Greetings,
Welcome to the next installment of the Dolyak Express. Today we have answers to some of your lore questions from this thread, as well as from the other language forums, from Lead Writer Bobby Stein and Narrative Designers Jeff Grubb and Scott McGough.
Q: What sort of internal structures do you have at work to maintain consistency of the universe in the long run [among so many designers and writers]? I know you have a big wiki for pure objective and logical consistency, but what about the spirit of the universe?
Bobby Stein: We use a combination of wikis, internal documentation, and interdisciplinary communication to both maintain and evolve the spirit of the Guild Wars universe. Every team that is building story content has an assigned narrative designer who drafts character dialog and plot, but also checks for continuity.
Q: Could you explain to us the steps of the story creation process based on a well-known example? From the idea to the game—including the different people dealing with it. How were different teams involved in creating it?
Bobby: Living World story creation has evolved considerably over the past year, as we’re always striving to create interesting character moments that resonate with our players. It all starts with a concept or plot outline involving our main characters. We pose a question that we want players to ask. Then we set out to answer that question through a combination of story beats, character moments, art set pieces, and gameplay. We discuss those ideas as a team, and narrow them down to a more focused story. From there, the teams are able to take that framework and build the content that you play every two weeks.
To show that evolution, I’ll use two different release groups. Flame & Frost started out as a series of teaser events that would lead up to the introduction of Rox and Braham, the retaking of Cragstead and the devourer hatchery, and the destruction of Molten Alliance weapons facilities. A relatively small team built that content over several months, with the members focusing on specific story and gameplay bits from concept to completion. We used open world events to draw players in, and then developed the story and characters mostly in story instances.
Contrast that with the Nightmare Tower releases, which had a larger cast of characters, bigger story instances and world zones, and action on a larger scale. Since we were using established characters, we were able to build some quieter moments to allow roleplayers a chance to get to know them a bit better, and we were able to put those out in the open world for increased visibility.
With each release, members of the various Living World teams earned valuable experience that they’d apply to their next projects. By the end of 2013, the writers and narrative designers were working more closely with gameplay designers, which led to greater synergy between disciplines and stronger stories as a result. You’ll see evidence of that in the remaining four releases of the Scarlet story.
Q: The texture of the moon in-game closely resembles the real world moon. Is Tyria supposed to be Earth? And if so, is the Guild Wars 2 universe based before or after our own time?
Bobby: Any similarities to our moon are purely coincidental. Tyria is not Earth.
Q: How is the centaur society structured? What place does spiritualism, social rank, family take in day-to-day life?
Scott McGough: In modern times, the bulk of centaur society is structured more like a massive army under the control of a powerful warlord—specifically, Ulgoth the Mighty of the Modniir. In reaction to all the other sentient races pushing in on centaur territory (humanity being the first on their list of enemies), the Modniir mustered and organized the Harathi and Tamini tribes into a single large fighting force. The Modniir occupy the highest position in this tribal hierarchy, followed by the Harathi, and then the Tamini. The Modniir are ruthless and dictatorial, conscripting the less powerful centaur tribes into service and forcing them to fight according to the combat strategies and orders of battle laid out by the Modniir high command.
The centaurs are generally a very spiritual people that combine nature worship with ancestor worship. This worship was always fairly militant and violent, with rites that routinely ended in ritualistic combat between centaur tribes or between individuals from the same tribe. Years of struggle and border warfare have hardened the centaurs to the point where their religious observances are even more violent and martial than they had been, especially with the Modniir’s aggressive campaign of attacks on humanity. Centaurs still have a deep reverence for their nature spirit (whom they vehemently deny is an aspect of the human goddess Melandru) but these days they focus on the proud, wild, and free aspects of their spirituality far more than the growing and nurturing aspects.
Centaur family bonds have correspondingly diminished in importance as the war against humanity progresses. They still have defined family roles (in short, the males hunt and protect the tribe’s borders while the females aggressively defend centaur civilians while administering the day to day operation of encampments). Males are more common on the battlefield, but as the conflict with humanity continues to drain centaur resources, more and more females are being called away from centaur homesteads to participate in the front line fighting.
Q: Are the Six [gods] really gone or not? Their power is still very much present. Players can call upon the gods’ power with prayers, NPC priests can summon Reapers of Grenth etc., and their statues are still stuffed with energy. So if they left, why are their power still here?
Jeff Grubb: The human gods still exist, and their power is still felt within Tyria. However, they have pulled back into the mists, leaving the humans to stand (or fall) on their own merits. There has been a tendency for the human gods to, um, meddle with their worshippers a bit much, and in the wake of the final battle of Abaddon, they have been trying to cut back. Also, the destruction of the big A and his replacement with Kormir in the Pantheon resolved one of their ties with physical contact with Tyria. So there are ties, but you just can’t ring them up to take on the Elder Dragons.
Q: During their training in the fahrar, how is a charr’s profession decided? What would prompt a cub to be given training in spellcasting, when spellcasting is not particularly liked in charr society? Does the fahrar merely give charr a basic military training and they then leave and decide which profession they want to specialize in?
Jeff: Profession is determined by aptitude. If a young charr has magical tendencies, it would be unwise both for the cub and the warband to push him or her into another field. Some groups do this, but others are pragmatic about it – a hallmark of charr thinking. They are not big fans of magical abilities due to the previous power of the Flame Legion, but still see magical abilities as a useful tool. The best modern comparison is the American Football Team, which mostly consists of big, beefy warrior types, but really like to keep around the small guy whose only real skill is to kick the ball 50 yards through a set of uprights.
Q: Can you explain how an asuran wedding ceremony might work ? Preferably with as much details as possible.
Jeff: Here’s what I have said publicly previously on Asura Marriage – Asura tend to practice serial monogamy, in that they have a serious romantic relationship with only one other asura at a time. Most of these relationships are equal partnerships which often (but not always) have a firm, pre-determined end date. Most often, such relationships come out of two asura who fall in love with the same beautiful concept. These marriages of the mind produce rapid development of ideas and increased conceptual paradigms. Oh yeah, and children. Relationships that break up tend to feature more fights about who gets the inventions than who gets the kids. – http://secretagentcat.com/2011/09/12/in-the-mind-of-genius/
I don’t think we’ve had an asura wedding ceremony yet.
Q: Do ogres have religious beliefs?
Jeff: From our internal wiki “Ogres are not spiritual in any fashion; they have no concept of gods of religious spirits, they do not worship anything or anyone, they do not have religious traditions, superstitions, or any other fantastic explanation about how the world works or how life was created. They simply do not care. Ogres care only for the here-and-now, the concrete reality of the moment, and have no spiritual belief system to address anything beyond that point.”
Q: Do the wizard towers in Kessex Hills and Ascalon have any relationship? What´s the story behind them and what happened to the Ascalonian one?
Jeff: I think the two towers are similar chiefly because of the chains. The idea of chaining down your tower makes sense for when you are dealing with particularly powerful powerful magics allows you to move the tower away from populated areas when you are experimenting with particularly powerful energies, and, of course, to move away once something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. The tower in Kessex Hills was in a nearby location in GW1 and was towed to the present location. The one from Ascalon in GW1 is missing and its fate is unrevealed.
Q: In the Order of Whispers lair, we can see a huge planetarium. But it doesn’t seem to correspond to Tyrian continents. What are the blue areas on it? Of what use is this item for the Order?
Jeff: The huge orb is the Order Threat Assessment Board, indicating draconic and other supernatural threats on a huge scale. Much of the globe has not been explored by the Order, and as a result that space is used as expanded views for the areas that they are monitoring, and the end result does not look like the “real” world outside to someone just walking in (think of walking up behind a programmer when their screen is filled with code).
Q: What is the story behind the secret rooms in Caudecus’ Manor and the faces therein?
Jeff: The rooms of madness were something that Josh came up with for the Caduecus explorables, which we put into the map but did not implement in the game due to time. They remained on the map itself, but were not connected. Fans located the rooms by getting behind the architecture. There is currently no official story regarding the faces.
