Guild Chat - Episode 80

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Guild Chat - Episode 80

Title
Siren's Reef
Host
Rubi Bayer
Guests
Alex Kain
Tracey West
Travis Battig
Date
January 18, 2019
Official video
YouTube
Previous
79
Next
81
The following is an unofficial, player-written transcript of the episode. The accuracy of this transcription has not been verified by ArenaNet.

The 80th episode of Guild Chat aired on January 18, 2019. Join host Rubi Bayer along with Map Artist Tracey West, QA Embed Travis Battig, and Narrative Designer Alex Kain to learn all about the Siren’s Reef fractal on this episode of Guild Chat!

Transcription[edit]

Introduction [6:45][edit]

Rubi Bayer: Hi Tyria and happy Friday. Welcome to Guild Chat. I'm your host Rubi and today we're gonna be talking about the new Siren's Reef fractal. We've got a couple of devs here who worked on that. I know we've been talking about the story episode a lot over the past couple of weeks, but I want to make sure that we don't miss out on this awesome new fractal. So why don't we jump right in and I'll have you guys introduce yourselves, talk a little bit about what you do here at ArenaNet and what you did on this fractal.

Alex Kain: Oh, oh. Hi, I'm Alex Kain. I'm a narrative designer here at ArenaNet and I was the lead writer on the Siren's Reef Fractal.

Tracey West: I'm Tracey West and I was the environment artist for the fractal.

Travis Battig: I'm Travis Battig and I am the QA team for the well, I am the QA team for the fractal.

Rubi: You were, but you still are.

Travis Yes.

Rubi: It is a little bit of both. So a quick reminder as always. Our devs will be taking a couple of your questions at the end, so if you have questions, throw them in chat and we will see how many we have time to get to.

Alex: Cool.

Rubi: So, because you guys are feeling brave.

Alex: Yeah.

Rubi: So all right. Well, let's get started, because I'm actually kind of fascinated by the premise of this entire fractal. because Captain Weyandt. How did, how did we get from Weyandt's Revenge jumping puzzle to this should totally be a fractal?

Creative process [8:02][edit]

Alex: So, when we started the, the creative process for the,

Rubi: Yes.

Alex: for the fractal. Everyone on the team gets in a room and Jason Reynolds gets up in front of everyone and writes like you know on a whiteboard, you know

Rubi: just brainstorming, whiteboarding.

Alex: Yeah, you know, what, you know, just throw out some themes, throw out some ideas. What could that, you know, what's, the what's the tone of this fractal?

Rubi: Tone.

Alex: What's the theme of the fractal, what's the stuff that you want to see in this fractal and one of the very first things to go up on the whiteboard was just pirate ghosts and that was it. And there were some other things on the board too.

Rubi: Those don't matter.

Alex: But yeah, yeah pirate ghosts kind of stuck around and like a couple of things go on the board and then someone be like, you know back to pirate ghosts I really think it'd be cool we did this, like okay, okay. We do a little something over there.

Rubi: But we still have 38 minutes left in this meeting.

Alex: Yeah, it was one of those things. Yeah, it was like he was like an hour-long meeting, two minutes in is like all right, so pirate ghosts. Good like five minutes in and it's like I mean.

Tracey: I think we fleshed out a good chunk of it in just that one meeting.

Alex: Yeah.

Tracey: It kept being like, oh what if we did this for the setting?

Alex: And eventually yeah, I think it was like halfway through the meeting, where we like skipped to the next meeting. He's like okay, so all right and he just like circle pirate ghosts. I've created a new thing. I got, what stuff we could do with pirate ghosts and it was sort of, you know, it was one of the everyone latched onto it very quickly, yeah and then after that I, you know, I took that pirate ghost idea and I started brainstorming some ideas for how to tie it back into the lore.

Rubi: Sure.

Alex: I brought it to Bobby Stein who, you know, he reminded me that, you know, okay well, we normally we tie it into something.

Rubi: Sure.

Alex: It like, in the, in the lore of the Guild Wars universe because fractals take place in the past.

Rubi: Right.

Alex: So, what are various pirate related stories, that we could tell or we could tap into for this fractal and we have a lot of pirates.

Rubi: Yes.

Alex: In the Guild Wars universe that we could have that we could have dredged up.

Rubi: Is that a pun?

Alex: Not a very good one.

Rubi: Okay.

Alex: So.

Rubi: Carry on.

Alex: We, we, we looked at a bunch of different ideas for what we could do and ultimately I thought it would be very interesting, if the premise was okay, what if you have like a famous pirate from Guild Wars history, that is romanticized and you know everyone loves this pirate, but it turns out they were kind of a jerk, because they're a pirate and pirates, you know, have to be jerks to get stuff done.

Rubi: Sure.

Alex: And I thought about pirates that people have generally positive opinions about.

Rubi: Yeah.

Alex: in the Guild Wars universe and Captain Weyandt and his much-loved jumping puzzle came to mind. And that was, that, that was sort of the genesis of that idea.

Rubi: That is, I love that this came together like, in the first two, this whole idea spawned in the first two minutes of a meeting. I appreciate so much that you committed to brainstorming anyway,

Tracey: We tried.

Rubi: Just be sure. Is this the direction we want to go?

Alex: Yeah.

Tracey: Yeah.

Rubi: And what you got like halfway through, before everybody's like let's stop this farce brainstorming.

Alex: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like Jason is very good at sussing out ideas from the room. If someone says anything, he'll like, oh that's a good, that's a good word. Let's put that word on the board and mindmap it a little bit.

Rubi: Sure.

Alex: Are there any ideas for that, but, you know, it was like okay so pirate ghosts, it's great um temple traps, great Indiana Jones, cool like all this stuff ended up like, oh wow all this sort of informs pirate ghosts, maybe we should just do pirate ghosts. But yeah it was, it was a good meeting in that we all determined very quickly that we wanted to do something with pirate ghosts.

Rubi: Fantastic and we have pirate ghosts. I love the one that you picked so Weyandt's background so we got, we got a little bit of his history.

Alex: Mhm yeah, he, uh you know, he had some tall tales that he would tell you in in the jumping puzzle.

Rubi: I love them.

Alex: Yeah, he, so yeah, the original Captain Weyandt played by the incredible George Coe who sadly, you know, he's sadly no longer with us.

Rubi: No longer with us.

Alex: But it's the, it's the most piratey of pirates that you've ever seen, you know, he's talking to like my mommy wives and

Rubi: Yes!

Alex: My treasures, you know, really great.

Rubi: That was really good by the way.

Alex: Thank you and you know, we loved it and everyone loves it and so we wanted to tap into, tap into that. Like he has all these crazy adventures. What was the first Captain Weyandt adventure? it was probably him. Spoiler alert!

Rubi: Yeah, hey guys, by the way my intent is like two weeks.

Alex: Yeah ,there is a statute of limitation but two weeks is still like. People are still kind of playing it, when I make sure they don't get spoiled on it. I like Captain Weyandt murdering the captain of his ship, when he's dead, you know that he serves as a cabin boy on and stealing that ship and then forcing the player crew into becoming his new pirate crew.

Rubi: And well, we'll talk about Dessa here in just a little bit, but I do like I, I kind of went on that journey with her at the beginning, like oh he's got the wrong berries. It's probably an accident.

Alex: Oh yeah.

Rubi: I was like, oh he didn't mean to.

Alex: Yeah, he absolutely did.

Rubi: So I would you go ahead tell us a little bit more about history, about what we found out in this fractal.

Alex: Yeah, so we wanted to explore the idea of the fractals, you know, Dessa using the fractals to explore history in new and interesting ways.

Rubi: Yeah.

Alex: She's introduced as a fan of Captain Weyandt. She read all his stories write all his books, but very similarly to real world, real world you know Golden Age of piracy pirates a lot of that is romanticized.

Rubi: Yeah.

Alex: You know, all of the grand adventures that he had started off with him kind of, you know, in a jerkish manner killing his captain, so she sees this sort of happening over the course of the fractal. Captain Weyandt or at that point cabin boy Weyandt is, uh you know, he, he wants to, he wants to help. He sees an opportunity and he takes it in classic pirate fashion.

Rubi: Sure.

Alex: He leads a one person coup on on the crew and kills the weakened captain and literally takes his hat and puts it on his head and then meets you at the end of the fractal, telling you like, oh you Captain Strohm isn't gonna be able to make it, but with his dying words he said Weyandt you will be the captain now and dead in like, yeah you've got Desa sort of in your ear, like that's not what happened. He actually murdered him. Don't believe him.

Rubi: Poor Dessa, I love, I like her so much and I love that she is just aghast that this is happening.

Alex: Yeah, she, it's a little, you know ,she, she's a scientist, you know. She probably should have had some idea that Weyandt's story didn't really kick off in the most romantic of ways, but seeing it firsthand I really feel like is, is an interesting way to tell that story. To actually see your hero, you know, commit these, these horrible, these horrible acts. It really, you know, it gives her a new perspective on how fractals work and how they can be used for the betterment of, you know, of historical recording.

Rubi: Yeah.

Alex: It was cool. It was a cool idea and I'm glad we got to explore it in the story. We got to reintroduce Captain Weyandt as a new character. This is like young captain Weyandt with a very questionable mustache, you know.

Rubi: I didn't say that many bad things about the mustache.

Alex: Well.

Rubi: I said, yes it is a questionable mustache.

Alex: He is at that point, you know, he's trying new things, you know. Like he wants to grow the pirate beard out a little bit, but you know still got a, yeah, still got to get there. It takes time it's a commitment, you know.

Rubi: Well, that's what we were talking about that yesterday that's a. Tracey you're saying he's like, he's just, he's just can't quite grow.

Tracey: He is at that teenage phase where you know they think that is a kinda cool that they can like grow it in, but it is not quite there yet.

Alex: Yeah.

Tracey: So.

Alex: Yeah.

Rubi: I appreciate the attention to detail.

Alex: That was me six months ago. So

Rubi: Really?

Alex: Yeah, so yeah.

Rubi: Can you do that again. I think I missed it.

Alex: Oh sorry. Can't make it happen. Not on cue anyway

Rubi: Well, so talking about Dessa.

Alex: um

Rubi: I appreciate, I appreciate her deromanticizing of her heroes. It's a word now, but I really like the way that we had her watching Weyandt on her monitor, because the player is doing the fractal, where we're going through and we're taking care of this treasure and we're moving things around, but you still want us to see Weyandt villain's journey.

Alex: Yeah and that was something that we explored a little bit. Like, we had this idea of what we wanted to do with Weyandt. We wanted to tell this story with him, but you know constantly we're thinking about, like okay well you know we, we don't necessarily want Weyandt with you all the time.

Rubi: Sure.

Alex: NPCs kind of like slow you down a little bit, you know unless unless you design it a certain way. And we were already making really good progress on how the fractal was going to play and so we pitched this idea that Weyandt was going to have his sort of inverse hero's journey off camera. And it's sort of like, Dessa is watching two television channels on a monitor and she's got you on one and she's got Weyandt on the other. She's like channel flipping between the two you know and she's got your, a really cool awesome heroic pirate fractal story going on here and then she's got this really, you know eye-opening, you know dramatic thing, you know like. Oh no, don't feed of the berries. The berries are poisonous thing happening over here and that's a, you know, really is kind of powerless to you know to manipulate that and she's sort of telling you. It's you know, the way I sort of wrote it was, it's like, it's like you've got a friend watching a television show and they're telling you all like all the stuff that's happening and that I think worked out pretty well. You got a pretty good idea of what Weyandt was doing. You didn't necessarily need to see him do it and then when he showed up at the end and he tells you, you know, oh the captain told me with his last words that I'm in control I'm in command. Having Dessa be able to say like no, I watched that episode. I know that you've betrayed so-and-so, was a lot of fun.

Rubi: That's awesome.

Alex: So I think it, I think it worked out in the end. I think it worked out okay.

Rubi: I feel like it did. So were there other considerations for communicating what was going on with Weyandt or was this: okay this is clearly how it's going to go down.

Alex: We talked a little bit about how we wanted to present it, but at the end of the day like, you know, like would you hear Weyandt speak or anything like that. At the end of the day we thought it was actually more interesting if, if you're getting an interpretation of what's going on.

Rubi: For sure.

Alex: You're getting like the third hand telephone style. Like alright, I'm watching this thing and I'm trying to explain what I'm seeing, but I'm also like reinterpreting it through what I think he's actually doing. So in the beginning, you know, you get that bit with the berries.

Rubi: Yeah.

Alex: And you know it's like oh well, it's a common mistake like those berries look the same. I didn't.

Rubi: I could see that.

Alex: Yeah, but then it did you know but then as time goes on it's like, yeah so he's just trying to murder him now. We thought that would be more interesting approach at the end of the day.

Time stamp: 19:12

      
yeah that I can't actually make any more
excuses for this it's not happening
though so well I really I really feel
like that turned out well and I feel
like the response to that part has been
pretty good I'm glad I'm really not it
was it was weird and different and we
haven't really tried to much stuff like
it before so I'm glad people seem to
seem to like it you know well let's talk
about a little bit about the fractal
itself and the map because once I took
out the dinosaurs at the beginning that
was a place that I just wanted to hang
out it was so beautiful oh good well I
mean part of the brainstorming thing too
is that we have the option of kind of
going wherever we want and you know we
kind of got a sense both from internal
artists and
playerbase that hey maybe something that
isn't covered in sand maybe something
that isn't covered in brand would be
nice to go to so you know it's kind of a
perfect tropical vacation kind of spot
and so especially when you first land in
the fractal we really wanted to play up
the you know it extreme extreme kind of
cliched yes I cliches vibe of the
tropical island you know we even made
sure to get the little sharks in there
kind of in the distance circling you
know you have to have like but then yeah
we got into it and then I started
working on the maze and and Jeff Webber
our prop artist for this map kind of saw
me sticking in gargoyles and he was like
you know hold the phone I've got you and
then and then you know a few days later
we all kind of turned around and he had
this amazing you know face that would
like open its jaw and he had all these
weird extra guard girls that were like
vomiting vibe and all these like oddball
things and and it worked out great
because even at the time we we weren't
we didn't really want to specify you
know what race or whatever these this
maids kind of had an association with we
want to kind of leave it like a mystery
kind of deal which is historically a
problem because most of our props have a
specific you know race or location there
are metaphor so you know I was I was
staring down it you know the great wall
prompt set or like the Dwarven Rio ruins
and I was like uh you know our player
base could probably even identify it
right so like you know what are either
of these things doing on a tropical
island so I felt like Jeff's kind of
props it kind of helped sell that you
know it was really sure like this
mystery of you know who created cool
yeah who created this kind of thing that
you're running through and it's yeah one
of the other funny things to was it you
know the progression of just the time
when you're in there because you wanted
to start happy and unassuming which kind
of tied in with the story right like you
thought oh this is going to be a fun
little jaunt in the music sold it true
this will be a fun little jaunt on it
it's super I'm gonna get super dark by
the time
you know dramatic sunset and all that
but I hadn't quite thought it through
because I'd had several different
environments zones along the way you
know you passed through the maze and it
gets dark and and dreary and everything
else and so the the initial area was
disconnected from the file area and then
I realized we didn't actually shut any
doors so if your next layer is backtrack
they'd essentially be going backwards in
time and so I had to frantically kind of
ping elion and be like can we script
this environment zone to change so I can
have a sunset back at the start - for
the Wanderers like me rework the back
half just to make sure that and work
showing the time passing with the Sun
and accounting for that potential
backtrack that was that was like a whole
new thing to try to figure out yeah
normally if we do any kind of time like
that like in our in our open world maps
you know we have a day and a night we
kind of just do those separately and
then it's all kind of handled by the
engine like natural time transition and
or you know thinking through it I would
have just made it all one's own and then
just had a life script it you know that
oh they've reached the Pirates go ahead
and have a sunset right
but as you said we don't normally do it
yeah this is like that so I hadn't
really thought about it because any time
that we have a time transition it's
almost always handled just kind of by
the engine yeah we very rarely do like
plot weather yeah well and if we do
weather changes it's usually on that day
or night cycle so it's it's not
something that or or that you would
expect players to reliably see you know
within a 15 minute window which is kind
of what most fractals are kind of geared
around you know like the 10-15 minutes
so like making sure that they'd be able
to see that light transition you know
even if they're playing it yeah three
or whatever something that I actually
wanted to point to on that this speaks
back to a Gill chat that we had a couple
weeks back where we talked about one of
the things that we do on Guild Wars 2 is
constantly trying to make it better see
what can we do that's new what can we do
that's a little bit better how can we
make this cooler and that's just it's a
good example of all right we wanted we
want to do this thing and we want to
account for the cool environment effects
that we want how come we make that work
and the explorers that's what I tend to
do in the game is you know all the
people who run around on the edge of the
map and see how high they can fly or
where the you know if there's any caves
hidden anywhere and Tracy's your people
I'm your people and progressing Lee so
because I have the two sides of me I
have I have my player side who's like
wouldn't it be cool if and then my
internal artist side who's like an
invisible wall to like block the edge of
a map from somebody like my player self
is screaming I like what I want to see
you know the pretty clouds in the
distance and then my other side it's
like yeah but I don't want to put back
facing on all those we have waterfall is
there a waterfall on the map somewhere
this one I don't know I'm notorious for
putting in waterfalls but I don't
believe so you seem like the kind of the
kind of artist who would put caves
behind waterfalls that's well I know I
have of mine I am notorious for it for
two things that sometimes drive people
nuts waterfalls and giant spiral
staircases okay and and that's why you
saw a lot of that in the previous raid
so did you work on ChromeOS library it's
so beautiful it's alright even well even
the sand falls Oh in the raid of course
the Mithraic gambit also had a lot of
waterfalls and this but the curved
staircases leading up to that forage
yeah your secret's out well I have
another hallmark too that a few people
know I tend to hide quail so there's a
little tiny quail prop that designers
for some reason designers can't use it I
don't know why like it's not hooked up
as an actual creature so it can't be
used as just in an ambient right now but
it has all the regular you know
animation loops that you'd expect it's
like you know little swinging boy and
you know various artists have things
that they do kind of say hey you know I
spend a significant portion of time on
this map and so you find it yeah I don't
put them all in doesn't quite know
matically make sense I couldn't be
bothered to make a ghost quail for the
domain of the lost piece of content I
work on the lore revocations are you
insane so but what this tells me you
said it's not an ambien and that means
it can't be killed
correct so it's immortal quail yeah yeah
and I know it does drive some players
nuts or like why do you know these
cranes why did these cats not have you
know the little health indicators why
can't I interact with them and that's
because the environment artists put them
in the designers so that they're
essentially props that just happened to
move I love it and it's kind of easier
in a way except we know then that
they're not gonna pass some weird way
because especially if a lot of the
ambient creatures you know they have
little loose walking paths and loops and
stuff and mainly when we we put
something in there it's because we don't
want it to like walk off a ledge or
something like we tend to do them kind
of you know in corners like the cats
like well we'll put them on like a
little rug or something we don't
necessarily want like a like a real cat
doesn't want to leave the
yeah that's awesome I wouldn't well loop
back to this later about things that are
hidden in the mill yeah yes there's more
thing a better hidden I do want to talk
about you mentioned like Indiana Jones
and all of these traps and everything
and I want to talk about those because
those were mostly fun and you guys were
kind of laughing at me yesterday because
when I played the dis fractal I went in
and I was like okay I don't have a lot
of time I will just solo this really
quickly so that was that was interesting
but I learned a lot from you about how
exactly I was supposed to move this
treasure around yeah we really wanted to
make sure the players got a sense of
community working with each other or
teamwork to get through the fractal so
we put in two very important mechanics
to make sure that players are be able to
do this the first one that you'll
encounter is of course the the spectra
or the swivel mounted spectral artillery
or ghost and that was that's part of the
the idea that some players need to
really sometimes players get really
annoyed when we take their skills away
from them they like to be able to play
with their skills their builds
absolutely thing wrong with that um we
obviously to play with our skills at our
builds but sometimes it's fun to add in
a little mechanic that needs special
handling so in this case like for
instance for the skeleton boss you need
two men the ghost cannon to destroy the
minds that he place on the ground while
the other members of your team deal with
the boss itself and then the other way
we did that is with the treasure maze we
created a game of hot potato where you
would throw the chest from person to
person and if you catch it you get a
buff that actually allows you to move
faster for a little bit longer so that
way we could encourage players to want
to toss and catch between themselves for
a smoother and faster fractal experience
that's awesome and there are there are
similar sufficient ways you can do it
yes yes and that was exactly that was
devastating
I had it was a good time
I would throw it and then like run after
it and well they're still 16 seconds
left whatever I'll pick it up authority
again oh look now I have another layer I
mean like the designers for like
baseball you know like like are one
person like alright I'm gonna try this
myself like I kind of need more people
out there to make this work okay you
know what I have some fun yes so yeah
you can theoretically I don't personally
recommend it yeah no yeah there's a lot
of that teamwork a lot of those teamwork
mechanics I I think the designers did a
fantastic job of encouraging players to
pass it between each other to between
one another encouraging larger groups by
having the cap on how many times you
could catch the thing there's oh yeah so
I I can't exactly remember how that
works but it does it's there and it does
something
Travis can tell us so basically every
time you catch it it will apply agony to
you if you're on the higher levels and
it will also do a little bit of damage
to you except the third time you catch
it after you catch it the third time it
applies several stacks of agony to you
and downs you instantly so you could
only catch it you can catch it about
three times if you have the right a
guinea resistance but if you try to
catch it any more than that you die
instantly it's a very specific pirate
curse
yes it's very mechanically fair so
that's actually a question I had how did
you figure out okay let's make this
challenging let's encourage the group
interaction that we want to encourage
without making this completely maddening
just a fine line to walk yes it was a
very fine line to walk yes please we
would priests always a good number
designers like to design around three
it's a good number so one three and five
those are good numbers ten also a good
number stick around there so do you
design numbers well then I don't just
random members no no like design like
design e numbers you know one of
something again a three of something in
a five of something you can attend of
something but nothing else what you guys
are going to the hundred your house
oh so so yeah we basically did a bunch
of play tests where we would just go in
as players would play through it and
toss it and see like how well we could
get it through it we didn't have an
internal testing group that kind of put
a shame because they could do it like
that they just zip right through tossing
to one another five people just write
down a line start the next one and go
and you know it took us anywhere from
ten to fifteen minutes just to clear the
maze we'd always spawn all of that we'd
toss them into places where the ads
would catch it and start running it back
to the spot you do that if they catch it
curiosity about the play just group that
I want to know later who that is yeah
particularly yeah particularly great
Jeff Jeff will run some weird like
healer build that is my Hollow Smith is
hits things and dies a lot I mean my
neck grows all right but it usually
means that I'm the one who gets to mop
up all of the ads or guilt I turned into
we're really bad all right so that's
kind of how just running through it Aton
yeah and ignoring the group that did it
superfast yeah like the end the in early
versions of the design the end siege on
the on the captain o'hara captain ship
originally we had its we had both sides
so instead of defending first from the
cell
and then from the north and then just
holding out you had to get a treasure
from the south but both the North and
the South were attacking you and then
you had to go to the north but the north
and south were attacking you and then
you had to go get a treasure from the
west but the north and south and west
were attacking there were any made sense
there were four swivel mounted artillery
too and then one chest so you would have
four people defending the cannon and the
chest it does make sense I'm just like
it sounds like it hurts I do want to
note you mentioned the ads and I
actually had fun maybe I'm just weird
but I actually had fun dodging those
little eyes on the floor yeah they've
got um there's there's a it's pulsing so
you can if you're really good at your
time you can kind of click the edge of
one and not set it off which feels
really good cuz you feel very stealthy
about it really um but the pulse is
really short so like if you try to like
walk like you know more than up this is
like a dodging thing yeah if you if you
try to walk like a cross say a third of
it no you're gonna set that off that's
fair and then you have to kill things
yes all right well we have some
questions I want to run down the line
first and have you guys talk a little
bit about what was your absolute
favorite thing about bringing this
fractal to life oh gosh I really loved
writing Desa in a way where she's really
uncomfortable with like the like she
knows that it that like pirate ghosts
are kind of an absurd like pirate curses
or kind of an absurd thing so a lot of
her dialogue is her trying to
recontextualize various pirate tropes
so you know pirate curse she's not
comfortable calling it a pirate curse
that's not a very scientific thing what
if it was a persistent a negative
persistent magical aura instead that was
fantastic I love that yeah same with
like swivel mounted spectral artillery
and then she tries
to say he's like guys ghost cannons we
call him ghost cannons fine fire the
ghost cannons and you know just the
whole story is her kind of like
loosening up a little bit about all this
stuff over there and that was bringing
that see like watching that go through
the process and then having it recorded
and listening to the actual voice acting
was awesome so that was that was
definitely one of my favorite parts it's
fun every time I hear swivel mounted
spectral artillery I hear her in my head
yelling ghost cannons she's just done
how about you Tracy
well for me it was almost a break
because a lot of the things I'd been
working on were just enormous building
like constructs it's like as you process
like I I did the creepers library and
then I was doing like what what does a
mystic Forge look like you know it's
like this huge kind of you know
incredibly unique but almost big old
monolithic buildings yeah there are
monolithic buildings and there are
things that had to be almost like over
the top in how amazing they were just
because there are locations that people
either had been really waiting
desperately to see or they were
literally like of godly proportions you
know to be told oh just make a fun
tropical island was like oh yes okay no
I don't have to come up with something
like brand-new you know I can use fun
references but I think from development
my personal favorite thing was we were
doing play tests and poor Anthony yes
designers I don't think had encountered
a whole lot of pocket Raptors before and
he made the erroneous move of going
ahead alone I just got swarmed it was a
group just went down instantly you know
he wasn't prepared for the danger ahead
you know and and so I proceeded in
horrible you know fashion his you told
friend to needle him for you know the
neck the fall all the following play
tests you know Oh watch out for the puck
or after with Anthony they're there
they're there and and so I went ahead
you know when it finally went live and
gave him the little pocket Raptor meanie
all this pocket Raptor trouble
but I gave them a fair Madame everyone
ever weight has pocket Raptor bad pocket
after traumas so for all of you people
that would rather fight 50 duck sized
horses
remember pocket that's why I'm kind of
glad too that we even the trailer I
think there was a little part where maze
mouth open in the little pocket Raptors
came out and there's a little nest in
there there's little nests along kind of
what I like to refer to as Pocket Raptor
Ally justify their presence I mean I but
I'm also a necromancer they've never
been a huge threat super cute and I love
their squeaks I love them but you also
good to know that they were there before
you all right so I have a secondary
question for you is there anything else
hidden on the map there is something I
was almost wondering of wooden potatoes
that find it because I wanted to see
like his take I want to see his take on
what it would imply has anybody found it
yet I you know I don't know I didn't I
didn't they're keeping it to themselves
if they found nobody nobody pinged me if
they were watching you know tea pot or
or any of our regulars and said oh oh
they looked in the right spot okay so
tell us what it is they're the kharka
hatchling hiding somewhere in that mass
and you know I had to actually go ahead
and ask our Lord folks if it was okay
you know that you know fractals can
always kind of imply differences anyway
it's a matter of perspective yeah and
let in the storyline you know could this
could just be one one version but I
thought it was kind of funny to imply
that hey maybe way and it was you know
part of a Kirk invasion problem you know
it's like his fault that they traveled
off this island or wherever not the
definitive source but I told you well
and I guess in general kind of a hidden
thing to is look at your mini-map
because yeah that's right the shape of
the island shape of the eye oh yeah I
had a lot of fun with it because we we
weren't necessarily gonna use a whole
lot of space like as soon as you go into
me
it's actually pretty compact and so it's
kind of like hey what what could I do
with the rest
check your mini-map you see if it were
suppose anything yep
well how about you Travis uh I have to
say that probably my favorite thing
about this was how quick it was to test
are the fractals designer Eli the
fractal lead he did an amazing job with
the first pass of this everything worked
really nicely together there weren't a
whole lot of issues as far as like it
was all pretty simple scripting and we
ran into a couple of issues where you
could like duplicate chests or the curse
wouldn't be removed and then of course
there was the time when if more than one
person was standing inside the mines for
the skeleton bossed the start it would
crash the entire fractal and everyone
that was in it so I mean other than
those I mean those were pretty simple
that was about all that we were really
ran into as far as issues which was
really good because I was testing before
I cam but at the time as well so that's
awesome so well do you guys want to grab
a couple questions see where in the
world is sirens reef close to or mikuma
we don't specify but it's a tropical
island and it's out there somewhere it's
a real place we don't know when and
where this story takes place other than
cuz I mean when you first meet captain
way and he's a ghost already so he's
been dead for a while yeah but but yeah
that's I think believe it open that's
part of the reason of kind of changing
up even like the maze architecture just
to leave it kind of wherever you want it
to be yeah okay the real location is in
your heart yeah yeah I see a question
that I had to go for it which one that
first one is Arabella crow related
to the pirate Oracle Alsatian Alice out
alas Tia ah I keep wanting to say do you
want to pronounce TAS Elisha elasti a
crow from the human personal story which
she always intended to be the final boss
of the fractal or were there other
candidates for that role so hey funny
development story dansant answered a
question
uh no not related but the original
character's name was Arabella Craven and
because because for some reason in my
head I'd forgotten that Craven meant
cowardly it was like I was like Craven
that's a cool pirate name and then like
fit like it was actually like it I put
it in and then we did like a quick play
test and then Mike Z actually was like
you do realize that Craven is not a
great pirate name right was like darn
he's absolutely right yeah everyone kind
of like turned to me was like like like
shrugs like hey you know I'm just the
writer on this thing yes exactly so
ultimately you know I I sort of looked
at it and did a little like just word
association like okay so so it was
originally Craven and then I was like Oh
Raven let's find a different like like
spooky and then that became crow and you
know so yeah Arab arabela crow it seemed
like a good pirate name so like it yeah
but no not really but no not related
happy coincidence is all right cool
let me see are you guys working on a
series of fractals that have an
overarching story like shattered chaos
and nightmare obviously we're not in the
habit of talking about future content
but you know the last fractal I worked
on was the deep stone fractal and that
is not lore related necessarily 2v2 the
sirens refract 'el which is not related
to the myth or a Gambia raid so yeah
these are kind of stand-alone stories
that explore parts of the Guild Wars
universe that we
I've wanted to explore and that's that's
really it cool
I don't racy what's that top one there
so this is the yeah the question is in
the maze whenever they look down from
the top it gets all black and they can't
see anything
that sounds it'll it is kind of
intentional actually because if you look
up when you're on the ground you can see
it's all kind of smoky oh yeah go into
like some enclosed areas and they've
been enclosed for a while yeah I mean I
don't like that you can't that it
completely blinds you zoom your camera
in a little bit yet I definitely had
scripted that environment zone to kind
of get smokier and darker as you got up
towards the ceiling just to kind of keep
that kind of enclosed almost
claustrophobic feel while you're in
there yeah so interesting so yes no so I
can go ahead and feel the the future
fractals question kind of okay I'm very
interested
you can't prep for questions that's why
they're so okay so one person was asking
it that they're grateful for new
fractals but they want to know if
they'll ever get old reworks of old
fractals and I can say that we have done
reworks of old fact isles in the past
and i cannot not say that we won't do
them in the future
[Laughter]
instability is we went out with this so
I can't say that we won't and I can't
say that we will the team is always
looking at like how do we improve you
know what we have to so if you know if
we feel like something isn't working for
players you know will definitely be
bringing it up and be like okay is there
a way you know we can fit this into our
timeline you know if there's a pain
point sure any sense so I can say do you
have other any other historical fractals
that your work
and I suppose I'll dovetail this into
the the next question which is can we
ever find the real Desa and Ark that's
sort of I'm gonna wrap this up in two we
don't like talking about unreleased
future stuff spoiling stuff all fractals
technically yes strange a strange place
we like to use fractals as a tool to
explore areas of Tyria that we might not
normally explore in the main series
content so that said we're not
necessarily approaching these things
from you know you know let's let's let's
do a historical fractal it's like what's
a cool thing that we haven't done yet
yeah so that's the general sort of
mindset that we're in when we do these
things that's fair
all right I think we we actually got
anything questions yeah if there are any
more questions please I did like I like
seeing when people are interested in
Desa because I have like I have like
this little affection and sympathy for
her ever since that one where she tried
to leave yeah back and just broke my
heart
yeah so now I'm just like I want to take
care of her and I want her to be happy
and content yeah has been worked on both
rates and fractals I take it always
takes me a second to parse Glenna and
Desa yes I was thinking the same thing
yeah because they both have the double
letter and I keep them like like like oh
yeah it's the one like the one in the
fractals is the one what is this or with
the double letters wait so Glenna she's
she's the crabby one she's the sassy one
yes yeah yes and Desa is very very much
the more down-to-earth you know let's
get this done very scientifically minded
yeah yeah yeah so they're they're both
very fun to write in their own way you
know it's a very different character and
I very much enjoyed writing for both of
them yeah I like them all right on that
note I will tell you all thank you very
much for coming to talk about sirens
reef thank you
this is this has been a really fun
fractal I am I'm liking this one a lot
that's been a good time so and I will
tell you all thank you very much for
spending some time with us and talking
with us about sirens reef and asking
some really good questions yeah those
were great questions thank you all
yeah thank you all we will see you next
Friday bye-bye


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