Talk:Species

And now, for something completely different!
Species debates!

Ok, I lied, we've seen them a thousand times. But that's because they're just oh so fun, isn't it? :)

Just spent a couple of hours crawling through old arguments and endless debates on GuildWiki, many of which either stalled or reached some kind of conclusion but then never finalised. Here's my attempt in good faith to present a clean version of what the GuildWars creature tree would look like, based on those discussions.

I'm sure someone will disagree with something above, which is why I'm posting it on this talk page before placing it on the main article.

Unresolved issues

 * Sickened animals and humans need to be checked with EoE to see if they're the same species as pets/humans, respectively.
 * Capitalisation. "Bone Dragons" or "Bone dragons"? "Sentient Plants" or "Sentient plants"? "Great Beasts" or "Great beasts"? My preference would be the lower-case versions, but I can see a case being made for the upper-cased versions being more correct. --Dirigible 15:33, 21 April 2007 (EDT)


 * I'll try starting with a relatively simple disagreement. =) I think these would be the corrected plural terms (from the manuals): dredge, heket, kirin, mantids, yeti. Also I suspect "gaki" is correct over "gakis", but this is not manual-supported. --Rezyk 16:19, 21 April 2007 (EDT)
 * Details, details. Fixed. :P --Dirigible 16:26, 21 April 2007 (EDT)


 * Lowercase seems better to me. --Rezyk 02:34, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

Maybe we should keep organizations completely separate from the species tree? (especially since we're tending that way for categories already) This would also let us more easily identify ice golems as Stone Summit (even though they're not dwarves), juggernauts as Kurzicks (even though they may no longer be human), and deal with any other future organizations that can mix species. --Rezyk 17:59, 21 April 2007 (EDT)


 * A few nuances while farming Sunspear points this weekend:
 * 1) Spirits ARE undead. We had the undead bounty and after we vanquished the Shattered Ravines we did the Ungrateful Slaves quest and all the spirits there counted towards the bounty. Do they take double damage from smiting?
 * 2) Carven Effigies among the Awaken are NOT Undead, they are Elementals. When we killed a particular group of Awakened that had like 4 or 5 of them, we noticed the message updating the Elemental hunt popping up.
 * Just a few things to think about. --Karlos 21:39, 22 April 2007 (EDT)


 * Check out Talk:Carven Effigy. They apparently count for both elemental hunt and undead hunt, yet don't have holy-damage-susceptibility. --Rezyk 21:45, 22 April 2007 (EDT)
 * I think spirits and ghosts are logically undead (coming from a D&D perspective of course). Maybe undead is more a template than a species :P -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 04:32, 23 April 2007 (EDT)
 * So far as I can tell, spirits do not take double holy damage and do not receibe extra damag wit the 'undead slaying' modifier. Ghosts do, like smoke phantoms of those ghosts in the Nolani Academy BONUS. Spirits wouild be like Eternals, Druids, Avatars, Bound and Nature Spirits... and Ghost would be all those 'incoporeal' that receibe double damage from undead and count for the 'undead slaying' bonus. MithranArkanere 11:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I too have some little little nuances. That should be all... for now... :P I love nitpicking, heheh. -- ab.er. rant  04:32, 23 April 2007 (EDT)
 * 1) Can I ask why the Nightfall plants are categorised as sentient plants? The bounty just refers to them as plants.
 * 2) For harpies, should we rename them to "Skree harpies"? Or at least introduce it as a subspecies, since the Skree Battle bounty specifically mentioned "Skree harpy". Also, is "Skree" a proper noun? I'm thinking it should be capitalised like "Caromi" or "Angchu" (you're missing Angchu above). Like sort of a clan name for the harpies. Otherwise they would've just called them "harpies" (like heket), rather than "Skree harpies".
 * 3) Isn't the plural of djinn, djinni?
 * 4) I guess my previous edits of "skales" is wrong then... darn it. But why "grawls"? "Grawl" is not like "Charr", "Heket", and "Dredge"?


 * To answer your questions:
 * 1) Because they drop "Sentient Spores" and Sentient Seeds and Sentient roots. It's a subcategorization methos. Just like we divide the Tyrian ones into Stalkers and sprouts. It's entirely arbitrary in terms of what they all look like to EoE, they all look the same.
 * 2) Nope, I am against that, was and still am. If you read the dialog of the bounty givers, they ALWAYS refer to them as Harpies, not skree, and not skree harpies, so if we're talking SPECIES then their species is Harpies, just like the species of Caromi Tengu is: Tengu, not Caromi and not Caromi Tengu.
 * 3) In Arabic, Djinni is the singular, Djinn is the plural. However, in the dame, Ruby Djinn is singular and the Gift of the Djinn is referring to the plural.
 * 4) Don't know if it should be Grawls or Grawl.
 * --Karlos 06:42, 23 April 2007 (EDT)


 * 4) Both "skales" and "skale" are used; see Category talk:Skale. I would have guessed "Grawl" myself, but the manual uses "Grawls". I wouldn't be surprised if both are used. --Rezyk 11:38, 23 April 2007 (EDT)


 * Yeah, the game seems to use "grawl" for plural in the quest The Stolen Artifact. So now I'd favor that over "grawls" (unless someone finds a case of "grawls" in-game, in which case I wouldn't have any strong preference). --Rezyk 13:41, 23 April 2007 (EDT)
 * But all of them all plants, the items dropped depend on campaign, not between themselves, Tree plants drop the same as Sprouts and stalkers, and are affected the same by EoE... so there is no need to separate 'sentient' ones, just to separate them between campaings. There are stalker-shaped that drop Sentient ones and there are ones that drop seeds.
 * Bounties are not a good way to check species, but it's true that they refer to them as harpies in the entire game.
 * Although you can say both djinni or djinn for the plural, you can say 'the djinn' for the race.
 * Sames as djinn or skale, you can say grawls, or skales, like (there are four skales here) but you can also say 'the grawl' or 'the sakale', and thus, say (there are four skale here). I'd choose the singular four refering to the race, since it's more used in the translations.MithranArkanere 12:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Can we drop "Riders" in favor of "Wind Riders"? I'd rather have a "Wind Rider (npc)" than a species called "Riders". A "Rider" implies something totally different from what those creatures look like. When I see "Rider", I'd imagine something sitting on something else. But "Wind Riders", that at least conveys a sense of flight, or at least something to do with air instead of something on top of another. -- ab.er. rant  00:52, 26 April 2007 (EDT)

Multiple races
Carven effigies are the trigger for this I think that could be very possible. Could it be that some creatures are part of multiple races...? For example, Jade Constructs being both Jade and Mursaat, or Ice Golems being both Elemental and Construct, Carven Effigies being both elemental and Ghosts being both spirit and undead... If EoE affected onyl when all species are the same, but disesase and slaying weapons affected only when some are the same, then that would explain it all. MithranArkanere 12:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Scroll down to the last section for the latest updates. Rezyk has a proposal that quite nicely resolves this. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 15:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Categorization Policy
I read the above list, and what I think we need is to develop a policy for categorization, more than just agree on a list. The lists will evolve as more critters are added to the game, but the policy should be what we think about.

Missing from this list, are the rules and assumptions that went into making the list look like that. If these rules are not brought here, this categorization will seem almost arbitrary. At issue are the following major points to consider when attempting to categorize a species:


 * 1) Paramount among the issues is how do we candle sub-species vs political affiliation. i.e. The White Mantle are NOT a sub species of humans while Dragon Plants are a subspecies of plants. I believe we should separate "Political affiliation/alegiance" from "species categorization." For example, the Anguish Demons are not all the same species (even though they can be lumped under the same bounty), killing Margonites will not damage the Stygian critters with EoE and vice versa. (The DoA bounty is a special case because it's alump sum bounty, most other bounties are fairly indictaive of species.) As such, I would not classify "Shadow Army" under demons. I'd leave them as their own species.
 * 2) EoE trigger, Disease spreading: a sign of being the same species.
 * 3) Weapons of slaying combined with wild blow (i.e. +20% damage vs Plants)
 * 4) Bounties (except DoA as mentioned above) are a strong indicator.
 * 5) Collectable drops (i.e. trophies)
 * 6) Foreign elements: Some creatures (Griffons among Harpies, Ice Golems among Stone Summit, ...) do not always share the qualities of their foster species, do we categorize as their real species or new species. There are different shades of grey here. For instance, the Steelfang Drake that wanders with the Ntouka is actually not Ntouka, and will not give bounty points upon death, but I believe the Griffon that wanders with Harpies DOES give bounty points. So, it's a very messy issue.
 * 7) Species within species: The game has certain species very specifically pinned down and others very broadly. Mandragors are very distinct and clear in their own right, but then you have a species called "Great Beasts" which includes Ntouka (who have Rhinos and Birds), Howlers (crap throwing apes), Behemoths (who do not resemble Tyrian Behemoths, but more Rinkhal monitors) and Mokele. How do we classify those? Do they trigger EoE on each other? Do we just classify all great beasts as great beasts? Do we classify them distinctly and then just mention that they are all considered great beasts?
 * 8) Arbitrary classification: Leviathan Fish and Jade Fish are a prime example of that. I arbitrarly made up these names on GWiki based on collectable drops (the former drop moon shells, the latter black pearls). How do we come up with these names?

So, let's talk about some of these issues and see what people are leaning to do, then go back and re-examine the above list. --Karlos 05:13, 22 April 2007 (EDT)


 * One of the main obstacles in the path of a clear and unambiguous creature tree in GuildWars has been the fact that ... well, ANet hasn't really made much of an effort to make sure that this tree is available for those looking for it. It's sort of like the lore element of the game, there's many parts where you can tell that it wasn't really planned in advance, but it was mostly just patched together by adding more content on top. What I'm trying to say is that even though I'm fine (and glad) that we try and develop a method for properly formulating this tree before implementing it, it still should be kept in mind that this isn't really the kind of  puzzle where the pieces will fit in the end; this is the kind of puzzle where if you want to make the pieces fit you'll have to glue and stitch them together. There's too many gray areas, too many unclear and contradicting examples. We'll have to settle via consensus the final details of this list, arbitrary classifications will be unavoidable. :)


 * As far as differentiating between species goes, here's my view on it:
 * Of slaying weapon upgrade. &larr; I consider this the most reliable way to determine whether that guy you're smacking is really a dragon or not. Too few of these though. =\
 * EoE. &larr; a bit trickier to use reliably (did someone just wand that monster or was it EoE?) compared to the Of Slaying weapon, but is still consistent in its results far as I know. Too many creatures are too far to be compared with EoE, though, so this is limited in application.
 * Disease. &larr; unless I remember mistakenly, disease has been known to spread even between creatures of different species on occasion? I should probably run with Rotten Flesh around the game one of these days, to see if I can get disease to misbehave like that firsthand. Same distance limitations as EoE.
 * Bounties. &larr; these can get confusing too. The DoA example you gave is one. For another, how about Carven Effigies, which give you both the Elemental Hunt and Undead Hunt bounties? I tried stabbing one of them with a Deathbane weapon, and it's indeed an undead. But it still not fleshy nor does it take holy damage, so it seems more similar to an elemental than undead. What would be the verdict, does it have two species?
 * Collectable drops. &larr; Kinda messy. There's Ice Golems dropping Stone Summit Badges, just like Stone Summit dwarves who are a completely different species. Hm. Maybe "if different creatures drop the same trophies, then they're in the same sub/species, unless it's an organization trophy in which case they're part of the same organization"? This is a one way connection though, we can't move backwards from species to trophies. Awakened drop completely different things from Skeletons, even though they're both undead. Skeletons in FoW and skeletons in Kryta also drop different trophies, even though they're part of the same subspecies. So, the presence of common trophies does point towards the same species, but the lack of those trophies does not mean that they're not in the same species.


 * Griffons among Harpies &larr; they take damage from the same EoE and you get Harpies Hunt bounties by killing them, I'd say that makes them Harpies, not Griffons. It may be that all Griffons are a subspecies of Harpies, but we have no way of getting one of the Prophet's Path griffons in Kourna to EoE them, so we can't know for sure. Consensus will be needed to decide this.
 * Drakes that hang around Ntouka &larr; still just drakes, especially since they take extra damage from Dragonslaying weapons and don't give Great Beast bounty rewards.
 * The Margonite deaths not triggering EoE on Stygians &larr; a mess. They take extra damage from Demonslaying, so they're both demons according to that. But wasn't EoE supposed to distinguish by species as well? Which takes priority, EoE or the demonslaying weapon? Or maybe it's simply that EoE distinguishes by subspecies instead of species? That could be an explanation, I think. --Dirigible 03:07, 23 April 2007 (EDT)


 * General approach: I agree that explaining the approach can be important, but I also agree with Dirigible's rant about too many gray areas. It might be appropriate to formulate this as a guideline rather than policy -- so that we do have a semi-outlined approach, but also acknowledge that we know it will have exceptions that will need to be ironed out by consensus, and really isn't "set in stone".
 * 1. I agree with generally separating out organization/clan/affiliation/allegiance from species, for robustness.
 * 2-5. Here's how I tend to prefer prioritizing these, from highest to lowest:
 * Disease and Edge of Extinction. These are the mechanisms that (theoretically) map all creatures into distinct groups and thematically strongly reflect a distinction between species. All other criterias can be re-described to fit within our system, or footnoted for deviations, but it'd be generally very convoluted to do so with these. I really hope Dirigible is wrong about anamolous disease behavior.
 * Appearance+name+behavior. This criteria is very subjective and could actually go a lot higher or lower for me, depending on the specific case.
 * Weapons of -slaying. These are pretty strong and clear evidence of whether or not something belongs in a group, but I don't feel that the classification has to represent a species. "Demon", "giant", "plant", and "undead" could just as easily reflect supertypes that can apply to a range of species/individuals. We may be starting to see this with elementals that also appear to be undead, or distinct species of demons. It even wouldn't be so far-fetched to one day see undead giants or demonic plants.
 * Bounties. They're like slaying weapons, but can be even further from species delineations. Thematically, they can easily represent more arbitrary groupings other than species, like region (DoA) or organization (corsairs). Perhaps the Sunspears don't care at all whether or not those giant birds and rhinos are the same species -- they just want them all cleared out. =)
 * Trophies. Can give some indication, but isn't reliable evidence.
 * Specific cases:
 * Griffon among harpies: Yuck. I'm undecided here.
 * Ice golems: I'd think we'd all agree that they should be considered Stone Summit, but not Dwarves. Not a problem as long as we separate out organization, right?
 * Great beasts: I'd defer to disease and EoE results.
 * Leviathan fish, Jade fish: I'd hope that disease and EoE shows them all as separate species. =) Otherwise we look for a good game name, or just pick one by consensus.
 * --Rezyk 15:26, 23 April 2007 (EDT)
 * I'll just comment on the small stuffs than long diatribes :P
 * Maybe the harpies young are just "called" griffons, kinda like how tyrian centaurs aren't the same as Elonian centaurs. So they are harpies that are called griffons :)
 * I think ice golems are fine, not gray area there. It's the awakened that's troublesome.
 * Leviathan fish and jade fish sound fine to me actually.
 * I suppose there's general agreement that Skree harpies should be harpies, and nightfall plants are sentient plants? -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 00:45, 24 April 2007 (EDT)
 * A lot of the problems that you guys are having are partially due to how things are actually set up on the species, and with how the different effects to classify them work. In-game, each creature belongs to a world, an army, and a family.  We can use any of those categorizations for things that affect a certain type of creature, and different effects are set up based on whichever of these work.  In general, most effects target the family, but in some cases, we have creatures grouped together who do not share a family.  Carven Effigies are a good example of this, in that they are in the Undead Army, but are actually elemental creatures.  Since the undead groups are not all of the same family, instead of using the family to determine bounty points for the Undead Hunt, we used the army so that any of the creatures affiliated with the undead would give you points.  As all of the other elementals share a family, thae elemental bounty uses the family to determine if you get points.  Since Carven Effigies are in the Undead army, and in the Elemental family, they will give you points with either buff.  Edge of Extinction and disease always work by family, but many of the other effects such as the bounties in Nightfall can be inconsistent.
 * It seems as though much of the discussion is mostly in either classifying as the Army, which is where the association of the creature is set, or as the Family, which is the type of creature. It seems that some classification system that includes both the type of creature and it's affiliation would make more sense, simply due to the fact that classifying by only one of these is going to have a lot of inconsistencies.  Ice Golems are elementals that are affiliated with the Stone Summit, and Carven Effigies are elementals that are affiliated with the undead.  The Army is not used at all for most creatures, but in cases where different types of creatures are allied with each other, it becomes important as a way to group all of those creatures together.Andrew McLeod (Freyas) - ArenaNet creature designer 11:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting. What exactly is a world classification? I'm guessing that demon is an example of such a classification, as Margonites and torment creatures are separate species, and it seems likely that the "Abaddon and his demonic servants" classification used by Lightbringer skills is represented by the army parameter, leaving only the world parameter for demonslaying weapons to check. -- Gordon Ecker 21:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The world classification is just which campaign the creature comes from. This isn't used much, but allows us to do things that occur for all creatures on only one continent(Tyria, Cantha, Elona).  Margonites and torment creatures both have a family of demon, but they are separated by the army that they belong to.  Shiro'ken are also demons, though the Shadow Army are not.  Demonslaying weapons will always only affect creatures that belong to the demon family, and won't take into effect either the world or army classificiations.  I believe that Lightbringer workes based on the specific armies that are used for the creatures found later in Nightfall, so as to not affect other creatures who may have the same families, but are unrelated to Abaddon, such as the Oni demons.Andrew McLeod (Freyas) - ArenaNet creature designer 21:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent..I think this sort of insight should allow us to design a system with some decent confidence in its resiliency. It's essentially what we've been trying to divine through pattern hunting. --Rezyk 21:48, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Does every creature have a single army slot, a single family slot and a single world slot, or is it possible for a creature to belong to multiple armies, families or worlds? -- Gordon Ecker 00:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah. It may seem so. For example: Carven Effigies are in Elementals family, but in the Awakened army, but they trigger the deathbane weapons. But that can't be possible if deathbane weapons check only family. MithranArkanere 01:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Each individual creature only has at most one world, army, and family. Creatures always belong to a world and an army, though they don't always have a family.  For example, Charr are Tyrian, and belong to the Charr army, but don't actually have a family.  Since nothing else is associated with Charr, they weren't given a family to distinguish them from other creatures.  Carven Effigies may seem strange, but that is due to the fact that the Undead are something of an exception to how most creatures are set up.  Undead are all part of the undead army, with several different families, so Deathbane weapons affect anything in the Undead Army.  This can be seen in conjunction with the Skeletonslaying modifier- skeletons will be affected by both the Deathbane and Skeletonslaying modifiers, as the Deathbane looks at the army, and Skeletonslaying looks at the family.  Looking at the different *slaying modifiers, Charrslaying and Deathbane are the only two weapon modifiers that use the army of a species to determine if an enemy takes extra damage.  All of the other modifiers should work based on family.


 * There are a lot of inconsistencies in how creatures are set up, which will likely make things difficult in classifying some of them. I've set up a page at User_talk:Andrew_McLeod/Species which tries to give a clear explanation of how things are set up internally. Andrew McLeod (Freyas) - ArenaNet creature designer 11:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Charr don't have a family? Interesting. How do Disease and Edge of Extinction handle creatures without families? Can a Charr and some other creature without a family trigger EoE on eachother and spread Disease between eachother? -- Gordon Ecker 00:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Just had this pointed out to me. Inconsistent as said, but I guess fine for Prophecies. But I must wonder about GW:EN. Backsword 11:54, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization
Capitalization is currently under discussion here. -- Gordon Ecker 21:48, 27 April 2007 (EDT)

Subspecies versus Organization
Come on, stalled? My auto categorisation for NPCs depend on this! :) Anyway, can we start with hammering out where do we draw the line between a subspecies and an organization? And how it would affect categories? I mean, we need some guidelines on what constitutes a subspecies and what is more appropriate as an organization (or group/clan/tribe/whatever). It has been implied above, such as, are Stone Summit a subspecies of Dwarves? Are Skree harpies a subspecies of Harpies? Are Corsairs a subspecies of Humans? Are Margonites a subspecies of Demons? Are the Mursaat an organization or a species? What about their jade constructs?

I'm primarily coming from a categories perspective. If Stone Summit is an organization, it means Stone Summit Carver belongs to both "Category:Stone Summit NPCs" and "Category:Dwarf NPCs". Similarly, if Skree harpies is a subspecies, the Skree Warblers belong only to "Category:Skree harpies" rather than both "Category:Harpies" and "Category:Skree harpy NPCs". --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Ab.er.rant.
 * Forgot to sign last time :P -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 21:37, 6 May 2007 (EDT)


 * it really is unfortunate that the naming convention is so screwy, but here's my take. for a group like the stone summit, u know that they're led by dwarves even if they have elementals allied to them (do they group together? b/c i don't actually remember whether they do or not). so the "stone summit dwarves" automatically implies dwarves AND elementals b/c of the alliance. for skree harpies and griffon's i'd characterize it the same way. "skree harpies" is a tribe and griffon's are being led by harpies. corsairs are pretty easy...a clan of humans and not subspecies. margonites are a problem for me as i haven't been to doa. do margonites group w/ stygians? if so then margonites are both a subspecies of demon AND an organization. u know they're subspecies b/c eoe doesn't affect both them and stygians but both of them are vulnerable to the +dmg demon slaying. maybe to differentiate, u'd say "margonite army" and "margonite." if they don't group w/ stygians, then i'd say they are just a demon subspecies. mursaat would be a race and an organization. jades would be part of the mursaat organization but not the race b/c their form differs so much.


 * so the categorization would look like this:
 * stone summit carver - "Category:Stone Summit dwarf army NPCs" & "Category:Dwarf NPCs"
 * skree warbler - "Category:Skree harpy tribe NPCs" & "Category:Harpies"
 * skree griffon - "Category:Skree harpy tribe NPCs" & "Category:Griffons"
 * corsair admiral - "Catgory:Corsair NPCs" & "Catgory:Humans"
 * margonite reaper - "Category:Margonite army NPCs" & "Category:Margonite" and margonites are subspecies of "Category:Demon" (this is only if margonites are INDEED an organization btw...)
 * jade armor - "Category:Mursaat army NPCs" & "Category:Mursaat construct"
 * mursaat monk - "Category Mursaat army NPCs" & "Category:Mursaat"


 * does this seem reasonable or no?--Wongba 00:26, 7 May 2007 (EDT)


 * one more thing, i think we should indicate base species, subspecies and organization on the infobox. --Wongba 00:33, 7 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Do you like "army" so much? :P Anyway, yea, they'll go into the infobox when they're finalised. They are necessary for the autocategorisation to become ideal. With such long category names, you aren't likely to get much support though. Stone Summit is Stone Summit, there's no need to mention "dwarf army" specifically. Some ice golems are part of the "Stone Summit" rather than part of the "Stone Summit dwarf army". More elegant. Funny you suggest "Corsair NPCs" yet not "Stone Summit NPCs" :D


 * Same thing with Skree. If you're an American, you'd say "I'm an American", not "I'm an American human". So I'd rather "Skree" be the organization category and "Skree harpy" be the subspecies of "Harpy". Margonites are an ancient race if you look at the lore in Factions. "Mursaat army" sounds very.... icky. I donno, just don't like calling everything an "army". -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 01:27, 7 May 2007 (EDT)


 * well i only used army as a placeholder. if u think that the short version is clear in meaning, that's fine by me. and yeah, if we're putting all this info into the infobox, then the short version makes total sense. (i.e. "Category:Mursaat NPCs and Category: Stone Summit NPCs). i don't really agree w/ u about the skree harpies tho. seems like if there's only one harpy race in the game, that they'd just be harpy. even if they weren't the only harpies, how does skree griffin fit in? the way the rest of the skree are named, a griffin would be a profession or a type of harpy. i suppose if there were lore somewhere (even outside gw) that suppported that idea, i'd go for it, but otherwise it doesn't make sense to me. regarding the margonites, do u mean nightfall lore? i know that margonites are a race, but what i don't know is if they group w/ other species. if they don't, then they'd only be a race and not part of an organization. anyways, i'm not vested in any of my positions... just trying to push things along. --Wongba 02:13, 7 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Yep, I understand where you're coming from. I'm just kinda just spouting off what I'm thinking. For Skree, Skree Griffons are part of the Skree tribe. The Skrees are a harpy tribe with griffon allies in them. Sure, there are only one type of harpy, but that doesn't mean there can't be other harpies. It was problematic calling a griffon a skree harpy, so I'm just suggesting that skree harpy is a species, and a skree is organization.
 * For Margonites... can't remember then. Maybe it was the Crystal Desert lore then. There was mention that the Margonites came before the Elonians seeking Ascension. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 21:28, 7 May 2007 (EDT)
 * JFYI, Skree Griffons and Skree Harpies are the same species, at least as far as EoE and disease are concerned. See here. I'm still not sure about Margonites. After all, they take extra damage from Demonslaying weapons, just like Stygians, and give points from the Demonic Hunt bounty, just like Stygians, yet EoE classifies them as separate. Maybe Rezyk's idea above to use only EoE+disease to distinguish species, with slaying+bounties to distinguish overarching supertypes is worth sticking to. --Dirigible 21:42, 7 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Ooo.. right... I forgot we're talking how the game treats them >.< let me start yet another section... -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 21:48, 7 May 2007 (EDT)

Let's start with column 1
Let's work on it column by column. For the first column, A-F, any particular problems there? Let me start with 2: -- ab.er. rant  21:48, 7 May 2007 (EDT)
 * 1) Is Stone Summit an organisation rather than a species? So there's only one Dwarf species and 2 dwarven organisations (Stone Summit and Deldrimor Dwarves).
 * 2) Are we calling centaur subspecies "Losaru centaur" or "Losaru Centaur"? Bearing in mind that in-game, as pointed out on some other page (can't remember), the latter is used.
 * Just a quick idea. Would it not be possible to check whether stone summit and deldrimor dwarves are of the same species using rotting flesh and EoE in ThK when you have the dwarven guards (and king), and plenty of stone summit around. To me Stone Summit appears to be more of an organisation than a species, but the game may treat them differently. --Indecision 01:00, 8 May 2007 (EDT)

A list
Here's an attempt: User:Rezyk/Sandbox Guild Wars Wiki:Projects/Creature traits

This is trying for a separation of organization from species, and also promoting some things (demon, undead, etc) to attributes. After that, there's very little parent-child relations left, so I went for a complete flattening of the species tree -- no "subspecies" or "superspecies".

I make no claims of accuracy; I made a lot of subjective categorization due to the unknown, of course. This is just shooting for a more robust general form for our system. --Rezyk 07:58, 8 May 2007 (EDT)
 * wow, that musta taken some time. i like your idea of attributes. the Carven Effigy can now be both elemental and undead. the mursaat and jade armors should be in the mursaat organization i think. about undead rurik, i see he doesn't have a species, but wouldn't he be a skeleton? does anyone know if he takes extra dmg from skeletonslaying mods or if he still considered human w/ eoe? also, do we happen to know if awakened gray giants count as giants w/ the giantslayer mod? if eoe affects all awakened AND the awakened gray giants count as giants... ugh. i hope that's not the case.


 * the situation w/ the skree griffins still bugs me even tho i now know how the game treats them. it almost calls for a phenotype/genotype listing but i'm sure we want to avoid that. anyways, generally i like the system. wouldn't mind if that's close to what we end up with.--Wongba 12:45, 8 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Impressive...


 * So "species" becomes more like type, and each NPC can only be of a single species/type. Each NPC can also have one more "attributes", like demons, undead, boss, etc... hmmm... since attribute already means something in GW, may I suggest "trait" instead? Or maybe "aspect", "facet", or "nature" are all possible. One thing that doesn't sit too well with me is Dragon. I can't help but feel that dragon is more a species. But then again, maybe we can just flavour it as being dragon-blooded or something. Depending on how it turns out in the end, it might be good to have "construct" and "fleshy" as attributes (or traits) too. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 01:23, 9 May 2007 (EDT)


 * I changed some stuff according to this discussion, including:
 * Added column for "fleshy" trait. Does anyone know any examples of fleshy not being synonymous with "leaves an exploitable corpse"?
 * Demoted "dragon" from trait to a species list for the dragonslaying mod.
 * some individual stats; added some "?" for questionable anomalies like Rurik
 * Regarding awakened gray giants -- if EoE groups them with other awakened and giantslaying groups them with other giants, then it seems like "giant" should be promoted to trait instead of species.
 * Why should "construct" be a trait? (Is there some game mechanic that refers to that?)
 * --Rezyk 16:17, 9 May 2007 (EDT)
 * regarding giants, if they become a trait, then what would for example to the species category for a hill giant become? they don't seem to have any specific affiliation w/ other types. --Wongba 17:04, 9 May 2007 (EDT)
 * If you have to choose a trait between undead and giants, the trait should be 'undead'. As you can easily see, awakened are tengu, centaur, humans elementals and giants, and maybe even more species. Anyways, all this mess would be easily fixed if creatures could have more than one species. How do you denote the species of a, for example, Dolyak rider Dwarf? They have two, the species of the dwarf and the species of the dolyak. MithranArkanere 18:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I was kinda thinking of Construct as non-fleshy types that are not undead. "Warrior's Construct"? Or is construct more of a species? Regarding the fleshy vs exploitable, do the undead in Jokanur Diggings leave exploitable corpses? Can't remember. And Wongba has a good point on Giant becoming a trait. Maybe Awakened is an affiliation instead? -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 00:25, 10 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Maddened spirits leave corpses. What I don't know is if they can be be poisoned diseases or if they bleed. There are a lot of exceptions, such cases should be just denoted in each particular page. MithranArkanere 18:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I've been interested for a while in the best way to handle species information. I have always thought that species should be a unique variable, i.e. that a species2 variable makes no sense since every NPC can only be one species, but this doesn't appear to be the case. I wonder how the species information is stored in the game? Is species a variable? Or do ArenaNet have a checkbox, so dragon = true, fleshy = true, elemental = true (I'm not sure if that example makes sense)? LordBiro 04:41, 10 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Maybe it's a map of properties. I wonder if one of the devs would take notice and be kind enough to shed some light. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 05:44, 10 May 2007 (EDT)
 * I bugged Emily about this a while ago, no concrete results though. She did mention that she may be able to get us overall species info, but seems it won't be anytime soon. See User talk:Emily Diehl/Miscellaneous archive. --Dirigible 05:49, 10 May 2007 (EDT)

If there's no objections, can we do this the way Rezyk suggested? Rezyk, anything else that should be ironed out before we draft this into the article? -- ab.er. rant  21:15, 14 May 2007 (EDT)


 * I think it's mostly complete enough to start using as a baseline, as long as the fine data isn't treated as rigid/special. I'm sure that there will be cases where EoE proves my grouping guesses wrong, or the community dislikes my naming choices, and we'll have to figure out new details then (like if giants turn out to have different species, etc). --Rezyk 21:52, 14 May 2007 (EDT)
 * I think this'll get more feedback if you replace Species with your sandbox. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 23:33, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
 * Although I like the Rezyk-list, it's huge! Is there some way we can improve readability? I know it's probably not possible, but I was thinking in the lines of an autofilter or something. -- [[Image:User Corrran sig.png|CoRrRan]] (CoRrRan / talk) 17:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hey, the biggest article in main namespace is even 70% larger when editing (and 170% larger for viewing)! ;) Seriously though, I agree it's especially gargantuan as is (which is the main reason I didn't stick it into main namespace; it also could use some more refinement), and I'll try cutting it down somehow. --Rezyk 18:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Do we even need to move it to main namespace? The way I see it, Species is just a list of all the known species in Guild Wars and a list of traits. The individual creatures don't need to go here. They're supposed to go into each of their individual NPC page. The weapon mods obviously go into the weapon upgrades page and the bountie go into, well, Bounty. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 05:23, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * True. --Rezyk 09:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I have my own thoughts on how to do this, but I'd like to see Rezyk's list first. I am unable to, however is I constantly get Err 500 when I try to access the link. Is the page too big or is there a problem on my side? --Karlos 07:52, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I never got any error like that. I've now split it up into User:Rezyk/Sandbox, User:Rezyk/List of nonhuman creatures, and User:Rezyk/List of humans; which ones can you access? Do you get any error with the Localized skill names page? --Rezyk 09:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The list of the non-humans is what doesn't work for me. --Karlos 09:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * That's the big one. How about Localized skill names? --Rezyk 09:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That works. --Karlos 09:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Just checked and the page works for me in IE6, IE7 and Firefox (works as in, I don't get an error). There is an issue for IE users though, you'll need to populate those empty cells with ;&nbsp if you want IE users to be able to see the page correctly.  --Rainith 09:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * *scratches head* I'd think a 500 error would indicate a server side error...but I don't see where the difference would be then. Karlos, can you try viewing it while not logged in? And let us know if you're using something other than IE6/IE7/Firefox of course. --Rezyk 10:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Also try User:Rezyk/List of nonhuman creatures part 1 of 2 and User:Rezyk/List of nonhuman creatures part 2 of 2. (That's all for now; gotta go.) --Rezyk 10:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I am using IE7. Both partial lists worked, the big one still does not work. The Err 500 is instant, as soon as the page is requested, that error is returned. In any case, debugging that is not a priority. I'll give you my thoughts on this issue in a bit. --Karlos 22:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think Dhuum Battle applies to Terrorweb Dryders, but I'm not sure what else. Grasps maybe?

Shall we adopt this?
See Guild Wars Wiki:Projects/Creature traits.

I think it's high-time we adopt this. Unless there are new objections? -- ab.er. rant  08:45, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. And actually using these lists is probably the most reliable way to iron out any issues. --Dirigible 17:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
 * i'm for adoption. otherwise it'll just sit here in limbo forever. -- VVong | BA 17:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Rezyk, to answer your note, I do have considerable input. I am trying to form a tree to post somewhere. I'll try and do it tonight so as not to stall this. --Karlos 19:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds good, thanks. --Rezyk 20:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Alternate Proposal
Ok, I finally got around to documenting all my thoughts on this issue, or at least what I think are all my thoughts.

Please review User:Karlos/Species and give me your thoughts. It differs from Rezyk's in three keys elements:
 * 1) It handles both affiliation and species. I mentioned this above and I thik it is a HUGE issue. Some things (like Carven Effigies triggering Undead Hunt and Elemental Hunt) can be understood perfectly when we recognize that Hunts indicate species OR affiliations (mostly species, obviously).
 * 2) It also takes the confusion out of the whole "Fleshy" issue by recognizing that there can be fleshy undead and unfleshy undead, fleshy elementals and unfleshy elementals, etc.
 * 3) It recognizes anomalies in species classification. i.e. It is highly possible that Explosive Growths were given the "Spirit" arch-type for in-game mechanics purposes (i.e. to make them harder to kill), but at the same time, given the "Plant" species label because they are supposed to be plants (and therefore harm Urgoz). I would not say that getting the message "Target is immune to hexes because it's a spirit" indicates that target foes is a Spirit OR X OR Y. I would say it's a spirit. And then make room for anomalies. Recognize that the game can sometimes have these glitches, and that it doesn't necessarily indicate a NEW species.

Finally, I also account for Trophies and graphical model as well as lore. This is basically a blueprint to follow when we argue about species of things. Anyways, please review and give me your thoughts. Thanks --Karlos 03:04, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * What about indexing creatures that might be of two species? Like Commander Varesh is half-human, half-Margonite, and Dhuum's Dryders are like the Dryders in Tyria, but also Demons. Are we going to have to handle every special case (like Carven Effigies and Explosive Growths were) individually? --Santax (talk · contribs) 20:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't believe there is such a thing (in terms of EoE)... I could be mistaken. However, I am VERY sure you can't do extra damage against Dryders anywhere (Tyria, UW, RoT) with weapons od Demonslaying. So, the assessment that they are demons in Elona is incorrect. You are (in my opinion) mixing species and affiliation because of bounties. If you read the page, it presumes that affiliation and species are NOT the same thing and that some bounties DO trigger on affiliation, not species. Like the Anguish Hunt in DoA. As for Varesh, she is human when she is human and margonite when she is margonite. When you are able to fight her at the end she is margonite and is not human (does not transfer disease back to you). --Karlos 00:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * But wouldn't dropping Demonic Fangs be indicative of being a demon? As far as lore goes anyway, if not game design. --Santax (talk · contribs) 19:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Not if they can't take extra damage from weapons of Demon-slaying. I would say the Terrorweb Dryders are affiliated with the "Demonic" servants of Dhuum in the UW, but are not necessarily demons. Just like a Shadow Beast drops the same type of Dark Remains as all the other Shadow Army units when it's clearly not the same species. --Karlos 20:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Terrorwebs are referred to as demons in the dialogue for various Underworld quests, and drop demonic fangs. Even if Terrorwebs and Dryders in general not demons from a game mechanics perspective, Terrorweb Dryders are demons from a lore perspective, like The Drought. I think the game mechanics species should go in the infobox, with any inconsistancies between game mechanics and lore in the notes and / or trivia sections. -- Gordon Ecker 23:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Same here. Game mechanics should take precedence. -- ab.er. rant [[Image:User Ab.er.rant Sig.png|sig]] 01:42, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think what you are talking about is an EXACT personification of the species vs affiliation thing. Dryders are "demonic servants" but not really "demons." So, their species is Dryder and their affiliation is "Servants of Dhuum" or "allied with Demons." The drought is a Construct and it serves Abaddon. Do you agree with this concept or not? --Karlos 04:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the lore allows creatures like Varesh, the Terrorwebs, the Titans and the Outcasts to exist in the gray area around "demon", allows creatures like Razah and the Sylvari to exist in the gray area around "spirit" and allows some constructs to exist in the gray area around "elemental", but the game mechanics don't. I think that the Drought should be classified as an elemental since it looks like an elemental and is not obviously artificial like the Monoliths or Enchanted, but I agree that Dryders should use Dryder for the infobox and categorization and Titans should use Titan for the infobox and categorization unless testing with EoE or a weapon of demonslaying says they're demons. -- Gordon Ecker 05:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * My general impression is that our two proposals are very much alike -- I would even claim that your points 1, 2, and 3 apply to my proposal as well. Most of the differences seem to be in the details of how we organized/interpreted various species/affiliation groups and criteria (like whether to consider Corrupted Scales as spirits). I like some of your ideas better (and might steal incorporate them into my proposal =), and prefer mine for others (mostly because I think you may end up with too many anomalies; I'll try to point some out in User talk:Karlos/Species).
 * IMO, the main fundamental difference is whether to label the alternate groupings (demon, undead, etc) as traits with a flat species tree, or to use a deep taxonomy tree with arch-species and sub-species. I have a few reasons for preferring the former, but I think it mostly reflects me strongly (over?) prioritizing a simplification of EoE/disease understanding. I'd be curious to know what is generally disliked about the traits approach. --Rezyk 02:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

ArenaNet feedback
For those watching this discussion, there's a lot of relevant developments/discussion at User talk:Linsey Murdock/Species. --Rezyk 10:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Noticed that Linsey mentioned that Aatxes are nightmares, contrary to us treating them as demons so far. Thought I'd jump in the UW to check really quickly. I think the results are interesting:

! Creature || Holy damage || Deathbane || Demonslaying
 * Smite Crawler || No || No || No
 * Bladed Aatxe || No || No || No
 * Grasping Darkness || No || No || No
 * Dying Nightmare || No || No || No
 * Coldfire Night || No || No || No
 * Obsidian Behemoth || No || No || No
 * Chained Soul || No || No || No
 * Charged Blackness || No || No || No
 * Mindblade Spectre || No || No || No
 * Banished Dream Rider || No || No || No
 * Dead Thresher || Yes || No || No
 * Dead Collector || Yes || No || No
 * }
 * --Dirigible 14:11, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Charged Blackness || No || No || No
 * Mindblade Spectre || No || No || No
 * Banished Dream Rider || No || No || No
 * Dead Thresher || Yes || No || No
 * Dead Collector || Yes || No || No
 * }
 * --Dirigible 14:11, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Dead Thresher || Yes || No || No
 * Dead Collector || Yes || No || No
 * }
 * --Dirigible 14:11, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * --Dirigible 14:11, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The more exceptions I see in the species classification the more I think that, instead of saying "species = x" we should say "demon = y", "nightmare = y", or even "holy-damage = y", "deathbane = n". I'm not sure really, but it certainly seems species is not straightforward :) LordBiro 15:41, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * How about species = X, species2 = Y, species3 = Z etc., bounty = A, bounty2 = B with yes / no flags only for holy vulneribility and skill targeting flags (spirit, animated undead, summoned creature, demonic servant of abaddon)? -- Gordon Ecker 21:28, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * species1/2/3 is exactly the kind of thing I'd want to avoid. :/ Firstly, if we actually want to do something when species == demon, then we'd have to check species1, then 2, then 3. Then if we ever want to add another species parameter we would have to alter every area of code that checked what the species1/2/3 parameters were. If we just said demon = true or something then it would never change regardless of how many species the particular creature had. LordBiro 08:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this is more explained by the fact that Demonslaying weapons were introduced in Factions while those creatures existed in Prophecies. I think it's the main reason there is this confusion. I'd take it up with him and ask him why so many quests in the UW refer to the hostile creatures there as demons and demonic over and over and then, in the end, none of them take extra damage from weapons of demon-slaying (he mentioned lore is pretty significant in categorization). Me thinks the answer will be what I mentioned at the start. --Karlos 09:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Army speculation
Here's some speculation on armies, based largely on Andrew's recent statements and the work of others here, at Guild Wars Wiki:Projects/Creature traits, at User:Karlos/Species and over on [gw.gamewikis.org GuildWiki]. -- Gordon Ecker 22:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I read Andrew's comments as saying... There IS no affiliation system. He said that the specific spawner in a specific map or region will do what he fancies. Therefore, I think it is best to note such affiliations on a species by species basis or creature by creature as needed. There is no overall scheme. :(
 * Also, again Gordon, you must separate "affiliation" from "species." There's no "army" of Insects (whom do they serve? The Bug Lord?) as well as Great Beasts. There's no army of undead. The undead in Elona serve/served Palaway, the ones in Kryta serve the Lich Lord. No connection. You are mixing "overarching species type" (like Insects, Undead and Great Beast) with "affiliation". (like White Mantle and Stone Summit). --Karlos 19:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Creature Armor level...
Based on what Andrew said, we finally have some FACTS to add in this stupid page. Creature Armor level scales with level following the same formula as heroes. --Karlos 19:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Shiro'ken
Has there been a consensuses on whether Shiro'ken are are type of Demon or a type of Construct? Currently they are listed on both pages, and while I suppose we could consider them demonic constructs, we should pick a species to categorize them under (for infoboxing purposes). I'd support labeling them all constructs, but I'd prefer a clear resolution before going on a wiki-crusade. - HeWhoIsPale 14:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * They're demons in the Shiro'ken army. -- Gordon Ecker 01:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought their species/type/family was simply Shiro'ken. --Rezyk 11:27, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Exactly what I'm talking about. My support for construct comes from the fact that all Shiro'ken appear to be toned down versions of the "Bound" bosses. i.e. Bound Teinai -> Shiro'ken Elementalist, note the similar skillsets. - [[Image:User HeWhoIsPale sig.PNG]] HeWhoIsPale 18:23, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That's odd ... I was sure that they were demons, but can't find any official statements to that effect, and testing with Wild Blow indicates that demonslaying weapons don't inflict any additional damage. I must have made a mistake last time I tested it. The only official statement I've been able to find is on User talk:Linsey Murdock/Species, which confirms that the bound and construct foes in Factions are Shiro'ken, but doesn't specify whether Shiro'ken is an army, family or both. I've brought it up at User talk:Andrew McLeod/Species. -- Gordon Ecker 01:38, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * What is sure is that they are constructs made in the The Foundry of Failed Creations like the Titans. I recall one talk in where McLeod already stated that they are Demons. But somehow I can't find it again in the search. It looks like it vanished. They were talking about Shiro'ken, and he said they were demons. Since slaying mods are not the best way to test, I think we should try in the Torment, in those quests that get Torment Creatures and Shiro'ken near each other. Torment Creatures are demon for sure. If disease spreads, they are demons, otherwise, they are either their own race or Construct creatures like Titans, in which case we'll have to do the same with Edge of Extinction and Torment titans... MithranArkanere 16:52, 23 November 2007 (UTC)