Guild Chat - Episode 82

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Guild Chat - Episode 82

Title
The Warclaw
Host
Rubi Bayer
Guests
Raymond Lukes
Ben Phongluangtham
Alex Kain
Joseph Clark
Date
March 8, 2019
Official video
YouTube
Previous
81
Next
83
The following is an unofficial, player-written transcript of the episode. The accuracy of this transcription has not been verified by ArenaNet.

The 82nd episode of Guild Chat aired on March 8, 2019.

Transcription[edit]

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hi teria happy Friday and welcome to war
claw guild chat
I'm your host Ruby and today we're going
to be talking about the work club with
four of the developers that helped work
on that we're starting out with Ben and
Ray we're going to talk about the well
part of the creation behind it let's
jump right in I'll have you guys
introduce yourselves to the three people
interior who aren't familiar with you
and talk about your role in the
development of the new mount sure hi I'm
Raven I'm a gameplay programmer I work
primarily on world versus world you all
know me from forums and the stream and
everything and for the work law I did a
lot of the support code development for
various parts of the mount system that
weren't ready to play friendly with
world versus world I'm Ben you guys know
before me the same places you know
Raymond I'm a game designer responsible
for a competitive game modes for the
mount I took it over after the initial
prototype and kind of just got it to
completion working on the skills and the
movement and many other little things so
we're gonna be taking questions at the
end if you guys so if you guys have
questions drop them in chat and we will
get to as many of them as we can at the
end because we have two more of our
developers coming on after these two
guys so we're gonna make time for what
we can alright so first of all
congratulations I know this was a lot of
work in the making so it has to feel
really good seeing it on live finally
definitely the hordes of mouths going
over Hills like oh it was I mean it was
fun content to unlock ourselves to UM I
mean we didn't get any special treatment
in fact we were silly we've known about
it for so long we haven't we didn't
stockpile reward track potions or
anything like we were just yeah I
thought about it like a couple weeks ago
like I should start saving these and I
think I got like eight saved up oh wow
yeah holy well I don't know speaking is
I'm like still huffing and puffing
behind this are going wait wait yet yeah
been been unlocked his cat it was like
an hour before the street yeah now I was
too busy like doing like working on hot
fixes and stuff that I didn't have time
to unlock it quite as fast
I just Michael main goal was making it
before the Thursday stream that I wished
I was successful at school I'm so close
I still need you can probably guess what
I still need it right I still need I
still need the helmet in the body armor
yeah oh so close so close but it's been
it's been super fun getting it so one of
the things that I want to talk about is
how did you decide on this particular
mount because of course one question I
saw was why not a duel yeah it's it's so
obvious it's already there we just sit
on it right yeah I mean the initial
pitch like the Doleac was actually one
of the option so we went through and did
the kind of pros and cons to a lot of
the different things like dorleac the
pro is its known for being a world
versus world thing we already have a
model but once we started looking at the
model on the rig we found out that they
weren't they're old basically they don't
they didn't support it would almost be
like rereading a completely new thing to
get it working the quality bar would
have to probably come up quite a bit
animation wise like you need higher poly
to get the fidelity of animations and
things like that you need and then yeah
like it your rig and just a full new
animations that's the man yeah something
that we had talked about was that it's
hard not to it's hard not to think of it
as okay well it's already there you just
you just take the player-character and
pop it on top of there but the mount is
a very different thing than this doughy
AK that's wandering through for sure I
mean like at the base level the tech is
plopped a player on but you know then it
doesn't animate right when it runs right
it doesn't jump right like the Mount
Dulli X don't jump the you know they
don't have a back a back pedal like it
would be a lot of it would be able to
walk backwards you know that's been the
weirdness it's it's all it's all sorts
of things like that that make you know
the consideration of the one thing
versus another you know and why the
decision was made cats are awesome
that's are already kind of a thing
the world so that was kind of the next
obvious choice and we already had like
with the the Griffin like we had
something that's kind of cat-like
already so we had wait a good like kind
of basis for starting yeah like some
something already worked in in the way
that in a similar way that we wanted to
so we got off the ground running with
design and things like that without
having to wait for a model and
animations and stuff
yeah our early prototypes we literally
ripped the wings off of Griffin like it
had holes in the side of it where the
wings to be seriously yeah like I we
just talked to in playing like how long
would it take it's one of the character
artists like how long would it take to
remove the Rings and they'd they did it
like in an hour
but it was just literally holes in the
side of this cat poor or ex Griffin this
sounds so much crueler than it is and I
know I know it's fine but I'm just I'm
so sad thinking he was fine with it I
mean but you know and that's that's
where you know some of that yeah yeah
like when you start with the Griffin you
can imagine all of the fun things the
Griffin could do that would break rule
this world
oh no I mean like effectively fly pretty
freakin pretty like this isn't it's
close to flying as you need to get over
the walls in the world over the world
that's actually something that I was
wanting to talk about um this is the
first mount in world versus world and a
lot like when you introduced gliding and
world versus world there's a lot that
you had to think about as okay this is
going to break literally everything
where do where do we start
I mean it started with Cal or a person
trying to get into every keep which and
even then we knew that we're gonna miss
some things like we're still fixing
those issues as they come up like once
you have thousands of people hitting on
something compared to one person then it
changes a lot it really started even
earlier than that when we said we need
our own mount yeah I guess I have yeah
all the special considerations that are
necessary for world versus world like it
can't jump too high it can't fly it
can't and we hope we wanted male make
changes without affecting a PV email
right like which is all the way back to
why we didn't take all the PvE math
since Thurmond go it's fine yeah well
that and like we didn't want to we
didn't want to take something from PvE
like the bunny and I'm like remove its
ability to jump up makes the bunny yeah
it's you know we didn't want to make the
Griffon just run on the ground all the
time like those those weren't those
weren't pleasant options in our mind
like great we could have done those
things and you know maybe it would have
been faster to do those things but the
better thing was to thank you for not
create a create something special for
the world versus world game-mode and
make it fit into that game-mode very
well yeah so you've got you've decided
to make the world versus world mount and
it's just you just wrote it your QA guy
break everything yeah I mean pretty much
I mean he kind of he he did a lot of the
testing for gliding as well so he
started from a place of like okay well
here's all the places that were a
problem for colliding here's all the
places that were a problem for this
player skill of a player skill and and
started in those places and then trying
to try to extrapolate from there and
like I mean that's a lengthy process and
we fixed quite a number of you know
locations yeah and like Ben said like I
mean there our players are so like good
about using the tools that we give them
to to play the game that like you know
you know I'll get a message on on the
forums or somewhere it's like so if you
dismount here you'll land on this rock
and then you - - this rock and then you
use this players skill to get over here
it's like this is this is insane
you guys are crazy it's awesome thank
you for telling me yeah go ahead and so
yeah I mean it was a it was a difficult
problem just from the beginning and the
community has actually been super
supportive about keeping us informed
yeah they've been sending us like all
night messages about different places
they can break into or making constant
adjustments as fast as we can basically
yeah that's it is one of the hazards of
bringing something this new and
different into a game mode like that but
when you've got that many players
throwing themselves at it it's that's
how it's gonna work and it I mean
anytime this is a good situation
any movement type skill and walras role
is always gonna have this problem yeah
like you know even when we change
player player movement skills like those
are you know those are things that are I
mean world versus world maps are big and
it's it's hard to test literally every
like location to every other so you know
it's it's awesome that they've been
they've been super helpful in support
yeah that goes into a little something
that I want to talk about here in a
little bit but I want to - I want to
stick with sticking with development a
little bit what were some of your
favorite parts of the development of the
work law I mean I really liked I really
liked when we were working with
animation and visual effects to solve
some problems like one of the things
that we had was like the the evade - you
know we we had a lot of like just
functional limitations that we were
setting on it because we didn't want it
to jump too high we didn't want to jump
too far right because those are the
things that exacerbate the booth of
being able to get places we don't want
it to necessarily but we also wanted it
to feel good we wanted to look good it
need to feel like an evade and a -
without being you know a really long
distance that you're down like the UH
like with the Raptors the Raptors jump
is very long and very far and it feels
really good and so working with
animation to get you know good
animations good visuals for that working
with visual effects to get that cool
like like smokey like ghost - thing that
does like that was that was a ton of fun
yeah once we got an animator we were
able to like quickly eliminate or change
some things that didn't feels good like
the original door pool changed
dramatically once we got an animator
looking at it yeah originally we
actually threw a spear at the door and
then let you run away from the door to
do damage on it and we use it we used
wind tech to kind of keep the person
attached to the door but it always
looked a little weird because the wind
tech is not designed to do what we were
trying to do and then we got Scott our
animator and and he's like well we can
do this this and this and like oh yeah
that changes everything and it looks
better and then it actually influenced
the design of the the skill quite a bit
where we went towards more towards
moving towards like basically changing
the battle cat into a siege weapon
temporary
as opposed to just you know attaching a
thing and then running around and making
it look weird and there was always a lot
of comments about where the rope and
like oh that's though although we are
getting clipped and clipped in really
weird ways and ways that work weren't
shippable and so yeah like there was
like I mean initially they were tighter
discussion isn't like how what do we do
to the rope to make it look you know
look better and not clip and things like
that you know like we attach it to
different points in the mound can we
make it maybe it's an energy you know
thing and it like emanates from like you
know further out and stuff like that and
uh like so we explored a lot of options
with that and like the the wind tech was
cool like it felt it felt interesting to
kind of have to like be actively doing
something to pull down the gate it just
in the end it did it didn't meet the you
know the visuals and like the the
overall gameplay feeling that we were
going for and I'm really happy where we
ended up with the animation and the way
the interactions going uh the door pull
now yeah um with the evade it seems like
that that feels like it had to have been
a very fine line to walk where there's
just there's a very narrow place where
you can where you need to land where
it's not breaking things but it's not in
the place of why do we even bother
having this because it feels pointless
we experimented with a lot of different
heights like it changed quite a lot like
even up to getting close to the end
we're changing the the arc that you jump
changing the animation it loose to look
more like just another leap and then in
because it felt so much like a normal
jump we ended up changing it to be like
you know the Mount have it has his head
down and kind of dashing forward for a
while look it was actually just a quick
speed boost so it actually just ran on
the ground really fast like we
experimented with all different types of
things for the evade before settling on
the one we have and then we're even
still like making we just made an
adjustment to it last night to decrease
the the distance slightly just for power
reasons and because it also was one of
the big things I was helping people get
into places they should yeah I mean
there was a lot of back and forth on
that school I mean just just to kind of
build on that slightly off-topic way
like I mean that's something that we're
looking at doing continuously is like is
finding the things that need to change
this amount to make it fit in world
versus world you know producing the
evade was was one of those things like
it was too powerful and in fights and
and and too good at jumping from place
to place even still so that what you
know that's something we're looking to
continue to do and the evade actually
touched a lot of people's hands like I I
mess with the evade for a while been
mess with the evade for a while Joel who
does a lot of mount work touched on the
evade like we that they traded hints
quite a few times to to really get the
feel to be to be really good which was
nice that we got we got to all kind of
put our little our little touches on it
also if it's more claw it's on topic I
don't care ok let's talk about the
collection a little bit because that was
I feel like that worked out really well
and I'm a fairly casual world versus
world player but it felt it felt really
welcoming
yeah the idea was is we knew there was
gonna be a lot of new people coming into
world versus ruled for this so we wanted
to make a collection kind of I think I
called it like a tour of world versus
world like showing a lot of the basic
activities you need to do we also didn't
want the collection to be something very
onerous like we didn't want it to take
as long as even the roller beetle
because we didn't want to split the
population for a long as we wanted to
split them of a shortest time as
possible because obviously it makes a
big difference on whether you can keep
up with desert like as you are talking
about earlier we your since you haven't
all off that you're kind of like
trolling behind I'm up so something that
was definitely on our mind a lot you
know like like close closer to like
bunny unlock you know yeah and here's
the thing I'm I am back there behind the
Zerg I'm not by myself though yeah like
and it feels good because I haven't
unlocked it but I've made strong
progress yeah and that's that's a good
feeling it doesn't feel I'm not back
there feeling hopeless yeah I mean aside
from just being fast we just wanted to
teach people about world versus world
since we knew there was a lot of new
players in there yeah so going through
the basic activities we thought it was a
good way to do that our original thing
like
we've toyed back-and-forth or we even
have whether we should have a collection
at first we were like maybe we just
unlock it on the on through though the
masteries but it felt a little too easy
I guess or it just wasn't enough around
you like it didn't feel like unlocking
amount yeah right
like it didn't it didn't it didn't feel
the same as and like the same kind of
accomplishment and like you know like
like been said like we sort of you know
you took advantage of the fact that
people were gonna want this mount to
show off the game mode to those who
don't wanna get to play it I think and I
and we've already gotten lots of
comments who are like you know I didn't
realize as what world was the world is
this is awesome I'm sticking around now
or I just got them to overcome their
fear yeah yeah super awesome we're
always happy to have more people again
well and huge shout out to the
commanders who are leading some of these
groups because I've in the time I've
been playing since the world since the
war clock came out running around world
forces world I've seen a lot of really
really helpful commanders yeah there was
some really cool posts on the forums and
on reddit you know like hey you're gonna
come in to wove on Tuesday here are some
tips and tricks and like that look that
was super awesome I don't know if you
guys have seen it there's an awesome
work log guide from one of our players
on the forums now yeah there it is
I mean it is a if you don't play world
versus world or if you are just starting
or if you haven't played in a while this
is exactly how to unlock the war cloth
this is step by step what you need to do
and I love our players so that you guys
are amazing
so which actually leads me to what I
that's one of my favorite things that
I've seen since this thing came out what
are what are some of your favorite
reactions what have you guys seen that
you've loved since the war claw came out
um please make it about the were claw
great chili dog do tell me about that
later I mean there's so much like like
launch day there were just so many
people playing a game mode and like I
jumped on a couple of a couple of worlds
when I could and just seeing the Zergs
rolling around and and I mean it was it
was so world versus world
there were there were the groups who
were trying to unlock the war cloth
there was a group trying to stop the
groups who were unlocking the work like
it was it was brilliant it was awesome
the fights were great you know you you
really got a good sense of like you know
you know how the game mode operates and
and and and the sense of those players
as well um you know I was I was you know
super pleased about you know some of the
people who were a little skeptical about
the motto first when we first announced
it coming back to me and being like you
know I was wrong
this was pretty awesome I see that yeah
and I I get a healthy dose of skepticism
and something yeah it's a big change of
the game mode it was you know it was
gonna turn it was it was like gliding
all over again right like a lot of
people couldn't couldn't see how gliding
could fit into world versus world and
you know there were you know there were
bumps along the way with gliding but you
know I think the the solution we came up
there was good and I think the mount is
is good for the game was also I am I'm
excited about yeah I mean same thing
like all the new faces just the seeing
the sea of war claws like running over
the hills is just really fun seeing like
the community rate overall reaction like
Ray said there's a lot of people have
messaged me the same thing like I was
skeptical but actually I'm having a
really good time and yeah there's a few
things that we need to resolve but
overall it's not it doesn't break the
game like a lot of people thought it
would and like I said there's still
there's always probably always gonna be
some issues we need to fix but I think
overall it's been a great addition yeah
you know it's it's our amount it's world
versus world now we can fix the things
that need to be fixed yet right we don't
have to worry about how this affects you
know you know like a PvE you know
experience nearly as much as if like we
were messing with the Raptor or
something so it's I mean weird a good
bird a good space to make them out yeah
thank you guys were like you've put in
since it launched to catch up on the
things that you didn't anticipate and
things that players surprised you with
mhm and there are some things we thought
might happen but wanted to see things
like yeah like sometimes you you can you
can foresee a problem and be like this
is for sure gonna be a problem and then
you know it ends up not being for other
factors that
considering and and so sometimes when
like we don't think it's going to be you
know like a gamebreaking bug we you know
we hold back we're like well maybe we
were wrong maybe this isn't gonna be as
bad and then sometimes we're right
sometimes wrong and you know we make we
make moves to correct Nick yeah I mean
we luckily we've gotten a lot of help
from like the the platform team and
stuff to get hot fixes out pretty fast
yeah
and we're gonna continue to work on that
as we go shout out to Amy and Corey yeah
seriously you're amazing alright well do
you guys want to answer some questions
yeah sure all right go ahead and you
read them so okay I don't give you the
wrong order I was just gonna go top to
bottom because I'm a programmer Jamar
turtle what was the funniest bug through
testing and making it are making the
work law that you really liked whenever
a bunch you could jump dodge yeah that
was gonna be white wine old me about
that it tripled the height of the jump
yeah that's the way it works like the
movement modifiers multiplying each
other yeah it was like a cat size jump
it looked like it was really fun I was
like I wish we could keep this in the
game and not be horribly broken but you
can completely just sometimes even get
close to just jumping over the wall with
no no just I mean most of our players
learn how to dodge jump pretty early
it's like an early skill to do and so it
was very easy
you could definitely jump through the
little hole between the the gate and the
wall it was pretty fun one thing we had
that was pretty entertaining is while we
were in development I removed the cost
and the cooldown on the evade and then
when I was messing with it I found that
you can just hold the evade button down
and like zoom super fast through the
whole map you can make it from one of
the other probably less than a minute
easy forever yeah it was a bade forever
it was necessarily a bug because we were
actively working on at the time but we
purposely disabled the cost so we could
not have to wait for energy to return
but that combined with like I had
removed some other they had a camera
what I remove every we're actually
working on getting like because we were
like right now like we hold down the the
dad the - button for Raptor right like
the longer you hold it the further we
were considering doing something like
that where you'd spend each one of your
dodges by just holding the thing down it
didn't feel good we couldn't get the we
couldn't get the animations to look as
good with that
without a bunch of extra work so we
ended up we ended up not doing that and
in general and now it's there's a I mean
it's not big but there's a little bit of
a window there we are
slightly more vulnerable I think of
other bugs I mean early early like super
early kind of going back to ripping the
wings off a Griffon the wings aren't
actually in you know necessary for
flight Griffon so the early iterations
of were claw could fly yeah without
wings and so look really silly turns out
they're not actually real creatures yeah
no not real creatures just a bunch of
triangles physics do what we tell them
to should I read the next question see
are you Sara Sunderland asks are we
concerned that the now necessity of
having work law will make a more
difficult entry gate to new people in
reverses world and that's certainly
something we actually discussed quite a
bit like we talked about
should we have a rent amount rental
should we not I mean we're still
considered so considering about right
now because it's still it's still a
concern as Sara brings up it's still
something where we're thinking about
we're gonna look at look at adoption
numbers and things like that and and I
mean provide the tools that are
necessary to make the game good I mean
it's really like most players most the
average world versus where a player
definitely has path the fire but yeah oh
yeah we're still talking about ways to
like possible do mount rental I mean and
I mean just looking back to gliding as
well like you know it wasn't as a bigger
problem and with climbing as well so
we're we're hopeful that it won't be
with this as well and commanders are
really good I mean I've seen more
commanders running around on foot to
help keep the desert together I noticed
that too so I mean commanders are good
good about it the mounts still gonna
have its place you know on an individual
level
even if commanders are still running
around on foot because they're awesome
yeah
all right Ruby's gonna read the next one
am i yes I don't have to pronounce that
name immortality X now there we go I was
gonna try and add the X in as part of
the name it immortality' 'qs there you
go why wasn't the war club given three
endurance bars to jump in PvE as well
why ray why I can answer that I guess so
the way masteries work in world versus
world is they only work in world versus
world so in order to get that to work
we'd have to do something similar to the
way we did the the movement speed
increase so the movement speed in PvE is
the faster version of the movement speed
but we had to like flip that logic over
so we're the default speed is fast and
you get slowed down you actually get a
buff on you just slow you down if you
don't have mastery and so we'd have to
do the same thing with the endurance
yeah so yeah it's the same reason why
when you unlock the world claw through
the mastery system and you're not in
world versus world it doesn't actually
unlock the collection is and tell you
something but in world versus world is
because the collection is unlocked by
the buff that gives you and that
actually doesn't get applied until you
step foot into world versus world so
it's just a weird technical thing about
the woven mastery system we've done on
purpose like we didn't want it to happen
yeah sure right and so those buffs only
get applied to you when you're in PvE or
we're in world it's it's another part of
dealing with that split between this is
a world versus world mount and it has to
work slightly differently it's totally
something and we'll look to in the
future I know we want to look at
exposing some of the functionality into
PUA just like yeah a lot of the skills
didn't make a ton of sense like there
aren't a whole lot of gates to pull open
in in sniffing enemies yeah it's
difficult right ooh make it work for
good yeah so I mean there's
considerations there it's just how does
it fit into PvE and that was a question
that I saw up there that I think mark
scrolled by but yeah like I'll knocking
that stuff in PvE you something
now we're going to look at doing and
whether or not it makes sense and
various things yeah I mean that kind of
addresses a little lilith love it's a
question about a separate master system
oh yeah yeah like we could add that
stuff to a separate mastery track for
PvE okay the question was would it be
okay if he makes the work law viable in
PvE like at a separate mastery system
for the work law in PvE yeah
so it's along those lines and I mean we
could do we could do either right there
could be a separate mastery system or it
could be it just gets really like a lot
more defiant to the oval and more
especially the more different they get
from game mode and trying to maintain
them both it can be a little bit
problematic do other teams get involved
at that point maybe that was that's what
we'd have to talk to other people about
it because we obviously didn't want to
make sure we don't break something in
PvE as well yeah we're touching other
game modes and yeah especially we had to
add content right like that would have
to go somewhere here and so someone
would at least have to be like yeah you
can totally add that to my map that's
okay
that seems like a surprise somebody
doesn't want to find out the hard way
mm-hmm no in their content we we tend to
be good about that like yeah considering
everyone else's work and what they're
doing before we jump on things alright I
guess except that tree etc exactly is
there plans to enable using sniff while
tethered to the gate I mean not we
hadn't talked about we hadn't talked
about it but I mean maybe maybe for
another hundred points no I mean like it
could be that would be hard to do I mean
yeah we just have to add it to add it to
that skill bar the cooldowns might be
interesting just save the next question
for Alex yeah we're all that Alex the
question is about the name for the work
law I think he's actually gonna save
that for Alex
all right I'm giving us three more
questions because it's getting late and
we still have we should show our concept
art oh yeah yeah I wonder I want to see
it too
and we can't see that monitor right now
so Marc will have to let us know that's
other concept we have two pieces of
you don't have the other one okay we'll
have to a lot finer I'm gonna I'm gonna
I'm gonna afford it - I'll go back but
we can that's that's the concept art
from our first meeting yeah so yeah all
right yeah there was one more question
on it was waiking the mountain stealth
why so inclined yeah you can stealth
along about um I mean I was just kind of
a holdover functionality from the way
Mouse work yeah Mouse it's something
we're actively talking about we're gonna
look into it we're talking about with
the skills team as well to figure out is
this the right way to hell this or
should be this should be handled
differently or should we disable it all
together yeah and there's a conversation
are the systems team in general has been
having that's one of those things that
like we weren't real sure how it was
going to work out and so we decided to
leave it and leave it as it was and and
move move on it yeah all right sweet
that one's saved for Alex all right I
will tell you guys thank you and let you
get back to work with us and we will be
right back with two more of our work our
developers
thank you
[Music]
all right welcome back and we have two
more of our work card event work law
developers I'm calling it the work learn
now work blur all right I'll let you
guys introduce yourselves and talk about
what you did for the work law I'm Alex
Kane
I was the narrative point person on the
work law wrote a bunch of the lore and
figured out how was gonna work in the in
the overarching Guild Wars story cool
Joseph Clark sound designer for the work
law difficut roles movements skills kind
of designed the audio for the alright
well let's start with the narrative
journey for the work law it explained
yourself I probably have to do that yeah
in the best way possible
so Bobby Stein came up to me and said
hey they're adding a new mount for
worldview world it's a big cat and you
need to do some work on that and I was
like okay well big cats sound pretty
cool so you know I had to figure out how
if they managed to materialize in the
Guild Wars universe and why no one had
actually seen them before that usually
is that was the best place to start and
so we concocted this story line about
how these these creatures were used in
the mists they they're they were a
magical construct similar to the San
jackals and ancient kingdoms throughout
the mists used them as cavalry and we're
not really explaining too much about
that backstory or anything like that
right now but you know they've been
there they're these pieces of their
battle armor were strewn about the mists
and now people are finding them and some
enterprising scholar was able to piece
them all together and bam there's
there's this war claw already ready for
combat and it was it was a fun little
store
to put together I think there's there
might be a book death in there somewhere
sort of explaining the the beat by beat
of that little story but but yeah that
was how it all started so we kind of did
this before with regular with the mounts
that we've already had with I think the
festival of the four ways yeah that was
me too
IIIi reckoned a lot of stuff it's not
really reckoning it's you know these
mounts were in alona and you weren't in
alona you were in teria and mikuma so
when you go to the festival the four
wins there's live there's this
conversation that I wrote where you know
some some alone Ian's are like you know
well yeah like so you've got mounts
that's pretty cool and all the Tyrians
are like yeah like they would have been
useful maybe when we were fighting
mordremoth and as I can you jerk yeah
you know like why didn't you tell us
that you had mounts like oh we thought
you knew mounts are pretty great
fortunately this was a little bit
because the war claw is it's it's a mist
focused creature the lure had to focus
on the mists and that was a lot of fun
because the mists are kind of our you
know anything goes you know territory so
it was a lot of fun to put that together
and to to to explain how they how they
came to be it was a lot of fun awesome
all right so this scholar he's just
putting together these random pieces but
let's see what this does this seems to
fit together suddenly huge cat yeah uh
not expected uh by any stretch of the
imagination
I was totally chill with it he said well
the cow no no no no hammers the the the
scholars not cool it so like you've got
a bunch of like nerdy priori scholars
that are like you know putting this
thing together like you know like like a
paleontologist putting you know bones
together or something when you put all
the dinosaur bones together the dinosaur
doesn't just materialize though that
would be awesome but awesome but when
they do put all the pieces of the armor
together the magic that binds the the
essence of these creatures reforms and
becomes bound to the individual that
piece to the armor
together which is how we're explaining
that players that assemble their own
armor sets of the war claw armor are
able to then sum in their own war claws
and the war claws are born and bred for
combat since the ancient times when they
were first when they were first made and
so you leading it into battle is like
you're doing it a favor like it really
wants to get out there and you know
nothing you'll knock some knock some
doors down and you are just doing what
it wants you are just you know it's like
with a normal cat you just like you know
you throw the ball with this you
actually tear down tear down gates
you're making it happy yeah that's what
that's what makes all cats happy I'm
sorry I'm thinking about how mine just
kind of watches the ball and then she
goes back to sleep she's not the
brightest bulb in the box
no well studies suggest that cats do
understand what we want they just don't
care that also sounds right all right so
that fits did so your the narrative that
you worked on is did that have some say
in the collection I'm assuming yes yeah
it was I mean all of these things are a
collaborative effort between you know
between the designers working on it and
the artists creating the actual look of
the thing and narrative so in this case
it was a meeting very early on and we
you know we just asked hey how do you
get the thing how do you how do you get
the war-club what like is it you know do
you go to a shop and do you like buy it
like is it is it there is it do you do
you find it wandering around out in the
wilderness do you have to do something
do you have to like find pieces of meat
to like you know to get it like giant
adoption-agency yeah or or giant giant
war claw adoption agency so like these
are the questions that we have to ask
like how do you get the thing and they
very clearly said you know no it's going
to be a collection you're gonna find
pieces of its armor and so from there
the thing I have to think of is like
okay so you can't get it until you get
all the pieces of its armor what does
that mean how does that make it appear
how does that tie into its overall lore
and so from there I was able to
concoct this story basing it again on
sort of the lore that we have for the
San jackals which are you know Jin built
constructs using using magic it's it's a
similar kind of mechanism but obviously
not Jin created these things were made
by some lost civilization
long lost to the mists and that helped
sort of you know no pun intended piece
the whole story together you finding all
the pieces of armor putting them
together and then that creating the war
claw and design was super supportive the
whole time it was it was really great
collaborative effort and yeah we uh we
think it turned out pretty well
people are also enjoying the work law so
that's uh that's great cool alright so
giant cat from the mists and armored up
what does that sound like let's see yeah
first I watched some he-man somebody had
to say it yeah it's a large cat I kind
of went back into my you know early
sound design days and kind of watching
some of the greats like Jimmy McDonald
he was a sound designer from for Disney
for ever and I remember watching this
thing where he used one of these glass
chimneys for to do a bear because it's
kind of like the shape of it kind of
gives the boo meanness and girth of like
you know the chest cavity kind of sound
and I started there so I can do my own
guttural here yeah yeah holding that I
don't mind at all it's for science yes
right there yeah so yeah so this is the
start of the war claw
how to use my hand I'm copying it kind
of helps with the foreman like the mouth
and stuff like that and yeah so started
with this and so that was me and I
needed to then kind of layer in some and
my still holding this is just like
pulling it there for like 30 minutes
thank you thank you that was great that
was awesome thank you yes
so I started with the roars and then I
layered in some let's see I used a
garbage can dragging a garbage can on
the ground kind of help would be like
her kind of sound of a big cat like the
can and kind of dragged it and like gave
it a little bit of uh I think actually
have some yeah that's
[Music]
that's a great example also and we being
life of a sound designer I believe how
back that just came about was us like we
were moving a garbage can
Jerry Schrader who was in the video
performing moves can on our carpeting in
the hallway I was like sounds really
cool we have to do it do it so we got
great with sound design with Foley and
stuff like that you anytime you hear
something interesting like it's not
necessarily like we need it right away
very good to get that in our library put
in our back pocket for example I knew we
got that I'm like okay so I need kind of
curry big boomy per sound so went bad
got that pulldown and I also used
another garbage can - garbage cans
it's very no expense recycling and
normal garbage exactly yeah
it's quick movement kind of get some
snarls and I there's that and then there
was a double bass upright bass on this
back and we kind of did some slides and
got this hang out Godzilla was recorded
I found it got so anyway oh no I'm
actually wondering is that like is that
the double bass you've had in there for
ages yes okay Gary brought that and
we've had that on Gill chat before
double basses goodness yeah so
interesting that's kind of layering
those on and figuring out the right
position for those I'm also included
that I think I like before and after of
the go to the tapes let's yeah let's
let's watch the tape tape for the
pictures will be yeah let's go to the
tape keep saying it until it works go to
the tape yep it's picture but yes - oh
that's the double bass
suck it so yeah there was me with the
chimney the base and the can and the big
dumpster can so those are just the
sounds individually that I pulled in and
with proud without process so yeah we're
not processing we can play that quick
[Music]
okay all right so the kind of snarl of
the big dumpster can gives you that kind
of like throaty like that kind of
initial part of the guttural so you
can't put that in front you have my kind
of thing going on and then I layer in
the double bass for that kind of blue
meanness of like a leave a lion or a
tiger kind of like room that kind of
like we just sound and then end with the
/ you know that was the design of the
sound and then from there I processed it
so like you were saying with the lure
being from the mist someone kind of
otherworldly ghost-like kind of ethereal
quality exactly yeah so I did some like
reverse reverb which kind of gives like
a little bit of a lead-in to the phone
so you can I get that now so you listen
the process version cool so yeah so the
thing the thing I love is that it's not
just all right let's just take a lion
sound right process a little bit and
slap it on there it's okay this is a
huge mystical battle cat from the mists
let's build this from the ground up
right which made something incredibly
unique to this creature so kudos because
that's amazing
yeah I mean I could go get a bear and
put it in a bear please don't
the fully rooms not that big can't
really work with animals like thing like
that's the one issue with
Fidel yeah it's very nice to kind of
work from the ground up and to kind of
design that sound like know what it
sounds like kind of knowing what
materials or things I have or what
things I like to kind of recreate that
sound yeah it is
you guys have such a cool job in there
and we also did some the Foley session
for the armor of the yeah that's cool
yeah it's interesting to kind of our one
of our traits is kind of collecting
things recording it in our room
they never know we might need it we've
used the metal plates before but they
were kind of eventually we do clean out
but um they were kind of just in there
waiting like I need some nice kind of
jostle armor movement sounds and we just
thought the plates like steak then grab
this and try this out it's kind I get a
media are one of the signers in the
video Jason Topher was like let's do
that the final sound but basically that
same idea and we had some of these metal
floodlights and kind of layered it like
laid it on top as we were doing that
motion so it kind of got like the big
the Clank of the metal and then a little
bit of the jostle of the metal
floodlights and just so you can I get
that movement with
and stuff like that so yeah it worked
out really really well so all right well
do you guys want to answer some
questions cuz I know we saved at least
one for you
sure okay what do we got we have how did
you come up with the name war cloth
ah that's a good question it was okay so
you could make something up if you want
that's no I I don't have to here's the
thing it came to me and it was battle
cat that was the temp name that was
tempting it was like this is this is
what this is sort of the vibe that we're
going for I was like well we can't use
we can't use that because we can't use
that so so I I do what I normally do
when I've got to name something that is
going to you know it's it's a it's a big
feature it's a marketing thing it needs
to go through a lot of different
departments I can't just name it
you know you know something I can just
pick a name out of thin air and just run
with it I have to fit it through a lot
of people so what I normally do is I go
to the arena in that narrative email
alias and I say hey this is what the
thing looks like this is what it does
this is the vibe that we're going for
it's a little like it's a little like
Cringer he-man thing going on a little
little battle cat going on you know how
do we how do we put our stamp on it you
know how do we put our unique stamp on
it and we get a bunch of names that are
thrown out sometimes the prefix is
really good like oh it's the war or
something it's the some it's the war or
something it's the battle something you
know it's and then you know sometimes
the suffix is really good it's the claw
something it's a cat something or the
something cat was something claw and
ultimately what I did was I looked at a
bunch of different recommendations I
think it might have been
Samantha wall schlager I don't want to
prescribe like I'm pretty sure that she
she she had like a couple of different
ones and she said like how about how
about the war someone might have
suggested war cat and someone might have
suggested something else or something
claw but it
definitely a bunch of people putting
their heads together to come to this
name and it seemed you know pretty
pretty straightforward after that it was
you know oh you know it's a it's the war
it's the war claw
it doesn't actually describe the animal
per se it's not like the Raptor like we
do like they have to Guild Wars 2 it's
more it's more like the the the Springer
you know it disagree or but anyway the
you know it describes more its its
purpose and describes what it does you
it has claws and you use it for war and
that worked out pretty well so yeah that
that was the long answer the short
answer is a bunch of smart people
through a bunch of names together and we
think that something else and this is
what fell out yes that works not fell
out expertly plucked out from from the
collection of names all right that works
yeah that makes me feel like I did a
little bit more yes you did oh yes their
concept art for the war claw there is
let's see the amazing done stuff to art
show it I don't know if it's being shown
I guess okay yeah yes this is this is
our fantastic concept perfect I want it
I want it to be my my wallpaper on my
computer we do you like a like a cell
shaded skin that just looks like that
that would be like oh my cervical areas
would be fantastic yeah yeah oh they're
there any other questions any penny
narrative no great well I'd like to
think that it's because we answered all
the questions ourselves and there are
literally no more questions that people
also because we're approaching 1 o'clock
and we need to wrap up yes because we
have things that we need to do so all
right do you want to say let's look at
the tape one more time
let's go to the tape go to the tape
sorry what do we get we have we have any
very nice that's the work and that's the
work law thank you guys for spending an
hour with us I appreciate it thank you
both for hanging out yeah I need to go
finish earning my work law have a great
Friday we'll see you guys later bye
[Music]
[Music]
you