No horses in Tyria

It occurred to me today that I've not seen any horses in GW. There are centaurs of course, and Iron Horse mine (although it is the name used for trains in the wild west) implies that horses do actually exist on tyria (at least the name does).

However, why haven't we seen any? Is Iron Horse just a made up name, something created by the Stone Summit, and horses don't exist at all? Possibly horses are extinct, or possibly they do exist but we just don't see them in game, an oversight on the part of the developers. I don't think they're even mentioned in any quest text.

On a side note, does anyone know what the Iron Horse actually was? Some sort of tank, or a train as its name suggests?

Thanks

Mazey

maybe they don't it is a made-up world after-all.

The dragons ate all the horses, then went off to sleep for a long time. I hear they are waking up again soon. Someone should tell Zhed he's in trouble.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Centaurs aren't really horses, only half. There were horses at one time, then the stone summit resorted to beasteality and then came centaurs as a result. The centaurs got jealous of all the attention that the horses were getting and killed them all. That is why there are no horses in GW.

Come to think about it there is no Stone Summit women , so who knows.

Whatever the truth about lack of horses, there should be creatures you can ride.
Wagons pack animals and Riding should I hope be in GW2.

Yes I know you can teleport from town to town but that's not always as useful as being able to move rapidly around the countryside.

What makes you think you've never seen a female dwarf? Eh? Eh?

For all other traveling purposes: Dolyak and Moa (a la Chocobo)

Ignoring the trolls and those who take observation as the only lore...

From the Nightfall Manuscripts regarding Centaurs:
It says the Centaurs are like gazelles. Horses arn't even in the same "order" in the categories of animals. Toutatis would know more on this subject than I, but I would have to say that GW Centaurs are slightly modified from the typical centaur

That is, that GW Centaurs are more based off of just four legged beasts that are similar in looks to Horses. But not horses themselves. The closest GW version of the animal Centaurs would be "half of" would be Ntouka I would have to say.

As for the mission name, I'd say it's just a reference and does not mean there are horses in GW.

However, this might be proven wrong for GW2. And it is equally possible horses are just extinct.

Not that A-Net actually focusses on lore... but in the quest "A Sound of Ancient Horns" General Poruk says "This old war horse still knows a thing or two.". Although this quote is referring to himself as a horse it still shows that there is some form of knowledge of a horse... Also some references to horses during the canthan new year by the Court Astrologer..
tl;dr devs fail at lore and enjoy randomly splashing info

There are several small references to "riders", "riding" and cavalry throughout the game, though none specifically mention horses as the mounts. The word horse is used in the game, so it's likely that horses exist or have existed in Tyria. This could mean that horses are extinct, or maybe they're simply not a native species of any of the lands we've visited so far. Perhaps the use of horses as the primary beast of burden in other lands is well known. It could even be they're a rare animal, making it impractical to use them instead of a more common, easily found animal, like a dolyak. It's also possible that the animal Tyrians refer to as "a horse" is an entirely different animal than the horses we know. Until we actually see a horse in game, we really have no way of knowing.

If nothing else, 2014 is the year of the horse, we'll find out if there's a celestial horse then.

All this talk of horses and no one even once thought of the above? If horses were native to any region of the world, it would seem to have been Orr, and I suppose they held a tight grip on them, keeping them within their lands. Meaning that, possibly, they are "extinct" in the sense that they are dead, albeit undead. However, what the Necrid Horseman rides, I believe, is a corrupted version of the horses that may have once existed there.

Honestly now, it's a bit disappointing that no one else pointed this out or brought it up.

I am ashamed to have forgotten about that! I love the undead lore, and I didn't recall that. >_<

And, now that I think of it, isn't there an untargetable horse-like NPC in Elona or something? Or is my mind playing tricks on me...

Well, all animal models seem to be in the Zaishen Menagerie, so if models aside from the Necrid Horseman exist, than it'll be there most likely.

Ah HA! found it!

:edit: dang that's a big piece of concept art!

http://www.wiki.guildwars.com/images...h_mountslr.jpg

And yes, I know that concept art (especially from Utopia) isn't going to be definitive proof of anything, but it's still interesting and pretty! :P . It also shows that the developers had the intention of the existence of horses.

My supposition would be that there are horses in Tyria but not any part we've had access to; maybe in the lands of Utopia as shown in the above concept piece. Kind of like horses in North America, there weren't any until they were brought over by the Europeans. That being the case they might know about horses and their usefulness, hence the comments. But they would be so valuable and expensive, especially in such a war torn area, that we wouldn't see any.

Aha, this guy: http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Zumo_the_Beggar
If he's a beggar and has a horse, then they can't be extinct like the lack of horses and undead horses suggests.

I used to play a game called Two Worlds and one of the fun things in that game were the Horses normal and Undead varieties.

Archery and Spell casting from horseback was fun,as was riding through groups too large or powerful to fight.
There were polearms and the skill to unseat a rider so you had to avoid those or and up unseated.

Knightly combat with lance, recreating the parthian horse archers or even chariot warfare.
All that and more could be used by and against the parties it would make a real difference to outside adventuring as opposed to dungeon delving.

Riding and Swimming are two things I hope for in GW2

Ditto.


Oh, and a distinction between spears and javelins please.

Maybe someone can try to make a compedium of the domicilated animals in Tyria? Except dolyaks there are also yaks and animals looking like ox (or are they are yaks as well?) which can be seen used by ascalonian refugees in the sinematics of the borlis pass mission. Rouge Bull from pre searing quest and buffalos from NF suggest that there were come kinds of cattle like animals. Seems like the horses are just not used anymore.

Javelins are shorter, smaller, versions of Spears, which are pole arms like scythes (i.e., long and usually two-handed). The "spears" a Paragon uses are actually Javelins. Spears are, although toss-able, usually used for melee combat. While Javelins are pretty much always used for ranged combat.

I think Kalidri from GWO did this. Leon would know better, but I will look around. As I know she at least talked about doing it - and this was why she got a NPC in the Halls of Chokhin.

Also, Yak=short hand way of saying Dolyak.

I'd actually be inclined to say that javelins are a type of spear rather than calling them two seperate groups of weapons. Pikes are a contrasting type of spear (which are too big to throw) but are, again, still spears, while your regular multipurpose spear suitable for melee combat or for throwing is simply a 'spear'.

Much like your typical straight slashing sword was simply called a 'sword' until reasonably modern historians started to call it an 'arming sword'* to distinguish from more specific examples like rapiers and scimitars.

*Or in the case of D&D and derived sources, a 'longsword'. The historical longsword actually tended to be a two-hander.

I started like that, then went into saying the more general spear *and Pikes without realizing it* in comparison to the Javelin.