entire story in a long cut scene...

 

Agreed, but I'm sure they will have a way to bypass for players like yourself that just want the jist of the conversation and move on to the action  :)  They have shown many times that they are listening to what players want and trying to cover ALL the bases.  Which while extremely tough to do, they are succeeding in a lot of ways, and really take feedback from users seriously.  Can't beat playing a game where the creators actually have YOUR agenda first and the "accepted" agenda second.

Originally posted by Abcynth

Originally posted by Vorthanion

I'm excited about the game, but this is starting to sound like it will NOT be released in 2012.

 

Well the fact that they are starting internal VERY limited testing is a good sign.  Closed beta invites can't be too far away, at least that's the hope.  I'm sure they have been testing internally for a long time and have been balancing the professions, now its just a matter of polish, stress testing on the server and bugfix.  From eveything they have shown and allowed people to play at game conventions, they can't be far from some major milestones to get the game in our hands  :)

 

They have already said that closed beta was supposedly starting a few days after the Mesmer was released. If what they said was true, they are already in closed beta. So they're even closer than you think to the game's release.

There's a couple of other races they've profiled, each with a backstory as well.  I think the Kodan probably top the list of the races people would like to see become playable in an expansion.

http://www.arena.net/blog/the-wisdom-and-power-of-the-kodan

http://www.arena.net/blog/shadows-in-the-water-the-krait

http://www.arena.net/blog/go-forth-and-multiply-the-hylek

Awesome concepts I seriously wanna know more, are there books or media? One of the things that i loved about WoW are the novels that tell you the lore. It was amazing for me to go through the quests now in Cata after reading about the Dragon Soul books and the War of the Ancients. Made me understand what was happening alot more.

Originally posted by itgrowls

Awesome concepts I seriously wanna know more, are there books or media? One of the things that i loved about WoW are the novels that tell you the lore. It was amazing for me to go through the quests now in Cata after reading about the Dragon Soul books and the War of the Ancients. Made me understand what was happening alot more.

http://www.guildwars2blog.com/release/6.html

Enjoy!  :)

So far my favorite Guild Wars race isn't ingame yet :( At least, not so far as I've seen. In GW1, the Order of Whispers were filled with these naga-looking dudes. There were a few that were monsters in Factions, but up until Nightfall I don't think they had any real personality. There they served a bigger purpose and seemed far more mysterious and intriguing, I really liked them. I'd love for them to be playable at some point, though I doubt that will happen. The amount of work that would go into reworking all the skills and animations for a race with no legs is likely not worth the effort.

In the meantime, I like the centaur race. I didn't care for them in GW1, they were very generic looking. In GW2, they're beautiful, and the concept art definitely has some 'native' undertones. Very colorful, tribal dress and draping leathers, some are armored to the teeth but still have that 'flavor.'  I mean, look at this: 

So badass D:

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

So far my favorite Guild Wars race isn't ingame yet :( At least, not so far as I've seen. In GW1, the Order of Whispers were filled with these naga-looking dudes. There were a few that were monsters in Factions, but up until Nightfall I don't think they had any real personality. There they served a bigger purpose and seemed far more mysterious and intriguing, I really liked them. I'd love for them to be playable at some point, though I doubt that will happen.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Forgotten

I think it's more that, thematically, they shouldn't be a playable race. Unlike the current playable races, their time in the world was pretty much finished by the end of Nightfall. Unlike the Sylvari, who were dormant and Norns/Asura who were just tucked out of player-sight, the location of the Forgotten were generally recorded. And, well, their lore doesn't lend itself well to seeing 20% of the playerbase [assuming even distribution] running arond as them.

im going to be asura lmao

Originally posted by Weretigar

im going to be asura lmao

 

The article was about non-player races (and only a select few of them as Cali59 pointed out).

Originally posted by itgrowls

Awesome concepts I seriously wanna know more, are there books or media? One of the things that i loved about WoW are the novels that tell you the lore. It was amazing for me to go through the quests now in Cata after reading about the Dragon Soul books and the War of the Ancients. Made me understand what was happening alot more.

There are two novels for Guild wars out at the moment:

Guild Wars: Ghosts Of Ascalon + Guild Wars: Edge Of Destiny

There's also another one due to be released in August:

Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrow

I have the first two but I havn't read them yet.. playing through the first game before I do, and really enjoying it.

I loved reading the interview and seeing how passionate Ree is about gaming and GW2. It helped make me that much more excited for the game and it increased my appreciation for the care being put into the game. You can really tell that it's a labor of love.  BTW check out -->> Guild Wars 2 Beta might as well get a beta key for open beta.

Originally posted by blitzgamer09

I loved reading the interview and seeing how passionate Ree is about gaming and GW2. It helped make me that much more excited for the game and it increased my appreciation for the care being put into the game. You can really tell that it's a labor of love.  BTW check out -->> Guild Wars 2 Beta might as well get a beta key for open beta.

Don't think Im gonna stick my email address in anywhere but the official site thanks :)

I truly wish that this time around I will be able to empathize with the sentient beings in MMOs. In other MMOs no matter how much lore they put up on wikis and webpages for these non-playable races they always just end up as either quest givers or kill targets. In the end it doesn't mater whether you know their culture or not. Just kill 10 of them and be off!