Humanity is one of the most tenacious races in existence when it comes to fantasy storytelling and Guild Wars 2 isn’t much different. Last week ArenaNet took a detailed at the bipedal species we warmly refer to as “Humans” and their involvement in the game. We’ve learned a lot about these “Humans” this last week and previously so let’s take some time to take a look at what we’ve learned so far.

Looking for some more info on Humans? Check out our Human preview.

Vocal Illustration

The first post was a mixture between discussing the Human social structure and the quality of voice acting in GW2. Within the post we learned about the political intrigue of the Ministers and the Queen, Humanity’s varied opinion about the Charr 250 years later, and what has happened to the Six Human Gods.

We’ll look at the whole picture about the story of Humans later, but it is important that we all take a look at the quality of voice acting that GW2 will feature. They’ve already shown a few examples of what it will be like, but the latest post showed just what kind of depth the voice acting will have. The streets themselves will come alive as characters will talk to one another instead of just emoting.

Divinity's Reach is not as safe as one would think, the centaur can fight their way to the gates of the city.

I have nothing against text and I believe it is a superior medium when it comes to storytelling, yet I find that voice and audio is much more suitable for games. I’m a big lore fanatic, but I find it much easier in a game to listen to what everyone has to say while I play it then to stop and read giant blocks of text to understand more about what is happening around me.

What’s intriguing is how far ArenaNet is going with voice acting. Average characters on the street are getting detailed attention along with more important characters. The world itself should be entertaining to walk around in, but the only question I have is how often will the audio samples play? Will it be like Mass Effect where you hear the same conversations over and over again? I guess that’s something we will find out at a later time.

High Fashion

Armor looks stunning in GW2.

The next post was in regards to character design in GW2. There wasn’t much new, outside of some new shots of armor, but one very intriguing thing was how armor can take up multiple slots. We all know about “clown suits” in MMOG where people look a lot like clowns as they level up and play as the gear they’re wearing looks mismatched with random colors. It’s very interesting that there will be armor sets that could take up multiple slots and provide a seamless look.

Military

Humanity seems to be under siege from just about everybody in GW2 and it seems that they at least have a single organized military to deal with the threats. It’s broken down into the Seraph, the Ministry Guard, and the Shining Blade. The Seraph acts as the large military force while the Ministry Guard acts as the government’s body guards. The Shining Blade is more of a spy network and the Queen’s personal army. Each division has different rules and regulations and work to keep everything balanced.

Divinity's Reach

The official site was updated with an updated Human page and an awesome new video of Kryta and Divinity's Reach.

Political Intrigue

A big theme throughout all of the updates during Human week was the amount of infighting that is going on within Humanity. It seems like with all of the threats outside of the walls of Divinity’s Reach there is even more threats within. Queen Jennah and Minister Caudecus have entirely different sets of supporters, Ebonhawke is losing the war and has little support, and the people do not believe in a truce with the Charr. Without the truce we’d see yet another enemy howling for the gates of Divinity’s Reach.

This basis is will likely provide the players with an opportunity to become the hero. With the military, government, and even the people working against one another it will take a hero to set things right and venture forth to bring peace to the people. It’s without a doubt frustrating to understand why, when there are so many threats, the entire Human race doesn’t rally and begin the charge forward for peace.  Yet, without conflict there would be no story. If everything worked perfectly then there would be no room for the player to come in and help save the day.

Overall it appears that Humanity has changed much from the days of the original GW. We should all be lucky that at least there isn’t an obviously evil vizier waiting in the shadows to ruin everyone’s day and excited for the quality of storytelling and voice acting. I look forward to see how Humanity advances in GW2.

What do you think? Are you interested in just where Humanity is going in GW2 are you more of a Charr person? Come to the Ten Ton Hammer community forums and share your opinions.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Guild Wars 2 Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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