Guild Chat - Episode 90

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

The 90th episode of Guild Chat aired on August 28, 2019. Rubi sits down with Mike Zadorojny, Connor Fallon, Erik Fagerstrom, Jason Reynolds, Joel Helmich, Aline Callahan, Nick Hernandez, Joe Kimmes, Brett Nellermoe, Cameron Rich, Kirk Williford, Keaven Freeman, Clayton Kisko, Da-Hee Im, Chelsey Shuder, and Julia Nardin to celebrate Guild Wars 2's 7th Anniversary.

Transcription[edit]

Introduction [9:08][edit]

Rubi Bayer: Hi Tyria, happy Tues- Wed- Happy Tuesday, Wednesday-

Mike Zadorojny: Wednesday.

Rubi: Wednesday. Happy anniversary! It's been a long week already. (laughs) Happy anniversary Tyria, and thank you guys for joining us for the anniversary livestream. I'm your host Rubi and we are starting off with Game Director. Mike, you wanna say hi?

Mike: Yeah, you know, this is a very special day for us here in the studio. You know, Guild Wars 2 has been going for seven years strong, and the team is just so blessed and fortunate to have such an amazing family behind us. Everything we do, we do for you guys. And, you know, this has been a really challenging year for us, not gonna lie, but everything from the posts, the tweets, the threads, everything that we've been paying attention to, has just shown how much you guys are passionate and care about this game. And, you know, nothing exemplifies us more than what you guys did for us with the #LoveForArenaNet hashtag earlier this year. We still have art up on the walls that just reminds everyday why we're doing this, and why this franchise, and this game is so special for all of you and for all of us. So, thank you for an amazing seven years. Clearly, we’re not done yet because we have some things we're about to announce later this week and we're super excited to see where the future of the game goes and we hope that you'll be with us along for the ride.

Rubi: Yeah. You guys, you all are truly an amazing community. We are honored everyday to be a part of the community and that you let us be part of that with you. This has been an incredible seven years. We are so excited for seven more, and seven more, and seven more after that.

Mike: Well, we've got the stories to tell for sure, so.

Rubi: Yes! We have the stories to tell. We have a whole lot of our Guild Wars 2 developers who are joining us today to share their stories over the past year. And we want to hear your stories over the past year. Things that you loved, awesome things that happened to you with your friends in Guild Wars 2. So throw those in chat if you have them. Share them with everybody because we all want to hear about it, too.

Mike: I started a thing actually in one of our meetings where we actually put up some of those stories from the players that posted about like what Guild Wars 2 means to them. So when we do our, you know, our team meetings and syncing up on where the future of the game is going, kind of all the announcements, and that kind of stuff. We do reinforce it with how much this game means to individuals. And so whenever you see us, you know, on the streets, at PAX or other conventions, you know, don't be afraid to tell us your stories because this is why we do it. More than anything, this game is important for how it builds the community, how it brings people together, and what this game means to you. So again, thank you from all of us on the Guild Wars 2 team and ArenaNet and we are looking forward to many more years with you.

Rubi: Yeah, absolutely. And Mike is completely right. We love hearing your stories face to face. That's a huge deal. It is like refueling for us. Yeah, so. Alright, let's get started with our first three dev guests, but real quick, before you leave the room here. This is our last livestream in this room. We are getting ready to start some construction. We are going to have a gorgeous new home in a few months. But this one is coming out to make room for some construction so we get to do a little bit of good natured vandalism. A couple of us have already kicked it off, but on your way out, stop and sign the wall.

Mike: Absolutely.

Rubi: Alright!

Mike: Thanks, Rubi.

Rubi: We will be right back. Thank you, Mike, and-

Mike: With the three amazing dancers?

Rubi: Yes! Thank you! Three amazing dancers! You know what? We should get them on here and have them sit in the chairs. They are like, "Oh god, I have regrets." Alright, we will be right back. Stick around, you guys.

Connor, Erik, and Jason [14:17][edit]

Rubi: Hello, dancers of Guild Wars 2. That was amazing! Thank you guys for letting us be ridiculous at you. Appreciate it.

Jason Reynolds: I think Eric did all the heavy lifting on that.

Erik Fagerstrom: I did not know this was happening. "You're on camera." What?!

Connor Fallon: Well, they couldn't tell from watching us that you kept playing music and like-

Rubi: I played music. You're welcome!

Connor: I tried to get Jason to do the hula.

Rubi: Jason offered to do the hula.

Jason: I cooperated a little bit.

Rubi: This is- Yes. This is an important distinction: Jason offered to do the hula.

Connor: Alright, alright.

Erik: That's what I remember.

Rubi: It's good we have such a dull, serious, and unfriendly workplace, right?

Connor: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erik: It's true.

Rubi: So well, happy anniversary. Congratulations.

Connor: I forgot my suit. I'm sorry. I know I didn't meet the dress code.

Rubi: It's okay because Erik forgot his powdered wig, so...

Connor: Oh yeah, yeah.

Erik: I just...

Rubi: Why don't you guys introduce yourselves real quick?

Connor: Sure. I'm Connor Fallon. I'm one of the designers on Guild Wars 2. I worked on... I started with Path of Fire, and then I've been working on Living World since, so yeah. That's me.

Rubi: Erik.

Erik: I'm Erik. I'm a content programmer on Guild Wars 2. I've been here... a while? I don't know. I got here right after launch, so I've worked on... everything.

Connor: Everything.

Erik: Since then, yeah. I've got a lot of stuff, I don't know.

Rubi: Literally everything.

Erik: Yeah, and I'm on Living World now with Connor.

Jason: And I'm Jason Reynolds. I started about five years ago with raids and Heart of Thorns and done a little bit of everything since then and now I'm on Living World.

Rubi: Nice. Alright, well, let's just talk about some of your most fun things over the past year because, that's like Z said, this has been an interesting year, but we have had- We've done so much cool stuff. So what were some of your favourite things about the content you developed?

Connor: Well so, let's see. Over the last year, we worked on- Erik and I were both mainly on A Star to Guide Us and then we did kind of ambient stuff on the later episodes. Then of course we're working on the- whatever's next, but we can't talk about any of that, so we have to erase-

Rubi: You guys were so close.

Erik: That was really close. I was just like...

(laughter)

Jason: Wait till Friday, Connor!

Connor: I mean obviously a lot of the stuff we did in A Star To Guide Us was great. Like the mushroom adventure was definitely an interesting, bizzare thing that Frosty prototyped, and then I ran with it, and I'm pretty impressed that we shipped it!

Rubi: I actually want to know. Like, what was that meeting like? Was it just like, "Okay, so hear me out..."

Connor: You're assuming there was a meeting. So Frosty was just like, "I did this." And I'm like, "Alright. Oh, by the way, I'm changing half the people to Faren in his underwear, and he's going to be dancing."

Rubi: Okay, you see, that to me- My definition of a meeting is really loose. People were getting cereal at the same time in the kitchen at seven in the morning, and that's a meeting-

Erik: Meeting.

Rubi: As far as I can tell, because stuff gets done.

Connor: Yeah.

Erik: It's true! I mean... and then, like, run around for no reason. Yeah, okay. That's how it all gets together, it's great.

Connor: Yeah, run around for no reason was a thing I added at the very end. It's an adventure, and it had the weirdest requests that I've ever made of the art team, cause it was like, "Hey, I need a prop that can be a piece of fruit, a chicken, a gem, a present, and I just need these to all be different states of the prop."

Erik: A pie, too.

Connor: Yeah, a pie.

Erik: Yeah.

Connor: Because the whole thing was that every time you did the adventure, it was a different random thing you were chasing.

Erik: So weird.

Connor: So like, one time you do it it would be- and then- The chicken was a really slim chance.

Rubi: Really?

Connor: Like I made the chicken a 0.01% chance that it will be a chicken.

Erik: Really?

Connor: Yeah, most of the time it's a pie. And sometimes it's like- I put a lot of thought-

Erik: I feel like you have that backwards.

Connor: -into the probability of your hallucination, alright? It was really important.

Rubi: Okay, so far- We need like a record of the amazing sentences said on this show today because "I put a lot of thought into the probablility of your hallucination" so far is the front runner.

Connor: This is what- I mean, we've been here for five minutes so like...

Rubi: Yeah, but I mean... you know.

Erik: That's quote board worthy. Yeah, for sure.

(laughter)

Erik: For me, I feel like the weirdest stuff is upcoming, but I think my favourite from A Star to Guide Us is the spider, and I got to cut loose a little bit with the bounty bosses, so... We tried some weird stuff there, and I hope we get to reuse some of it, because you (pointing to Connor) had the suggestion to make all the targets be like angry or confused, or confused and... I know we didn't run with it quite as much as you wanted.

Connor: Yeah! You didn't do it! I wanted them all to have different emotions! You started with the Angry Pet Rock.

Erik: Well, because we had to sell the- I mean like, why is this pet rock... The directive- There was a meeting for this, and it was like, "What if stuff got loose from Zommoros, so we could do anything?" So I was like, "Alright. Let's find the weirdest looking prop we've got." "We've got this pet rock." "Can we make that a boss?" Like, "No, but let's do it!"

Connor: And he did it.

Erik: So they gave us a lot of free rein, it was just kinda like, "I don't know. We need bounties to happen. Make it happen." And I'd never really done bosses, and they were super goofy.

Connor: They were really great.

Erik: We got to cut loose, to play with some mount tech, throw players around, which we hadn't really done. So yeah, I think the bounties were probably my favourite.

Connor: A Star to Guide Us is a really interesting episode because we have a lot of really intense stuff in that episode. I mean like it obviously ends with heartbreak.

Rubi: Yeah.

Erik: Yeah.

Connor: But we also were able to get away with a lot of goofy stuff, and it's got a nice mix.

Erik: Yeah.

Rubi: Okay. So real quick, we are just under 47 hours away from talking about the next chapter of our Living World story. I'm taking the spoiler gates off, you guys. We're spoling season four, okay?

Connor: Okay.

Rubi: So you don't have to worry about-

Connor: Oh, I thought when you said you were taking the spoiler gates off, I thought for a moment you were like, "Start talking about the next stuff" and (unintelligible)^{[verification requested]} going to kick in the door and be like, "You're all under arrest! The Guild Wars 2 police are here!"

Jason: Rubi! She's going rogue!

Rubi: No! Season four. Season four.

Erik: Sorry, I didn't realise that, okay. I hope I didn't say anything I shouldn't have. Alright.

Rubi: No, no, I was just- Connor was just worried about talking about how the end of A Star to Guide Us, you know, and I was like, it's fine. Don't hesistate.

Connor: Blish dies. He dies, and it's sad.

Erik: Oh, wow.

Rubi: I honestly did not see that coming.

Jason: It is sad.

Erik: So mean.

Rubi: That was rough. Like that was... You're not screwing around are you?

Connor: And then you mean in (pause) no, in the next thing

Rubi: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

Connor: It was really sad.

Erik: It was sad.

Rubi: Yes it was.

Erik: It was sad.

Connor: Samantha's lines, like she wrote for- I think I said this on Guild Chat before. The line she wrote for Gorrik.

Erik: Gorrik kills me!

Connor: When Gorrik finds out, where he's just like, "But I saved him." It's like the most compressed heartbreak I have like- It's three words!

Erik: That was brutal. That was brutal.

Connor: And the voice!

Rubi: (softly) "But I saved him."

Connor: Yeah. The voice actress's delivery was fantastic. If you haven't seen the Behind the Voices video with them, it makes it worse because he's like you can see his face.

Erik: It's brutal.

Rubi: Yeah, he's breaking up when he was doing it. It was... ugh. It was so hard to watch.

Erik: Well, I feel like- I worked on some of that content so I had to watch it a bunch and I did the same with the Taimi kidnapping and I just was like ugh. (shudders)

Rubi: Oh, that was you?

Erik: Well, I- No, I mean like I didn't write it. I didn't do the voice acting.

Connor: He kidnapped Taimi.

Rubi: Okay.

Erik: I was that instance, but like... It was definitely like, "Ah, you know, okay, we got to make sure that this beat happens." And then the voice actor comes in and I was just like, "I need to go home."

(everyone laughs)

Rubi: I can't do this anymore!

Eric: So, for the players who were like, "Ah! You've ruined me!" I was like, "I feel ya. I do that every day."

Rubi: Also means we did well.

Eric: Yeah! So I think it was good that we get to leaven some of that with the goofy stuff. Which we like to do and, as long as it kind of still fits, like you still feel like you're playing Guild Wars 2, makes a lot of sense, but yeah it definitely is a nice break because, you know.

Connor: We definitely like to do the goofy stuff.

Eric: I mean, yeah. Well Samantha likes to ruin players so it's a good give and take.

Rubi: Yay Samantha! No, seriously. She's amazing.

Erik: Yes.

Jason: It's a nice- It's a good ebb and flow, yeah.

Eric: Yeah, exactly.

Rubi: How about you, Jason?

Jason: For the last year? Oh, geez.

Rubi: You don't have to just pick one. It's okay.

Jason: I think the most favorite for me was working with Kralkatorrik on episode six. I mean, to be totally honest, that was a huge pain. It was really hard making that asset and getting everything designed and coordinated, it was... awful.

Connor: Like I said, my favorite was all the suffering I experienced.

Rubi: Do you need a pet rock or...?

Erik: Yeah, right?

Jason: But like, the culmination of it, seeing it all come together, and shipping it was extremely rewarding and there were a number of pitfalls that we could have fallen in that would have devastated things and we didn't because it's just a great team. So that was the cool thing for me.

Erik: That's a good answer. I mean, honestly, like, it's kind of- Well yes, it's the big purple boss, but like... Yeah! I mean, when it all comes together, especially I feel like there's a stage when you don't know if it's gonna come together, and you're like, "Oh man, we might be in a real bad shape."

Jason: There were several of those.

Erik: And then finally, in the end like, "Oh, okay, it's not working quite yet but now I get it."

Jason: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I get it. Alright, alright, alright.

Rubi: Aww. So, one of the things I've talked about on the show before is one of the biggest joys of playing Guild Wars 2 for me is playing with my guild mates. We've been together for like 10 years now. We started in Guild Wars 1. And through so much of season four, my big excitement was logging and to hear what they had to say about the content because it was just like killing me and they're all- I love them, they're very kind, they don't like nag or pester me for spoilers and I just let them wait and get their real-time reactions. So like with the most mushroom adventure, I logged in on that release and I was like, "Hey everybody! How's it going?" And one guy goes, "I am concerned."

Connor: I have thoughts.

Erik: I have thoughts and feelings. I'm not sure...

Rubi: He was like, "I think I'm tripping. I'm not sure, but I'm worried." And when we got to Dragonfall and we were- two of us were just saying that we were like talking on discord and coordinating what we wanted to do next and then he starts like loudly freaking out, "Look! Look over there!" It was the tail coming up and down. And he lost it and it was so gratifying. It was so good. So what are some of your guys's favorite player reactions you've seen?

Connor: Start at that side.

Jason: Oh, geez.

Rubi: There's too many!

Connor: We talk too much.

Jason: Yeah, honestly like kind of- I think the tail was a big one. Whenever we had new testers in or like anyone just seeing it for the first time I was really excited to just make that happen like, "Look over there!" "Whaa!" And then also the-

Rubi: Honestly it sounded like that a lot.

Jason: Cause it just looks super epic. We don't have anything like that in our other maps. And then I think chapter 2 when you're actually flying after Kralkatorrik?

???:^{[verification requested]} Yeah, that's amazing.

Jason: That was... Yeah. That was a pretty excellent instance.

Rubi: Yeah. What about- How much player reaction did you watch on episode six? At the very beginning?

Jason: A lot.

Rubi: Are you okay?

Jason: Yeah, of course! I mean you get thick-skinned eventually, but like it was great seeing everyone experience the events in the meta in the way that we had intended more or less and seeing the joy coming from everyone. Like hopping into the game just seeing the chat of people talking about like, "What's going on?" "How do you do this?" and working together like that's why I do what I do is like I like making a thing and seeing people enjoy it and so that was endlessly gratifying.

Rubi: That's just distilled so purely: "I like making a thing and seeing people enjoy it." And that's like the core of it, honestly.

Jason: Yeah! Oh yeah. I think creatives in general all kind of share that desire, that it drives us, so I'm really happy and fortunate and lucky to be able to do that.

Rubi: Okay, next. Erik.

Erik: Yeah. For me, I- So my job is kind of both programmer and designer and it's weird. It's kind of like what we were talking about earlier with like sad and happy because when I got my programmer hat on, the player reaction I'm looking for is all the terrible stuff, so we can find the bugs and the rubbing points, fix them and try to learn to take some of the like passionate responses and like look for what they're actually looking for. But then when we get to go and like design content... Yeah, absolutely. It's just like... Everybody who says like, "I just do it for myself." Like no.

Jason: No, you don't.

Erik: Naw, dog. Like on release days, you can just like sort of stand up and look around and see all the streams that, you know, player streams and chats just going, you're just like, "Oh, they're about to get to this part! Wait, wait, wait... Yeah!" And I remember- The one that stands out the most, because I had a lot to do with specific content, was the Taimi one. Watching people really struggle with that I just- They're like, "How dare you take my Taimi!" Like, "Get to the next episode!" I'm like, "Yeah, I know. Wait, wait. Stop for this little piece here. I did a lot of work on that. Alright."

Rubi: Go back! Go back!

Erik: Yeah. Seeing those reactions, even when they're negative in the like sad sense, cause I know there's gonna be a payoff at the end. I know we're gonna be able to like- We're establishing a dissonance and then we get to resolve it later. Get this nice like, "Oh, yeah!" Yeah. That feels real good. Yeah.

Note: The text below hasn't yet been converted from raw subtitle text into pretty print like above. https://youtu.be/xzY2uZiSE9E?t=1638

'''Connor:''' So I obviously love heartbreak so I really enjoyed
watching all the reactions to episode 5
I actually remember I sent you like a
bunch I have made a big dive of all the
people reacting to that sequence which I
like I was not one of the main people on
but I did do some assisting I was like I
like who are the ambient NPCs and doing
things that but you know it's sometimes
the really small details that are really
nice when people actually notice them I
remember I did I when I was helping out
with episode 6 one of the things I did
was in the final instance I'm like you
you just had this big encounter and it
feels really abrupt if you load in that
final airship and you're standing so I
jumped through a surprising number of
Hoops in order to figure out how to get
you to sit on your cot at the beginning
of the instance turns out like we can't
just force the player to emote so I had
to like fire a skill yeah and like
skills them sitting and their skills but
standing up and I'm like care alright
like it's just going to be a slightly
nicer starts the instance but by golly
you're gonna get it right yeah I'm
watching the streams and like literally
like WoodenPotatoes it's like oh I
started sitting that's really nice great
I apologize to WoodenPotatoes I was
good but and there was a couple other
streams as well where people like Oh
perfect there's nothing like I really
thought no one would notice but they did
people had some of the smallest things
there's also there's also the funny fact
that so we in that that was the first
time we hit a snow gold call book in an
instance instead of like out in the open
world and people were pushing him to go
find it and he starts reading in me as I
thought what is this about it's clearly
important lore and he's reading a lie
and then halfway through he's like oh
this is a stupid romance
[Laughter]
good oh my gosh
I still have that email by the way I
kept that because it made me happy which
one the one that you sent me yeah yeah
that was yeah but that is one of the
most fun things is going through and
seeing okay this thing that we have been
so excited to give everybody we finally
we're finally able to give it to them
we're finally able to get it in front of
them and now let's just sit back and
watch them have fun yeah yeah which is
just amazing so one last thing I want to
do you guys all do amazing work but we
know it's not in a vacuum so are there
some team members who couldn't be here
today that you wanted to make sure you
gave a shout out to yeah I mean the
cutters like yeah frosty and Heather
kids oh yeah like Heather was our team
lead for star to guide us she's now
she's ascended to a higher plane
leadership combined but no working with
her and started guy this has been
fantastic and then we've been working
with frosty recently and that's also
been really nice and it's just it's nice
to have people who have frosty
especially has so much knowledge about
the entire history of Guild Wars that
like it's nice to have someone be like
that doesn't make any sense because of
this obscure thing in Guild Wars 1 or
like great right he's an encyclopedia
yeah yeah I could say that because well
he's not here yeah I'm on Connors team
so I it is the same people and I think
we're gonna see some of the others yeah
later
like all our writers are fantastic
really no Vera
Samantha everybody they've all been
great folks we moved on to as

Connor Fallon: Yeah.

Erik Fagerstrom: I mean Aaron did great stuff in...

Connor Fallon: Yeah.

Erik Fagerstrom: ...on-on the map art and...

Rubi Bayer: Awww

Erik Fagerstrom: Yeah.

Connor Fallon: Yeah.

Erik Fagerstrom: And like...so there's so many so many moving parts to get this in. Even support team, you can be an audio and stuff like that. I mean like that Taimi moment like over the comms. Yeah so all the people who make it work there's a lot.

Connor Fallon: Yeah I definitely want to call out the audio team because like one of my other favorite reactions was in the Star To Guide Us.

Rubi Bayer: Uh huh.

Connor Fallon: Where Gorrik comes running in from another room because he hears you mention (says something inaudible)

Rubi Bayer: Oh!

Erik Fagerstrom: Oh gosh.

Rubi Bayer: Yes!

Connor Fallon: Hears you mention...

Erik Fagerstrom: That is so good!

Connor Fallon: Yeah and like that's entirely like everyone assumes like that was like actual like things that the voice actor did, like no that was all audio processing.

Erik Fagerstrom: It's so good.

Connor Fallon: It is one of my favorite audio gags we have.

Erik Fagerstrom: Seriously, I..I..I ended up with like a six or eight second clip or something of just that.

Erik Fagerstrom: Because of all the heartbreak I would keep that at a tab open so I could just play it.

Connor Fallon: Laugh it?

Erik Fagerstrom: (mimics Gorrik) What! (mimics Gorrik running sounds) Do Do Do Pbthhhh

(laugher)

Erik Fagerstrom: I laughed so hard I love that bit

Rubi Bayer: It was (inaudible)

Erik Fagerstrom: I forgot about that. Oh my gosh.

Rubi Bayer: And what it is if you miss if you happen to miss it, is that Gorrik, it just sounds like he's crashing through everything...

Erik Fagerstrom: Yeah.

Rubi Bayer: ... in his way he's just making a straight path. Does not have time to go around things, so he's just clattering...

Erik Fagerstrom: Oh forgot about that.

Rubi Bayer: ...and banging everything over.

Erik Fagerstrom: Yeah.

Jason Reynolds: So good.

Erik Fagerstrom: Yeah it is.

Rubi Bayer: It is fantastic. There's another moment that we ended up keeping because it was so good it was an accident. And we've talked about it on the show before, but um...Gorrik's voice actor was getting like really into it in the studio. And he was he was emoting and he was yelling about something, and he had this metal water bottle sitting on a stool. And at one point just backhanded it off the stool.

Rubi Bayer: And it made this enormous clatter, picked up on audio. And he just covered his face and like sank to the ground out of sight. Like we're out there, outside the booth, and we're just watching him vanish. But the clatter was so perfect, I mean it sounds like Gorrik has some stuff going down in his lab...

Erik Fagerstrom: I mean yeah.

Rubi Bayer: ...and does not have time to deal with the things that are in his way. So if you hear that little clatter, that's what that is. That was an accident.

Erik Fagerstrom: I didn't know that.

Rubi Bayer: And a beautiful one. Yeah. Yeah and I don't know if you can hear everyone hysterically laughing outside the booth, but we all pretty much just lost it.

Erik Fagerstrom: It's pretty good.

Rubi Bayer: Yeah. So how about you Jason?

Jason Reynolds: Umm, I mean it's been a long year. Uhh, but uh I mean episode six took a ton of people um and it was it was a huge lift. And so I-I mean like everyone right? Yeah like the writers, audio always do a heavy lift...

Rubi Bayer: Audio team is so good.

Jason Reynolds: Um yeah.

Erik Fagerstrom: Yeah I feel like some people, QA too,

Jason Reynolds: QA doesn't get enough credit ever.

Erik Fagerstrom: Does all this work too, QA doesn't get enough nearly enough credit.

Jason Reynolds: Yeah.

Connor Fallon: All the ridiculous edge cases.

Erik Fagerstrom: Oh goodness.

Connor Fallon: Mhmm.

Rubi Bayer: Oh?

Connor Fallon: I think my favorite, um my favorite edge case that I-I-my favorite edge case, is to sometimes turns into achievements. Like I'm like this should be a-Like this is a Zafira, when you're fighting Zafira or like dragging one of the uh like exploding Awakened on-up to the top of the tower they explode in her face, I mean that didn't achievement, but like just they find to find some ridiculous.

Erik Fagerstrom: Yeah they think like players which I don't, clearly

good enough because they think of all the
stuff like oh man I guess you could do
that well shoot make it an achievement
yeah making achievement or go fix it
<pre>
yeah that's fantastic
all right well let's get ready for our
next three dev guests is there anything
you guys want to tell the players for
the past year before you go thank you
that wasn't like a prompt you for
playing and thank you for always being
bright and welcoming and helpful and
your feedback is always heard yeah thank
you
all right they have a little bit time
before we switch right yes okay so then
I want to throw this out because we've
been fighting about this check and
discuss oh yeah yeah yeah red vines or
Twizzlers I'm just saying if red vines
is the correct answer and if you think
otherwise there's bears there's actually
a twizzler staple I like tapes to our
whiteboard right now that has a little
arrow pointing to it that says tastes
like wood nail polish it's not bad we're
sassy about it and they're both good but
like there are distinct oh look I
appreciate a moderate here but
apparently the person who wrote on the
board I think was frosty so frost
I deeply concerned yes all right thank
you guys very much I will let you back
to work or go outside and it no you're
not gonna you're gonna go outside and
stand there cuz it started but go make
some magic let's do it all right
right thank you guys we'll be right back
Oh sign the wall on your way out
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and welcome back
happy anniversary all three of you we've
got three more of our guild wars to
developers on to talk about their past
year in Guild Wars 2
I'll let the three of you introduce
yourselves to talk about what you worked
on so I'm Joel Helmick I'm a programmer
I work on everything my fingers in like
all the pies but like specifically for
this I don't know
dragon stuff dragon stuff works pretty
much all dragon stuff I I'm sure I
worked in episode 5 somewhere or
somewhere was that this animal stuff it
will come in the next half hours still
early for me a lot of things a lot of
sky skill things yeah so okay so
programming same boat as Joel I touched
lots of things I don't even vote all day
long but yeah I did the initial design
for the sky scale for the sky scale
movement I did all the tons of design
and implementation for acquisition the
sky scale stuff let's see I'm like I'm a
game designer
etter internet now but before during
Episode six five and four I was the
shipping embed on all those episodes
varies evolving huh I'm evolving yes
appreciate it but yeah so I've worked on
pretty much every episode since 3 which
is pretty much the entirety of this year
board I know it's never yeah I mean we
had a couple of conversations for you
like I really want to help with things I
will die
because bright yes all right let's talk
about some of the highlights what were
some of your favorite things that you
worked on this year and we can start on
either end of somebody stuck yeah keep
it on there was so many things I think
you know touching on a lot of what Jason
said in the last session episode 6 was
kind of this crazy monstrosity and
amalgamation of just different ideas and
content like pieces and working on all
of that was amazing because it's like we
tried so many new things and it all just
kind of worked you know I mean like of
course we threw great effort through
great effort did a lot a lot of work and
we had to jump over a lot of hurdles but
at the end of the day right like the
flying behind carpet auric instance that
taylor sutherland made which was
absolutely amazing like that versus what
Ben Kirsch made with the entire meta on
carpet oryx back like that kind of stuff
was was beautiful and I loved being able
to be a part of it right like it was
good I would have to say sky scale
acquisition collection 3 over buddies
guys go for a while now which is that
which I was three three is the is the
one way you're why you have a sky scale
hatchling and you have a tamagotchi
style ways your sky scale oh yes yes
it's like guy scale hatches and then
it's bigger as you yes I love that that
was so much fun
um you know what that reminds me and I
don't know who did it but I'm about to
find out
I went through sky scale acquisition
with some guild mates like we we paced
each other and had a lot of fun I got
back in my instance bi happened to load
in before everybody and we ran over to
find out why my sky seagull was upset
and why she was misbehaving and she ran
over and knocked me down
I didn't implement it was my suggestion
because I noticed like you would run
over to and tend to overshoot like what
do we do at some point okay look at this
cool thing I've got this excited sky
scale wanna go with you and jewels like
scales should totally knock you over
like okay done it was adorable because
it's exactly what this giant overgrown
baby would do it was that was the
highlight dog yes right it's just I did
a Great Dane puppy or something a small
pony what were some of your highlights
that were the past year oh there's so
much yeah well I mean I feel like I have
this I have this desire to spend an
inordinate amount of time talking about
that that Dorian Crockett or instance it
that was that was a that was the thing
that happened it has some fascinating
usage of a mountain in it which is why I
got so involved in first place
well first off fun fact on that one I
don't know how many players knew this
but the way it's actually implemented
what's okay story time yeah
when when they were first coming up
distance I I missed some of the day like
there really early development but
they're like hey look we have this huge
croc Terk model look how cool it is it's
huge and okay it's so big that it goes
past the the far view plane and we can't
see the whole model when it's when it's
on the screen and that's that's not
great you kind of need to see the whole
door everybody do and they're like we
can't make it smaller because quarters
could be big right big dragon and so
someone I I don't know who had the
genius idea of going well what is the
perfect they're like what if we scaled
it down everything including you all say
almost everybody everything just got
smiling with the camera closer to
everything goes wrong that was so cool
and so you're like 5% size or something
in your very small and we just move
everything in really close and it's you
generally cannot tell but that is
through great effort
there were many bugs where sometimes you
would you would get this mounted for
marine and go back to full size and I
hear this godzilla-sized that's a scary
ones
wait you could just pick him up in the
room did we to be enough fixing fixing
the thing what if you had a commander
tag over your head and you went to this
instance you had a huge Camaro I don't
know I don't know I think we probably
ship we anyone yeah no so so name plates
were think I think I set up so they hide
name plates because they so there's
there are a bunch of things we want here
so the way it actually set up is you are
on marine but arene is not a separate
character it works a short same way our
player mounts to where it's this it's
technically the same entity but there's
another visually drawn model underneath
you and then we take the whole thing and
attach it to this invisible box and
that's what does like the movement on
the rails and stuff like as you're
flying around Crockett org and that's
not something we'd ever actually done
before so I had to do a bunch of cleanup
and that could like it sometimes any
theoretical e she's working on designers
are like we go we're doing it and then
that's just story of my life and it's
extra fun also when you bring other
players we had a whole bunch of books
from that where other players are
attached to arene so it is technically
you the entity but the Orion sub model
and there's also something we had never
done before
so I had to clean up that code and it
led to some most amusing bugs we
actually had a live crash recently it
was to relate to that where someone
someone had written some completely
unrelated code and under the assumption
that the code made the assumption that
well if a mounting activity ever
happened involving you you would always
be the writer and that was not true in
this instance because someone like him
ups to you which is like heroes I think
we also do that in there just rambling
here but like I think we also did that
great yeah and it was episode 40 do we
keep that with the spiders spiders yeah
with the spiders on the face because I
think it's I think that spider picks you
up for sure but
was a point in time when we also had the
spires attached to you oh and I wonder
if we undid that I think we undid that
one because of concerns people that are
like folks but yeah just attach it to
the screen just but we also attached all
of the players in the instance I
remember correctly I think so better
itself I think people think of everybody
and like launch them we've definitely
designers have started taking that tech
and running with it so spec which is
like early early early Mount development
prototype stuff of like actually
stapling two characters together and I
like what if I monster picked you up and
carried you around the perfect that's
what I wanted now people were doing it
it's very fun it's very fun watching you
debugging these sort of things because
they'd be like a wrap door with like a
player okay and like a moose attached to
the flap does head and then like an
engineering toy it on the Moose's hair I
was trying to like like push the system
and see like what all can it handle once
you'd have this this tree of raptors and
correctly I think at one point you
actually had like a staircase of Raptors
yes oh yeah yeah so it's like it's right
at the very top something broke I was
testing to make sure like because there
is a setting where they inherit
animations from each other and so's
making sure that they don't move
together I've definitely done towers of
turrets to you that's fun weird like you
it's really funny when you make a tower
of engineer turrets because they're all
trying to rotate and face something and
then like the one on tops like oh no it
gets it gets under rotated like it's now
facing their own directions they all
have to counter routines anyway we're
waiting it's way off started but the
point is this is literally exactly what
I asked you know and it's great so
you're fine that that instance was both
really cool and in an instance that they
worked on like to make sure it's clear
cuz we have like three instances that I
profit or if you're talking about the
floor this this is this is the you're
coming entering behind the big door yeah
when you're in the Miss yeah and it's
like it's it's cinematically really cool
just we had we had to make some
interesting changes to make that
actually look right we also I think my
favorite was like and now you're tiny we
also have pop bosses Mountain well
that's true yes that's right bosses
mounted to a problem yes rock torque is
a prop bus and then all the little sub
targets that you can shoot at it as
erine are also prop buses because they
all have independent health bars so
they're all separate actual entities
they can't yet so I it doesn't matter
who but can somebody do me a favor and
run through exactly what does it mean
when you say your boss we've explained
it on a couple of shows but not
everybody watches every show so a gadget
that well okay so a few people know what
a gadget is okay again that acts like an
attackable creature Polly easiest
justice be like a shadow behemoth plop
jaw mag to quat all will travel I
think'll so yeah think of it kind of
like a giant statue at a convention
versus like a like a person right like
the prop bus is this giant statue at the
convention that you can assign points
and like tell it to move specific way
it's kinda like a doll whereas normal
bosses are just living creatures that
can do whatever they kind of want as
long as you make a little box claim
exactly what to do yeah pop bosses are
like simultaneously fleen and
restricting in different ways yeah so
like they don't move yeah exactly like
you can only play animations you can't
like rotate them or anything like that
but also a creature rotates instantly
which when it's huge it looks terrible
so so there's trade-offs yeah for now
bosses are better for like a giant
cinematic looking creatures and like the
situations where you want like a huge
thing to hit and you don't want this
like super rapid motion yeah they tend
to be a lot less like emergent
if if you you have an animation of like
a ground pound well that animation
always sits in the same spot you can't
really be like hey I'll get the newest
play with this ground pound because you
know you can't we can't I cave a hand
right it goes bad so oh gosh it be awful
yeah okay this anniversary stream is now
how he'll kill worth to work so it just
fight yeah love it so the the critical
piece about profile so that's the reason
here there show the little attack target
thing yeah that's really why are they
were being used here yeah well that's
super handy so just talk tourists got a
bunch of these little targets but they
all have independent normally you would
there be a single prop boss with a bunch
of attacked records you can just pick
which one but they needed to have
separate health bars they need be
separate entities and so there's just a
bunch of different ones all mounted
those attack targets by the way normally
you can't see them across the entire map
because cocoa talk was so huge
even after we scaled him down I have
those attack targets were actually a
long ways away so he actually had to go
in and make special tech - it's like a
flag to allow the allow the attack
targets to be drawn far away I didn't
think about that but yeah I mean scaling
everything down like that was a genius
creative solution to making it work but
in the grand scheme of things that
attack target is still a big wait we
scaled we scaled everything down so that
Krakatoa fits within the Neo and fog
clip planes but that's that's like
that's like from like in front of your
face in the game all the way to as far
out as you can see in the horizon and
we're still using that entire space oh
my gosh that's wild so working but
working on that fight was I Jason was
just like it was awful it was hard but
it sounds like it was so gratifying it
was time consuming difficult and scary
but all of those things led to what I
consider want to be the best experiences
in the game like it's amazing I think
everybody should at least experience it
once because
it's this unique little entity within
within Guild Wars 2 yeah and made it
work you made it happen that was
incredible
it's definitely very fun from a time
point there's a lot of movie magic going
on in that in that little box that's
pretty much what I'll say that that
works so that movie magic thing is what
that's what got it up and running so
congrats that was good work you guys oh
yeah also fun thing about that yeah
nobody is moving well I guess
technically oh it's moving there's a
little yeah yeah the gadget can move a
little yeah so like everyone's just kind
of doing like this sort of stuff all
relative to each other and then the
whole West of the world is coming at you
okay kind of like you know how in movies
whenever there's the driver sitting in
the car like that and then you can see
the thing on the side and it's just
actually a giant piece of paper that
they're like rolling it out cause the
illusion that's basically what's going
on my favorite on that is like the older
movies where they're holding their the
wheels like perfectly still but in the
background it looks like they're doing
hairpin turns yeah it's like the rapid
partying super adventure blocks the same
thing that was the entire wall yeah I've
seen videos of if you watch it from a
perspective that's not on the raft and
you just watch the world just oh my gosh
we it's real good we have text so we
don't need to do that yeah but at the
time that was that was the best answer
yeah there there was more on that
instance to you because it is the gift
that keeps on giving
I remember you had added tech to follow
someone else's camera I think for
probably yeah yeah I actually added it
for that instance yeah I thought we used
well anyway I think I might have added
it for that instance of them 5 was like
well we all would like this yes that
does happen right yes I will have
development overlaps enough that he has
sometimes tech goes backwards yeah for
that one specifically because the other
player is attached out on the on
Noreen's wings it looked kind of weird
to be have this offset camera because
you're just kind of like this little
helper object and so the camera actually
follows the visible instance owner
player
even when you're not the actual instance
hours this is kind of cool it's it's
neat it's we use it every once in a
while and it's like it's actually pretty
cool to have a camera following
something else
yeah on the note of movie magic in tech
pretty much what seems to happen is like
we're like we want to do this thing and
then we try to get it as like piece
mailed duct-taped together as possible
to make it work and then these two
beautiful new things come in and they're
like first that like hotel what are you
trying to do how does that how did you
make that work that it's just like
a stack of pots and scotch tape I think
the problem is I'm not lazy enough and
so I see it and go well they actually
pre issuing challenge to self let's
let's do it I don't know gets me in
trouble so you think you pulled that
tech for episode 5 I think it was used
in there I think there was some looking
at weak points or something it was
whenever Crockett or ik would come in
and turn his head it would take all of
the party members and have them use that
singular camera and then also are the
points where like people would come in
from the raft or the higher areas and we
would refocus the camera I think that
was using that tech correctly yeah
that's that's a lot you guys I mean you
think about we spend about half the time
talking about one single instance but
then all it spawns out all these other
other parts that you see all over the
game it's how things work how course do
you work absolutely fine that is that is
great because this is I mean we're
talking about the past 12 months and you
three have pulled off a lot of amazing
things everybody has but that's like you
said you build this tower out of pots of
hands and tape and then they come in and
turn it into something incredible yeah
so it's a neat collaborative effort to
hear about mm-hmm you mentioned there
was a thing I wanted to talk with you
about because this was such a fun player
thing you were talking about conventions
and police don't actually attack statue
[Laughter]
but you worked one of our conventions
last year yeah is that PAX West yeah for
I think Oh a few of the days yeah how
was it it was actually really fun
you know I like going to pax know these
conventions where you actually get to
meet the people that play your game you
know that you don't know and you get to
socialize with them and they also get to
meet the people who create the game like
it's a really humbling experience
overall cuz I don't know like they were
there was this day where there are a
bunch of people in line and I went to go
talk to them just because you know
making sure that nobody feels bored
while they're in line and one of them
had this really familiar voice and I was
like I like squinted really hard I'm
like I think I know this person so then
I like I asked him like do you play on
hinged and Ravi and then she was like
yeah and then I was like what guild are
you in and this is a hard shout out and
then she was like vo okay and then I'm
like I was like Murg and then she's like
cuz my in-game tag is pretty she's like
pretty and there's this huge moment of
like the entire group like in a
millisecond just tackled me because I
like they oh they all knew that I was a
dev so they're like oh wow this is
actually him oh my god in moments like
that are just absolutely amazing because
like I said you get to meet the people
that you've interacted with the people
that interact with the thing you create
and Guild Wars 2 has this beautiful
communities to being able to actually
meet members of that community is
fantastic
cuz I'm kind of sad I didn't know that
story until just now yeah that is like
that's like my ideal kind of story
someone else do the rest of this that is
incredibly cool I did not know you met
them there yeah I was it was an
experience to say the least
I love that yeah there are a lot of
there are a lot of players that we see
year after year at the same conventions
that that's that's when we get to
interact with them and when we get you
know I've been talking to you in-game
all the time but here you are and we
actually get to talk to each other I
have a guild maid who lives kind of up
around Bellingham and
come down the PAC's just and we
high-five that's that's like here's your
high five for the year I'm not gonna see
him this year oh I love hearing that you
got to that you got to do that yeah it's
and and having people standing in line
and you know going to talk to them just
so they don't get bored and so you get
to have that interaction as well is a
huge deal
San Diego comic-con last year we were
out there we were in a parking lot it
was sunny
it was hot market mark like has residual
misery right now he just like leaned out
was like we were we were just sweltering
all week but it was the Guild Wars 2
people who came over there were
absolutely the nicest people again
they're standing in line for literally
hours at some points out in a hot
parking lot adjacent to sdcc I did not
hear a crossword like I I think I heard
one person complaining about how long it
took over several days and hours and
hours of lines every day and that's just
that part of our community is such a joy
to me and I love it thank you guys so
well I'll tell you what let's let you
guys get back to work
but is there anything that you want to
tell our players before you leave you
don't have to just if you do we're gonna
start on Jill's side this time I mean
kind of you deserve that thanks for
playing
that works please please keep playing
the game it's cool keep enjoying our
stuff that work seems good yeah you're
awesome thanks for playing sky scale
it's worth it
oh it's I love my sky scale how much fun
is it seeing like all of these sky
scales hovering I like it after how long
you all worked on that it's it's
delightful to see them in game now okay
I mean like echoing what they said like
thank you cuz we wouldn't be able to do
this nobody in this studio would really
be able to do this it wasn't for all of
our dedicated players and friends and
fans who
genuinely enjoy the things that we make
so you know thank you and hopefully we
can keep making things that make
everybody happy
because that's what's about all right
well before I let you all go this is our
last livestream in this room before
construction starts and we're gonna be
in a temporary home for three months the
temporary home market I have been
talking about this we've been so excited
that our temporary home has a whiteboard
for you so you have to you have to come
on and you don't have to use them as
paint for a while I feel like that went
really well though like it did we're
just excited to see you know streamlined
items it was it's so good I mean to be
fair actually getting to see you do it
in person like working it out is amazing
this is this is fantastic so yes we're
very excited that's like a little
temporary amenity and we also get to do
a little bit of good-natured vandalism
and have you all signed the wall before
you leave because the ball is coming out
it's like oh look we've got a camera
over there so Breck could just be like
this one all right well thank you all
and all of you stick around we're going
to be back with some more to have guests
in a few minutes
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all right welcome back we are continuing
our anniversary celebration livestream
with three more of our guild wars 2
developers why don't you guys go down
the line and introduce yourselves hey
I'm Joe chemists I am a designer on one
of our content teams hi I'm Brett Miller
mo I'm a keyway embed for one of our
content teams hey I'm Cameron rich and I
am a game designer for living world all
right well welcome all three of you
happy anniversary yes congratulations
yeah this has been this has been an
exciting year we've had a lot of awesome
stuff that we did I know Mike and I
talked to the beginning it's been kind
of a rough year but we have had we are
also celebrating all of the cool things
we did so I want to start by just
talking about some of your favorite
things that happened around the content
releases you worked on this past year
all right well I know one law releases I
was here to talk about is roller Bueller
racing yeah yes there was a ton of fun
to put together I think one of my
favorite things in it I don't want to
claim like my own content and things I
scripted one of my favorite moments in
it was that we asked early on when we're
like all right we can do roller buta
racing but we're gonna need a rewards
for it and we're like we really want to
scarf can we get a scarf that likes a
little trail behind you as you're on the
beetle it'll look really good and you
know whenever we ask herself stuck with
cloth physics or like complicated things
like that
usually the artists are a little bit
well you know and QA is a little bit
what's it gonna do if you're doing a
flip
stick straighted but we managed to get
everyone signing off on that when we got
when we I was like when we started
getting prototypes back on the scarf and
I was like oh my god it's real I can
have a scarf this is great it's it's
really funny it never ceases to amaze me
it doesn't matter how many times I hear
these stories or how long I've been here
the simplest seeming things have all of
these but what if but what happens
because it's not just there's a tendency
to draw this real world parallel like
it's just a scarf it's a simple strip of
fabric you put it on and it does its
thing except no you have to make it do
all of its things yeah I think was it
the I'm trying to remember the most
ridiculous bug we had with the scarf
during development or not even bug just
like strangest looking scarf behavior
definitely going off any of the like
jumping mushrooms or jump pads to put
you in like a spin animation there were
versions of it were like the scarf was
stretching and forming spirals that's
amazing okay so Brett you gave like a
really effect on when Joe was like you
know yeah QA was concerned it's
sometimes a little yeah that one
honestly the artist did a great job and
there didn't end up being a ton wrong
with it the most crazy thing I can think
of is there was some combination of
adding and equipping and unequipping
items that would make this scarf turn
completely stiff and not animate that
way yes guards - that sounds like a
feature lots of starch wanted too long
you have the you have the starch buff
related to roller beetle racing not too
long before that was our first
re-release of festival the Four Winds
for a very long time and found out
pretty early on that the new backpacks
that we got for that they're only aspect
backpacks so they have this
glowing crystal of the different colors
and a representative of the different
aspects of the Zeff rights and that huge
trail looks so good when you're going
super fast on a roller beetle makes it
look like Tron yes because it's it's not
like a low behind you but when you start
going fast it really becomes so thrill I
was like oh that sounds pretty cool and
thing he said it looks like Tron and I
was like I am in I'm here for this
where's that game-mode we can't actually
call it that just well some of besides
the besides the Tron game oh that
accidentally happen what we're seeing
your favorite things about working on
stuff this past year so I tested all of
the second run of legendary weapons
except for the first couple came out
with heart of thorns and I always had a
like in development since its I can put
whatever item I want on my character and
man I really want this and just love to
have this alive barely preventing myself
from financially ruining myself making
all the legendaries I did make the great
sword though my favorite legendary we've
ever done like changes forms depending
on what animation you're wielding we
ended up saving the great sword for the
last of the second set of legendaries
and we had so many meetings that we
would sit down with like everyone and
artists and be like alright like how are
we topping sunrise in Twilight right
because they're so cool-looking and they
were some of the like most iconic
legendaries but it also can't be too
like them right we can't just make a
green one right okay you did that but
and we finally were like okay what if it
is a transforming weapon because it'll
be real cool if when you swing it and do
the circle attack as a scythe right
and again you know like okay we're gonna
have to go investigate that but maybe we
have stuff to make that happen yeah and
it all started taking shape and we're
really really excited about it yeah I
remember when I first saw that legendary
in the development client and I need
Chelsea Mills was the one that was
working on it and I like pinged her is
like oh my god with this you did you do
all of this because if so you're my
favorite person she was like yeah do you
want to see the excel sheet that I have
that I had to go through for all of the
different animals you know and it's it's
bonkers she put in a lot of work we had
this list try to make sure that like
every class is different grades or
animations all had something going on
that we weren't like is left to my own
devices I'd be like oh they can all be
sized there's no that's extremely cool
um the one that I really loved and still
haven't made but I went to is the
scepter the scepter how was that to work
on was that more complicated since you
have a little friend uh no yeah there
was a ton of work that the artist said
to do and some black magic stuff to get
that snake to follow correctly but I
looked it up this afternoon I think we
have 11 bugs on it total as work on
Mouse right yeah there is a if you have
a legendary equipped and then you mount
up without exiting combat stance then
some effects will stick around which
includes like the sort of pet friends
both sakata land it boasts binding event
those has that as well I remember I
remember on Zack Waddell in particular
there were some crazy bugs that happened
where like if you mounted up on like the
roller beetle or something and started
going really fast the little like flying
snake would both like be trailing behind
you but also like all over the place
that that sounds a little hummingbird
like but scary the way that we built
that I if I remember correctly as we had
to add bones to the player rig so that
would animate with the player right
there on the player rig but extended
like 300 feet in the air and like set up
like a pendulum yes there were there
were different versions of it they had
like we're like okay it'll just be a
special effect that's playing on you and
now like it's scaled weird on a sora or
whatever and yeah I think that was the
person they finally settled on to make
it look the best though yeah your little
your little snake friend trailing behind
just sounds like he's just been having
it if you haven't looked at it you
should look it up because it's so cute
it's like adorable the the prototype
version just sort of looked like a crate
with some harpy wings on the sides of it
and to see it go from that to the cutest
snake in the universe that was the
problem I ran into was like the
legendary after that whatever it was we
were like okay like what do we do for
this one like what makes it special more
like it has a snake pal and really they
can't all why not put a snake pal on it
it's fine
we'll just eventually have enough snakes
for like each element they'll be like
little mini Elder Dragons well how about
you Cameron oh man uh I think I was
actually gonna talk a little bit about
roller wheel racing just because they
had such like I played so much more of
that game mode than I think I played of
any of our little adventures or
activities and I used to be like the
best at the Karka what is the car cabal
word you'd like help grab on to it thank
you
yes crab puffs it's been forever since I
played that one called car Cibola on
some internal but man roller be little
roller beetle racing was just it's just
so much fun until they finally have
reasons to really show off your mastery
over that mountain because it has such a
such a like high potential for skill but
I I also know that a lot of the bugs
that came out of
like finding out that there's a resource
node yeah that was a fun one so so the
Brisbane Wild Ones race we always know
it was one of the harder races right
because it's long so if you're looking
at like what is it two minutes three
minute laps and you're doing three laps
there are many opportunities to lose
speed or like oh you screwed up you
didn't make that corner quite right and
now runs ahead of you and we sort of
envisioned it as like this the endurance
one right this is the long race where
there's a lot of opportunities to get
ahead or fall behind but we didn't
anticipate there's a section of it
through little Canyon and at no point
during development did this happen but
the resource knows on the map spawn in
semi random locations and one of those
spawns can put a logging node just smack
in the middle of this section and it's
right in the middle of like a little
shortcut under a larger route that you
would like to take and it'll just
perfectly block you you just run smack
into tree and yes we released it and
people were like oh god I hate this stop
so much and I'm like what and we go and
you've been dancing this over and over
and over for so long is like it's just
the worst luck right and your scarf gets
tangled in the tree it's like yeah and
there were other routes that were
actually a problem on that course as
well where there's a series of routes
that had their like visibility distance
set very low for some reason in the map
so you'd only see this big old tree root
when you were just about on top of it
and you'd snuck into it at that point
and that one like I had seen what
happened to me a couple times where I
was like oh wow that root just popped up
but I was like well you know like I'm on
a test machine it's handling a bunch of
other stuff so it's always a little slow
it's probably just my graphics settings
yeah and it wasn't but fortunately we
were able to have an artist go in there
and it was like oh yeah this actually is
like it's marked as foliage that
wouldn't actually block you right so so
it was more like you know grass or
flowers or something that shirts
to have it only show up when you get
pretty close to it yeah except it it
kind of did a lot of older maps they're
just not quite used to things moving as
fast as the roller beetle yeah when they
were developing the roller beetle they
had a whole lot of fun going through old
maps and okay does anything even
actually like get to it on the beetle
but you were able to catch that and
correct it which is always fun to see
well you know within a little bit of
time some people definitely suffered
slamming into those objects thank you
for yeah but yeah we had a lot of fun
making earlier bitter racing we learned
a lot this was largely inspired by as
soon as we of course as soon as we add
at the beetle we had a lot of players
were like all right when are the beetle
races and we really wanted to add some
because back in Guild Wars 1 we had the
roller bid races on the Lunar New Year
and those were I really really loved
that mini game like for a while and I
guess maybe this is still the case I'm
the fastest Guild Wars 1 roller beetle
racer in ArenaNet
I'm not the fastest in the world but I
was named top 10 really the first year I
that rings a bell I feel like I've heard
this before
well I you know bring it up whenever the
opportunity arises you should because
some of us are very bad at it and we'll
just admire you so I had a lot of
affection for that game type and as soon
as we were talking about it like even as
soon as we were saying hey you know the
next expansion is gonna go to Valona and
I was like so we're getting the roller
beetles back doesn't matter do you
remember the sound effect that the
roller beetles made in GW Wow oh yeah
they have this squeaking effect on every
attack and this was actually something
that this is another thing I forced him
back in the day was we got them as a
ranger pet eventually I think it was a
reward
one year of the racing you could get
tokens and trade them to unlock the
Ranger pet and it might have been Joel
who worked on the amount wait he one of
our people had a whole team of heroes
and himself who all had the ring the
roller beetle pad so there's eight of
them on the field and all of them are
like constantly making this squeaking
noise about the attack it was really
something I could just hear it right now
it sounds like it was either glorious
I'm leaning toward glorious and I want
to experience gloriously it was it was
bearable for a time well I'm glad you
got to get roller beetle racing back
into Guild Wars 2 I'm I have fun with it
I'm not gonna win any races any time
soon but you know how like you take the
curve and like one idiot is like
spinning way out here hi
so a funny story there involving someone
who's here right when we added the
roller beetle was around when we were
like when we first had on the test
servers and maybe a little after that
but we were also working on the return
of festival for wins and so we were like
oh well like since we're bringing it
back we'll add some new amount races
right we wanted to like bring it up to
current standards refresh things a
little amounts of the thing and we're
like ok can we have a really good race
in this well it's not out yet right
I think episode 3 came out a little bit
before festival so for developing it we
were like well it's not released they
might still change things the roller
beetle might be like faster tomorrow or
slower tomorrow let's not build a race
around it right but even internally as
soon as we had these mount races so we
were setting up the mount race in crown
pavilion and we're we have a play test
going and everyone's in the little
starting section and I'm sitting there
and like
60% of people there are on roller Beetle
and I'm like oh no this is not a roller
beetle race they're gonna go into lava
right cuz the first bit of it is a big
straightaway and so really is their
boost yeah and then there is like a
right angle turn
oh I don't a hill and we get feedback
from Cameron over here where he's like I
failed that turn so bad that I went out
the instance that's where the portal is
is a bad turn and so he turned and like
drifted and slid up the hill to the
loading screen and so I don't see it now
you'll have you'll have to go check next
year crime Pavillion has a set of boxes
on that turn so that as long as yeah
there's a set of boxes to be put there
so as long as you made a good faith
effort to hit that turn and even if
you're in roller Beetle those will stop
you so that you don't go up the hill I'm
just making it to life and like 40
players spawning out there they're gone
we're done here that was the most
frustrating but also like I couldn't I
was laughing for a solid like five
minutes because it's just you're going
really fast eternally I love that yeah
well it reminded me one of my favorite
things that I saw jumping back to the
roots blocking people and rolling
decently was we had a couple screenshots
of players helping each other out by
there was a player who had transformed
himself into the really large candy corn
elemental and was standing on those
roots so that you had this kind of
traffic cone effect mark is dying
because they would render first
you see them and be like oh no I got to
go around it would because half the time
I'd be like oh like this time I'm
definitely around those roots no big
deal and then right into it right but
there were players who were taking it
upon themselves to serve as a traffic
physical marker that's amazing the
colorings perfect I think that is just a
great representation of how our
community comes together to solve
problems right you know but it is it's
like okay I will be the candy corn
elemental that stands here danger I'm
going to be the traffic go I will be the
traffic today laid out of my life for
all of you that's fantastic I love it I
do want to there's another non roller
beetle note that is one of my favorite
Guild Wars 2 moments that I wanted to
make sure we touched on because it was
with Cameron it's a good thing it's okay
it's fine I seem to find out everything
important like when I bump into somebody
in a common area here or in the kitchen
and just like start chatting that's how
I found out I found out about Aires
death down on the fourth floor in a
common area but I found out about the
end of episode five from Cameron I think
probably in early 2018 it was a while
but you were the one telling me this is
the thing that we're working on and we
are all see it we are all killing
ourselves trying to figure out how to do
this exactly right because it saw reen
yeah and players love her and this is an
important this is a huge moment and
that's a how I found out what was going
to happen to her so that hurt but that
conversation with you was like one of my
favorite work moments because we just I
was I actually already had my backpack I
was like on my way out the door and I
was like I don't care there's more buses
but tell me more but hearing about the
development side of how important it was
that we get this right was incredible
was one of my favorite conversations
yeah
was a I'm really glad that that had such
an effect on you
because it there are times where
especially when you're dealing with such
an emotionally impactful moment once
you've gone through it about 500 times
it kind of just loses all of the impact
on you and you just have to trust that
it's not terrible and it's it's great to
have so many people here in the studio
that you can go to that haven't seen the
content before rate and so many people
who are invested in the character
invested in the story that you're like
so I'm doing this thing to one of your
favorite characters your child actually
how would you feel if you know baby
dragon you got there yeah well I
remember there were so many like big
moments in that mission and we would see
like pieces of it coming together and it
was so exciting and I remember there's a
big scene there when Crockett auric like
busts through the wall and it's finally
like in that environment he's here and
we have to do this and I remember seeing
a really early version of that or like
the artists will start working on the
big croc rhetoric model and bust through
the wall and he's like entirely on
skinned he's just blue and I was still I
was still like oh okay like I can see
how great this is gonna be because even
then with him just being this light you
know kind of like tempt in version you
were like okay Crockett ork is here yeah
that was definitely it was really
inspiring to see it even in that really
early stage just like the artists were
so passionate about what they were doing
right and they were like okay this has
the potential to be epic we are going to
go all-in and just make this as epic as
possible and then you know even with
moments with like the gigantic red
bubble that he starts casting and we
were prototyping out his big attack that
he does like it was it's hilarious
because he drove he like blows up a
bubble and then boom it's like a traffic
cone goes towards you
but it's it's still and those moments
you're like man we're doing some really
cool stuff yeah well that was the that
was one of the things that hit home for
me when you and I were talking about or
reads death is that it's more than a
year out and everybody is I mean
everybody is heads down and working
incredibly so many people working so
incredibly hard on making sure we get
this right and it's so far out it is so
far away and the commitment is
astounding constantly to me I did see
the unscanned one that you were talking
about it was like the like the big red
bubble showing the attack animation was
kind of funny but it was also at the
same time giving us a sense of scale and
how huge and like the big piles of
rubble hitting when he burst through the
wall was all of that even on skin and
just you know like low poly weird
looking models was this is enormous yeah
oh my god yeah big shout out to all of
the artists James Barwick Kyle Bosch Ron
Harvey and Marcus Jackson just like all
working together on making that seem
just super ridiculous
yes something we've you know probably
never done before oh just I was
remembering the amount of time that went
into the crognard model just for episode
five and six and like was the big Fallon
we're like well like spare no expense on
Krakatoa Krait it's an older dragon yeah
but remind me in dragon bash which we
were brought back this year we have
holographic rocket auric flying around
and part of that was that we were like
hey like we want to set up the like cool
holographic dragon again I think it was
the Shatterer before and there's like
hey like if we make holographic rocket
or ik for you you'll use that right
because we really want to use the
Krakatoa model again yeah much time not
very many
yeah well yeah I mean how much can you
how much can you do with that oh you can
make big holographic and I immediately
became concerned for performance thank
you for thinking about it yeah well and
we're like and we got the holographic
rocket torque and we're like alright so
what if we let you get this as a guild
hall decoration and Bret became
concerned for for once again one of the
most incredible things I've seen in our
test client was Brett had 20 or 30 oh no
I had five hundred five hundred
holographic Crockett Oryx like maxed out
in the guild hall capacity with
holographic Crockett Oryx and the sky
above your guild hall is just this
writhing mass of holographic rocket
auric like we have all you can see is
just this giant like because he flies in
a circle so it was good I've like so if
you took the time to place them all out
then they would be a sequence from each
other and it was just like a ceiling
there was a Celia and above the ceiling
was just dragon limbs and heads and then
bull and then if you leave your guild
hall and load back in then now they're
all matched up on timing and it's just
one like super Krakatoa who no longer
looks holographic he's just blue and
dense it's like even even the very very
wealthy players who choose to make their
guild hall like full Crockett or ik and
look crazy it'll be ok it doesn't crash
incredible the edge cases that you try
to create and I mean that in the best
way that is I I'm so sad that I never
saw that but I'm gonna try to make it
happen definitely another issue
- with that Gill decoration is so Kalka
torque is very large and takes up a lot
of space when he's flying around and the
way that we determine like the bounding
box for a Gill decoration is like any of
the animations no matter how far out
that goes that's where the edge of the
guild decoration is technically and you
can't put a guild decoration on your
Waypoint there is no place in any guild
hall where you could put that decoration
where it didn't collide someplace with
the Waypoint yeah so I I hope this
generation up and I'm like alright Brett
this is ready for testing like I think
it's gonna work I think we're gonna have
a guild hall Crockett ORAC and the bill
goes through Brett comes back and he's
like so I can't place it anywhere
because it's too close to the Waypoint
so what did you just said no you can't
yeah you can't place this on a waypoint
well in the ceiling or all the way off
to the side or underground so what did
you do so the way it actually works is
we split the model apart so that you
place just the base and it's only sized
based on the like holographic based
projector and then once the base
projector is spawned in it creates the
circling thing that has the giant croc
rhetoric program projection so that's
not counted against your Waypoint
proximity that's crafty it's the movie
magic Nick was talking about in the last
segment all right wow that is like I
wouldn't have even thought of that you
just assumed well clearly it's only the
base yeah well and it was all the things
we're like we're like okay like can we
not do it like we had to think of
something creative to words around the
Houston oh wow that's well okay so I
honestly thought when you were talking
about putting the holographic Krakatoa
in there I honestly thought you were
gonna tell the Gordon story oh yeah
would you please so cuz I wouldn't I
honestly want to know how that came to
be so we got to make sure this is the
right story because
so we're revisiting dragon bash and
we're like alright we're gonna bring it
up to modern festival standards try to
get a whole bunch of new content in
there because the original dragon bash
one of the big things that happened
during it was this murder mystery with
one of the lion's arch captains paths
being killed by and it was the
introduction of the ADA blade pirates
and we were like okay well the problem
with dragon bash because we had
revisited the idea a couple times really
let's bring back dragon bash we're like
okay well the big problem is that about
90% of the dragon brush content is a
murder mystery
and we cannot kill a captain every year
it's unsustainable I mean we can do a
pirate election every time I guess but
like that's a lot of dialogue to be
writing I know
feelings about that I feel like there's
people about to bust in this door go
nope I mean all right I won't I won't
talk about like other outcomes of the
pirate election and fractals we could
have done we'll move on so dragon bash
so we're revisiting and looking at what
do we need to add and we're like alright
one of our festival standards is we have
Gordon the Racing Troya who's involved
in every festival race or in the case of
Four Winds he's lounging on the beach
well we've done like a reskin of him
because giving the Troya hats or
costumes it's kind of just inherently
funny well yeah I like it when they were
when they try to wear bikinis because
the start of it the start of it was that
we were like we're working on Halloween
pacifier it kind of just happened we're
like oh we want to have like can we get
a halloween Choya where they're like a
pumpkin and I think was Chelsea it was
like yep here have this toy who was
wearing a pumpkin I'm like that another
shout-out to Chelsea Mills other than
the essay be Gordon and the dragon bash
Gordon all of them have been Chelsea
mills Chelsea uh and so for dragon bash
we were like alright we really want
Gordon wearing the dragon bash helmet
right because we've got this great like
horned dragon helmet we're like that's
look incredible and we got him back and
put him in the race and then another
thing that we've always done with him in
the races is having the NPC's in the
festival races we kind of have the goal
of like some of the NPC's are showing
you the course if you're not going the
right way or on the slow side you can
always look at them even throwing a
bunch of players around and we first
added Gordon in the Halloween race and
we just I decided like all right the
funny thing with him is he's not going
to show you the correct way he's gonna
like go the wrong way because he's this
little cactus person wearing a pumpkin
like like if you trust him yeah the
source of truth it's which I did at one
point I was like yeah it was very fast
because he's always off course so he has
to like work his way back around to even
see him right but yeah so the joke there
was that like he just takes the first
corner and goes right instead of left
he's playing by his own rules right so
we wanted to have him do something kind
of fun in dragon bash with that race and
what ended up happening is he runs along
the course he's kind of weaving around a
little and he gets to the dragon arena
area where we have NPCs fighting these
holographic vine - then you can go in
and fight the holographic monsters it's
so an instance super fun by the way and
when we first talked about the dragon
arena we're like all right so you'll
fight holographic bosses and we had a
kind of short list of like okay it'll be
all like Dragon mania champions right
like who do we want and we actually had
a larger list man made it to the game
initially because we're like all right
how about like axe master Harith from
heart of thorns and he's actually really
annoying to fight so and with the time
we had and with you know the quality we
wanted to hit we ended up saying okay
one dry one champion for each dragon
Harris is also always shouting about
axes and stuff so right but at some
point we had on the whiteboard Oh like
we'll have you fight holographic Gordon
like and we're like you can't fight
Gordon were like no no he's writing the
holographic why burned and then once you
beat the wyvern he jumps off and you
have to fight him except he goes down
like one hit Wow spoil what that bosses
name was going to be Brett we order your
moth yeah we were really far in the
design on this boss my day is ruined by
the fact that this did not happen I need
to find me somewhere I want him to be
like this big and have like four
kabillion health right but so we want
but we wanted to like at some point I
was determined to get at least a little
bit of that in the game so Gordon runs
over to the dragon arena and you have to
stay behind a little and watch him and
he is like he'll cheer a little and then
if you look behind him this holographic
wyvern swoops down out of nowhere and
like yeah it blasts through him and if
you look he's like he does a little like
shadow step animation and he's on top of
it and it flies away and it took a whole
lot of me sitting there playing that
scene over and over again to tune it
because there was a version where like
there's just enough space there for the
wyvern has this very big animation where
his spirals down out of the air and then
like goes back up and we had a version
where was just crashing through this
mountain and then coming out of it which
is fine because it's a hologram but to
make it look as good as possible we
wanted to try to not you know rock the
boat on that but one of the funniest
moments of developing and this will
happen on live
depending on the timing was I'm sitting
there trying to capture screenshots to
show everyone the scene of the wife
lying down grabbing Gordon flying away
and is he as Gordon goes flying up the
holographic rhetoric is there and it
looked so much like Gordon was flying up
to go fight Krakatoa but I just like I
fell over laughing he's our hero
right here yeah he's fending off
holographic rocket auric we were able to
eventually defeat real Krakatoa
holographic chronic rhetoric continues
on a host sounds like we have an idea
for next year's dragon Tuesday you have
time it's fine sure okay and my favorite
part because I had talked to Joe about
this so much because he he brought it to
my attention I was like I want to share
this with everybody I want all of our
players to see it we ended up sharing it
on our social media channels and Joe had
walked me through this like over and
over and over helping me find exactly
where to go pointing out the spiral
animation but what I wasn't aware of
until I finally got there and was able
to see it had my head set on his little
chatter vanishing that was my I think I
left like I'm dying at my desk and like
making squeaking noises everybody's like
what I was like it was every little
thing about that was perfect and he
comes back if you so we don't know what
Gordon is up to for most of that mount
race he's a hobbit or he's off having
adventures but in time to finish them
out race although I don't think he hits
all the checkpoints he'll appear from
the north entrance of Hall Brack the
zone line and run back to join the rest
of the NPC's of the finish line really
so I think he actually finishes if it's
only the NPCs running I think Gordon
finishes in like a second or third
fairly well I don't know what the judges
will have to say about that but they're
probably all the crowd laughing but
he reaches the finish line that's
amazing that was the great thing was I
was telling initially I had him like
immediately reappear right so he flies
up disappears on the wyvern bang like
shows back up again but we had to time
it out based on how long the race would
be and so we have this test pass that
like all right so Gordon will show up
about six minutes after her he
disappears make sure of that
like because if he's in if he doesn't
show back up then like he won't be there
on the next race and this has to cycle
so I want him to come back looking a
little like dented and banged up like
his maybe like one of the horns is
bending right like scratching well no I
wouldn't yeah we don't know what happens
to the holographic wyvern well yeah
that's the thing where have you been I
don't know but there are untold stories
sacrificed to make a new helm comes from
it's a recapitulated what do you do to
turn a hologram non holographic all
right well there's no time travel
involved but like I'm thinking it's one
of those like closed loop right like the
holographic wyvern gives its life to
save Gordon and he gets the wife and
helmet but then later the same he meets
the same y ver and they become friends
and that's the I think this was a legend
that was passed down from the Noren it
sounds very familiar
I just don't think anybody expected it
to be a toy on Ornish Norn light all
right well let's I want to hear about
some of your favorite player reactions
that you've seen over content that you
worked on we can start at either end you
can throw over the middle why I have one
on the top of my head so I'll go first
but maybe this is like so I love seeing
whenever we get fan art for anything or
like people taking our content and
making a video out of it my favorite
thing that I saw that was Roller Bueller
racing was someone's gonna have to help
me with the name of
this type of racing there's the know we
had some Formula One jokes in there but
a player made a video of one or two of
the tracks and roll orbiter racing done
in the style of I think it's like
rallycross or God all the racing fans
and the audience are like doesn't
understand at all
and so it's this two-man racing format
where you're going through a course you
have one person driving and one person
reading a double - no that's where one
person's throwing shells this is where
one person is one person is reading out
the like course instructions like okay
45 feet ahead shallow left
into shallow right right and if you ever
watch it they do this very kind of like
monotone because they don't want to like
you don't rattle the driver baby was
like Oh God 90 degree right right you
don't wanna know so the instructions are
coming at a very specific pace and a
very specific tone and very specific
language like it's always shallow left
means something very specific right and
they did this with a roller Beetle
course
so it's this person steering the roller
get around and them doing all the voice
instructions like okay 90 feet ahead
shallow left
slow jump over lava and it was just and
I was cracking up because you have all
you have all the fantastic elements
right of like you know there will be a
50-foot drop that's so awesome
mind be like rampaging destroyers ahead
but just very calm very yeah it's Yuri
measured yeah that's fantastic if you
still have I don't know that I saw that
I would love to that leave yeah I'm sure
you find a link later I'll have to dig
that up awesome how about you Brett uh
one of my favorite things was
shortly after early seeing a dull Feig
I'd go up like just having fast yeah the
the fact that there was somebody who was
so dedicated that they would make a
guide for a thing that you would weren't
listening
yeah the the content never quite feels
real to me until we see player guides
and until it appears on the official
wiki yeah once it's it once it's on the
wiki still have some right it's not on
the wiki I'm so mad
well and that's the thing is sometimes
you go back and check cuz you're like we
like people we hit a little secret here
or there and you're like players found
it yet cuz if they found it then it must
be documented they have well it's I
don't think it's something they haven't
found but there's there's some
undocumented it didn't make a splash
that's fun uh I wouldn't know about this
later
yeah later related to fan art there is
somebody who 3d printed a binding of a
pose book 3d printed a Zack Waddell both
the little snake on a stand and a
separate a Bowl scepter yeah that's
seeing that kind of thing absolutely
fills me with joy I love it so much
these because everybody's so talented
you guys are amazing how about you well
the the one that sticks out in my head
and I think will probably stick out for
the rest of my life as the the responses
that we saw to ourian's fate as it were
at the end of Episode five I remember
everybody everybody in the office that
day was watching all of the different
streamers was in-game talking to players
and hearing their reactions to different
parts of the story as they were going
through that episode and and it took
about like an hour and a half to two
hours before people really started
getting up to the end of the episode
where we knew okay here's where all the
moments are gonna have that and here's
where people are gonna cry yeah
everyone's like
oh no here we go yep yes we're gonna
ruin some lives today
wait it's yeah you know in a way that is
beneficial and I just remember seeing
people go into that that instance seeing
him bust through the wall and having the
same reactions that like we had
internally but like for them it was the
first time and it was all polished and
and just completed right and so getting
all of that like at rental in and just
like oh yeah we're gonna go kill
Crockett or ik just all of it their
favorite reactions I remember seeing I
don't even remember who was but there's
a scene in that instance when Crockett
or ik is like gonna blast you and Bram
is like I'll block it I got this and or
someone like might be pushing it a
little bit too far this is an elder
dragon yeah who there's a rollercoaster
and then seeing that final the final
walk where your camera is pulled in you
get that feeling that like we're not
dude they're not gonna be doing this
like walk scene and special camera yeah
just cuz I'm gonna round the corner and
everything is great no there's there's
that unsettling feeling and yeah seeing
it and there and all of the different
players faces and then just like talking
to people after they had come out of the
instance and they were like I feel empty
okay is it was both Blake I felt bad
because it's like oh you're so sad I'm
so sorry but at the same time is you
know like that's those are the moments
you know those are the moments that we
that we look for whenever we're making
games in general it's just to have that
like an intense emotional reaction yeah
it means you did it well yeah that there
were so many aspects of that walk at the
end and we've talked about this but like
that stumble and fall it was just that
was so hard and it was and it wasn't
like oh let's
just put the player in a kneeling
animation like there was a this was a
hard physically painful fall and it
resonated every tiny little thing and
the echoes you could hear the the audio
the everything the ambient sound was
just incredible and yeah all of us were
watching we were all watching anybody
play that we could yeah they were there
were a lot of Tears even just around the
office seeing people's reactions you
know it's I don't want I don't remember
who it was but there was a stream that a
lot of us were watching where they were
making that walk and came around right
to where it trips time ease voice and
she just went nope
no no and she was no I'm not going any
further it was it was incredible it was
it was hard to watch it was wonderful to
watch yeah so yeah I'm right there with
you I think I think we actually do have
a kind of a sizzle reel put together as
much of a sizzle reel as it can be with
that moment of just all of the different
people's reactions yeah yeah it's the
crying reel and I I think we've could
still got that somewhere around on our
like internal drives so I'm gonna have
to pull that up whenever we come around
to the anniversary of that particular
scene oh we can really relate that
moment again and we all cry together
yeah all right well I will let you all
get back to work but first is there
anything that you want to say to our
players before that you didn't get to
before you leave you don't have to mean
as always thanks for playing the game
it's great seeing everyone running
around in game playing the content it's
great seeing everyone sharing their fan
art and fan works on the forums and it
it's incredibly motivating you know yeah
it is I do want to like so we mentioned
the like undocumented cat content and I
want to at least put we don't say it was
but now we said it was cat content I so
I want to put my right track so that
they're not like losing their mind it's
fishing for something okay because it's
not big okay okay
so I'm not gonna spoil it but there's
the cat vendor who has these special cat
accessories and rata sum and next to her
is a book cart full of cat books and
every couple weeks I go check to see if
the wiki has fully documented there is a
web of cat books there like and how you
can because you look at one book and
then I'll say like look at the next book
or look at the book look at a random
book and there's this whole net of
looking from book to book okay and
there's a there's an undocumented book
there's a book that people haven't found
yeah okay and we had this creature boy
yes I've had to test it he was like okay
so I think here's all the cat books in
this flowchart did I get them all
because we don't want to have like text
that went out untested or yeah yeah yeah
yeah unchecked yes I'm always hoping
that that last couple books will get I
hope there's a burglary of people
running for right as soon right now if
there's a big crowd at this book cart
anytime soon somebody send me a
screenshot because I'm hoping that that
gets documented today now yeah well and
because we spent a little time when we
added that vendor we were like alright
like save the vendor appeared on the
weekend we're like okay it's real
content this is great now it's and I'm
then I'm waiting for the book cart
because I think it's really funny like
it's I got to make up a whole bunch of
cat novels all I can think is that would
like to unsubscribe from cat facts
except these cat facts that I want
alright so how about you breath I'm
sorry Kevin are you ok I will echo Jose
for sentiments thank you for playing
it's been super fun getting to cooking
500 with everyone and also you and yes
cooking 500 is so much fun
sorry Tyrael I said I've got to jump
that and do that you can cook globes of
stuff it's great globes of stuff what's
the term for it like purified there we
go
it's purified all right it looks like
huge buh-bye it's kind of weird but it's
fun
ok well I'm at 425 so I think I can work
you were at the cutting edge of cooking
here at this point yeah I think you guys
nailed it you know the community is why
we make this game and so it's even in
like the times where game developments
hard and you know it gets really
emotionally taxing and there's a lot of
different influencers that you know we
usually don't see whenever we release
the content that have happened
throughout the development cycle and it
just seeing the reactions and saying the
the love that the community has for the
game in the world the characters and
each other really makes it worth it well
thank you all we've been mentioning this
at the end of every segment this is our
last livestream in this room before
construction starts we're gonna have
another one it's ok oh yeah it's not
gonna be for a while so we're gonna do
temporary place but this wall is coming
out so please grab a sharpie and sign
that on your way out
alright and because we're gonna keep
that chunk of all yeah also so sign on
this side not by the thermostat because
isn't that all kind of important no it's
going away ok surprise ok so alright
thank you all
y'all stick around we have three more
devs coming on
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and welcome back we are continuing our
anniversary livestream with three more
food more of our deaf guests happy
anniversary you guys congratulations
yeah just I'm you know I'm gonna do a
tiny bit of housekeeping really quick
the one on the left is me the one in the
middle of is all of us cool one on the
right is the three of you excellent
so we're fine though that just no
close-up on clay yes so I have we were
like in five-second countdown and
somebody was like I don't know we're
lokay is quickly dart between alright so
why don't I have you guys introduce
yourselves real quick sure I'm Kirk
Williford I'm a designer on Guild Wars 2
on the living world team I am Kevin
Freeman also a designer on the living
world steam I'm Clayton Kisco I'm a team
lead on Guild Wars 2 all right so why
don't you talk a little bit about what
you worked on over the past year please
not what you're working on now came so
prepared too early so past year
primarily it was on a starter guy this
episode 4 in which I did along with Eric
who was on earlier and started a war of
opinions and snacks in particular he
brought out the twizzler warring a hash
tag team red no I'm a no let's not start
this as well right
I'm for the Midwest yeah so okay okay
and Martin oh yeah markets were you from
work sorry yeah I'm sorry I'm sorry I
should have mentioned Eric made me maybe
I don't know I just I know there's a
regional thing yeah seems like that but
yeah I worked on Sons refuge the
instance where you take it back and
along with Eric made our evil spider he
did almost all the work and hilarious
yes that's the word I would use
definitely I also helped a little bit
with war eternal
along with Heather Conover we helped
make the shadow army that was awesome
I'm so sad that Heather was out of
office today but huge shout out to
Heather again yeah absolutely all right
Kevin like there was well more journal
war eternal but was three in this year
or was three last year gosh we'll just
stick with four eternal because that's
probably what
yeah words are front came out like in
the beginning this no and april-ish
because yeah okay so that Wow
and then ever see my wedding anniversary
ever so five words like January so and
then and then September for for both and
so three would have been somewhere
around me okay so were eternal calendars
I gosh episode 5 basically is what I
work on I helped a little bit out with
for eternal I made those cool vignettes
when you go to res one of the visual
soldiers and they wake up and then they
crippled and then they shoot the flare
and then the char copter comes down and
in the ladder yeah that was like I could
do that totally do this and I did some
baseball and work some random stuff it
was just at the end of episode 5 and so
myself and the rest of the team kind of
had some extra extra time on our hands
to kind of just support and help as we
were ramping up for other stuff so yeah
fun other stuff other stuff that maybe
Friday we'll talk a little more
you guys were less than two days yeah
you're gonna be there oh yeah it's gonna
be there no no I sound very abrupt I'm
gonna behave town for my mom's birthday
so you get a pass alright so I would
love to hear some of your favorite
moments from development over the past
year and some of the most fun things
that you worked on or what
happened gosh the the most fun things
well it's hard uh and wish we had access
to the behind the scene fun stuff
because we had a lot of moments when
developing crack crack crack crowd we're
developing Krakatoa
and I'm sure cam might have talked about
stuff but Crockett or basically had
these giant buck teeth at one point oh
my god we have an image of it if you
scroll back on our YouTube show you
actually see when we did a Gil chat for
Episode five we've shown that image
before yeah didn't like his scary pointy
teeth like clip through the terrain clip
to the turret giving him big horse teeth
big giant horse eats so all of the like
fear that he invokes like knocked Crouch
teeth he was just left with that just
like the unscanned version that Joe was
talking about earlier yeah Jai wasn't
final yeah yeah oh and stop because I
get one point his whole textures was
just rainbow yeah oh he was the high
like burst out right and we had like the
Robo voice of like oh god he's coming
we're so scared
and then little rainbow crowd yes
exactly it's a party made that kool-aid
man moment definitely felt like yeah
there was a really fun bug that almost
drove kam and I absolutely insane
because it was towards the end of
development so you're kind of tired and
you're ready to be done and we it was
the moment for those who have played the
episode where you fly over cropping
toric there was something changed
randomly one day as is as this game
development and so the character would
start to fly up and then fall down and
we're like what what why let's fix this
book so we scared no we're like ducks
we're like days away from from like our
major gate of like we're done
so we need to figure that moment out and
then it took us a couple days and then
finally I was just like we're stripping
everything off one at a time and so we
were stripping buffs off the character
one at a time one at a time one of the
time until finally like what it seemed
was the determined buff and I'm sure as
players have seen this and it awesome
started working I was like what happened
nobody ever touches determined buff and
we're kind of like freaking out and then
Ben Arnold who I'm sure the fans love
he's one of the bends
I was in I'm sorry did you say determine
we're like yes he's like oh yeah I
changed that to like remove any kind of
like it was it was crazy
we immediately erupted Lee got to the
point of it and fixed it but that was
like something that caught it's a funny
story now at the time every morning
we're just like are you ready to figure
it out
but yeah so that was a fun at the
expense of our sanity fun moment there's
always like one or two of those I feel
like when you're going through your like
just something you can't figure out
what's wrong and then it's something
silly and stupid because okay yeah cuz
now it's okay next thing yeah um so one
thing that I really liked from this past
year that it was it's kind of funny
because it was something that I didn't
want to do like I I resisted having to
make this change but then once I got
into it I was like you know actually I
kind of like this so um and it's a look
this is a little more behind behind the
scenes eeeh so it's like my favorite
stuff so in in the instance for in the
chapter the final instance in war
eternal when that you and and the NPCs
are walking through the caverns and in
fighting things to cap the three-way
line points there were two things that
were kind of screwing things up during
testing the NPC's were moving very oddly
through that area
and they were also like just
slaughtering things faster than they
could spawn theirs and I just because I
threw i threw in the bio comics there as
like super-powered just and they're
normal I didn't tone them down at all
just like here you go do the things and
they did oh no they did so what I ended
up doing was for the movement I I worked
on a series of like scripting script
pings to get them to move in a more
intelligent way based on where the
player was at the moment okay and and
also which point they were supposed to
be ceiling at which ley line point they
were supposed to be ceiling at the time
and then also a kind of a counter buff
with the player for how much damage they
should be dealing based on how much
damage the player was doing and if the
player was participating in combat and
if versus if the player was just
standing around and watching not not
engaging in comes a lot so it was like
like I said it was something I didn't
really want to do because I was like
well you know if the player wants the
NPC to do everything then go ahead let
the NPC do everything I mean it's not
much fun but I mean it's an option but
sure right but once I got into it and
made that then started making all these
changes if it you know to to the benefit
of Jason Jason Reynolds it it really
played a lot better once those two
changes went in but I didn't want to do
but I did and I actually enjoyed it once
I started doing it I was like you know
what this is actually this is actually
not too bad
positive this positive spin another
positive spin I've actually taken on
both of those two things and have been
applying them to other work as I as I go
along because it worked it worked so
well there I was like I bet this will
work well in other places too so it's a
it's paying dividends yeah development
development reservations are the best
well we were talking about that earlier
with Alena and Joel they had there was
something developed for episode 6 and
there was enough overlap where Alena got
to go in and go you know what I could
use that for episode 5 - I'll just nice
using that here - Joel some of the
brightest minds at the studio they're
scary smart yeah yeah so how about you
um let's see I think Connor kind of went
into it a little bit when we when he was
on talking about all the crazy things
that we were able to do in Episode four
I started guy this one of them was I
think it was also brought up though when
Gork runs in - yeah the first time we
heard that comment and when we hear it
with Robo voice when it's not recorded I
was like oh what we get the voice
recording and it's nothing like we
expected in a good way right oh my gosh
this sold that moment way way better so
much yeah and then just some of the
moments that you don't really expect it
end up being really funny in that
episode when we were playing through it
one of them is in Chapter one I don't
think it was supposed to be like a funny
moment but when you're first needing to
escape from the branded shatter
attacking a an awakened guard decides to
go on his own and says forget you guys
I'm out and then he gets you know his
hands he gets the shatterhand at the
face and he just yeah I wasn't expecting
that at all and I think it was Morgan
Brown who put that in and I just bust
out laughing because it's just a moment
it was supposed to be super serious and
more like we're trying this game just
BAM poor guy I guess anyway that was one
another one was a bug that I didn't want
to fix but I kind of had to in Chapter
three theme absolutely at the end of
when you recapture Suns refuge
you got Bram and costs and there was a
bug that there was a chance that they'd
just start fighting each other and it
seemed very great right it seemed very
in character for them so it's like do I
want to fix this no you don't that's
what I said
but other people disagreed and QA was
like you should fix this
shoutouts to QA that they they what it
was so funny and so in character and it
worked so well and it's like it's so
good yeah yes fixing it is the right
answer but I love knowing this and there
will always be a little sad piece in my
heart I just see those two butting heads
all the time in my brain now they're
just like yeah their personalities just
you know I don't know it just worked I
want to see this cage match yes yeah oh
my gosh it's I never knew that that's
hilarious
so what was what was causing it to
happen so we put a buff on NPCs and
instances so a fade I like their health
goes to zero they are able to reset so
you don't have to like worry about
resurrecting them because you're right
sir trying to survive yourself right and
that changed their team and what
happened is it was changing them to a
team that was neutral and then swapping
them to another team that was old which
was not set up she's are some of the
newer teams this gets really cobwebby
but no pun intended with the spider boss
but yeah I just turned out to be that it
was switching him to an old team that
was not set to be you know passive to
the team that costs on so then they
started duking out and again but it
works yeah yeah exactly
oh my gosh that's fantastic I was just
kind of like what I said it was
something very simple it was a buff
thing right yeah they're good old buffs
when in doubt use a bunch of invisible
buffs I had a similar situation to the
team swapping episode two of last season
where it was you'd hop on a bunny and
you like do a thing but that would
switch your team so you could kill this
gadget that was on a team but when you
did that when he came back you were on a
team that other player could be on an
opposing team and like without knowing
it was just like world PvP until the
testing and like for the for a long time
I was trying to figure out how to fix
that that bug but yeah teams and fun
stuff like that
I weren't here what's in your mind right
now that almost exact same thing
happened to me
we're not the very first time I tried to
mess around with teams and they we ended
up with players this is on tests not on
life it was like with test players and
in in Divinity's reach some of them
could attack the others but the others
were like you're green to me I don't
understand what's going on I can't
attack you back so one way world PvP I'm
sorry your face was glorious was telling
the story you're just like oh my gosh
speaking of NPCs dying and trying to
this was a let's play that i weirdly did
not do with you but with Connor and I
wish I'd mentioned this I wish I'd
thought about this we were watching
Buddha me she walk away did you guys see
this yeah I was hoping yeah I remember
like Connor needs a narrate more things
so like did you see it boo to me she's
like walking away and Connor and I are
doing a let's play so we're like live in
front of our players and then we're like
wait a minute we want to see her to me
she goes so we start following him he's
like very dignified walk off into the
distance
Connors narrating it's not like very
solemn very serious I could to me she
the hero over people and somebody did
not deal irk so he gets to the head of
the instance and I'm walking behind him
the cameras on I'm in first-person view
so it's just like who to me she and
we're watching and today he just keels
over dead yeah surprise Connors like
dying over oh man and it was my favorite
NPC death ever after that stream was
over we could not the rest that day was
just kind of a loss because we were just
laughing about it at it back at her dad
the entire
yeah it was and I don't remember like
Connor later told me who worked on that
content and I need to buy them a present
we're trying to figure out if it was
something that Matthew Medina added or
Morgan Brown added and it kind of does
for those who don't know like lurking is
the term we use right where NPCs like
disappeared right like or they like exit
the world in like a natural way so the
script usually is action lurk action
kill but I guess like yeah no but like
in the in system we've made a subroutine
which is like a package set of actions
so anybody can just like set that up
which does that for us stop fixing this
really good that's fair I'll remove it
just change the submarine that that
getting smashed by croc rhetoric fight
was one of my favorites did we play that
together yes I believe we did yeah again
it's like very scary and very very
serious because you're trying to save
these people I'm like screaming at them
that they deserve what they get that was
gosh it started maybe y'all can remember
of an earlier instance of this but
episode 2 was like the first start of
like what we're calling like the sin
event style of gameplay and then that
like went over to y'all's episode
started guide us where we had
what's-his-face like fly down in bravery
under the Shatterer and then that that
all evolved and led to episode 5 big
moment right where you're walking down
after getting severely injured up to
where arenas and it was really is I'm
thinking back now all those moments like
leading up and us working and trying to
hone that skill and like get better at
it over time so it's really cool to see
that evolution yes the sin events are
something that can be really powerful
when we do them you know and so I'm
really glad that we were able to do that
the attack keeps evolving just
we're gonna talk to some people about
that pretty soon it's just oh well I
know
um click you have worked at some fan
events what what if some of your
favorite player reactions and
interactions been over the past year and
that's for all of you not just clean
yeah the pressure well let's see I for
whatever reason we're talking about this
the other day like I thought Games Khan
was like yesterday but it was like two
years ago so that doesn't count in the
hole okay I it's been about one year
since me you and Mark were there so okay
so yeah games I was amazing games come
was incredibly you guys were such a joy
to hang out with yeah um traveling was
really like it was great we met a bunch
of fans and then we had this huge event
at one of the bars you know that I
always keep forgetting that's in house
accent house right conditioning it's
great that's what you remember about a
it was really hot it was really hot and
we it was two stories so obviously like
the second story was way hotter but I
remember walking around going to tables
talking to fans somewhere in cosplay I'm
just telling us about their character
and what they love and like do you have
one stuff when we're at Gamescom we met
a bunch of fans who like built a banner
in a commander tag icon yeah they're all
walking in a line that's awesome because
they came up to us we're so excited and
we're just learning about their guild
and what you know how long they've been
playing and and what they love and
they're asking us questions and so that
was really fun then we had that fan
auction kind of thing like we're the
raffle so we had the tickets and stuff
and people winning toasters like and
there's excited and like I don't knows
it was it was very energetic so that was
really fun I've never been to Jeremy
before sounds cool it was it was really
good just that that impromptu
interaction I know there was one where
we were walking the show floor yeah and
I just tweeted hey you know me and
Clayton is Myron and Mark and we're all
in the show floor I'm walking around and
we had like this quick Twitter set up
there were some fans who were like hey
I'm in line we're in line over here and
we
like stopped what we were doing and ran
over to find them and got to go see them
which was amazing it was so much fun
I met we met a couple people from Sweden
and they didn't know about the event at
haxon house and we were able to like get
him some extra tickets like so we saw
them there it was really cool it was
really it was really fun yeah and then I
went to rezzed
right in in London yeah that was awesome
cuz at that point we had we had the
jackal up there yeah who the jackal and
he was he was awesome so seeing fans
there getting them an opportunity to sit
on the jackal and take pictures and just
kind of talk to all of them I was up on
the panel talking about episode 5
meaning some beans from our let's play
that's where I met him I'm forgetting
yeah yeah yeah so yeah no not beans I
was thinking about butters butters one
day I'll meet butters he has my number
but we've never met sarna I just I enjoy
all that stuff and the fans is what
makes that the most enjoyable so yeah
that's cool how about you Kevin I have
not done any events so my fan
interactions have been very limited
although I will say a game that counts
randomly here randomly here I met
somebody who's friends a married couple
met in Guild Wars and so when I
mentioned that I've worked like they
just were like oh that's where we met so
that was really cool we did like a
friendship thing right yeah
about different people who met and
married there was a couple there was a
guild that we worked with in 2018 for
friendships and they like three of them
got together and then this year one of
them tweeted at me and she said hey
thanks to a couple of you this this
friends these friends are now a ship and
and we followed up with them this year
and they're they're together now and
it's wonderful so the first time that I
went to an event for gillers she was
last year on which I worked the booth of
packs last year and also went packs work
to booster packs which was very very I
don't want say overwhelming it was just
the response was wonderful and meeting
so many cool fan you know fans that were
you know fun to talk to
it is it is overwhelming and exhausting
yeah wonderful so yeah is also
incredibly energizing yeah it's just
like seeing so many people enthusiastic
about the game is wanting to talk you
know happy to talk to you it was
interesting to speak on that side
because I remember I think 2011 or 2010
or something being on the fan side to
talking with the devs like oh man seeing
both sides we meet and then later I
think it was the same day either that or
the next day it was that we had the
party at golden yes which was also
really really cool and the big takeaway
moment for me for that was two people
getting engaged in the middle of it oh
yes yeah that was really really cool
yeah so that's the most memorable one
from that for me oh god that was that
was wonderful I don't know if you knew
but the she was an artist and she
designed that ring oh wow and she's like
they had talked about getting married it
wasn't like one of those scary surprise
proposals where you're like but she had
told him they had talked about getting
married and agreed they wanted to and
she said just please make it a surprise
and he was like and she was surprised
but yeah that was she loved the ring
because she designed it that's really
cool yeah yeah
I've also ran into a couple fans just
like on the street it's kind of like a
couple years ago I went to go over new
my apartment lease and the apartment man
I was had to go work to shirt on he's
like oh do you play Guild Wars I'm like
hey I actually work on Guild Wars like
oh wow I've been playing since gw1 so we
had like it was kind of an interesting
moment we just talked about that for a
bit and I'm like meanwhile so I need to
I wish but no and then just the other
day like one of my new neighbors came
over to introduce himself he's like I
was wearing my pacifier t-shirt he's
like a nice t-shirt by the way yeah
really cool moments you know people are
excited about it and that's really fun
actually I have a story
like that um it's not me it was my
parents we're buying a house and my dad
they went into it like finish signing
the papers my dad was wearing a
Gilbert's to t-shirt I'd given him like
I asked him if I could get free gems for
him I said tell people if I have to buy
them you have to buy them but yeah that
was there was aa guild wars - I love
guild wars - my dad was like oh my
daughter works for ArenaNet and he goes
how can she give me some free gems give
me the paperwork only mine didn't turn
into that yeah it was I'm pretty sure he
was joking he did not get free jet packs
I had last year I was I was working the
booth and I did I made a bad
there was a goofed yes I know yeah I
can't wait that but there's a little
there's a little kid who's just having a
rough time and their parents really were
huge Guild Wars fans and they wanted to
like hop on and take a picture and all
that stuff um a my my brain went to I
know how I can help I can help so I
grabbed a writ luck
well she I was like here you go not
thinking that this kid would immediately
think this is his and this is his
forever and I was like oh no it's so
like he held on to it for as long as
like you really possible I was like I'm
so sorry I I learned a very valuable
lesson that day so I did that at
comic-con
I did that at San Diego comic-con you
did okay I don't feel I feel but there
was there was like this precious little
kid in and the parents were huge girl
versus two fans and there was some swag
that we we like had the freedom to
randomly share if we deemed it fit like
you know if the opportunity arises and
there's like a superfan here is this
thing and so I was like oh you know oh
yeah I talked to him for a while then
here give it was a plushie and I can't
remember which one it might have been
one of these but then like two hours
later I hear Katie going has anybody
seen that such as such an ID and I'm
over there going no I don't not here
right now
yes she was she was like no I totally
understand
it's it's fine please don't give away
any more this my plushies anymore I
goofed bad yeah sorry
all right well is there anything before
we wrap up that you guys wanted to share
with our community that you didn't get
to you don't have to it's okay Kevin
look scared I'm sorry just shoutouts to
some of the people that we worked with
this year yeah Lilly you Matthew Medina
Erin Fanta gross you know yeah it's been
good fun yeah we've made really cool
stuff for the past year and the best is
yet to come
yes thanks for playing have you seen
like the toddler rules like if I'm
touching it it's mine I don't know what
to say cat facts oh you had me double
over that's right not to laugh oh my
gosh that's a nice throwback but thanks
for playing we love having you play our
game we love making the game for you to
play it's it's a wonderful symbiotic
relationship we've got going on and so
you're happy I'm happy
I'm happy you're happy that works I love
it
I can I'll just echo what y'all said
Kirk and Kevin and I'm really excited
for Friday I'm gonna be there so please
feel free like I'm an open book
come talk to me talk about whatever you
want to talk about within reason right I
want to hear from y'all and is is like
the best part of the job so please feel
free give plenty shy boy
maybe we'll see if Katie lets me
probably not don't get your hopes up
chat video games you know yeah yeah it
doesn't have to just be Guild Wars 2
yeah where we also are gamers and play
all the games so we want to hear all
about it all about that stuff alright
thank you guys very much and hang on
because we have three more people coming
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all right we are back with our final set
of dev guests thank you all for taking
some time out of your day to join
congratulations
happy Anniversary fun stuff yeah so why
don't you guys introduce yourselves and
talk about what you've worked on this
past year yeah
I'm dahi I'm a cinematics animator you
guys have seen me no these are all
guilty chat veterans well so on the
cinematics team I worked on the part
where time he tells the sad thing about
stuff - Bram I did Kate at the very very
end of that cutscene and just like every
cutscene that's come out since then I've
touched a little bit so yeah awesome
my name is Chelsea shooter I'm the
cinematics director
I helped really Shepherd all the
cinematics in the past year helping the
team out having hand in some places here
and there camerawork mocap acting you
know general management kind of stuff
and craft leading yeah I'm Julianne
Orton I'm the narrative lead and a story
editor on Guild Wars 2 I came on last
October so really all I did this last
season was help push episode six across
the finish line and then stewarded the
twine series the Requiem twine series
between good and I love how you say that
all you did was help with the finale
absolutely most of the stuff that I've
been working on is what we're announcing
on Friday so I'm really excited
we are yeah I cannot wait we are so
close I know it's tempting I mean not
that we would ever but yeah I want to I
want to yeah this is this is really
exciting for us we cannot wait to get
this in front of all of you yeah yes
yeah I was actually like just about to
say something that I was like no no wait
that's spoilers mild spoilers of what I
should well we have rehearsal tomorrow
so we can get it out of our systems
and then we have the real thing first
thing Friday morning so we are almost
there in the meantime though we can talk
about all of the amazing work that you
guys did over the past year
Julie we did a we did a guild chat about
the Requiem series but do you want to
talk a little bit about what some of the
highlights of that work for you while
you were working on it sure without
spoilers yes I think it can spoil season
four I guess best least important yes
okay so I think that one of the things
that we did when we set out to do the
Requiem series as we wanted to kind of
provide a transition between Episode
five and Episode six since we knew
people were going to have a lot of
feelings about what happened and we also
knew where we were going we knew that
she was going to come back fairly
quickly at the beginning of episode six
and we wanted to find a way to maybe
prepare people for that by kind of
making them think about it and exploring
how the characters were feeling so that
was kind of something we wanted to do
there but in doing so we really needed
to have some conversations about Rytlock
for the most iconic character that we
have in the game we sure don't know a
lot about him there's a lot that has
been kept secret up until the twine that
Alex wrote we didn't know how he got so
often so we set out to figure that we
set out to figure out what his
relationship was with his legion he's
not there very much to say despite being
a Tribune he's absent so we wanted to
kind of look at that and explore what
that means for him we haven't gotten a
chance to get into gridlocks head so we
wanted to do that and I think the big
highlight for that was really getting
into char culture and having a really
big conversation with the entire new
narrative team about what we inherited
from the core game and what we wanted to
do to explore and capitalize that like
play to the strengths of the lore of the
game that's something we've been really
focused on for the last year yeah so I
think that's the biggest highlight those
conversations and looking forward yeah
that was that was really interesting to
hear about even peripherally it was so
much fun
listening to you guys decide what we
what we were gonna do where's this gonna
go yeah yeah so I actually I want to
hear about everybody's highlights about
what you worked on over the past twelve
months so we'll just go this way Oh
and you can have more than one your lab
highlights Manilow to stuff your
favorite things well some of the stuff I
do is a lot of management i I don't know
I mean people give yourself Stewart crap
you want me to go into management so
like I guess one of my one of my
proudest things is seeing my team
members grow on the team like even dahi
right you know you're right you're
sitting right here right I don't want to
like talk third party anyhow but like
you know providing the support to the
team and like you know developing
people's great tracks and also like
really getting a good product out there
and man like a highlight it's just like
it no there's a lot that happens I guess
one of the biggest things I am very
proud of is Jason by filled got a new
title to cinematic marketing lead yeah
and so he's doing a lot of that kind of
like leadership with with the marketing
team and everything and our connection
to that and so that was you know a proud
moment there's stuff I can't talk about
for the future but you know the work
that both dahi and Greg have been doing
animation wise it's just so good to see
their growth in that as well as like
excited for what we're doing for the
product you know in the more craft of it
I'm not being specific here with a lot
of high level kind of stuff about like
how we choose the cinematic moments like
the kind of shift that we've had in
terms of good so because I was only
recently right it was not quite in this
last year it was sort of like in that
year before but still like it's been
more solidified in that the cinematic
moments are more highlighting deep
emotional story connections to help with
those like fibers with you know that the
player character with the NBC year the
what's going on in the world around them
and the culture that they're enveloped
in in this game versus you know here's a
cool now I'm not saying explosions are
bad you know though sure they'll
probably still be explosions in the
future and highlight like big you know
effects moments and they're still
some of that right but it's more instead
of just like hey there's this cool thing
we want to put that cool thing in-game
so when you're the player character you
experience more of like that explosion
happening in real time so you can react
to it and then the more close intimate
moments which is harder to get through
gameplay camera is when we're doing the
cinematic and I I feel and I know a lot
of other people feel the way same way
that it's more impactful to highlight
the story in that regards like the cave
branding I can't imagine doing that in
game and still getting that feeling of
how they're connected now and how
they're both affected by it yeah yeah
because that camera perspective helps
the audience you're it's a language and
of itself on how to guide the audience
and what they're seeing what they're
feeling and you know sometimes just
through like the gameplay cam it doesn't
quite get that same thing same with on
the reverse end like when we're talking
about sin events like when there is a
big explosion happening or say like a
bridge is falling or some other big
event you want to experience that in
your own shoes and not through someone
else's lens but then when it's an
emotional moment you want to experience
that through another lens if that makes
sense yeah it does it absolutely does
how about you you've grown I wish I have
not yeah um but uh speaking of sin
events I think definitely my highlight
was the end of episode 5 when you walk
down that long hallway and see Norina
see Orion at the end and that was a
highlight not only cuz you know it was a
big emotional moment and whatnot but um
like there are a lot of technical
hurdles and I think I was like the sole
animator on that one so that was fun and
also it was a lot of like game cycle
animations which I hadn't done since I
was an intern so it's nice to like go
back and kind of mess around with that
kind of stuff and it was just fun to
explore like another way of telling our
story another way players could
experience
it's the story yeah so yeah I would say
that was my highlight that particular
scene and I know we've talked about that
quite a lot but that particular scene
the work that went into the little
details on that was mind-blowing to
start with but then when we went through
and you and you and I we had talked
quite a lot about the progression of
that and the development of that to make
every little thing look just right and I
I remain astounded and how much went
into it so yeah it was there were a
hundred big and little reasons why that
was so touching and why that was so
powerful so amazing work on that thank
you thank you yeah and all those like
little details and and back and forth
with the designers with various artists
and and environment art and whatnot like
happens for every cutscene you know
every project that we work on it's like
yeah crazy how many cogs need to all
grind together and work together
just to make it happen yeah exactly
exactly yeah so what player reactions
been that you've seen once contact you
worked on got out there man
I mean it was fun to watch streams of
people go through that segment and see
how they reacted like as they get closer
and closer and all the like amazing
sound design stuff that went that went
into that scene to be honest I was also
watching to see if they would make any
comments about the animation yeah
exactly
so that was pretty fun for me that's
cool it's not really in game content but
it's allowed the episode six trailer oh
yeah yeah that was fun - yeah it was a
lot of fun to watch reaction to that
because it was a very different trailer
and very you know Moody yeah I love
moody stuff great go with it it was and
again watching the progression of that
behind the scenes
watching the development of that come
from just like sometimes there's just a
black scream and some words about here's
what's gonna happen here and seeing your
hand and they're fixing the animations
and making things look cool again was
amazing but yeah that was it was a very
different trailer than what we had done
and I loved watching people react to it
and when the twine stories came out we
had people record them on YouTube read
them out loud it's right it's really
wonderful to hear people connecting with
the material and have the cadence of
their voice match what you imagined the
voice actors would do I don't know how
to put this like there's a you know the
voice was written correctly when
someone's able to do that and you know
that the people reading it know the
character as well like that's very
rewarding and it's always wonderful to
see people enjoying what we're putting
out yeah that's um something someone was
saying earlier on an earlier segment in
that we make that well you guys you make
these things you do this work and it's
sometimes a year or more of work on one
thing and finally getting it in front of
people and seeing okay yes they love it
I I made this thing for people to enjoy
and have fun with and that's what's
happening yeah it's lovely gratifying
yeah you spend so much time doing it
behind a curtain and you can't say
anything and you can't show anything so
like that moment when you can debut it
if it's cathartic yeah yeah it feels
amazing and the reactions are so good
and the other thing too is that like
when you're making the thing sometimes
you don't know like what people are
gonna get and what people aren't gonna
get and like we had this whole
discussion for like and it was a long
discussion too and it kept coming up
over and over and over again for trailer
six or four Episode six trailer about
like the five stages of grief and and oh
yeah right and we're we were like the
whole time we were wondering if fans
would even get it and there were a few
comments that were like guys I think
this is the five stages of grief yeah
yeah exactly and that's like cool too
not that like obviously it is our
to make sure that we are clearly
conveying the most important information
right right but there's like there's
often slightly less important
information that adds to the story but
you know it's fine if you miss it but
you'll enjoy so much more if you get it
yeah there will be more depth to it yeah
that subtext layer yeah exactly I think
it's important in a lot of media if it's
not there you're just sort of like a
surface level kind of approach to craft
or you know even just like visual yeah I
think yeah I mean I remember when we
were working on that trailer that we had
long conversations about the body
language between RIT Locke and Logan and
like who would be more aggressive and
like what made sense and like trying it
different ways and what we landed on
felt right but it was a lot of iteration
to get there yeah and but and like on
the flip side sometimes people will read
way too deeply into news I do like again
for that trailer people were analyzing
like okay Logan is pointing exact point
on the map which means we're definitely
gonna go here for episode 6 and like
yeah remember that and yo like it is
amazing that y'all are putting that much
effort it's like viewing our content but
it was yeah just I'm very charming yes
and paying attention to all of those
little details right it feels good to
see that happen mm-hmm and it makes us
think to like sometimes we do yeah okay
if we put this in there is WoodenPotatoes
yeah Oh Myles yeah I'm gonna
read into this okay but be careful now
okay maybe we should do this instead and
be like sometimes it's a nice catch you
know my gosh for instance we like spent
a long time thinking about what brands
gonna be carrying during that ya
cutscene and and that choice was very
deliberate like he's carrying this thing
that you could do for this quest for
Irene her neck yes yeah yeah yeah and it
was like somehow connected with Jaime
and
so you know sometimes we yeah it was
very specific yeah actually that's a
that reminds me of a thing that we put
in again sometimes you very deliberately
put things in and people don't notice
none of y'all caught this when we had we
just did this absurd silly one-off thing
yes he will yeah would potatoes says yes
he will
Bree nom buddy okay so we just sometimes
we just do like random silly things if I
stumble across something on social media
and early in August we stumbled across
this thing there is a town I think in
Minnesota called Bram BR aham well away
and they have a think they have an angle
pi day like pi so that it was a Bram
high day it is a real thing it's like a
recognized holiday they have a Twitter
account and there's like a brand pi day
hashtag and we were like oh my gosh we
have to do something
does anybody have five minutes like
throw something together for me and I
could just like tweet about brand pi day
coz how can we not that's so so somebody
on our team put together this thing
where brim and then they showed like
grams inventory where he had like stacks
of every pie in the game and you guys we
put a thing from Ascended cooking in
there there's a stack of the cheesecakes
all right what are we gonna like
someone's gonna recognize because they
pay attention every time you say
anything yeah so we're gonna put these
cheesecakes in there and then we'll let
them wonder because we're gonna be
talking about a scented cooking pretty
soon anyway so we go and do this nobody
noticed it and we were sitting in our
morning going shame no so you guys miss
something yes at the very end of all of
these tacks by the very last thing in
his inventory was again a very
deliberately pace placed a stack of
cheesecakes that's and that was your
teaser for a scented cooking guys stay
on that ball yeah well something that
you had mentioned earlier you worked on
the Tiny's confession cutscene yes yeah
and one of these standout things from
that was Debi Derryberry
according that yeah she's so good yes
and I did not I did not have to be there
for that particular recording and I say
that because it apparently was just
breaking everyone and it was like don't
talk to her when she's done because
don't try to cheer her up
just leave her alone and let her be for
a couple minutes because she was really
feeling it and I feel like that comes
through and time ease reading mm-hmm I
feel like Julie you could maybe yeah
speak more to maybe not that like
specifically but in general Vo recording
and whatnot because like we don't yeah I
get to go down to to Burbank and I know
I wish I could um mostly because you
guys have Porto's and Burbank
but anyways oh oh yeah I can say that
I'm going down next week to Burbank
because I'm gonna be taking pictures and
putting them on my Twitter account but
yeah we go down to Burbank we record for
a week at a time we get to schedule a
voice actors kind of taught them about
the context of the episode because
narrative isn't just story right it's
contextualization it's the sociology of
the thing like how does it relate to the
gameplay does everything holistic does
it make sense and each voice actor is
different but they're all really
wonderful and all really invested and
interested in their characters I know
that we love playing that Steve clip
where he's talking about how he relates
to RIT Locke oh my god yeah canon didn't
it yeah that's like yeah that's that's
in there now everybody loved it so much
that we were like let's just what's
wrong with that yeah so everyone's
process is different to like some people
are really animated they don't you know
you want to be spoken to other people
are always asking questions we're just
so lucky to have the cast that we have
and you know new faces that'll be coming
up for upcoming content - really excited
to share those people with you as well
yeah okay we want to he can't so close
Nolan North joke Oh oh my gosh so good
uh I just I miss joke oh yeah praise Joe
go I only got the tail energy okay well
I'm also Guild Wars one player so that's
that's fair
yeah steeped a little bit more and in
joke oh yeah I am
I remain sad that we didn't have like a
joke off between Mad King and joke oh
because that's all I could think of what
I knew he was having back yeah it was
like super long time players will
remember like this trash talk battle
between the two of them and it was one
of my favorite things in Guild Wars 1 3
there used to be I'm sure there still is
this youtube series that was like rap
battles they do historical figures but
yes I don't know I need a joke on Mad
King rap battle it already exists
somebody please let me know yeah that
would be pretty funny ok so before we
wrap up is there anything else that you
guys want to let the community know or
talk about that we didn't get to good
question or say anything you want to
tell them before that's not what I mean
don't tell them anything about hahaha I
need this job you stop that I don't
think you're the one who'd get in
trouble what about you Chelsea well say
thanks for playing the game yeah yeah
you know and for seven years of being
with us or even if you're new and you
know whatever time length you've been
with Guild Wars or even your Gil where's
one person like me just thanks for being
here with us yeah and if you are a new
player it can be hard in the beginning
but stick with it because the content
gets really really good not that it's
bad in the beginning it gets better it
gets better it can't no it can be a
little overwhelming oh my god bring it
down a new game oh my gosh yeah
especially an MMO especially an MMO
that's been going for seven years like
that's a lot of the thing I love about
that is that there are still people
hanging around those those started
levels because the way we do leveling
and you're gonna find somebody play with
and I love that that makes me feel so
good it's really fine I enjoy map
completing I'm just I I'm embarrassed to
say how many times I've done map
completely
yeah just to thank you and for your
eagle eyes we put some stuff into the
game I can say that because it's been in
the last year a few weeks ago we snuck
some stuff in and people isolated it and
reversed it and put it on YouTube and
speculated about it on Reddit and that
amount of passion and dedication I think
everyone here in the building really
appreciates and would love to thank
people for that and for their patience
like we we are as excited about Friday
as they are I cannot wait that enough
yeah wait and I guess I don't know if
I'm gonna get in trouble for saying this
or not but don't worry don't worry it's
a good thing okay trust me I trust you
yeah our managers right here I guess I
just want to express because this is
something that I really care about it's
just like diversity and inclusion oh god
you're not gonna get in trouble for that
I hope not but um I guess I don't know
what I'm like want to convey about this
other than that like trust us that like
it is important to so many people at the
studio here like not only for a game but
also for our employees and like everyone
who works here I mean everyone I've
interacted with who works here like
cares about it a lot and we want to
bring you all sorts of different
characters and you know there is a lot
of thought put into like just making
sure that every character isn't the same
kind of archetype that we've seen over
and over and over again but that's all
they want to say is that's something we
care about a lot and and I hope our fans
care about that too I'm glad you said
that I am I am proud of our community in
a lot of ways in that particular in that
particular arena
I'm not intended at all but yeah I'm I'm
very proud with how a lot of our
community has been about that yeah and
I'm very proud of us yeah
and I just want to say like if you don't
see yourself represented in our game
like let us know because you totally
deserve to be represented in our game
you know for yeah no matter what so show
us like we want to hear from people we
want to talk to them and I'm not sure
the best channel to do that but like
people we are listening we do read
things we do even if we aren't
responding we are reading and taking it
to heart
like this is life this is life yeah this
is why we are reading your we were
crowded around the monitor reading all
this stuff in the chat before we came on
here yeah it gets fresh in our minds
yeah yeah alright well that was our your
last set of deaf guests elderly you were
the last set of death guests that will
ever be in this room oh that's right we
are gonna say goodbye to this room a
ghost right right after this dream oh
I'm having some nostalgia about this
room and we're keeping the backdrop
though really that's a whole
conversation we're gonna be selling it
off in the auction from the screen but
it like juts out like yeah yeah we've
been we've been talking a lot about what
to do with all of these pieces she wants
one of the little ones
I was course you can have one in this
room for five years now and we're going
to have a gorgeous new home after
construction has done a few months
you'll be seeing us in our temporary
home on our next live streams gonna be
permanently booked forever for a while
you guys you guys don't know this is
where if you were around in 2012
watching our live streams that's where
we live streamed out of for a very long
time until we got this room we would we
would set up the equipment and then tear
it down at the end the production the
production table like Marc's domain over
there that was one of the barstools out
of the common area with my laptop
sitting on it and then I would sit a
regular chair and the we have come a
long way now we're going to be like that
this time well yeah it won't look like
marks in a closet now
literally yeah in a closet okay it's
like you know he likes it there okay we
didn't make Sarkozy like we're not just
like shoving him in their clothes
storage solution so this is this room
but the new studio is going to be
amazing and I'm super excited new studio
floor we're not moving this studio this
recording yes the new livestream studio
okay cuz I was like re movie no I didn't
just that is not how I would break that
to you yeah so um thank you all for
hanging out with us in this room for the
past five years and we will see you on
the next live stream a happy Anniversary
thank you all we are if you look at the
top left-hand corner of your screen that
is right of here yeah that is how far
out we are from Friday's discussion of
the new living world story of our new
chapter so we are we are very close to
I'm gonna be there no Viera King is also
gonna be there from narrative affairs
awesome she did all that work on the
last raid wing thank you she is amazing
so it'll be us and I think you talked
too quick Clayton said he'd be there
it's gonna be there yeah we're going to
have and a lot of our devs are just
coming to be to be there and it's a
great venue we're really excited yes
more theater in Seattle yeah or if you
can't come in person please join us here
on the livestream channel that you're
watching right now in 43 hours and 54
minutes
it's simultaneously feels like a million
years and five minutes I know right it's
like today it's already Wednesday
stop saying that all right thank you all
we will see you on Friday happy
Anniversary happy Anniversary happy
Anniversary happy birthday
[Music]
[Music]
you

Guild Chat - Episode 90

Transcription[edit]

Introduction [9:08][edit]

Connor, Erik, and Jason [14:17][edit]

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