Kotaku released a write up breaking down racial preference in GW2, along with a graph from the recent ANet blog, detailing profession, race, character gender, and tradeskill choices. Guild Wars 2 writer Peter Fries even tweeted that he was saddened by the racial statistics!
Was anyone really surprised to hear that humans are the most played race in GW2? I wasn’t…then again…I did play Guild Wars 1 and the only choice we had then was to play a Human. It’s the age old question though, what race best represents me in game? Do I go with the Asura because of my fascination with oversized eyeballs, and serrated teeth? Or do I go with the Sylvari because I can really relate to their affinity for nature? For any MMO I have ever played, my racial choice was always based on which race looked best in a specific armor class. My choice was always determined by aesthetics, rather than which race had the best racial skills, or starting stats. What about you? What races do you tend to gravitate toward? Why? Why did you choose to play a _______ in GW2? Let us know in the comments!
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While I'm still deciding on my class—either guardian, engineer, or necromancer—my race decisions for each were completely determined by what felt the best for that class. With my guardian, I wanted to be big and powerful, so Norn. With the engineer, Charr fit pretty well because of their culture (Asura was a close second). And with my Necro, Human just seemed the most suitable. I'm not a roleplayer by any means, but I do like when classes and races match up.
Well first off the graph is over a month old, and when it WAS made it only represented the first 2 weeks of gameplay (it excluded the week leading up to the blog post) There have been few people who have stuck to their original class and race since then. I myself have switched from an Asuran Ranger to a Norn Warrior.
Even so, I have a pretty diverse mix of race and class on my account, though my other characters I dont play as much, they are still there and would count on a graph like this.
As far as Personal Story, I found the human one I played in the Beta to be very boring (dont remember which it was), while the Norn was fun. I found the Val-A story for asura to be boring on my ranger, and the Lost Heirloom storyline to be good on my warrior. The personal story is very much what you make of it, if you rush through it like I did with my ranger, your going to make some bad choices.
I play Human for a simple reason: Because my Guild Wars 1 character named Garrick Jannene was also human and I wanted to keep a sort of continuity with my Guild Wars 2 character. I also selected the noble path because the slayer of the Vizier, Shiro, and Abaddon probably would become an honorary member of Krytan nobility, even if he is Ascalonian.
Also I think Divinity's Reach is by far the coolest city. My other characters (that I generally only use for sPvP) are Charr and Sylvari, because I really like the art and story behind those two races. Those two, in my opinion, are by far the most unique and interesting. Although as others have said, Humans in Tyria also have a really fascinating storyline in Guild Wars, even though the race itself is less unique.
Charr really does have the best stories. But human is a close second. They made humans interesting - in most MMOs humans are dull and boring, and so you can sit there and "lol" at the people playing them. Here, they have very good stories... so you end up wanting to join the "people with no imagination" because the choice actually has imagination...
Norn feel like drunk Frat Boys... play one for the giant... um... features she has. But I've found the personal story uninspired. It only gets interesting once you've moved out of racial personal story and on to faction.
Asura... hasn't grabbed me but I can appreciate it. Got to level 20 on my Asura and I can't say I recall much of the story at all. Made a second Asura and the same thing.
Sylvarri personal story. Maybe I just choose very poorly... I ended up with a romance between a knight and his girlfriend who's joined the Nightmare court... and it felt very "WTF with a race that doesn't even reproduce having all this ERP-storyline?" My Sylvarri is sitting at level 16 while I eternally debate remaking the character and losing my points in tailoring and cooking, or sticking it out hoping the story gets better...
I think I will just "cheat" and wiki the stories for Sylvarri to see if there is a set of choices that let me avoid feeling like some cheap elf-knockoff.
I'm a fan of "normal" proportions, so I'm sticking with human/norn/sylvari, in that order, for any character I create. Not a big fan of overly large or overly small character models. Overly large seems slow, takes up too much of the viewable area, etc. Overly small is awesomely fast, but armor is unimpressive, too small for details, etc.