Running Up That Hill : GW2

Animation. No, not Tom and Jerry nor yet UPA. The way your character moves. People do go on about it. Can't play because of how the barbarian's elbow sticks out when he swings his sword or the mage turns her toes in when she throws a fireball.

I never really got that. I tend to spend more time looking at hotbars than at my characters when they are actually doing something and anyway there are usually so many explosions, special effects, spurting arteries, flying body-parts, huge numbers and speech-bubbles flying about it's all I can do to work out where my character is, let alone notice whether the articulation of his imaginary joints is authentic.

Blase as I may be about the fine points of swordplay and finger-waggling, though I do take notice of how my characters run. There's a lot of traveling in most MMOs, much of it done the hard way - on foot. Watching a half-elf hopping along like a hiker with a pebble in his Dr. Scholls or a dwarf rolling like a toddler with something he really doesn't want to tell you about going on back in the caboose can be distracting to say the least.

YouTube in slightly better quality here.

In GW2 I have the opposite problem. I could watch my Charr run for hours. I do watch my Charr run for hours. It's one of the reasons I'm getting so little done.

Off he goes on all fours, bounding across the iron platforms of the Black Citadel out into the eternal autumn of Ascalon. Beautiful, beautiful world. Beautiful, beautiful charr.

Turn off the UI, turn up the sound and prowl. Listen to the pad of  tiger feet on metal, in the dirt. Leave pawprints in the snow and hear the soft crunch fade. Be the cat.

Other races are available. Why?