Guild Chat - Episode 35
Guild Chat - Episode 35
- Title
- Salvation Pass Story
- Host
- Rubi Bayer
- Guests
- Bobby Stein
Andrew Gray - Date
- March 12, 2016
- Official video
- YouTube
The 35th episode of Guild Chat aired on March 12, 2016.
Transcription[edit]
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Note: The text below hasn't yet been converted from raw subtitle text into pretty print like above. |
hi everybody happy friday and welcome back to guild chat i'm your host ruby and we're going to be talking about the lorentz story inside our newest trade wing today with the white mantle fair warning spoilers ahoy coming up I'm with a couple of our game designers Bobby and Andrew I'll let you guys introduce yourselves for our newer members of the audience if you guys aren't new thank you for coming and what you guys do here to reading it I'm in degree I'm a game designer I'm Bobby Stein I'm a writer you know narrative person narrative lead I want to see your business card because I kind of get that chain like titles instructions written up there and when we last saw my name and credits anywhere that was my title so but yeah I've been working on the raids for a while now so we released our newest trade wing this week and what day was it when someone got to the end it took a little while I think it was roughly about a day later yeah it wasn't like someone immediately went in and just trampled everything no I know the first two encounters were cleared you know relatively quickly i'm a terrible judge at this by the way because you know i'm still trying to work up my skills so that i can beat them with a team but some really good players were able to get some really good players were able to get through to the final boss within the first day and i think the first clear i believe was the next day but yeah was watching videos and checking the forms and read it and everything it was really exciting to watch it was it was it was really fun but we had talked a lot in the weeks coming up about sloths us or can you say it please loss or thank you it just entertains me I didn't tell you I was going to ask you to do that I'm sorry we talked about slotless or a lot in the weeks leading up we kind of didn't want to spoil you on the white mantle but now that they're at their we're going to kind of talk about the history of these guys because if you've been around Guild Wars one guild wars 2 for a while you know that these are this is a long-running group and these guys have been around for a very long time why don't you guys talk a little bit about the history of the white mantle as they've been interior for so long sure um would you like me to start over okay so um for four people have played guild wars one prophecies it's kind of known as but yeah the first guild wars game the white mantle were a pretty big part of that story and what I would recommend is if people have haven't played Guild Wars one hey go buy a copy it's probably pretty cheap but yeah so that's the first time they've been introduced and at any rate without spoiling any of that story stuff you know through a series of events you encounter them and some of their enemies and you know bigger plot gets uncovered and whatnot but you do end up kind of at odds with them they seem like such a nice helpful people yeah they start off on the right foot they're protecting villagers from undead and such ah but then they kind of turned out to be not so nice yeah and even after the events of that when we were doing things like the bonus mission pack players actually got a chance to play as Saul who was you know their founder and see a little bit more of a different side of them you know as everybody knows right this two sides to every story so that was a really good opportunity to look at maybe you know people outside the white mantle would probably look at him as the boogeyman and them as being really awful people probably within their own ranks they wouldn't be twirling their mustaches all day they probably don't necessarily think that they're all that bad and and to be fair they had done some things throughout history that maybe weren't so bad they pushed the char out so um but obviously feeling bivolo about that too well and obviously like like that's a whole other issue you know Crichton royalty probably doesn't have a very high opinion of them but you know people who were kind of caught in the crossfire you know if the white mantle word do things that were beneficial to them like driving out invaders from their home they might actually look at them as not so bad so one of the I guess interesting things just that we're trying to do as we put a little bit of a spotlight on them is show different levels of or different attitudes of people within that organization you know there they have a history of using kind of hired help so some people maybe you're just in it for the money or the advantage that they get for rolling with a group like this whereas others might be true believers of whatever cause so I think what we're trying to do and this is not something that will happen all at once but we did it in the original Guild Wars I think we where it makes sense in guild wars 2 we would want to kind of show a little bit more dimension to them yeah let's look at a couple of these you mentioned Saul and in guild wars 2 Saul D'Alessio is a name you might know as the founder so who is he and how did let's go ahead a little bit into who he was and how he founded the white mantle because that was a first killed worsening yeah so um before he found them or thought he was sort of a a drunkard a swindler not not really on the right path so to speak not the most useful uh legend has it he met them or sought in the jungle and they they showed him the light and they told him that they were there were gods and that they would lead crida to better times and for a time this thing keeps whole having a problem does it I'll tell you if there's anything you need to know cool yeah thanks um and then for a while that was true i mean like like Bobby mentioned the chart did invade and with the help of their unseen gods the white mantle were able to repel the char so one could make a very strong argument that if it weren't for the white mantle things wouldn't be very good in kryta it would probably be a lot more Chari these days than it is again some people might have different feelings about that just saying yes yes no I know Mike player character would have problem with what you just saw well you know Andrews like shut up the char are you know the charge are awesome so uh yeah um saw at the end of that battle sort of vanished from the world questionable where but he's gone yeah and then from there he was sort of more just a figurehead a symbol they obviously they named a lot of stuff after him and it was a lot of stuff um but from there it was a durian that took over and he was the Confessor that you encountered in at the beginning of prophecies and I was actually the first time players actually saw them was when he was in charge the bonus mission pack was chronologically before that but but released after that is sort of a flashback and the bonus mission pack helped lead us toward guild wars 2 yeah yeah it filled in some stories that i know we we couldn't with there was not really the opportunity to show in the games but because it's an important part of like the history and gives you a bit more perspective on these characters it was a really cool project i mean i think you didn't you worked on it too i know i did and some other folks who were here mr. Delman yeah it was it was really cool plus i think the other thing too is a one of our animators truck was working on the cinematics in the bonus mission pack and i know he had a lot of hands on trying to kind of push them a little harder than some of the guild wars when cinematics were kind of tame in comparison to what we can do now and guild wars 2 and but at any rate he was so excited because you know when you know for salt alessia staying at the very end but also for a gun i'm trying to remember that there was that fight on the bridge it was a otra i oh so yeah yeah like all that anyway total tangent yeah one of the cool things too is we're we're possible in the raids we can kind of dig a little deeper into side stories things that maybe we had kind of introduced in the game's lore but maybe didn't explore as deeply as we wanted but because it's not integral to the main plots that we have planned we can actually go take a little bit of a side turn and these are things that will obviously you know flesh out the world and the story of the game but if you don't play it it's not like there's a critical thing that you might miss and we'll definitely try and give you other ways to catch up and we're still just kind of discussing what form or forms that may take but we'll have to see yeah I don't know yeah well look at that down the road I'm looking forward to that alright so that's kind of the history of the white mantle and how we brought them in excuse me war in kryta was the bonus mission pack that brought us into guilt or the steel doors beyond guild wars beyond then we come into guild wars 2 this has been a while okay everybody homework everybody has to go play this again yes um so it can be a lot of that content so you totally should go late again I don't know after we talked about this all this time I was like it's been a while oh yeah actually um do that since so the cinematic at the end of the raid touches upon the things that you had worked on so tell us all about it further justifying of course so yeah Warren credit takes place believe it's a couple years after the events of prophecies the white man i'll have certainly lost a lot of their grip on crida but there they are still the ruling party it's the shining blade and Queen Salma are sort of making a push to reclaim the country before the creighton monarchy and you see sort of throughout the release of that sort of public opinion source 2 starts to shift is sort of like them as they desperately try to cling on the power they get more and more sort of aggressive and start really i mean showing the side of themselves that that the player character had seen right many a times but the average Crichton still would have been not very aware of and suddenly they're going around with brute squads and murdering villagers and farmers and all sorts are not so nice thing yeah and then they into the besieging lines arch but yeah throughout its it's sort of a the veil sort of lifted and you can kind of start seeing like okay these guys are are maybe not pure evil but they certainly are willing to perform evil acts to to meet their goals but again like we said earlier a lot of their goals are good I mean keeping Titans at bay that's a thing to do not letting your country be invaded by an invading force of questionable uh you know niceness so these are all things that are pretty good things to do they're good goals they are so that kind of touches on our the white mantle bad guys because we we view them and we treat them in our game from the player character perspective as generally evil their adversaries but maybe not entirely it's kind of not black and white it depends on who you ask really I mean that that's true of anything you know in the world right two sides to every story so you know if you were to ask somebody who's been captured by them or people who work for them they're not going to have a very pleasant outlook on these people but if you find somebody within that organization that really believes in what they're doing maybe they're willing to overlook some of the the question will or bad things that they're doing because they think that the end goal it justifies the means yeah the people in power in guild wars 2 are going to be inclined to not mention any of the positive aspects of the white mantle probably isn't well known that they fought back the char or anything like that because why would we want to put these people that are our enemies up on a pedestal ya swing why would you want to yeah and actually you had brought up a good point earlier before the show where it was just you know in the in the core game there's not a lot of information about the white mantle because it mostly wasn't pertinent to the story unless you were playing a human character and you wanted to know about your your parents you know if you choose that biography right and you're hearing about them from people who are tasked with kind of keeping them down right The Shining Blade they're largely aware of what may be going on in the world they can't be everywhere all the time so sometimes the player will stumble onto something that maybe they're not aware about or you know so in the case being in the raid you would think that hey why isn't the shining blade there well why would they be out in the jungle taking care of this when they've got things to worry about at home right and even the human player character in that story kind of comes out like who what are you talking about I this was just kind of like a tail you know it's like the boogeyman right and well why would why would the royalty want people to be well-informed about some embarrassing parts of their history you know why would you want to make a huge deal of that well obviously if the King fled because he didn't have the stones to fight a war you know and somebody else came in and did what he should have done that's kind of embarrassing right to the royal line so rather than say well you know we had disagreements but there they at least did something good they're just not either going to talk about it or if they do they're not going to be talking about these people in the nicest light so realistically kind of keeping it all hush-hush seems pretty you know it seems reasonable yeah it seems like a pretty logical thing for somebody to do actually oh sorry nope so here's what I'm wondering about we've got all of this history in for skilled Wars and you're bringing this into guild wars 2 I mean you kind of knew where we were going with the white mantle how did you figure out the balance of weaving them into the story I mean they're they've been in guild wars 2 since the core game launched back in 2012 they've been there they've been subtle how did you find that balance between making it a part of the story where it was noticeable enough for people to be aware yeah these guys ran off and hid in the jungle they're still around but it's not overwhelming it's not in your face you know there's there's hints of that throughout the game in the open world in you know some of the events and the ambient things that happen in certain maps but then when we were working on the living world story we decided to tap into that because it made sense yeah and through that we've extended the story into the raids because it's kind of like a natural progression and this all goes back to things that happen in guild wars won I mean after the white male were largely driven off you know whoever didn't die had to go somewhere and either reassimilate in a society or kind of go off and do their own thing what we're showing the raids is this is where some of them went off and did their own thing actually directly after the war in kryta and the winds of change release you see a couple of them actually they have become cell swords which is kind of a flips and say you're usually hiring bandits and stuff but if you talk to them in that they actually you can see that they're basically just trying to get funds get power and rebuild themselves they're still true to their cause so there are survivors after the war in Christ still there better you know basically like we need to regroup build our strength and in you know come back see what we can do yeah you mentioned that they've always been there do you want to give a couple of those examples for people in the four people in guild wars check now I mean we find what are some of those things that are hanging yeah bro probably the more obvious one or is the thing that people have been playing since season two so and I think it's Brisbane wildlands there's a fort I think it's for vandal there was a lot of talk around the fort if you were to either talk to certain NPCs or listen to things that they were saying they would kind of mention certain things after the fort gets kind of shattered or broken open because of mordor moths rising power you're able to get in there and explore a little bit and you know go through can't go through their stuff and then also check out things like a busted asura gate that was there it's like where did it go and you know we weren't really very clear as to where it could have gone and you know gates aren't static things I mean generally in the game you encounter one it tells you where it's going to take you and that's where it takes you but you know lore wise they could go anywhere they can be retuned and recalibrated so the the idea is okay where did they go and again we've hinted before in the game and in previous games that you know they may have headed toward the jungle so when you actually get to salvation pass you kind of put two and two together that hey maybe this is a place where some of these people were going why well because they've been setting up here for a while and if they really need to retreat into a safer place that's out of the way to do whatever it is that they're doing that's where the bill yeah here's this thing and souls to ms oh yeah somewhere I yeah forgot where I think it's her at the hinterlands and I forget which sector map sector it is but yeah there's this is cool so again for people who like to explore or maybe you know spoiler warning there is a temple for lack of a better word I don't know there's like a ruined area where there's a tomb or like a casket what would you even call it a crypt I don't words are hard so at any rate when you when you think you're not a writer yeah I pretend uh you do really well oh thanks um you go and you find you know this item or object you know where you expect a body to be in but you can't get at it and if you go to I think it's a statue that's nearby and I don't remember if you kneel or if you do something else anyway you do these kind of sort of easter egg II things to create a chain of events but if you run back into the room you'll end up fighting a tomb guardian for lack of a better word but what you realize is that you would expect the body of salt alessio to be here but hey guess what it's not people don't know what ever happened to the guy but oh hey it doesn't you know you can have a gravestone or a tomb and not have anything in it because it's a monument to something but there is that open question well whatever happened to the guy I mean there are a lot of I think questions that we've introduced throughout the years that I think where it makes sense will answer those questions and you know just disclaimer we're not going to answer every open question that there has ever been but I think we want to look at where we can tie things up so for example the the Asura gate in Brisbane if you play the rain and you put two and two together it's pretty clear that that's where they were connected you know between the two so yeah so little things like that where where it makes sense will make that connection for people that's funny you talked about that um about the spirit in the tomb not being Saul I did not I mean it's been a year or two since I as a player stumbled across that and did it and I remember we were thinking oh that's really weird that that's not him and I don't remember if we looked into if we you know thought about it too much but I just now as you were saying that because yesterday we were like oh yeah cells tuned we should totally talked about that and just now as you were saying that I was like oh I remember if we thought about that or not but yeah I just have one of the list he was beamed up at the end of the bonus mission never saved up first you guys I don't think we had an effect for that back then beaming up beaded you went back to his home planet coochie the dog oh my gosh everything just a whole new planet just opened up thanks guys Bobby you have stuff to do now Esther eileen is that look terrifying follow through on this random thing that Andrew said so we talked a little bit earlier have a couple things that I wanted to ask you guys about probably you um more than puppies like I don't know why I'm doing so we were talking about the story and how this is kind of a tan genitals story inside the raid sorry you am I I'm thinking back to a conversation we had before we went live and now everything is ruined yeah Oh a story before we um that explains the Freudian slip this might be the third time the show was broken me yeah come on children great man we've got mature person probably goes a youngest man the old people straight hey story in the raid oh yeah so what if is this like course raise this a one-off is this like all we're going to see so all right uh because whatever you're not a Raider and you so forsaken thicket is meant to be three wings that form a story that is a story that we wanted to tell and you know it is meant to be a story interior that we've wanted to tell but you know it will enrich the game in a way but I really don't want to talk about what comes after it because I rather oil every yep no I mean I think what what is hard for some people when they see something that comes out that you know either they want to get into it or they can't or whatever is they don't really know where we're going with it where it ends or if it's if is this a dead end is this the only place where I'm going to get this or will this mean that we're headed in a particular direction I can't tell you any of those things even though I know the answer to it because realistically well what fun would there be in that right but I think one thing that may put people's minds at ease a little bit would be you know a we're listening and reading everything that you post so continue to post you know constructive criticism wherever you can about the different segments of the game you know do you like what you're seeing in the raids do you not like it you know obviously you know I'm very interested about how we're portraying the story in the lore in the raids so I want to know what people think of it what's working and what doesn't but also if you have concerns about certain things let us know I mean I can't make any promises but I definitely know that everybody here is passionate about what they do we want to make a game that people are enjoying will play for years to come so yeah let us let us know how we're doing and sorry and to answer now I should know that's fine uh I would just say be patient see how everything develops and you know there's an entire wing that has yet to be experienced that I'm personally very excited about it's it's super cool we just actually finished the just finished doing I need to go and do a couple of revisions but showed it to Leah today she was you know pretty pleased and I'm excited about it the team is excited it was a lot of collaboration again the stuff that we we tried and wing to you know with like the players talking and stuff like that we're gonna do a little bit more to that and push a little harder again you know I think that I've said before and we keep saying we're going to keep coming to work we're not going to go home today at six o'clock and just never cut we're not done we're going to keep you there there's a lot more in stories about all I can say you know there's some good stuff coming ahead so i would hope that people would you know be patient and hopefully trust us but i know trust is a hard thing to manage sometimes so and in the meantime i do know that i really appreciate as someone who isn't like a hard core raid i'm so glad it was done with that someone who's not a hard core raider I do appreciate that you guys managed to create a way if I still want to get in there and explore one around do you want to the people who haven't seen this before do you want to kind of explain how you can go in with a friend oh yeah and I actually ended up doing so I've been trying to clear the wing one you know spirit veil it it's hard i'm not a great well it's a raid i'm pretty much the epitome of casual right i like to go in look going for map complete I beat the story all the stories that we put in there but definitely I want to get more into rating and fractals right just because I think if I'm going to keep playing the game I don't want to just it to be routine I want to get better at how I'm playing the game and raids definitely encourage that or you know you basically say you know you have to be mandated yeah so but I'm lucky because I'm surrounding myself with people who are patient here Charlie and sometimes I was hard for people i get that I mean I I can relate to it so the cool thing though about the raids and and I don't know if this is unique to our game or fall games do it i'll be honest i'm not a Raider in any other MMOs so but the cool thing that if once you beat it and you've cleared the raid for the week but or it resets you can go back in and it is cleared so a lot of the optional things and some of the achievements that you could do that we're not necessarily related to combat you can go in with a group or by yourself and take your time just exploring interacting with things making observations trying to see how it all fits together and the cool thing is because you're not being you know attacked all the time there's a there's a couple of like trash mobs that might still be there but for the most part it's clear you can start to look at if you're even interested in kind of how things are built in the game you know this is almost like hey you know why did they put these things here what does it all mean you can sit and analyze that stuff because a lot of times you know when we're working on the team you know crystal and Jason and tears a Tammy like we all get together everybody on the team and we talked about hey narrative Lee what are we what's going on in this area what are the things that we want to tell overtly or covertly you know some of it is just a simple prop placement would get your mind wandering so that you start to understand sometimes we'll call it out your character will look at if you like hey what's this wall doing here well it's a pretty obvious call out but in other cases we might just put a prop in a particular area or place that is meant to get you to think about what happened before I got here it's just a little bit more of like an ambient or I don't know it's a storytelling technique that's used in film all the time but games I think to really you can do a really interesting job with it in games because of being delivered and where you place things and how you interact with him yeah all right so is there anything else you guys want to tell us about the white mantle or Salvation passes we know it right now um late if you can and if you can't already there's some good documentation on the official wiki if you're more interested in just seeing kind of what's in there again it's a it will spoil things but my guess is if you go on the internet and you're interested in Guild Wars you probably have some things already if you're watching the show some of it spoiled for you but I did warn this so yeah but yeah I would say check that out to get a sense of the kind of things that are in there and a lot of really great streams I've been seeing lately a attempting to take down a boss so if you're interested in learning how to do it there's a lot of really good documentation on maybe how to do your build or what sort of armor might be a good you know combination to to go into the fight you know pick a role and then and then do it it will take a lot of practice if you're more casual player I know when I went in we tried taking down the veil guardian for like two hours and I were not i think we got it down to like sixty-six percent health or whatever right now I felt like a champ just for doing that you know I saw I saw a lot of that right there at the beginning so yeah but I mean it's just a learning experience well and same thing with the gorse of all fight right like uh you know I play a tempest char and okay you know learning what my role is in that fight and then coordinating with a group of people this is a different way for me to play because usually I would go and do a story instance and living world or whatever and yeah I could either solo it or just going with a couple people and you know for me it was enough of a challenge but for a lot of people it's you know easy money they can just roll right through so this is meant to kind of push you and challenge you and make you a bit more patient but yeah we made progress by the end and I felt a little bit better more confident now when I go out in some of the hot maps like I can run around by myself and not die a lot because of the things that I started learning and doing in the raids it made me a better player yeah so that's I think one of the cool takeaways that is that is a huge part of this I mean yeah it's a hard content it's supposed to be a hard content and it has I've heard you're not the first person I've heard say that it is making its making you a better player it's up in your skills yeah you know and it's it's a personal decision right like not everybody's going to be that interested they might not have the time commitment to put into it right so although I will say I've seen a lot of people who that is not their normal type of content that once they start sort of learning it they actually start to really enjoy it yeah I mean it's actually kind of try it yeah it's renewed my interest in playing the game okay Andrew and I have been working on this franchise for like a decade more you've been here even longer than 12 years or something yeah yeah so you know 10 years for me and you know this IP in and out for ya a long time yeah played a lot at work because we're building things that we need to make sure to work yeah I play it in my spare time but there are other games out there that I want to play because you know I need a break yeah or I'm doing research I want to see how they're going about doing these things and hey is there anything cool with what they're doing that we can apply to our games so I mean all the things that we're trying with voice or you know the different narrative techniques are designed technic I mean we all kind of bring our inspirations into it right so um I don't even know where I was going I'm sorry that's pretty much it that's another thing that rating has done for you is kind of renewed your interest yeah exactly so but again we're gonna can we want to keep doing better so keep keep telling us what what you like and what you'd like to see and yeah who knows you know help us shape the game we you know we plan to be working on it for a while so please as far as like the history of the white metal if people want to learn more about that in more detail the guild wars 1 wiki wiki tours com has it's very well done really really really well done but i would say it would be much better to experience it yourself and as Bobby mentioned i'm pretty sure guild wars one is is not an expensive purchase and it can be you can play it on things like windows surfaces and stuff because it's come to that was that was some of the most fun content yeah like i did really good time with i go back and play guild wars one still from time to time it's it's a solid game like i would highly recommend you go check it out if you're interested in the story and learning more yeah if really if white mantle if this group is proving to be of interest to you it's a lot of fun yeah there's a lot there alright so we are good for this week I do have a few pieces of news for you guys we have a little bit of short show this week because we are planning for next week which is not going to be a regular guild chat some of us are traveling down to austin texas for South by Southwest gaming we are going to have guild chat on location there will be starting next week not at our normal time we're going to be 1230 instead of our normal noon start time so plan on that but please join us from the show floor we're going to have a panel down there at South by Southwest so we will have some information for you and we'll see you there make sure as always you follow our channel on twitch and we have a video that I believe you are and to show you guys so follow our make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel to its guild wars 2 and let's take a look at this video where you guys talked about rights and i'll see you guys next week it south myself list white man i'll go all the way back to the original wars game kind of a cool opportunity to bring them forward you know a couple hundred years into the current timeline but also pushing in new directions definitely showing some of the darker side of tyria once we had a good idea of where the raids were gonna take place we started looking at where would fit in the overall narrative of our game world and where we wanted to go what we're doing in these wings is setting up stuff that will continue well past that is as you're on the outskirts of the Forsaken thicket you don't even really know who these people are they just seem to be a bunch of bandits who've been holed up in the woods as you go deeper inside their operation you start seeing a progression you can get deeper into their backwoods society and their clothes start becoming a little bit more identifiable their ranks start becoming more apparent the people who you encounter and fight or more powerful you just start discovering a lot more about their operation that the white mantle boss that you fight in Salvation passes name is Mathias Gabriel a lot of his abilities are powered by magic from the bloodstone and some of that ties back directly to the magic that surged out deuterium order moth died at the end of hot and so that's sort of the running thing for all of the salvation pass is Magic has gone crazy it's seeped out into the world it explains everything that's going on why you walk into some areas and it's snowing in the jungle and it's chaos building that up being how much strength he has or is holding in or we're not holding in there's obviously a lure that's tied to it it's not having to draw from something from the past just coming up with something totally doing I based it primarily often conversations with the team as we build things out so it's a really great collaborative process pulling in from some of the lore and some of the actual amazing assets that were created by other artists also kind of identifying well in this state I'm going to actually pair back a little bit but we still want to be able to convey his power there's a human form and in an abominated state so the human form is clearly going to be still powerful but a little bit subdued because he's in human form when he goes into the abominate state he's crazy you don't know if its possession you don't know if he can't contain his power so it's where the chaotic mess in does this meant two variations on the effects to show how he had become more powerful in this final state and so some of the effects were altered a little for the final phase where the team's work really hard on this and everything really came together it's going to pay off for the players you you
