Sylvari week - all info from the promotion week

[Akirai Annuvil]

To those who say "plant elves", I say you lack imagination, fantasy education, or both. If I had to describe sylvari to someone who doesn't know who Tolkien is, "plant elves" might be a good description. But for anyone who plays fantasy or knows some fantasy, I'd think you can come up with much better name tags. Dryad. Slender plant humanoid. Plant that mimics human form. Elves just don't do them justice.

Yeah... though, you know, post-2001 everyone 12+ knows Jackson's Elves and remembers them as noble and beautifull. But of course this species is made out of plants, with the basic tenets of noble, beautiful, plant. Unlike Elves who hold the basic tenets of noble, beautiful, nature affiliation.
So yeah, Elves made out of plants is a terrible description of the Sylvari.

Star Trek has a copyright on every single race possible.

Don't like Star Trek, but yeah, they've gone through a lot.

No, I don't know that.

Well, glad I could educate you.

unless you have some disability that prevents you from learning it.

Like lack of resources for an education (three continents worth of people) or only having learned a language which is too dissimilar as a youngster (Indian and Chinese come to mind).
But apart from those all people.

What I do know is that people are lazy as **** and, as you say, can't arse themselves into learning the world's most used (and most useful) language.

Screws and glue are both tools to attach surfaces. Neither is more useful than the other. Both are essential. Being material goods both are easy to acquire. Being mental knowledge makes languages much harder to acquire. Especially to the point where you can comprehend shorthand jargon (as will be used in GW2) and a storyline rife with invented words (as will be used in GW2). That's why you want to have localization.

They don't realize that before pretending to be worthy of playing games or even owning a computer, they should have the basic decency to learn something other than their babble of their local province?

I pretend to be worthy of owning games because I'm a human being who falls under a certain set of laws and atm, there's no country which disallows individual ownership (and if there is, I'd argue for the ownership as a natural concept). This goes for computers and games just the same as owning screws and glues.

[raspberry jam]

Yeah... though, you know, post-2001 everyone 12+ knows Jackson's Elves and remembers them as noble and beautifull. But of course this species is made out of plants, with the basic tenets of noble, beautiful, plant. Unlike Elves who hold the basic tenets of noble, beautiful, nature affiliation.
So yeah, Elves made out of plants is a terrible description of the Sylvari.

Yes, it is. I wish they would skip the "noble" part, just making them overly curious would be better. But still, a human ranger is closer to an elf than a sylvari is.
You also forget that those elves were ancient, whereas the sylvari are very young.

Like lack of resources for an education (three continents worth of people) or only having learned a language which is too dissimilar as a youngster (Indian and Chinese come to mind).

Yes cause GW2 will be sold in India right?

the point where you can comprehend shorthand jargon (as will be used in GW2) and a storyline rife with invented words (as will be used in GW2)

Contextual understanding is the primary way of expanding your vocabulary, far better than cram studying word lists (except initially, you have to start somewhere).

I pretend to be worthy

You don't need to pretend; you already know English.

[Auntie I]

OK, raspberry and crew, enough with this Localization argument. Move along with the discussion on Sylvari week. If you must discuss Localization take it into it's own thread.

raspberry, you are skirting the edge with some of your comments. Remember I don't like personal attacks. So far you've managed to generalize without getting too personal. Make sure you stay on the right side of that line.

[raspberry jam]

OK, raspberry and crew, enough with this Localization argument. Move along with the discussion on Sylvari week.

I listened to a couple of the sound clips that have been put on the blog; while I like the new design, I don't know if I like all of the voice acting. Maybe it's just because I don't quite understand the sylvari yet, but some of it sounds like... well, somehow inappropriate for the sylvari natural curiosity. I think that clashes with the sense of nobility - nobility is somehow based on a sense of superiority of the pre-existing structure, while curiosity is more of a realization that there is no such superiority.

Simply put, I have troubles imagining Killeen using the tone of voice found in those sound clips.

raspberry, you are skirting the edge with some of your comments. Remember I don't like personal attacks. So far you've managed to generalize without getting too personal. Make sure you stay on the right side of that line.

Staying on the right side of the line is my middle name, ma'am.
Middle names, I guess.

[Lady Rhonwyn]

To those who say "plant elves", I say you lack imagination, fantasy education, or both. If I had to describe sylvari to someone who doesn't know who Tolkien is, "plant elves" might be a good description. But for anyone who plays fantasy or knows some fantasy, I'd think you can come up with much better name tags. Dryad. Slender plant humanoid. Plant that mimics human form. Elves just don't do them justice.

I'd call them faeries...

[Blazing Liger]

Simply put, I have troubles imagining Killeen using the tone of voice found in those sound clips.

My thoughts exactly. Killeen's [morbid] curiosity made her interesting. I don't think she'd be nearly as compelling a character sounding so stodgy and 'noble'. Noble races are just so old hat. I was glad the Sylvari seemed so contrary to that archetype, and I don't really care for this 180 on their defining characteristic.

[BrettM]

That does imply waves of creation or at least some time frames in which the Pale Tree needed to produce Sylvari in larger numbers

Currently, according to the updated sylvari page, "more enter the world each day as they awaken." With daily births, talk of "generations" becomes largely pointless. In fact, it's kind of pointless anyway, since a generation is defined as a class of individuals removed by the same number of successive ancestors from a common predecessor. Both the Firstborn and the others have the same predecessor, so, biologically, all sylvari are the same generation.

I suspect the gap between the Firstborn and the second "generation" (crop? ) was purposeful. Perhaps the Pale Tree deliberately intended the Firstborn to be mentors to the race, creating them early and giving them a few years to establish themselves before putting production into high gear. If a higher birth rate started at that time, then essentially all other sylvari are "second generation", including our player characters. Only the Firstborn would really be entitled to be singled out as a distinct set.

Possibly the second "generation" did not begin with daily births, since that might have been a bit overwhelming for the Firstborn to handle by themselves. But monthly or weekly births might have gotten the process rolling, ramping up to daily as the Firstborn gained some trained assistants to aid them.

You also forget that those elves were ancient, whereas the sylvari are very young.

People keep referencing age/wisdom/etc. as being a major distinguishing characteristic between sylvari and Tolkienesq elves. This is true comparing sylvari to Tolkien's elves as we know them from LotR, but is not strictly true when considering Tolkien's full vision of the elvish race. Even in LotR, Treebeard makes passing mention of what the elves were like when their race was young, and there are some similarities to the sylvari here. In the Silmarillion we get further information on this part of elvish history. Tolkien's firstborn elves woke as adults, just like the sylvari. They were intensely curious about the world, just like the sylvari, and ran around trying to awaken and talk to other creatures (including trees), very much like the sylvari. They had a certain measure of ill-defined uneasiness and fear because of the dimly-perceived actions of Melkor and his creatures, similar to the sylvari fears related to the Elder Dragons. Some of them eventually became twisted, similar to the Nightmare Court. The elves that didn't become twisted still split into different groups, just as the sylvari are split into different cycles.

Furthermore, there are many other concepts of elves and fairies in fantasy -- from Shakespeare to Wendy Pini -- that are all just as legitimate as Tolkien's creation. Even Tolkien started out with a much different concept, more closely related to folklore fairies, that evolved for years before it became the concept that we now identify with him.

I'm not claiming that the sylvari are derivative. The sylvari, taken as a package (appearance, culture, behavior, history, etc.), are wonderfully fresh, and I do not hesitate to call them unique. I'm just bothered that some are trying so hard to deny any fantasy-elf influence at all, as if acknowledging any connection or possible source of inspiration somehow denegrates ANet's accomplishment. It doesn't.

[Khanisaurus]

Exactly, we all build on the knowledge and experiences we have had.

Just as Tolkien, drew on the ancient Celtic and Norse myths for inspiration, I see that ANet is drawing on him and others for theirs. Also, like Tolkien their end product is something that is new and unique and different from its predecessors. You can still see the influences, but there are enough differences to call them unique.

[Смерть]

New blog is new:
http://www.arena.net/blog/dream-and-nightmare

Now I really want to be a Countess in the Nightmare Court... Since we cannot align with evil, I certainly hope they are not enemies to kill in the game, and that we can hang out in Nightmare outposts.

[Akirai Annuvil]

I think that clashes with the sense of nobility - nobility is somehow based on a sense of superiority of the pre-existing structure, while curiosity is more of a realization that there is no such superiority.

Read the new article. The hierarchy seems pretty strict, determined by who was born when with the Pale Tree as arbiter.

Staying on the right side of the line is my middle name, ma'am.
Middle names, I guess.

Not part of mine. I'm more of a leftie.
You J in disguise uh?!

Now I really want to be a Countess in the Nightmare Court... Since we cannot align with evil, I certainly hope they are not enemies to kill in the game, and that we can hang out in Nightmare outposts.

Hi:
"In order to achieve this goal, the Nightmare Court commit acts of evil both upon sylvari and non-sylvari alike."
No.