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Hey, Anet, I've got a beef to grind
Sunday, July 19th, 2015 08:29Dear Anet and Guild Wars2 developers,
Can we please make the wildlife non-aggressive? Especially the predators? I get that you need aggressive mobs to keep the players on their toes, but I think it's kind of irresponsible to make the wildlife aggressive, when you already have non-aggressive ones. In fact, that you made the herbivorous animals non-aggressive and the predatory ones aggressive shows your utter lack of understanding of animal behavior.
As a general rule, all wildlife are non-aggressive towards humans. The only ones that are aggressive tend to be the ones who learn that humans are easy prey. Hence the stories of man-eating tigers. But they are, in fact, the exception, not the rule. Most wild animals would rather take the flight option over the fight option during most confrontations. The only exception to this is during mating season in many herbivorous species, where there is a heightened aggression in the males towards any perceived enemies. To the point where they will even attack their predators to show off to the females how strong and viable they are (and then get eaten if they're not as strong as they're trying to show themselves off to be).
As a rule, predatory animals do not engage with anything aggressively to avoid unnecessary injury. Injury could mean no more hunting and no more food. Even when hunting, predatory animals pick easy to kill individuals, such as the old, the young, or the sickly. A strapping, healthy buck in the middle of rut is not going to be on a predator's menu.
What I'm trying to say here is that those aggressive animals you've coded into the game, such as the leopards, wolves, bears, hyenas, are not, in real life, the most likely to attack you. In fact, the more likely source of wild life attack are from those animals you've coded as non-threatening, such as the moa, deer, moose, etc. Those are the ones who are more likely to charge you with no provocation simply because you got too close for comfort. The predators, especially if they're full, are much less likely to give a shit about a human that's passing by unless said human approached them in a threatening manner. Otherwise, you'll probably just get ignored.
And it's bad enough that predators have such a bad reputation that almost every single predatory animal out there is on the endangered species list. I mean, seriously, that's how bad it's gotten. As a game that prides itself on breaking the usual game meta (such as having gay characters, or avoiding chain mail bikini for the female characters, etc.), how about you also break this "predatory animals are dangerous" trope, too? With all the environmentalist messages in your game, isn't it a little hypocritical to turn around and encourage players to run around slaughtering wildlife?
I don't mind killing the evil animals, the wargs and icebroods and drakes and skelks, but when it comes to things like sharks, barracudas, bears, wolves, leopards, etc., can we at least have the choice of not killing them because all we wanted was the mine that iron node? Hell, even piranhas aren't all that interested in human flesh (experimentally proven - piranhas don't bother attacking humans, they prefer smaller fish). It would be nice if you could stop perpetuating this falsehood about this aggressive wildlife that we must eliminate or they'd eliminate us.
Wild animals have it hard enough as it is, predators especially so because humans have an irrational fear of them for no scientifically justifiable reason. The least you could do is discourage your players from slaughtering the virtual ones in your game.
Hoping you see the light,
Cashew
Can we please make the wildlife non-aggressive? Especially the predators? I get that you need aggressive mobs to keep the players on their toes, but I think it's kind of irresponsible to make the wildlife aggressive, when you already have non-aggressive ones. In fact, that you made the herbivorous animals non-aggressive and the predatory ones aggressive shows your utter lack of understanding of animal behavior.
As a general rule, all wildlife are non-aggressive towards humans. The only ones that are aggressive tend to be the ones who learn that humans are easy prey. Hence the stories of man-eating tigers. But they are, in fact, the exception, not the rule. Most wild animals would rather take the flight option over the fight option during most confrontations. The only exception to this is during mating season in many herbivorous species, where there is a heightened aggression in the males towards any perceived enemies. To the point where they will even attack their predators to show off to the females how strong and viable they are (and then get eaten if they're not as strong as they're trying to show themselves off to be).
As a rule, predatory animals do not engage with anything aggressively to avoid unnecessary injury. Injury could mean no more hunting and no more food. Even when hunting, predatory animals pick easy to kill individuals, such as the old, the young, or the sickly. A strapping, healthy buck in the middle of rut is not going to be on a predator's menu.
What I'm trying to say here is that those aggressive animals you've coded into the game, such as the leopards, wolves, bears, hyenas, are not, in real life, the most likely to attack you. In fact, the more likely source of wild life attack are from those animals you've coded as non-threatening, such as the moa, deer, moose, etc. Those are the ones who are more likely to charge you with no provocation simply because you got too close for comfort. The predators, especially if they're full, are much less likely to give a shit about a human that's passing by unless said human approached them in a threatening manner. Otherwise, you'll probably just get ignored.
And it's bad enough that predators have such a bad reputation that almost every single predatory animal out there is on the endangered species list. I mean, seriously, that's how bad it's gotten. As a game that prides itself on breaking the usual game meta (such as having gay characters, or avoiding chain mail bikini for the female characters, etc.), how about you also break this "predatory animals are dangerous" trope, too? With all the environmentalist messages in your game, isn't it a little hypocritical to turn around and encourage players to run around slaughtering wildlife?
I don't mind killing the evil animals, the wargs and icebroods and drakes and skelks, but when it comes to things like sharks, barracudas, bears, wolves, leopards, etc., can we at least have the choice of not killing them because all we wanted was the mine that iron node? Hell, even piranhas aren't all that interested in human flesh (experimentally proven - piranhas don't bother attacking humans, they prefer smaller fish). It would be nice if you could stop perpetuating this falsehood about this aggressive wildlife that we must eliminate or they'd eliminate us.
Wild animals have it hard enough as it is, predators especially so because humans have an irrational fear of them for no scientifically justifiable reason. The least you could do is discourage your players from slaughtering the virtual ones in your game.
Hoping you see the light,
Cashew
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