Guild Wars 2

EDIT #1: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxxUKaNnGnXwYfHOPiF_Urg

EDIT #2: Anyone who can (or knows someone who can) help me design a fitting banner/avatar and/or outro for me, please contact me at yourgamingarchivist@gmail.com. Thanks in advance!

Hey guys,

The following is not a lore question. This will be about the world of Tyria and on archiving/documenting/preserving it.

I don’t post much myself but I read almost everything you guys post.
The last few days I’ve seen multiple reactions on topics stating that they regret the missing of some NPC’s before their dialogues could get documented on the wiki. I was thinking on this and then the name of a guild sprang to mind: ‘The Archivists’ Sanctum’.

I am a sailor working on a inland vessel, meaning that I work shifts: 3 weeks of sailing followed by 3 weeks of free time. I have gameplay recording software and then I got the idea: why not record areas of the game. More specifically: NPC’s and their dialogues, buildings, other areas of importance.

I don’t mind spending a fair share of my free time on documenting Tyria, both the Tyria from Guild Wars 1 as from Guild Wars 2. It would be something I enjoy doing and I would feel good for contributing something. Another good thing about doing this would be that for people like myself, who can’t always enjoy the game on a dialy basis can use this as research or entertainment while being away from home.

So my questions to you;

Do you think this is a good way of documenting Tyria or do you think that it would be a waste of time, posting screenshots of dialogue and areas on the wiki is a better idea?

If you do think it would be a good idea to preserver Tyria; what would be popular requests. More importantly, in any of your own theorycrafting, do you think a particular area will be affected within a few weeks that needs preserving right now?

Also; what would be the best medium to put the recordings on? As far as I know the wiki doesn’t allow videos. Of course there is always YouTube but maybe there is a website that serves the purpose better.

After I get enough feedback on the idea I’ll post ideas about formats for the videos. This is a idea that starting living in my head, I’d like your opinions on it.

With kind regards,

your possible future archivist – Jelle.

I urge you to get in touch with Plagiarised- your projects have a lot of overlap, and I hope you can help each other out.

I think that video recordings would be a massive timesaver, especially given that you’re taking on scenery as well as dialogue. The wiki generally doesn’t go in for screenshot dumps- to post the dialogue there would mean transcribing, which would actually be more time-consuming if you have the option of recording video.

For places that’ll likely change soon, LA tops the list. After that, in descending order, the other cities, the non-Orr explorable zones, the dungeons, and the Orr explorable zones. It’s hard to tell more than a couple weeks in advance where the Living Story will go, but we know something big will hit Lion’s Arch with the next month, and historically cities have been changed more than zones, and the Orrian zones have been left practically untouched.

I really can’t answer where to post it. YouTube would be my bet too, but someone may come forward with a better idea.

As a closing note, from my own personal experience- don’t try to capture 100% of the ambient dialogue. It’s next to impossible. You’ll have to find your own balance between waiting long enough so you don’t miss something and waiting too long so you end up missing other things.

Best of luck!

On top of what Aaron said (I also suggest going after Plagarised, who’s been – or was? – working on recording all ambient spoken dialogue – I also intend to put my own project to get dialogue (starting with LA) once I get home next week).

It is not a bad idea; regardless of where you put documentation someone would go and put it on the wiki and simply having it accessible means that even if removed from the game, it can be put on the wiki later on.

It is definitely a good idea to record what we can before it gets changed. After all, if the old stuff held important information then it’ll be gone forever – memory of it but no source to back up claims of it or to double check one’s own memory.

As for what is likely to be affected? Lion’s Arch. The entire last instance of this update concludes with “Lion’s Arch will be attacked.” That can mean that any NPC out there in LA will have changed dialogue or could die in lore, thus dialogue lost completely.

As for best medium, well, that’s for you to decide so long as it’s wide inclusive (e.g., you don’t record just one line of dialogue, but the whole thing and where it’s from). The wiki pretty much avoids any kind of raw recordings for dialogue and the like. Don’t bother putting it on the wiki, but instead put it on something else – imgur could work for images, youtube for videos, etc. – then just link to the source elsewhere (like this forum, or on the wiki). If you can’t or don’t know how to put the info on the wiki, someone else will.

I had this topic on a similar matter : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Library/first#post3278674 , if you have the time, check it.

Thanks for your input! I will try to check in with Plagiarised and share thoughts.
I also recall a mention of you, Konig, that states that certain heart NPC’s have interesting dialogue before you complete them. I will look into that as well which probably means rolling a new alt.

I’ll have to play with balance between recording 100% and recording priorities. Capturing 100% of Tyria is almost impossible and a nightmare for one man to do I’d say, besides that another bad thing would be that if I would try to record 100% of a map I would end up with very long footage which will be another nightmare to cut and edit and it would be a nightmare for people who look for specific things.

My idea was to scan through maps, write down interesting things and later getting back to record them. For example: see heart NPC with interesting dialogue > write down > see event happening close by > write down > come back later > record dialogue, cut > do heart > record new dialogue > move on to complete event > cut

@Konig Des Todes, and what about your project? Won’t it overlap mine or will your means of documenting spoken dialogue not involve footage? If it does, it might be best for the both/all three (depending on Plagiarised) of us to stay in touch in order to prioritize things that might be affected.

@darkfiremew, I will read it later today! But from the quick scan I did you want the stuff to get implemented in-game and that is sadly a thing we can’t do ourselves. What might be a project for a later date is getting all the recordings, short stories/blog posts etc. on a collective website but then again, we have the wiki for that.

Anyway guys, I’ll start recording a few test runs tonight and play with editing. I’ll begin with Lion’s Arch because if that indeed will be destroyed it will haunt me for a very long time that I didn’t begin there. Once I’m done I’ll bump this topic with a youtube link, do you guys have the time to give feedback? It’s a new thing for me so we’ll have to see how everything works out.

Thanks in advance!

(Did I miss anything?)

Jelle.4623:

I also recall a mention of you, Konig, that states that certain heart NPC’s have interesting dialogue before you complete them. I will look into that as well which probably means rolling a new alt.

There’s a multitude of “triggers” to get varying dialogues.

• Active, recently completed, and non-active nearby events.
• Completed or not completed hearts.
• Races, orders, and sometimes certain biography options, gender, profession, or personal story placement can alter dialogues too.

I would suggest denoting which of those you have when recording, just so you or others can compare with different situations.

Jelle.4623:

@Konig Des Todes, and what about your project? Won’t it overlap mine or will your means of documenting spoken dialogue not involve footage? If it does, it might be best for the both/all three (depending on Plagiarised) of us to stay in touch in order to prioritize things that might be affected.

My project is to go through my characters and talk to all NPCs to record their dialogue boxes, taking note of the above situations when doing so. I’d be screenshotting and intentionally going after NPC boxes – if I see ambient dialogue I’ll record those as well but except for Lion’s Arch I don’t intend to go out of my way for them.

Jelle.4623:

What might be a project for a later date is getting all the recordings, short stories/blog posts etc. on a collective website but then again, we have the wiki for that.

All lore blog posts and short stories are on GW2W. There’s another project – for which my above is just a preparation act for – which will be including such. Won’t speak of it for now but expect it next going public month should things go according to plan.

Thanks! That is useful information. That is definitely good to know.

And I’m curious to see that project! If there is any need for it, anything I will record will be free to use for that project.

Thanks everyone, this topic has inspired me. It’s nice to see the progress of a vague idea in my head going to something more solid, something I can work with.

Hey guys! Videos are up! Now, these are my first test runs and don’t involve any fine editing (smooth audio transition, intro/outro, et cetera). This is partly because these are test runs and partly because I haven’t managed to find nice editing software.
There are no commentaries in the videos, I figured that if you would hear me speculating/theorycrafting on the background you wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the dialogue.

The first two videos are me walking around in an area, nothing special, they are primarily for me to try out the recording software. the third video is the recording of dialogue. What I did with the third was searching (for this video The Grove) for relevant dialogue and then recorded and put them together.

Points of feedback:

-Shakiness/camera movement
-Choice of music
-Coverage of subject
-Personal opinion

I will try to upload dialogue on a daily basis however I don’t know how time-consuming the job will be.

Feedback either here or in the comment section on YouTube, thanks in advance!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8LeEbqvP9o0RV6G7pGrllnIL9bcNdQJR

PS. If anyone on the forums is willing to make a fitting banner and/or help me with making an outro please contact me at yourgamingarchivist@gmail.com!

Shakiness/camera movement: Felt smooth in the first two videos, no complaints. A non-issue in the third, since you were just cutting from dialogue to dialogue.

Choice of music: I liked it, and I definitely think you’ve got the right idea picking tracks without lyrics. Bit loud, but I don’t know rather that’s from my end or yours.

Coverage of Subject: I think you’ve got a good thing going with the dialogue. You spend just the right amount of time on each screen. I also really liked that you had something specific to Cycle, which my Noon bloom has never seen. Please, make a habit of finding that kind of thing!

Personal opinion: I can’t decide rather that rotating U-map is the coolest or most disorienting UI mod I’ve seen. On a relevant note, it seems kind of a shame that you couldn’t get any in-game audio in there, but I get that that’d be a whole new set of soundbalancing issues for the editing.

Thanks for your time Aaron!

On my end it didn’t sound too loud but I guess that is a issue you can easily adjust with volume control? Anyway I’ll look into it. I’m currently looking for a more advanced editor to give me more customization options with sound effects

And yeah! I was quite pleased with the Cycle thing, I went back with my Asura to see what the NPC would say then and I think that if I would have spoken to the NPC the first time with my Asura I wouldn’t have bothered to put it in, so it was nice to experience that!

I’ve got a video with in-game sound, thing is I wasn’t aware that my mic was on so you can hear noise from outside which is disturbing in my own opinion. It’s a shame really because it was a recording of the Living Story part where you investigate stuff that Scarlet left with Marjory and Kasmeer.

Again thanks for taking the time to give feedback!

I proposed this back then when Plagiarised (I think he’s the one doing the project of recording all cities dialogues) but never got a response. Anyhow, I’m currently using my alt as a lorehound, since I pretty much rushed my main through the world in one month and missed a lot. Sadly, I’m done with Krytan and Maguuman zones (except Mount Maelstrom), but as soon as I can get my hands on it, I’m going to start clearing the Shiverpeaks and Ascalonian zones. I could record all of this to help out. I tend to stand by NPC’s up to 20 minutes or what’s needed to get all the idle dialogues and such, plus doing all events, hearts, etc.

Just let me know so I get a program to record it.

P.S. Anyone has a record of dungeon dialogues? If not, I was planning to do that too and could organize ourselves with the guild to do it.

I think it’s good to do this with multiple people! Not only to save time but also to get as much variety in dialogue as possible. As seen with my sylvari nightbloom dialogue changes with the choices you make. I made 2 new alts (asura and sylvari) especially for this purpose.

I haven’t really looked in to what other people have been doing, there might be someone having records of dungeon dialoge. It might be a good idea to get a in-game guild for people who are interested? This would help organizing and doing dungeon runs for example. I don’t know if Konig’s guild is interested? Maybe we/I can integrate?

Characters I plan on using for recording:

Level 80 Charr blood legion warrior who went with the vigil (PS completed)
Level 80 Sylvari nightbloom who went with Order of Whispers (PS not completed)
Level 35 Human noble class who (second or third arc of the personal story)
Level 5 Asura, college of Synergetics (not started with personal story)

I will create a norn so that I have 5 races for recording although both the Asura and Norn will take some time because of level issues.

I think [Lore] is the best place to get this going, since we’re all basically the same persons that come around these forums.

I would definitely get behind dungeon runs for dialogue. Can’t speak for the rest of the guild, though.

I PM’d Konig to ask if I could join you guys, I would love to dungeon runs where the group is focused on dialogue and lore and not on clearing it as fast as possible and get rewards.

I’m absolutely down for dungeon runs for dialogue. The other Dragonbranders in [Lore] that I know of would be up for it too at any point (the what, whopping 5 of us unless we’ve gotten new people I haven’t seen yet?) We’re already working on getting through the dungeons, story and explorables, and usually attempt at least one a week.

I’ll remember to do a lot more screencapping as we go from now on or have Fraps up to record stuff just in the off chance it’s needed

Pitching in here, lately I’ve been screenshooting and scouting for ambient dialogue by enemies. Also been trying to screenshot peculiar dialogues in Personal Story-steps that can be missed easily.

Currently just doing that for my own amusement but if anyone’s interested in the snippets I got, just show me where to put them P:

@Elysian You can mail them to the e-mailadress provided in the first post if you want
Then I’ll get them recorded and put them in a video!

As far as I know I have all my guest spots still open so I can join in on any dungeon runs (I read somewhere that most of the [Lore] guys are in Sanctum of Rall? Which is a NA server I believe, I live in Europe and play on Far Shiverpeaks, I don’t know if guesting works for oversea servers?)

Anyway, the sooner I join you guys the better I reckon.

ElysianEternity.6215:

Pitching in here, lately I’ve been screenshooting and scouting for ambient dialogue by enemies.

Serious kudos (Kudus?) to you, man. I quit in frustration the 30th time I accidentally agroed the group I was spying on.

Jelle.4623:

As far as I know I have all my guest spots still open so I can join in on any dungeon runs (I read somewhere that most of the [Lore] guys are in Sanctum of Rall? Which is a NA server I believe, I live in Europe and play on Far Shiverpeaks, I don’t know if guesting works for oversea servers?)

Anyway, the sooner I join you guys the better I reckon.

I don’t know about guesting, but dungeons are cross-server, so we should be able to do them without going to that trouble.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Jelle.4623:

As far as I know I have all my guest spots still open so I can join in on any dungeon runs (I read somewhere that most of the [Lore] guys are in Sanctum of Rall? Which is a NA server I believe, I live in Europe and play on Far Shiverpeaks, I don’t know if guesting works for oversea servers?)

Anyway, the sooner I join you guys the better I reckon.

I don’t know about guesting, but dungeons are cross-server, so we should be able to do them without going to that trouble.

Dungeons and certain instances (like the Halloween Bloody Prince instances in Ascalon) are cross-server so there’s no worry about having guesting spots for those. Thankfully, or that’d just be a huge pain.

I know people from EU servers come over to play on US servers through guesting, so they don’t disallow due to regions. You just may or may not have a little more lag.

Thanks Maethor!

Alright guys, Aaron and I made an appointment for this saturday to do a dungeon run, are you guys available around 12pm UTC -7 / 8pm UTC +1? Do you guys have any priorities on what dungeon you want to do first? For now it will be HotW.

I made a guild for easy coordination but I don’t know if you still have any guild spots left. Let me know and I’ll send you a invite! (no need to rep or anything but then I can use the Message of the Day to let you know when the next runs will be)

I’m lost on time conversions. PST times?

Also, I’d much rather do it in chronological order. Starting off with Ascalonian Catacombs and so on. Also, I guess we’re doing both story and explorable modes right?

PST time would be UTC -8 so 11 am

Chronological order is fine by me and yes both story and explorable but I don’t think we can manage that in one go. (well, I could but I can’t speak for the others)