Guild Wars 2

A Massive Headache.1879:

BobbyStein.2315:

Mortifer.2946:

It seems like devs respond only to useless topics like this and doesn’t care about giving response to anything important. Never before I’ve seen such aproach to customers. Sad.

I reply to writing and VO threads when I can, including critical feedback posts, since that’s my area. Is there something story related that you’re concerned about, or is this comment more about other feedback (balance, gameplay, etc.) that isn’t being addressed? Remember that we read the forums often and reply when we’re able. A respectfully worded post gets a lot more attention than vague complaints.

I kind of feel like a dev word about the incredibly scarce chaos of lyssa recipe is extremely desired, with numerous threads being created about it. I know it was mentioned on stream that it’s droprate is fine, but seeing as it sold for 1k and 2.5k, that isn’t precedented and is disheartening.

This is the wrong thread to discuss that. My advice would be either to post in an existing thread on that topic, or if one doesn’t exist you can create a new one.

Mortifer.2946:

It seems like devs respond only to useless topics like this and doesn’t care about giving response to anything important. Never before I’ve seen such aproach to customers. Sad.

I reply to writing and VO threads when I can, including critical feedback posts, since that’s my area. Is there something story related that you’re concerned about, or is this comment more about other feedback (balance, gameplay, etc.) that isn’t being addressed? Remember that we read the forums often and reply when we’re able. A respectfully worded post gets a lot more attention than vague complaints.

Thanks for all the kind words. It means a lot to us.

draxynnic.3719:

This is going back a way and I don’t know where the exact quote is, but I’m pretty sure it’s been officially confirmed to be the charr, at least on the Tyrian landmass.

This is correct.

VOLKON.1290:

BobbyStein.2315:

CureForLiving.5360:

Ah, I get where you’re coming from, because of job reasons you’re literally not allowed to tell us anything. Thanks for sharing what you could.

You’re welcome.

Cantha confirmed! Woo-hoo!

Actually, that was my Half-Life 3 announcement.

;)

CureForLiving.5360:

Ah, I get where you’re coming from, because of job reasons you’re literally not allowed to tell us anything. Thanks for sharing what you could.

You’re welcome.

Rym.1469:

BobbyStein.2315:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

On Reddit some guys who followed the chinese stream (where Ree was interviewed) posted that Ree Soesbee would be the new writer for the upcoming Living Story Season.

Can someone confirm this? This would be huge for me personally, I absolutely LOVE her work.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I think some overzealous fans misinterpreted the announcements from China. Ree did not work on the Festival of the Four Winds content. I can’t comment on what she’s been working on lately, or on any unannounced future releases.

It’s great to see so many fans of hers express support, though. I’m sure she’ll be excited to know you’re looking forward to whatever she’s involved with.

Hmm, seems like the question remains unanswered.
The topic was if Ree is involved into next living story season, not release. We know that she isn’t in Bazaar and Queen’s Jubilee seasonal releases already.
Unless you claim Bazaar to be the opening of Season 2 which may be… Cool

So we either can’t exclude Ree kitten writer if Bazaar isn’t S2 or if Bazaar is S2, I could take it as a confirmation

Festival of the Four Winds is a festival release. We have not announced anything past that.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Thanks for the clarification Bobby, at least I hope that she’s still working on content for GW2. I absolutely mean no disrespect to the LS1 writers, like I mentioned above.

I agree with FlamingFoxx that the important thing is the translation from the writing board to the actual live game.

Agreed. One of our biggest challenges from the first season of the Living World was merging story moments with gameplay and presenting the story in a way that matched our vision. We learned a lot from working on season one and will be applying that knowledge.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

On Reddit some guys who followed the chinese stream (where Ree was interviewed) posted that Ree Soesbee would be the new writer for the upcoming Living Story Season.

Can someone confirm this? This would be huge for me personally, I absolutely LOVE her work.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I think some overzealous fans misinterpreted the announcements from China. Ree did not work on the Festival of the Four Winds content. I can’t comment on what she’s been working on lately, or on any unannounced future releases.

It’s great to see so many fans of hers express support, though. I’m sure she’ll be excited to know you’re looking forward to whatever she’s involved with.

I’d like to echo Colin’s sentiments. Thanks to the OP and everyone else for posting your constructive feedback here. We’re always evaluating our past work and looking for ways to improve our future releases. Sometimes those improvements may come in the form of developing new technology to support our vision or improve the player experience. Other times it means evolving our writing and game design processes. In other cases, resource and scheduling changes are necessary to support the additional workload. The potential solutions will vary depending on the challenge in front of us.

Part of the development process is prioritization, so I’d like to know what you feel are the highest impact items you think would improve our storytelling delivery. What are your top three requests?

JayMack.8295:

In an odd way, Logan walking around and taking his frustration out on people would have made me like him more.

Me, too!

skullmount.1758:

BobbyStein.2315:

There were story and character moments for planned instances that, unfortunately, got cut.

Like these?:
https://soundcloud.com/arenanet/guild-wars-2-voiceover#t=0:18

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8wCYsvDQLM

:D

CHAUNCEY! CHAUNCEY!

So that Logan gag was something we came up with during some downtime in the VO booth. I wanted us to put an Easter egg in the game where once a day he’d leave his office in DR and patrol the city just being a jerk to people as a kind of anger therapy since his job as Captain of the Seraph is so stressful. The commandeering of the lollipop was one such scenario.

There are other scenes that go with that one, but they’re outside our ESRB rating, unfortunately.

The Fancy Cat Competition stuff is one of many bits that didn’t get used. The performances from Yuri Lowenthal, Kirk Thornton, Kari Wahlgren, Sam Riegel were spot on. Maybe we’ll get to it one day….

Thanks for inspiring us, Christina.

Bhuego.6493:

This opened my eyes to how amazing of a character Taimi is, congrats anet. I now want a Taimi wallpaper! Artists of GW2 please help

Have you seen this yet?

JayMack.8295:

Redball.7236:

I’ll be disappointed if this means our characters are going to remain mute from now on.

Bobby mentioned the reason our characters are mute at the moment is more of a technical problem they’re trying to overcome.

Here’s his post:

BobbyStein.2315:

Nike.2631:

BobbyStein.2315:

What people don’t understand is that we wrote and voiced a lot of these moments throughout the year. Some scenes and story instances were cut or never implemented in the final releases, which is why this particular story instance was longer than the typical one and filled with lots of exposition.

I sincerely hope that over course of the year there was an opportunity to get the Hero Voice Actors back into studio and allow the players to be more engaged in the climax of the arc than as mute witnesses.

Scavenge some clips from the existing Personal Story library if you have to, but please don’t leave us completely silent in the face of these world altering events!

Funny that you mention player voice. I’ve had a few meetings recently about that. I can’t go into details but I will say that it’s on the list of things we’re looking to address. The current issue is more of a tech one and less of a “we don’t want the player to talk” decision.

I’m guessing he means there’s no current way implemented for our characters to talk (i.e. like the living world characters do) in the open world outside of these one-to-one cinematics (other than audio cues from skills/conditions/etc). Hopefully once that technical hurdle is overcome, our characters will be a lot more vocal.

That’s mostly correct. Right now, the only time your character speaks “in the world” is when certain conditions are met, such as when you’re low on health, you level up, close a conversation with a merchant, etc.

Ezekiel.1985:

Thedenofsin.7340:

My guess is Bobby got his wife to do the new voice parts, which scored him many brownie points with ANet for saving money and wife-points by getting his wife to be a star.

No, it’s the same voice actress, just using a less energetic tone and inflection.

Correct. The change in tone matches up with a sequence of events.

DragoTheWise.7256:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Because members of Destiny’s Edge are so entwined with your Personal Story as well as the over-arching story with Zhaitan, and because the Living World plot lines are taking place at the same time all those other story threads, we couldn’t have the members of Destiny’s Edge splitting themselves between these other areas and what was going on with Living World. This is partly why we introduced these new characters.

I hope you folks are seriously not considering the LS is happening at the same time as the Personal Story, and this is just a slip up on the post. I also would hope that everyone on the team can get this stuff straight so that this confusion doesn’t happen.

What Regina means is that for players who are currently going through their Personal Story, the LW timeline will seem to be happening at the same time. Technically, they happen at different times in Tyrian history. Personal Story predates the current Living World season by approximately one year.

So when you’re playing your Personal Story and are in an instance with Rytlock, etc. the assumption is that this is happening “in the past” whereas LW events are happening now.

Our hope is to provide better distinction of these timelines within the game, but that would come with the release of a planned feature that we’re not ready to discuss in depth just yet.

Aedelric.1287:

I agree, the dialogue has improved for our characters, it feels as though we are contributing and have opinions. Unfortunately we have not had much interaction with the various characters this time nor was it as entertaining as the story area in the previous update.

Living Story has been very hit and miss, when they do one thing well something else seems to suffer. The Origin of Madness really did have the worst player character dialogue possible.

`Go on.´

Heh. The “Go on.” string used in last month’s release is what we call a “master linked” string. Essentially, the conversation keeps referencing the same text guid to save on text and localization word count. Every month we have a fixed budget, and if changes to any content (like a conversation) come after our lockdown deadline, we have to solve the issue using master linked text.

In other words, while it’s funny that the convo kept saying “Go on” with every transition, it was due to a combination of a tight deadline and limited word count and not a stylistic choice.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

BobbyStein.2315:

Disclosure: 1/10,000 is hyperbole.

But I get where folks are coming from, and this feedback has been noted. I think we can drop more hints along the way without spoiling too much in the future.

Now I’m wondering if that 1 out of 10,000 theories was on this forum, or on Reddit.

I’ve seen some pretty good guesses here and on Reddit.

DarksunG.9537:

But telling us we can’t have any opinion on what we’ve played over the past year is totally unfair. I’m not sure it even makes logical sense.

When did I ever say you can’t have an opinion? I’m just asking that people reserve judgment on the next release until they’ve played it and absorbed the story components.

Jaken.6801:

That is very reasuring.
I hope you are able to realize what “old school” rpgs were doing. Looking back at all the Pen&Paper inspired games, where your “party” had personalities, fears and hopes. Things you had to earn, instead of getting them delivered to you.

Right now the “story” is pretty much a line. You get certain informations at certain points, regardless of what you have done.

If you manage to change that. Make your “choices” along the way count. Then i will be really happy.

(that you hinted of the involvement of the PC speaking again is also a good thing)

Agreed. While there are certainly some constraints and challenges in doing heavy “party RP” systems in our game, we’re looking at ways to evolve our tech and also our writing of character development such that you get to know these NPCs better and that your choices have a noticeable effect. We’re not where I’d like to be just yet, but we’re planning to try some new things over time.

Becka Williams.4978:

The problem with the Scarlet Story is that Anet thinks they’ve made this grand mystery that’s gotten the players talking. Then they come in and say “I love this theory crafting! You’re all wrong, but I love it!” And they fail to realize that we’re wrong because they’ve held the ENTIRE story for the end. What we’ve got is a 2 chapter book. Frost and fire through whatever the next update after edge of the mists is called is chapter one. Then everything’s explained to us in chapter 2. And then the story’s over. This is boring. They waited 6 weeks to release the living story to make sure they got it right, and nothing is revealed. We just have to wait till the end. If ALL the story’s at the end, we should’ve just gone to the end from the start. You don’t need to have played the living story for the past year, because nothing important has been told to us. I can only hope they’ve learned for season 2. They said they have, but only time will tell.

Why don’t you hold your criticisms until you’ve played the content? At this point you’re all speculating on how it fits together and what you’ll be doing in the next release. We haven’t discussed the details, so most of the assumptions in this thread aren’t correct.

Lasica.5068:

The Living Story seems better because while it has a group of NPCs involved in it they don’t take a lead role. It is your character taking the lead still.

That’s certainly what we’re trying to do. Over time, you should notice a shift in how the characters refer to you and how your role evolves.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Zaxares.5419:

… I would TOTALLY ship Ellen and Evon together. XD One rules Lion’s Arch by might and force of arms, the other by the power of coin and trade. They’d be unstoppable together!

…and then scarlet kills them. and kiel was 2 days from retirement when it happened too.

And she just bought her new airship, the Live Forever!

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

By the way, still taking bets on who’s dying this time when we do take down Scarlet. Rox, Kasmeer, Hobo-Tron, or Taimi.

I guess you’ll have to wait and see what happens.

zenleto.6179:

BobbyStein.2315:

You’ll have to wait and see how we integrated story into the release. I think it works pretty well but I’m biased. I am looking forward to the feedback we receive next week.

Mate, I hope you also have a antiflame-lined Golem suit to jump into as well. Just in case.

I don’t need one. My skin is fire resistant at this point.

Naetell.3815:

Lessons learned here should be that writing for an MMO is completely different from how you’d approach a traditional novel.

This is definitely true. We also have to deal with the fact that simply writing something doesn’t guarantee that it will be implemented in a way that represents the original vision (if it’s even implemented). We learned a lot over the past year. I hope you all will see the difference in the next few releases. I look forward to hearing your comments late next week.

gidorah.4960:

BobbyStein.2315:

You’ll have to wait and see how we integrated story into the release. I think it works pretty well but I’m biased. I am looking forward to the feedback we receive next week.

you also thought scarlet was a good villain.

I also know the entire plot a year in advance.

Nike.2631:

I’ve said harsh things about the early part of the Scarlet arc and I stand by them as being true of that time. But the last 2-3 episodes have shown dramatic growth. The recaps have be entertaining and well delivered. Scarlet has become more compelling and more frightening. I feel more involved in the story from within the game rather than chasing after supplementary texts. I am genuinely hopeful that the climax will achieve something we talk about with fond remembrance in years to come. I do want to be able to tell my friends, “It had a rough start, but look how far they’ve come.”

Thanks for the feedback. I’m hoping that people will notice a difference in the 2014 LW releases.

You’ll have to wait and see how we integrated story into the release. I think it works pretty well but I’m biased. I am looking forward to the feedback we receive next week.

Nike.2631:

BobbyStein.2315:

Funny that you mention player voice. I’ve had a few meetings recently about that. I can’t go into details but I will say that it’s on the list of things we’re looking to address. The current issue is more of a tech one and less of a “we don’t want the player to talk” decision.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I would expect it’s also a budgetary one to get those voice actors (all 10 or so) back for just that.

Its a LOT more than that. 10 actors for every language the game has been released in.

I don’t discount the cost and I wouldn’t begrudge them carefully managed repurposing of existing audio stocks. I just want for the endgame of a year-long world shaking tale to not come off as cheap.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is in a similar bind with a cast of fully voiced heroes, and it suffered terribly from “major events” that were completely ludicrous in their handling of the resounding silence of the heroes after launch. I’m a bit traumatized by it, really. It was bad.

Yup. There is always a cost factor involved, but right now the blocking issue is a technical one. It’s a totally solvable issue but we want to make sure we’re fixing it in an extensible way that supports our core design and story philosophies.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

KyreneZA.8617:

The ‘reveal’ could possibly have been a little more romantic and a little less dramatic, since not all players have been with the game from the vaunted beta days.

Please note, the “reveal” as you say is so far only done via an out of game comment. They haven’t yet said in game “we are a couple/dating”, they have just behaved somewhat in line with it.

Heck their behavior isn’t even dissimilar from close friends.

I was once again a little disappointed in the writing team, as the pay-off was less stellar than the build up.

It hasn’t even paid off yet either

Exactly. I was about to post this and then saw your reply.

The story instance didn’t really have any pay-offs. It was really a series of character moments that are pushing them along their respective arcs. It’s also worth noting that they will not all resolve at the same time or in the same release.

Nike.2631:

BobbyStein.2315:

What people don’t understand is that we wrote and voiced a lot of these moments throughout the year. Some scenes and story instances were cut or never implemented in the final releases, which is why this particular story instance was longer than the typical one and filled with lots of exposition.

I sincerely hope that over course of the year there was an opportunity to get the Hero Voice Actors back into studio and allow the players to be more engaged in the climax of the arc than as mute witnesses.

Scavenge some clips from the existing Personal Story library if you have to, but please don’t leave us completely silent in the face of these world altering events!

Funny that you mention player voice. I’ve had a few meetings recently about that. I can’t go into details but I will say that it’s on the list of things we’re looking to address. The current issue is more of a tech one and less of a “we don’t want the player to talk” decision.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

BobbyStein.2315:

You’ll actually find your answer in the game soon.

You made this just for us didn’t you? Hahaha.

Well I’m loving every bit of it. We have so much to examine now.

he feeds on the blood and tears from Lore forum discussions.

It’s either that or Monster energy drinks. I’ll stick with blood and tears.

j/k

Nike.2631:

BobbyStein.2315:

That’s not really true. There’s a lot of information in the game, but it’s been spread across multiple releases. If anything, the theorycrafting on Scarlet that I’ve seen on these forums and on Reddit are fantastic. We’re lucky to have a really smart fanbase that is connecting the dots. That’s not to say everyone is right—there’s probably one accurate guess out of a thousand. We want to get people talking and guessing.

“One out of ten thousand” was also mentioned publicly… Thing is, having a sub-one-percent success rate actually points to not connecting to your audience very effectively. More than 99% of your active and engaged audience just don’t get it.

You may be over-doing the mystery/twist a bit .

Disclosure: 1/10,000 is hyperbole.

But I get where folks are coming from, and this feedback has been noted. I think we can drop more hints along the way without spoiling too much in the future.

Becka Williams.4978:

I don’t want to be told the details, I want the details to come out during the course of the story, rather than in a big info dump at the end. Might you tell us what you feel we’ve learned from the living story thus far?

Totally understood. It’s something that I think we’re getting better at as time goes on, but I agree that we were slow to connect the dots earlier in the season. One thing that we learned was that there are players who do appreciate story instances and character moments, and that we need to work harder to get them in the game so that people can better understand the story and care about the characters. We unfortunately let a few of them slip through the cracks and as a result it’s made the story appear fragmented.

BrunoBRS.5178:

BobbyStein.2315:

Really loving all the sleuthing and theorycrafting in this thread. You people are awesome.

i don’t assume you could give an end to our journal date conundrum, could you? not even a hint? :P

You’ll actually find your answer in the game soon.

Really loving all the sleuthing and theorycrafting in this thread. You people are awesome.

Magische Boek.2530:

BobbyStein.2315:

I can’t say when or how. This is a spoiler-free zone.

i cant wait! where’s the spoiler zone?

You just made my day.

CharrGirl.7896:

BobbyStein.2315:

Chokolata.1870:

There is good writing and there is we put this in to cater to the XYZ crowd, but its all irrelevant as we should not be mixing moster slaying with silly and pointless real life crusades.

A few things here:

• We didn’t put this in to cater to anyone. We’re just trying to tell a good story.
• No crusade going on here.
• Interesting characters and character moments make for a better experience overall. We’re not doing it at the expense of putting other things in the game.

What people don’t understand is that we wrote and voiced a lot of these moments throughout the year. Some scenes and story instances were cut or never implemented in the final releases, which is why this particular story instance was longer than the typical one and filled with lots of exposition.

And that’s why you create good stories. Shame that you have to explain the basics of good storytelling because most people feel offended at every little thing going on.

I think it’s just that different players have different expectations. Some play the game solely for gameplay or loot, others for the art, some for the story. We’re never going to please everyone (and we’re not trying to) but I think if we’re a little clearer in messaging our intentions then folks might be able to process it a bit better. In terms of the story bits, we’re not “checking off boxes” or hitting some mysterious quota. We’re just trying to breathe some life into our characters. If it resonates with people, then we’re happy. If not, then it means we try something different.

A lot of the themes and character moments we explored in this past season’s Living World story were new to us. Now that we’re refining our writing and delivery a bit better, we’re working even harder to get those bits into the game. If anything, I am happy that people are discussing the characters and themes in a (mostly) respectful manner.

Becka Williams.4978:

We have to piece it together, there’s almost nothing to go on. Everything’s going to be revealed at the end. So why don’t we just skip to the last chapter, and read the wrap up?

That’s not really true. There’s a lot of information in the game, but it’s been spread across multiple releases. If anything, the theorycrafting on Scarlet that I’ve seen on these forums and on Reddit are fantastic. We’re lucky to have a really smart fanbase that is connecting the dots. That’s not to say everyone is right—there’s probably one accurate guess out of a thousand. We want to get people talking and guessing.

But to answer your question, if you’d rather be told the details, they will be revealed by the end of the season. I can’t say when or how. This is a spoiler-free zone.

Chokolata.1870:

There is good writing and there is we put this in to cater to the XYZ crowd, but its all irrelevant as we should not be mixing moster slaying with silly and pointless real life crusades.

A few things here:

• We didn’t put this in to cater to anyone. We’re just trying to tell a good story.
• No crusade going on here.
• Interesting characters and character moments make for a better experience overall. We’re not doing it at the expense of putting other things in the game.

What people don’t understand is that we wrote and voiced a lot of these moments throughout the year. Some scenes and story instances were cut or never implemented in the final releases, which is why this particular story instance was longer than the typical one and filled with lots of exposition.

CharrGirl.7896:

Whatever the reason for a change, lore-wise or they simply changed it because people (including myself) hated the old voice it’s great.

It’s tied to lore and the current story.

It will make more sense by the end of the season.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments and honest criticisms regarding the story instance. We tried something new this time by putting a lot of character moments into a single area, but also by allowing folks to advance their LW progress while making the scenes available as optional story bits. We realize that for some players who haven’t met these characters before, there was a lot of “catching up” to do, but we hope you found it entertaining. The fact that many of you are speculating about where these characters are headed in the future makes me smile. Thanks for that.

skullmount.1758:

Something like that was suggested in the first (iirc) CDI. I do kinda wish there was some way of polling people at the end, and not just on the forum (since that is coloured as you guys put it). Then it is kinda the own persons fault they don’t fill it out and give their feedback.

We used in-game polls during the beta events a long time ago. Not sure what it’d take to get them in the live client but it’s worth discussing internally, if only to weigh the pros and cons. I’ll talk with the other leads about it soon. No promises on the outcome, though.

Antara.3189:

Good to see you back on the forums Bobby. Interested in what the next patches reveal in terms of story content, hopefully we are blown away.

Thanks! I needed a vacation but now I’m rested. Hoping people like what we have in store for the next four releases. Lots of reveals and some cool story moments coming up. Then again, I’m biased.

MatthewMedina.5419:

All of those conversations and scenes in the post-release camp were done entirely by our writing team this time around. A couple of us on the content design side were able to sit down with them and actually teach them how to do basic spawning and scripting, and with that base of knowledge they were able to populate the camp with all those interesting characters, which I think of as a huge win for the studio. It’s not that we’ve not had the capability in the past, it’s just that those kind of things usually end up low on the list of priorities for those of us who do the bulk of the content authoring, because although it’s really not hard to do, it’s also usually not that intense in terms of setup and scripting. When you are faced with the decision to fix a half dozen Pri.1 and Pri2 bugs or implement an NPC with conversation, the former will always take priority. So I would like to think that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that the bar will continue to be raised on content like this.

Matthew, Leif, and Theo, Witter, and others have been kind enough to devote some of their free cycles toward training the writers on scene and conversation scripting. Because of this partnership, we’re beginning to improve our methods of in-game storytelling. Expect more of these kinds of moments in the future.