By Jim Rossignol on February 24th, 2011 at 2:16 pm.
ArenaNet are revealing more and more of the shape-shifting Norn characters in Guild Wars 2, including a video, which you can see below. And oof, this look good, particularly in stuff like the incidental character animations and the environments. The bit panning across wooded valleys is just breath-taking.
24/02/2011 at 14:23 Zyrxil says:
/obligatory Norn *groan*
24/02/2011 at 14:25 Inigo says:
Creatures was such a long time ago.
24/02/2011 at 14:59 Unaco says:
The Poetic Edda was an even longer time ago.
24/02/2011 at 18:48 GHudston says:
I know… *sniff*
24/02/2011 at 14:29 mcnostril says:
That was some spiffy music.
I was eating my morning toast and it became THE MOST EPIC TOAST.
24/02/2011 at 14:41 Sarlix says:
But…but it’s 2:30 in the afternoon…
24/02/2011 at 14:44 Dolphan says:
So between 5.30 and 8.30 in the morning in the States?
24/02/2011 at 15:11 Sarlix says:
No! I refuse to believe other time zones exist!
He’s eating morning toast at 2:30pm and thats final!
24/02/2011 at 17:56 Benny says:
I’m eating my morning toast at 5:55pm…
24/02/2011 at 21:10 Sarlix says:
Madness…..MADNESS!
24/02/2011 at 14:46 lumenadducere says:
When are we going to get past this ridiculous notion that all female armor in fantasy games needs to be revealing? Especially in a cold, northern setting where they should be even more bundled up?
24/02/2011 at 14:47 Dominic White says:
They’re were-bears. They spend a lot of their time walking around naked (with fur). The guys are often completely topless.
Most of the female equipment shown so far has been pretty conservative. The costume designer is female, I believe.
24/02/2011 at 14:53 stahlwerk says:
One word: bitchintattoos
24/02/2011 at 16:42 Jumwa says:
They’ve written some things on this topic, but basically it boils down to: it’s idealized fantasy, and they aren’t restricted by such rigid rules, and the armour for both men and women is equally revealing and intended to be attractive for both.
Which works for me. If I’m going to be spending dozens of hours working on my character and gearing them up, I want them to look appealing to me, male or female.
24/02/2011 at 16:44 DXN says:
@Dominic White: Can’t say I buy it. All the dudes in the video were showing, at most, a bit of collarbone. And sure, I’m sure we’ve all seen worse examples in videogames, but it’s still a pretty wholesale continuance of a moderately ridiculous trend…
24/02/2011 at 16:55 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
@Jumwa: Actually what they said was that they are aware of this issue and want both covered and revealing styles for both genders so you can choose which one you prefer.
24/02/2011 at 17:45 Chalky says:
@DXN: Define “collar bone”
http://www.arena.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Med.jpg
24/02/2011 at 18:12 Nick says:
DXN.. doesn’t matter if you buy it or not, the male Norn in Guild Wars: Eye of the North are mostly topless.
24/02/2011 at 20:41 The Dark One says:
They must spend a fortune on the breakaway armour.
25/02/2011 at 01:21 Wulf says:
Also, call me crazy, but isn’t the last male Norn, right before the video cuts out, the one that we see a close-up of also topless?
25/02/2011 at 11:42 MajorManiac says:
To be fair, have you seen what most women wear on a cold saturday night when they go clubbing.
24/02/2011 at 15:06 DrazharLn says:
Jim used my pun! *swoon*
24/02/2011 at 15:18 Unaco says:
“Norn to Run” would have been better. I definitely saw some Norns running in that video.
24/02/2011 at 15:25 DrazharLn says:
Don’t sully this moment for me :’(
24/02/2011 at 16:18 Bhazor says:
Baby, we were born to Norn!
24/02/2011 at 15:21 skyturnedred says:
The game looks so good even the trailer makes my computer die of exhaustion.
24/02/2011 at 15:55 Horza says:
The shogun ad seems to be a bit of a resource hog.
Advertisers: please don’t use flash ever again, thankyou.
24/02/2011 at 16:25 McDan says:
So much excite for this game.
Hey, I tried to think of a terribl pun involving “norn” and I couldn’t, all the good ones were gone. Also this lecture is killing brain cells faster than I could with a hammer.
24/02/2011 at 16:41 DXN says:
Pretty cool stuff (hurr hurr) but jeeze, heaven forbid a female fantasy character cover up any but the minimum of bare skin, even when it’s cold enough that they’re wearing furs.
25/02/2011 at 01:30 Wulf says:
If you look at the armour human women wear, it’s incredibly conservative. If you look at the armour Norn men wear, it’s equally as open. There is much art that shows this, there are scenes in the video which details this, and there is a pile of screenshots and art which backs me up on this. Also: Eye of the North.
Interestingly, the Charr seem to be the most armoured of all the races, by a huge margin. This is because they’re the most pragmatic of the races, culturally, whereas the Norn are the least so. That might explain a thing or two. Keep in mind that the people in this video aren’t what you’d expect of usual fantasy faire humans, they’re Norn, and Norns are basically… how to explain Norns…
Norns are vikings, and Norns are celtic warrior heroes, and Norns have spiritual animal beliefs. They’re focused around creating legends, doing the most ludicrous things so that stories will be told about them and songs will be sung of their deeds. A Norn is the sort of character who’d risk their life for a good story. And…
“I stood there, almost naked and bleeding in the snow as I beat the last bit of life out of that dragon with nothing but my hands, and a boulder I found nearby.”
…sounds more impressive to a Norn as a story than…
“I stood there in my invulnerable armour, quite comfy and warm, and lopped off the head of that beasty with my axe – which has these nice magic runes on it that allows me to kill just about anything in a single stroke. You probably could’ve done it yourself considering my equipment.”
The idea of a Norn is that no one should be able to do what they do, not even other Norns. You could probably get Norns to almost die of hypothermia by challenging them to a contest of whom can wear the least armour. They’re just… like that.
For that reason, the Norn aren’t my favourite choice (that would be the Charr, who’re pragmatic to a fault and also leading the industries/sciences in Tyria, fields in which they have no peers). Not my favourite race, no, but I can understand why they’re the way they are, and why they look the way they do.
25/02/2011 at 15:48 Martha Stuart says:
i thought the little dudes that are techno/mages were the tech leaders in this world?
24/02/2011 at 16:45 kirkbjerk says:
Midgard for life!
24/02/2011 at 17:28 Zepposlav says:
Conan the Barbarian theme FTW!!! Das ist Cimmerian wald!
24/02/2011 at 17:42 HeroJez says:
I can’t help but think: This sounds like music from Lord of the Rings, or Narnia or whatever.. and I’ve been here before; and if the only cool thing is that you can set your arrows on fire by shooting through an AoE affect on the floor, then I don’t known if I can be bothered.
Of course, your retort as better people than me will be ‘Good, stay away from our precious!’… but how will Guild Wars 2 succeed in the face of WoW and the nerd-herd honey pot that is SWToR with such a textbook approach.
They should have made Guild Wars 2234 with Robots and 100 futury stuff! Or not, but well… good luck to them. I wonder if they’ll adopt a subscription model. Have they said either way?
24/02/2011 at 18:08 Recidivist says:
They’ve said they will never charge a subscription.
24/02/2011 at 18:47 loshon says:
Guild Wars 1 & 2 don’t compete against WoW or any other P2P or F2P MMOs, they’re the only one in the B2P market, so… if it’s as good as the first one, + marketing hype = 8 million sales in the first 3 years.
24/02/2011 at 18:50 captain fitz says:
The fire arrows are probably the least of the cool things they’ve showed. How about the huge dynamic world events or the combined weapon/skill system or the ability to dodge and roll and revive teammates L4D style or the way they’re trying to abolish the typical class system–things that are almost certain to make it feel very different from every other MMO.
24/02/2011 at 17:57 Jharakn says:
I think its impressive they managed to make a trailer where the enviroments in an mmo look almost as good as a graphics showcase singleplayer rpg (skyrim).
24/02/2011 at 20:49 Tei says:
It looks like Age of Conan, but Age of Conan do the Cimmerian thing better, so AoC wins this one.
25/02/2011 at 00:56 Jim9137 says:
I’m sorry, but I honestly can’t get past those necks.
- Neckful Jim
PS: MAGNAMIOUS BOOBS related magic
25/02/2011 at 04:56 theleif says:
If you toss little norn children around, could you say you chuck Nornies?