Guild Chat - Episode 91

Guild Chat - Episode 91

Title

Bound by Blood

Host

Rubi Bayer

Guests

Connor Fallon
Novera King
Kirk Williford
Erik Faggerstrom
Tracey West
Chris Burgess
Jason Byfield
Greg Bekken

Date

September 20, 2019

Official video

YouTube

Previous

90

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92

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

The 91st episode of Guild Chat aired on September 20, 2019. Rubi sits down with eight different guests to discuss the first release of The Icebrood Saga, Bound by Blood. For an entire episode focused on Metal Legion, be sure to check out Guild Chat - Episode 92!

Summary

Introducing the first set of guests

Topic 1

Etc

Introducing the second set of guests

Introducing the third set of guests

Transcription

Introducing the third set of guests (2:11:05)

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hi tyria happy Friday and welcome to
guild chat
I'm your host Ruby and we're talking
about episode we're talking about the
prologue bound by blood today I want to
take a second and thank you guys for
your awesome response we've been having
a ball watching you play and have fun
and give feedback your feedback has been
amazing we are going to talk about the
making of the episode with a whole lot
of our devs today there are going to be
spoilers we're not holding anything back
for this episode you should come back
and just watch the video later we also
are going to answer some of your
questions at the end of each segment so
we're gonna get started but I do have a
thing first that I want to show off that
you guys haven't got to see yet we have
a giveaway that we're going to be
putting on the website after the show is
over today we have and I'm gonna borrow
my notes because there's a whole lot to
tell about these all right yeah it's
just an amazing box the box is part of
the giveaways what's inside the box
[Music]
working with Nike to make a very very
few pairs of custom Nike Air Force ones
and we're going to give some of them
away to you guys we have four pairs to
give away we have two for our in a
players and two Ferrari you players so
I'm going to show these off a little bit
but I'm gonna give this to somebody oh
come on please be careful do they all
come in this box yes let me have the box
lid so they come in this awesome blood
Legion themed
Guild Wars 2 medallion wooden box each
one comes in its own box and is I gave
you guys Joe you can look over it but
you have to give it back because we're
going to give them away
these are RIT laksa themed and I'm gonna
put them over here by the go play GoPros
oh now they see food all right so all
right so these are custom Nike Air Force
one sneakers that have been made
exclusively for us by Nike this is ok
sorry that may have been made
exclusively for us this is exclusive
Guild Wars 2 memorabilia the sneaker
customizations on here are alright luck
themed
so you have on the toe on the tongue
this shoe has a design on the front
panel in black and silver invoking charm
metal work the orange laces are first so
- the lace tips represent it locks red
mohawk Wow and right down here is also
red for RIT luxe Mohawk and for ArenaNet
the back panel or the side panel I'm
sorry has the Guild Wars 2 logo and the
Blood Legion symbol on the tongue and on
the top of the box brings all of those
elements together so we're going to be
giving away four pairs of these check
our website after the show for all the
details on how to enter that's kind of
Awesome you guys do have to give that
back I'm sorry good luck guys keep the
box thank you great keep saying right
yeah the box is amazing it is rather
heavy I kind of love it
alright so why don't we talk about bound
by blood yeah alright yeah would you
like to hold a shoe later
oh why don't you guys introduce
yourselves talk about what you worked on
for bound by blood all right I'm Kirk
Williford I worked on let's see the who
spit Mehta the do-more shrine Mehta as
well as the final store instance some
other events in the open world map like
the target shooting in the chef event as
well as the strike mission up to the
final boss that was not me oh I think
you had some of that I don't think so we
still are going to talk about yeah hi
I'm the Veera King I'm the narrative
design the lead narrative designer on
this particular episode so all the
golden path stuff overseeing that and
ambient dialogue and writing meta Legion
lyrics and I feel like other story
related things
so hello I'm Connor Fallon I'm also a
designer I worked on chapters 1 & 2 of
the story which included drunk Bram and
the part where you going picking up pick
him up from the prison I worked on a
couple other events the demo derby the
smelting event and I worked on the metal
Legion concert that was my event
so yeah that's what I did awesome
alright so the metal Legion concert I
mentioned to a couple people before the
meta Legion concert we are going to do
another guild chat next week that goes
into the making of this band and maybe
some of the people who did the vocals
and created these new characters so
we're gonna talk about that a little bit
today but definitely tune into next
week's guild chat for that so and
actually I do need to make a quick note
the shoes are Nike airs but they were
made by a customer not a customizer not
specifically I'm sorry mark has many
things to say so I'm trying to listen
and talk not by Nike specifically but
they are Nike airs so ok I
well why don't you guys start what do we
want to talk about first do we want to
talk about Bhangarh and Krisha yeah they
are fascinating um they are two of my
favorite things about working on this
episode so with the prologue we're
introducing you know new folks who are
going to have an impact on the ice boot
saga going forward but you know people
had Bhangarh had been mentioned in the
past as RIT locs
Blood Legion Imperator and no one had
ever really met him before and so the
process of breaking it down and figuring
out like what does what's his
personality like what's his voice like
not necessarily in terms of voice acting
and casting that but just you know how
bombastic is he or is he very reserved
or you know in same with Krisha like all
the little nuances of who they were
going to be that was actually a really
long process for me personally a lot of
times I need like to think about
references from other movies or
television shows or or even book
characters that I'm like okay it's this
character is sort of like that mashed
with this mash with that and and you
know what at different times we were
like is Bhangarh you know what is the
guy's name Walter in The Big Lebowski
the one who's like a he's like the vet
who's played by John Walter yes like we
were like is he like Walter like this
sort of like ridiculously bombastic
character who's like calm calm calm and
then like loses his bad word or you know
loses his cool yes and just sort of
snaps or is he somebody you know he was
such a great military leader and he's
been the imperative for so long he's the
oldest Imperator and the longest-running
impaired her I actually ended up landing
on him being Patton oh yeah so I don't
know maybe some folks were like who
but they might not have seen the movie
with Georgie Scott and I rewatched that
and I wouldn't tell you it's definitely
from not this decade but in watching
that the sort of you know the way the
patent was for his for like the way that
he would give speeches and rally his
troops but also the fact that he was
sort of a loose cannon at moments but he
did some really crazy things that paid
off that that sort of personality really
in the back of my brain and as I was
writing that opening speech for Bhangarh
was really informing that so I feel like
I'm rambling but okay I'm here to ramble
I love Bhangarh it was really fun seeing
the character development just from
start to finish of anger as a character
through through the speeches was like
the the opening mail you get the
invitation from Bhangarh just seeing as
the character came into form and how
those like the the iterations of the
letter and the speeches would change and
it's just like he developed his
character so I don't know smoothly even
like we could see the inspiration and it
was just really fun to watch and the
voice actor is incredible yeah
stellar although I have to say my
favorite thing I really enjoy it the
Jeannette he also plays some generic
sylvari in the map like some of the mail
Safari and I'm mostly familiar with him
from Castlevania so whenever the one of
the run past most Safari oh my god it's
Dracula
[Laughter]
he's amazing voice actor he can't help
but sound like awesome no I really want
like a salwar a Dracula side story but
anyway that's just my brain I'll just
watch this video later and then for
Krisha you know she is writ Locke's
oldest friend like oldest friends
they've been friends since they were
little in the Ferrar and they were both
sort of on the outskirts of their own
war band because you know writ Locke if
you've read the twine right lock was rot
lock and Krisha is parents are flame
Legion she was her mother was a flame at
each end refugees the Blood Legion and
so
has that she's an elementalist so she's
a little bit on the outskirts for that
reason as well and so they bonded very
young but there are also very different
personalities so sort of trying to
figure out who she was you know how she
would present herself to folks who
aren't RIT lock and Bhangarh how she
would present herself to RIT lock what
they're like communication style was
gonna be that was a lot of fun to
iterate on and and read out loud and
really you know get down into it and
then Charisse booth is amazing she's our
voice voice actress for four Krisha as
well I know I say that a lot but our
voice actors our entire voice acting
cast is so stellar then yeah every time
we call out one in particular you know
you're remembering the work that they do
and who they've been voicing and it's
just so flawless all the time I remember
um when we realized who Creech's voice
was going to be it was way back when
Charisse was doing that the trailer that
preceded last like episode six of last
season when Sofia
Saphira does that like great voiceover
and Julianne Arden and I were sitting in
the back of the recording studio booth
and we looked at each other and we were
like she she she's Krisha like that yes
that's okay yes yeah we know who our
Krisha is now and so as I was writing
Krisha and developing it I was thinking
about what her voice was gonna sound
like as a char and and it really kind of
informed a lot of the things that I did
so at some point we need Saphira and
Krisha to like talk to each other you
know what I would not put it past Ries
like I think she could make that happen
so there's a precedent
[Laughter]
okay that's gonna be out of here so I do
want to touch a little bit on what you
said about Bhangarh being very cool and
very collected until he said until it's
something like interrupt me again and
I'll have you can yeah he's a showman he
is a showman in that and that's some of
that pattern as well like he knows how
to get his troops of tension up on that
stage and the way that he performs on
stage at the beginning is very different
than how he speaks to the commander and
RIT lock when he comes down at the end
of that doctor hitch of his voice is
just different like goes up when he's
giving a speech and then when he's using
oh hi commander yeah exactly and like I
think part of that is bang garze ability
to be this amazing battlefield commander
he is a strategist he reads the the lay
of you know of the situation and he make
snap decisions and moves the troops the
way he needs to move them with whatever
means he has and well and he reacts very
quickly that's and we've seen a little
bit of that in bound by blood the
quaggan are not having a good time we've
seen a little bit of that bound by blood
where he was immediately like I hope you
all enjoyed the show with our big dragon
for now right right like he's just okay
I'll roll with it yeah I will use it to
my advantage because he has to keep
control right yeah and that's it's it's
a more simple and obvious thing than
moving troops on a battlefield but I
think it's it seems like it speaks to
who he is even even like things like
putting on a concert right he finds ways
to like bend the message of the concept
ever so slightly this direction I mean
yeah that was something we had fun with
for the entire episode was figuring out
how like little seeds of I don't know
propagandistic you know how can how can
we use how could banger use this to his
advantage to help you know yeah further
his message obvious he has a whole role
he started in the mid
Durov Moretti he has a minister of
morality like her whole purpose is to
get people emotionally and like like
mentally in the the lane that Bhangarh
wants to keep them in you know and get
them pumped in a certain way and be his
touch points out in the world to get
that propaganda like you were talking
about so let's talk a little bit about
this chart gathering and how did this
come about and what are they okay
but how this came about and what they
want to accomplish and how you guys got
to this point
mm-hmm I think that goes into I know
there's probably a question here but I'm
gonna jump ahead there's a question that
I'm sure will come up later about this
being a prologue episode before the
iceberg saga really gets going it was
important to us to allow the folks of
Tyria to celebrate Crockett oryx death
that's a huge thing and especially
coming off of episode six of season four
we're just fighting so much fighting all
the time you know I mean like so much
battle and there has to be a release
valve for that and the char you know
they they they fight hard they play hard
it seemed like a really great entry
point for us to jump into a moment to
really have that release in very
visceral ways with the char yeah um
right ya know I think I think it's I
think it's important to note that the
reason why it was a prologue was largely
it's there it's been narrative reason
right like this is the chapter that
that's it's like it's a it's kind of
tangental but it's also setting up the
groundwork for what comes later and that
was that was kind of and it was
interesting to see like all the
different things that people read into
what prologue might mean like well don't
be surprised comes out but yeah the and
there's just been a lot of it was a lot
of fun to figure out like we basically
this is an opportunity to dive deep into
the char before we
head up north or I guess we had we're
going elsewhere we move in a direction
to visualize the map weren't you no no I
wasn't doing anything anyway but uh and
it's just an opportunity to like really
like really focus in on this one culture
which is what was you know knowing we
were that was our goal going in allowed
us to make a lot of choices like doing a
char exclusive helm right and do it and
really like doing things that are like
bringing allowing us to focus on char
and in a way that we haven't been able
to in a while that was really nice it
was also how no Vera was saying before
yeah Episode six was so heavy and yes it
was it was incredibly heavy in terms of
its tone so we were able to kind of peel
back that a little bit for prologue and
have it be a little bit more light
lighthearted on the surface still
starting to sprinkle you know a little
something things aren't as they seem
yeah it's a big reason that the maps
like less combat oriented right just
like we've come off a bunch of those
let's do one that's a little more calm
like you can spend your time charcoal
yeah yeah and that's that is something
that you mentioned about episode 6 and
episode 5 - yeah I mean the end of the
end of season 4 was gut-wrenching pretty
much the whole second half of it what's
yeah there was just a lot happening and
having a party now that we got through
that and we we won I just realized
someone major dies in every episode in
the latter after like Joker dies then
Blish dies boilers and then dies like we
had a major it's it's okay no I'm
warning people well yet if you don't
want that this is when you need to stop
watch yeah you should have stopped
watching a couple minutes ago but here
now you might as well just stay
I do think that you know and one of the
things that Connor was saying about you
know focusing and on the char being able
to like focus on one people and allow
them in a lot of ways what try are
people to people that allow to reflect
Tyria in a way is really effective in
trying to understand what is gonna
happen what's going on interior not just
on the you know the majority of folks at
the party are there at a party you know
they really really are and yes we have a
whole lot of political machinations and
other seeing things that are brewing
that people are not even aware of even
if it's brewing for themselves that's
sort of life right like you know some of
these things sort of there can be drama
beneath you know the the fun that's
being had so I think that part of being
able to spend time of the char and get
like a microcosmic very personal view of
what it meant what it means right now
for people interior allowed us to sort
of explore that you know Crockett Oryx
death yeah from a design perspective is
really it was fun and not something we
you know we haven't explored char as
much as we did in this in this release
so just from design you know when you
and I and frosty and we're you know
trying to figure out how would the char
handle these scenarios in in a game
design perspective right like how do how
would we get a concert to me how would
they handle that yeah just those kinds
of thinking about that was really fun
from a design there's also one layer
lower than char like as a group
there was also hey let's bring the
differences between the legions and was
the different legions are looking for
hair right like I don a bunch of the one
thing I didn't say that I did was a
bunch of the secret like the whole fact
that there's an ash camp that's like a
front and then you like need to solve a
puzzle and then there's the actual like
ash camp like ash came here with their
own motives iron Legion came here with
their own motives that are trying to
hawk their stuff and get people to buy
their tanks right like and like and then
flame flame has some really
interesting dynamics had an in attending
this event and we really had the
opportunity to like especially like from
a player perspective like if you're ash
if you're if you're iron if you're blood
like you're me for two of those you meet
your imperative for the first time in
this episode and we we had a there was a
lot of stuff we were able to do
design-wise and like yeah you should get
a slightly different hint if you're Ashe
like if malice is a little bit more
straightforward with you about what you
need to do to figure out what's actually
going on or like and and I don't know
that was fun to play with from from a
design perspective I think it from a
from a narrative perspective it just
gave us so much rich potential story to
mine as well in terms of like you know
trying to figure out who malice and like
who malice is whose motor is how they
would be different from Bhangarh and
like how they would relate to the
commander regardless of whether or not
the commander is char or something else
and allowing us to kind of you know
shine a light a little bit more on what
the relationship between the Imperator's
might be that week yeah we'll hopefully
see in the future we've never actually
seen any of the Imperator's other than
this motor before wake or a stock calls
them smoulder know yeah they found it
yeah I was it was first day there's now
we know what ArenaNet audiences like
saucy romance I mean it's kind of its
kind of the inverse of its if there's a
cultural clash right of the people who
are really embracing all these races
coming together in many different ways
and the people who are less for that
right and like and and I it was I think
even as I think you talked about this a
lot as we were laying in the
undercurrents of hey here are the people
who are really not for everyone coming
together you also need to have that
counterpoint of life there are char that
are totally like we we're now like a
collective right we work with all these
we've been doing that for years it was
really important that we show that
balance too and not have the Chara feel
monolithic at all I think it would be a
we'd be doing a really serious
disservice to the players and to the
that story in that race as a group if we
were like they're all the same they're
all war mongering hating not to call out
anyone specifically but if you have been
insisting that char should be a certain
way char many different delicately as I
can possibly put it there's a lot of
like a flirty char happening oh yeah you
like I said flirt yes instead of being
like parents yeah let's talk about those
conversations leading up to development
because as you put it you need Cubs yeah
yeah you need Cubs the blood okay okay
so let's break this down for a second
so we were talking about like how to
explore and show you know what when we
were trying to break down events and
actually let's can we throw that that
might be good okay so way back in
December yeah design and narrative and
eat a bunch of other folks crowded in a
room I think we might have been in this
room even and we were like okay what are
the ways that we're going to show who
the charr are how are the ways that we
can do that through events you know the
demolition derby the concert the the the
hunting that they can do the the
shooting and all of that and then some
of those things had to do with cultural
things too you know we talked about how
into fighting and military and war the
the charr are we talk about how much
they like meat well that's that's
fighting that's food there's another
thing that you know folks got to do
[Laughter]
fighting food in four are exactly so
part of this I mean think about it the
blood Legion are the infantry they're
the infantry Legion and infantry means
you need bodies they are very focused on
their cubs and so it started to make us
think like well what what are the
courting rituals of the char and at one
point we were like we got all these
legions coming together for the first
time you know laura has already said
that like legions major life is very
mating for life is a rare thing among
the char and you know crit Krisha and
Whitlock who have a very close
relationship that's a more rare thing to
have a cub and then stay that close to
someone but we were like okay so if
you're gonna maybe get it on with
someone from a different Legion like
what does that look like what makes them
attractive and so on the white board we
had this moment where we were like okay
so what makes char attractive to each
other and maybe we should have them have
like there's no like char tinder there's
no like tinder we should size of their
acts at one point up on that board it
was a long meeting l we were in the room
for like two and a half hours and like
the free sex bonfire actually ended up
on the board and if you look at that
whiteboard picture if you see where
we've crossed it out because we didn't
call it that but underneath that it's
like this is guild chat you guys know
all the behind the scenes stuff but we
decided it shouldn't necessarily be an
event but it is still important yes that
we deal with the idea of like char
people and people you know they find
other people attractive there's like
relationship stuff they're like how does
that work and so pudding I have to say I
had so much fun writing and being
conversations that were like flirty or
somebody checking somebody out or like
talking about their Cubs or like
whatever like adding that way or
because it just makes the charm more
real I think as opposed to like
caricatures you know so people are again
going to this party with different
motivations I mean like anyone who's
ever been to a music festival
I'm just being yeah so yeah all right
and thank you for the whiteboard picture
because there is so much good stuff on
there there yeah you guys if you like
dig into it what does that mean yeah so
I think there was something up there
that actually said Bhangarh equals
presidents no question mark because we
were like oh is it I don't know this is
like I said this was back in December so
we were still figuring figure out who
exactly Bhangarh was and I can see that
presidents know there's there's more
going on behind the surface he's not as
benevolent as one might hope right but
we'll have to wait and see what happens
speaking of Cubs we didn't talk about
Ryland and that's this is a bit of an
episode full of not quite bombshells but
we've got Ryland the flame Legion ER
here there's a lot happening so I feel
like we left Ryland still kind of
mysterious cuz most of your most of the
Ryland interactions were you pretending
to be Ryland yeah yeah I mean I can talk
a little bit about how cuz like I've
worked on some of the early drafts of
like the Ryland hanging out with Bram
scripts yeah I'm gonna lead you into
that talking about okay go ahead because
I think as we were trying to this was
not to be Rylands episode necessarily we
were putting him on the stage in a way
for RIT lock to react to a little bit
more um but also his relationship with
Bram was the way that we would get to
know a little bit more about Bram and
set that up going forward and get to
know a little bit more about Ryland so
yeah I mean it's you know it's a getting
question if like there's there's the
kind of this now that the episodes over
there's this question of like how
genuine was their connection
and because there's some really nice
moments in their conversations with each
other where where Rylands really
supportive right of RAM and like the
things that Bram struggling with because
they actually do have a lot in common
they both have been like they both have
larger than life parents right they both
like there are a number of things for
them to bond over but you know from that
the end of episode that Ryland had a
goal right it's the front like the
entire time which was to string key
brands yeah yeah drink RAM under the
table and get the bow right like and
it's it's it's I remember I was watching
a stream where it's the moment someone
realized that what Ryland had been up to
the whole time their mouth just dropped
open and but it was important for us to
make those moments like between them
genuine right yeah and yeah and that's
why there's that's why one of the things
I implemented was it like a chaperone
achievement to like go chicken on Bram
so you can just get a little bit more of
those interactions and like and see a
bit of that we also do we have the video
of the extra Bram Cole so now I want to
give some I want to give some backstory
to this we we obviously iterated on
these a number of times and there was
one that we didn't that was the final
one that was a little too light for him
to be in jail the next episode so we
ended sorry the next chapter so we
replaced it but apparently we didn't
remove her from the scripts so we got it
recorded anyway and the delivery is
great so I'd like to play for you the
extended edition drunk Bram scene Alec
sticks his head in the room and goes go
to the tape
[Music]
braum that's not a good idea so that was
that I think that's also a good example
of how we were iterating on the
situation with Bhangarh and how serious
that was going to be and yeah the drama
was going to be because once we really
solidified this the the serious
storyline it was like that's funny it's
too light yeah that was too light the
idea of breaking into bank ARS office
and moving things around we were like
Bhangarh we're dealing with it ya know
but it is it is super fun to think about
and honestly the whole Bram getting
progressively and progressively more
hammered yes and calling you over and
over was there's a lot going on to the
surface but it was such a funny light
thing to have in there I'm always
surprised when bits of my temp dialog
get through the ship
my favorite one my favorite one I have
to i'm unfortunately responsible for we
put the band back in war band in case we
making bad puns was not obvious did not
make that obvious but Bram's one of his
Bram's chosen insults when he's doing
the taunting is go suck a snowball is
one of my favorite things I didn't know
that was like a temp thing until I think
you told me last week oh yeah and I
start showing up on posters and I'm like
oh my god I mean there was a lot of
stuff from this episode that kind of
started off as like there's no way yeah
yes just like oh haha
wouldn't it be funny if then next week
tune in yeah the concert was just like a
funny idea yeah it was it was it was
definitely like people were talking
about
what are they some of the crazy things
that char could get up to at a party and
it was like well they totally have music
I'm like ha that's crazy then they're
like I think I came back like the next
day and I'm like I want to actually do
it guys I think I know how I do it
anyway but yes that was fun because as
this idea grew people start getting
attached to it yeah we started finding
as many ways as possible to make things
work yeah you know just how can we make
this unique and fun and different than
what we've done before and some worked
better than others yes I think also just
trying to find ways for me on the like
this is a great idea for an event and
it's super super char how do we hook it
into the theme every time like how do we
make this a little bit darker or how do
we make it like a reminder for players
of you know this is a this is a culture
that is it's a military culture just
like they are soldiers even when they're
having fun you know this is about the
legions coming together the ooze pit
event is a great example of that like
the theme of you guys will be better if
each of the individual legions who have
these strong you know ways of fighting
if those things come together and they
work in tandem right so yeah that was a
lot in the flame Legion like chain of
like hey look we're trying to like
connect with everybody like I'll be
Oliver metas tie into our themes which
um the whole the whole metal cycle was
an interesting that kind of evolved over
time like initially we were talking
about just doing two and then it was
like oh no like we're really close like
this one feels like it should be for
this Legion and it's like well the I
think originally do more was not ash
theme figured out a way yeah you can you
could talk more about that well it'd
mean you pretty much right like we kind
of tried shuffle things around how it
does this make more sense to be flame
flame effigy obviously is the obvious
one if do we want to use pit to be blood
will know the concerts blood because so
just trying to figure out where it fit
in and even though the in Doom Laureen
like it's a it's technically led by in
Ashley Jen engine well know
Asch operation yeah but it's essentially
a flame Legion shaman trying to prove
their worth you know proof should show
the other legions that hey flame has
something to contribute here and that's
one of the themes that we were trying to
go for for the flame Legion in general
is like we are more than what you
thought we were
we've changed you know what we want to
prove our worth yeah the char want to
win mm-hmm anything and I think that
that's one of the things that Bhangarh
recognizes as well he's like I want the
char to be this great force and I can't
if we're not complete I want to quickly
touch on the flame Legion thing because
I think we were talking earlier about
how char contain multitudes right like
yes there is a dominant culture but
within that culture there's like several
offshoots right and every individual is
different the flame Legion was very
interesting for that reason right
because it's like the flame Legion was
real bad news and like like there and
and Ephraim I think you did a really
really good job of having him be like
he's someone who grew up in a culture
that was built around bigotry and is
just kind of like I've had enough and I
want something better for ya so when my
housemate plays the game my old
housemate and when he when he when he
sent me an excerpt from I think he's
like our P guilds chat and one of them
they had a picture of brisket is like
wherever this cub is I will defend them
with my life so yes confirmed frisky is
ephram's daughter krysta as ephram's
daughter yes yes first question yeah
well never end I don't think we'll ever
answer this but it's it's interesting I
like the timeline of well I'm curious
about Ephraim like has he evolved as a
character right how did ya come yeah
yeah I think that I'm gonna say that yes
Ephraim has evolved as a character
because he is you mean from like like
where he would have been 10 years yeah I
don't think that ephram's all
Ben this had this sort of a perspective
on hatred and what it can do and and and
how dangerous it is and why the flame
Legion needed to make this change I
think that he's definitely someone who
has had some experiences that have
evolved his worldview yeah
and to the point where you know the
flame Legion they are swallowing a lot
of pride in coming to the all Legion
rally not just that the deal that
Bhangarh makes and if you probably heard
this in some of the ambience the deal
that Bhangarh makes is that you must
bring your cubs to join our Ferrar they
must come in to the Blood Legion for our
like at a certain age so to make that
sacrifice to bring your young ones in on
the one hand from the flame Legion it's
like yes we are well intentioned like we
only we definitely are committed to this
we're gonna bring our next generation
with a hundred percent good intentions
and then on the flip side of that of
like the sacrifice that you're making to
do that and they're pretty much refugees
and that was a delicate being that that
you know the narrative team we really
wanted to explore as well because just
because you're asking for help doesn't
mean that you don't have pride and what
is that conflict feel like and internal
conflict but also when you recognize
that there are some amends that you have
to make so there was a lot that was
going on there and then the evolution of
that Legion because if you're coming
back into the fold well then that means
you've got to get rid of some of these
old ideas like your women are gonna have
to like like your girl cubs are coming
into the Ferrar and they are going to
learn a different way they're gonna
become the way that like you know char
have been historically so you know it's
it was it was challenging but I think I
hope that we did a good job with you
know there were there are a lot of story
threads that we couldn't really deep
dive into the in the golden path because
there just isn't time and we did the
ambient dialogue did a lot of heavy
lifting on a lot of those things like
one around the flame camp and you get
bits of the story but people talk about
I'm gonna butcher his name the old flame
Imperator not even gonna try Karen yeah
people talk about that the very thing
like to female now soldiers are like
what does this mean for us like are they
going to make us train now like and
there's just a lot of I don't know I it
allowed us to accomplish a lot yeah yeah
well and that's something to that was
and you know we kind of laugh about
I love Prisca I would die for her she
honestly is she is my favorite I love
her but that all of that conflict
between the ways that they were thinking
and coming back into the fold and making
amends and giving them your cups all of
this
I feel like Prisca she articulated that
in a way that was really touching where
she was talking about I miss my old
friends I'm having trouble with the
other girls
yeah and I'm I'm in this Farrar that I
didn't ask to be in yeah and then there
was a story step where you're looking
for the one-eyed char and you pass a bit
of ambient dialogue where there's a char
saying you know parents checking on
their cups it happens more often than
anybody wants to admit and it speaks to
a lot of what's going on there that
we're not really paying a lot of
attention to but it's still part of the
world people are still here I mean yeah
it's not an official part of the culture
but like in your personal story you have
a choice you're who you're who your
parent is changes how people view you
like there's still some of that going on
and Prisca is the person who and later
in the story is raises the alarms right
I can talks to Ephram yeah yeah okay I
could I could honestly sit here all day
and talk about like char culture and
interaction good but I do I also want to
touch on the events we talked about
those a little bit but I went to delve
into those let's talk about the I I keep
calling up bumper cars let's talk about
the demo derby a little bit sure so
originally I was trying to do I actually
didn't set out to make a demo derby I
set out to me guess what I know I know I
set out to make
right another different Thai style of
race we're using the charr car and no
matter what
I couldn't the with the speed that
mounts give a racing a transform just
feel slow now right and I could do
things to try to override that but like
they got the animations got weird
outside of like making a mount that was
a char car they wasn't really reasonable
and and it was like well we've already
got all these cool what are you looking
at it's okay you're fine
okay we've already got all these neat
skills that basically came from the
world v-world shark car so the quiet we
basically let's do what these skills are
what these cars are good at which is
blowing things up and blowing each other
up and the demo derby is a very
destructive party right it felt like it
hit the theme right like yeah it's like
look I know cool our cars are blowing
each other up and it's you know there
was a lot of questions like we haven't
really done I called the event like a
collaborative PvP event because the way
it works is like everybody gets credit
when somebody dies but you're also
trying to like score the most points for
your illusion and they're you know we
haven't we haven't really done in a
while sort of an open world PvP event so
like there was a lot of unique things to
test and see if they worked but you know
the very early on it was clear that like
it was enjoyable but then I had to
contend with the giant arene statue
being put yeah I mean I knew it was
gonna be there but I was kind of like
it'll be fine and it was fine but like
it is it was interesting they did change
the feel from the the rink being a
circle to a donut right it means like
you can hide behind the statue and
position yourself differently and yeah I
feel like I missed an opportunity to
have the demo derby announcer like say
like talks them some like say something
about the fact that that statute was in
the middle there oh yeah I'm like me you
know like add a little bit of the fear
of Ohrid and he wants it that damn it
amazing oh well yeah that's next demo
derby we do with the giant arraign stuff
yeah
okay the promise the next demo dirty we
do with a giant rain statue in the
middle next one it has to be that exact
set of circumstances a flashback or
something
well we characters are like remember
that time we were in a demo derby and
then the only scooby-doo but there's
also a nerd that was also talking about
little touches for if you're a char and
you're Allegiant like one of the if you
sign up with the demo derby like instead
of being like just a sign up for a
random legion if you're Ashley Jin a
shows up at the top and it's like my
legion - like I want to support them
yeah and then of course you betray them
half the time but actually I would I
would love to hear some more about how
that came about how you how do you work
all of these legions coming together so
we went into this map knowing that there
was some locations from gw1 that we
wanted to see if we can get you know
bring them away and this was one of them
in which case were like okay how could
how would we bring this back in a way
that makes sense in context of a big you
know HR party you know the Blood Legion
what would the Blood Legion do with this
area and it was a case of well they
might have kind of maybe they
domesticated the users in a way and
they're starting to use them you know
farm news is for their use yes
absolutely so they turn into sorry they
do smell like sewage but that makes them
more valuable and I think it's true
that's that's canon now so it was a case
of okay what's not this time it was yeah
actually this time it says description
underneath the champion who says so from
there were like okay well what would the
Blood Legion do here well going into the
themes of unification and they're trying
to use this to use this entire event to
prove that everyone is one char can we
use this for for gladium to come and
kind of
themselves to try to rejoin a new war
band or you know show that yeah I'm
still valuable to a legion and so this
was a case that well aside from the
flame who theoretically hadn't reached
yet there'd be three there's three lanes
so we're like okay what what can we
build that have more themed automatic
ties to the ash Legion to the iron
Legion to the Blood Legion in which case
you know as as I think you said before
Connor or maybe you know either way it
was blood Legion as the numbers right
there the hey they just throw bodies
it's like they they need to separate and
understand how to move around in large
numbers to figure out their goals right
ash needs to be a little bit more
secretive or selfie and try to
accomplish goals and you know infiltrate
where's iron is just a little bit more
tinkering with in this case plumbing but
figuring out that and then it was a case
of well how do we get those two them to
learn the mechanics of their individual
lanes and their individual legions and
bring them all together in a way that
makes sense and teaches two to one char
in which case that was obviously the
Grand Champion is in in the idea there
was design wise for players was to
hopefully have players communicate what
they learn and their individual lanes
into one part because that's why there's
call-outs and video saying hey ash
you're up yeah you know iron you're up
look I'm not I'm you better do good or
I'm gonna be disappointed because the
announcer is blow agent you've been like
me but I'm disappointed it's true
they'll might have you killed there's
something chances banger but anyway so
is a case of you know trying to get the
players to communicate you know learn
learn the individual lanes and I think
it was really interesting from a design
perspective when we shipped just seeing
players communicate you know doing what
we were hoping players would do and have
that behavior of communication just
building a community and you know
helping explain that there's differences
between the legions so that was really
fun to see all right so we're getting
it's getting very late but I want to ask
I have a couple more questions for you
and then we will hit on the questions
that you all in the forum's asks what
was your favorite thing to work on for
me was probably the target shooting
event just because that event started
off in my head is something that would
theoretically be pretty simple to build
I was prototyping it while we are doing
the whiteboards about what HR party was
and it was a case of well this is this
is just something that I'm enjoying to
come back to and just do for fun yeah
that's like let's find a way to make
this work okay well there's a Farrar
there might be a target shooting area
marksman training and then it ended up
being incredibly complicated to actually
get working because of the the use of
moving platforms that happen and one of
our programmers Joel ended up being a
lifesaver in multiple ways across
building this event because there was a
few things tech wise that our our engine
wasn't really handling that well like if
you don't move on a moving platform but
you are still moving on the moving
platform the game might not have known
you are still moving that was weird and
it was fixed and Joel's a lifesaver
there but it just sounds like Joel yeah
and then having a bunch of targets that
are also moving up and down but they
need to be player specific there was a
lot of connected you know cross streams
which we know we shouldn't cross streams
so the cost of trying to get those all
the work and I think it was really
successful and really fun and I always I
just keep enjoying coming back to that
event and just shooting things it's fun
it's like Connor built like a
Destruction Derby event in a concert and
we have a third-person shooter
essentially in art like this map has a
lot of really there's so many unique
tournament piece karaoke that was the
one thing I really wanted us to have
that we didn't have was cherry okie oh
okay I'm sorry there's so much though
yeah yeah yeah all right so what about
you I don't thing to work I you know
other than than building up Bhangarh and
Krisha and figure out who they were I
would say that the complexities of
presenting the differences between
having pride and patriotism and who you
are and who your people are versus
nationalism and that sort of like
exclusionary feeling and putting those
things against each other in very
reasonable ways like that was a real
challenge to show that like okay you can
see how someone who has like okay one
char doesn't have to be a bad thing and
it shouldn't be a bad thing you know to
say like we're all united we are better
when we are
together the things that make us char
are like wicked and amazing and should
be celebrated but that doesn't mean that
then we should go off and kill all the
folks who aren't sure do you know I mean
like but like having that sort of
balance there and and showing that
people's fears can be played into like
the vacuum that that Crockett or ik
brings the fact that there's a new elder
dragon and like the the way that the
Bhangarh is able to drum up this feeling
of like it's an arms race it takes
people's fears and then plays into their
pride and morphs it into something
that's problematic and so trying to
figure out how to do that in a way that
still allowed us to have fun and
ratcheted the tension in a way that
started off as like good everything's
good that's okay that's okay it's still
good to go oh crap okay and then and
then and then also weaving in like RIT
locs family drama because it's like
you're invited to his like twisted
family Thanksgiving and you're like the
guests at the table and then they like
start having a fight and you're like oh
snap that's how I felt about like
constructing that story um and so I
think that's what I had a lot of fun
with it was probably the those are the
things that were the most difficult for
me but also the most rewarding
I mean I've obviously the concert but
like other than the concert and the demo
derby which have already talked about I
I found a lot it there was a lot of fun
actually in the precursor event to the
demo derby which is the one where you're
collecting scrap and you're throwing it
in the for me the little mini game where
you pump the bellows and like like yeah
it was it was you know a lot of this a
lot of the stuff we do is finding like
things that we've done and doing them a
little bit differently
so in this case I literally Eric had
made this script for like the spiders
right trying to break out in those
spider webs and I'm like I'm gonna take
this mini game and like tweak it a
little bit and it'll become pump the
bellows and and and the the little the
dynamic of like needing a balance like
the trying to collect the things while
also balancing the heat of the furnace
kind of added a
extra dimension to that that that I I
don't know I really and I really just
kind of like the way it flowed I'm very
happy with it
and the way I guess one of the things
was kinda nice about it is that I was
very happy with it very early on suppose
like oh this works on other things
generally like I like treat each week
and I'm like that one that one like I've
got like fell in the place rather easily
which was a nice feel especially because
I was trying to do some other crazy
things and having one of my events be
like okay that did feel good yeah the
ash stealth adventure was also fun
mainly because like uh you know I did it
was doing a lot of weird things like
having little dummies that are
patrolling on a path and it was it was
interesting trying to get that to
balance out and work well alright we
have a couple of quick back to behind
the scenes things that we want to show
off I think that came from you and you
we had the char on the tank oh yes can
we show that and then we can talk about
what what happened so in early
iterations of figuring out like what we
wanted the chart metal Legion to do like
we wanted to have them come in on a
chart tank right these things are really
rad they're all over the game and
chareyre ia's but they're not very used
very often this was a early prototype
trying to figure out if it would work in
this case it didn't work it was a case
that you know they shot witnessed me and
then slam their heads into the ground
but it was just trying to figure out
what using our mount tech can we get it
you know attaching him to the right
points we wanted to have the guitars on
the the sides a singer singing you know
yeah almost mad max-style you know
flames everywhere the jokes we all went
absolutely so it was the case of just
figuring it out in that case we didn't
really have the time to invest in
getting that working in that way
partially because the way the
environment worked out yeah there's
better ways hard to drive a tank up a
clip right there's a place for us to
accomplish this you know we can make it
feel cool in another way so that was
that case but it's still really fun
outtake to have and it's maybe something
we can look into eventually someday but
yeah okay and there's some
that I'm saving for the guild chat about
metal Legion I do want to talk a little
bit about the char racking and okay
I know Eric's planning to talk about
this a little bit let's bring in char
Rat King writes that a bunch of tales
bunch are standing in one place yes the
char ball ball so we have chart moving
dynamically throughout the map as
they're attending events this was kind
of is actually a surprisingly
interesting it was an interesting
problem to solve how to get that to work
well and you know it wound up being a
lot of collaboration between Tracy
myself and and and Eric but one of the
earlier implementations had an edge case
where if I was debug it did we bring up
the thing if I if I was debug running
the concert early and then they were
called to the concert again they would
be like oh we have to go to the concert
and the concerts location is this
specific point it's this one little guys
yes so they all moved to the same point
and the result was this a multi-headed
8000 tailed char abomination that would
just be standing in the middle of the
concert and cheering occasionally yeah
yeah there's like 80 char they moved
throughout our map for these events so
we this is really a t-chart
standing on one point and I'm hyping it
up and I'm waiting for the gift
it's just weird educates things that
yeah we never would have thought that
this would happen but we gotta fix the
way it worked in the initial
implementation was the char when there
crowd script told them to dynamically
move to a location they reached it and
then they entered a tripwire that's like
okay now figure out your specific
location so but the first step was to go
to the point that they're all supposed
to meet up and what was happening is if
they triggered during the concert though
they were already at the concerts they
never entered the concert area yeah so
they just only stopped at the step of
we've reached the point this is where
we're good
my life now and they all fuse and you
don't one chart one shot one char okay
that's what it is it is the one char
spoken in legend in horror stories
Ultron but infinitely worse alright well
do you guys want to burn through some
questions real quick yes because people
have them I feel like we've answered the
first one was it fun to create Krisha
and Bhangarh yes yes so much fun
is prisca ephram's daughter yes do you
know vera plan the ambient dialogue to
have payoffs in later episodes sometimes
I think for this particular episode the
ambience were very important to sort of
support the overall sort of deep dive in
some areas about like what it means to
be Charlie how the different legions are
feeling how individuals are feeling to
just give players a different like like
more nuanced views into the culture so
we'll see alright so and we're gonna
talk with the map artists about this a
little bit too but how do you start
creating a map that players already know
from Guild Wars 1 the first step is
booting up killers 1 and going into that
yeah its region as much as we can that's
something that we've done in the past
with Easton and with Jahi Bluffs you
know in some other areas you know
obviously we try to revisit these areas
understand that yeah there is events
that happen here like hot rhetoric
emerging right there was in Guild Wars 1
in this region you could see Crockett
Oryx spine a little bit of Crockett or a
spine and we're like ok well he's no
longer there how would that change the
world right in which case Crockett or
some urgent stone would this was just a
massive crater that filled with water
and is how do how do we make this make
sense what would have happened when that
happened when he emerged would have
caused huge earthquakes you know long
eyes legend Jill gw1 was his own host
that is now completely destroyed because
of the the results of crop pitch work
emerging right that was an interesting
sound yeah I'm sorry but that was just
figuring out those kinds of things you
know just like I said earlier with the
news pit with doom or shrine with the
keep how when we were building to keep
we were saying
that was the gateway to the Shiverpeaks
how would the char in the Blood Legion
handle that how would they have built
this area and just we're trying to just
do our due diligence as much as we can
to make it make sense and how it feel
like this this is the same area from gb1
just it is hundreds of years later and
it has grown but it you know it's still
familiar so that that's really one of my
favorite parts of when we start going
into the usage is figuring out the
design challenge of how do we make this
to feel like it's similar but obviously
much later yeah absolutely all right
so who came up with bringing the Norn
vendor from dr and having him sell bread
also who where is the sylvari who had
his waterproof baskets destroyed okay so
one of the things is it a festival
there's a bunch of people trying to sell
stuff right and we we had this
revelation that we could bring back a
bunch of old merchants that people like
that are kind of like my favorite
actually started with dropping the
am-noon you'll buy could be find and he
obviously and so I basically was
searching for interesting seller dialog
like and there's something that's you
know still in the game there's something
that was like it's never used again like
say what bringing my Ogden's beard and
you didn't work out but like one of the
dialogues that I just found just not in
the game currently was I loved as a sort
was like fill the emptiness in your life
local merchandise but about this
specific one I had already found of
someone who had really over-the-top like
like weapon dialogue but cited the fact
they were selling weapons and then I
found
he's the char who's like get some blood
on it it'll sell better like I have the
best weapons for killing and he's a very
scary weapon merchant and then I'm
looking through this other dialogue and
I find the defendant affinities reach
guy and and you know he's also actually
selling weapons but his dialog doesn't
specifically sell that he's say that
he's selling weapons he's like he's
basically like like a crazed Berserker
I'm slashing prices like in those
directions and so I just had it so he
has a conversation on him when he talked
to him he's like
Oh buy my bread wait what and it was
just it was kind of this emergent thing
have we already had the Kaveri scary
char weapon merchants so Howard another
weapon merchants react and then maybe
you know sell something other than
weapons yeah so yeah that's it I think
for this sylvari that's actually you
know what's having all these merchants
from all over because it's an all
relegion rally and you know non char
like was a good opportunity to sell some
stuff seriously you know so we could
also kind of play into the dynamics that
something's this fear is starting to
hate and it's getting a little bit
dangerous and something is going on
underneath the party that's where that
sylvari came from the idea was in my
brain that this is a salwar used to you
know come through the the blood legion
home lands on a regular basis selling
what they sell and this particular time
there
they've been vandalized and it's just
like a something's not right what's
going on and just one of those
conversation pieces but i don't know
that we have actually look for this i
don't know maybe you'll find this thing
I really like the note that that
particular ambient dialogue has where
like there's it's these two blood legion
people who are like sad any one of the
traveling through first person's like
I'm pretty sure this wasn't intact how
about them Dodgers like when you see
that else were to there's an asura
trying to set up their stall and getting
grief from a charred yes so yeah that's
kind of that's kind of sprinkled through
and that is absolutely a thing yeah yeah
alright so how about who is ephraim and
his he related to Garen not you can you
can choose to pass for the sake of
intrigue I feel like we'll see some more
Ephraim in the future and he's cute
alright character yeah
frisk is now the main character I'll
take her I mean answer that top one go
for it so you should read it though how
did you choose
which characters were in this release
and which weren't has jewelry versus
Kanak Kate one of the things going into
the prologue is that we recognize we
hear you know what the what the players
are saying sure we recognize we haven't
seen cast and Jory in a really long time
they they had they were working with
refugees from you know Crockett orcs and
merchants and everything and so in
bringing them in instead of cave and
Kanak we were able to sort of lean a
little bit more into the flame Legion
story and that refugees but also the
aspect of war changes the world it
changes individuals like after this sort
of big event things are different and
being able to come back to Cass and Jory
for after so long and seeing how people
have noticed this like how their voices
sound a little bit different is the same
voice actors y'all it suggests that they
are reflecting the fact that Kaz and
Jory have been through some things yeah
they have seen some like rough effects
of war and they've been personally
affected by it and so you're seeing that
reflected and the way that they approach
things and how they speak now and how
they what cast looks like it's different
a little bit because she's she's
evolving because of her experiences so
it allowed us to have another window
into how teria has been changed it's
also it's also just when there's kind of
this undercurrent mystery it's nice to
have a detective character around I mean
we were missing Jory yeah definitely one
of the things having worked on the ash
Legion camp and the very deliberate
choice to put Jory there is like I
figured this out I'm here it's a very
deliberate excuse to let Joey like
express those things that she hasn't
been able to do in a while well just
observing and learning things and
I know it was a little absolutely okay
so I want to touch on this top question
but it is it's part of a question I have
the other half here didn't quite make it
up there how did the females in flame
Legion regain their right to fight on
the battlefield and how are they feeling
about that right now and then how are
the males feeling about it okay I'll
start from definitely for the females so
okay so it I think that any time you
have a big change like that I think that
that part of the what was the first
sentence that you're just how did the
females in the flame Legion regain their
right to fight on the battle so in part
of the acknowledgement of the flame
Legion and that their past that they
needed to evolve past you know the the
things that were separating them from
the rest of the char and sort of not
devolved but evolved back to what they
were in a way yeah was the recognition
that there shouldn't be any aspect of
life where the women weren't also
equally participating I think a lot of
folks make this assumption that because
the women weren't on the battlefield
they didn't have any real meaty jobs but
there's more to being a military culture
than just being a soldier so they could
have been trained as battlefield medics
they could be we already know that they
had like all of the like all the sort of
the things that are support and
administrative around the military
amount military life is sort of what we
were leaning towards for the flame
Legion females and and some of what
we're sort of seeding with some of the
conversations and even with priska and
her I miss my school with the girls it's
not like they had some sort of like
completely changed way that they raised
cub little girl cubs versus little boy
cubs it's just that they that were at
different schools if that makes it yeah
yeah and so I think that for the older
women there are some who are like this
is changing my entire world like I don't
necessarily
you're naturally able to do this anyway
you're just going to now your your claws
are unsheath like do what you do
but be proud of the way that you've
supported your Legion up until this
point you're not lesser than the other
women from other legions who were
soldiers so I think that there is that I
think more than what the men of the
flame Legion and how they're reacting to
the women of flame Legion changing it's
a woman of the flame Legion looking at
other women from other legions and how
they're reacting to them so it's that
balance and in terms of like I feel like
anyone who is here at the Blood Legion
care about the a Legion rally who has
come with Ephraim is on board with the
change it will be a difficult change and
I think that there's like even with
Ephraim there's going to be some like
two steps forward one step back kind of
situation with changing the way you see
the world and how you react to it even
with his daughter but you know they're
on a journey yeah okay so because we're
running super long on time so I'm gonna
we have a ton of questions I'm gonna
have to just say we can't answer all of
these we can do one more question from
the list here and then we can take two
questions from live viewers because I
don't want to completely leave you guys
out okay so um pick one more okay the
question is what does map are they on
the board can they see the questions no
okay what does map design workflow look
like how do you go about designing and
making Maps now how does the story
affect that from a very early stage we
talked about like what our overall
objectives in this map where is it what
did it look like before what are some of
the especially if it's Guild Wars one
map like what are some of the key
landmarks that we have we have like the
who's pit we've got doom Lord shrine
Krakatoa merchants own
defining our boundaries yeah and we we
our first step tends to be drawing a
bunch of circles right like like this
circle will vaguely this is where we
vaguely feel the ash camp will be and
this is where the flame camp will be oh
are they too close to good there was a
big discussion of are they too close
together are they far enough apart like
how are they supposed to interact do we
have people traveling between them
basically blocking out the space for
different activities right and then it
becomes like
the next layer is like what are the
events the specific events where will
they go that also changes like the like
we need to now a space for a stage right
we need we need an Colosseum around the
US pit that carves out a bigger chunk of
this space right and we kind of continue
to do this like it's kind of like a
layer cake right uh and like you know
Tracy's like blaring in erm a part and
we and we do more and more stuff um and
then like towards the end we start
putting in things like all right for all
the hidden coins right where are the
little like where are the base where the
devourer nests that you have to deal
with like so yeah it's it's it's this
process of like layering layer like we
we do one phase at a time and continue
like broad strokes and then fill out the
details and shift things around as more
information comes in yeah and we also do
towards the end well throughout the
entire process we we revisit the circle
idea and yeah tried to do a density map
yeah I'm sure that our events aren't too
centered on one particular area of the
map for a while that was something we
noticed with ours it's like there's a
lot of events in the keep and there's a
lot of events in the around the concert
in the south but there wasn't as much in
Douma where there wasn't as much in the
top-left corner there's the race you
know there's there in the crater area
there's a race down there you know
there's a dragon adventure that goes
over there trying to fill out the space
and encourage different kind of gameplay
for different kinds of players yeah
explorers they're fighters things like
that and just making sure there's
something a reason to go to everywhere
in every play I mean and one of the big
parts of it is figuring out what areas
are more or less dangerous right like
the doom Laurie is one of the more
dangerous areas in our map and so we
built it to look like that and also we
there's if you go there that's where
there's a lot of natural hostile and
spawns as opposed to like the crater
which Irene just cleaned up it's just
this peaceful place to like hang out and
go on a skimmer race like yeah fantastic
okay
I think you guys answer to everybody's
questions we have this has been like an
hour and fifteen minute information this
is good this is a good thing so I will
release the three of you like little
mini Krakens do we get to take the shoes
you said I can't have two shoes I'm
sorry
we're there for them I guess that's
acceptable that is a you problem
[Laughter]
problem alright so thanks all three of
you thank you you guys were the first
guild chat guests in our cozy space
we're this is we mentioned this during
last week's let's play with me and
Clayton that we are due to construction
we are moving into a much smaller space
right now and you guys can't tell but
like when you look at the overhead
camera normally Marcus on the other side
of the room I can reach over here and
like touch mark mark is like right here
we're it's very cozy
it's very warm and so congratulations
thank you both thank you all three for
being in our tiny tiny space thanks for
having us yeah as we as we figured out
what the layout was like thank you thank
you all I will let you get back to work
and you guys stick around because we
have some more to have guests
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
all right welcome back and we have two
more of the bound by blood developers to
talk about what they worked on so why
don't you both introduce yourselves and
talk about what you touched on this
episode I'm Tracy and I'm the
environment artist which means I kind of
did the whole layout of the map I'm Eric
I'm a Content programmer this episode I
was mostly a programmer filling in like
lots of little little needs for the
designers to do things that they
couldn't quite do before or were too
painful and then a little tiny bit of
design work at the end awesome all right
so why don't we start by talking about
the map itself because I have heard
nothing but compliments so
congratulations how did you get started
on okay what do we want to put here what
do what do we need how does this all
going to fit together yeah usually when
we kind of approach a living world map
like this and we're given a little bit
of direction from both like narrative
and the design team of okay we you know
we vaguely are in the you know mspaint
style scribble on the overworld map I
see basically this rectangle yeah
and then you know if there are specific
locations that they know they're gonna
hit in the story we just kind of make
sure that those are within the bounds of
the map were making so my only real
direction when it came to was basically
this grass Mart area was kind of oh we
might as well try to hit these points of
interest that were important in Guild
Wars 1 otherwise we're gonna have some
kind of blood Legion char for things
somewhere and it probably means we're
going to have to tangentially touch on
kraut in some way no totally but at that
point it was it was very amorphous in
terms of what the rest of the map was
gonna be filled with and then Aaron
Cobra Lee who's kind of came in it was
like the main direction was just make it
as happy and pretty and like pre searing
ask
as I could try I was like yes well and
given given kind of the the
overwhelmingly like angsty direction of
all the previous maps it was very nice
the direction of like how many flowers
can you put in before that was the thing
we talked about the first segment how
basically the whole second half of
season four was just it was so sad yeah
and all of a sudden word like a party
map and it's great yes but then I almost
immediately hit a roadblock in that I
was looking at you know the charr props
I had available and even the the trees
that historically have meant oh yeah
come on and it was kind of like okay
well but this is fall and everybody also
wants me doing happy springtime flowers
but also all the charts that are very
dark metal which doesn't leave to have
you seen at all and so like kind of
panicky running over to our concept
artist being like what would it mean to
do happy metal and so that was one of
the struggles that both both I had
concept like sweater did an amazing job
of kind of helping me figure out a
silhouette to that misfit yeah all the
call-outs now College call-outs are
great because you never see nobody and
who you help me with doom lore too and
I'm sure I'll go back to that at some
point but but then yeah James Barwick
and Kyle Bosch
where my pop artists are really kind of
okay what pieces can we add to really
make this feel unique because it's the
first time we've really done a blood
legion kind of yeah
things so a lot of our sets you know
even had like iron Legion logo you know
built in or you know paint splashed on
the outside so we're kind of combing
through and be like okay what new but
what new materials are we gonna have to
make how are we can differentiate their
architecture from the black citadel and
so we kind of settled well I kind of
settled on the idea of alright let's
make it feel a little more bulky and
more substantial because a lot of the
iron Legion stuff feels kind of like
raps almost like tacked together that
fits yeah and so we're like okay well if
you're going if you're far more you know
infantry focused and militaristic even
beyond what we've seen before you know
maybe you're gonna have far thicker
walls and you know battlements and
everything else and then we had the
added lure kind of possibility of okay
well maybe there was this earthquake I
think Kirk might have touched a bit on
it of like growl qamar jizz right you
know long eyes ledge essentially has a
landslide right next to you it's
breaking off your access to your dam
you know maybe the top of your keeps
even been ripped off or whatever so it's
kind of led to this amalgamation of all
right the base was stone and then maybe
they kind of had to build on top of it
as quickly as they could they're still
you know allies with iron Legion to a
certain extent so that's why I kind of
ended up with you know if you look
closely at some of the bricks it's kind
of like breaking apart in certain areas
yeah so it's kind of like they came in
and on tops they kind of like okay we
believe we've tied it together with
extra iron kind of getting back together
you know in a short period of time so I
think that was about 20-25 years ago or
so when they would have had the worst
hit but then you know they've offered
folks to go help with the pot you know
all the other more efforts in the
interim so how much would they have
rebuilt in between so that was one of
the big struggles how do I make heavy
metal it it seems to have worked because
you've you've articulated it a lot
better than what was in my head because
you actually made the thing you know
what would be important show and make
well that's that's that one of the
things that I've been loving is that I
mentioned this on guild chat before but
I fell in love with Guild Wars 1 way
back when I was I was just like reading
a book and my husband was playing and I
glanced it up and he was standing in pre
searing and I had this moment of what
right and boom I was in love and it gave
it gave me and this is something that
I've heard from a lot of you it gave me
that pre searing feeling but it also
felt very char yeah so that's like even
for the ward downs I wanted to keep like
a few spots that were just nature
you know just beautiful trees pretty
light shining through them you know and
having having some beautiful mountains
in the distance that weren't entirely
threatening yeah you know and we knew
that the do more area was gonna be a
little more on the kind of creepy side
of things so you know what other spots
can't reserve to just be pretty pleased
to have stuff for you too oh good I mean
yeah actually because I've I've done the
vistas maybe more than once where I'm
just sitting there going well after
loving it yeah I mean so this is they're
kind of different people do them
differently you know some people are
just escape and want to get back to the
game that's totally cool and some people
just want to see something pretty and
get that moment of just like I know the
first time I did vistas was on Jahi and
one of the first instincts that I had
was to get you know a little crazy and
it's not really what we're going for
there so okay we got to slow him down
but I did this time I I did say okay now
I know I'm gonna do this is this time
it's not just at the end and I kind of
my approach is always like first I get
locations from Tracy who tells me like
these are the cool spots like let's
highlight these okay and then I put
something together and I run it by these
guys these guys being Tracy and then lay
factually helped out too large yeah they
both came over we're like that's cool if
you maybe tweak this and then that is
trying way too hard I like what you're
trying but maybe not and we had a couple
of those we just we just absolutely fine
yeah well you know there's always like
you want to show more than you can
they're only 20 seconds so but this time
I also kind of wanted to turn each one
into that I could anyway kind of a
little like story beat so there's there
it's usually like show something and
then reveal something else it's not just
like look at how pretty this is so and I
actually found some spots that I thought
it worked pretty well to kind of tie in
with the narrative of our story this
might be stretching there's like 10th
grade English class like reading into
poetry but like the blood legion the the
blood keep late you were just talking
about right that one starts on the
bridge by the break you're headed inside
and it's like it's pretty obvious like
okay I'm gonna go through this gate and
you don't you like you have these
expectations and then we take a left
turn which I thought was kind of fitting
for episode and then you come up and you
look and you can see like there's this
chef area and the bar area there's a
little bit of silliness and revelry
again kind of fitting for episode yeah
but it doesn't actually kind of stay
there you we bring the commander into
frame kind of rising above it all always
kind of appropriate but also for our
episode but then actually even above the
commander looming is bang guards office
which I thought was appropriate and
looming above that you're suggesting
with this way the silhouette is the cold
shiver piece the mountains are up there
looming harder which I thought was super
appropriate for our episode so like we
we had a chance it's kind of same stuff
in the the the farm on the rusty Meadows
similarly like a lot of that that Vista
is just like why we're looking at the
rusty piping to me it was like this kind
of is about char and they're like I mean
landscape
yeah well also even just like they kind
of have an old way of thinking that we
are exposing here there's a lot of like
latent xenophobia and other problems
that they're trying to move past and so
we see this old and busted way of
thinking until we rise up and see oh man
this place is gorgeous if you just get
past that or it could just be a pretty
thing so that's cool too like it's all
good I quite like the first idea but the
concept of telling a story 322nd Vista
is something I mean that it took that
much thought and it wasn't just like I
don't know what does some eye candy that
we can like yeah pan around I mean
um it could be stopped and some of them
there are limitations like the the
effigy one I really want to do like a
Rocky over the shoulder like
Philadelphia's - yeah but you don't
actually know if the thing is going to
be built or burnt at any one time so I'd
be like looking over the shoulder of a
char that's not there I don't know so
yeah so like that one has to be kind of
like it has to kind of be up above so
you can see it regardless if it's burnt
so there were some limitations but
several them we're kind of trying to at
least sort of echo slightly what's going
on with the episode yeah I didn't think
about that with the different states of
like the well we've talked about before
I mean there's a lot of a lot of times
there's something you can't see it just
never happens to be in that state until
it hits live and they were like oh we
tested this 400 times and that never
happened yep so you got lucky this time
that definitely I mean some things do
slip through but that's that's
interesting to know that you're telling
a story in there I'm going to I'm going
to pay attention to everything I do that
that's not pressure that is all good and
like this being vague like that means
how people can read in their own
meetings if someone were just like the
very end of the duel or one we usually
kind of whatever our movement is we kind
of decelerate to imply we're gonna stop
fully and then we fade to white that one
actually keeps going up because I wanted
the it's not so much to fade to white
like a non-diegetic one it's kind of
like implying the fog like swallows you
it's like the fog is what's fading so it
actually keeps hanging up it just kind
of felt like I like a horror movie shot
thing cuz this is a spooky forest
so like I don't know that's a neat touch
and it makes my heart warm but like will
people notice probably not but that's
okay it's okay you know take what you
want out of the game it's all about us
now you'll notice yeah it's still
painting I guess that's a thing sure
well let's talk a little bit about
populating the map once you get it
because you had your hands in a lot of
these pies yeah and I was actually
making notes before cuz you know in past
episodes there's like I did the same
stance or I did this boss fight it's
like that's a thing here I was like why
did a little tiny piece of like
everything how you remember them all I
had to have a list
I have the list what good I might lose
it I think the main one that Connor
mentioned on the last time you it was
the roving sharbat yeah like the crowd
we thought so I think there's a lot of
people that went into this
I think is frostys idea just kind of
tossed off like when this be cool back
to work and the rest the team kind of
picked it up and then you had to go
paint the roads right yeah our npcs
follow navmesh that's slightly different
than the player collision yeah and
there's a way on top of that that I can
tend to indicate that I think Connor
actually had to set up the preferences
for how strict they would be for
following those roads but yeah I had to
essentially go through and indicate on
that navmesh where it was like the ideal
place right for various NPCs to pass
along so yeah all those all those kind
of dirt roads you see actually have kind
of a painted equivalent for the NPC's
they won't run off into trees and stuff
which is what happened even after we had
it Connor had it set up with the
scripting we could get them to go to
events correctly but coming back was a
big problem so like definitely be like
everybody seems to be going back but
then you know to char have made it to
their spot and then some other like like
train of people comes running over their
campfire like coming through we got to
get back which didn't look good at all
as I can't ship with that and it turned
out there was a bug underlying so Elina
another programmer from another team and
i went in and checked it out and so we
it involved just like they were using
the wrong brain effectively the brain
was working this is the wrong one so we
got that updated correctly and then
suddenly we got this sort of ambient
storytelling it's like we have the UI
telling you where to go for things but
this was kind of like yeah wonder where
they're going and so if you follow them
like they'll all go into the ooze pit
and take up the spots in the seat and
they'll all go to the concert and be
idiots and then they'll all go somewhere
else
all right that was the term of
endearment I am I I was gonna say I I
will join that you know Legion I love it
yeah so I mean yeah I had I guess for
popularly the map I do things like I
place the resource nodes and stuff for
populating like physically but then the
rest of it was just I mean I did the
investigation for Connor
and we tried to make a derby in a race
and him like I was one messing with the
physics turns out not that fast
yeah well the physics he's saying so
yeah you'll be zooming in which I
thought was a way better result anyway
yeah the Derby is fantastic I thought so
but that we had to do that investigation
to see like can we do like speed boosts
to things the concert we had the the
hype thing you would if you were point
in the ground you wouldn't hype people
with a debug that lots and lots of
little touches hung over brim yeah so I
talked about a little bit about this
last episode we did we added this
impostor tag which was for Blish and the
prairie dog that whole saga thing that
was great yeah so we do the same thing
with brain here the difference is we've
wanted because we in the Blish case you
you get to the story step and then you
run around the world there's a blush
with you here it's much more limited in
space so like if a bunch of us are all
talking to Bram like my Bram should walk
up with me when I finish talking with it
your brand should not depend on anybody
or you'd have to wait for him to get
done and come back and be drunk again so
you get your own brand but we can't just
swap it out for a prairie dog here
because it'd be a lot of prairie dogs
all like in mass that's wagon train to
them so we had to add something where we
could hide him properly and that's scary
because if we do it wrong we might melt
the server's because we just spawning
infinite Bram's that person can see so
we add a new tech and Connor added a way
to kind of safeguard so we can hit a
button and like it would highlight all
the brands on the map so yeah we had
these like it's a weird thing to say
yeah right but you can only see one
brain but there was it was basically in
a bunch of invisible brands with a
marker on them so it was like there's
the ghost of Bram walking away game
development yeah right
so that sequence was actually way harder
than most of things I did that and the
get the lights at the concert were much
harder than expected so so we had a cool
baby way back we had a way to change the
ambient like actual place lights that
you put in right yeah but there was no
fade pretty much yeah why I just might
be like lighting on the ground and stuff
yeah
place that yeah well I placed a lot
there are several different combos of
lights to get that to work because the
the the lights that you see they're kind
of doing the God raised and the but
those are a separate prop that just is
colored essentially so that's not a real
light it's just sure it's a prop yeah
it's just a prop and then there is other
lights that are actually on the ground
yeah so that part I meant and so that's
through you for a bit the lights what
makes everything else take color so like
the stand looks green or whatever that
comes from these environment lights
right we had a way to change those I did
that but yeah but but that's yeah and
that was made for the previous raid that
I worked on but we still had traumas
with getting them to fade nice oh yeah -
so what I'm talking about is a snap
physical stage lights - like a big piece
of metal with yeah there's like a
physical beam in the physics world and
Tracy made that but Carter wanted the
lighting on the grounds like the stage
looks green yeah yeah he can change that
but if the light is shining a blue light
it looks a little weird right it's this
blue beam that make some green in the
ground so he's like is there a way for
us dynamically like in for designers to
mess with to change the color of that
light know how hard would that be like
here there be dragons
I'm worried I've never touched that but
we tried it and we got it we had like a
10 into a 2 which means that he said he
says like make it red and do it over
three seconds or something so the some
of the choreography in the concert we
were trying like okay this trigger makes
them all purple to test it out so like
be like ground lights go purple they
turn purple over a few seconds and it
looks real cool so we only wish that
we'd had this on the previous episode
the psychedelic mushroom area we could
it's still pretty traumatic to do
because poor Connor was bearing witness
to me pinging him like individual like
each of those lights had its own good so
a huge chain of numbers and there is no
easy way for me to send it to him other
than just basically like him like weird
documents with like 10 20 different
lists of just numbers yeah this is the
blue light slightly to the left
yellow right translation the concert is
complicated we'll talk more about it
later
the lights changed color yeah so that it
really I mean you probably there's way
too much going on here anyway - no but
I'm always like hey what's the lights
check them out know what we went through
there's so many little things like that
where I'm just like sure - okay well
I'll just keep going Connor Connor sent
me a document that will show next week
that just talked about how everything
involved with the band members changing
positions there's so much yeah so we
have we have a tiny tiny bit of that to
show next week it was yeah I had no idea
yeah I'm hearing that also the lights
were far worse more he mentioned last
time how he like he grabbed the
whack-a-mole from the spider for
something and then for the concert
pirate orc is actually the Ettin who
grabs people like the essence sorry
there's a bounty in Jahi and Ettin will
pick up a person but most people yeah it
doesn't happen to them because it's just
one and it was kind of sad as like a
one-and-done like okay well he said he
came to me he was like can we get that
for this pie rhetoric and maybe crank it
up to 11 and like grab everybody that it
can we can fit and chuck them off the
stage I was like actually probably let's
try it what took us maybe like an hour
to just grab it and update it so he was
smart to get some reuse and yeah we
tried to do that a little bit in this
episode take something that worked crank
it up and tweak it yeah so it let us do
some bananas things right so one thing
that you worked on with the concert that
I do want to mention is the unlockable
emotes so yeah unlock a Lagavulin mode
um so that kind of started as like a
side project I think the story goes like
I have my headphones on with my back to
what's going on but I think one of our
animators came by Chuck and said hey I
made this thing you should make it into
something and buy this thing I mean the
you know the rock anyway and I was like
well that's cool and so then I heard
Connor and Kirk like you know scheming
and they asked me Eric oh my god I leave
me alone I'm busy
I would never say that they they said
hey what would it take to make a new
emot-- and actually it turns out I said
no problem I've made commands before
easy peasy
and made player facing ones we don't
really do that and I've in fact I
learned there's all these extra steps
I even my story was I I found a piece of
code that I needed to change and I
didn't know why it worked the way it did
why we chosen to make it work the way I
did so we have a way in perforce to go
find out whose line of code that is like
I asked him well it said Mike's laptop
it's like Mike's laptop who's Mike I
think was we have a lot of those but
from that era I'm pretty sure of his
moat like our founder Michael Bryan his
code I'm like oh your entire computer
office related minecraft where you hit
the bottom like nope nope but it we
worked through it and there are a lot of
extra challenges because your moats
actually predate our new art tool for
making all of our content it's pre doooo
so like there's no localization I was
cutting and I was like pasting Chinese
from an email into this thing cuz
localization what intention is I don't
touch Chinese I don't know if I'll get
it wrong like I might paste it wrong
side we work together but that piece and
then adding the unlockable part it kind
of is like well is it sort of a you know
a personal time project that actually
came together I think we can actually
shift this so we pitched it to everybody
and it went through a formal process and
I think well good so I don't like I
wasn't really in charge of how we
determine like the achievements you
gotta do to get it or the reward track
but actually getting it to work like it
was a much bigger project than I thought
but I think it was worth it cuz it's
pretty cool and it caught people off
guards like wait wait wait back that up
the trailer what did they just say yes
okay sure all right sounds good yeah and
we're going to talk about the trailer in
the next segment but yeah that was one
of the things that was one of the first
things I went looking for once that rock
out emote was in the trailer and the
trailer was out I'm just like sitting
there scrolling to Twitter going come on
come on come on somebody notice it yeah
and it was so gratifying when they did
oh I should add I think this is okay oh
it's not we added one other piece that
some people have been asking for and to
know what your emotes are there's a
slash emote list it will just tell you
all of them it's in the game's on
I'm spoiling anything but we didn't
message that now maybe as much as I saw
some people wondering so if you're
wondering it'll actually tell you too if
you don't have rock out I'll tell you
where to get it stuff like that so like
I know it was helpful for me and so that
was another piece particularly gonna go
figure out how to do that so what's the
command again emote list all in word
okay
yeah slash emote list that's it yep all
right go do it but not until we're done
don't look at that right I think I did
thanks I made it I should you know
somebody will tell you 30 seconds it's
gonna happen alright well we have a we
actually have a number of questions for
you guys do you feel like answering
questions yeah questions okay all right
so who decides and this is this is kind
of a question about who does the work
who decides what isn't is not added to
the map both me and design because if
it's going to be a site used in the
story or they know that they want a
specific site for an event then the
artists tend to just get told that you
know like I knew early on that we want
to make sure to be able to include like
the do more like at least a point of
interest even if we couldn't go there
and same with us pit and to an extent
long i sledge but there are other sites
like you know oh what do the war downs
look like now what does the crater even
look like like we kind of knew that
there was probably going to be a crater
but that's the direction that I tend to
get is there's a crater here okay you
know I worked on couriers library and
all I heard was make make couriers realm
pretty much if so I was like okay well
and the same thing for for the fort you
know it was kind of like we knew that we
have to for the story we'd have to have
bangers office we'd probably need the
Ferrara to tell some of the narrative
beats we wanted you know there was
probably going to be some event sites so
I think by that point we probably knew
there was going to be a kitchen the bar
kind of actually came later because I
had pieces yeah okay char have a
surprising number of pieces to make like
bars and the bar in there and then frost
like this is well and that's how it
usually works is it there are certain
areas where you know maybe I have an
idea and I'll put some pieces in and
then it will turn into an event yeah or
it'll go the other way where designers
will be like okay you know in the case
of Conor's thing he was like this
concert and I was like yes so it can it
can work both ways but because it was a
gw1 location I knew you know okay I was
gonna have you know these certain points
from what they looked like 250 years
later was essentially left up to me you
know I knew that long eyes ledge for
example is going to have to be destroyed
enough that people wouldn't be what
they'd understand why they couldn't use
it um so so kind of like a you know was
an avalanche look like okay in gw2 you
know kind of became a discussion and but
yeah filling filling areas like I I
don't even remember whether the farm was
kind of my idea or whether that was
earlier on the whole location I think we
just kind of needed an area for a
retired char yeah that's like you know
what I have a lot of farm I think I have
an NPC there too I think it's where my I
have the reputation cuz I just tell
people know for their new features no go
away so I got I think the grouchy char
is named after me Oh seriously yeah it's
like Fang storm or something like that I
don't know they went back and forth a
storm yeah something like that
it works yeah it's like a Rasmus
something I don't know but yeah but yeah
I mean like the area yeah but so there's
a lot of and specifically if you're
going back to gw1 you know I I tried to
be as faithful to the locations as I
could so here I call out to that shaman
actually for his historic look I just
curious like
we do sit there sometimes and just like
screencap you know I I had the original
diversion of gw1 open to me at the same
time as I was trying to do like the
height map yeah yeah you won and being
like okay how where it is where does the
use pit entrance you know line up with
the stream next to it how far away is it
from and do more actually that area
caused me to kind of get a bunch of
people in the route in a room together
and ask questions about the lore because
G W 1 it's not always clear who would
built what sure and so even when I was
going through it you know it looked like
we had pieces of kantha mixed in with
like like urban architecture
well it's particularly odd because the
news pits - had it looked human but then
it was tied to the Delta more like
achievement chain and all kinds of
weirdness so I had to like get all the
lore folks and be like hey what what's
human what's going what's yeah and even
then you know the cathedral flame was
kind of it was like maybe was originally
human but then the flame Legion actually
had the encampment on the outside so
should I still imply that what remains
is human or is it G W - as you know far
more distinct variations between what
belongs to which race sure so I didn't
want to just throw in some dwarf in
architecture and then have wooden
potatoes call out on me sure that I was
using the right racial sure sure
so so that was kind of weird because in
gw1 when you're actually in the open
world map you don't really see any of
the architecture for some of these
locations it's just a tunnel in the
ground and I was like this is the worst
P Y so I kind was like okay well maybe
you know the ground settled and there's
be a little bit kind of like poking up
because she did have some spectacular
you know like Gothic cathedral but
almost all under the ground so it's like
okay what
poke through in 250 years of this you
know kind of that and would would any of
the original flame Legion can't even be
there and we kind of decided that no
because there were a few metal pieces
but at least from what you could see in
gw1 a lot of it was just kind of leather
and things that would have deteriorated
so so probably not there so probably not
there but yeah so you know when you're
building a map like that you know and I
think Justin had a ton of this too in a
lot of the kind of path of fire and
living world stuff where you kind of
you're looking at it both the client and
people screenshots you know what what
they remember you want to make sure to
kind of include that again if you can so
yeah I think even the river is I like I
tried besides where the dam is like
which is funny because 250 years the
river of anything probably would have
changed the most but little but but I
like you know like trying to use it as a
good reference of like okay well maybe
they wouldn't have built the fort like
on top of where the river was originally
and you know just even looking at that
kind of stuff you know and trying to not
completely make our poor UI artists redo
the overworld map by putting you know
the Creator in a different location so
that kind of thing is important to you
know they they do have the blue versus
the green color on the overworld but we
try to pay yeah all right so I have a
much more specific question now and this
is something that I've seen a lot of
good feedback about will you continue to
use the event schedule boards in future
episodes and if so will we get an option
in the in-game clock to show Tyrion time
I can't like commit to things a hundred
percent because there's processes we
can't upset the applecart for something
smallish but I am personally working on
getting y'all some answers some better
way to know what time it is
so that you can like make it to the
events and not be late for the concert I
watched a couple streams where somebody
was there actually in your jumping
puzzle I don't leave the concert
starting soon but I'm closing
and so why'd you leave then all of the
lights all your checkpoint lights turn
off yeah yes I wanted one so crazy no
they stayed and they they they got there
in time for pie rhetoric okay so
whatever and you know it'll come again
yeah but tools to know what time it is
I've been doing a lot of digging and
stuff this morning and I we don't want
to commit to anything in particular but
I think we'll have some good answers
yeah awesome I do like it going forward
I don't know we're gonna do a very time
specific map but I like the idea and
I've seen good feedback on the event
board being in the game yeah well
there's kind of nice timing in between
if going by teria time to it just kind
of worked out nicely where you have yeah
downtime of you know - 15 minutes just
kind of run around and explore and then
yeah rather than I think a lot of the
time we have like two hours fans which
is a little problematic if people are
kind of playing a little yeah actually
so well we did I guess we died Jetta
Klee got a map wide notifications like
you have all the char goes somewhere and
there's you know I'm not on the mega or
the announcement system you get to hear
about it so I think that helps really
dr+ the consciousness awesome I didn't
say that you can talk about next week is
awesome you're allowed to talk about
fair enough all right let's see how
about the use of camera tricks rather
than pure cutscenes was new is that
something we'll see more of going
forward more of a question kirkuk honor
I there was a little bit of new tech for
it so in the last banger speech we're
assuming people have played right so I
don't yeah we're spoiling yes but like
he's up on the mountain that one if you
notice there's there's twice that we
take control of your camera which we
don't usually like to do but we wanted
to help sell a really cinematic moment
in a way that didn't involve a full
cutscene we also have full cutscenes
those are the one that's awesome in
bangers office but that's no I'm talking
about I had nothing to do with that no
credit to me for that nope but the
people who did are coming yeah Kirk and
Connor
I think Connor did the one in in the
first chapter the where you sit and
watch the Devourer fight and we zoom in
on bad otherwise he just kind of stand
out in the distance and whatever so Kirk
was gonna do something similar at the
end where we wanted to see Bhangarh but
he was important
get the dialogue like so the player
could see it we've taken control of the
camera like really highlighted
well the like speech bubbles aren't
visible right like he you can't see like
it's he's way off in the distance and
like a frame if time isn't working out
right so we needed a way put them like
on the screen somewhere else so I just
made the tech altered the tech to we
hijack something else there's this
announcement tech for when you need to
say like I think we use it like PvP and
stuff to say like some points Mehcad or
something we did wanted to move it down
and then and append the name of the
speaker so I added those things and we
tried it it was like actually that reads
really well it's not you know we haven't
established this as a visual cue for
this is dialogue but people got it right
away so are you a people like yeah looks
great okay so now it's a new tool we
added some stuff in the back end so that
if they need to do that going forward
they can we want to use it sparingly
because this is not this is not like a
movie game some games are like that
where it's all about you're just kind of
there to watch a movie and it's okay
when the camera goes away we want to try
to get that in part through other means
where we sort of encourage the player
it's like when I place a Vista I
actually like the Overlook when I pushed
it as far as way as I could so I could
try to make sure you were in the right
spot so when the camera came in behind
you stuff like that are little tricks to
kind of guide your eye but everyone saw
we want to take control and this one
gives us a way to do that so I hope so I
can't guarantee but I know that other
teams like so what did you add just
asking for a friend here a friend who's
going to absolutely yeah so we'll see I
can't guarantee because I don't know
what they're up to but I'm sure I'll
find out don't tell them to go away
don't need them to tell you all right
I'm going back to the old char man all
right let's do let's do one more
what does the map design workflow look
like this is gonna retrace your question
I think how do you go about designing
and making maps and does the story
affect that process the story definitely
affects process putting things of the
map going deal with it sometimes we want
to say how far along it is but yeah I
mean as I said earlier we we tend to
start with a vague idea of important
locations in a map first
and we usually know how big it's gonna
be
so if I refer to chunks it's because
that's actually how we keep track of the
dimension right
so mines mines 500 which is about the
same size as Queens tail for reference
so I knew I knew vaguely that much and I
kind of have to take a few chunks off
the edge to build up you know various
walls and whatnot and so I kind of you
know put put vague like okay I know that
do-more is gonna be excise I know that
the fort's gonna be so big and then I
kind of go through my initial pass tends
to do kind of with deal with Heights and
so on and and my designers get to laugh
because I tend to go through a phase
where I'm just painting lines like I'm
gonna say this is that because like you
draw along my marquee pretty much just
had like a bunch of squares it just said
like Ferrar yeah it's just like written
into the ground you can't see it but
then the over map you could it's like
somebody painted from like with a paint
cannon from a helicopter like and there
will be some areas that are much more
done and then you get to for our ms
paint Lander anybody has a screenshot of
that next time save them well I'm sure
they do in in perforce oh yeah to the
mini maps you can probably look at the
older version of our mini map perforce
file and probably will just have it'll
have the the keep with its yes ceiling
removed so that I could be like okay you
know we do go through a phase where it's
like is this room big enough you know
what what happened what needs to happen
here
you know is does this room need to hold
you know five NPCs or is it you know
like a closet that's supposed to be kind
of just hiding you know an achievement
train or something and so there is
because we know that there's going to be
a bit of back-and-forth in areas like
that there is kind of a gray box stage
where you know the walls and stuff are
kind of temporary and we even have a
prop set that's just great for that
purpose to indicate that hey this is in
process you know if you need me to the
wall I haven't really spent a whole lot
of time
it's pretty so now is your chance to let
you know if it's beautiful leave me
alone yeah and that's how it honestly
kind of works is things especially like
like towns and cities and things where
the the potential that it's going to
move around for NPCs or for story it's a
lot higher those tend to stay is kind of
temper ops for the longest and then but
in terms of like the height and the
roads and stuff those get put in pretty
early so that we can get feedback of oh
my goodness
you know these things need to be closer
together or whatever that needs to
happen a lot sooner in the process and
then areas that I know that are pretty
much just make it pretty directions you
know like the farm happened really quick
gonna be a girl feet are in the corner
so it's like okay well better make it
pretty I'll leave I'll leave aside some
areas for you know he's pretty lush
green lawn but but other than that you
know I could actually just go in myself
and just be like okay I will just fill
the space and kind of you know put my
headphones on and nobody talked to me
and you know come back when you need to
know where the you know various resource
nodes should go and yeah like that you
know or where we might put a Vista so
that that kind of happens separately and
then yeah then story comes through and
then we kind of have to that tends to
get a lot more set dressing kind of
modifications and lighting modifications
the farther we go but yeah once the big
pieces once the ground trains kind of
set and then I go through and I put in
the bigger pieces so like the rock
cladding some of the the bigger trees
any fence work and stuff that gets put
in real early so that you know late from
QA so you can tell maybe like this is
probably a bad location for a fence
because NPCs keep getting caught you
know things like that can get caught
earlier on so the bigger pieces go in
and then if everybody is kind of okay
with the area and there's no like oh my
gosh in the future I plan to put you
know XYZ here
emergencies then I go through and then
that's when set-dressing gets added so
that's like the smaller things is like
okay maybe there's like a little well
here and there's buckets and you know
that's kind of towards the end and then
very last tends to be
the lighting stuff and removing like two
strawberry bushes so I can put them in
the fire yeah black thanks Tracy well
and I mentioned before navmesh to like a
lot of the things that the designers
will be adding like the resource nodes
and so on those kind of come in towards
the end and so there's like I would like
this ledge to you know can I please put
you know yeah chests on this ledge you
know and it could be like okay it's like
make do with space you've got find good
spots but everyone sounds like this is
so cool but it doesn't have that like
the techy part of it is not set up so
that it can spawn a thing so I can make
a big list of those and give them to you
and you're like oh they're really good
it's fast to do certain things and not
so fast it was awesome
yeah and that's when we add like the
extra touches like oh you know it would
be cool if this Blizzard got more
intense or polished up or a polished
stuff or like okay you know we want the
the narratively we like the party to get
a little more out of hand so maybe
there's some more things that like break
maybe some of the various posters get a
little shredded smoke happen you know
get tweaked now we're all map artists
now you're all over - no I'm not well
thank you both very much I hear I hear
audio and cinematic guys like milling
around out in the hallway so all right
thank you all I appreciate your time so
much thank you all for hanging out with
us stick around because we have one more
set of deaf guests and I will let you
guys get back to work thank you for
answering our questions all right
thanks a lot yeah all right
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all right welcome back and thank you all
for your patience in waiting your turn
okay why don't we need jump right on in
and I'll have each of you introduce
yourself and talk about what you worked
on for bound by blood
I'm Greg I'm cymatics artists worked on
the cinematic for ya the prologue and
that is that isn't bangers office yes my
office the Vanguard RIT lock fight so
that's already been said where's okay
yes you were watching this show yeah
you have played through and you've seen
everything so yes yes let fly yes all
right Jason
my name is Jason Byfield I am I did the
trailer for Brown by blood
the launch trailer my name is Chris
Burgess and I am a sound designer here
to read in that and I did all the sound
effects for Greg's cinematic and sounds
awesome yeah thanks some open world
works story stuff sound effects and did
some help with music coordinating for
the overall tone of the episode yeah
that's that was probably a lot of fun
for this particular episode I was not
involved with the concert you didn't oh
that's I was involved with everything
that happened in the story but not the
concert itself I kind of Joe y'all
talked about that later but I'm so
excited for that episode of the audio
people were really into this and I don't
know anything about metal music and I
and they were asking it's like we need
to get your opinions like you
don't want my about what they came up
with I'm just blown away by and I'm so
proud of them so and I'm stuck on the
the part where you don't know anything
about that'll music because that's
actually legitimately surprising to me
it's not it's not a character judgment
it's just there's so many subgenres
let's put it that way there are heavier
genres of music I'll listen to but metal
is just not one I know a lot about so
when you come to the aficionados of all
those little metal subgenres sorry
that's okay alright so the cinematic in
beggar's office we saw a little teaser
of way back on August 30th there was a
lot how did you decide what was going to
go into that I know it was not just your
disease yeah but yeah for sure I mean
marketing plays a big part in that of of
what they want to show and you know we
try to you know work with them on what
we think is the right amount not giving
too much away that sort of thing but we
want to also show something that's you
know that's cool
and gets fans excited so I think it did
that absolutely I actually remember we
only should have part of that I remember
the conversations about we did okay we
don't want to spoil people but we want
to make it good new what do we do there
were so many conversations about because
the whole thing was so good like every
little beat of that really flowed well
yeah yeah I was a say in the marketing
meeting we were discussing like where
that cut should happen and there was a
lot of back-and-forth like exactly what
how much a shot should be included
so what was your favorite part about
working on that what was the most fun
thing together and uh I think I mean at
the start it was kind of daunting
because it's like oh my gosh we have to
make these char and Moe and that sounds
like that could be really hard like
their faces exactly and so I think to
get it to the point where we did with
the faces Bhangarh in particular and the
emotion that we got out of it is is
really cool I mean doing a fight like as
an animator that's a lot of fun but I
think the fact that we could get all
that emotion out of them was probably my
favorite thing that's right the fight
was there was a lot going on in there
and I feel like maybe I'm a little bit
biased because I've watched it like 900
times since but there was was that
difficult getting everything just right
and that because their armors big oh
yeah I mean obviously armies yeah I mean
we did lots of iterations of the fight I
think we have you know you know one of
the first versions of it and stuff so
you know we work with mocap actors
actually Jason was the mocap actor for
for Bhangarh where you Billy first time
in mocha yeah yeah and so but but you
know we're obviously we we are not you
know hand-to-hand combat and stuff and
so kind of figuring out the fight scene
and how to do that and and make it work
and like you said with with the armor
and all that it's yeah it takes a lot of
troubleshooting the other guy that was
in that scene that was playing where
Locke was Ron Harvey and he actually
punched me a few times
yes accidentally we were he and I've
known him for a long time and so he and
I were actually like really getting
physical with each other and trying to
make it seem as realistic as possible he
actually does like do something yeah he
does some stuff and it's free time and
just like that's for like fitness and
stuff yeah so you know I guess I
shouldn't say we weren't professionals
we had one guy who kind of
and that's how chasing up yeah yeah well
I forgot we had the previous so do you
want to look at that and we'll talk
about how the process goes sure
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that's okay mercs looking crazy you got
you got a preview of what to see so um
well marks getting that though what
let's talk a little bit about what goes
into that because that's you'll get you
guys will see in a second that's not
even close to the finished product so
yeah yeah I mean I'm soso narrative and
you know no Vera was in here earlier and
you know she had a large hand in writing
the script and so they give us the
script and and so then we kind of we
start kind of just walking through it we
do maybe some storyboards or run through
it I remember there was one night where
I just like had kind of in my head what
I thought this fight should be and it it
was you know doing all these different
moves and stuff thought you know okay we
have it down we kind of show everyone
and the narrative was like that's cool
but we want it to be more nuanced it's
not all about the fight the fight is
only a portion right right and so then
you know we go back to the drawing board
and do some more mocap and so yeah I
mean it's a lot of working with
narrative working with the other team
members also with it that are you know
making the map and the props and all
that stuff of what they can do and how
they can help us and shots that we can
do because of that and that sort of
thing so yeah yeah it's it's a lot of
collaboration for sure yeah it sounds
like it so and yeah the fight is
something that we've been focusing on
but there are a lot of bombshells
dropped in here too and again all of
those little nuance things like you've
got Krisha in the background kind of
like okay this is getting interesting
yeah for sure that was and that was
something that again you know like we
had Krrish a kind of doing in our minds
a little bit different thing in there it
was like well she's not sure kind of you
know where she stands and you know she
knows Whitlock and she knows bang garden
so this this tension of you know you
know what did it what does she think
about all this and stuff so yeah for
sure
okay well let's take a look at the early
version
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you walk away from me and you walk away
from the char
I'm sorry we didn't warn you that was
that was very echoey and clingy and it
sounds like maybe it happened in the
mocap yeah yeah yeah it definitely did
we just I mean we we went down there to
just try and kind of figure it out plan
it out and so yeah it's just Ron and
Jason talking in the in the mocap room
basically so but this has this is a lot
different from the final product yeah so
you do that you get in front of
narrative and then narrative says okay
but what if we did all these different
things yeah yeah yeah and and not like
so not just narrative I mean we have a
stakeholder meeting with you know most
of the leads and stuff and so everyone
is contributing and you know I remember
chuck was the animation lead
specifically was like you know this this
fight is cool but they kind of look like
they're people in cat suits basically
you know and they need to kind of be
more char like and stuff and so I you
know we get feedback from all over the
place and obviously as you saw like that
was very rough and and what the compared
to what the final product is like all
that feedback you know makes it what it
is yeah and it seems it is very rough
but it seems from an outside perspective
like it's much more efficient than
putting a ton of work into it oh yeah
getting something that's kind of at
least semi pretty and polished and then
being told actually we're gonna go a
slightly different route oh yeah that's
that's like the worst is you get down
the road and then it's like actually we
need to you know do something different
it's like we you can't easily you know
do that you have to do it 180 basically
so whenever we can get that taken care
of early on that's much better for sure
you know but we're probably a little
more flexible than your average studio
just due to the fact that we have a
mocap stick yeah that's true yeah I mean
a lot of Studios like they might have to
go down to like LA or where one of their
mocap you know vendors are and so it
makes it a lot more difficult for them
to switch gears exactly yeah for us it's
like you know hey Jason we want to go
reshoot this thing we got some feedback
right and so
it's it's you know just based on our
schedules which is really nice
yeah that is I didn't think about that
that's really really handy having that
here yeah
all right let's talk a little bit about
the bound by blood trailer because it is
that was incredibly fun yeah I had a
really fun time working on this one I
mean I have fun on all of them but this
one in particular my process is
typically when I'm starting to work on a
trailers I'll go through employ the
episode just where it's at at that
moment and as soon as I got to the
concert I knew like this is this is
gonna be the thread that ties this
trailer together Conor everyone who
worked on that did an amazing job
and so when I got to that portion I know
I normally don't capture a bunch of
footage right off the bat I play through
the episode and then kind of little
structure an edit based on audio and
based on the needs for features and that
kind of thing and in this one as soon as
I started the concert I was like okay I
got into the game sort of capturing
footage and this assembled a really
rough kind of take on on how that should
look and presented that to the people
you know like lead the night people who
would be involved and everybody would
got it right away
which was pretty cool yeah well
something that you mentioned to me was
that you thought of this from the
perspective of I am shooting a rock
concert yeah pretty much yeah I had
always kind of wanted to do a cam usik
video approach to one of our there are
trailers and this was the opportunity to
do that and so yeah I said I was how
would I shoot if I were in charge you
know running a switchboard let's say at
a concert like how would I shoot this
and that's pretty much what that was so
it was I mean there was no for the
concert itself there's no custom
animations that were using it so it was
what it was built in it's exactly what
was presented in the trailer which was
like pretty amazing considering like
I've got an extended need a section of
guitar solo that doesn't you know you
don't this it's you know it's hard for
me at least to see that there's a
looping animation going on during that
and so yeah it worked out really well
and I think we've got an early cut of
that and we want to take do we want to
look at that early cut okay
we are manager
[Music]
better hey scram
I have hairy
first wallbang who without stop by
soda soda
like we be storage
don't ever follow biology
[Music]
mr. cars on honest and
door
without long losers Jordana oh my god we
outside United bomb are gone
oh boy
[Applause]
you later nothing yet
we're just getting started he found
Ciavarella
to roughen so yeah lots of lots of rough
assets in there you can see yeah that's
actually a fairly early edit the fire
was like that was the first time I had
presented the fire at the end and people
got a good laugh and so we and we ended
up going and continuing with it it was
never meant to be a permanent thing it
was just like a fun little thing to
stuff at the end for our reviews but
yeah you can see there's a lot of temp
assets a lot of shots that were slightly
different but the overall structure is
pretty much the same I just happened to
come together really easily and so yeah
the fire the fire at the end being just
like oh haha yeah and it ended up
staying well yeah it was kind of
initially it was very hot like haha
funny moment and then when we started
thinking about it it needed something to
kind of message to the audience that
this is all kind of tongue-in-cheek and
this is all you know it's just it's a
fun fun piece not necessarily meant to
be taking too seriously yeah it's kind
of indicating that to that answer this
is just this is a hard take on my 80s
you know kind of metal metal type
concerts video so we saw Bram you know
the gram was swapped in for firaga for
the head the head had rock on him out so
we made a few changes just based on the
needs after after showcasing that to
specific people in the studio so this is
our introduction to hansha - yeah so
Andre was we snuck her into the dragon
bash release which some people caught on
yeah for sure they worse there were
threads that were going around about who
this character was because it's not I
mean if there's a named character there
usually there's some significance there
and release any information about who
she was and so what we were trying to do
there was have Andre and and Duncan who
was the season 4 player character they
visit basically a handoff like a baton
handoff and so then for this trailer I
wanted to we didn't initially have a
good introduction to her it was just
going to be like oh hopefully they'll
get they'll understand that this is the
commander and I want her to have a
little more direct like no I want to
signify that this is this is the
commander for the season and so that's
that's why there's that bram section
where he
talking about his hair it's not it's not
about that it's about him walking in and
saying hey commander like yeah this is
the commander for the season so that's
how that section kind of came about and
then I headaches at one point after this
edit I had extended the feature section
to kind of fit more content in and in
order to do that I had to take the song
and kind of loop a few portions of it
and I was feeling that and I can tell it
in the Edit I'm like this is getting
repetitive I can feel it's it's I don't
I didn't like the way that it was
feeling and so I came I went to Chris
and was basically you know hey the song
is getting repetitive to me is there
anything in the song that you can think
of to pull out that would help and
instead of doing that what he suggested
is that we actually kind of remove
ourselves from the music for a little
while and that's how the gorrik section
came about in the in the funnel Epiphone
'el trip was fantastic it's it's a way
for us to kind of remove ourselves from
that moment for a section and also you
know introduce a character and that was
all suggested by Chris so and I said so
we need we need a smoke screen I said I
said what's gorg doing in the episode
he's stuck in this room and I'm being
held captive and so like and I wanted to
introduce more of the characters that
were gonna be shown in the episode yeah
and so it just kind of fell together I
was like that is perfect here's what
we'll do he's annoyed he's doing
something he's annoyed by this music
that it's you know rattling through his
his area and so that's how that came
about
and I was worried about that I mean I
knew we had signed off on it but we had
we had a company meeting where I think
we showed it on release day or right
before it and people like started
cracking up at that scene and I was like
okay we're success yeah it was took a
little while to dial in exactly how that
should sound yeah we really wanted to
hear I said I really want to hear that
upstairs neighbor like yes so that was
fun yeah
I was in that meeting and it was that
was one of the highlights of showing
that trailer everybody got such a kick
out of and just that little head shake
when he went back
yeah that was that was just a touch I
really liked where he's got that
exasperation but he's not like banging a
broom on the ceiling yep
and screaming if I haven't said it a big
thank you to the cinematics team because
you came to me to solve an audio problem
and I basically said can we do this
other thing but if it creates work don't
do it and you're like well let's try it
yeah and then like oh well needs an
animation I'm like no no let's I don't
want to create work I just did the head
shake and so y'all really yeah that was
an extra ask because I know our
animation budget was already pretty
tight and so when I suggest that maybe
we'd touched this and it was we what we
ended up starting with was some existing
animation loops that we had and then
Greg went and finished I did a custom
version on top of that so it worked out
really nicely and didn't heat up a bunch
of your time and fixed a problem that
existed that you know what we wanted to
to make sure that we weren't getting too
repetitive it's something I found with
the people that work here because
everybody is so into what they're doing
that if you have if there's a good idea
and you're like now I don't want to
create work if it's a good idea what
you're gonna find yourself running
behind them going please stop I said it
would create work and then oh this is
great in that first time that's multiple
times and I'm guilty of doing that
sometimes super exciting so let's make
it happen
so yeah huge huge thanks to you guys
because it was very good speaking of the
new commander and that was one in the
trailer that we used mocap for right
okay so for the reveal for Anja and the
bram hair thing those those two
characters have mocap on them and then
marjory and kasmeer we did a kind of
imposed like a mocap pose for them with
some slight hand king on top of that
da da da he worked on and then yeah so
that was the mocap that we did for that
episode which we weren't initially
planning on do but we I think we were
actually will be downstairs capturing
mocap for something else and then we
were like okay well we have some
timeless
grab this while we're here so that
worked out really well and yeah but like
the trailer that we saw just now has
that basic rough mocap it's been had a
little bit of polish on it but not much
you know if Bram's got the blade hands
and he's you know no finger poses or
anything so yeah I liked I liked that
little nuance pose of Kaz and Marjorie
just kind of sitting there leaning
against the stage you could tell that
they weren't really into this yeah and
that that took a lot of it surprisingly
for such a simple it appears to be a
simple thing that actually took a lot a
lot of time to dial in and a lot of
feedback from people because we wanted
to really kind of get into there even
though it looks like they're just kind
of leaning we really wanted to get some
nuance in there as far as how they were
feeling at that moment you know if you
look at Kazmir like she's not super
celebratory because you know she's going
through a lot right now
with the previous season and so and then
Margery you know she's we're starting to
kind of open her up a little bit she's
gonna get she got the foot tap in the
head and pop kind of going on during the
music so it surprisingly even though it
does look like there's not much going on
there there was a lot of thought put
into that so and then and then with the
final trailer we've got the commander
like you know she's enjoying the concert
she's very happy to have unlocked her
emotions that is a whole thing that
worked out really well so that was just
mocap that you captured while you were
down there doing something else yeah
yeah it was a we know where we're gonna
be we knew we were gonna be down the
hook up stage and you know we had these
moments that initially we were just
thinking we would do neither hankie or
simple poses on and then boy were done
that might as well capture and then Greg
and and dahi were able to utilize that
zone awesome all right well how about
the what were some of the most fun
things to work on from an audio
perspective in these in this episode the
trailer specifically was licensed to
basically indulge myself and all my
worst what's the phrase I'm looking for
impulses sonically if you watch I feel
like every time I come on here after
reference stranger things but they're
sound easy you'll have so much fun
because everything that happens somebody
like reaches down
grabs a things it's a crazy thing and I
said nobody gets away with that and as
soon as this sort of became a
tongue-in-cheek trailer I got on our
audio channel and I said do we have
I don't wanna mention a library by name
but there was a sad there's a sound
library that's just really really
overused I said do we have this library
and the audio team was like banned like
get Cris out cuz like we don't want
anybody using it sounds like no I need
like I wouldn't say bad sounds but
extremely overuse sounds you know cuz
it's like there's when you hear a clay
pot break there's a there's a sound of a
clay pot breaking then there's the clay
pot breaking here in my head yeah
exactly and so like when the fire
explosion happens at the end of the
trailer and when the live now thing
comes down we were like I need the metal
hit you know from like a monster truck
rally and that cling yeah so those are
nerdy moments for me the cinematic I
really obsessed over and had a lot of
fun with because I feel like the writing
for this episode and how character
driven it is and just just Bhangarh when
I got introduced to that character I
just became obsessed with every part of
this character needs to feel imposing
and like he's this great military person
but he's being spoilers manipulative and
everything he makes personal I said
everything this guy does is is just you
know bad to the bone so in that
cinematic I was probably driving Greg
nuts talking about it I was listening to
because originally they were sort of
like running into each other and I said
I want these guys to sound like cars
hitting each other and I was looking up
the sound of a junkyard when they were
dropping like mini Mini Coopers on each
other and I was sending them files like
this is what they should sound like and
then it turned into they were punching
and I just I tangent I was at a street
fair one day and there was a antique
shop or booth and most of it was very
touristy stuff not true antiquing
about to show my antique snob eNOS here
but but they had this water pump this
really thick metal water pump and I just
was like picking it up and moving it and
sort of jingling it and I was like this
is something and I brought it back and I
think that was before the cinematic
before we started working on it I just
bought that cuz I was like this is fun
we'll do something with this and so we
started the cinematic and I wanted his
armor it was really difficult sorry I'm
gonna go down the rabbit hole it was
very difficult that to make his armor
sound how I wanted because I wanted it
to sound chunky but I wanted it to sound
very finely crafted all pieces that fold
and move together it couldn't just be
clunk clunk clunk right so and finding
metal objects that do that that have a
weight to them because you can find a
lot
dig dig dig dig things but I need him to
sound just like a tank so I got that
water pump out and I was clanking on it
and everything was ting ting ting ting
wasn't working and we have a we have a
car hood in the in our Foley room that I
said let's try that actually that's not
true I tried about 10 15 things I was
putting it on file cabinets I was
putting it on this and the other wasn't
working and Joe Clark one morning saw me
pulling my hair out and I said Joe what
do i do what do I do to make this guy
sound big and he said well let's get the
car hood out and we did that and it's
amazing what happens when you take if
you have something that makes a sound
and you put it on something especially
something that resonates something
that's wooden or has a cavity in it it
just totally changes the presence of the
sound and so when we put that water pump
on a car hood it still had all them
though the water pump had a nice
mechanism to it it sounded like a
complex machine but putting it on the
car hood when those to conduct and
resonate it gave it a weight that I
instantly was just like this is this is
our guy everything he does and the
second part of that which we have a
behind-the-scenes video for that but the
second part of that was everything's
about perspective and contrast if you
have big big sounds and other big sounds
plane
might not sound big cuz it's just
there's no perspective and I said you
know with RIT lock we kind of need to
make him sound small to make Bhangarh
sound big and that was mentally I don't
know if I said that out loud to you guys
but it weirded me out because I was like
bang guards are RIT locks
he's crazy he's crazy small guy so the I
was a little worried that somebody would
call that out and I don't think anybody
ever did but his armor it wasn't it
wasn't puny but it was just light it was
it was it was not in-your-face and bang
guards I feel like it's it's still
subtle but if you listen he's really
just he's heavy he's a heavyweight and
then there's the punches which was also
fun because we went to the store and got
vegetables we got chicken we got peanuts
pasta and we had a day where we punched
it we hit it with the baseball bat we
threw it around I mean we we did
everything and then we ingested all that
into our we ingested all that we are
sound station and then we I really
wanted to also look at some of the
classic films actually I was not looking
at the classic films I was looking at
Ben Burtt who's sort of one of the
godfathers of sound design who when he
did Indiana Jones he was looking at
classic film sound and trying to mimic
how do you make those old-school punch
sounds and the idea was that they were
recording on a wire what was at wire
recorders and when you blow out the
signal it didn't when you distort with
digital technology today sounds terrible
but when you distorted on old analog
tape it just sort of like squish the
sound to be this big football thing so
we really tried to play with elements
that would mimic some of those
old-school punches and just make it
really beefy and if I stop talking here
we have a video I'm sorry it was it was
a long process and I was I was coming
into work saying to Greg like I was
dreaming about it like how we're gonna
make this sound and make it sound heavy
yeah it was pretty cool cuz I mean I was
very excited about the cinematic but
then to see Chris coming in he was also
he's like you know I can't wait to work
on this
I went and picked this up today and it
was cool - yeah compassionate I did I
did I came over there with the chicken I
was like hey this is our space let's
look at the behind-the-scenes video
[Music]
you good we had a lot of fun so what's
the viewers can hear is talking what was
in the blue bag that I called the meat
bag that had everything in it because we
so we were Greg was there and you can
correct me if I'm wrong we were just
like adding things to the pile we're
like let's beat up the chicken all right
now get the cabbage now do this and then
like we had kind of just eviscerated it
to this pile of mush I said all right
let's wrap that all up in a towel
because sometimes what happens is when
you're when you're working with a prop
like let's say a vegetable for instance
it's very bright it's very crackly but
sometimes what's grosser to me is if you
can hear it like under the skin so I
wanted to go for as people got this but
I was like well I kind of want to hear
what it sounds like underneath the skin
so let's wrap it up in a bag a towel and
I went to the store that day I said
we're buying a towel and we're throwing
this towel away because it was just
soaked and I do not want to put in the
washing machine and so that became the
meat bag which kind of had these nice
well whatever fleshy Association you
want to make getting hits uncooked pasta
it was great because we hid it at this
time and then you just sort of massage
it and the next time maybe some peanuts
would be on top so you get a crunchy one
then you get a wet one our jobs are
weird I've told this Chris before I said
if I didn't get into video editing I
would totally have been yeah this sounds
like so much fun
well that's not our full-time we don't
record ourselves on the computer just
doing stuff but but yes when we get to
cut loose it's it's pretty great and we
have a great team within the audio team
man like you know Greg and Amelia the
former audio and cinematics producer was
there we try to rope people in and say
like hey let's let's have some fun let's
make some weird sounds yeah all right
well do you guys want to answer a few
questions from viewers sure okay
we are we're running so long right now
this has been an insane
long show so I am gonna I'm gonna grab a
couple of these and then if you guys
watching have questions we'll have time
for maybe one or two all right
was it fun this was a question for
narrative too but you guys called that
out as well
was it fun to create Croatia and
Bhangarh they're both imposing and feel
living and face punched apparently I
mean I think that's for me what we just
talked about I wanted to go to this
really insane level of not necessarily
detail but just I wanted them to feel
with their sound very real very life and
Krisha has a lot of quiet movement
sounds in that cinematic but they're
there and that was all faux lead to
picture so full litre picture Foley
capital F because it was a person's name
Jack Foley fol don't laugh I get on
rants about this fol
UI and it is the act of recording sounds
while watching the picture so you know I
would watch Krisha and she's kind of
folding her arms and doing her thing and
I had on a couple different types of
jackets and gloves and was moving around
and in the same ways that in the past
we've talked about how mocap versus
hankie may be more efficient sometimes
it's faster to Foley a character doing
this rather than for me to sit there and
say well I got a little bit of cloth of
a sound and a little cloth sound and now
I got to edit them and put them together
it's like I can just go do the thing in
about five minutes and we're done so
yeah it's great for character movements
yeah and I mean I think it was you know
like we had talked about it was a
process to figure out who those
characters were and and I don't think
Bhangarh you know you could obviously
wasn't finished but the first thing we
showed like I don't feel like Bhangarh
was anywhere near as imposing or
menacing as he was in the final version
and to get that that you know nuanced
with him yeah I was a lot of fun to you
know work with narrative and everything
to figure out who he was and Krisha
alter I think she you know I think she's
still a mystery to a degree but that was
kind of what we wanted for this episode
also so I think both of them were a lot
of fun too
work on for sure and our our boss
Chelsea shooter that she was down there
while we were doing mocap for the for
the cinematic and she was going into a
lot of like with me because I was
Bhangarh for the mocap about just
drawing from my I have a military
background and you know he's a the Chara
military race and he's the leader of the
of this particular faction and so I had
to draw a lot from just my experience
with Lisonbee bone so I I had a couple
people in mind that just had interacted
with while I was in the military for
that I'm emulating the those people
while playing Bhangarh is you very much
this is kind of looking at for most part
looking down their nose and people and
looking down so at the end of that
cinematic when big are standing tall I'm
kind of watching
Krisha walk away it was just very much
like looking down my nose like what is
going on there but I drew off in that
scene for that particular character I
think is I mean it's no accident that
you know I think the this cinematic came
out so well I everything I do I compare
to to Joko is one of my favorite ones
that I have worked on and I think that
both of those cinematics have writing
for villains that are just really well
done
there there's nuance with them they
aren't you know they aren't just yours
you're straight bad guy so Sara Lee
right and they have emotion and
character and so I think there's it's no
accident that I think a couple of the
best cinema I don't think the writers
rate so fingers not gonna be tiny
anybody up on the railroad track know
must destroy yeah all right I have one
more for you guys good job on creating a
slowly building sense of Menace toward
the end that felt much more real and
ugly than hey cartoonish villainy we
face so far the railroad track so how
far do you think you can push that
before it starts to clash with the
overall heroic fantasy feel of the game
I got your whole question in there I
called that one out specifically for the
music direction because we took a look
at honestly where we're going and then
at this episode and spoiler for the
episode when you get to that last
mountaintop thing like we knew that's
the moment when
if I was marching up that mountain as
the commander the situation is it's
reeling it's out of control we can't get
there fast enough and when we see what's
happening it's just like oh darn darn
thank you that's the word I was
searching everything we did we were
wrong everything we don't want to have
happen like this is really bad and and
we started from there and then worked
backwards and said how how do we want to
pace out the layers of the onion and
pulling back those layers because in
Greg's scene like we we were very
worried we did not want it to feel so
ominous that you're like bad guy like it
had to be well we don't know how we feel
and I I'm just gonna call out the great
work that we worked with Stan Lepard
McLain Timur and Brendon Williams all
contributed music to this episode and
they did a great job following the
direction which was this really like
it's I in the past life of being a
musician the band vamps for a while it's
like we're letting it cook and I feel
like these guys did a really good job of
just letting it cook at the perfect rate
so that when you get to that ending I
mean it is the culmination of all the
disciplines that worked on episode zero
but music I'm just gonna champion that
that is a huge part of that for me and I
think those guys did such a good job
yeah as far as how far we can take it I
don't know I mean I think from a
cinematics perspective I that has has
been a conscious decision to kind of go
in that direction I think Chelsea has
has pushed us to do those types of
cinematics where it's not just fun
explosion or something but the
cinematics that we do like have meaning
and emotion and import to them and so
you know I think is as long as Chelsea's
still here we're gonna continue to push
that you know that part of the
cinematics I think for sure that's
awesome yeah all right is there anything
else you guys want yeah
I was just going to say like and I as
from the side I feel like I'm poking I
love these nuanced character-driven
things because I was I was coming to
grey
when we were doing episode 6 and they
just there's a big dragon and then a
bigger dragon I can't make these sounds
bigger but these these small ones where
people are doing these really subtle
things like oh yeah I can dig into that
so I'm I think we're all the big stuff
is fun but it's just as fun to have
those quiet moments and savor these
details and yeah is there anything else
that you guys want to add thank you guys
for the feedback and Frasure
alright well I will let you all get back
to work
thank you all for sticking with us for
dose three this was a super fun show we
are loving all of your feedback keep
playing keep talking to us and thank you
guys we'll see you next week
[Music]
you
[Music]
you
[Music]
you

External links

• Guild Chat Episode 91 - Bound by Blood, Guild Wars 2 official YouTube channel

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