Guild Chat - Episode 103

The following is an unofficial, player-written transcript of the episode. The accuracy of this transcription has not been verified by ArenaNet.

The 103rd episode of Guild Chat aired on July 31, 2020.

Transcription[edit]

Note: The text below was auto-transcribed and not reviewed. It could be that text appears for the wrong speaker.

Rubi Bayer: Hi Tyria and happy Friday. Welcome to Guild chat. Thank you guys for hanging out with us today. I'm your host Ruby and we're going to be talking with some of our devs today about the new ice Brood Saga episode Jaw Mag Rising. We have a lot to talk about. We have a lot of your guys's questions to answer, so let's go ahead and get started. By meeting our first round of dev guests, Kirk, can you talk about what you do here at Arena net and what you worked on for Jormag rising? Is Meghan Ohh surprised?

Kirk Williford: I'm Kirk willeford. I'm a senior designer. Oh yes, senior dinner at Arena net and I was team lead for German rising.

Rubi: Now, Megan.

Meagan Glennon: Yay, I am the map artist for this half of the drizzle wood coast.

Rubi: And Nick, how about you?

Meagan: You're muted.

Nick: Ohh no hi. I am I'm. I'm Nick from Amy Leonard. No, no, I heard you. I I'm nick. I'm a game designer here at the Internet. And I made the citadel siege the actual like citadel and sieging the citadel. Portions of that meta.

Rubi: I was like, is he not hearing you?

Nick Hernandez: And also worked on all the new masteries for this episode, including, and my personal favorite, the Mazuka.

Rubi: We will have to let's can we talk? About that later.

Nick: Yes, yes, we can talk about anything now it's.

Rubi: I I feel like it's important.

Nick: All free to spoil. Uh-huh.

Rubi: Oh my gosh, this looks.

Kirk: So good.

Rubi: Yes, there are. We, you guys, we are spoiling everything. So if you have not played the episode yet and you don't want spoilers or if. You haven't finished. The story yet watch this later on YouTube. We still love you. We will see you in a few days, but since we have a map artist here, why don't we start with the map and talk and we'll go from there. We'll talk about everything. Let's talk a little bit about what were your design goals for the map. Some of the must have features, the feel, things that needed to be done to mesh with gameplay, and you guys can jump into. It's not just Megan.

Meagan: No, it's just me. So we knew that we. Wanted to make the frost citadel. I mean, at the time we were calling it an ice castle, we were definitely making all the frozen jokes that you could possibly think of. So either Bangor or doormat had to sing. Let it go, obviously. And yeah, so that was like the big focal point of the map. And we also knew we wanted to have like some kind of like hidden bases for your ally camps. And we wanted, like, the ability to sneak around the char camps to, like, sabotage them and stuff. And so that was all, like, a part of the main layout. And I also had, like, narrative also kind of filled in with this idea of that we wanted the ice castle to look like it had pulled all of the magic and all of the ice into itself. And like we had the idea of like the the look of receding glaciers. And so that's how we got, like those big canyons, like carved into the ground that are just filled with what we lovingly referred to as stormac juice as much as I know, narrative. But it's so fun.

Rubi: We have like so many.

Nick: Clock it. How many minutes in before we said those words?

Meagan: Like 30 seconds.

Rubi: So many internal assets and just say choir, Mac juice and I'm like, please stop it. Yes, those those are hilarious.

Meagan: Doormat juice in the file name so I made.

Rubi: It. Yeah, you did it. The juice is loose.

Kirk: You might say that the juice is loose, no?

Nick: Ohh no walk that one too. How? How many minutes? How many minutes then? Not even 10. Don't worry. Talking about the juice.

Rubi: Really need lights. We need, like a bingo card or something for stuff like that. Alright. So yeah, we got we got 2 minutes in before draw my juice and I'm OK with that. But you want. So you wanted it to look like a receding glacier that, like, pulled all of that in. Do you want to talk about?

Meagan: Yeah. And like really? Scarred the earth and that's how we got like all those canyons and all that fun stuff. It also made like traversing the map kind of difficult. So we eventually went in and put some. Of those like makeshift bridges and stuff. But it kind of also, like, made it more fun to traverse as well because it was so unusual and so. Different from anything else we've done. And just visually, I thought it looked great with like the glow of the juice. Like coming up from below and just like really highlighting anything and now I'm just getting really Hardy about.

Rubi: It so you know it's it turns out you're an artist and. Ohh but I do have a new favorite sentence for the day in the glow of the juice. Don't drink it if it's glowing, it's not OK. It's a lot like trying to drink lava. It's like, so do you wanna excuse me?

Meagan: Cooler, but it's a. Different player.

Rubi: Oh wow, I remember Ecto cooler. OK, on topic, but let's talk about weird 80s food later. Do you want to go over some of the art that you use for inspiration and preparation?

Meagan: Yeah. Are you going to show my stuff now or?

Rubi: Yeah, let's let's do it.

Meagan: OK. Yeah. So this is a. Sketch that I made when we started, so I I had been looking at like Google images of receding glaciers and then also like some hiking trails cuz we wanted to keep some of the. Green from the other half. Of the drizzle. Wood coats. Just to like break up because like with the ice fruit saga. Like, you're never really just gonna have all snow, right? And so, like, the idea of having drizzle Coast was to have some green and some different. And so, like, yeah, in that concept art, I sketched it to where, like, you can see. As it slowly goes back towards the citadel, stuff starts getting pulled in and stuff starts getting dead and and brown and then eventually white and blue. And then yeah, and that's where the idea of like having the magical. I don't want to say juice again the magical veins.

Rubi: I mean, it's out there. You're ready. You're.

Nick: Ready to put the steel, Megan. You have to.

Meagan: Yeah. So like, yeah. And so, like, the idea was like to kind of like come up with the idea of, like, the the veins of juice going up to the castle to like. Sell that that idea of like it being like, sucking in all the magic, and I keep doing this. Hand motion and I'm just gonna do.

Kirk: It forever but.

Rubi: It's OK, I promise. It's fine. So what's the next one?

Meagan: Ohh, the next one I believe is the concepts that I did of what the castle itself would look like. Yes. So these were some explorations I did of like what it would like, what kind of shape language we were going for. And this is also kind of obviously I had just watched the dark crystal so.

Rubi: So the first couple of. Good choice.

Meagan: Ones are very much like that. And then like like B is getting more towards like we want to look more like a traditional cathedral kind of look. But then eventually we went with something more like D, where it was this very organic and very angular and just straight Spires that just looked. Yeah, organic is mostly what we wanted to go for on something like that. And then lastly, I had a little mood board that I put together with all of that with also a sketch that I did of what the interior might look like and some of the arches as well as on the left hand side there. I have some Google images that I had pulled for inspiration, one of which is the frozen castle. And so I yeah, I had marked this up to give to our. Props team to start making. This castle. And so yeah, these are all. My little duels that I.

Rubi: And they're fantastic. So when you when you put that in? Front of the props team. Were there? What was that process like? Was it? Hey, you've you have beautiful pictures. Here we are only human beings. And cannot create like you've gotten very excited, so calm down. Or was it like, yes, this is great. We can do this.

Meagan: Well, so. I'm not sure how much we've talked about this in the past, but a lot of times Prof Artists don't get concepts at all. We just get an idea or like even like a text document of what they want. So like getting sketches like that, they really appreciate it. And they really liked having the visual direction to go with. And of course like I'm like, I know I wasn't like. You have to. Make this exactly this. It was like this is the idea. This is what I want. To want it. To all flow into each other and look. Organic and. And and like even like in that last image with the the doorway and how it like folds in on itself and like molds into the rest of the castle like that is that's basically like and like this is the direction I would like to go and then they took it and made what they made and. But they honestly thought it was super helpful. So.

Rubi: That's that's good to know for you going forward. Artists, this is a helpful thing to give to your. Prod people, yes. So on a so that's kind of the look in the feel of it on a wider scale of the map in general and how we made this work, Kirk, you talked a little bit about map stitching as far as combining that content and combining the maps, do you want to talk? About how that works.

Kirk: Uh, sure, yeah.

Rubi: What some of the fun things. Were fun things were that you learned?

Kirk: Fun that is definitely the word I would use. Megan. I I'm sure thinks it's just as. Fun. So obviously, you know, no, no, with Iceberg Saga, we've done something a little different than we, you know, have done in the past in that episode one and two was on the same map and in episode three and four on the same map.

Meagan: I'm laughing my head. Off for you.

Kirk: But with that comes its own series of challenges, because obviously those episodes are kind of in flight at the same time, in different stages of development. But. You know you need a map artist to be able to work on their side. So while Tracy was working on episode three side of the map, the southern half, you know, Megan had to be able to work on the northern half of the map and and through the entire time they had to stay in communication and make sure that, you know, the the look and feel is the same. It looks like the same map, right. And then it comes down the challenge of. OK. How do we how do we combine these two things? This goes into a little bit more detail of like. You know how file combining files is risky and dangerous and the boy, but you know we can't had to come up with a process for episode one and two, and that involves, you know, coming up with a series of scripts that are able to take all of our content, objects that designers and and gameplay programmers and such. Put in the map and. You know, combine them with what existed in episode three side and that's a process that we call map stitching cuz then from there Megan is able to push the big button art side and combine the art, the north and southern half of the map. Right. But that button is, you know, it's it's kind of a new thing for. Us so it's. Been a fun learning experience. Fun is definitely the word. You know, things kind of go here and there. You have to do a lot of sanity checks, but it's also just, you know, it's interesting to see and it's always fun when it comes together. It's like, yeah, this feels like one big map now you. Which is exciting for us and it's also exciting to just be like. OK, maybe I didn't have to clean up as much as we thought we would. But you know there is some stuff here and there. You have to clean up. Like it turns out all of the ice in episode three side of you know, when the river was covered in ice, there was some some spawns on those. Those are now floating because that is obviously not there anymore. So things here and there, you kinda have to sanity check at all. But it's just kind of an interesting experience that we've had to learn and try to get through.

Rubi: So Megan wing and I don't want to get. I don't want to get like hyper technical and have you guys like. Start having to. Read out code, but I would like to go into that a little bit. So like when you were working with Tracy, what were some of the pitfalls when your sanity checking and when you're meeting up and when you're going back and forth and making sure everything matches up, what are some of the, what are some of the things that you're looking out for like, hey? We can't do this because this will happen. Or we need to watch out for this.

Meagan: So obviously like where the like the border, the river that we both shared that had to be kind of like synced up pretty early like to determine like where her half ends and my half begins. And then also like what the line? Of that is because. Obviously it's not a straight. River, right. So there was that. But there's also the weird thing about how we do weather in our game. So like the drizzle wood coast, the southern side rains and.

Rubi: The OK does not.

Meagan: Our insight. But when we put them together, the map got confused and made it rain everywhere.

Rubi: Ohh no seriously.

Meagan: I had to. Yeah. And so I had it even inside the caves, it was raining. And so I had to go through be like. Sure. No, no, no.

Rubi: No, so it does not rain in caves. No. OK.

Kirk: One of my favorite parts of the stitching process was the episode 3 and episode four teams duking it out over who got the the waterfall on their side.

Meagan: The waterfall.

Kirk: Yeah, because each team won. It's yeah. Each team wanted to do something with it, you know, and and put like diving goggles and some hidden content and all that stuff in it. I think it ended up going to episode 4. Yes. So, you know, they were able to put the diving goggles and all that good stuff there, but that was just a kind of a funny thing. You know, it's like I want the waterfall. No, we want the water. OK, fine. You can have.

Meagan: Yeah. Yeah, the arches. As well, actually, where we fought over the homestead.

Rubi: Oh really? So he fought for what he pixelized for a second.

Meagan: We were the. And we fought over the haunted story. Ohh yeah.

Rubi: So how do you decide who gets it? Is it just like?

Meagan: Rock, paper, scissors.

Rubi: Flipping a coin. Rock, paper, scissors. OK, that's valid.

Meagan: No, it's just it it really like. The more technical I guess or like. Judicial way of doing it was like we actually sat down was like, alright, which one? Needs the content, right? So.

Rubi: That makes that absent makes sense.

Meagan: So yeah, let's make favors.

Rubi: So what we're maybe a question for Kirk, what were some of the most valuable things that you learned? Excuse me through map stitching, how did, how did that process, what did that process teach you that will help you? Going forward.

Kirk: Sure. Yeah. The big one, it was particularly interesting for for drizzle Wood Coast, because episode Threes had its own big map meta, you know? And then we were trying to do play tests of that meta. And then the episode 4 Meta, but they weren't in the same map files technically yet. So it was hard to really get a full sense of the entire thing. And then once we got that map stitching combined and done and was able to run through the entire map in one play test, that really changed kind of the feel of it. So you know that changed the feedback that we were getting and we iterated on that you know to try to make it feel better. Now that we know what it feels like as one piece. So just trying to figure out how to. To get that done sooner is a a a good learning experience for us moving forward and just some other things here and there. You know, like naming conventions, a lot of folks name their things different ways, so just trying to figure out ways to make that consistent, if at all possible, something in particular was we try to share our this is a little technical. We try to share some of our scripts. So we don't have to. Built reinvent the wheel a bunch of times. Code side, you know. And so when we would make a change on the three side, it could impact fours and that could cause their build to break because their build was missing something that ours had and it was kind. Interesting to deal with that a lot and we had to kind of figure out the best way to do that. And whereas if we know that we are changing a file that four was episode four was using, we'd have to make sure that we let the episode 14 know to prevent long delays or of builds getting through and all that good stuff.

Rubi: Yeah, just to stop something from breaking. Yeah. All right. Well, do you guys want to probably Megan, do you guys want to talk about other things that you might have put in the map, like names or? I guess German.

Meagan: I guess that we can finally address the great mystery of the Dan in the map.

Rubi: So I have a new favorite sentence.

Nick: Many days.

Meagan: So several people have found the Dan, and the mystery is who is Dan? I am Dan now. I'm Dan Dan.

Rubi: Is this like an I? Am Spartacus thing I am doing yes.

Meagan: It is. It's very similar. So Dan was the map artist for Thunderhead. He put his name in the snow in Thunderhead, and that was the first time it was found. And then he left the company and in his honor, I continued the tradition of putting his name in the map because it was funny. And then someone made a fun conspiracy theory video about it, and I thought it was the funniest thing I've ever seen. And so obviously I had to do it again.

Rubi: So in memory of Dan. Thank you, Dan. We miss you. Yes. Ah, I love that. UM. That's for that. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Why don't we talk about the meta? Hey. Yeah, see how well that worked out? Yeah. So, yeah, we talked about. We talked about stitching the map together itself. But you also had to put. Two metas together. How? Yeah. How did you even start after you just looked at this giant wall of Madam? Like, I don't know. Then what came next? And any of you can answer that.

Kirk: I can start the big part of that one, you know, as I I was the one who built a lot of the backbone of episode 3 meta. So going in and trying to figure out how to plug that in for, for, to make it cohesive, a lot of things were based. Based on assumptions you know I tried when we were doing episode threes to put in some things in the scripts that we could easily adjust. Numerically or triggers or what have you. In four side, you know it's just like essentially a trigger that says is Episode 4 released? If so, do it this way. Otherwise, don't do it that way. You know trying to. Kind of nip that in the bud early if we could, knowing that that was kind of coming and then moving to how when we finally did start. Combining the two, you know it came down to well this this site on its. Felt this way, this side on his own felt this way. When you combine them, they feel completely different. That might be good. That might not so good, right? So we have to iterate on that and find ways to have the feel it of it be cohesive, but also not tedious in the sense that you're doing the same thing again. You know, we didn't they they feel different. But it still accomplishes one of the goals. You know, if it feels like you're doing a little bit more covert stuff behind enemy lines, you know you're not doing in a linear progression. So it's it's similar but different, right? Is the the big kind of go to phrase I would use, but then going into the citadel, right, you know? Having the all. Additionally, plug into a big awesome frost citadel. Siege is its own, its own craziness, and obviously Nick, you should. I'll let you go into more detail on that one.

Nick: Sure, you know, like Kirk mentioned earlier about how like we once we switch the maps together, it was pretty much just like we would have meta play tests. I think like every single week where we were just running through the entire thing or half of the thing, you know like half of the thing ones we're focused more on like the Citadel.

Rubi: Yes, please.

Nick: Part of the siege itself, and kind of like how all that stuff flowed. And then there was, like, now let's see what happens when three goes into four. And I think a lot of the challenge when it came to like the episode four side was kind of trying to figure out. Like this is a very dense map, right? There's a lot of content. There's a lot of like like fast-paced stuff and there's just a lot of like rewards for side content and trying to figure out a balance between, like how much time you invest in a specific step or a specific goal. And then like how much you get rewarded for that level of investment. Versus like how much we want things to impact versus UM. Like impact versus like allow it to just. Kind of be brushed over, I think were things that required a lot of like fine tuning and just constant iteration, especially because like once we stuck the episode three and four sides together and we ran through it, there was a lot of like pulling back. We had to do on on things. And set it up specifically to make sure that people weren't getting, like, way more fatigued because of the fact that it's like. This boss has like 4 million more health than it than it was supposed to, so then they're just, you know, pressing one on this boss for like 4 more minutes than they should have, or something along those lines. Yeah, it's it's a really interesting balancing act. Yeah, but.

Kirk: No, no.

Nick: We we we made. Sure, that that didn't happen. So there is no boss that I'm aware of that you have. You press one on for that much time, if that.

Rubi: Makes sense. No boss has an extra 4 million health by mistake. Confirmed.

Kirk: I mean, that was. That was definitely kudos to Nick too, because we were putting together like like you said these these weekly play tests, you know, and it all came down till we go through episode three side we go through the Tribune side and we get to the Citadel. And trying to manage. Fatigue levels as well as you know. Like the trying to have bosses that feel unique and and awesome and stand alone but also, you know, lead into what you do in the next room in the next room, there's a lot of iteration there, you know. And Nick did a great job of following with, you know, following up with folks on their feedback, getting to the root of all of that stuff and iterating on it rapidly and, you know, getting it in the state that we were able to run it. And the next week. And it's like, yeah, this this is this is it, right this this works. Let's do it. You know, so.

Nick: To kind. Of yeah. Give a give a. Give a counter good job to Kirk. The tribunes also are a lot of iteration that like I think the tribunes design wise like. The actual structure and the layout of how they functioned was just kind of like. Twist it and turned a bunch to try to help kind of mess stuff together and you know that like that. Was that like a lot, a large part of that was Kirk just, you know, kind of taking the time to like also put pass through all the feedback, look at kind of how this entire thing was structured and then like. Like it's basically like recurving a mountain as there are like actual things living on said Mountain without, you know, murdering everything. I think you did a. Great job. You didn't murder sex.

Rubi: Ohh gosh.

Kirk: Communication is the key here, you know.

Nick: Basically, a lot of talking. There is so much. Talking is insane.

Rubi: So can we?

Kirk: And then we'd ask for a new like a new room. And Megan, would you know.

Rubi: OK, ohh no fine.

Nick: Mm-hmm. So much yelling.

Rubi: I want to ask I want to ask about some of that talking and some of the feedback without without getting too much into the weeds. Can you guys talk about during those play tests, some of the things that you found that needed to be changed? And ohh this isn't OK, this feels terrible or this is just straight up broken. Are there things that stood out? You guys are just like. There was just so much.

Kirk: Yeah, I I can give an example of the Tribune phase, like Nick said, is one that went through a lot of iteration. Once we combined the maps, we know that we wanted to have the field be similar. Like I said before of taking control of sectors. But how you do so we want it to be different. And you know, it's like we tried a couple things. Things I won't go into too much detail there, you know. It's like, do, do we have this be linear where you start at the the dominions for each sector with the Iron Tribune and then move to one move to one move to one where it's just a guaranteed flow and a path. Does that feel good? Well you know it's like that just feels a little more tedious and not as open as we'd like. The side of the map to be. OK, let's try doing it again and say OK, well, the first one will be dead in the sense that, you know you you cross the bridge with with your team and you take out this one person and that instills the idea of, yeah, you, you kill tribune to control the sector. How do you get the attention of that tribunes spread out, do do events get those? The the attention of that tribune and take them down. Control the sector. So it's just that one in particular went through quite a bit of iteration just from from early on, you know, and from the the early stages of of Episode 4's development.

Rubi: That makes sense. One thing specifically that you had mentioned, Kirk was trying to get the floor AOE warnings for the clause beam attack just right. Yeah. And you put it in the notes, man.

Kirk: It's true. I did put it in the notes just cause that was one of those things like. It's one of those things that you see in games, not just Guild Wars two, but games like this is this was easy, right? It's like this wasn't actually as easy as it looks, just cause, you know, the claw of Germany is a giant beast that shoots a giant laser and it rotates in the sense that it's climbing all the Spires. And those markers have to be done in a very. Mathematical way to to make sense, especially when it's on an arc. You know, so that one, I think that one in particular since it's it's again a little technical the way that that one actually works is the beam is an effect that is playing. From where the claws mouth is attached to an invisible character that is spawned on the ground that runs in the direction of the arc, right? Those are what we call flux effects and to time that you have to make sure that the invisible creature is running at the right speed to time when the damage is happening.

Rubi: Oh my gosh.

Kirk: And then figure out how to stack those warning markers to to make sense and be readable, and that was one of them. You know, like in play tests that that marker wasn't there for a while and we would just suddenly get wrecked by a laser. It's like, yeah, that this dragon feels very powerful cause of said laser. But I wish I had a little bit more notice, you know. That's we try to. Give a little bit of warning with those kinds of attacks and that the options was find a way to make a warning effect work or cut the damage and. Feeling that I think it is fitting for a dragon of that size to wreck people with lasers, you know it's. Like, OK, let's. Spend a little bit of time time, box it and see if we can get an. Effect working to. Warn the attack. You know all of that just for one little thing. You know, just game development. Sometimes, but game development.

Rubi: Nothing's nothing's ever simple. So I I do want to mention that getting a little technical is always, always, always OK, so don't feel bad about that. A little technical is great. I do have. I do have a tiny terminology question. You said you have to time box it and that's not a phrase we've used on the show before, so. It's exactly what it sounds like. OK.

Kirk: Essentially, yes. You know, in the grand scheme of game development, especially living world, giving that you know we're on pretty fast development cycles. Yeah, you only have so much time to to get something in and ready to go because it needs to be tested. It needs to be played, not just play tested, but QA tested. Right. You know, everyone has our deadlines that we have to work on. And this is a case of. Let's see. If we have an. Can we get this working right? Time box it in the sense that I give myself maybe 2-2 or three hours and they say if I can get it working and those that that amount of time that's good and we'll move forward with it. Otherwise let's move on with Plan B, right, cuz otherwise nothing would ever ship ever. And obviously producers are a big reason why we ship things. Over and that's something that they tried to instill in in the design team is, you know, try to time. Box this stuff because if we don't try to block out those times, we'll be working on one boss fight for eight months and it's just nothing else. Is gonna get done right? So.

Rubi: We love you producers. Thank you guys. Yes. So Nick, last week we talked a little bit about the club door Mag and The Citadel, but we couldn't talk too much because it wasn't live. Now that it's live, how do you, how do you feel about it? How do you have? I know you've been in there watching people play.

Nick: You so much and also like reading through the forms and things like that. I have a problem.

Rubi: Your problem is that your game dev it's fine.

Nick: It's it's. Yeah, I'm too much of A game, Dev. I think, like when it comes to like if we're, if we're talking about like reception and and player player reaction like I like, I am overwhelmed at the amount of like positive feedback that has been given to the Citadel and. You know the quality that comes after it in that entire kind of like sequence. There was, like, there were a lot of lofty goals that we kind of tossed into that, and there was a lot of back and forth, a lot of iteration. There was so many times where we. Would like like the tank like the tank fight and the failings in particular went through so many iterations that it was insane. And you know, like this is. Like having a instance, see style like. Hopefully raid Esque feeling in the open. The world you know, kind of having this very cinematic esque directed experience towards the end it like I said like there are lofty goals and to see people actually kind of like enjoying that was. It it just it, it felt great I guess is is the best way to put it. Yeah, because that that that took so much work. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, you know, I I'm appreciative. Of course, there always things to learn. And there are things that I wish it could have been better. But you know, it's. It's it's good to to take the W's when you get them and I feel like this one is good. Next time was a W yeah. At at some point I can go into more like like. I think we were talking about iteration stuff earlier and I can go a bit more into like what those iterations look like for the Citadel if we want to do a deep dive, but I'll I'll hold on until you give me the. Go ahead.

Rubi: This is me giving you. The go ahead I want. To I want to touch on some of the. Specific features that you. Just mentioned, but first, let's let's talk about let's talk about that a little bit.

Nick: Got it. OK. Nick, about about what? Sorry. You said you said. About it and I'm. Like what? Which what is it, right?

Rubi: It you get to decide, no, let's talk about the citadel and what you learned and that kind of thing.

Nick: Got it. Yeah. So I guess it is. We'll talk like we mentioned, we mentioned the actual siege on the Citadel a lot during the preview Kill chat. So I'm gonna be focusing on one citadel itself, since that's the area where there were a lot more lofty goals and more duration. And and I'll just kind of go really quickly. Room to room, the first room with the failings, that one for a very long time actually had. Like First off we kind of needed to do a lot of like. Like, I think, like Megan mentioned earlier, look dev stuff, but look dev stuff from a design standpoint of like like what, what does this look like the second you get in, right, what is what? This what is? The thing that we are trying to convey, what is the mechanic that we want people to see immediately? What is the goal that we want them to hit to hit and that is something that you will see kind of laid out throughout each area. And for the failings, right? That room initially was an actual like a line of failings that stretched across the room and then they would. March forward. And like they would March forward and then stop and then March forward and then stop and then March forward and then stop and what that would do is like it would, it would try to give that feeling of like an actual like, like Viking Esque, Nordic style like failings line. But the problem with that is that our. Our API's and our behaviors and kind of the way scripting languages work made it extremely difficult to be able to like close those gaps, right? If somebody would break through a specific piece or. Or like you know, players are very crafty. So it's like I'm gonna say dodge through or jump over. And because of that, like, we had to kind of change the way that they function to change the way that they that they kind of were laid out in this room while still keeping that core goal of creating these enemies that feel. You know very, very combat like combat. Useful if that makes sense, and that's what rooms like. That's what the failings room was like. So I'll hit pause just in case Kirk wants to weigh in or. Megan, or whoever. Kirk. Megan.

Rubi: Go, Kirk.

Kirk: Ohh, I think Nick. Nick nailed it.

Meagan: Well, I won't. I mean, I could touch on a little bit.

Rubi: Good job. Kirk, good job, Nick Kirk.

Meagan: Of the changes. So we originally didn't have any of the metal in the. In the citadel like it was all ice. And then we were like, you know what the char have been here for a while, so. I think would. Have you know? Put their own decorative flair on it and it certainly added a bunch like a new level of for like people to. Get up on. The next level and. Get over the tank and unfortunately that also meant they could skip the. Links so. We had to take it out. We had to take it out in the first room, or at least not allow you to really go up there. So that was a fun troubleshooting thing where it's like, hey, let's put in all these new levels to have all these new places that players can go. Ohh. Oops, that breaks everything yo.

Nick: And there there was definitely a lot of like back and forth between Megan and I when it comes to, like, the entirety of this of this castle and citadel, but you'll see. Like if we actually go into the the next room, the tank room. Right. The challenge with that one was like we got this new technology with to allow for moving prop bosses to or prop bosses to. Be able to. Move. So it's like how do we how do we highlight that? How do we also highlight like the narrative goal of like these char have like you know? Stronger weapons they they have like they have members of really strong legions that would have new shiny toys that people you know would kind of. Be able to see. So yeah, like the initial iteration was like we have this tank, right? And like we just wanted to keep it really base. So it's like it starts on one end and it's like you just got in here and there's a giant door slash portal on the other side. And this tank's about to like like hey everybody, your entire army is here, guess what we're about to send this giant tank out of this castle. Into your main base. And and heck it up. So everybody is like, oh, no punch, punch, punch. We gotta punch this before it gets out of here. But the problem with that was that it also created a like, a failure state, right, which we want to be really careful with failure states in this portion. Like at the end of this meta, because it would really feel bad if you got this far. And then you failed. On what wasn't going to be the, you know, the the final fight, the final, the climactic moment. From our implementation. So we then iterated on it and changed it into kind of like the tank doesn't leave the room. The tank is just like it's it's a big boss, it's a, it's a. It's a weapon that they're gonna utilize to to stop you. You just happen to walk into its garage pretty much and then you fight. It so then. We had it like going around in a circle. Spray it and. We were like, well, how do we? How do we? Kind of stop this, right? Like like, what is the mechanic here? So we were playing a lot with like stalactites both in the first iteration and second iteration where it's like you would actually break off the stalactites in the ceiling and then like you would have them crash in front of the. The tank and stop. But the problem with that was that our prop to prop. Kind of like visualization when it comes to this kind of stuff is really it's not as well as not as well developed as we would need it to be to like look good and kind of get that like artistic goal set and visualization that we usually get. So we kind of had to scrap. That and then. It was basically peeling back the layers and getting down to what was the what is the main thing that we want to do here and the main thing was get the get a tank that you can stand on and punch and it drives around and is big and bad and shoots a lot of stuff. So at the end of the day we had it like drive around and I built a bunch of. Skills that basically made it go big. Boom. And also a shout out to Benjamin Arnold, who I'm sure everybody's familiar with who definitely helped me with a lot of those skills and getting the the things locked down and also kind. Of helping the tank and all of its parts, consider spatially where it needs to share. Deals and actually Kirk, like shout to Kirk as well because he had a really good idea when it came to how the tank moved about like it used to move in the circle and then Kirk was like, what if we just make a Figure 8 and what that did was that allowed us to have, like, specific moments where the big shot where like, you kind of walk like, where it just shoots a giant line of like. Missile fireball things through the room and just causes like mass devastation. Like it. It allowed for good visual timing on that. Alright, let me speed up then with the conversion chamber, there was a lot more conversation with Megan because, you know, this is gonna this was like the big cinematic moment where you actually get to visualize what the area kind of like, what the conversion area is, but also kind of keeping on those main goals of like you walk in and you have an. Understanding like everything. Everything that you kind of need to deal with. Is in front of you, which also going back to the tank. I I purposely made sure the tank wasn't in view in insight because I wanted people to go whoa and every single time I play to play every single time I play through it online, there's always somebody. That goes whoa. Big tank and they're like watch out. It's like bam, giant. Giant Lake just flood of missile destruction. So like with the conversion chamber, there's a lot of conversation around like we walk in and it's like you'd see the the machines, but then you'll see the conversion chamber in the background. And it was like, ask me and I was like, is there any way we can take the conversion chamber and we can actually lift it like? This like this beautiful image that. You see here and the reasoning for that was because we wanted to create like a level distinction. As well to show like this is the focal area that you kind of need to get into, but then it's like OK how how do we stop people from being able to get to that and then? Well, it's like frost. These frost lesion have these giant like this giant bubble. So let's create that and then like as you can see in this right here on the in the picture like it kind of shows you what the main goal sets are which are there are machines, there's a thing in the middle and that is your main goal. But how do you get to that goal, right? How you bring down the shield? So like, shout out to Megan as she sits in. This room. Got to tell her how? How? Happy I am. That she was my map artist because she did an amazing job like with with the turn around and. Kind of like putting up with me being like, hey, so can we take this entire section and move it? Up or or. Like can we swap these things out? Because what it really allowed for us to do is create like a space where 80 people can exist and fight the things they need to fight and still feel like they're all working towards singular goal without feeling. They're sitting right on top of each other because you know, it's. It's hard to like have an instance with 80 people in it, and yeah, that that's pretty much it. I think like in in the third room, it was like kind of a secondary failing slash merging of like allowing people to understand that the call was coming right and the claw has been a threat, but now it's. About to be a much bigger threat. And having that really kind of like like and Mary is all the mechanics of what you see throughout the citadel with like the juice and all the juice that's everywhere. And then also like the failings. And then like, juicing the claw and that room particularly. It's very interesting and difficult cause we actually had like too many failings at one point like we have multiple lines and then as we iterated through, we're like that that these are just like there's way too many hard blocks. You need to cut some of this out. And then it's like the juice should, like blow up sooner and then it's like, well, how do we have these pipes destroying? And it's like clock comes in, rips that stuff blows. Stuff up. UM, it's all great. And of course the juice, because everybody is aware of in Room 2 was really interesting because there was a bunch of laying out of stuff. Like where does this just go right? Are there safe areas or not safe areas? How do we kind of do that stuff? And if you actually look at this picture right here, it's like. That's what it looks like. If nobody has done. Like like if nobody has used the the the collector at all. So I wanted to create safe spaces where it's like where it makes sense it's like. If, like these are greats. The juice is a liquid liquid go through grates. People will stand there.

Rubi: This is fair, yeah.

Nick: And be big.

Meagan: Thank you, Megan, for putting greets in there.

Nick: Yeah, thank you. Maybe bring the. Gates in there. Excellent idea. Excellent.

Kirk: Listen, just like those, just like those things.

Nick: On the floor, you're great.

Rubi: No, I like. It it's OK. Let me state that.

Nick: Was good. Thank you. And later on in the chat, I'll talk a little bit more about like the tank itself and like the fans themselves. But for now I think that's.

Rubi: That works.

Kirk: I will say I may add on one thing. My favorite part of I and I won't. I won't ever forget the first time in the tank room. We're play testing it that someone got ran over by the tank and then their body just kept getting pushed along like a snowplow.

Nick: That still happens on life today.

Rubi: Sitting here. Yeah. Wait, it does.

Kirk: That moment. Was just.

Nick: Yeah, it still does that. If somebody were to die on the tank, they get snow plowed forward. So it's basically the tank is like collecting.

Kirk: It's a yes.

Nick: The bodies of the dead as.

Kirk: It goes around an. Plow moments and you got kool-aid man moments and those are two of my favorite moments of that matter.

Nick: I wanted things to go boom and I like, I think for this title itself, the biggest goal that I wanted to reach or hit on was.

Rubi: I love it.

Nick: Like you were doing damage to this area and I wanted to visualize that damage, but also I wanted to people to kind of get the like actions have consequences of it as well. So that's why the juice comes into play, right. You break these machines what the stuff is spilling out and guess what it hurts. So you gotta figure out a way to mitigate it. And also you just read all this stuff but now the place is actually falling apart. You destroyed all the stuff, right? You can't. You can't pull out. I mean, support in the House and expect it. To just stay there. And yeah, uh, UPS the the actual driving cord part was amazing. And I also didn't know about that and. Then I laughed so hard when it happened. Version gameplay for the win.

Rubi: Yes. Speaking of emergent Speaking of all the things Speaking of emerging gunplay, can we talk about the meta zooka because that had so.

Meagan: Looking up Cooley.

Nick: Yes, yes we can.

Rubi: That was a whole thing.

Nick: Yeah, during.

Rubi: So what is the what? Is the meta zooka and how did it come to be? What's it for?

Nick: Yeah. So the metazoa is the new item that you can acquire within the actual our Legion waste station. That you can just, like interact with pickup and it's meta sooka and. What the initial goal was was to kind of like. The very first iteration of this this also went through a bunch of different versions. Very first iteration was of. This was like we wanted something that was kind of like that utilized that model that we had gotten for for episode or for the Wild Card release. And then kind of like play on it. So I was going to. Build like a rocket launcher, but then it's like, well, how do we? So I built a rocket launcher and it's like, how do we get this into? To the actual feeling of the episode and kind of have it blend and be married into everything else, cause like it's one thing to build something and it's another thing to build it in a way that feels integral and holistic when compared to everything else that within the release. So we got a bunch of feedback from leadership that was like find a way to incorporate it into the waystation. Stuff because it was at first going to be its own. And then, uh, I think we talked a lot about, uh, like the trifecta, right? You look at the MP, those bunch of C, you look at the remote charge, it does much damage. So then we were like, OK, well if we what if we made this healing like? Rocket launcher, right? Like huge inspiration like like the the initial inspirations were like I wanted to marry kind of like Team Fortress two kind of like rocket jump, esque feel stuff with like. Overwatch, Anna and Farah. And just kind of get that mobility feeling and we wanted to make sure that this thing because it is a bundle, didn't like cause like having a singular healing skill feels like is is useful. But when you actually kind of like have options and a new dynamic it's. A lot more useful. We wanted there to be multiple skills, but the problem with that is that you can't have multiple skills on the ground because whenever you give a player bundle something that we need to consider is like how long are these people gonna be holding the bundle? How long are we planning on like having them invest their time into this? Because at the end of the day, like players have invested much. Time into their gear and skills. And they like using their gear and skills, and they know how to use their gear and skills, so pulling them into something else needs to feel rewarding, which is also something that we like had to spend a lot of time with when it came to the vacuum. Because those are also a bundle, but that one with that one, you're on the ground with this one. What we decided to do is we decided to have the gameplay element hit on something that we don't really have, which is. Like air play. So you get shot into the air and then you activate the slow fall or your slow fall gets activated with the parachute, and then you have the ability to rain. Healing chaos on all your friends. It's great. It's great, but also the main thing is just I wanted something that would shoot you up in the air like it's like a like a Springer without you. Can use a Springer, so yeah.

Rubi: That's that. That's fantastic.

Nick: Yeah. And I think that kind of covers all of the iterations like it was a rocket launcher and then it needed to become a rocket. Launcher that heals. And then it become a rocket launcher that it heals that didn't interfere with Cork input loop.

Rubi: That's fair. So when you were designing it, when you were working on it, you had, you did have some iterations and some things that you had to fix like. Shooting people too high in the.

Nick: Air. Yes. Oh, my God. There were multiple times where, uh, where, like. Ah. So when I when I was working on it shout out to Joel again always Joel. Because him and I were working on the advanced movement stuff because it actually uses a lot of the tech. From mounts which is separate from like your standard movement. Good stuff. And we kind of had to tweak a lot of it. So we had went through like multiple kind of like we went through multiple iterations on like how to show up in the air and a lot of them were.

Rubi: Right.

Nick: Basically like you. Would get like shot up into the air, but then you would like come back down and you get shot up into the air again because of how the code would work or sometimes. You it would actually store your. You're like upward momentum. Velocity. So what happened is like if you jumped. And then did it. Uh, and then tried to do it again. It would actually have, like, kept all that together and then Choo Choo straight up to the top of the sky box because it's. Basically just like. Guess what? It multiplies and then just go right up into the air and, like, hit the sky box and just stay there. So it just reminded me of like Wiley Coyote and things like that. And there was also, like emergent game play stuff. I think I kind of mentioned that word a little earlier, which for anybody who doesn't know emerging gameplay, is basically when something kind of like. When when a thing that you make interacts with other things in a way that you wouldn't necessarily like expected for the most part, but it leads it yield, it leads to good experiences. So during the play tests, when people were using the mazuka, somebody actually shot themselves up into the air, but they shot themselves up into a lay line. And what happened was that the lay line. Actually grabbed their parachute and sent them on the through the lay line, which was. Absolutely bonkers. And when somebody told me that was like what? Yes, so that. But of course, there were issues that came with that too. A lot of like, visual stuttering. So we worked to make sure that like, it can interact with things like the updraft which you. And also. Other things, like anything that uses our wind technology and and yeah, leylands and updrafts and that that stuff was so exciting because it opens up so many more avenues for fun experiences and gameplay, yeah.

Rubi: What about? What about rocket jump plus tonics equals what? Some tonics.

Nick: Rocket jumps plus 10 rocket jumps, plus 10X equaled a very bad time. So unfortunately we had to we had to disable the meta zuka being able to be used alongside like transforms and tonics. So like if you're in your Reaper shroud, you're not able to use it. If you were in. I think like maybe your soldiers format remember correctly or if you're using a tonic, even if it's a combat tonic. We ran into a bunch of issues. Use where where it just cause a bunch of bugs, so we had to kind of just like make a hard decision to. Unfortunately, leave those. Things out, but it like it looked cool with some of them like I think there was a toya that like doing a play test. Somebody was using a choyo and then it was just Troy with a rocket. Launcher and then the. God, no, it's. Troya like the Rockets. And I don't think we can. Actually I we had a picture of it, but I think unfortunately it was too low res for us to be. Able to utilize or like. Show on the stream. So. So yeah, it was, it was pretty. But unfortunately we do have to make decisions like that sometimes. And it's like even though it would have been really cool. Yeah, it didn't. It wasn't able to be something you could ship with.

Meagan: It did not work well.

Kirk: My favorite was turning into a chair and shooting rockets personally.

Nick: Oh my God. Yes, yes.

Rubi: Are you serious? Can we put, like just that? Again, because I love that I. Want to be a. Chair with a rocket launcher that. Would make me. That's like the best improvised weapon. Right there, look.

Kirk: They got mad, too many, too many people sitting on them. Chairs rise up.

Meagan: Because you can, like, come down and like. Chair like, it's hustling.

Nick: No. So actually the chair, like the chair, would actually give you your parachute. No. Yeah. Like, so you would be following, like, yeah, it would be a chair shoot. So you'd be sitting, like, on your chair, just really enjoying it as, like, you were floating down.

Rubi: Cherish. Shoot. OK, I'm I I I will. Make my peace with the fact that I'm probably not. Going to get. This, but it sounds fantastic, so I do I want to hit on a couple of other quick things and then we have a handful of your questions that I want you guys to see if you can answer. Nick, we talked about the tank. In the tank room and. During development, there were it was like covered in Turkey, Raptors and we talked about player snow, snow, plowing and sometimes it sank into the ground. So yes.

Nick: So the tank itself is actually a mismatch of different prop bosses and props stuck together, like once again shot James Barwick, who didn't. Amazing job rolling with my crazy idea, which was basically can we take this model? Can we take all these pieces and then break them apart? Just break them up. So that way I can have different things looking at only like like one or two States and I don't have to have my prop boss looking at like 15 different conditions because that's kind of where our prop bosses work. They're basically state machines. And then kind of like it rolls through a cycle and it then checks like what, which is the best state to go into next? More like which state? Should I be? In so by breaking everything up and having each. Piece kind of. Own its own tactics, own its own. But it's like responsibility, like they're basically just actors in a play, right? And they're like, the tank itself is a play, so I suck them all together. And that took a lot of, like, finagling and and fine work. And early iteration, I actually used Turkey Raptors, which are our giant Raptors that look like turkeys. I don't know, do we have the image for that one? OK, that's unfortunate, but. OK, got it. So yeah, with the Turkey Raptor, yeah, with the Turkey Raptor as they were like, I actually had them mounted onto the thing. So basically it was like an old version of the tank with a bunch of trackers, trackers stuck to them. And then when it comes to the tank sinking more specifically, it's actually like I said, like it's a giant prop. And because of that. The way that we move it around the world needs to be very specific and a lot of time to like. Polish that up. And it also led to a lot of bugs when we were trying to figure out how to make things work. A very specific way. So at certain points I would make like I would change a specific value or I would swap who an owner was, and then it would lead to things like the video that. You will see in a second. Where the tank actually. Would start going on its path, but then it was on the rotation and then it would just sink into the ground and disappear forever. And what it was actually doing was that it was it like at points it would forget where it was going to go so it would automatically default to to zero and zero on our map is like.

Meagan: OK.

Nick: In the center of in the middle of nowhere. So like, there was a lot of to figure out how to stop it from doing things like that of like, just going off into certain parts of the map and they like, bye. Never. Or when it blew up specifically having it understand because when they when our gadgets die like they, they forget a lot of stuff. They like a lot of the considerations that they have just kind of get cleaned up because it's like I don't need you anymore. You're dead. But because this is a prop boss and it's a piece of collision in the world. You needed it to remember that. So what happened is like it would just vanish and everybody be like, where did it go and? I'd be like one second. And then it just. Come zooming right back into where it was supposed to be. And it's because what happened is actually teleported to zero, and then it would then be like. Ohh heck, I still exist zoop right back to what like where that actually died and. Fixing all those things was. Was a treatment of itself. I wish I had more videos of. That stuff, but.

Rubi: Oh my gosh, next.

Nick: Unfortunately didn't have as much time to take. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Rubi: Yeah, I love it. Just vanishing into the ground though, like, time to go. I'm out. Goodbye. So all right. One last thing for questions, Nick, thank you for change to the malnourished icon.

Nick: Oh yeah, that, that one also.

Rubi: Which, like what did I do?

Nick: Got a bit more. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I also apologize for talking so much. There was a lot of stuff to cover. Uh for my stuff currently.

Rubi: It would be super weird if. I brought you onto the show and you did not.

Nick: Talk. So yeah, I know. Just feel bad because like it's like 40% of the segment has been like Nick talking while Kirk and making go hell, yeah. Or heck, yeah. Sorry, I don't know. Heck yeah. Yeah.

Rubi: Literally, not even close to the worst thing that has been said on. The show I'm about to ask Kirk a lot of questions though, so hey.

Nick: I don't care. Yeah, I got. I got my time in the spotlight. But yeah, so there was a post on on on our forums and I think there there are people that sent it to me because I am like a huge advocate for accessibility. And I try to, like, push for that stuff at our company. So. They sent it to me and then I was given sign off to just kind of change this. Things, and I wasn't expecting the level of reception that we had gotten, people being like, whoa, they changed this holy heck awesome, yeah.

Rubi: That's exactly what they said, too holy. Heck, it was.

Nick: Holy heck, awesome. Alright, it's nice to see people happy about like the little things.

Rubi: Yeah. Yeah. So the malnourished icon is now friendlier, 2 colorblind players.

Nick: Yes, it is now. So the problem, the initial problem for anybody who wasn't aware was that our malnourished and our, I forget the name of it, the one that like for utility primers and stuff like that. Once it goes away, it'll also do the same thing. But they were the exact same visualization but in blue. And or purple. So we had gotten some feedback that that was. A bit more hard to distinguish. So we actually had some iconography that thankfully already existed, that we were able to just kind of like swap the other versions too and utilize and that kind of went through like a quick triage and process. And also shout out to Duncan Kay, who is our UX, UI, UX lead for kind of like just kind of like being like, yeah, let's do it and then helping us just power through also, sorry, just punched something in the corner of my my desk, but. Yeah, shout to Duncan for really just helping get this thing out as. Quickly as possible.

Rubi: Awesome. Very cool. Thank you. Alright, so let's do some questions from players. Nick, I just happened to put the ones that you were able to answer at the beginning of the list. So that's what we have. So two together at the first part Axar CZ and if I butcher your name, I'm so sorry but. Usernames are weird sometimes. Is it possible to simplify the chess run at the end of the North meta stress running for chess after two hours is exhausting and the second part of that question is from Gonzo Neo. What are your thoughts on the length of the meta as it is now to our S leading to 1? Hour N Kirk go.

Kirk: Sure. Uh. So I wanted to answer both of these together with saying, you know, like as players begin learning the best way to approach the content and coordinate together the time that it takes to complete. There's a wood coast as a meta is going to decrease. That said, you know, we're we're keeping an eye on the feedback and listening to players, you know. And all of your thoughts about the flow of the map. This map was definitely different than, you know, different approaches for us than what we're used to seeing and and. There are lots of things to learn and iterate from it. You know 3 hours to complete a map, a map meta is not the intention and was never the intention and we did include some just episode 3 map or episodes three side of the map so the battle crime meta to speed things along one. Of the goals. Was to have a map. Interest would cost us a whole is to have a map. Essentially, that players could hop to hop into at anytime, whether you know and you always have something to do and you're going to feel properly rewarded for the time that you spend in the map, whether that's 30 minutes or. Two hours. You know, as long as you know you're supposed to be getting rewards all the time. But that said, you know, we are not against the idea of making changes. To drizzle coast. As a map, the flow of it in order to optimize that experience while maintaining how rewarding the map can be. So it is important that your feedback is definitely valued, and we're listening and you know obviously this being kind of a new new type of content for us in that it is a one big grand scale map with a lot of different pieces in it. There's a lot to learn from and iterate from, so keep up posting your feedback. We're all listening.

Rubi: Awesome. Thank you. And also I these are just the questions that Kurt gave back, but if you guys want to jump in on any of them, please feel free. So tilonia X, what is the intended strategy for the Tribune? Part of the map? We need. We need tips we need. User tips please.

Kirk: Tips and tricks so where is the flow in the southern half of the map is a bit more linear. You know, obviously you're you're progressing from the South to the north, capturing the bases in that that special order, the strategy, the optimal strategy with the tribunes is to split out into four groups to complete events, to lure out the respective sector tribunes as quickly as you can in order to take them out to control those areas and ultimately. Just move on to the assault on the the Frost citadel, so you know just something to keep in mind that you can actually spread out and get the attention of all four remaining tribunes at the same time.

Rubi: Alright, that's fair. Thank you. Let's see from black arps. Is it possible to have more mastery insights per episode so we can pick and choose how we level? Our masteries.

Kirk: Yeah, I can take this one as well this. Is also a, you know. This is one that we're also, you know, keeping an eye on feedback on. Obviously we try to include a bit of a surplus of mastery points in every release that we're adding masteries to in order to allow a level of choice how to acquire them. But there is room for improvement there. You know, we're trying to find places to fit. Mastery points in where it feels rewarding and, you know, getting ultimately mastering the mastering system and getting all those points is in itself a goal for folks. But there should be options for folks who maybe don't want to do specific achievement. That's really hard for them or they don't. They don't like that kind of content, but they shouldn't be left out. So. Something for us to continue iterating on and there's some improvement there, but we definitely do try to include a surplus in every episode in that. So if you do. If you if you can't get five of eight on this one, maybe you can get six of eight on the other and that will kind of balance itself. Out, you know, but that's still like I said, definitely good, good feedback there and something we're always looking to improve on, so.

Rubi: Awesome. I OK. I love this username hot delirium, which just sounds like Seattle in the middle of summer when nobody has air. Conditioning well, like dying right now.

Kirk: Big mood, yeah.

Rubi: Can the announcements for zone changing be made smaller or only sent to chat?

Kirk: Yes. So this is something I have seen feedback for quite often. We saw it in three as well, but it kind of slips through the cracks a little bit. They serve the the messaging in the map obviously serves in a very important purpose to the status of what's going on, not just in the southern half but in the northern half as well, particularly since there's no voiceover in the map right now again. Obviously, the plan is to add that back in as soon as we can, but we can look into having the hide optional announcements flag that you can set in your user options count for those. So that's something is on our list to do. So that will be coming.

Nick: Yeah, if I if I can just kind of also add something to that one real quick. I think that you know with those announcements because we don't have video, a lot of the things that we usually would rely on like our NPC's yelling. At you or. Like having other UI elements kind of help address like we wanted to make sure that the goal sets were very clear and very direct. And also like I think like kind of once again mentioning accessibility like when you when you look at it from an accessibility standpoint like you want as like you want the base of the information to be as like easily visualized like quickly summed up and. Like apparent as possible to make sure that like it's easily adjustable, it's easily readable and it's getting across like the core of what we need people to to see. So yeah, like that was kind of a a lot of. The intent behind at least why we had some of this visualization be like and now this, right? It's just to make sure that, like everybody can kind of receive and just. And utilize this information equally, but I agree with Kirk that like being able to hide those things is also would also be extremely. Cool. For those who are. Like yeah, I know. Duh.

Rubi: That's so that's something that we talked about on a Guild chat. I think a while back about the lack of video right now and that's something we're working. We're going to talk a little bit about that in the next segment with some of our other. Dev guests. But with. Without like Nick said, NPC's yelling at you. We have to rely on other cues to make sure people don't miss important things. So that yeah, that has been. A big part of it. All right, so this one is from norene tic and I think this is probably just a, hey, some people have missed this. Can the adventures please have a reset button? Why?

Kirk: They do. Yes, so if figured. Next question. Yes, next question. If you click the X in the top right of the corner of the UI where the adventure description is, it will take you out of the adventure and let you reset from the start there. So just a nice fun fact for folks who may not be aware of that. I'm not talking about. Like if you're in window and. It's a red X that'll close the game. Don't do that, but. So it has its own little X in the corner of the adventure UI. So.

Rubi: Fun fact. Alright, awesome. Alright, from player named Infusion, not from an actual infusion. Mazuka was a neat option for players to temporarily play support on classes that might not have strong support spec. Will we see more mastery unlocked support type utilities for open world?

Kirk: Yeah. So Nick went into a lot of the detail of the thought process behind the meta zuka. You know, the metazoa was designed to complete kind of a trifecta of of that, the way station mastery, the skills that you get from it presents a players, right? You got the remote charge, is your raw damage or kind of traps if you wanna set them up. That way the MP is a form of CC, you know, and you can stun and and break defiance bars with it. And then that that leaves the zuka as the healing and support skill we're always trying to find new ways to bring new things, to bring to the game with the mastery system and. With that, we're trying to find ways to maintain their usefulness outside of the episode they're released in, so it's hard to say, you know what will come in the future with that regard. But you know, fortunately with the questions, one of our big goals there is. Maintaining it being useful outside of drizzle coast, you know, so as you know, something to keep in mind with that one is it you can use the portable waste stations and us all three. Of those skills. In any open world map, just as long as you have the supplies to buy the portable way station and then the war supplies to get the skills as well as obviously the mount. Of skill. That's kind of a not tied to the way station interaction. That's just some. And you unlock, but all of those come together, and we're just trying to find ways to to include things with the mastery system that it's not just like, this has purpose in one map and one map only, right. Or one release 1 release only. Yeah. So yeah, it's hard to say what we'll do with it in the future, but feedback is good on that one, for sure.

Nick: Yeah. And also I think you the upgrade skills for each of those because each each piece does indeed have the ability to be upgraded into something with a bit more functionality and help fun built into it.

Rubi: Yeah. Yep. Awesome. Alright. Last question and because it's 1:15, how did that happen from the Last Hobbit? The Last Hobbit has to be protected. The new Phalanx Warriors are awesome. What led to their ohh cool. I'm gonna lose my voice. What led to their creation design wise?

Nick: Well, First off, thank you for saying that. They're awesome. I appreciate it. I think specifically I.

Kirk: No, no.

Nick: With the failing specifically like, I've been watching a lot of the last Kingdom for anybody who doesn't know what that Netflix series is, and you know, like in that it's about a lot of like, I think like N Nordic kind of like Northern European style combat and. When we look at the chart like the chart area. Like central. Like the Charter, very combat centric kind of. Company, right. And I want like with the Frost Legion, I kind of wanted to give the Frost Legion a nice. Distinct feeling thing while also kind of like introducing a new mechanic. So they're ice lesion, ice lesion stuff reminds you of like very Nordic things so. I kind of wanted to take that the mentality of like they they're smart, they have a frontline, right. You know, they have tanks that can, that can do stuff and they've got a bulwark line that is really hard to get past and kind of show that, like the Frost Legion are tough. They mean business and they're strategically smart. Mark, do we have the video of the of them actually marching forward by chance? OK. Yeah. Yes. Cool. Yeah. So this is actually one of the earliest iterations of me experimenting with them. And this is kind of like earlier. Megan and I were talking about like, you know, how we had to go through multiple iterations of of of these things. And like with this one specifically, they felt way too robotic. Way too similar and we could there were, it would have taken a lot more to kind of mask that. So we ended up having to scrap like having this giant line. But the feel I think is kind of there of like you know these char here to keep ground. To make sure that they can bolster their defenses and guard their allies while their allies, you know, rain damage from above or other areas like that, and also kind of like helps give a bit more. Or meet for lack of better term. So that will be world feel because you know when you are like if you notice in the first failings room like there are actual blobs of enemies coming at you in rows and stuff like that, they're, you know, they're groups that come at you taking that kind of like BLOB view, BLOB world view would feel. But with the failing. Specifically, it's to kind of like bolster that a bit more, add some big baddies that would. Make it feel cool. And no, I think those.

Rubi: Cool are my.

Kirk: Words. Yeah. And if I'm, if I may, you know, shout outs to to Megan for working with Nick, to build out spaces, to make those feelings to shine and then shout outs to Kent, our QA embed on the episode for working with both Megan and Nick to do, you know, make. Sure that those those walls. Are those phalanxes are doing their job and those walls are getting held up? Well, those kinds of that is another example of one of those things in in our game where it sounds easy to make it that someone can't get behind a creature, and there's a lot more difficult than it sounds because we have a lot of different ways of traversing the world in our game. But yeah, those. All three of them came together and iterated on that and fixed bugs and got that. Polished up and working really well so.

Nick: Yeah. And actually also.

Meagan: Like you.

Rubi: Ohh sorry. Oh, go ahead. Kent is watching. So thank you Ken.

Meagan: I was going to say I always like.

Nick: Yeah. Thank you, Ken.

Meagan: I always thought. Like in those kind of bugs to like trying to. Childproof the house. Like trying to make sure they don't get into places.

Matthew: Mm-hmm. Ohh God, yeah.

Meagan: You can let them. Also, here's Moe.

Nick: Also yeah, I'm.

Rubi: Hello, Moe. Yay. My windows blip. I love him.

Nick: The Bluff Boy also shout out to him.

Kirk: It's our team Button team pub.

Nick: Yeah, shout out to Matthew Medina, I think is actually in the next segment for helping me childproof that house.

Rubi: OK.

Nick: Because we definitely, yeah, like like, time time, really tight towards the end and getting his help on that really was was monumental.

Rubi: Moe Moe is a hit. OK, thank you, Moe. And yes, Matthew will be here in. A couple minutes. So is there anything that you guys want to add before we wrap up this segment? If not, that's OK.

Kirk: Yeah, I could just, you know, I hope everyone is enjoying the release. I hope everyone staying safe, safe and healthy, shout outs to the entire dev team, you know, not just those of us who are on in this Guild chat, but you know Kevin Freeman, Clay. Carson, a bunch of others. All of our artists and all good stuff came together for it to. To get this episode out, so also. Mom over there. Every time we'd have our our our stand ups over work from home. You know, that was always this. Including all of our stand ups is that. Good old mo.

Nick: And then sometimes B as well, but B is camera shot that's.

Meagan: Yeah, kids like to be held.

Rubi: Right. Uh, yeah, we're B. I'm leaning forward. Like I can see.

Meagan: Though yeah.

Rubi: Baby's like. Please. No, leave me out of this. Fantastic. I think that's a good note to end on. Thank you all very much. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Moe. Joining us mostly. Please just snuggle me and.

Kirk: Sign for this.

Nick: It's very warm.

Rubi: Let's call this good.

Meagan: He was napping, I said. He's a.

Rubi: Little. He's a little sleepy. He's out. Thank you guys very much for spending some time with us. Those of you watching stick around, we have three more dev guests in just a few minutes. So we'll be right back.

Kirk: Take care.

Rubi: All right. Welcome back you guys. Thank you for hanging out with us. And let's go ahead and meet our next round of Dev guests real quick. Spoiler warning, we are spoiling everything in the episode, so. Like I said. In the very beginning. If you have not played the episode and you. Don't want spoilers. Leave. Watch it now on YouTube, we will still. Love you so. Let's meet our next round of death guests. Alex, can you start us off by talking about what you do here to rent and what you worked on for draw Mag Rising.

Alex Kain: Hi, I'm Alex Kain. I'm a senior writer and narrative designer. I was the lead writer on dramatic rising for the Golden Path. For the meta and for a couple of the books that you find in chapter after Chapter 3, I guess we're in spoiler territory after Smoker gets shot, I wrote some books. And you can find. And that's that's that, that that is. That is what I did. On on.

Rubi: Fantastic. Matthew, how about you?

Matthew Medina: Hi, I'm Matthew Medina, senior game designer here at Arena net and for drag rising I worked on the chapter One instance titled Behind Enemy Lines. I also did a few of the events for the meta, including the rescue friendly prisoners of war. The MP artillery and couple of achievements in the open world, some of which are take place after the main storyline. So yeah.

Rubi: We'll talk about that more here in a little bit. And Paul, how about you?

Paul Schwarzwalder: I am the content programmer on the episode that of specifically what I worked on was the branch of the work store. At the Dolac intercept event and the crack artillery event, as well as doing programming support for. Just getting things that the other designers needed.

Matthew: Making our lives so much better.

Rubi: Yes, I actually want to talk a little more about programming later on in the show because I absolutely loved your description when we were setting everything up about how you are support for game designers, DPS and that is that is such a perfect explanation for those of us who aren't programmers. But for now, let's start with the story. Instances just the general golden path in this episode, and both of you, all three of you can jump into that if you want to. What do we want to convey? Where did we want to take the story and what were your? Overall story goals.

Alex: So I I came into the story kind of kind of late in the pre production process. I was wrapping up episode 2 Shadow in the ice and fortunately Novira King, our our lead on living world narrative. Had a pretty solid outline that she put together with the help of design and basically gave me. Like Athena from the mind of Zeus, the main story path for episode 4 pretty much, you know, fully formed. And so I I knew exactly what beats we wanted to hit and we were able to have some conversations about how we might want to approach these story moments. And you know, design at that point was already. Working on events and the golden path stuff. So like the idea of sneaking through the beach in the skies was was something fairly early on that was discussed. You know a. Lot of the. Specific open world events were in development at the time too, so when all just started sort of coalescing the moment the moment I joined the project, it was really exciting to sort of see it all like nearly sort of fully formed from a creative standpoint. The moment I hopped on. Which is cool.

Rubi: Nice, Matthew, how about you? Oh no, we must help you. We'll see if. OK. So let's talk about specific story parts that you guys worked on while we wait to see if.

Alex: No, Matt.

Rubi: We can get Matthew back. UM, let's see you guys worked on chapters one and two, right? I'm like, I'm like pulling my notes. OK, thank you. I was like, pulling my notes and trying to look for Matthew at the same time we're doing it live. All right. Well, Paul, do you want to talk about a little bit about the development process on that?

Paul: Matthew worked with one I worked on two. Yeah. Not what? Why not physically what you're asking? I'm sorry.

Rubi: I think, OK, I think we're all like kind of looking nervously at Matthew's part of description. OK. Mark is going to try to get him back. Thank you, mark. I appreciate it. And I'm like rapid fire readjusting what we're talking. About in the meantime. So as a programmer, because we've we've talked a lot. About like game designers, map artists, narrative as a programmer, what exactly is your role? What do you what do you do in getting this story in front of the players? And I just moved that up, so bear with me.

Paul: OK, So what I do is uhm. So if there is a thing that a design that designers want to do but can't do because the tech isn't there, or because it's just cumbersome to do it, I go in and I try to smooth it out and make it simpler or possible. An example of that was, uh. So during during the Chapter 2, there's a bunch of. There are comp calls. This is a common thing people call you over the comms, but they're getting interrupted by other Comm calls from events in the map. And the way Kirk dealt with that in episode three was he had a massive handler script that is like, are you in this conversation? OK, return. Are you in this conversation return, are you in this conversation return and it's just. And and it was cumbersome and it just had to deal with a lot. I made it. All I did was I added A tag to dialogues so that so that you can just say is there A tag with this dialogue playing and if so, return instead of having to update that script every time there was a new dialogue or something.

Rubi: Alright, that helps. That makes sense. And I've I, my my lap has been invaded, so I'm very sorry. OK.

Alex: Are you? I don't know what's talking. About he's clearly right there like look. At him, he's he's obviously there.

Rubi: Yeah, that is a cardboard cut out of Matthew here. I'm excuse me. Please leave. You're precious, but please leave. Alex, he's not real. It's just an image. It's OK, like everything happened so much all at once. Alright, so yeah, I've I actually moved up talking about programming a little bit. Thank you Paul. But I do want to talk about some specific content pieces as well. Alex, you mentioned that after the spoiler thing happened to smother, you worked on some of that correspondence found on his death. What were what were the goals for that? How did you? How did you decide what you wanted to put in there?

Alex: Yeah. So I. I I really wanted to dig into, to, to. Voters rationale and mindset a lot more. I I was. Really hoping for an opportunity to do that, but you know, obviously the way that things. We're sort of structured from a high level. We we weren't really going to have enough time to really sit down with characters. So I decided that. You know, after feedback started coming in, like, hey, you know, it really feels like smarter just, you know, he gets, he gets shot and that's the end of it. And the story kind of moves on that we really want to get a little bit more insight into into his character into why he was doing the things he was doing that goes. More beyond the surface level, and so that really gave me a nice opportunity. Thanks to our our. Tech to write just a trio of correspondences to different characters to see how he treats different characters. How he you know how he responds to to faux threatening letters from subordinates, how he communicates with other imperatives. One-on-one. In this in that in this case malice specifically, and you know how he deals with Mia. Kindle shot. Who it it is insinuated, is going to be sought out to replace him as the iron impair. So that that was a. Fun opportunity to oh, wait, that's moving again. We have him. Back he's. We have back-to-back. Yay, welcome back.

Rubi: We missed you. We were scared. It's just like I hate everything. I'm so sorry we lost you.

Matthew: These one believe they who must not be named. Yeah. Some they can pull going on me. Have to reboot the router.

Rubi: God just.

Matthew: So it's so much.

Rubi: Just for fun, I'm so sorry that happened. Welcome back. So, all right, so when I realized you were gone, I was asking you about the overall story and working on that and some of the highlights on that for you.

Matthew: Thank you. You know the. Highlight for me was just being able to get back into. Immersing myself in this world that I love and you know. Because of when I came in, I came into the team. About mid I. Would say mid stream, so a lot of it had already been sort of. The skeleton everything was running. This so it was a lot of putting the pieces together and getting it ready for Polish iteration and having having to sort of decrypt what other designers you know did to set stuff up and understanding what what the narrative beats were worked really closely with Alex to understand the story of. That one because I had, you know, to. Get myself regrounded in everything. Like what? Why are these characters doing this and what's? Their motivation and. How do I best depict this in game play and what's the sort of thing that I? To do to. Make sure that I'm hitting the theme of this episode, which I was told was you. Know we're behind. Enemy lines. So we're doing some like Mission Impossible style stuff. And you know, that was very obvious from like the cinematic to the, you know, sneaking around and planting bombs on on equipment and. So I I. Fell in love with that because I. Growing up, I loved you. Know all of those. You know bridges that were. Required. And like all these great, you know. Action movies where. You know it's a. Small band of plucky heroes who, you know. Go and and. Do this amazing stuff. So I just wanted to make sure that I was hitting all of that. And so it was really. Exciting to be able to get back in with. That with that. Instance and cut my teeth again on on. Remembering all the things that I. Remembered about how to. Make content and all the things that. I had forgotten because. I think I ended up on. The net positive on that side of things? More than I did. I think I I didn't forget as. Much as I thought I did. So that was always good.

Rubi: You usually don't. It's a lot like ride riding, a really weird bike so.

Matthew: Yes, there is definitely a a bike with square wheels.

Rubi: 47 of them. Yes, exactly. But let's talk about let's talk a little bit about some of these specific pieces of content. Let's see who worked on the dolac intercept events.

Paul: That was big.

Rubi: OK. Do you want to talk about how you get started on that? I was. Like I can't remember. Yeah, go ahead.

Paul: So Clay initially set up the the well, it was Clay initially cloned it from from istan with the the the corpse train thing near Warden Crescent. Great Hall. Exactly what it's called and. It so that that's the starting point I had. It used to. It used to go down to like it used to go down to the South until that didn't make sense, what with the capturing cause it wasn't. You weren't initially capturing the areas. The entire thing was initially supposed to be more covert and not tied into the meta, but that's changed pretty early on. UM. And just. Uh thing? There are, I know there's a whole bunch of stuff in there, a whole bunch of little mechanics that you just don't see because I did not scale it for 70 people all attacking it at once, which seems to be what's happening on live right now with it. Yeah, like there's.

Rubi: OK.

Paul: What was that?

Rubi: You said it wasn't originally intended to be part of the meta, but got folded into that. Do you want to talk about what was behind that?

Paul: Ohh no they what? The episode 4 as a whole wasn't initially A continuation of the episode 3 Meta. It was just sort of you did the three meta and then the and then and these were going on at the same time as a lot more like episodes one and two and frosty. Decided that didn't make any sense because it really kind of didn't.

Rubi: Alright, that's right.

Paul: UM. And yeah.

Rubi: OK. Let's see. We also had an I actually wanted to ask you about the vistas as well, because that's something that you worked on. Do you want to talk about the background and the technical part? How does that actually get done like? What? What do you do? To get that into the game. And you can't get technical, it's allowed.

Paul: OK, so each the the little map thing you see on the like in world is just a gadget that gets placed there that you interact with and then we've got a a cinematic editor inside of our content editor where you just sort of. Place key frames for the for the fly through uh, and you set those. Up and you deal with you use the curve at you. There's a curve header you can use to to to adjust how it goes in and out to so that to make it a smooth process. I believe I have one of the only vistas in the game that actually changes the role because the camera, sort of the wanna Lookout Mountain it it angles down where it's at the beginning and sort of rolls around into the spot where you end up it down in the juice.

Rubi: Ohh really? Ohh there it is. We had to say juice. Juice the juice. Is very.

Alex: One of the things that we have to deal with is we come out like we don't know what we're. Going to call things very early. On in the process we have a. General idea but. We use placeholder names to talk about things and sooner or later those placeholder names kind of just get incepted into the whole team and everyone just refers to it. As the juice. For the jornada. And you know it. It's been, it's been months and you know, we've had some talks. We're like, hey, you know what, you know what this is? This is we're going to call it officially this. And everyone's like Jorma egg juice and all the file names are already like, you know, it's like this is river under score. Juice 01, and this is river score, under score juice O2 and it gets really hard to to name those things so. For the for the final encounter of the episode, there are some things that you have to interact with and we weren't really sure what the final iteration of those things was going to be, and instead of coming up with a placeholder name, I think they. Wanted to you know.

Matthew: I can.

Alex: Yeah. I I I insisted that we call them that we call them diddly doos because I knew that.

Matthew: I knew I knew.

Alex: That deadly duos were not going to make it into the game. No one was going to accidentally leave those in, and it's a pain in. It's a pain in the spell that so file. Names aren't going. To it. Yeah. Yeah, so. You know it's not in there. Case in point, it didn't make it in. We're not. Talking about it. So hey, I mean, I'm talking about it, but only to make a point.

Rubi: Alright, I actually want that.

Paul: Yeah, there was a slot where.

Rubi: Go ahead, there was.

Paul: A spot where it actually uh juice collector ended up getting localized as well. So for the blood collectors in the bed on.

Alex: Caught it. We caught it. We caught it, caught it, and that was like, that was like jumping over hurdles and dodging gunfire to, like, make it before everything locked in the live. Someone jumped and it was in slow motion. And they slammed their hand on a button. It was like emergency stop.

Rubi: There was dynamic music.

Alex: We had to reset the. Sign we had to reset the sign. You. Know it has been zero days since designer placeholder dialog got localized.

Matthew: Yeah, that's a tricky one though, because I don't know how you would catch that because editing localization, they get texts through from us and they don't necessarily know all the contexts or everything that we do. And so just collector wouldn't necessarily stand out to them as oh.

Rubi: This is this is like. Yeah, sure.

Matthew: This is clearly wrong. Right, like so. They're like, yeah, cool. Well, it's a juice selector. You've done stranger things in.

Alex: Audi sign.

Matthew: Our game, so yeah.

Alex: Bobby Bobby Stein and his infinite wisdom was going through the text and found that and asked for feedback because it seemed strange that we had an item called the Juice Collector.

Rubi: Thank you, Bobby. OK.

Alex: So yes, I I I I think that that we dodged, we dodged. A bullet on.

Matthew: That one.

Rubi: OK. But I do have a question. I just want to make sure I'm very clear on this. Just collector did get looked. And it's in there somewhere.

Paul: Ohh, it got replaced, it got fixed.

Rubi: But it exists.

Paul: I mean, it was somewhere in perforce history, sure.

Alex: Like 36. Sure, like people had to look at it and and like like localize it like hmm. Yes. Maybe. Maybe in certain language it's it's collector of juice.

Rubi: That's that's amazing.

Alex: But I don't know.

Rubi: But it's out there. I'm just. Wondering what we could. Do with that somebody said it's bubble pugs all over again.

Alex: The less I the less I. Know about this the. Better the less I know about. This the better. This is what I'm saying.

Rubi: Honestly, it's like reason #400 that internal names are the bane of my existence because I'm I'll be running around asking somebody like, hey, Caledon forest, what's what's going on with this? And they're like, what is which one is that? Oh God, I don't know the internal name. Please stop asking me. I don't know what it's called. I know it's called outward facing. See, I don't know. It's nothing like Canada forest.

Paul: What level are you? Right. Yes, it's wetland something.

Rubi: Yeah, like, OK, so now I'm looking around going, which one looks like a wetland. I don't know what. Any of you are talking about? But then we get things like draw bag juice and it's all OK. It's made so much better by the weirdness of that. Alright, so that was up with that we had, let's see who had worked on the themes of the spirits of the wild and Spirit Childs.

Paul: That was Kevin.

Rubi: Alex was that was. Alex, that you said you.

Matthew: I mean I.

Rubi: Really dug it. You happy to see that back?

Alex: Ohh, the themes as in like the musical themes yes so so I I know that the the trial music that we that we used for the Eagle trial and there was a slightly different version for the OX trial. Was a sort of remixed version based on the themes that Brendan Williams had had done for the Shadow mass trailer, which I'm pretty sure was a brand new theme that we hadn't heard in the game before, but I'm I'm a big proponent of revisiting motifs like musical. Motifs to try and. Establish theme to try and establish character to try to establish motive. So I was really happy to see that. You know, we spent a lot of time with the spirits of the wild in Episode 2, and we've sort of established this theme at least in the trailer, and hearing that revisited in the Eagle flight, the OX trial. And you know, then there was the. Additional themes I.

Paul: I want to call.

Alex: That, like the the spirit trial theme, I don't know if internally there's a name that the audio department has for it. Maybe I'll ask McLean. I think McLean actually wrote the the the music for this. Episode, but don't. Quote me on that and then there's the theme.

Rubi: A text from calling now.

Alex: That would be great. He could answer the question and then we would know the answer.

Matthew: But he's a busy.

Alex: Guy. So I don't like. I don't. Like bothering him but but. Then there's the music that plays when you're doing the the the puzzle the the Spirit totem puzzle as well. I think it's during during that scene, but there is. A new version of the music that plays throughout the viewer marches as well, which I think is definitely like a spirits of the wild theme. It has that sort of known vibe to it. So yeah, I I thought the the music in this episode was was particularly well done. I always love it. In every episode, but you know, because I'm working on this one, I. Sort of do. A little more of a deeper dive on it and it was it was great. I was really happy with it and it seems that all a lot of. The players really enjoyed that callback as well.

Rubi: Yeah, those are those are super fun. So I want to talk about Amber. Dunford is back.

Matthew: She is. She's back, yes.

Rubi: We are, we're neutral on the subject. Wait now. The other thing. Do you want? To talk. About do you want to talk about bringing her back? And? Her return? A little bit.

Alex: Yeah, I can. I can go into it real quick. So after Almora was killed in episode one, I wanted to bring her back because she has the familial connection. She's Elmore's grand grand. Cup and. You know, go some. Ascalon is is a piece of lore it that that we occasionally will will look at, you know to to see if there are things that we can draw on. You know, all of the past for and this particular bit seemed. To fit like Elmore is dead, someones you know who's going to you know who's going to step up and and and want revenge? Well, like literally all the players but also, you know, Amber Doom Forge hasn't really been in the game in a while too. You know, she's been sort of the sideline character really going back since Vanilla Guild Wars two and. And what did to sort of sneak her in as an Easter egg? Almost. And maybe you have, like, 1 conversation with her and that would be it. And I was. I was. Going to be. Happy with that, but then? I learned a little ways into development that the metal lane actually needed three characters instead of two. I'd already sort of allotted Ephraim and and Kashmir as the. As the duo. To sort of guide that story, and now that we needed a third character, I I said, oh, you know, this is perfect. This is absolutely perfect. Amber is a really interesting compliment that to Ephraim and Kashmiri's personalities. And I'm really excited to say that we got Somali Montano to be to be. Members voice actress and she just did our yeah, she did all of her dialogue a little while ago, and it's very cool. She she really brings something interesting and fun to the character that I think players will like.

Rubi: Smelly is she is so good and she is so much fun. So she.

Alex: She's incredible. She's absolutely.

Rubi: She is. She's really good. We mentioned last week that we we are doing some video recording right now and that's that's a huge process. Can I ask you to talk about that a little bit like we know hey record thing put it in the game, it's a little more complicated than that though. Are you able to address that? The system I know you're not, Marissa, but.

Alex: I mean we we can't all be superstars Ruby, but but yeah, it's a it it it it is. It is a it is a long process. You know there there were there were some initial you know discussions like some some games had been able to jump on the recording band bandwagon.

Rubi: I know, I wish.

Alex: Pretty soon into the pandemic, obviously the recording situation changed when you know, actors and actresses were comfortable going into the recording booths, but we have a fairly large cast of characters. I want to say that for any given episode, it's like 2. It's like a dozen to two dozen. Actors coming in to do all of the all of the main characters to do all of our, you know, all of our side characters there are. Characters in.

Matthew: The meta.

Rubi: So. So there's there's a.

Alex: Fair bit of material and for something like this you know we're recording multiple episodes simultaneously because you know we've got three and four now. That we need to. That we need to. Do and the fractal. So. So yeah, it's yeah, it it's been it's been a thing getting everyone in, getting everyone together and managing all those records.

Rubi: Yeah. So. Yeah. And even even under normal circumstances without throwing in. Huge ongoing monkey wrench of the pandemic. It's you've you guys have a lot to go through. You get script written, get everything finalized to your table reads, get it to blind light our company that we work with to the agents, to the actors. Schedule recording, get it back to audio. There's and I'm probably leaving steps out. There's probably more. And then to get the game by magic.

Alex: Yeah. And I mean it is a process right after even after everything is done, all of the video has been recorded. We picked the takes that we liked. All the takes have been edited and a processing has been added like you know Char for example have like the chart well added like after all of that stuff, it goes into the game, it goes into the scenes.

Rubi: Ohh yeah, that's right.

Alex: And then. The conversations are still terrible because you have line, line lying and so a designer or a a narrative designer, or both, or some combination thereof, go into these conversations and actually have to. Time every single line in the episode so that it feels as close to a natural conversation as we can. And you know. Time, time and you know, staff limitations being what they are like we will. We will often look at you know, the golden path stuff 1st and make sure that that is as tight as can possibly be. And then. We'll sort of. Move down the line from. There. But yeah, it is a long process from writing the script to sending it to the. To the actors, to. Going over it with the director to actually having it recorded to getting the right tone, to figuring out, you know, what's going to work best in the game, getting it in the game, having it play well with the gameplay. There's a lot. There's a lot that happens.

Rubi: Yeah, and it it made it feel like a major victory that we actually got that process underway again. So that's awesome to hear that Somali was recording this week.

Alex: Yeah, Somali. And we had Cory Walgreen just the other day. And yeah, it's been it's been, it's been fantastic, like having being able to send those sessions again is just absolutely phenomenal. Everyone is very happy to be back recording these characters again.

Rubi: Yeah, even even via zoom, it's. Just good to be doing again. Instead of in the room.

Alex: It's different being being.

Rubi: So yes.

Alex: It is different, less portos, portos, portos.

Rubi: Oh, I know. Yeah, if anyone, if anyone lives in that area.

Matthew: For those who.

Alex: Sand sandwich place and it's a it's a it's a bakery and a sandwich place and they make a really good Cuban sandwich really good.

Rubi: Go ahead, Alex.

Alex: That's all, that's all.

Rubi: Oh, I've never had that. Thank you. Now you're now. I'm sad because we can't go down to have poor dose, but that's OK.

Alex: I'll say done.

Rubi: That's OK. So. We do have. I want to talk.

Alex: Like I've been talking for like an. Hour, sorry.

Rubi: It's OK. I've checked the clock. You have not. So you're fine. We do have some player questions that I want to hit up, but I do want to ask you guys, what were what was your absolute favorite thing to work on during this episode? Matthew, I'll let you go first.

Matthew: Hands down, for me the thing I put most of my, I guess my own sort of. Energy into is at the end of the story. We can square a little bit, right? So like at the end of the story.

Rubi: We we can spoil everything that is live right now.

Matthew: Yeah, OK. So you. You learned about the the fate of owl. Spirit that owl spirit was not actually killed by doormat. But was rather. Corrupted and then went into sort of a self-imposed. And so it raised the question for. Me well so. The the genesis of this of this is that when I took my. Role on the team. I was handed a bunch of content like here's here's all the. Stuff that you're going. To own like cool, and one of the pieces that was put on the list for me was owl collection, and that was all that was told to me. And I was like, well, what does that mean?

Rubi: Ohh no.

Matthew: Like Owl, AM I collecting owls? Am I like going around the world and like? You know, hooting like, what am I? Going to be doing. And then as I dug more into it, it was like, no, no, no, it's the owl spear and like, OK, cool. Like, I worked on homework. So, like, I was a little bit familiar with OWL story because I wrote a a few of the conversations in whole rec. Along with the writing team then that, you know, talked about like owls, sacrifice. And so I was like, oh, cool. Like something for me to really dig my teeth into. But I mean, I went and I looked and saw. Well, there's literally no documentation on it. There was nothing. It was just, I think it was a bullet point that somebody put put up during the brainstorming meeting of like. What's this thing and and? So I went to you know. People were like, what is this? And they're like, yeah, whatever. You want to be like. You know, so I talked to Alex. And we we ran through some ideas. And so I was able. To really kind of get into the essence of like well. What? What would it mean for people who, you know, I mean the norm, obviously cherish and and sort of follow the spirits as their guides in a lot of senses. What would that mean for somebody who was tied to OWL to to know that it wasn't killed but was reborn or or corrupted and then sort of hidden away. And so I I I came up with this. Idea for, you know, a shaman of owl. To go on a journey of spiritual renewal. Which is what we. Ended up calling achievement and is there pretty basic collection you don't get to do like a lot of crazy things because you know scope obviously had to keep it kind of light but I I was able to sink my teeth into it from a narrative standpoint, really delve into like what? What norm believe? About their spirits, how how spirits interact with them in their lives and what it means to to to. Learn that the. Spirit, you you once worshipped and then sort of mourned because you believed it to be dead and now realized, oh, no, it's still. Here but it's. You know what does? It mean like to be corrupted by door. Megan, what does that mean for my faith? And? And so it is a really nice opportunity to explore questions about. That that I've. Often found in my own personal life. You know very similar themes. You know the question of what does that mean for for us as people to to have belief and faith and things. And so I I really want to get into that and explore it from from that standpoint. So I I was really happy that to do that. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out I think. Players are enjoying. It the ones. That I've talked to. Have have all said that they really thought it was a. Nice little sort of, you know, Capstone on something that. Got into more and more a bit more, which I'm always a big fan of because my my very first character was a new one, so I I still have that as my touch for the game is more in our very special to me so. And that's my.

Rubi: So you got to you got to dig into. That for that collection.

Matthew: I did.

Rubi: That's awesome. Paul, how about you? What was? What was the best thing that you? Got to work on for this.

Paul: So this was the first time I got out. I've actually had a chance to work on content. I had been a gameplay programmer before before I started on this team and I just really like the ability to go in and and mess with how things. Are like that. I don't know if I were just specifically. Yeah, it's probably I just, it was really interesting when I got the narrative for my 2 events that I was doing and trying to go in and like, figure out the characters for that, that that we're saying these things, they're just throw away.

Matthew: At work.

Paul: PCs but like. One of them was like like the Dolak intercept. One is just I think I think the temp name for her was shade throwing shade shady or something like that. And so it's like, OK, this person.

Matthew: I love that, yeah.

Paul: So it's like, OK, this person's obviously not just going to sit there while you do the event. They need to go in and and do it as well, like they they charge in. What ended up happening just through the mechanics of the game was I did set up the AI for this. They got distracted by the base spawns near their area and. Almost always die. Until until the event is over and they just respond, and then they go back, they go back over to where they were and their ash legion friend stealths them again.

Rubi: Ohh my gosh. OK, well, I'm thank you for that not happening. And thank you for another internal link because I joke but they do. Make me laugh so. Alex, how about you?

Alex: Aaron was the writer on those open world events, and she had some really fun names for the NPC's. So. So, so yeah. My favorite part of this episode was probably. Being able to. Put together a bunch of alts for a bunch. Of different things. We don't really get an opportunity to do that too often doing alts for for things, you know, we we have a pretty. Small line count for for voice. Dialogue as it is. So trying to find ways to to add in lines where only a fraction of players might see it is occasionally a hard sell from a production standpoint, but from an experience standpoint, from a narrative standpoint, it really helps to make the story more personal to make. You know to to help sort of reinforce that that fantasy of you, your commander, being your commander and having their own history and their own culture. And so we, there were a lot of things that we were able to sneak in. Some of them came from, you know, feedback like in the very first chapter. I think it was frosty back. Correct me if I'm wrong. Who? Who suggested pretty early on like doesn't make sense that you can pick up this flame thrower, but you can't use your own flame thrower if you're an engineer. And that just created the sort of cascade. If, like. OK, well, OK. So we'll have an alt if you use this flame thrower and we'll have an alt if you're an engineer and you have your own flame thrower like, well, OK, what if you're an ontologist and you can cast your own fireballs? That doesn't make a whole lot. And so, so so now it's like. OK. Well, OK. If you are an engineer, then you have lines. If you are an elementalist, then you have lines. If you are Char Norn, Asura, sylvari or human, you've got slightly different. You've got slightly different lines for the default. Char are more gung ho about being able to use a flamethrower. You know, if you're an Asura, you probably designed something back in college and you using uh, yes, this reminds me of my own, you know, ice ice dispensing device, dispensing to get rid of. Like and I I think that dispenses ice works crazy. And you know, since I was so like. That is just one. One moment in the very beginning of the episode with like a dozen different permutations that. Happen and you can see how that balloons very quickly, right? Yeah. But there are there are because there are a lot of known specific elements in this episode too. If you're a norn, then it makes sense that you would have a stronger connection to the spirits of the wild, and so when Bram starts talking about the, you know, the norm ruins. The Norn characters have different dialogue than non non characters. And there were some other little little things too. Like I'm I like, I like snarky little lines. Where you know, Eagle Spirit asks if you're ready to do the eagle trial and you know you're the commander. There been like, 28 different characters have been like, Are you ready to accept my trial? And you know, like, yeah. Like of course, like I've done it. You know so many times. And you do and.

Rubi: It's fine.

Matthew: You know.

Alex: And and you and you win, of course. But yeah, those those are fun, like little back and forth between creche and redlock. I enjoy, you know, in the very beginning. I don't think a lot of people caught this. But in the very first chapter. This is from the Easter egg. When Krisha gives you the disguise tonics before you talk to Krisha, if you try to run down onto the beach. Riplock and Brand will argue about whether or not you're pulling a riplock or a brand by ignoring instructions and running directly onto the beach. So that was that was fun. Yeah, there are just a lot of. Little those moments. That that I enjoy writing. It's it's, it's the little things in these episodes that I that. I enjoy the most.

Matthew: Annoying Eagle screech, annoying eagle screech I.

Rubi: OK.

Matthew: That's my name.

Alex: Appreciate it. It was originally just, you know, you. You do the eagle. Spirit thing and I and I I thought. Like, wouldn't it be hilarious? Wouldn't it be hilarious if? Someone called you while you were. Doing this and and the the the the conversation was should the commander be speaking in a normal voice? Should the commander be speaking in their own voice and? Being like I'm in the middle of this. Thing I'm an eagle and I don't know how I'm talking right now, but then we thought it was just annoyed Eagles. Yeah, I know the eagle, screech, and I think I think that was funnier. I think ultimately that was funnier. And then, you know, we're like, increasingly, like, we'll, we'll let you. You're clearly busy.

Matthew: We'll let you do whatever.

Alex: It is you're.

Rubi: Doing this is not weird. I do. I do have to say.

Matthew: This is weird.

Rubi: I love those little details like that. When I played on my elementalist the 1st to my song. Oh yeah, I can totally melt these ice wells with my power of. Flame and there's like or you could. Use the flame throwers, right?

Matthew: There, whatever.

Rubi: Those little details just for me as a player make me very happy.

Matthew: You went through.

Alex: All the trouble of bringing the flamethrower. At least you could. Do is just like you know.

Rubi: And I'm literally just standing beside the bear going, no flame flowers. So let's do some player questions, Alex and.

Alex: It's just trying to be polite.

Rubi: You were. We're already talking to you. I'll start. With you question from WWE fan, I wonder what they like. Why is the confer with Bengar achievement weekly instead of daily? Alex, why?

Alex: OK. Well, because there are some. Things unique pieces of dialogue that we've that we've written for these. And it was all part of the same episode development budget. So we have we have line counts that we have to accommodate, but if we had had unique dialogue dropping every single day, that would have gotten out of hand very quickly. So yeah, I will. I will. Without spoiling anything, I I I will just say I I encourage players to to swing back. The next time around to see what kind of what kind of content awaits.

Rubi: I think that has a lot to do with what Kirk said in the last episode. After a certain point, nothing would ever get shipped. We would just work on it. Until the heat death of the. Universe. So yeah, at some point.

Alex: These episodes, I mean really any game is isn't finished. You just stopped working on it eventually and then it gets released.

Rubi: Because at some point people want to play it. Let's see question from Zolty. What's actually keeping Krisha from assuming the Imperator position? At this point, it seems safe to say she has everyone's support. So is there nitpicking about her ancestry that hasn't been?

Alex: I would say it's that we didn't want her attention to be too sudden. We want to treat it with the, you know, with the right amount of gravitas, because ascending to imperatives, a big deal. So. So I will say that that narrative has had conversations about how we want to handle this, and it's something that we hope to address in the post. So for content.

Rubi: OK, that's fair enough. Without spoiling too much. All right, I have to be very question. I have to be careful with this question. Arden would like to know who is responsible for mother.

Alex: Please movie. This is a family show.

Rubi: I'm sorry, mother. Kitten.

Alex: It's Tom, 100%. Tom Abernathy, I'm calling you out, Tom. He, he. He. He, he wrote. He wrote the the pass on that on that final sequence there it was, it was. It was fun. It was. It was fun to get that and to. See people's reactions to it.

Rubi: That's fantastic. All right, secondary real question from Arden. Can you clarify how's return seen they returned, but then we didn't want them to return and then they opened the gate and there's confusion.

Alex: Understandable. That's a pretty big moment. So a little bit of back story then for folks. When Geomag was advancing on the Norm, Owl teamed up with Oxy Eagle Wolverine to slow down our doormat advance and to give them a chance to escape South and and and found the city of of of Halfbrick. Oxygen and Wolverine, as we found out in in episode two of the expert saga, became fully corrupted by John Mag and we're we're stuck in the in the Biore marches and they became sort of sort of pawns of joy. But Owl did not allow herself to to become. A pawn of gormagon. So when Al became corrupted, Al actually cut herself off from the nest and from the north and sort of went into this self-imposed exile so that she couldn't be used by geomag against the north. And so when Bram brings her back in this elaborate summoning ritual to open the door to the ruins. John, I suddenly has access to all this. You know, all this magic that Al had been trying to keep away from from the elder Dragon for for so long, and that helps contribute to the the the events of the finale of the episode. So so I I I apologize that that that was not as clear.

Rubi: Thanks Fran.

Alex: In the episode. And I hope that that helps to clear. Up a little bit of that.

Rubi: Awesome. All right. Question from Konig. Smokers personality seems to have calmed down a lot in episode 4 compared to episode 3, and I guess it's really calmed down now. Why was this and what was the reasoning for his death?

Alex: I don't know. Maybe he's like, changed his diet or something. No, it's it's overconfidence, right? Or or he cut caffeine back a little bit. I mean you. Know or catnip? Or whatever. Yeah. I mean, he's. He's overconfident, right? I mean, he's got, they've got their siege weapons behind enemy lines. They've got they've got. The the Frost Citadel Insight in episode 3 the United Legions was on its back heels. There were all these defections. It was a it was a pretty bad spot that they were in. And so there was a lot of infighting between all the different imperatives on the way to move forward. But now you're in episode 4 and the front gate is insight and that is 100% his element. And so he's a lot more confident now, some would say overconfident as as is I think evidenced by his actions in the in the 1st and 2nd chapters. Of the and 3rd chapters of the episode. You know, I I I kind of wish that we that we had a little bit more of an opportunity to dive into that and to to really explore that. But you know ultimately you know his chickens come home to roost. He made a blood enemy out of out of Ryland. He ticked off the other imperatives, the the way the way that I sort of rationalized. His sort of. Active in in, in four in. Episode 4 is. That Krisha and and Nellis and Ephraim and the commander and you know, the the United Legions, to an extent, they want to, they want to win the war. That's the that is their goal. They want to win the war and they want to present to the fighting but Snyder wants to beat Bangor. He wants to beat his enemies. Into submission. He wants them to know that when they've lost, they have lost and that the United Legions and smarter specifically are better than they are and that, you know, we tried to sort of tap into that a little bit in this correspondence. But ultimately, that mindset comes back to bite him because he he he kills Cinder and he uses and you know, smart and violent uses that. You know, as as as fuel to to get back at him. And ultimately, yeah, he gets, he gets shot in the head. That that's that's no good.

Rubi: Player reactions to that were fantastic, by the way. I loved how shocked people were when it happened.

Alex: I saw you drop into a stream. Conveniently, right before that moment happened like.

Rubi: That was, yeah, that was super on purpose. Yeah. I'm going to have to just like, I'm going to have to, like, log out.

Alex: You keep doing that, people know. People are going to know that we'll be.

Rubi: Of Twitch and lurk.

Matthew: OK.

Rubi: But no, I was. Like the date of a lot of us were talking in teams and somebody was like, Oh my gosh, somebody's about to see this happen. And I was like, excuse me, I need to go. Watch this live. So yeah, I popped in and then I started like watching map chat when I was in game and seeing people talk about it was amazing. That was that was so much fun. How shocking that was. I love those surprises.

Paul: Where were people spoiling in Mapchat?

Rubi: Yeah, which I hate it, actually. Take it back. It was, say, chat. So it was like a smaller group of people and shout out to those of you who are being really nice by being in map chat like.

Matthew: OK.

Rubi: Oh my God. I just finished this part of the episode and. I am completely shaken up, just being a little quiet about it, but still like getting to freak. Out. So that's. A kind of a hard line to walk. So all right, let's see. We have a couple more questions. Couple from Matthew Dragon Gold with a lot of missing vowels. So I'm not going to try to pronounce that. We know Char in the legions deserted for Dominion. With the Frost Legion being a thing, did Char and Dominion quit for the legions?

Matthew: You know I don't. Know that we've. Definitively answered that question in the episode, but there are ambient scenes both in the map as well as one of the other sort of hidden things that is in chapter one that Alex put in is there's a group of Dominion who if you. If you just kind of. Hang out. They will actually. Go off their patrols and take a smoke break. And and talk about things like in. The Dominion and. It definitely has this suggestion that that. The dominion is. Not as united. As the United regions are at this point, because of the Frost Legion being, you know, sort of turned into, you know, something that. I think some of them were. Like, well, this is not exactly what I signed. Up for I'm not sure. Like where this is. Going like we're working alongside, you know, sounds of spine here now and like, what's happening like to what you know, I think some of the dining were definitely on board with bang ours, like 1 Char we you know. Sort of manifesto because they they were all about that. Like, let's yes, char, absolutely. But now when you get into the standpoint of, well, we're working with or for drainage means what does that mean? It's. A bit of. A shift in mindset, so I definitely think that. Although we may not have. Seen any defections in this episode? I we definitely sort of plant a seed or two in in the episode that there are definitely demeaning who are rethinking their position on the whole. Like let's go like and yeah so.

Rubi: Awesome. Alright, so question for you that I'm excited about because you actually had some wild stories about getting back up and running the last tub. It wants to know, what does it feel like to be releasing Guild Wars two content again?

Matthew: It's it's superb, I will say like this, this team, the studio, everything has just been like, wow, I can't believe.

Rubi: I believe.

Matthew: I'm back. I can't believe I'm. I'm able to work in this world again. There's so much fun. There was a bit of a rocky start because my first day back with the studio was March 16th, which was like one week after the pandemic was like front page news and. You know, my first day was supposed to. Be you know. Like at the. Studio and they. Were like, so about that. There's not going to be anybody there.

Rubi: Yeah, we were home by then.

Matthew: We're probably going to have.

Rubi: And I'm like.

Matthew: OK, what does that mean? Like I don't have. A setup and so. Like I did go into the office. IT was fantastic about getting me set up with the with the machine and and getting me all that. And then, you know, I spent the first week or so doing remote desktop from home. Which was less than ideal. You know, I I I had some Internet connectivity problems as you can see, I'm still struggling. With that a little bit. By my absence for 20 minutes.

Rubi: At the top of. That was not on.

Matthew: The show but for now.

Rubi: Purpose we did not plan that.

Matthew: But but yeah, so I. I had enough problems with like Internet stuff that I was able to get IT to say well well. Why don't you just take? Your machine from the office and bring it. Back to your. Place and then you can just plug it into your router and you know you have a more stable connection and then you don't have to worry about like remoting to a a machine. And so we tried that and I got my machine home. I plugged it in. And literally nothing happened. It just was dead. And I'm like, wait, what's going? On and so I tried plugging it into a different outlet, same problem like the fans started to slowly spin like it was trying to get. Power, but it just wouldn't go. So, so. So, what's what's going on? Come on. Like did I like, burn this out? Already like my. 1st way of getting this back to my apartment. So like if and it's already like you know going into the. Toilet. So. So. I touch base with IT and they're like, Oh well. You know, maybe it was just, you know. Power at your apartment might have like surged and caused it. So like, we'll get you another. We'll get you another box. We'll we'll take your hard drives out, we'll put. It in another box. And we'll give you that. So I went back to the. Office the next day they did that, they make the transfer. I got that machine brought that machine home. Along with like my monitor and my.

Rubi: My gosh.

Matthew: Desk with all like surely like now I've. Got everything I need. To get started. Bought the machine. And again same same thing. Exact same problem where I plug. It in hit the power button and nothing happens only. This time it. Happened faster, like it didn't even get the fans. Started. It was just like. What's going on? Why? Why is this happening to me? So I again called it and they were they were super, super nice to me about it. They were like, yeah, it's OK, you know, don't worry about it because I was panicking. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm. I'm already ruining 2 machines like. Be back, like what's going on? How can I do this but. They, they suggested, look it. We we think it is probably that you know apartment complexes, sometimes the power is not ideal, right? Like it's you're. Sharing a big. Bunch of power with everybody else in the complex. And so sometimes. That power is what is it called? Journey power. Is what they. Explained it to me. I don't know anything about any. Of that stuff. But they, they said. Get a UPS, you know, uninterruptible power supply. It'll clean the. Power. It'll get you what you need to do. OK, fine. So I. Ordered one off of, you know, online. Go pick that up. Meanwhile, I dropped. My machine off, they did a third transfer. Into a different A. 3rd box you know and so. Get that? Get the UPS, bring it all back. To my apartment. Why? Please, please don't do this again. Plug in the UPS here. And it still didn't start. I'm like, come on, this is. A joke now, right? Like there's got to be hidden camera in. My apartment that says, you know I. Mean that's trolling me. Like welcome back Matthew Ha ha ha. But no.

Rubi: Give him another broken machine. See what he. Does. Yeah, yeah.

Matthew: Exactly, but no, they it it, it really was. It was a power thing and I don't know why, but I at this point I sort of. I had this. One of my favorite movies of all time is Apollo 13. Fantastic movie. Can't say enough. About good about it, but yeah. There's a sequence in the movie where you know. They drop bit but. Ohh yeah. When they're coming back from around the moon, they had to shut down power to make part of the return trip, but then they had to start everything back up again. You know, to make the reentry coordinates and plug it in, but in order to do that, they had to get the sequence just right of like, powering things on one component at a time that it wouldn't go over the. Voltage that they had left on. Battery because that was that. Was the thing I was. Like, oh, let me try. Something so I plugged it, I unplugged everything off the computer. I'm like no components, no peripherals, no nothing, just the box. And nothing else. And so I plugged that in. I plugged only the UPS in. And it started and then I. Was like ohh I did it I. Figured it out and then I started like. Mouse in OK still works good. All right now. That works. Plug the keyboard in. Yep. Alright, so I I literally had to just like Daisy chain everything into the UPS one at a time or into the computer one at a time to make sure that power maintained and I didn't slow down. And now I'm like, stuck in the state where like I can't turn this machine. Off ever again.

Rubi: Yeah, do not turn. It off, but thank you, Apollo 13.

Matthew: Right. Yes, but thankfully now it's on the UPS. So I don't have to worry about power going out because it'll it'll stay on. For at least eight hours.

Rubi: That's fantastic, that.

Matthew: Yeah, yeah.

Rubi: Was a saga. I'm so sorry that happened and I'm. I'm so sorry that you kept tearing at machines.

Matthew: I'm sorry too, because I I was my third one. I was like, I'm sure IT has got me on a blacklist now. Like, don't give this guy any more hardware. He's he's bad news.

Rubi: Oh no, we're running out of machines.

Matthew: He's going to build.

Rubi: So all right, well, we have we have. One last question from. I guess it's just fode ****. This is a little bit of a softball question, but it's a good one to wrap up on. Are you guys feeling OK if the current situation ever makes you choose deadlines versus personal health, please choose health. We are. Patient we. Can wait for content, sorry.

Matthew: I'm sorry I'm laughing with this on hail and.

Alex: It looks like the tentacle that you're.

Matthew: Like what is that?

Rubi: There's so much fur. You guys. It's hot.

Alex: You know.

Rubi: In here and. She's just shedding everywhere, so other than I have cat hair in my mouth. How are you guys doing?

Alex: I I mean it's we, we we did a we did a Guild chat about this a couple. Of weeks ago and. You know, I I think that, you know, Arena net has been very supportive of the the worst development team. You know making sure that we take time off if. We need time off. Encouraging us to, you know. Step away from the computer to to to not work longer than we're supposed to. And if we're feeling like even that it is too much, especially now that it's getting hotter out and it can get it, can get pretty rough. You know, they, they, they, they put together a stipend for air conditioning. So if you are not used to working all day in your, you know 90 degree apartment then then yes you know you should probably have a way to not die. That would be swell. And so I'll read it. That's very supportive about that too. But but yeah, I'm I mean it it feels like more so than. You know, obviously I've never worked. During a pandemic like this before, so I really don't have much to stack it up against, but it does feel like, you know it's we're doing OK. And obviously I can only speak for myself, but. That's how I feel so. Thank you for for the thoughts followed. I appreciate. And yeah, thanks for thanks for being in our corner.

Rubi: Thank you, Alex, for reminding me that I still need to order my air conditioner. It's really hot in here and I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Alex: Yeah. Just just, yeah, don't. Get those little personal, you know, swamp cooler ones, that they're that are on. The interwebs, you don't want those.

Rubi: Ohh gross now I have I think a lot of us are like ordering the same one because we keep passing around like costs and links. And I'm like, yeah, that's the one. I'm looking at. So yeah, how about you, Matthew?

Matthew: You know, I feel so incredibly fortunate because again, I like I said, I. I was. I was. Talking to reading that in February and I started off this year, I was working. In Trader Joe's. During the height of the sort of panic buying phase and I was, I was definitely. Afraid of, you know. That level of. Exposure to this virus and expecting that I was just going to be sick this. Here and so I I sort of. Feel like I. Was able to dodge that bullet because everything just fell together. The right amount of time for me to to get in and and yeah, as Alex said, Arena has been an NC soft as well. You know, have all just had nothing but the most positive experience. You know whether it's making sure that we have the kind of connections and communication. That we need. I think we we've moved into a point where now we realize how much more we have to communicate because we don't have the luxury of just turning around to people at our desks and checking in like we're we're we're doing a lot more via e-mail. We're we're keeping in touch with each other. You know, I've had more one on ones with people who I would never have had one on ones. With before, in the last few months than than. You know? And so it's just it's been. So great to have that level of commitment to us as employees. But more than that, I think you know, I I've often compared this to it's, you know, it's a, it's a family atmosphere that we have at the studio. We we generally care about each other. We generally want the best for each other. You know, people, people would just reach out to me on teams and be like, hey, how you doing? You know, checking in. Making sure you know, let's do a virtual lunch, you know, and. So like, I've been doing more of those. And so like, there's just so. Much that we are. Learning how to how to cope. With this new scenario, so yeah, it's it's been. As good as I think we could expect it to. Be given. What we're dealing with in. The world right now, so. Yeah, I very much appreciate the sentiment from from. Our player base and and shout. Out to all of you as well, because we we are here because you are continuing. To support us. And you know, we it's so exciting that we can see you guys in the game and be able to play, you know, like, that's The funny thing about a game like this. Is it on this, on that level of it, not much has changed, right. We're still logging in together. We're still playing the game together. We're still seeing feedback and able to to take all that stuff. So I mean. A lot of what we were. Doing hasn't had to change but. Then the things it's made. The things that have had to change I. Think easier and better for us.

Rubi: Yeah, definitely, Paul, what about you? How are? You doing?

Paul: I'm doing doing pretty well. I feel like I am lucky that I'm working at a place where I am able to. We'll continue working safely during a pandemic. They don't have to worry about making rents or anything like. That because of it. It it's obviously somewhat isolating to be to be here. I would think we're all feeling that. Yeah, yeah. On the programming side of things, we have a hangout that we do every every day at 4:00, where people can just join into the call and they either get help with stuff or just just actually see faces. Remind each other that we have bodies.

Rubi: This is this is simultaneously funny and so incredibly relatable. Yes, I am an actual person that can interact with other people in some sort of real time event so. Yeah, awesome. Well, is there anything else you guys want? To add before we wrap up. You could say no, it's OK.

Matthew: I mean, there's the cat.

Alex: The cat. That's the cat.

Rubi: She left like one of them sank her, sank her clothes into me. That actually that was a thing that we did not talk about that didn't make it into my notes for some reason that I. Want to finish? This up with Matthew. There was some content that you got to put in there.

Matthew: Oh, Oh yes. I was starting New York. That and then they. Yeah. Nice segue. Wow. That worked out well. Yeah, so this is.

Rubi: It is like ohh hey.

Matthew: Yeah, yeah, this is a. Good shout out for Kent Benson, our QA embed who was on. The show, I think last week. He messaged me out. Of the blue? He he's he's super. Amazing guy who? Loves story and loves, and so he and. I have lots of chats. Like we've we've. Been like Annie and you know, friends for on online friends for quite a while from Twitter and. And so you know, I have fairly frequent chats and he just messaged me one day and he was like, you know what you should do? There's this because it was the wrestling Bush at the start of my instance. He's like, were you planning to do anything with that? I was like, oh, I didn't even. Totally. I didn't even notice that rustling Bush was behind the player. And so he's like what we should do. Take that cat from Chapter 3 from Episode 3 and put the cat in the Bush. And I'm like, yeah. Of course. Why? Wouldn't I do that? Like that sounds like exactly the kind. Of thing that I would love to. And so I took that, made that a. Thing. And then I was like but you. Know you got to have something to do. With it like and I didn't. Want to necessarily turn into achievement because we already had the achievement for petting the cat in the previous episode, so I didn't want to duplicate what? We had done there, so it's like. Well, OK, if you pet the cat in this. Instance at the beginning, then wanna have the cat show up at the end and so at the end of the instance. If you are very you. Observant, you will notice. That the cat popped out of. A Bush, he comes over and he brings you a dead bird because you know his friend. And so. As cats are want. To do they have a. Rather morbid idea of what is an appropriate gift, and so he gives you a dead bird from which you can get a piece of poultry. So. Yeah, I don't know. I just.

Rubi: They're tries to help you.

Matthew: I love, you know, putting little. Details like that into the world so. Thank you, Kent, for making that suggestion, yeah.

Rubi: Thank you, Kent. So thank you to everybody who worked on this episode. I know everybody worked incredibly hard under weird circumstances and you made a lot of things happen that I'm still amazed we are shipping anything under these circumstances, but I'm very proud of everybody. So thank you guys very much. Thank you all for watching and we will see you. Guys in game.

Matthew: Thank you.

Guild Chat - Episode 103

Transcription[edit]

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