Guild Chat - Episode 36

The following is an unofficial, player-written transcript of the episode. The accuracy of this transcription has not been verified by ArenaNet.
The 36th episode of Guild Chat aired on March 18, 2016.
"Host Rubi Bayer is joined by Steven Waller, Leah Hoyer, and Josh Foreman at South by Southwest for their panel on Creating Gameplay for a Massive Community."
Transcription[edit]

Note: The text below hasn't yet been converted from raw subtitle text into pretty print like above.
alright hi thank you guys for coming to
our panel today my name is Ruby bear i
am the content marketing manager at
arenanet and host of our weekly live
stream guild jet Rena dead is the
company that makes guild wars 2 we're
going to talk today about making a game
that serves such an enormous community I
have three of our developer guests here
I was pointing out the enormous
community we have whether all the game
oh geez Josh why aren't you playing the
game other games why why would you do
that ruining everything alright so I
think most people if you're at this
panel you're probably already familiar
with what an MMO is massively
multiplayer online role-playing game we
try not to call them amor pagas as a
rule it's an online world it's an online
world yeah we have so many people
logging in to these online worlds from
different countries different walks of
life different ages just all kinds of
different people that have varying
gameplay interests and the challenge
that olive we always face all of you
guys especially in making this over the
years is finding a way to offer
something to all of those people so they
they can find something the way that
Leah phrase don't what we were talking
about this was so that everybody can
find a little place to call home within
the world that's adorable it was it was
very it was very cute I like that quite
a lot a little golf club for Leah so
guild wars 2 has had a really busy past
year our core game went play for free
back in August less summer and we
launched our first expansion in October
we had our first huge quarterly update 4
2016 in January so it's been extra
interesting we've had a lot more content
to work with and the thing that we're
going to talk about today is
how we make that content how we how we
keep such a diverse audience interested
yeah and some of the process that we go
and the process the behind the scenes on
how we create that so I'm going to let
you guys introduce yourselves what you
do at arenanet and some of the things
you've worked on over the years Josh I'm
an environment design specialist
troublemaker yes and troublemaker that's
why he's sitting by me just in case and
what was the other part of the question
oh so some of the stuff that I've done
there you go ok so I've been working on
living world since we've launched I mean
I've been working on guild wars since
before guild wars 1 so that's right even
lots and lots of guild wars in 11 years
now right well then I have 12 and a half
saree and yeah so got on the living
world thing right from the get-go and
been pretty much on there ever since so
it's been a really exciting um several
years of experimenting and learning and
growing towards greatness which you have
now achieved all right you can go
ninety-nine percent all right Leah top
that Wow achieving greatness hi I'm Leah
Hoyer and I am the head of narrative at
ArenaNet so I have not been here twelve
and a half years I actually came to the
company about a year and a half ago and
it was in the middle of our living world
season two and so one of the things
that's really unique about Guild Wars is
that we do put out kind of episodic
installment content that updates the
world for this the story creates
sometimes new maps all of that sort of
thing and I came in the middle of that
season and really my job is to oversee
the narrative team make sure we know
where we're going in the long run that
we have a place so that we don't start
painting our cells into some weird
corners and then we're like wait a
minute that doesn't make any sense for
what we want to do next season or in the
next expansion and then I worked heavily
also on heart of thorns which was our
first expansion came out in October and
now I'm back to both working on our next
expansion as well as the new living
world updates that are coming out
Allison and Steven hi everybody my
name's Steven I am a game director at
ArenaNet and i coordinate the living
world raid legendary weapons journey and
festival content which basically means
that I get to work with a lot of really
creative people artists designers
programmers narrative people to make
very diverse and fun content and goers
to and ship it to the log game people in
the next room are so excited about that
next door oh my gosh alright so that is
that's a lot of different stuff that
between the three of you that you're all
working on let's start by and this is a
this is a thing that every MMO addresses
all of the different kinds of content
that you have to get into the game we're
going to be addressing guild wars 2
specifically because that's what we work
on and that's what we know let's start
by talking about some of the different
kinds of content specifically over the
past few years that we've put into guild
wars 2 and how that address this issue
of diverse player basis yeah I would
start by saying you know living roll the
concept of a living world was something
that we started after we shipped guild
wars 2 as basically a way for us to
continue to update the live game to
continue to provide a continuation of
the story the personal story that people
experienced in guild wars 2 and add
diverse and fun gameplay opportunity so
living world is delivered through sort
of an episodic style of content where
we're progressing the overall world
story as well as your personal character
your PlayBook Eric tur story and some
NPCs that we have in the game and so all
of that goes into your story journal and
you're able to kind of play the the
living world content at your own pace
over time but it's basically been
setting up from where we ended the story
in The Killers to game to where we
brought the story for heart of thorns so
living world is one of the types of
content
we create and if you're not familiar
living world is out in the open world of
the game you just you log in and it
affects the entire it affects the entire
game world it's not just little bits and
pieces here and there that you have to
go out of your way to track down yeah
it's a combination over the last several
years we've introduced open-world
content certainly an open world maps as
well as story instances which you know
are generally cater to one to five
players and you know we find that the
story instances is really the best place
to tell story because it's a little bit
more of a controlled environment that
doesn't mean that we don't have things
in the open world and also progress the
story but it is where we were able to
really kind of focus in on the story and
the character development in a more
personal environment but generally it
weaves through the open world as well
and there are things that are happening
and changing in the world which make it
a living world we destroyed one of our
major city hubs in one of our episodes
we'd introduce new maps that have
playable space yeah so it's a living
changing world yeah we've been
experimenting over the past several
years to kind of find that sweet spot of
the kind of content that we want to
release that we can do really well and
within our time budgets and that kind of
stuff and that that people find
captivating so that's been a really fun
process and getting that feedback from
the community which we all watched very
closely and you know acting on it as
best we can it's been really fun Steven
mentioned destroying one of our major
cities and putting that back after how
long was Helen was that down that was
years it was it was down for a while
that was an enormous step that we took
it that felt like something really risky
but it put out that it put out there
something that would affect every player
in our game because I don't know yeah we
we blew that thing right up that for lie
instead I remember when we were talking
to some of the press that had a little
bit of early access to where we were
going with the story and they were like
you're gonna do what you're gonna blow
up your major city hub and we were like
yeah that's that's where the story took
us and that's what we always want to do
is we want to follow the story and that
was the natural progression of where
were headed so it was a big step and
some people thought we were crazy and
was a heck of a lot of fun to destroy
the city and and to rebuild it as well
which we eventually did so yeah just you
wanna tuck it you were on the rebuilding
of Lion's Arch right I was on every
version your everything even back to
guild wars one says right yeah I built
out most of the lion's arch the
surrounding areas then the very central
area was done by kind of a crack squad
of concept artists and then and then it
was left people like need to go clean it
up and make it so it's actually playable
um yeah so I want to say we spent almost
six months on the first version of
Lion's Arch in guild wars 2 and then
yeah that just got completely
obliterated he didn't spend too much
time on the lion did you see that line
was really exciting to me like that's my
favorite problem I ever made in the game
oh my gosh cuz I like I'm really excited
about the idea of telling stories
through props environmental storytelling
you know props and environments and so I
put a lot of thought into the design of
that statue how you know it's both a
literal metaphor abay lion arching but
it's also over teria to show that
they're dominating and the way they're
dominating is with the ship circling the
globe indicating that it's through trade
that they dominate and all this
beautiful symbolism is swiped away got a
really nice statue yeah but I mean it's
exciting to me that that I work on a
game that can do that can take those
kind of risks it reminds me of something
that George Lucas on one of his early
behind-the-scenes things but it was a
star wars' special i saw one as a kid
and he was talking about how much time
they put into these alien legs that just
walked by the camera in about a second
of time and how much money and time it
took to get that thing and that was just
kind of a revelation to me though that
like it's it's about the impact of what
you're doing rather than the time spent
doing it right and you had a lot of
meaning and in that statute with the
boat circling in so we tried to put a
lot of thought into the new lines arts
as well
so a lot of stays on planning kind of
thinking when it comes to rebuilding la
we're looking at kind of the
relationship between where the like the
bank and the trading post and you know
being able to do repairs and we we built
out our competitive area a little bit
more so that we kind of had our world
our world in PvP players or centralized
and so there was an opportunity in the
reconstruction to do some things looking
at it from sort of a city planning
standpoint and again the player
experience of you know what it's like to
move through the space and get to the
areas that you want to get to as well as
the aesthetics and all the other
storytelling elements that we had so I
think again for me that's the fun part
is you know Josh talks about what he
puts into the statue and it's like there
are people doing that in a variety of
different areas whether it's the story
aspects or the overall map layout or
things like that that all eventually
contribute to something that's greater
than the individual pieces parts which
is ultimately what I try to help
coordinate is bring all the things
together in a way that feels greater
than the individual parts right what are
some of the other game parts that you
know you're talking about bringing some
of the little pieces together what are
some of the other parts of the game that
you have in mind when you're talking
about that yeah I don't know that there
are any parts of development where we
don't generally think about that but
another type of content that we've
recently introduced has been raids and
similarly it's got opportunities for us
to look at what are the ideas that the
designers have living world is kind of
our mechanism for telling story
primarily we certainly introduce a
variety of gameplay and you know fun
things to do there in raids we generally
start thinking about what are the cool
game mechanics that we can introduce
there's certainly an underlying story
thematic story that's introduced there
but raids are much more about our ten
player instance difficult challenging
end game content but we're still looking
at you know what is the overall impact
of the environment the bosses what are
we saying with vo that sort of helps
accentuate what's going on or to get
across messaging so players know what's
happening either story or gameplay wise
and so yeah rage is another area where
we've got a multitude of people all kind
of working towards
one goal where you're thinking about all
the different pieces and how do they fit
together to really make kind of a
cohesive experience yeah and it raids in
particular is a really interesting
challenge because not everyone who plays
our game is a Raider you know folks who
like I personally am pretty bad at raids
to be honest you know like I will get my
butt handed to me within the first wing
of a raid and but we made a decision
that there you know it's in a really
interesting part of the map it's in an
interesting part of the world and it
does actually further the story but it's
a challenge for us because you don't
want it to have huge revelations or have
these sorts of things that the players
who login to our living world and play
our central story which admittedly is
not the same type of gameplay you know
you in general we design all of our
score story to be solo able you can go
in just as yourself and you can make
sure like it may take a couple times you
might you know Diane respawn a few times
you know thank ok yeah if it depending
on what on what battle and how mean the
designer was who put that thing together
um you but you can solo it whereas raids
is not there and so it's very much an
interesting challenge that we would sit
around and talk about with people about
okay what is the right kind of story
that gives a nice flavor and gives you
this sort of thing but once we come back
to living world that you're going to be
able to get recapped on that you're
gonna be able to figure out these other
things fairly quickly so that it's
you're not going to feel like you're
left out if you and your nine other
friends didn't come in with your awesome
reading skills and get to the end but if
you did there's fun nuggets that you're
going to get to experience which is a
really cool thing but it's a hard
balance that we've actually spent a lot
of time trying to figure out yeah I feel
like we we try to do the theme the
general theme the living world is going
to do that's that's echoed in the raids
but the actual like plot moving forward
is not in the raids yes definitely not
the main sort of through line of the
story it is more thematically tied it
was an interesting balance to strike
making it fit so you didn't just have
this
weird thing that you shoehorned into the
corner of the world yeah and i think
that the flip side too is that you know
to not tell any story at all in a raid
would make raids less and so i don't
think that there is a proper way to do
array without some sort of thematic
elements some sort of progression in
there that's meaningful to people so we
definitely don't want to just extract
that part out but we are sensitive to
trying to keep it not main through line
and not too many you know major reveals
that are blocked for people that may not
play that type of content so now that
we've talked about the really hardcore
content of raids let's go to the other
end of the spectrum XLV pop in and play
and pop out just little you know pick up
and play stuff we've got a lot of bits
and pieces of that here and there in the
world like jumping puzzles and
adventures you guys want to talk about
those a little bit and how you came up
with the concepts especially of the
jumping puzzles because I know that's
kind of that's either a love it or you
hate it because you fall a lot thing
when you're first two characters are
Norn and a char they're awful so and
then and then I realized that's kind of
an excuse for me to not be particularly
good wait is there a portion of the game
I am good at like I'm making it sound
like I can't play our game I actually
figured out jumping puzzles eventually
but it took so much practice for me she
knows I got in Asura it was actually
substantially easier yeah yeah um so
yeah but the thing is I sort of to what
Stephen was saying even though those
aren't necessarily the things that we're
designing like I know that even the
narrative team as we're looking at all
of these pieces we work really closely
with the design team when they're
putting something in to make sure that
this is the right kind of place for a
jumping puzzle to be or the right kind
of place for a you know go out and do a
collection quest of something because it
makes sense for the denizens of that
particular area and I think actually
heart of thorns was full of those kind
of fun little one off quests where I
mean probably some of my favorite stuff
was in your second map the one with the
Golden City and that sort of thing we
you run into the script which are a
long-standing
group of these kind of rat type folks
that you know they're very much into
mining and their favorite thing is gold
and anything shiny and they will find
themselves now in a map where there's an
entire city made of gold and these
golden floating people the exalted that
are around there and you run into a
couple of these quests where some of the
scrip like there's this one a female
script who's for the leader of this area
and she falls in love with one of these
like golden people and these various
quests that go along with that out in
the open world I mean it is just so much
fun because they are they're the
ultimate shiny and so it made so much
sense for the script to be super excited
about this whole golden universe and all
the things that were there and of course
if I'm a script I'm gonna fall in love
with a golden person and think that they
have to be mine and she just tries so
hard to make this romance really come
true and you go through all these things
helping or do things or trying to thwart
her depending on the various pieces that
are out there but that kind of fun
content that you can play a little
five-minute thing right having things
like that but you can just stumble
across and okay here's here's a little
thing that I can go do and I can feel
like I got something done when I'm a
game player who is really busy and
doesn't have a ton of time to jump in
and devote hours and hours Josh you've
been putting these pieces in to the game
since the very beginning yeah well it's
just kind of a natural thing that would
have him give it because in guild wars
one we had no jumping and once we had an
engine with jumping it just was the
obvious thing to do right now is how you
felt about finally having jumping first
to it was wonderful it really is so I
mean we like just as level artists we
were cobbling together challenging jumps
from the from the get-go just for fun
and it wasn't told near the end of the
project that the designers started
saying hmm we could actually make this
some interesting content and then we
started incorporating them because you
know that the maps are gigantic and to
make them organic you make them YB and
so there's lots of negative space on
there and so it just was snatched
able to fill those in with kind of side
quests stuff that not everyone's
interested in but the people who look
for it can find it and do that stuff I
think they discover a disco yeah heavy
wet Stephen I was just going to say I
think that's part of it is you know for
that type of content it's a little bit
about discovery you could be traveling
somewhere and then see oh there's an
interesting jump oh look there's another
jump ahead and before you know it you're
actually engaged in a jumping puzzle and
so you know there's exploration aspects
to the game there's combat aspects to
the game there's social aspects to the
game exploration and so I think that
speaks to kind of the idea of something
that everyone can enjoy and that's been
a big part of what we've developed with
guild wars 2 is trying to have that
diversity of content so that everyone
can find something that they really love
right because not everybody is the kind
of player who's going to want to go in
there and round up 15 of your closest
friends and go do something sometimes
you want to just go in there and play
just solo maybe just with friend yeah
yeah and and we have the areas where you
can play with 50 people in a squad and
go play an open world map that's got out
meadow where you really need to
coordinate so yes it's everything from
single-player activities that are
story-driven or single-player activities
that are exploration or jumping puzzles
etc all the way up to big open world map
metas where you're coordinating with a
large group of people and and really
doing challenging content if not in
terms of having to do a lot of damage to
creatures which is coordinating with
other people yeah I mean even jumping
puzzle i think when we go into
everything that we do we keep in mind
that what's one of our core values is
that we want it to be a game that is
about community and about helping each
other and we actually have I think a
coolest gaming community out there
because they really do aside from folks
who may be in a guild together like you
can show up as a new player and the
number of people who will come and help
you out I mean we had a bunch of our
core long-standing players who over the
summer we went free to play with our
core based game and they organized this
whole like let's go welcome new players
into the game and they
just arrived in the maps and mass to
like get all these people who were going
to show up as free to play and sort of
help them with some of this we all know
when you start playing a game there's
gonna be those few things you need to
learn before you figure out that you're
totally getting it you know and they're
helping people along and even with
jumping puzzles you might not know
someone but if you're standing at the
base of it you see like somebody didn't
he like wait a minute was there a
certain foothold I was supposed to jump
to or something it was still totally in
chat like help you out and help that
kind of stuff and it's really cool to
see that but we also always keep that in
mind when we're designing the spaces
when we're designing things to do
because whether you're soloing it or
whether you're coordinating 50 people
you are going to be looking at ways or
thinking about ways that it can actually
be sort of a social experience because
so much of gaming these days is in our
game is built around that so yeah that
is kind of one of the core tenants as we
want it to be more fun when you come
across other people when you come across
other people you don't want to be
thinking about are they going to take my
loot or you know things like that and so
that is kind of one of the core tenant
says when you see somebody else it
should enrich the overall experience you
don't want to get preemptively angry and
like cringe and hope they go away yeah
yeah um I want to talk a little bit
about as we're doing this as we've been
developing guild wars 2 over the years
and keeping this huge diverse player
base in mind what are some of the
challenges that you guys have come
across and some of the things that
you've had to learn and figure out as
you go in trying to create something
where everyone can find a place for
themselves I think that when you talk
about challenges I look at it from two
different angles one is the challenges
of making every release that we do which
you know when we start on a release it's
always that moment of all I'm so excited
I can't wait to see what this thing is
going to be and how the heck are we
gonna do this and somehow you're able to
always do it and I think that helps you
look back and you're like remember when
we started with a couple of ideas and
you know we ship that in the game so
there's always that aspect I think in
terms of you know the players something
that we're always looking to do is
incorporate a bit of that personal
experience you know when you play the
guild wars game you have a personal
story you make some choices about you
know where your background is from and
you know what order you're going to go
into and things like that and so
you know over time we've definitely
introduced that in ways in the story
where they'll recognize or react to a
choice that you've made and responding
you differently in some cases is based
on your profession you may have access
to a little bit more information things
like that that really give it another
layer of sort of a personal experience
for you yeah and I think that's always
the really interesting part especially
for like when we're thinking about
telling the story as well we're always
thinking about that I do think we did
some really cool things like an heart of
thorns you know there's an entire race
of people in our game how many people
here just so I'm care how many people
here at play guild wars so I'm sort of
or guild wars 2 I know there's a race of
our in our game that are called the
sylvari and there were some pretty
intriguing things that happened kind of
right at the beginning of heart of
thorns that really made their entire
journey very different than anybody else
who was there and so it was really
intriguing to put in lots of things that
gave you a really different experience
if you were playing Safari or if you're
playing one of our other four playable
races and also encourage people to do it
twice and those things are the really
fun challenge and they're a really great
place i would say the other challenge
that is in some ways much harder and
we're always thinking about it is
because we are also an RPG when we're
talking about doing writing games in
particularly what comes into more the
details like the dialogues and some of
the actions and the choices that you're
doing you know if you're in there and
your role playing and you're very
invested in your character we're always
concerned about making sure that we're
not doing certain things that might be
so splitting to cause people to go all
my character would never have said that
like that way that's not what I want to
do so we're always thinking about that
too and that's a big challenge I think
we actually are getting much better at
it but in terms of really taking on the
player character is now sort of the
commander you know and so there's a
certain thing that when you are that
player character you are going to be the
commander and so there's that voice that
happens regardless but we make and now a
lot of alternate lines based on
say you're playing an asura or so you
chose order whispers that says something
kind of specific about you and what your
character may be like and what their
personality may be like so there are
times when we have options and we might
have you know 15 different options for
what the line is that that character
says at that time because we may change
it both for what race they are and what
order they chose or all those things
right sometimes for profession and that
I think is a cool thing that we're doing
to tackle that job yeah affect combat
sometimes too I remember we did Tower of
nightmares and that was one of the
things that we were playing up on is the
idea of the nightmares and based on
choices that you made we might have
spawned a different character in one of
the nightmares that you would have to
fight and for some people that was
difficult because they were forced to
fight characters that they liked or
cared about so I forgot about that until
just I think I blocked it out it was
little traumatic as kind of sad that is
the thing that's a way that the game has
grown over the years that I've really
enjoyed seeing the player characters
talking is something that our community
responded really well to and enjoyed
quite a lot but like the the sylvari
race that get more information on
certain things if you're playing through
is that particular race the asura that
leah mentioned if you're not familiar
there a hyper-intelligent race and can
glean more from technology that they're
up to that other that other player
character races can't can't know about
so that's that's the thing that we've
managed to that we've put a lot of work
in on the over the years to make it more
interesting and 2 i'm a lot of people
have alts i think just about a body has
also and you don't want to play through
and have a static experience every
single time yeah yeah no i did a lot of
encouraging people to you know level up
a slippery character before heart of
thorns and I'll say is lit their next
living worlds coming out I do think it
will be really interesting because you
know we came out with a new like a new
Asura City and heart of thorns and we
didn't spend a lot of time in the core
story experience there
the expansion it was sort of likely
uncovered it we found some things about
it but in terms of where we're going
next well it's certainly not the last
time we're going to go back to that city
and you know the kind of things that you
may experience if you're in a servers is
not necessary could be very different
and we look for those kind of
opportunities to do to do that as much
as possible yeah um we've talked a lot
about you know here's here's how we look
at how we're creating this stuff how we
how we get into this let's talk a little
bit about the process as you get started
here's here's this thing that we want to
do Steven you talked about how we
started with just a couple of ideas and
we looked back where do you where did
the three of you even begin we want to
put something in it yeah armrest start
with start the whiteboard and the
post-it notes and go from there I think
that story is involved in almost all of
the content that we do and so to some
level we have that high level outline of
where we're going with the story and
that gives us a foundation to build off
of I would say very closely in line with
that though we're also looking at you
know what are some of the game mechanics
and the design ideas that people have
for the game you know new encounters
that they want to develop or things
we've learned from doing open world maps
and we want to build on those
experiences there may be certain things
that they want to do in terms of you
know going to certain locations
environmental layouts for maps that
they're interested in that they think
are cool and so we kind of start with
the highest level bits of information in
all those areas and then we try to get
as many of those folks together to
really start fleshing out how they might
fit together and sort of what's that
next level of detail on all of them and
some ideas come up that were like oh my
gosh that's the best thing ever
sometimes ideas start to fall out when
we look at like oh here's the pros and
cons of that or there's a challenge it's
not going to work with you know where
we're going with the story or whatever
so we start there and we just kind of
work through iteratively if I were to
get a little bit more detailed we
generally start with what we would call
a pitch it's like the simplest one or
two page concept of what we're
interested in doing and involves
touching on all of those key areas the
story the environment the gameplay and
then we'll get into doing some prototype
we're actually trying out some of those
things and figuring out you know that
idea we had for this particular mechanic
let's get it in as quickly as we can and
play it and see if it actually is going
to be fun once we get past that then
we'll actually get into full-on design
and development of an episode where
we're iterating a lot we do a lot of
play tests where we get the team
together we've got alpha playtesters
that come in and we just play it
regularly and try to give feedback
everybody on the team gives feedback
doesn't matter if you're not a designer
you can have feedback on the design
story folks have good ideas on art and
you know I think that cross-pollination
really helps and eventually we get to a
point where we've kind of got what we
would call like a first playable or a
feature complete set and at that point
we're really looking at everything
cohesively from beginning and and seeing
how the overall experience feels and
making any adjustments from there as
mostly polishing and kind of tweaking
and improving to really get to a point
where we feel like it's the quality
level that we want and at that point
it's mostly just you know bug fixing and
that kind of thing yeah and I think some
of that my favorite kind of piece of
that early I da ting about what's going
on is yeah we might have an idea we try
and keep it fairly high level for where
the story needs to go say in this next
chapter of stuff because you do want
those details to be filled in by the
team you want everybody to come together
but you know Josh and I have had various
conversations where maybe it'll say like
oh we're going to do this so we're going
to reintroduce this character and then
that can spark something in him going oh
you know what like two years ago I was
working on this thing that was just kind
of this fun side project and we didn't
really have any place to put it but if
we're gonna reintroduce that character
wouldn't it be awesome if we did this
particular thing and we're like you have
wait you made a whole separate like room
of Awesomeness over here yeah let's talk
about that and then going back and forth
and a lot of times actually there may be
those high levels but we have someone on
art who says you know what I've been
kind of ever like our creature team or
something's it's like I've been working
on a creature that looks like this and
does this particular thing it feels like
you know if this creature was over in
this
came up over in this other region he'd
have these different traits and it do
this there something we could do with
that sometimes that sparked something
for us or it works for the you know
gameplay team and definitely like when
we found out we were going to be able to
have your characters actually walking
and talking and fighting and doing all
that in the same time which sounds like
it's a fairly straightforward thing when
you're on an MMO and you have to worry
about bandwidth and stuff the fact that
we were able to figure that out for
heart of thorns was huge and it opened
up all the things we could do and it
made like that inner relationship of all
of it so great so when we get in the
room with like Josh and designers and
everybody and we're all sitting around
and we're talking about it that's when
the really cool things I think bubble up
and you start to realize how much your
ideas are so much better when you're
sharing them with one another and and
they become like the product of all of
that right yeah having the the cross
disciplines all those those are some of
my fondest memories of working on guild
wars 2 you or the brainstorming meetings
where yeah yeah we'd have animators and
concept artists and designers and QA and
producers like everyone in the room just
throwing out all the ideas and writing
them up on the whiteboard and seeing
what everyone gets excited about yeah
perfect example of that would be I think
back to when we did the first winter's
day holiday which is our wintertime
holiday in guild wars 2 and we kind of
struck up on this idea of sort of the
miniature villages that people sometimes
have in their house at the holidays were
like trains and stuff running through
them and so we kind of got caught on
this idea of what would it be like to be
a big person in a little town like that
and so we ended up with an airship of
sort of our version of Santa Claus that
comes and delivers presents and he's got
a mini village where he's building all
of these toys and you could actually go
in there and like destroy little
buildings and stuff and felt like the
giant in there and then that even
carried over into our PvP match which
was a snowball fight that's actually
inside of a snow globe so if you look up
you see that like oh I'm inside a snow
globe and so there's a snow globe out in
the outer world you can see oh look
there's some trees and stuff and the
next thing you know you're actually
inside of that environment so we played
a lot with scale and size relative
in that and you know just that idea of
playing with scale was really
interesting and manifested itself in a
couple of different ways in that release
speaking of festivals I want to address
the question of festivals real quick and
then we've left a couple minutes for
questions from you guys in the audience
something that we have managed to do in
our festivals you know we've got
halloween and winter's day are two big
ones and it's a thing that we want to
make sure all of our player base can
enjoy so we have content in there that
stems that goes all the way from like we
said before the little quick pick up and
play you know you can run around and do
these things give give orphans warm
sweaters all the way up to I guess so
many sweaters you got these letters all
the way up to things that are more
involved and take a longer amount of
time how did you guys Maj to cover that
entire scale without just completely
killing yourselves with work um I think
we just killed ourselves with work
alright well I the first one yeah it's
always a tough one because people get
really excited about ideas yes and
that's great because you know great
ideas come from a lot of different areas
at some point it's always a question of
some things great on their own don't
really work with the pieces when they
all start right to come together and so
some things kind of get left on the
cutting room floor and maybe we revisit
it in the future and then at some point
we're like we could probably just
continue to refine this thing forever in
like a year later wouldn't it be great
if we did this other thing so at some
point you have to release the shame your
stuff and so you end up setting some
goals for when you want to be done and
then everyone starts working towards
that and you know we work with our
production group to really try and set
reasonable schedules but at some point
everyone decides we do want to ship and
so let's let's move forward and you know
maybe we'll revisit some things later
specifically with Halloween because that
was that was our first living will
update and so we were pretty much
throwing everything at the wall to see
what would stick yeah and there were a
lot of people with a lot of different
passions you know I'm
really like the jumpy kind of stuff and
he did you know so I said let's make the
ultimate jumping puzzle and you know
other people like the PBP you know game
types and so yeah there's that because
there was so much passion we kind of
drove ourselves to try a lot of stuff
yeah and that's just the part of the
process of learning what works in our
game and you know what doesn't work so
well captain the way you say because
there was so much passion makes me feel
like there was a really big fight in one
of the meeting rooms somewhere their
disagreement tonight is no it's our art
I would be concerned yeah like that I
think people have passion and you know
as long as you're coming at it from a
position of respect and you know
appreciation that everyone is working on
trying to make something that they feel
is gonna be great but if there's no
disagreements then there's probably not
the best ideas making their way to the
forefront yeah um I have I'm gonna ask
you guys one last question while I'm
doing that if you guys have any
questions for the devs Lizzy's up here
and she will take your questions and
help you did you get the microphone okay
and she will get you up here to ask
questions for us I am curious what is
your favorite piece of content that each
of you have helped put into guild wars 2
and how come and Josh you're sitting
closest to me so you have to answer
first Doughboy um well like I said the
jumping thing is is my passion so pick a
jumping puzzle pick a favorite child
Josh well it was it was the super
adventure box so that I was like you're
allowed to say it yeah it was it was a
really unique experience to be able to
say hey I've got this idea for this
really crazy thing and to actually be
empowered to do that with with a little
team and did that little side project so
you so much fun um do you know it was
super fun super fun very nice um for
those of you who aren't familiar well
you know it's your baby you can describe
what it was for people who are familiar
oh well if you don't it's so super super
venture box is an 8-bit inspired jumping
puzzle dungeon
kind of thing 45 people to go through
and play like an old nintendo game but
with the guild wars characters within
this world that looks nothing like it
otherwise it was it was a lot of fun
mm-hmm how about you Leah goodness
that's a really hard one um because
overall there's so many things about the
heart of thorns story that I'm actually
really proud of I think that the way
that we integrated a lot of things with
our tech team and our design team and we
put in really good choices and sort of
really meaningful changes between things
I feel like again whether it was your
race or whatever um goodness I think and
some of the character stories in just
the moments that we had to kind of work
with their I think we're very cool I
yeah it's it honestly it's sort of hard
for me to pick anything but i think the
kind of moment where we leave the we're
sort of um we're tiny makes this really
kind of tough choice in the middle of
RAD innovis probably is like a moment
that I go oh oh oh and that feels really
like you know it gave me all the feels
like even just listening to the voice
actors do it in the booth oh my god this
give me one does um so did you were
responsible for that yeah well now the
team was responsible for that like being
at my computer yeah and there's just
there are a lot of those moments there
that I felt were really cool and to be
honest what I'm also kind of excited
about is how I feel like that did a
really good job of setting up other
things that are to come and that's I
think maybe for myself the thing I'm
most excited about having done is really
making sure that we do know where we're
going and finding ways to kind of piece
things out over time because you can't
just think about it episode by episode
or you can't think about even season by
season sometimes you want to you know
lay some groundwork for something in the
first or second season that plays off
when it pays off three years later and
we're starting to really do so much more
of that in a way that I'm so excited
well that's the thing you mentioned as a
head of narrative you have to be
thinking that far ahead so you don't
paint us into a corner
absolutely yeah we've had a lot of
really great especially when I first got
there we had a lot of really great like
long-term planning talks that every time
now when we're talking about something
it's so much easier for us to say well
is this gonna if we're thinking about a
big plot point is this gonna help us get
there yeah you know and having that
place to go to that side right over
there we are going right there it
doesn't seem like it you take this long
but you know okay um we're getting close
on time so Stephen this feels like a
Cheney question for you as a game
director it's like you've had your
finger in all the pies yeah yeah I can't
pick my favorite child um dude real
quick I you know I I loved the first
holidays we did with you know halloween
and the Mad King busting out and
destroying that Joshua statue I enjoyed
a lot our flame and frost rule it was
actually my idea because when I was a
kid I loved that scene in The Muppet
movie where animal grows Giants out of a
building I wanted to recreate that yeah
flamin frost was great it was sort of a
five-person mini dungeon but she sort of
explored that there was an impending
invasion as we did the nightmare Tower
which was sort of an open-world dungeon
where you travel to the top and along
the way had sort of a variety of fights
culminating and destroying the tower we
did the labyrinth in Cliff's area which
was rock faces overlooking the ocean and
joy of movement and jumping and
exploration we did silver waste which
was really awesome where it's open world
defending and seeing towers that if you
hold them all then you have mini bosses
followed by a main boss and so I think
it speaks to again the idea of doing a
lot of diverse content there's a lot of
fun different things that we've done
across you know all the years with
living world in and you know it's it's
been fun doing all of them yeah that was
like 10 pieces contd this is hard yeah
but I can't I can't argue with you on
any of them and I had to leave somehow I
know all right we have like two minutes
left so let's hold on i have a quick up
now there is an insect crawling on my PS
Vita right now it's very cute okay so
there we go get just
hello my name is Daniel hi Daniel and as
a writer and I've heard that you said
having the long-term plans about we want
to reach here whatever i'm a speculative
fiction writer so how do you know when
is the right time to release a new
episode and how far in advance are you
planning that next episode before you
release it because you might have one I
was like oh yeah we this is really good
and it's like and then gets out there
it's like well that kind of went faster
than we thought it did or didn't catch
on as much as we thought it would so we
need to grill out another episode
because people like well you know that
adventure didn't suit me as much as it
might have some Sean so what a set
process like well I will say the timing
of episodic releases is something we've
actually had a lot of internal
discussions about right now and it's
it's part of it is bluntly when you're
in the game world making games is hard
and at some point you are only able to
get something out as quickly as you can
get it out so we're only so much in
control of how quick of a cadence we
have I think to your point the thing I
will say is the pacing of those beats
across time is actually something that
we do spend a lot of time thinking about
and how soon is it to reveal something
because if you reveal it too soon we get
too many people knowing exactly where
you're going because that's not fun like
you want the surprise and you want
people to ideally we have the biggest
win when everyone in the community
watches an episode and you have you know
fifteen percent of the people thinking
this is going to happen next and forty
percent of the people thinking this is
going to happen next and another forty
thinking this and then there's like five
percent who are thinking something else
and and they're all like sure and
arguing and like hearing each other
sides that I think is the part that we
really push for and it's you know it's a
hard thing to say oh here's a perfect
formula for how to do it because none of
that is math you know but the thoughts
of what we're always thinking about is
what are the big things in each episode
that we want people to leave
and talked about and really remember
like oh wow we found out this really
critical piece of information or the
world totally change because of
something and we want to make sure that
every time we put out an episode one of
those happens but they're all going
towards that ultimate goal and I think
what we find in our world is that there
are several different storylines kind of
ongoing and so what's nice for us is we
much like a you know one-hour drama on
television like you never just follow
this one storyline from start to finish
we get to go and follow this story line
and then connect with this one and
connect with this one and it may be in a
certain episode we don't even see the
second story line at all we connect with
that a little later when it feels like
it's the right time weaving into the
rest of it but we spent a lot of time
thinking about that yeah and in general
the further out it is the less detail we
want to put into it you know it sort of
levels of granularity so we we generally
know where we're going or on an episode
level we start with kind of a couple of
high-level points if you get too
detailed too far out those those plans
fall apart anyway it needs to be kind of
a process of revealing each layer and
having more detail come as you go so if
you have too much detail too far it
generally won't look anything like that
when you get there okay thank you okay
we're at time guys they're sending in
bugs to make us leave so thank you guys
very much thank you so much
you
Guild Chat - Episode 36

Transcription[edit]

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