Guild Chat - Episode 68

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

The 68th episode of Guild Chat aired on July 27, 2018. Host Rubi Bayer interviews some of the developers involved in Festival of the Four Winds.

Transcription[edit]

Introduction (6:54)[edit]

Rubi Bayer: Hi! Welcome to Guild Chat where we are currently celebrating the return of the Festival of the Four Winds. I'm your host Rubi and today I'm going to be talking to some of the team that brought you the Festival of the Four Winds. Let's start with our first two devs. I'll let you guys introduce yourselves and talk about your part in bringing this back.

Joe Kimmes: Alright, I'm Joe Kimmes, the Current Activities Team Lead and Designer. So... let's see. So, for bringing this festival back, I started work on it after we finished work for this year's Super Adventure Box festival and prior to that Matthew Medina had done a lot of the groundwork for the festival and getting the maps back and starting to hook stuff up and see like, "Okay, like, okay. What does it look like? Do the events still work? Let's turn on mounts on these maps and see how it feels." So when I came on I did a lot of the sort of festival boilerplate like bringing back the achievements, creating new achievements that had- you know, were repeatable or fixing up the daily achievements and then setting up some of the sort of festival connective tissue for like the NPCs in towns who can route you to the festival maps or send you between the festival maps and making sure they all had little icons on the map and all that stuff. And after that I ended up taking over a lot of The Crown Pavilion stuff, so Queen's Gauntlet and Boss Blitz, and coordinating those with the rest of team and making sure we had a plan and playtesting it, doing tuning on all of that, rewards, and a lot of stuff. It's a big festival.

Rubi: So a few things!

Joe: Yeah.

Rubi: How about you, Brett?

Brett Nellermoe: I'm Brett Nellermoe and I'm the QA Embed on the Current Activities Team so I'm responsible for all of the test planning and a large portion of the testing for all of our stuff. And I started later than Joe but mainly because we had two other current activities releases and legendary weapons so just finding time in between those other things to work on this and yeah. Thankfully a lot of the stuff from last year was still usable, so a little bit less of a load because of that.

Joe: Yeah. Lots of stuff to test though.

Brett: Yeah. Certainly.

Bringing the Festival Back (9:26)[edit]

Rubi: Yeah. Bringing something back like this after this many years had to have been super, super exciting but probably a tiny bit scary?

Joe: Yeah, well it's... We had a lot of players who'd ask about it whenever they had the chance, like, "Hey, like can Labyrinthine Cliffs come back?"

Rubi: Yeah.

Joe: Like, "When are we going to see this again?" And a couple times in the past we had batted around the idea and said like, "Okay, what's it gonna take?" And you would go to that map and remember the Zephyr Sanctum airship taking up so much of it and it unfortunately had crashed in a earlier season of the game and we're like, okay, so there's a lot that has to happen. And it got shelved a couple times and then finally we had the chance. We were like, okay, there's a lot of- We have the right team for it. We've got Matthew Medina helping us out, who knows a lot about the festival. And kind of the opportunity was there, so we seized the chance and... But going back in and seeing everything again and trying to figure out, okay, there needs to be a lot of new dialogue here explaining the whole thing.

Rubi: Yeah. Something that you had mentioned, speaking of players asking, you had- you were comfortable with that for a while because players were asking, you were able to be honest and say that's not something we're working on right now.

Joe: Oh yeah.

Rubi: But that was like, that got nerve-wracking the past few months.

Joe: Yeah! We had a couple, you know, forum chats or interviews where someone would ask like, "Hey! Like I really want Labyrinthine Cliffs! Like when is that coming back?" And when I can, I try to answer people's questions even if it's in the negative, right? And so I asked around like, "Hey, is anybody actually doing it?" And I was like, "Well, you know, our team handles the festivals. We would really, really like to bring this back, but we are not currently working on it." And I was honest about that at the time and then a couple months later we were like, "Okay, this is something we can do. We're gonna start working on it soon." And we had another forum chat where I was like, okay, I really hope nobody comes to me and says like, "How about now? Are you're working on it now?" because then I would have to just kind of ignore the question and I just knew if that happened there would be the post the next day saying like, "Hey, like in- three months ago, Joe said that we weren't doing this thing and now he didn't respond so I think..."

Brett: Festival confirmed.

Rubi: Yes. This clearly means something.

Joe: Yeah. "I think 100% ArenaNet just committed to bringing the festival back this year."

Rubi: That had to have been- Well, you got lucky, so...

Joe: Yeah, it worked out or I just didn't see the question. I apologize to whoever asked the question then.

Queen's Gauntlet Bosses: Suriel (12:20)[edit]

Rubi: Good hanging in there. Well let's talk about some of the specifics because I want to talk about a couple of the bosses in the Queen's Gauntlet because you guys have one who has been training for literally years and-

Joe: Yeah. That was another of the recurring player questions was about Suriel. When we rebuilt Lion's Arch, one of the designers added her. She's one of the contestants - well, not a contestant - she's one of the combatants you can fight in Queen's Gauntlet and she- I think she's the final boss of the first round normally. And they added her as kind of a flavor NPC in Lion's Arch where she's running around the city and just her tag is like "Training for the Next Gauntlet" and it was kind of one of those like, "Okay, like this designer put that, but you know we're not making that right now, right?" But it became this recurring like, "Well, she's been training for a couple years." like... And whenever we were asked about bringing back The Crown Pavilion, usually someone would chime in like, "Oh man, like I can't wait to fight Suriel again because she must be like really strong by now, right? After doing continuous laps... for years."

Rubi: For years. And- Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Joe: Well, it's incredible strength training, right? So when we were working on it that was one of the things we were like okay 100% we have to have a new version of her fight.

Rubi: Yeah, seriously. And actually I'll kind of look at Brett for this, since you were working on QA on this, because she did get very, very strong and a little bit too strong while in testing.

Brett: Yeah. There was a period of time where it was just- she would absolutely destroy you after her punch combo. Kick you over the edge of the arena, before we increased the collision size on the invisible walls, and then she'd just boot you out completely and you'd die from fall damage.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. You would get rung out and instantly lose.

Rubi: And to me, this makes sense!

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: Absolutely.

Rubi: Because she would!

Joe: Yeah. I almost wanted to leave that in, but it was like... it was a little bit... yeah, glitchy feeling and unexpected for you to get launched out.

Rubi: It really, really was, but it's hilariously appropriate. So, I know it's a bug and I know you had to fix it, but I love that it was there.

Joe: Yeah. All that exercise pays off.

Rubi: Yeah, seriously.

Brett: Strong kicks.

Rubi: And you guys mentioned, when did we take her out of Lion's Arch?

Joe: So at this point it would have been two or three weeks ago. The build before we announced the return of the Festival of the Four Winds, we quietly went in and just turned off her spawns so she was no longer running around Lion's Arch and we wanted to see if anybody would be like, "Hey! Like this NPC's gone now! Like what does it mean?" And we had to make sure we told the Community Team like, "Hey, if anybody asks don't say anything, but we are putting in this little ol' like kind of Easter Egg hint at the festival coming back." She's got a really long route too, so we did the build and I was like, "Okay, like can we check to see if she's gone?" and Brett was saying like, "Well, like there's a lot of Lion's Arch to check and she's moving."

Brett: Yeah. Easy to test in a testing environment, but doing it on live is a little bit more of a task.

Joe: So every day I would kinda be like, "Well, I haven't seen anyone post about it. Maybe... Is she still there?" And I go run around a little and I didn't see her and... So we couldn't exactly, you know... ask.

Brett: Yeah.

Rubi: I never actually saw anyone say anything, so I don't know if any of you guys ever noticed that Suriel's been gone for a couple weeks?

Brett: I assume we would have seen a post about it, but I don't know.

Rubi: Yes. I mean if you dig, you didn't say anything where I noticed? But yeah, she was gone and I don't know if any- if you guys ever like just got desperate enough to run her entire route in reverse just to find out, but yep she's been gone for a little while, just back there preparing for preparing for Queen's Gauntlet.

Joe: Yeah and then I'm sure when the festival ends she'll continue being gone for a while just because of- we're not- there won't be time to patch it back in, but I'm really looking forward to adding her back in and hopefully like tuning up her routine a little so that she can keep working and stay fresh for the next festival.

Brett: Actually, I was wondering: since we've added Suriel back in as a second fight does that mean that she's been serialized?

Joe: Didn't we... Did we say you couldn't do that or is that-

Rubi: I'd begged him to do that.

Joe: Okay.

Rubi: I'm sorry, but I really liked it when he did that the first time and I was like, "Please do it again! It was good!"

Joe: This is what the team has to work with.

Rubi: Thank him!

Brett: I'm happy to provide.

Rubi: I honestly- If she goes back out there I want to see her like lounging on the beach and saying something like, "I earned this. Four years, you guys!"

Joe: Right! And I kind of want to give her more of a sequence, you know? So it's not just running laps, but, you know, stops and-

Brett: She's learned some new moves.

Rubi: Yeah. Some handsprings or something.

Joe: Does a little shadowboxing.

Queen's Gauntlet Bosses: Turai Ossa (17:53)[edit]

Rubi: Something like that. Alright. Well let's talk about a couple of the other ones because Turai Ossa had some really good stuff in testing too that also makes me happy. Because he had the salute at the start.

Joe: Oh yeah.

Brett: Right. So currently, Turai Ossa has a salute move that he does at the start of the fight. So initially, he would just immediately go into his attack routine which was a little bit jarring and made the skill floor seem possibly too high.

Rubi: I think "mean".

Joe: We had testers who were losing in like the first two seconds of the fight. Like they were- You get to the arena and you're like, "Alright, alright. Who am I- Oh! I've lost half my hit points."

Brett: So then another tester found that while he was doing that salute, if he was getting attacked fast enough, he would just restart the salute over and over again so you could-

Rubi: Cause he had to finish.

Brett: Right. He has something like 90% damage reduction during the first phase of his fight so you could just very, very slowly whittle him down.

Joe: Yeah. The toughest thing with having those complicated one-on-one fights is that you end up with these edge cases that you didn't think of where some class's unique ability or like teleport move or minions mess something up. I had a version, at one point, of the Suriel fight where she won't attack minions intentionally, but the minions can get hit by her attacks and she would get into a sequence where she started punching one of the minions and one of her things is if you get caught in her repeated punch move she'll keep punching you until you're low enough for her to do the finishing kick. And she did less damage to minions because minions have a bit of like default damage reduction to keep them from just getting blown up by things and she would sit there punching flesh golem for like 30 seconds and you could just DPS her during that time. This flesh golem just sitting there tanking the hit. And I was like, okay I gotta figure out a way to fix this now. We had a tester who was like, "This fight was really easy like, she just hit my flesh golem for like a solid minute while I was killing her." and I was like, "That's supposed to be one of the harder fights actually, uh..."

Rubi: And your tester's over there going [buffs nails on shirt then admires them]

Joe: Yeah! Right! We get this weird feedback where they're like, "Yeah, I beat them all on the first try." I'm like, "How?!"

Rubi: We're taking your flesh golem away. That's not okay.

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: Flesh golem cancelled.

Boss Blitz (20:24)[edit]

Rubi: Well I want to talk about Boss Blitz too, but real quick because I have seen a couple questions coming in. We are going to take a few minutes of questions at the end of these guys's segments, so if you have any put them in chat and we'll try to get to a few of those before we finish up. So. Let's talk about the Boss Blitz because there is some really fun Guild Wars 1 throwback stuff there which is well, yes, because you're here and it's fun! We have Hablion in there.

Joe: Yeah so, one of our like big goals in bringing the festival back was, so the first time the pavilion was released. I don't remember which team I was on at the time now that I think about it.

Rubi: It's been a while.

Joe: Yeah. I saw the pitch for it and ok, we're going to have this giant arena under Divinity's reach and it'll be split into like six sections and they'll each feature recreations of one of like humanity's historic enemies and I was talking to our designers like okay so like who is there and they're like alright well that's the Centaurs obviously.

Rubi: Cuz centaurs.

Joe: They're a constant threat. There's bandits, there's like dragon minions like the destroyers and he listed them all and I said 'wait what about the white mantle? That's got to be one of the big ones right?' In Guild Wars 1 they were one of the major enemies of Kryta. They controlled Kryta for a long time. Then we had the War in Kryta where they were overthrown by the Shining Blade and citizens of Kryta.

Note: The text below hasn't yet been converted from raw subtitle text into pretty print like above.https://youtu.be/zK8UUBiaqBM?t=1317

was like they've got to be one of the
things right well sure
at the time but we didn't do it because
they had appeared a little in the story
and we knew they were gonna appear again
yeah we're going to be a large there's
gonna be a moment when the white mantle
came back yeah and you had to fend them
off again and so we knew it when we did
that there was gonna be some kind of
like here's their you know
fully-featured cool new army right yeah
they're gonna have custom moves and
stuff and so we're not doing that now we
don't want to add some like you know
really tailored white mantle enemy group
because then you'd be like oh the white
metal must be coming back right they
wouldn't do this
you don't weigh from that yeah and so
they kind of glossed over and I like to
think that like in setting it's that the
Creighton leadership Queen Jennah is
pretty brave but the the council yeah I
can imagine them kind of being like
listen like we know there are white
mantle still out there let's not make a
big deal out of it yes yeah let's try to
get people to forget that none and not
give any like covert white mantle
sympathizer is something to kind of
rally around but now in the story we've
finally destroyed the white mantle for
good surely and so I assure you it's not
any kind I'm not like as far as I know
they're gone some story designers watch
but so now they came back out of the
shadows they've been defeated now is a
good chance to have them take over one
of the existing sections yeah the
pavilion and we've got the cool army for
them we've got yeah boss skills we've
got themed like set pieces for them we
can redecorate that section and it kind
of makes sense because they've been
overthrown and now krytie wants to
present them as like this is one of the
many enemies that we have defeated
they're gone for good it's dealt with
their historic
problem and it's actually kind of a
feel-good thing now yeah we also got a
decent amount of feedback and both
externally and internally about the ogre
boss yeah having mechanics that were
kind of contrary to playing with each
other because it was easy to make it
harder for other people and it wasn't
super easily it wasn't well messaged for
newer players yeah so I apologize to all
any of the like huge ogre fans out there
but we looked at all the different
existing for so smokey we can't get rid
of the Centaurs right and it came down
to let's see if we can like the ogres
were the one that was gonna get cut yeah
plus for ocher fans there's still some
hanging out yeah we did yes that's so
idea that Joe had pretty early on was to
have some it would be funny to have some
groups of ogres still hanging out like
they got missed or maybe their
programming sent them of course cuz
everything in the crown Pavillion is
watch Knights so our map artist was he
did a great job he removed the the giant
airship from the kite city map and he
added in the entire new pie slice that
we got this year and we told him this
idea he said oh yeah I can totally do
that and he made just like a tiny little
camp that's nestled in the back corner
of the white mantle section to have the
ogres in and just to make sure that we
didn't have people camping their camp
and destroying their spawns and so that
people could still get the achievement
to kill a couple of ogres there's a
couple of other hidden spots that are
just a little out of the way yeah we hit
a few groups of ogres across the map so
there's an achievement for killing them
yes haven't figured that out so you
mentioned that they're all watch Knights
for those of you a lot of people are new
to this festival which is so much fun to
me because there's been a lot of
feedback I mean you know
have a lot of players who were here last
time and are very happy that it's back a
lot of other players who are you know
wow I've heard of this festival but I
wasn't here for round one so now I get
to participate so all of these all of
these enemies are watch Knights yeah in
disguise yeah so another facet of the
crown pavilion originally was that it's
kind of an excuse to show off the
progression of human technology right
because they're surrounded by like
there's the Asura early closer to baby's
reach who have this incredible magical
technology right and there's an even in
the human personal story there's some
like undercurrent of like humanity has
technology right but are they kind of
out act by the char or the Asura who
respectively have their own takes on
building their engines of war or their
golems and so on so the watch Knights
were sort of a like hey look we can do
this cool thing too and they've they're
these like clockwork mechanical soldiers
and in the crown pavilion they're all
enchanted with Mesmer illusion to look
like the different armies that you're
fighting and it's it's actually really
cool if you go fight some of them alone
so you don't have too many distractions
you can see as they die that like the
external destroyer or char or white
mantle enemy will like mesmero fade away
and you'll see the watch-night
underneath it fall over which is
extremely cool yeah and these are this
is a new model of watch night right yeah
one of the other requests we put in this
year to the art team was to get a like
kind of mark 2 version of the watch
night to show that since the last time
this ran the technology has progressed
we actually The Watcher Knights actually
showed up again in the lake Doric yeah
yeah where you could see them fighting
alongside D creighton soldiers against
the white mantle hmm and I kind of like
to think that that was the first time
we'd seen them in a long time and I
think part of that was because the first
time the Washington s were rolled out
there was
of a like huge disaster we're great yeah
control of them was taken away and a lot
of them turned into horrific nightmare
monstrosity zand had whirling saw blades
and stuff that's never good it was it
was it's not a good like PR look right
so I think they finally had the they
finally had the opportunity to be like
okay look the purpose of these things is
to help us fight our Wars here's a
chance to do that and then after the
lake Dora campaign I think there was
more support for like hey it worked
none of them went crazy none of them
shot flame at any of our soldiers
so let's reinvest in this and the result
of that is the watch night mark - which
is a kind of like sleeker more modern
version it's the like next generation of
watch night and part of the request that
we gave to the artists was like okay
this is intentionally supposed to be
sort of the like softer looking version
right this is the like don't worry
people have cried huh it is not going to
unhinge its jaw and scream at you yay
because I think by design the initial
watch night sort of looks like yeah
there's kind of creepy they're kind of
than it can transition into yeah they've
got kind of no to me
they're unsettling I think and the the
new watch night is still I really like
the model that the artists made it's
still preserved some of that like it's a
look it's not like friendly looking
alright but it looks much more like
you're like okay this isn't going to
suddenly rebel against us it doesn't
look as gloomy or dark yeah absolutely
it's a ttle robot instead of a horror
movie
exactly and so and if you watch and
crumbly and all of the veteran mobs are
still the old watch Knight because I
think they're working through their
extra supply what I don't throw away
working for scenery right I'm sorry I'm
picturing a warehouse but they're safe
now they were safe last time the
festival ran I believe Lord Ferran was
on the committee that
oversaw the addition of like new safety
regulations for them oh sure that's a
great idea
he's trusted he's rich but so while the
veteran mobs are still the old watch
night and all of the legendary and
champion mobs or the opponent's you
fight up in between Scotland are all the
new watch night so as they die you'll
see the new model and one of the rewards
you can get is a combat tonic of the new
watch nights that you can run around as
one of them okay I actually hadn't
noticed that about the old one so that's
extremely cool all right I want to touch
on one more thing that we had fixed
beforehand because some of these because
you had to reduce the scope of some of
the areas and the resulting glitches
before we went live our interesting me
that you were able to fix those because
I had mentioned hab Lian and he
teleported players yeah so have lien
signature attack is opening these
portals under you and if you stay in it
for more than a second or two you'll get
shot up into the air and have to like
recover and in its bloodstone fend I
hate to get the map names that map
the theme was using special skills while
colliding so when he popped you up into
the air I was like I've got a chance to
use my gliding abilities we didn't want
to add that in retro actively to Crown
pavilion would have added a lot of scope
yeah and we'd have people fighting all
the bosses by jumping off the rafters so
we had a couple iterations of how
Hamlin's teleport would still feel neat
because it definitely because there's so
many mobs around it can definitely throw
you off like yeah
you'll end up away from the fight but I
don't know if you want to talk about it
there was an earlier verse I mean the
skill went through a lot of iteration
and a decent amount of that was due to
feedback like when we did our large
internal play tests people not really
appreciating dying from fall damage
because there were in
in Guild Wars 2 if you take fall damage
and it would have put you down to you
instead died because that's what falling
does and so we just flat-out remove the
fall damage that you take from it it's
more of a CC or putting you into a place
that you don't want to be like a group
of moms or into a lava wall if it gets
shared to another boss
we were also running into an issue where
the Queen's gauntlet arenas which is
suspended above all of the pie slices
they have fairly large tripwires that
boot you out if you're not supposed to
be in there and have Leon was
teleporting you high up in the air where
you were getting caught in that tripwire
and then all of a sudden you're up on a
catwalk yeah getting some and behold
like hey you're not supposed to go into
the we thought about like hey but if
maybe 13 is empty like that's his cool
move someone else that would have been
and we had a couple iterations where if
you kill Hadley in before the other
bosses are dead it shares out his move
and so we were like okay the teleport is
his signature move we got to give that
to their bosses and it took a lot of
tuning for all those different boss
areas to get it working I was originally
thinking okay like all the other bosses
will send you to the same spot they'll
send you to the center area because we
don't want to try to customize a bunch
of teleport locations for them and we
ended up needing do it anyway because
what would happen is you'd be fighting
say karai the Centaur way off on this
side of the map he would teleport you
and you get a load screen and that was
no good because he'd go so far that was
like okay we're just gonna like do the
load screen it's fine it's fine you're
like I gotta go back I'm trying to fight
yeah it's stressful yes it's not fun to
be in the middle of that and get
teleported so far that it was extra
confusing all right well let's touch on
the labyrinth and cliffs real quick and
then take a few questions I want to talk
about the secret achievement with Evan
Nash blade because that's a fun one I've
seen at least one post
so I think it's pretty safe to talk
about yeah I was I was testing we had
just put in the water balloon buckets
and I don't think that they really had a
purpose other than just being a for fun
thing at that point and while taking a
look at that I also happened to be at
the top of the cliffs where Evan and
keel hang out and for fun I just threw a
water balloon at avinash blade and
they'd say hey Medina it would be really
fun if this was an achievement and it
just became a habit every time I ran by
there I'd throw a balloon at him for fun
and then I noticed one day he reacted
didn't jump that's amazing yeah I like
that that got put in just because you
guys day after day we're playing around
and having fun while you were testing
right yeah
so what are some of your favorite things
that are in labyrinths and cliffs um I
saw some people talking about this in
map chat but there's another little
scene that Medina added and just to add
a little bit of life in a secluded
section there's a giant and a huge
devourer the giant will walk over and
plant some pumpkins and then go off and
do something else in the Devourer will
sneak over and eat the pumpkins and then
the giant will yell at him and it's
super fun oh my gosh I didn't stay long
enough to see went up and I tried to
interact with both of them and I was
kind of running short on time and I was
like all right I guess there's nothing
here and I left so stick around for a
few minutes I guess that happens oh I
think one of my personal favorite things
just in the festival is we have a
recurring character from the festivals
this year has been Gordon the racing
Troy yeah oh my gosh Korres because we
we added races for Halloween because
we're like okay it mounts with the cool
new thing right we've surely we could
have a race in the liar pants right it
was the first race I had set up it took
a lot of effort but we had all the NPC
racers to help show you where to go and
you know provide humor and we had we had
gotten
this joy of wearing a pumpkin costume
will put him in the race he tries his
best he is he's not he's very fast
actually but he's kind of he's not the
best at following the actual race round
so he doesn't do well placement wise but
it was such a funny character to have
that the next festival winters day we
were like you know what like requests
we're gonna request a version of him
wearing a present box and we it was just
a running a thing yeah he would be in
all the races with the festivals
festival for wins actually had three
races and all of them were gonna be
really complicated to have NPC racers
and because for example there is the
flying dog event they just wouldn't work
they can't use all the skills to
navigate it okay
and in pavilion Pursuit the most
dangerous race we've created there's
part crossing lava and he'd just plow
through because he would so Matthew
Vanina decided and so weird we requested
like can we get a like you know kind of
summer fun version of Gordon so he
decided we would just spawn him like out
in the festival relaxing and hanging out
and partying she doing his dances and
our artist gave us back at this
incredible Gordon model where he like
he's got the you know
yes summer be tired came down pat he's
got sunglasses he's got his bathing suit
sort of yes sunscreen yeah he's got his
sunscreen and it was we were just like
falling over laughing the first time we
saw his model and you we set him up to
do his little choice and I think
consistently we've like given a rough
way this is the sort of thing you would
like to see and then a couple weeks
later we get an email with some
screenshots and maybe a gif or two and
it's just exceeds our expectations what
result are our requests on that was like
can we just get him like wearing some
swim trunks or something not swim
no but he found beachwear but he was a
little confused on the detail that's
like I said he tries his best and that's
what counts
he is he found part of a swimsuit and he
he did what he needed to he tries his
best and he's got sunscreen so he cares
about taking care of himself right so
what I guess is his nose does not you
know I don't I think we there was a
suggestion at some point that maybe he
should like look a little more ripened
from having been out in the side but we
didn't want to have that talk with like
narrative about like okay like so Choya
yeah like he's no stranger to being out
in the Sun for long periods yeah and I'm
gonna start having concerns about the
smell after a while like no one really
knows no and I and I'm I'm cool with
that
I have fruit are there vegetables I've
made my peace with my ignorance here so
I do want to talk a little bit about
bringing mounts into the festival
because we've added some things that I
felt were really good quality of life
just thinking about okay what would be
good for players because we have mount
rentals because not everybody does have
path of fire but they're gonna get on
that but in the meantime we have mount
rentals and because there are so many
reasons to hop off and on of different
mounts once you do that first one you're
good to go for an hour yeah so that was
a another great thing that Matthew added
as he was going through because we had
in previous festivals we I think
starting in a winter's day we were like
okay well we ahead this cool Mount Reyes
but if you didn't have path a fire like
maybe one picked it up yet or you're
waiting for one reason or another you
couldn't really participate we we set up
the Halloween race such that like okay
it's technically possible to you know
send me some time on foot you know you
do
portal you you know use your rushing
skills yeah but it's not as fun is
getting to ride the Raptor around right
and so we talked with programming about
okay you know can we have a like kind of
temporary mount system so we can let you
pay to rent him out and run around run
the race yeah and we got that and we've
been adding it through to all of our
festival races letting you use the
appropriate amount but labyrinth in
cliffs you were you're so encouraged to
like use different mounts or get on and
off your mount that we had you pay like
a token amount to write them out for
other festivals but under 20 it started
adding up really quickly when you were
like okay like I I tried out the skimmer
here and then I had to get off mm-hmm
so Matthew changed it being a like timed
rental
yeah it you have now yeah it like an
hour yep you get an hour and then you
can write any mount there's a separate
one for the Griffon but that's a little
bit more special yeah but otherwise you
can just pop on and off and get all of
those collections yeah so we'll end up
standardizing that over the next year
for all of our festivals that it's the
same yeah like you'll get the rental
buff and you can and that way like if
you accidentally fall off the Raptor or
like since just interacting will take a
tumbling wool yeah you too dismount
yeah quality of life no that would
happen to anybody but you know no well
do you guys want to take some questions
sure all right sure there's a question
from Ben Lubar how much taxpayer money
does each watch-night cost well like I
said they're still working through the
old watch nights so I think that defray
is the expense of running the crown
pavilion remodel now they do they are
taking donations from players to help
run the boss blitz
more quickly you can waive throw or you
can't do any money so I think that's to
help defray some of the total expense
wait is this what happened with all the
money we gave Zhu Bert no no he he's
opened up a shop
yeah yeah he's an entrepreneur now he's
turned over a new leaf doesn't strictly
say that he used your funds to open up
his shop he's turned over a new leaf
senses recent incarceration he was in
jail during super adventure box Kevin
okay maybe okay
bin Smith asks who has better Beach gear
Ferran Kazmir Gordon
my vote is definitely Gordon taken we
voting oh man
I gotta think back to southsun Cove with
Ferran Kazmir Ferran had a speedo I'd
argue that that smells well no that's
just when you look away from him for a
moment where he switches into it I mean
I have aa mardian record as being a
really big Gorton fan I'm I'm gonna make
his three-for-three on Gordon the the
bikini top on his bottom is just I can't
not I'll guess jean philippe de asks our
favors only dailies this year they're
also part of the box that you get for
doing five dailies in a row oh yeah or
five days worth of dailies in a row you
get a choice between all of the new
Zephir right weapons a more rare Zef
right box and three favors yeah I think
we players will be getting that box for
the first time later today so that's
gonna be exciting I've seen some players
who were excited about having seen the
news the freight weapons in the wardrobe
mmm but that'll be your chance to pick
them up for yourself awesome all right
are we good I think we already talked
about a hidden thing oh yeah you
mentioned the magenta giant in his
little scam
Alex was telling me earlier there are no
secrets left everything yeah and I think
um Matthews gonna talk a little bit
about that in the next segment too he
was he was saying yesterday all of his
secrets in the game are uncovered
in the labyrinth eclipse so that's great
yeah we're exploring around all right
well I don't know what we you guys stick
around with us for a couple of minutes
we will let you guys get back to work
and thank you very much for your time I
appreciate you both hanging out with us
for a little bit yeah it's been all
you're making here yeah and we will be
back with Alex Matthew in just a couple
of minutes so stick around guys thank
you in our time of great need the Zephyr
i'ts came together and helped us rebuild
Lion's Arch they showed us that in the
midst of great strife there can be even
greater unity that despite seemingly
unending conflict our alliance our
friendship remains unbroken it is in
this spirit that I on behalf of the
captain's council commence this festival
of the four winds
[Music]
hi guys and welcome back to part two of
our festival of the Four Winds guild
chat I will let you guys introduce
yourself and talk about what you worked
on for this festival I'm Matthew Medina
I'm the game designer here at arena and
boy so many things summer festival yeah
the festival for wins was definitely a
big deal for me I was the principal
designer on the previous two releases so
coming back to this was a lot like
coming home but it was nice because I
was able to take content that had you
know four years of rust on it and polish
it up and make sure that all the all the
bits worked and all the new things that
we've added the game since then also
worked so it was it was a nice little
sort of passion project for me so I I
did most of the labyrinth in Cliff's
content I'm Alex Kane I'm a writer and
narrative designer here at ArenaNet and
I helped Matt with a lot of the
narrative wrapper around labyrinthian
cliffs and I wrote some dialogue too for
the be crown pavilion material a lot of
the vo just you know put that together
and yeah just helped him to bring bring
the labyrinth in cliffs and the whole
festival for winds to life was a really
cool experience because you know I I
don't have the same background with it
that Matt does obviously you know I I
came in joined ArenaNet like a year and
a half ago almost so I never really had
an opportunity to check it out or you
know build any content for it so you
know catching up on you know all the
content in there and all the stories and
all the characters was really a ton of
fun I really enjoy yeah it's interesting
having the two of you on here together
because that's something we were talking
about we have this big contingent of
players who are super excited to see all
of this come back into the game and then
we have this group who was like why I
wasn't here before and I'm so happy to
finally get to experience this thing
I've been hearing about and we have one
of each and these two perspectives
working together have been it's been fun
to hear both of you talk about it
yeah I think it really worked out well
to have that mix because you know I was
able to get in there and be like now
here's all the stuff I remember that I
want to follow up on like lion guard
Jess and Parker Cole and these
characters that were you know sort of
bit players in the previous release but
we're like they're still here so like
let's figure out like where did everyone
go and car didn't had a I don't know
what happened to carton honestly he's
his own little world now he didn't have
such a good time that's yeah I mean
there's some good there's bad that's
life turns out a lot of people in a lot
of those efforts did not have the best
time yeah so well what were some of your
favorite things about working on this
release oh gosh it's it's a lot okay
more than one yeah Gordon is probably my
favorite yeah I know I know that's a
good thing broken record but no he's
great the moment I saw him in his little
swimsuit I thought now there's no way
I'm not gonna use this right like and so
I went to town I spent a good two three
days prototyping all the different
things that I wanted Gordon to do at
this festival because I I talked to Joe
you know first thing I was like what do
you want me to do with Gordon now that
we have him you know cuz I'm like and we
as Joe talked about in the earlier
segment like we couldn't find a way to
make him race the way that he would
normally race and we were like well but
that's okay because this is supposed to
be like a summer vacation so what would
a joyeux do on vacation and so I I just
went to town and I came up with some of
the craziest ideas and I picked the best
ones to to ship into the game and maybe
we'll shelf the others for next year I
have to say I didn't know about him
plowing into the lava and that was part
of why he couldn't race but it's such a
Gordon thing to do it is it is so it
just fits so well and I understand
that's why we couldn't use it but it
works yeah that would have been
entertaining to see yes how about you
Alex
well I didn't get an opportunity
to delve into the deep lore surrounding
Gordon the relax enjoy yet this time
around unfortunately but next time we'll
see what happens no III think that the
thing that I enjoyed the most was
probably one of the first things I
worked on which was the keel Nash blade
material at the very top of the
labyrinthian cliffs where keel gives her
big speech and then you know Evan is
just sort of standing there you know
it's like a big PR show and he's not
sure why he's there or why he was
invited and it seemed like a lot of fun
to sort of dive into you know their
relationship in the past and you know
they've obviously been at odds for quite
some time I noticed that you're wearing
your heel for council panel I notice the
evidence or council man hey politics
it's everything yeah part of everything
it's a rough game and you know keel and
Nash played they but they both play
their cards you know but it was a lot of
fun writing that dialogue you know
catching everyone up on where their
story is and how it relates to
everything else that's been going on in
Guild Wars 2 and living world and that
was very that was very fun to write yeah
they seem to have this grudging respect
now and almost friendship I mean there
there's a little banter happening I mean
that was part of the whole put them in
the same place for a very long time
thing because you know it's like it's
like in a TV show or something when two
characters get locked in a room you know
they're going
I don't like you very much well I guess
we're stuck here so so it really seemed
like if they were stuck in the same
place for long enough they would start
asking questions and forth with one
another there's a lot of stuff that
happened in for example like season 1 of
living world that we call back to a
little bit for players who haven't
played season 1 it's a little spoilers
but you know Evan closed down a
teleporter during during in us during
the lion's arch evacuation and you know
it's so it's sort of clear that he's
that he's been you know punished for
that
over the course of the last couple of
seasons but that whole story has never
really been laid out why exactly things
happened the way they did and so it was
a nice opportunity to you know put a put
a bow on that little story and you know
just yeah at the end of the day was just
an excuse to have two people who don't
like each other in a very small space
that's always fun yeah it was just a lot
of fun yeah and the the we had been
talking before the show that like the
two actors according Taylor and sam
riegel they they I mean they just they
get so into their roles as we've seen in
that clip yeah huge shout-out to both of
them and so like having this amazing
dialogue where this you know there's
back and forth and each one's trying to
get the upper hand and I don't know I
just really loved the courtney taylor
like she was gesticulating so widely
during her performance that she like
knocked off her headset yes yeah
courtney taylor it's really fun watching
her do that because she I think part of
what makes her good is that she means it
like Ellen keel is giving the speech to
this crowd in front of her and she is
she is into it and Courtney really
embodied that and sam riegel doing Evan
s played is the same way he is he is
serious about this and he and he gets it
and he's not messing around he's not
phoning it in so it's it's fun watching
that video of her opening the festival
and ya know she sells it great and you
can really feel you can really that
performance really comes across in the
game - yeah yeah it's it's great and
then yeah throughout the whole thing you
know and like over the course of all
their conversations seeing the to kind
of soften a little bit being able to
hear it and the performance - it's very
cool yeah it it feels good to watch so
well done on that really everything in
the library of the four Clips even the
narrative stuff was really a team effort
between myself and and Matt and the rest
of the team when I started work on it a
lot of the nan vo stuff you know where
you run out walk up two characters and
there's a text in a box Matt wrote
initial passes for all of that stuff for
the most part and so a lot of what I
for that was you know I tweaked and you
know adjusted a couple of things and but
I don't think I fundamentally changed
the core intent or anything behind any
of the conversations that were there any
of the characters that were there so
that was that was really it was a fun
way to sort of explore the labyrinthian
cliffs was like having a tour guide
almost yeah it was really cool well
let's talk about some of the others
fwrite NPCs that we have text
conversations for who was some that you
really like - were some that stood out
for you you know it wasn't the Zef
rights themselves it was we had a pretty
early alpha test where we had you know
people jump in and just you know cuz a
lot of this was like is this actually
going to work like I thought it felt
good to be on a griffon in this area but
like if stakeholders don't agree then
you know we have to go back to the
drawing board so we wanted to have a
pretty early play test and so we did and
and one of the pieces of feedback I got
pretty early was yeah this feels great
but it doesn't have like this flavor of
you know so much has been added to the
game and you know it's just a bunch of
you know human characters running around
and you know we had a fairly human
centric expansion in path of fire
because Alona was you know very sort of
isolated to that way
and so I got feedback that yeah we need
to make this area feel more cosmopolitan
like you know this is a real worldwide
festival so that's why I went to adding
the Olmec on I added the it so I added a
couple of new hawk lumbering around
which was always tough because they're a
bit big and finding places where they
can fit in a map like the cliffs where
they've got you know little ledges
everywhere like hitting her head on the
bamboos think I am I almost tried to get
a to see if I could get a a clock a big
new hawk to you to pick up one of those
fwrite crystals and probably could too
bad the the Olmec on actually was an
interesting
we'd finished a lot of the festival vo
and non vo at the time most of the NPC's
were laid out and then I think it was
one of the testers who made some offhand
comment was like you know like we've got
the Olmec on now and you know they're
they're you know they've been exposed to
the outer to the great wide world now is
it entirely possible that you know rocks
who was in the festival of the Four
Winds prior yeah with you know like like
Oh Festival of Four Winds they're great
Olmec on buddies you should go check it
out
and we would have some Olmec on actually
in the festival and that discussion
happened very quickly and I think it was
like the same day or maybe the next day
we had a couple of Olmec on in there we
had a dialogue that we did nothing they
got some very fun it was very fun to
write that vo in particular because it's
someone who's never left their home
before going to basically the war like
the equivalent of the World's Fair yeah
and seeing all this crazy stuff around
them so there's some really fun stuff
like there's the Olmec on who doesn't
know how to interact with shopkeepers
that aren't Charo there's you know the
Olmec on who sees some kid like throw up
kebab on the ground and like what are
you doing so there's a lot of fun little
side stories there oh I saw that there
were the two omec on there's the omec on
couple who they're traveling before they
have Cubs and the ones afraid of heights
yes and I don't know who wrote that
dialogue but it is the cutest at this
point this point like a single person
like everybody yeah
I I definitely know that especially the
Olmec on a went through a number of
hands because they were new to me as
well like I don't I don't I didn't have
a fairly good sense like I had played
the release and I'd seen the Olmec on
but I was like I don't know enough about
their culture yet to like really be
considered an expert so I kind of I
think I did take a pass at and I sent it
to you and I think Alex did it pass on
it and we may have even I know we talked
to the episode team as well and got
their input on like what would Olmec on
do at a festival like this yeah I
remember writing up a draft and like
turning my monitor over to Arman
Constantine yeah
a lot of the omec on stuff and like
Armen read this busy I'm like read it
yeah that sounds great
good you know so there's a lot of those
kind of interactions between I but I do
really like that part of the team effort
is making sure that someone who knows
the omec on well enough and it's not
just I don't know throw some dialogue in
there and hope for the best that doesn't
get far along there are a lot of checks
and balances especially on the narrative
side to make sure they're like tone and
everything is being so like a lot of the
last-minute dialog changes were actually
in table reads with the writers room you
know where you know people like Tom and
Samantha all fleiger like just like like
helping to pitch ideas and like oh that
lines you know could be funnier if you
changed this or this you know emotional
beats not hitting as much if you know
maybe change this around and it really
it really helped sort of sort of tie
everything together at the very last
very last step yeah we've talked about
table reads on guild chat before and
they sound really really helpful and
really hilarious also there they they
always become funny at some point
because I mean at some point someone's
trying to like basically someone's got a
joke and you want the funniest version
of that joke in the game yeah so you've
got a bunch of writers in the room who
are just throwing out punchlines and you
want the one that gets the most laughs
and so the room has to laugh yeah and if
they don't laugh it's not a joke so yeah
table reads are long too like you're in
a room for multiple hours and I think
that serves two things one is you kind
of have to start putting humor in
because otherwise you're gonna start
punching each other and then the other
thing is like after a couple of hours of
reading and reading and reading and like
debating back and forth you kind of get
a little kooky and so you kind of you
know it starts the gears turning in your
head of like what's the goofiest thing I
can suggest that's not gonna get shot
down everyone everyone's been there
someone's typing something on a computer
screen that's projected up on a wall or
a television they typed the wrong word
it's a silly word then someone says the
everyone laughs yeah well the flavor
text throughout the labyrinth in cliffs
has really made a difference I've just
I've been on my way someplace in the
festival more than once and I've seen
something out of the car oh my or heard
it in passing
yeah and looped back around and
completely stopped where I was doing and
it has been perfect every time
what's I I know I'm weird like I worked
on the city's that's why you're here
way way back in history but the the
thing that I always said was I consider
great personal success as if somebody
feels the desire to go around and record
everything and they've already like if I
saw in 24 hours yeah here's all the
ambient conversations and dialogues in
the cliffs and I'm like okay that's cool
like that's awesome get it on the wiki
yeah yeah that makes me super proud I
get chills because I'm like the team you
know like Alec said we I think we are
really proud of this festival and to see
that it's getting that kind of response
from our former players yeah well you
guys should be very proud I know you've
been working incredibly hard you and I
first started talking about this I think
in January yeah was the first time you
told me you guys were working on
bringing it back I know and even then I
was sort of like I remember I think it
was on the elevator ride down one day
and we just ran to each other and it was
like my first week on the project no and
I was like so excited I was like I'm
working on the festival for wins and
then I as we after we separated and I
got in the car is like should I have
told her I mean obviously you know rules
but I was still sort of like boy it's
not quite real yet like I haven't gotten
all my approvals I needed to like always
tell me because my answer I was like
okay we're gonna do a guild chat about
it yeah you're like can I be on yes yeah
that was we were so excited and that was
like almost eight months ago so yeah
yeah it was you guys have put in a ton
of work on this so you should be you
should be proud yeah
that's good so speaking of NBC NBC
speaking of NBC NBC oh wow are we
getting corporate spot and he sees
speaking of npc case let's talk about a
quad in one let's talk about coo cachoo
oh he did not he did not make good
choices in life he made very a great
many badge so many bad choices oh very
very interesting choices yes I mean his
life was not boring no yeah that was the
first thing that I think Matt gave me
like that was the first thing we talked
about I remember was like I remember
Bobby Stein came up to me he's like Alex
we're working on festival the four wins
we need you to work on some stuff also
Matt's got this idea for collection and
I get this thing and it's like thirty
it's like all of them all the different
versions of cookie chew the did the you
know the the be inexorable the
incombustible the you know the
incongruous and I feel like there were
four years of pent-up bad ideas that
just released all of this this thing to
me it felt like Athena sprung from the
mind
Zeus it was all it was all fully formed
yeah and it there were if to me there
was never a time when it was still being
worked on it just existed Wow yeah coo
cachoo is you know he was just this bit
NPC that we had in the festival the last
couple of times that it ran where he was
a fire breather or a quaggan fire
breather and you know that was sort of
he thought that was a novelty act and I
guess for quaggan it probably was
clogged and not in a world with
elementalists correct yeah and so he was
always kind of a sad-sack character you
know you felt bad for him and I think
the people gave him pity applause you
know because he was trying as Gordon he
was always trying his best on his but
well maybe yeah he should talk to Gordon
about his PR frantic franchise in a
little bit
so when we brought the festival back the
the first thing question I had on my on
my to-do list was what what happened to
Gordon where would he be and I didn't
want to bring back the the whole act
because it was like we already had I
mean for festivals it was actually kinda
this is a little bit too behind the
scenes for probably a lot but yes sorry
boilie festivals didn't have your
budgets you so what marks make the noise
if I could go and in real life and have
him do that that'd be pretty awesome no
mark yes so yeah we we were told pretty
early on festivals don't have vo budgets
and I was like how am I gonna do a
festival like this without vo budget so
we had a little bit of negotiations that
took place in which I did get secured us
a fair amount you know a small chunk but
of that it was like okay we have small
enough chunk that I can't I can't
justify giving koo kachoo because koo
kachoo before and his act had like over
a dozen scenes and so it was like almost
400 lines for just koo kachoo
oh sorry
my counts way off for his words
something like that I don't know sorry
no that's okay
so koo kachoo doing vo is out so I was
like okay well he's gonna be off-screen
somehow so I came up with this mmm story
man of his you know spiral down because
I thought hey once the Zephyr i'ts left
the last time and they ended up crashing
and dry top his audience is gone he's
the festival is no longer there and so
he is trying his best to keep his act
relevant and be you know attracting an
audience but he just can't and so he
keeps and so he decides at some point
I'm gonna reinvent myself and so he
changes his act and that doesn't work
and so he decides I've got to change it
again and so he changed it again and so
I wanted to do this as a collection of
fliers that he and his team his PR team
had printed up and put on the you know
various surfaces of the thing of the
festival trying to attract an audience
and it just never worked and you know
the Flyers are very well designed by the
way I imagine him like in Photoshop or
something making these things and going
away at Kinkos that was also a bit of a
yeah I I actually had put in a request
for individualized folders because I
want fired because I want each one to
look like the story that we were telling
but we ended up both the budgets
generally yeah the artists kind of
looked at me like who could you your
artists are great your street team is
not yeah and I almost I was half tempted
to do it myself because as a former
artist myself I I could certainly find a
way to do that but I didn't want to step
on anyone's toes sure so do you have a
head Canon about how this happened
since there's no Kinkos oh well I mean
there is sort of because if you go to
like the order of whispers hang out The
Hideout they have a printing press where
they're printing on maps of Tyria so the
technology exists okay all right yeah
all right so we'll just say you went
there yeah so what ended up happening to
koo kachoo
I mean spoiler alert sorry
[Music]
so yeah he tries a number of different
acts each one getting more and more
desperate he falls into disfavor he
turns to vices let's just say that
things tend to happen and eventually he
kind of goes crazy and gets into some
violent altercations and thence up going
to trial and becoming incarcerated yes
ego ID players have already found his
location I'm sorry yeah that's okay I
mean that I put them in there hoping
that players would find them I just was
surprised how quickly they find stuff
how fast squeeze surprise me I find them
immediately or they never find them at
all that's true that supposed to be him
over there as that no I know he's just
been chilling here forever okay there's
a quaggan just off camera I don't know
if you can see it's the quaggan backpack
they've seen him here for a couple years
okay um you know Sarah Cain a cosplayer
a guild wars 2 cosplayer made that
several years back and sent it along
with the legendary hammer over there
nice yeah
when she moved she didn't have room for
it so he's ours now and we've got lots
of fear point there was a pirate hat and
I forget why and it stayed in the room
and so now we have pirate quaggan we'll
bring him out September 19th yeah yeah
so that's great yeah he's nice right
yeah so let's talk about the return of
the flying doughy acts and come off of
the sad topic of coo cachoo the fallen
yeah yeah so the flying toy acts was
that was when we when we opened up the
map we we made the decision early on we
don't want to have this be combat
oriented this map because the crown
pavilion is all about combat and so we
really like let's make a very clear
delineation that if you want fighting
you go here if you want fun and
exploration just kind of activities and
races
and stuff like that you go to the cliffs
and so I pulled out you know the the
combat events that we're in there
although me know a lot of them were not
up to our standards today anyway so it
was no you know big loss with one
exception which was the find all that
grace that hadn't really been a race
before it was just a normal event that
players could you know talk to the
trader at the bottom get transformed
into a baby dog and you had to like rush
your way up super fun and it was it was
fun back then but it was also very
broken I to this day don't know how we
allowed it to ship because it was pretty
ghastly the things that we had to do we
didn't have any like standardized race
technology at the time we had guild
races but those were very specific to
guilds and they weren't in a very
particular way that like I tried to
reverse engineer for the further fly
into X and it just didn't really work so
I took what I could and so we were like
no we're going to do this now that we
have race technology we're gonna do this
the right way okay and so it took a
little bit of doing but I finally
managed to get it where you know I
translated the old event into the new
race event it's not perfect there's a
lot of things I would probably want to
do for it if the festival comes back I
think it's perfect and he can only make
it more perfect perfect perfect
the yeah I wasn't I wasn't too involved
in that aside from you know cleaning up
some of the text but there was a very
fun little bit keel and Nash played or
talking about yes the Doleac race at one
point and I believe the the thing that
people were bumping on was Nash played
referred to the the process as
transforming into a dull yak yeah and
everyone was like nah that's not that's
not what happens you don't like there's
this isn't like the fly like you don't
transform physically into it it's more
like it's more like Mesmer illusion
and so we had to like change the text
there and that was one of the strangest
notes that I'd ever received from
somebody it was just like like in the
margin it was like not actually
transformation illusion oh my god okay
I'll make Nash played yeah do that yeah
yes all right we have a couple of quick
thing a couple more quick things to talk
about but if you guys have questions and
now's the time we'll try to get to a
couple of those before we wrap up yeah
so so what are you have a few more
secret things that you put in there what
are some of the other things that
players have found there's the cow let's
talk about the cow what what what the
what it's yeah the diffused cow why how
I I mean if you ended up on a cliff
wouldn't you be confused yes and I too
am kidding come on night at the office
so you were like you know what Wow there
is a funny story here which is I got a
bunch so we went to stakeholder feedback
with the festival and I got a bunch of
notes and one of the notes was there's
this really gorgeous Vista from the big
pillar in the southwest corner of the
map can you please put something there
like what am I gonna put up there it's
like I already put us you know solitaire
Suvari up on a on a thing which is
further north and like I didn't want to
put another NPC there and so I turned to
one of our fellow game designers Connor
Fallon who worked with me on path of
fire and I said what can I like give me
something and he's like just put a cow
up there just put a confused cow Connor
thank you all right
yeah I got to give credit where credit
is due the confused cow is because of
Connor go Connor a true hero of the
festival the forum yes and that's all I
want to say about that there's some deep
lore here deep cowboy Cowell or we got
to save some stuff for the next best
before we example and you know to cows
honestly I'm so surprised by the
reaction of the cow that it's sort of
one of those things where it's like now
I kind of feel like we have to follow up
on this because of the interest it's
generated so many threads and questions
on reddit the forums I'm like confused
cow might have to be a recurring
character yes
like there alyx get on this gets it but
we need some more doctors I've been
working full-time on this for the last
three weeks just just exclusively cowl
or no there is no deep cowl or not yet
that's right yes let's talk about
something else
yes so what else do you want players to
know about festival of the four winds
let's see I mean there's the quaggan
that is a nice little you know again I
I'm an old-school gamer and old being
the key word there but so I really love
when games sort of hide things just for
the for the fun of exploring India
without necessarily tying a reward or an
achievement or some other thing to it
and so when I was running around in the
map our amazing map artist Carson
Marlowe who did such a great job of
touching this place up and bringing it
up to our current standards I mean even
things like I noticed like the sand on
the beach had like so much more texture
and like waviness and I was like I spent
a long time just looking at it because I
was like oh my gosh these things he did
an amazing job with the underwater
because before it was just sort of like
there was just water and then there was
like terrain under there and he went in
and he added a bunch of rocks and coral
and see we didn't know and I'm like I
want players to explore this space right
like so I but I didn't really want to
put a whole like event or anything like
that
so I just put a little quaggan who is
dead and you could find his body and
near his body as a lantern and if you go
near the lantern you get a radiant soft
radiant glow and you you know I wasn't
expecting players to find this as
quickly as and figure out how to you
know solve this thing either but if you
take the radiant glow you can take it to
different lanterns all across the map
that I strung and you could take it back
to a quaggan house and you go in there
and his ghost tells you thank you it's
just one of those things that I just
like I wanted to put in some little
ambient storytelling and yeah play
around it yeah you top that yeah one of
the things that I did when I was
starting to write the vo was I was
looking back at old conversations that
had been written for the original
festival the four winds and trying to
see if there were any threads there that
I really enjoyed that I might want to
update for the new content so there are
a couple of archetypes that reappear
there are some thieves that are hanging
around and they have a fun little side
story there's you know I think in the
original festival the four winds there
was you know the person who's never seen
a char before and how do they react so
that was a fun conversation - right
where the char is like getting really
indignant because everyone thinks that
you know she's cute and fluffy and she's
like no I mean stop petting me is the
char that you know there's there was fun
stuff about how - how do we like explain
mounts and why you know why there were
mounts in alona but there weren't mounts
anywhere else and oh I saw that little
bit of dialogue so I mean really is just
they they thought that you had
everything handled and you know I mean
mounts are so cool why wouldn't you have
them then it was you know on the fun
little way to
to explain that and you know of is the
Springer's would have been really useful
in Megumi and like yeah I know it was it
was a lot of fun too you know it's sort
of like the original festival was like
this isolated piece of history and then
bringing it back into the modern world
was a lot of fun there were a lot of
threads there to explore there were a
lot of fun characters to revisit yeah it
was it was great looking forward to you
know what what happens next year yeah
yeah there's one more thing I want to
touch on and that's the treasure hunt
Mehta event because we've added that in
everybody seems to be having a good time
with it so and host on that didn't you
yes I did when we when we looked at back
to that feedback session that we had
early on one of the it wasn't really a
feedback now is more of an offhand
comment about how you know maybe that
maybe we could look at like coming up
with a you know a map white meta and but
it was more just like we don't think the
map needs it but you know take a look
see if there's anything that strikes
your fancy and I spend about a day kind
of coming up with some potential ideas
but everything I came up with was like
the only thing that really makes sense
for this area is movement joy movement
and we already had the immune mehta
event where you collect casino coins
which very much took advantage of mounts
to jump around and I thought that's what
I want to do especially because festival
is available to players who don't have
path of fire and they may not have had
the chance to do this so I kind of want
to give them a chance to experiment with
the mounts because we had the rent
rented notes and give them a way to like
jump around and have fun and really
experience for themselves this is what
mounts edge of the game like this is fun
stuff and so it was a lot of you know
just taking the the meta event idea
mapping it on to the cliff's
and figuring out where all the treasure
bags would go and how to collect them
funny story out of that was like
currently the way that our event system
works there's a hard cap of 999 objects
that you can turn in for an event like
that I thought there's no way people are
gonna get that money and like ideally
the event is yeah succeeding at like
2000 bundles of loot so I'm like oh well
okay I guess that's something we'll have
to take a look at maybe increasing that
yeah our players are real good yeah yeah
is the thing yes remember how you were
like yeah they won't find all this stuff
so fast oh yeah yeah I have to not
underestimate our players yeah I found
that's the worst idea ever
awesome well do you guys want to take a
couple of questions here yeah what do
you think we've sort of answered but oh
yeah number seven from max Hannah I
think we we addressed that yeah but now
you have to why are there why are the
omekata in labyrinths and cliffs we
don't see them anywhere now all of a
sudden they're in the cliffs are these
going to be more popular
I think the Olmec honor great yeah I
like them yeah yeah they heard about the
festival more and I guess rocks told you
guys should go check this out now that
you've been exposed to the wider world
yeah yeah they've got some cool stuff
over there they've got there's a party
go yeah they've got a party they've got
a beach yeah and and then they're the
overarching met a reason to of like we
wanted this place to feel like we
brought all the stories together and I
thought that was really important for us
to have representation from all the
different places they have a super weird
joy you should go see it yes I'll take
obsidian asks would it have been
possible to use phasing tech to hide
some of the NPCs and objects in the
cliffs that could spoil or confuse new
players who haven't played through all
the story possible yes I don't know that
that would have been something we would
want to have done I didn't necessarily
think of the Olmec on as a spoiler did
you know
I mean yeah I we sort of though sorry
yeah I mean you know it's a
representation of where the world is at
that moment right so even if you don't
know who these characters are you would
still see them and it's you know you
know even in like the real world it's
like oh you don't know who these people
are well maybe you should learn more
about right and I feel like that sort of
captures the essence of the festival
even if you don't know who they are
you're like oh these are weird-looking
charr what's their story yeah you can
sort of piece together some stuff from
their dialogue but yeah you should play
some more episodes of living world and I
feel like it would be more spoilery if
they were standing there saying I'm an
Olmec on and here's here's my backstory
and here's how I came to be here and it
would be even weirder if there was just
an empty spot and people were like
walking around it nothing and we do have
that we're in the opening of the
festival the first time you come near
kealan oven and she's giving her opening
ceremony speech I do have a bunch of
NPCs that I'm hiding that I'm just
playing for the for the ceremony and
then one ceremony ends they go away
which has caused some confusion
hindsight being what it is I would have
probably done a little different
implementation on that killing Nash
played have like a space thing like
you're not allowed to stand within right
back away okay so yes there's that and
then the other question is what about
the orbit that should break in the
southeast corner that is related to the
quaggan that I took talked about so yes
go find that and try it for yourself the
orbs of sadness the Erebus sadness okay
well I don't want to end on two set of a
note so I will tell you guys thank you
very very much it is super exciting to
bring the festival back I know this you
both feel the same way and we are having
a super good time with that festival
goes until August 14th yep
um so get in there and have a really
good time playing around in labyrinths
and cliffs the boss blitz and the
Queen's gauntlet and I will let you guys
get back to work and we'll see you guys
in game crazy joke oh praise Joe go and
vote he'll evidently yes

External links[edit]

Guild Chat Episode 68 - Festival of the Four Winds on ArenaNet's official channel on YouTube

Guild Chat - Episode 68

Contents

Transcription[edit]

Introduction (6:54)[edit]

Bringing the Festival Back (9:26)[edit]

Queen's Gauntlet Bosses: Suriel (12:20)[edit]

Queen's Gauntlet Bosses: Turai Ossa (17:53)[edit]

Boss Blitz (20:24)[edit]

External links[edit]

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