The sylvari, together with the asura, are the races we haven’t yet
gotten to play either in the closed beta or during the first beta
weekend event. They both were playable during some gaming conventions
(like GamesCom 2011), so we know they exist in a playable state, at
least! But of course, not having been able to play them myself, I am
very curious about them. I know I will love asura. There’s just no doubt
about that. But what about the sylvari?
For me, they come close
to what elves represent in other fantasy games. Think of your standard
fantasy settings and now think of how many games diablo 3 gold paypal
include some kind of elves: Lord of the Rings Online, World of
Warcraft, Everquest, Rift,… the list goes on. Elves are usually the
fragile, elegant, gracious, wise and oooooold race. The sylvari are all
of that with one exception; They are a very young race with the oldest
sylvari being 25 years old. I’d assume that sylvari will most likely be
the race to play when you’re usually an elf-lover because of their
looks. But from their personality and their background, they’re rather diablo 3 items unique.
They are a tree’s interpretation of humans. (Kristen Perry in Talk Tyria’s lore interview)
Let’s
take a look at the sylvari: They can have elf-like ears (pointed, that
is, in case you didn’t know). You can find a video showing the early
sylvari character customization here (it starts at around 3:30). Their
ears are pointed because they’re leaf-shaped. Which, oddly enough, is
what Tolkien had in mind for his elves (see Wiki entry above). But it’s
not that easy. Sylvari aren’t simply “the elves”. You have to look a bit
closer to see the differences between gw2 gold
elves (or humans) and sylvari. They are, in fact, plants that were
built after humans because the Pale Tree, out of which they were “born”,
knows what humans look like and modelled the sylvari after them.
ArenaNet had published a blog post about Kristen Perry’s redesign of the
sylvari (they did actually look very much like regular elves before).
“You’re five years old. How do you know so much?” (Riona to Killeen in “Ghosts of Ascalon”)
Sylvari
have a basic understanding of the world that the Pale Tree gave them.
But the Pale Tree only knows what it has seen and what was left written
on cheap gw2 gold
a tablet in front of it. So of course, sylvari don’t know everything
and especially not the finer nuances of relationships, conversations,
humour and so on. Some concepts don’t exist for them. Something like
“normal” is a foreign word if you haven’t established yet what the
“norm” actually is. There are things they don’t know about themselves
like ‘how old do they get?’. Will they age or whither?
At first,
they didn’t understand humor too well, but over the years, the race has
begun to show a sense of fun. (Ree Soesbee in Talk Tyria’s lore
interview)
So all in all, we have a race here that is still buy guild wars 2 gold
developing and exploring – not just the world around them but their own
existence and personalities. Sylvari are trying to find their place in
the world. And they’re curious and eager to learn.
What piques my
interest in this race is, apart from the gorgeous and unique looks, the
opportunity to play a race that is exploring and discovering the world
while I, as a player, am doing exactly the same. I can already see
myself walking through the world, through the cities and up to the
highest mountains (I always do that in every MMO where I can climb on
mountains) and I, as well as my character, will get to see all of this
for the very first time. I will figure out who I am in this game just as
my sylvari character (most likely a necromancer, thanks to Killeen)
will find out more about herself and the world around her. At this
point, I also assume that the personal story will reflect that but I
haven’t heard anything about their story yet.
I’m going to end
this post with a gallery of sylvari. Those screenshots were all taken in
Lion’s Arch and you can see that they’re all wearing their race’s
clothes with the exception of one sylvari who’s a guard on a tower.
Click on the pictures to see them in their full size. The thumbnails
don’t always show the actual sylvari.
