Guild Chat - Episode 57

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Guild Chat - Episode 57

Title
Daybreak
Host
Rubi Bayer
Guests
Andrew Gray
Morgan Brown
Erik Fagerstrom
Heather Conover
Kirk Williford
Date
December 8, 2017
Official video
YouTube
Previous
56
Next
58
The following is an unofficial, player-written transcript of the episode. The accuracy of this transcription has not been verified by ArenaNet.

The 57th episode of Guild Chat aired on December 8, 2017. Host Rubi Bayer interviews some of the developers involved in the Daybreak release.

Transcription[edit]

Introductions (6:44)[edit]

Rubi Bayer: Hey everybody and welcome back to Guild Chat. We are talking today about episode one of Season 4. We've resumed Living World seasons, so we're gonna chat with some of the devs who worked on that. I'll let you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves. Talk about what you did on this episode?

Andrew Gray: I'm Andrew Gray. I worked on the Mordant Crescent Great Hall meta and the Palawadan meta and Champion's Dawn and the Koss cave, and the Dervishes, Paragons, and Loyali- Alchemists.

Rubi: So not much.

[Andrew, Morgan and Erik say no and wave dismissively]

Andrew: I'm kind of a slacker.

Rubi: So what was left for you guys after that?

Andrew: I just let these guys do everything.

Morgan Brown: I'm Morgan Brown, Game Designer, and I just worked on Chapter 1: Eye of the Brandstorm on this release.

Erik Fagerstrom: I'm Erik Fagerstrom. I am a Content Programmer and I worked on Chapter 5: The Hero of Istan - that jail break.

Rubi: Awesome. And you're kind of the handyman, too.

Erik: Oh yeah, I guess so. I guess I do all the-

Rubi: This is important!

Erik: Yeah, you're right. Okay. Yeah. So I'm not- I'm sort of new to designer land and I'm a programmer so all the tech stuff was, "Ahh! It's broken!" I go fix it. Or find somebody smart who can actually fix it. That's pretty much how I do it. Eh, whatever.

Favorite Parts (7:51)[edit]

Rubi: Nice. Alright, so there was a lot going on in this episode both in the instanced content; outside, well, we got the new map. Why don't you guys tell me a little bit about what your favorite parts of developing this were? And you can fight over who goes first. It doesn't matter.

[Andrew and Erik point to Morgan while Morgan does rock, paper, scissors]

Erik: You win! Congrats.

Morgan: Alright.

Rubi: Morgan wins just for thinking of that.

Erik: It's unanimous.

Morgan: Favorite thing. Okay. Favorite thing about working on this is... This sounds like a stock answer. It's kind of cliche, but it's- Cliches are cliches for reason, like this is a truth that we always get to, is that it's the collaborative process of realizing the vision for the episode, or in my case, the instance. Everybody working together, pitching in all the little parts, every little part gets a lot of love from different disciplines like animators, effects artists, character modelers and everything like that. And then taking all those separate pieces and putting them all together into like the big picture. And then, at the end of the day, the sum of all of those pieces is greater than its parts and you can like kind of step back from it and see everything together for what it is and it's like, ah that's what we've been busting our butts... about... for...

Erik: Butts.

Andrew: Good catch.

Rubi: Good save.

Morgan: Yeah. [thumbs up]

Erik: It was good. Nobody noticed.

Andrew: Yeah.

Morgan: For so long. And like, you know. And it's really hard. It can start with specific ideas like the branded wyvern, you know? It's got a whole team of artists that have to realize just how it looks. Plus, you know, systems designers and stuff. How it acts and all this. And it can be more like abstract things like this story. You have the narrative team who has a story for the whole world, for all the characters. Those characters have interactions which are kind of their own story, like sub-story? I don't know, like there's different tiers. And then because the world is always changing because it's a living world...

Andrew: Whoa, he said the thing!

Rubi: Ooh!

Erik: It was great. I totally nailed it.

Morgan: You always have to make the characters respond to the ever-changing status quo, how it changes... So yeah.

Erik: That was super good.

Morgan: Thanks, man.

Rubi: That was very good.

Erik: That was super good.

Morgan: That's my favorite part.

Rubi: It- well, it's a lot of moving parts and it's a huge thing and making all of that come together has got to be so rewarding once it all works out.

Morgan: Yeah. Sometimes you feel like you're on fire. Most times you feel like you're on fire.

Rubi: Are you actually...?

Morgan: Sometimes you're actually on fire. Yes.

Erik: [waving arms] Oh, God! I'm on fire! Yeah. Fire.

Rubi: And that's where Erik comes in with the extinguisher.

Erik: Usually, yes. Yeah, they're just like, "Erik! It's broken!" I don't know, good luck!

Rubi: Morgan's on fire again.

Morgan: In case of fire: break open content programmer cage and let them come out.

Erik: Yeah, I have to go find somebody. Go find an adult for them.

Andrew: We do not cage our programmers.

Erik: Yeah, generally.

Morgan: Well, it's a glass enclosure.

Erik: Yeah, never hit them with hammers. Yeah, it's fine. It's all good.

Andrew: It's a friendly cage.

Erik: It's a friendly hammer.

Morgan: It's got holes in it. They can breathe.

Rubi: Geez, Andrew, what are you doing to these guys? Alright. What about you guys? Erik!

Erik: Dang it... Ah, wow. [looking at Morgan] What you said was really good, especially at the end, because it feels so long you're just like, I'm in, you know, paper design or just like, everything's broken! I'm just trying to, you know, you've got, like, dummy creatures and then at the end it's like, shink! [laces fingers together] Ah, there it is! There! That's- Ah! Yeah, this! You're right!

Morgan: That's the thing we were trying to do!

Erik: Yeah! As I remember this, it was-

Morgan: And you just figured it out like on day 200.

Erik: Players were like, "Yeah! This is totally working!" And you're like, [shifty eyes] "Yeah, the whole time it did."

Rubi: You have no idea!

Erik: Yeah. It seems like, "Oh yeah, you just make the thing and it works! That's how that goes!" That's never how that goes, at least not for me. I don't know about you guys, but... I think favorite for me was, because I was sort of new to this, like I've done big releases and stuff but always from programming land, collections and stuff back in the day, but now it's I don't know. I really feel like [whispers] "Shh! Don't tell anyone that I don't belong here." Because like, just working with you guys, it's like, I don't know. You clearly know your stuff and just kind of absorbing it. Especially getting to sit near you guys now I just kind of listen for like, "Oh! Something important's happening!" And like, take the headphones off. "Hmm!" So like the collaborative process: it really does make a big difference. Even on this scene, we didn't have seating in the last- where we were sitting last. We move around at the office, our desks, a lot and earlier when I was a little bit further away, it makes a difference! Like being right there, it's just so much just popcorn knowledge happens and it's like, "Huh. That's awesome!" So it's quiet and it's day-to-day but I really like it. Also Dara's puns. That would be the other thing, but-

Rubi: Dara's puns are something that everybody kind of loves.

Erik: Yeah, they're incredible.

Rubi: It's a thing.

Erik: Yeah, that's- It's dark and it's Monday and one of those happens and you're like, "Oh right, don't worry about this. Alright."

Rubi: That's okay then.

Andrew: Alright, another pun.

Erik: Frost loves 'em. Don't let him tell you otherwise.

Rubi: Okay, maybe it's- Everybody has strong feelings about this. Is that a safe thing to say?

Andrew: Yes.

Erik: Yeah. Very diplomatic.

Morgan: Yeah. It's more of a spectrum of emotions.

Erik: Oh, wow! Yeah, that was really good. A synergy. Okay.

Morgan: Yes, some vertical integration and paradigm shifts.

Erik: Yeah, alright. Yeah, this is- Okay. Yeah, it's really solid.

Rubi: So, let's make you feel better about the puns and you can talk about things that you loved about developing.

Andrew: I really liked going back to Istan and like being able to revisit some old characters like getting to visit Koss and getting to pass on the news that his family was not horribly murdered by Joko during the purge.

Rubi: You made him happy!

Andrew: Yeah! It's nice to deliver good news for a change here. We're often the bearer of questionable to not good news.

Rubi: Yeah. So bringing Koss back- I mean, that was- you can't just cut and paste, bring him out of Guild Wars 1 and yeah, here's the character model, just like he was.

Andrew: No.

Rubi: How did that work?

Andrew: So actually, originally he was wearing sort of a variation of the default Sunspear armor that you see some- around the griffon stuff.

Rubi: Yeah.

Andrew: But an artist actually approached us and said, "Hey, wouldn't it be a lot cooler if Koss was wearing Koss' armor from Guild Wars 1?" And we were like, "Well, hell yeah it would be a lot cooler if he was!"

Rubi: Yes! Please!

Andrew: So we actually took the time to re-sculpt it and everything so we could get Koss' armor in Guild Wars 2.

Rubi: Okay, that's extremely cool. Again, collaborative process working so well and making it like a million times better.

Andrew: Yeah, exactly.

Erik: Right.

Morgan: Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah, the more people you include in brainstorming, or any phase of development, the better. Because like good ideas come from everywhere and like it just makes a product better.

Renaming of Kamadan (14:01)[edit]

Rubi: Yeah. Speaking of good ideas: the renaming of Kamadan.

Andrew: Yes. So that was a contentious debate of whether it should be Palawadan or Jokodan. Palawadan was-

[shouts of "Praise Joko!" from off-screen]

Rubi: Oh, gosh!

Andrew: Yes. Palawadan was clearly the better name because it sounds like Kamadan, right? So.

Rubi: I refuse to weigh in on this.

Andrew: Oh, well.

Rubi: So. Chat: Palawadan or Jokodan? What do you think?

Andrew: Palawadan! Come on, now!

[someone hums a song]

Rubi: Thank you! Oh gosh, it was driving me crazy!

Erik: What?

Rubi: It was like, please, somebody do the thing!

Erik: Do what? Nobody- I don't even know what you're talking about. There's nothing happening.

Morgan: What are you talking about? What? Is it them again? [points off-screen]

Erik: It's totally- It's the peanut gallery.

Andrew: Yes.

Morgan: Alright.

Erik: [looking off-screen] Shhhhh!

Rubi: Geez. You guys are out of control.

Erik: Get out!

Paragons, Dervishes and Books (14:46)[edit]

Rubi: Quick! Quick! Tell me about Paragons and Dervishes!

Andrew: Oh, yes. Um, so-

Rubi: Look, everybody!

Andrew: So one of the first things we did when we decided we were going- when we settled on Istan was we rolled new characters to go play in the earlier parts of Nightfall that all take place in Istan so we could, you know, make sure we were true to the original. And so because we're rolling Nightfall characters a lot of us ended up rolling Paragons and Dervishes and then we're like, "Hey, you know what are cool? Paragons and Dervishes!" So from there we decided that we should add them. And we did! And now they chase you around a map with a scythe!

Rubi: I don't like it.

Andrew: Well...

Rubi: I like the Paragons and Dervishes. I don't like all the death that happens to me.

Erik: Oh, man! I thought I was the only one! I just get ruined! Like, "Hey, look! Some st-" Oh, I'm dead. ???[verification requested] can you tone those back? No!

Andrew: Hey! I toned those down like three times!

Rubi: We did, didn't- Yeah.

Erik: I know you did! I, yeah, I'm still terrible.

Rubi: They just came flying of nowhere and one-shot rekt you at first, didn't they?

Erik: They were bad news.

Rubi: They still are.

Andrew: Yeah and the Dervishes didn't have ground attack AoE markers and... Yeah!

Rubi: So they just- Poosh! You're done.

Andrew: Uh huh!

Rubi: Wow. Thank you for toning that down.

Andrew: Must like Dervishes!

Erik: Now it feels like you have to pay attention. You get outta there and like-

Morgan: Yeah.

Erik: Run away, so.

Rubi: Yeah. If you pay attention and if you don't stand in the red circles and be terrible. Yeah.

Erik: Don't stand in the stuff! That's the ???[verification requested]

Morgan: Yeah. Don't stand in the red.

Andrew: Yeah.

Rubi: So most of their skills came over intact, didn't they?

Andrew: Yeah! So there were a few liberties we had to take because like, for example, enchantments don't exist in Guild Wars 2.

Rubi: Surprise.

Andrew: Yeah, so the dervish, there's a dervish skill that when you hit you steal an enchantment and there's another dervish skill that if you have an enchantment on you you remove that enchantment and knock down your foe. So I just replaced enchantments with boons and now they do basically the exact same thing.

Rubi: That's perfect.

Andrew: Paragons, the same, like a song of flame is one to one copy, it causes burning with your next attack, yeah.

Rubi: I like it. They worked out really well bringing those over. How long did that take?

Andrew: Actually, not that long.

Rubi: Really?

Erik: Well for him. Because you know Guild Wars 1. I'd be like, 'what?' It just happened one day.

Morgan: Wikipedia dot org

Erik: I, seriously

[All laugh]

Andrew: How to make dervish. There is a youtube tutorial for that.

Rubi: How to paragon. You mentioned too that you did some of the rough drafts of the books like the nightfall book.

Andrew: Yeah, I did.

Rubi: In the Astralarium?

Andrew: No the Astralarium books, Heather did a lot of those.

Rubi: There are so many books, we should have Heather on soon.

Andrew: Yes, she can talk about those.

Rubi: Don't go anywhere. [points off screen]

Andrew: I did the books for the collection event, that starts with Koss on Koss. I did the rough drafts for those ones. In yeah the nightfall book you interact with to get down into the Sunspear base. That one was especially fun because it's sort of taking the the actual nightfall story but giving it a very strong Joko bias, saying like 'yeah rip her eyes out because then it'll actually make it a challenge for me.' It was fun.

Rubi: Yeah the Joko spin on a lot of history is something that I had a lot of fun with. I mean interacting with a couple of the books over in the Astralarium for the first time and the nightfall book I was sitting there. I don't, did I remember this wrong? No...

Erik: It's all in your head man.

Jailbreak Story (xx:xx)[edit]

Rubi: I mean it has been a while since I did that story but come on. Something else that I wanted to ask about you [points at Erik] did the jailbreak sequence, you did the jailbreak story and we were talking a lot about the collaborative process but you finished up all of these skills, all of the little jailbreak skills.

Erik: Well ok, so it was still collaborative, the whole instance is you know. I took over from Frosty who had the paper design and actually had that moment written down when I came to it. Hey do you think we could have a professional specific moment here? I was just like that's awesome I have no idea how to do that but we'll totally do it. Ben Arnold, he's not here, but he, he did most of the boss, Warden Amala, at the end. Kirk, he'll be on later talking about the animation stuff.

Rubi: Don't go anywhere.

Erik: [Looks off] Don't go anywhere.

Morgan: Surprise.

Erik: It's really cool. Yeah, so I just kind of I don't know how many of the designs we kept at the end but that moment was it stood out. Hey this could actually be really cool and players have really responded. So the gist was we wanted to put you in a tough spot. Strip you of everything and then we just give you back kind of things that would make sense without your weapons, like utility skills, stuff like that, to kind of have a version of those that would fit within the prison. So you're just in the cell. You've got nothing. You're just like alright, how do you want to do this?

Rubi: What's here?

Erik: So if you're a warrior maybe you're just like 'I would like to rage' and splatter the door open. But if you're a Mesmer it's like 'well this seems too easy, I could just... I mean you think it would?' You can certainly try, and just blink out. And that's the one, that's man, that's gotten a lot of I mean, it seems too easy. It seems too easy. And yeah people seem to respond to it, so we like to have moments where. I mean, you know we talked a lot about some of the really big story stuff. And we make sure we get that right and that's where I kind of defer to people who know things like frosty. But then you know when we get into it, it's really we really like to get into the real details. So we talked about the big bosses and then all the way down to you know the middling the mummies in style, way down to like the critters out there. You know we love them too. So yeah we that's what we worked out.

Rubi: That's what makes it good, those little details.

Erik: Yeah, right.

Rubi: And I was telling you when we were talking about this the other day is that it caught me. because I was playing on my thief, I was like ah this is so cool. I yeah, you picked the lock with the bones so I didn't really look for anything. So then I went through again on my necro and I was so pleased with myself because I knew to how to. Yeah go get the bones and pick the lock. And why can't I interact with this thing. I don't understand what's happening here.

Erik: Yeah.

Rubi: So thank you for detailing that.

Erik: A lot of people didn't even notice that. I got it open, you know. Summon the spirit hammer, done. No, no the necro did not do that.

Rubi: No, no, perhaps I had done something more.

Erik: Yeah, but credit to Frosty. He really pushes for that kind of stuff. It's cool. We love it.

Rubi: It is and again the detail is what makes it. So thank you all. Because now I feel like, I was looking at you like I mean you didn't really do anything.

Erik: It's true. I didn't. They just, I just featured it.

Andrew: Oh no, he absolutely did. Channeling Palawa Joko, Prisoner Palawa Joko. That was all this guy.

Rubi: Oh yeah.

Andrew: I didn't even know about that until people were talking about it on reddit.

Rubi: It's easier to ask forgiveness.

Andrew: You actually did that. But you know seriously.

Erik: Nobody said no, so that what we are doing.

Rubi: That was the Revenant, right?

Erik: Yeah, it was similar to the warrior. And then I was like, okay you're going to force your way open. You know strong whatever. I won't have to me a teleport or whatever. So what do they got. We should really have a stance. Like well, what's a prisoner that's like, could be still have their essence kind of imprinted on the Mists. Just enough to channel, just this once. That's Joko, that's perfect. And then audio came through and they have like a "release me". It's great. I was like, oh man I did not do that. So collaborative process.

Morgan: Collaborative process.

Andrew: In the Living World

Morgan: Yeah.

Rubi: Also our audio team is kind of amazing.

Erik: They really are. They are wizards. They are, yeah.

Morgan: Yeah.

Erik: They are elementalists. I don't know what they are.

Morgan: They are just magic.

Erik: They are just magic.

Bugs (20:05)[edit]

   
okay so talking about

the development process

we had talked about some of the bugs

that you got worked out before it went

live and thank you because your little

guys carrying the casks had issues part

of me wishes it was still there I was

fine I couldn't find it yeah yeah so ok

when when we change characters the art

stuff there's this composite build thing

as run I don't know it works it's fancy

its way I'm not smart enough for that

but it puts together these human

humanoid characters like the creatures

don't go through this the humans do it

puts like there are more on their

weapons on all this stuff and what it

fails we get a default like a fallback

thing kinda like we do the other assets

do you like pink well this one though is

a it's a male

they have no head and they have no

clothes it's just a naked headless man

on your screen and at one point in my

instance the you roll up are the

beginning Sayid is fine she's ready

let's turn you over to the jail guys and

then her Posse with her cast don't

they're just they're just naked headless

man she's like alright everyone so let

you have a moment yeah so my screen I'm

trying to debug stuff and somebody's

like that doesn't look right

oh yeah you're right it doesn't it

really it really doesn't have a very

strange job but like I told friends

about don't say you don't say so that's

what we get okay so we're not gonna use

the image from this oh god but you have

to talk about when you're in prison

right we wanted to take your stuff away

so you have that like I don't have any

view prison clothes right instead of

just your arm or whatever it could look

a little weird if you're all you know

blinged out in djoko's dungeon so we we

had asked for new assets for this so

okay that was really cool y'all just

oblige that's really tougher than it

sounds because like Chara weird shape

every race is still bit different but

they came through it was great the

problem is that it had some clipping

issues where your skin

years through and like that's not

abnormally just a bucket and you fix it

didn't week the animation whatever this

one was egregious like it was all over

the place and man it led to some

problems you sit down and just you can

oh boy

and then especially we had one

screenshot where the human male is just

sitting the cameras facing and that is

it's not okay so in the bug reports I

think Dara just like taking all the

screenshots that was worse on my screen

I think they're kind of like par for the

courses it was pretty bad it was pretty

like some of them like how bad could it

blow wardrobe malfunction it was worse

it was way worse I mean worse like way

better image men say yeah or

entertaining there you go okay good

diplomatic show that's great game de

Ville

speaking of Pat the fire was still in

development when you guys were working I

mean you've been working on Episode one

for a while and Pat fire was still in

development while you were working on

that so it's kind of a moving target

yeah how much fun was that so we started

on Episode one well or at least started

on season four planning right after we

were done with episode 4 of season 3 so

it had been a while now granted some of

that time was coming up with the

overarching season arc but yeah we've

been working on it for a while and Pat

the fire was still an active development

now and we kept close communication with

them to make sure that we hopefully knew

as things changed but there were

definitely some surprises where we would

because we were regularly going back and

playing pacifier too because when we

first started the episode like a lot of

the instances weren't even made yet so

right as we got close to the end we'd go

back and play through again and then

play through again

oh that changed I guess we're gonna have

to change no you found out stuff the

hard way

yeah but now I like both products in my

opinion turned out really well

so it's a testament like the the

iterative process has its pain points

but it also is how you fine-tune

something to make it great yeah so it's

definitely worth it yeah it is and it

worked well good job thank you

alright I want to ask for one less story

about djoko's fountains before we so one

of our other co-workers Connor he worked

on path of fire and as path the fire was

kind of winding down and shipping and

all that good stuff

he sort of rolled on and was helping us

with a few things here and there and he

was we did a test for the Morton

Crescent Great Hall Mehta and he saw

these fountains of Joko that were

mind-controlling sunspears and his

immediate reaction was why can I not

drink from these fountains of Joko she

prays yeah so now if you interact with

these nasty green puddles of mind

control serum you will get let yell out

a hearty praise Joko and then for

ejected obama all over the place

as one does to us I mean green goop in

the fountain I'm not sure I need to talk

to Connor about why are you so adamant

about wanting to drink this did he just

need an excuse for his character to yell

praise joke Oh maybe as if you ever need

an excuse what's the power of choice

[Laughter]

alright well I will let you guys get

back to work not you stay here but thank

you both very very much for your time

thanks guys we'll be right back

you

it means welcome back like you guys

introduce yourselves

sure I'm Heather Conover I'm the game

designer um you want to hear what I

worked on yeah please

I worked on the astral areum in the open

world the Corsair area open world events

the heart I did the Corsair army as we

call it doing the creatures making the

bosses and the brand stone multi-tool on

the falling okay alright okay that's you

down there that mean yeah I'm a gorilla

for it I don't know which camera is it

focused on okay I'm Kirk Williford it's

gonna be game absolutely I worked on in

the first city instance as well as the

last instance why would you do that I

just heard that might have been what it

used to be called I guess the first

thing the foreigner first city instance

as well as the mother miners done across

the map it's not minor it's important

okay the race worked on the race yeah

and some of the little technical things

that we'll talk about later but we

talked before with the other three guys

what were some of your favorite things

bet development oh crap me first

sure okay she's my favorite thing is

that eric is like dying a thousand

deaths just off-camera this guy quiet

you okay

my favorite thing probably was just

being I'm a huge fan of nightfall and

being able to go back to Astana was huge

and I really was happy were able to do

that and when we first decided to go

back to Stan we thought of ways to make

it work to go to farriner because that

was a really cool place and why do you

do this okay but yeah just go being able

to go back to farriner is near and dear

to my heart because I love the place

and we were able to bring it bring it to

life in a way that I think paid good

tribute to what it was well also

bringing a lot of new stuff to it it was

something that we've talked about on Gil

chat a lot recently

coming back to the crystal desert when

there are all of these callbacks to go

to Guild Wars 1 what were some of the

harder things about like you said being

true to that but still bringing it into

the game and making it 250 years later

and a whole new game uh well art assets

for one just things have changed

graphics are more pretty now you know

it's not as easy as just copying pasting

a line of code or two so you have to I

can't confirm that I guess but I just

have a hunch but yeah just working with

our artists you know we went through not

just as a design team but we went

through and showed our artists you know

we put it all together other stuff and

said you know what what makes this done

look like it's done and that's why we

have things like the Sunspear Great Hall

you know really really noticeable and

areas like Anniston were more acceptable

to change over 250 years like joke it on

right you know things like that it's a

city it's gonna change over 250 years

right but farriner is an old roots set

of ruins right it's an old city it was

the first city so it has to stay a

little bit more to what it used to look

like and so that was a challenge in

itself yeah it was fun to think about

the Astra larium how it could change

over time um I like to think that

science prevails and so it's fun to be

like let's just expand this area let's

make it bigger more technical they got

more advanced they have a huge library

now that was fun yeah the library is

kind of amazing yeah all the libraries

in our game I probably should have

mentioned to you that we're gonna be

talking about spoilers and I've just

ruined that I'm so sorry but hey all the

spoilers

[Music]

[Laughter]

it's been like a week I want to give a

quick shoutout to Aaron our map artist

like because he made fart like we're

like we gotta go to Stan and then we're

like wool we really gotta we have to

have comment on in there like but we

also really want foreigner but oh look

there on clear opposite sides at the

island so we basically went to our map

art isn't but like so you make one map

how about two maps and he was on board

and he knocked both out of the park so

he never complained

ya know he was like it was a nicest guy

ever so all of you so what else Heather

oh gosh yeah so my favorite part um it

was actually one of the first things I

worked on I we knew you're gonna have

course errors because we were going to

it Stan and I love pirates I think

they're really fun themed to work with

and something we all know that pirates

love to do is drink oh yeah one of the

first things I did was make a boss

themed all around drinking the Ale

hounds crew boss so that was a lot of

fun it was like what are ridiculous

skills that can be related to drinking

vomiting yeah and vomiting I'm concerned

it's definitely I think we like like

multiply by a factor of at least for the

amount of vomit in all of Guild Wars 2

with the sticky floor people over there

oh gosh that's terrible what about the

yeah I want to talk about that a little

bit more because I know you did so much

in there with the telescopes and the

librarian everything happening yeah so

that was a lot of fun the path of our

team had started developing tech to make

books to add this books that you know

see in the map and so I was kind of like

you know if this exists we should try to

finish it up we should get it in it was

fun for me to brainstorm a bunch of book

ideas it's

it's a little hard for us to add a huge

volume of books we had a library but

it's a lot of text it's a lot of lore

yeah so we kind of like compromised and

said okay we'll do like back of the book

descriptions which will still be

flavorful they'll still have Lauren them

but they won't be as involved in as long

so that was kind of fun yeah huge series

of full books is a little much

yes yeah and it's not just much for a

narrative - and localization has to look

at all and it's a lot of translate at

all yeah um but yeah so that was fun for

me I got to think of just kind of like

fun book names and I pull a lot of

inspiration from pacifier and from Guild

Wars one used my encyclopedia of Guild

Wars 1 knowledge you guys these guys

helped a lot - I asked the team for fun

book name ideas and they ended up

pitching in and writing some of them -

and um and then after I do my past

everything goes through narrative to

make sure it all right like words good

yes the same Peters face yeah yeah thank

you yeah

and Alex Kane he did a lot of the

revisions and made them really polished

and shine um so I was really fun I did

you know I like played a bunch of

pacifier you know because this is before

it actually launched and looked around

for for inspiration you know one of my

favorite books is you and your Springer

it was a lot of fun and then of course

the telescope's was really fun for me

too I learned about how astronomers take

astronomical notes so that I could

actually be accurate that was fun for me

- yeah like you know and all that stuff

and then again pulled a lot of

inspiration from gw1

wanted to make sure that we had some

callbacks - legendary weapons so yeah it

was a lot of fun for me the back end of

that the way all of that works the

randomization makes it a little bit more

complicated I mean it seems very

straightforward on the front but

everything going on in the background

talk about that a little bit yeah yeah

yeah there is a lot of randomization

there are a lot of telescope correct

readings that you can get from each

telescope and then it also randomized

the incorrect readings that will try to

trip you up when you put them down in

the book and so it was kind of funny to

to get it all in and then Peter was

gonna review it all any kind of like you

know was like oh goodness this is a lot

but it's gonna be worth it

yes yeah at least I hope it was worth it

um because that's it you know I think

about the fact that the player plays

this more than once you know we have our

beautiful hearts now yeah so adding

variants is really important to me but

it it just explodes scope so it's

definitely something that we have to be

diligent about using yeah and huge shout

out to QA for making that making it work

smoothly yeah making it work well yeah

pretty much shout out to cue me for

everything yeah yeah oh gosh our QA meds

are great and they helped me a ton with

testing the brain stone multi-tool as

well which also uses a lot of

randomization yeah you did the

brainstorm multi-tool yeah did you just

like come out of put that I'm mostly

just leading you at this point so we

were we were actually playing breath of

the wild at the time they were totally

the only ones no yeah no we were super

jazzed about it and there were certain

things that we really liked hunting for

the stars that would fall in breath of

the wild was the touchstone for doing

this brand

branded multi-tool finding the brand

stones blooming that streaks across the

sky you have to see it you have to get

there in a certain amount of time like

there are a lot of things that we pulled

firm from inspiration for it and and

that ended up becoming a main part of

our content reward loop so yeah and it's

it's good to have those in-game ways of

crafting the weapon - yeah that was that

was really well done thank you and we've

talked about this before I mean we're

all we all play games every every kind

and a lot of those inspirations can be

felt and it works out really really well

so nice job thank you do you guys want

to talk about some of the bump in the

road things development on the way we

can go back to your way looking to me

I was I was kind of thinking of your ale

hound guy oh yeah at one point oh

goodness

okay so I mentioned that it was the

first thing I worked on right so there's

this thing that happens that when you

make something and then you don't look

at it for a long time it'll break like

it will just sometimes break as you know

we switch branches or that like part of

the technical process somehow this guy

had gotten into a state where he was so

hard so we were playing it we're like

all right let's make let's say did he

check this guy's won't get together on a

branch we'll play together and he was

ridiculously hard he managed to get like

a hundred percent damage increase and

just recognize completely recognized I'm

just asking what content gets lonely

it'll just break out of nowhere and just

get your attention again exactly nice

that dog how about you Kirk um let's see

the big one for me was probably the you

said spoilers right yes yes the final

okay porn porn it's a guitar

yeah because by against a certain golem

in the first city instance there was a

lot of weirdness that happened because

of some weird there's some stuff we were

doing that instance with some relatively

new tech yeah there was challenging

lots of golem we played the power cord

yes walk scruffy standing floating in

the middle of nowhere just kind of doing

its own thing it likes to walk on in

infant air without using Jets which is

totally cheating and not allowed pretty

much okay well you don't have to worry

about that it's fine seriously but yeah

just things like that all right our big

fights a lot of things can break just

because so much goes into them things

that you think are perfectly fine will

break I don't know you fix it and

that'll break something else just

because that's how software development

works yes it's not that simple

yes but yeah like Heather said just

credit to our QA team just trying to

nail down all that stuff they do a

fantastic job of finding things that I

never thought was possible not just not

fine but everywhere else they'd be like

hey this is this is broken here because

of this this is what on this one like

specific profession when this one skill

this will happen

yeah edge cases I mean they're terrible

heartbreaking you mentioned new tech and

that reminded me that I wanted to talk a

little bit about the invisible NPCs oh

yeah yeah this is a hazard of developing

something new so it's fine so so one

thing that we did with our story is that

the sly crew the sly corsair crew is not

visible until you're on the right story

step and then they'll show up I kind of

goofed and made it so that they were not

visible at one point when they should

have been but everything that activated

their dialogue was there so I would be

running around their area when they're

not supposed to be there and then

hearing people talk then just being like

where is this coming from

this yeah that was pretty funny um

ghosts basically like actually not like

the ghostly you can see in our game they

were like weird yeah

but the tech on that I mean having that

added to the game is something I love

the constant improvements as we figure

out how to do more things and having

them not show up as just NPCs that you

can't do anything with just randomly

standing there such a nice little yeah

it also meant that we could have Kido

show up in the middle of a conversation

and then go away that's right yeah

normally we would not be able to do that

in the open world because we got this

new tech we could do something like that

which is it just allows us to do such

cool things like we use it to ensure the

first city as well exam is standing

guard you know when you go in that isn't

something we'd be able to do without

that tank yeah I didn't put those two

together until you said that just now

but thank you for mentioning Kido

because I was a little embarrassed when

I first did it notice you had mentioned

Kirk the last instance can we talk about

how bad that hurt and how sad it was

goodness so I don't know if we talked

about it yet but before we get voice in

we have a thing called Robo voice yes so

it's like Microsoft Sam voice type thing

you know and it's just so we can kind of

get the base timing of our stuff when

we're before we get recordings in from

voice art voiceover artists and stuff

right when that came in for timing my

jaw hit the floor just cuz it completely

changed the tone of the entire instance

yeah the voice actor for that

Jerry baby did a fantastic job

like holy crap I it was more than I was

expecting and I was expecting it to be

fantastic well you didn't know the video

was in no that's right yeah like I just

all of a sudden instead of hearing her

say I I do not want to die

what yes that tends to happen no cuz

it's like it's added in chunks right and

so all of a sudden it's there and you're

just pulling away so yeah it's really

cool it's a wait like you work on

something for so long but you still

surprise yourself because of it it's

really neat yeah it's um it's a tiny

tangent but the robo voice is one of my

favorite parts of development because

sometimes it can't pronounce ya crowd

cater ik yes in Yoko no no because way

back when we were talking to I think the

priest of Balthazar and he you said

something he like scoffed at you do you

remember that in the temple and hearing

robo voice say was one of the highlights

just he just like buzzed and I wish I'd

saved it because it's just gone forever

now but yes robo voice makes all the

difference and then when it's gone and

suddenly you have something like this

last instance it hits you like a

sledgehammer yeah

it really doesn't that was some of the

biggest feedback that I saw once people

once our players started finishing the

story was all of this I'm just sitting

here crying why would you do this to me

ArenaNet so well done to all of you guys

who worked on that the narrative team

Debbie especially with her vo yeah they

did an incredible job yeah well what

else were some of the highlights of

development on this for you guys you

guys worked on so much I feel like I'm

just asking you this huge I'm just

observing okay and judging say really

quickly though that you know his yes the

Paragons winner was just really hard but

the first pass of the Corsair army that

I did was also very hard and yeah and so

you know I they were also used in the

plow in Donovan and so we didn't I don't

even think I realized how hard they were

until we did it plow it on

I got we were with like a large group -

I got so many of the same bug those guys

too hard he's creating me constantly

seriously yeah they kick their kickers

yeah definitely piranhas in that water I

wonder I put those there

yeah but still I feel like you kind of

deserved this watching inside to his own

oh my gosh dying of your own creation

how about the drug does terrible things

to you and why is that so we can't have

alcohol give you any benefits thinking

is good kids yeah you're great um but I

was in this lovely like naive bubble

where I was like oh make I'll make Medi

who's this character um have a suite of

drinks that you can try and they'll each

give you buffs and players will love it

they'll do it every day it'll give him

some renown credit and Lindsay played

and she was like I know and my heart

kind of broke a little and I was like

well fine they'll debuff you instead you

know it's kind of like so um so yeah

they're now they gave you a buffs which

will give you some conditions and

there's there's a fun little hidden

thing with that too that apparently some

players have found but not a lot of

players ok we'll skip the power chord

and let them find it on there oh yeah

you can still do it I mean it's fine

that instead of just scuttling all of

the work because now I have something to

go look for yeah alright well I will let

you guys get back to work too and thank

you all very very much all five of you

even those of you in the peanut gallery

troublemaker

all right thank you guys very much for

your work on Episode one and for kicking

off season four all right we will be

back on the next skilled chat thank you, guys

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