Guild Wars 2

What’s your name?

• Tirzah!

What do you do at ArenaNet?

• I’m an environment artist, I make the worlds that your characters run around in. So I was involved in creating the look and feel of this first wing of raids.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about?

• Watching people troubleshoot and figure out different ways of getting past epic content. Really looking forward to some livestreams.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?

• Trying to figure out who was crippling a certain type of enemy after repeated wipes and Byron yelling at us all (in a good way).

Anything else you feel like sharing

• I had a lot of fun on this project. Working closely with designers as an artist to make something epic and fun is a real treat.

• Oh, and my aura-sharing Tempest healer is crazy fun >.>

What’s your name?
Bobby Stein

What do you do at ArenaNet?
I’m the Lead Narrative Designer (formerly known as Lead Writer). I work with narrative folk, designers, artists, audio engineers, and programmers to bring out the story in our game. It’s a collaborative effort from concept to completion, and I’m honored to work with such awesome people on a daily basis. I mostly help or collaborate with others on polishing and presenting story ideas inside our game. The work is a mix of technical and creative, with management responsibilities thrown in for good measure.

I’ve been with ArenaNet for about a decade and have worked on just about every title and release. (My invisible beard is long.)

What has been your involvement with Raids?
Writing scripts, consulting on VO sessions, and working with the team to present the narrative bits in new ways that synchronize with gameplay, art, and audio. Basically, working with the awesome folks on this team to deliver a story that’s fitting for this kind of content, while trying to innovate in the process.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about?
We’re trying an evolved approach to how, when, and where the characters speak inside raids. Really interested to hear player feedback from the beta, because we’re doing some exciting new things with our narrative tech that deviate a bit from how we do things inside story instances. Also working with artists to tell visual stories.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?
I have a few!

I sat in on one of the internal play sessions. Everyone in the raid squad was busy setting up their characters for the upcoming fight but one person started walking around inspecting stuff. Then, above the usual chatter, she said, “Hey! My character just said something cool when I [redacted]!”

When I later explained to the team that we were experimenting with ways to mix up the dialog, and that in one particular case there were something like 3 dozen possible combinations a player could hear when X happens, they smiled. Small things like that make me very happy. There are a lot of little details with how we’re presenting this stuff that hopefully add up to form an immersive, satisfying experience.

Lastly, there was this one time where I was running around the map inside an area that Tirzah had recently arted, and I noticed that she added some new props where we had placed an interactive gadget. At first I didn’t really think about what I was looking at, but when I realized that the objects and their placement told a mini story about how that stuff got there, I gave her a high five over Communicator. (I won’t spoil what it was. You’ll have to find it—and all the other cool things that are scattered around—when the first wing releases.)

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?
Running with an experienced party who didn’t mind showing a less-experienced player (a.k.a. me) how to beat Caudecus’s Manor. Disclosure: I’m not a hardcore dungeon runner or raider, so being on this team has been really educational!

Anything else you feel like sharing!
This is a great team and I’m honored to be a part of it. Special shout out to Charlie, our Content Programmer, on all his wonderful work and input in building a lot of these narrative bits.

Vyce.2014:

I could be wrong, but it seems like someone at Anet decided to encourage the raid team to post in this thread. [snip]

It’s pretty simple, you all wanted to know who we are, and we’re big on peer pressure here so we’ll see who else we can force ask to respond as well.

What’s your name?
Steven

What do you do at ArenaNet? (Descriptions of the work you do are preferred over just a job title!)
I work with cross-discipline teams to help them make the best possible releases we can. I previously worked on the original Halloween and Wintersday in 2012, the Molten Weapons Facilities, Labyrinthine Cliffs, Tower of Nightmares, all of Season 2 Living World and the new Lion’s Arch.

What has been your involvement with Raids?
I’m the team’s Product Owner. It’s a combination of helping keep things moving forward and staying out of the way.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about? (Obviously just the bits you’re authorized to talk about!)
I’m looking forward to players having moments when they know something bad is about to happen if they don’t react in time and everyone’s voices raise a notch in anticipation. It’s at those times you can almost see our designers standing in the wings with their buckets ready to collect tears.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids? (Obviously no spoilers! )
Trying to make the glider getaway you see in the raids trailer and instead falling to my death and having to shamefully admit “Bad down!”

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?
The Molten Furnace. I’m obviously biased.

Anything else you feel like sharing!
The team has been working hard to make something that we really hope you enjoy. Thanks for all your passion for GW2!

What’s your name?

• I’ll never tell!

What do you do at ArenaNet? (Descriptions of the work you do are preferred over just a job title!)

• I work in Customer Support doing a bunch of back-end stuff. I’m the one that makes sure your tickets get to the GMs and their replies get to you. I also handle the support website and various other Support-related stuffs.

What has been your involvement with Raids?

• Cannon fodder! I’m on one of the 10-person test teams. We raid together for a few hours every day and wipe constantly. It’s great!

What feature of Raids are you most excited about? (Obviously just the bits you’re authorized to talk about!)

• Getting to raid again (I ran a casual raiding guild in WoW and miss the comraderie that comes with constant wiping and fleeting triumph). Other than that, I was really wowed by Tirzah’s beautiful environments. “Tongue boss” and the area leading up to him are my favorite.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids? (Obviously no spoilers!)
A few of my favorites:

• Watching Chris Cleary break things and send the devs into a flurry
• Learning fun little ways to die like “butt cleave,” “rock boss,” and glider fails
• Being dynamic (this is our raid leader’s term for recovering from horrible mistakes)

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?

• Probably the kitty golems, because they are highly amusing. MEOW!

Anything else you feel like sharing!

• I know that it’s impossible to please everyone with raids, but I hope the countless hours that literally hundreds of people have put in to this project will shine through and make it a great experience. Remember that what you see in the Beta isn’t finished, and what you see at launch will also be tweaked going forward. And above all else, embrace the wipe.

Mireles Lore.5942:

Are we going to need to unlock gliding to access or complete the raid beta?

You will not need gliding to complete the encounter. Gliding would be helpful to explore some of the other areas after you have defeated the boss – but it’s not entirely necessary.

Mireles Lore.5942:

Are we going to need to unlock gliding to access or complete the raid beta?

Later encounters will require gliding, but the one you’ll see in the Beta doesn’t.

Another thing I’d like to add that I’ve really enjoyed – getting better at playing my character. I’d never really done a deep dive into different builds before, and it was fun to play around with the different ways to optimize. I hope raids will provide motive and opportunity for more casual players to explore some of those intricacies and find a new way to enjoy the depth of this game.

Andrew.5468:

What’s your name?
Andy
What do you do at ArenaNet? (Descriptions of the work you do are preferred over just a job title!)
I worked on creature skills and other game systems largely involved with PvE combat (i.e. sidekicking and stuff like that) for several years. Most recently, I was responsible for the Mordrem in Dry Top and Silverwastes and I got to design the Wyvern skills before moving off to the rewards team. I’ve worked on the Map Bonuses system and Precursor crafting in HoT.
What has been your involvement with Raids?
I’m the guy designing and setting up the rewards.
What feature of Raids are you most excited about? (Obviously just the bits you’re authorized to talk about!)
I’m really looking forward to having content that is really challenging and seeing the unexpected ways that everyone finds to beat it.
What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids? (Obviously no spoilers! )
In a test of a prototype boss encounter, due to some of the mechanics of the fight, I accidentally stomped Chris Cleary’s character.
What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?
Molten Boss Fractal – because it rewards situational awareness and paying attention to the boss skills

And this time from the correct account

dlonie.6547:

tl;dr Thumbs up on the narrative improvements and level design. Can’t wait to get a party in here to try out the encounter.

Thank you for the kind words!