Working From Home Guild Chat: We want your questions!

What (if anything) do you do inside your home office to make it feel like you're going home when the work is over? Do you have special rules you impose on yourself during "business hours" or have you completely given up on wearing real pants like the rest of us?

And lastly, what are some of the things that are easier when done from home? What things are harder?

My biggest question is why the voice acting is unable to be done from home?

@Excursion.9752 said:My biggest question is why the voice acting is unable to be done from home?

This should be done. Other companies are already having their voice actors doing their dialog from home. This is already setup and they have been using them in the latest additions/patches. As a forward thinking company, I would assume you are preparing for this. We can not assume that things will be going back to normal anytime soon.

-I'm sure a million people are going to ask about the "voice acting from home" so maybe address that if you can and let people know if that is/isn't an option going forward? I know other studios and films have done such a thing at their homes.

-Did you guys take some equipment, software and computers from the offices in order to continue working?

-Can you guys talk about Mike Z, the newest game director and what management/leadership are doing to organize everything right now and keep your morale up?

-Are there some things you simply can't do remotely away from the offices that the player should know about?

Thanks!

How do the writers come together to work on future story content for, say, the Icebrood Saga and Expansion 3 when they're stuck at home? Do you have to come together in a group streaming service to talk with one another at once?I'm curious what the challenges are for writing all of the story chapters when everyone is no longer in the same room to discuss it all. Especially dialogue since there is a lot of it, even for just mere open-world npcs, that is fantastic to listen to and experience. How does that work nowadays?

Other than the camaraderie of in person contact, what do you miss most of all from the office work experience?

Also, all things considered, I think you are doing some fantastic work; much appreciated.

@"AgentMoore.9453" said:or have you completely given up on wearing real pants like the rest of us?

Not like everybody! I still wear my kind-of normal work clothing (just slightly less picky on what I wear :p)

But I too am curious how you "go to work" and "go back home after the workday is done" so to speak.

Did I hear someone say WVW Alliances?

1. Speaking of equipment: How much of a setback has there been working from home with respect to the legendary armory? I know for WvW players and instanced PvE players it's one of the most anticipated updates.

2. Which developers have to be physically on site : i.e. for any database restoration that can't be done remotely?

To above posters, as I understand it the voice acting has been postponed due to the inability to to have people in a studio to record properly in a isolated room with supporting staff outside said room. I'm sure recording can be done at home, just not to the same standards (i.e. background noise or echo will be possibly present unless it's in a closet or something with sound absorbing items near the walls).

Interested to hear how Anet folks find working from home. I have been doing this in my job since late-March and note the oscillating overload versus underload periods of work.

Please find a way to give us updates on WvW Alliances and the Legendary Armoury, as these are high interest topics for me and most of my in-game friends. I am also interested to hear about the topic of voice-over for story episodes and whether or not there is a realistic alternative that can be implemented under Covid-19.

@ollbirtan.2915 said:Did I hear someone say WVW Alliances?

who what where when?

@ollbirtan.2915 said:Did I hear someone say WVW Alliances?

Yeah it’s right up there with a new legendary armor and dungeons

:(

It would seem to speak volumes that, in the most popular section of the forum, there were 12 posts not by Anet... in 24 hours.

My question would be how the Anet development team navigates cooperative development of new features like the changes to drizzlewood coast while working from home. Additionally, how much communication does Anet have between teams, such as the Drizzlewood team changes making it into WvW.

Thanks!

The RTX Voice function from the RTX gpu's help delete background noises. So that could be used to help out for voice recording at home.As a side note, my questions are simple. What are each of your employees PC internal components (brands, models) ... PC setups?What do they each consider themselves as in-game. Based off the concepts of the community. EX: casual, elite, PvP'er ,WvW'er... Or what they consider themselves as (healer, tank etc)... Knowing full well Guild Wars 2 doesn't really run like that.Actually, what do you all think of each other in-game wise? Ex: he's rather quiet in Real life but, in-game he's quite extrovert.

@jishi.7568 said:The RTX Voice function from the RTX gpu's help delete background noises. So that could be used to help out for voice recording at home.As a side note, my questions are simple. What are each of your employees PC internal components (brands, models) ... PC setups?What do they each consider themselves as in-game. Based off the concepts of the community. EX: casual, elite, PvP'er ,WvW'er... Or what they consider themselves as (healer, tank etc)... Knowing full well Guild Wars 2 doesn't really run like that.Actually, what do you all think of each other in-game wise? Ex: he's rather quiet in Real life but, in-game he's quite extrovert.

The Guild Chat in question has already aired.

I guess my question is, was anything of value said during this guildchat?

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@jishi.7568 said:The RTX Voice function from the RTX gpu's help delete background noises. So that could be used to help out for voice recording at home.As a side note, my questions are simple. What are each of your employees PC internal components (brands, models) ... PC setups?What do they each consider themselves as in-game. Based off the concepts of the community. EX: casual, elite, PvP'er ,WvW'er... Or what they consider themselves as (healer, tank etc)... Knowing full well Guild Wars 2 doesn't really run like that.Actually, what do you all think of each other in-game wise? Ex: he's rather quiet in Real life but, in-game he's quite extrovert.

Lol, yeah, after I replied I saw the date on their post and was like ???

Bummer, wanted to ask why they can't do any real work from home like doing something about the increasing number of bot users or focusing on the stability of the game (talking about the ever increasing lags)

I watched this episode of guild chat and was saddened that they didn't even touch on the topic of voice acting from home and why it is not doable.

From what I gathered from the stream was that people were allowed to come back to the office and grab what ever resources they needed to be able to work from home. There was reference to someone taking their "whole desk" so then why are the voice actors not able to record from home? Based on the amount Microsoft Teams is being used, I am guessing most everyone has a microphone. If their microphone is not up to snuff you have had more than enough time to procure one and send it to them.

I find it very hard to believe this is where ANET draws the line, Voice Acting.... I cant imagine someone is putting their foot down on this particular subject. At least not while there are other areas that this could/should be done with like bots and balancing.

What does this do for the people that have dyslexia? I'll tell you what it did for me. It made me not care about the story at all because It takes me a little longer to read with comprehension. So I basically went through the motions just to unlock the content without reading much during those cut scenes. My opinion is any voice acting is better than no voice acting. Even if it was just a narrator reading the script.

The decision to release a second EP without voice is worrisome because we do not get to know why. Is it that you don't want to pay them or are they not a part of your normal staff and do not have access to the same resources as everyone else? I hope this lack of quality does not show up in the next EP. At least without some good explanation to the reasons why.

I don't see you all working back at the office anytime soon. So hopefully you all can find a solution. What if NCSoft decides that you all are doing such a great job working from home and decides to just close down the office, what is the back up plan for that?

Voice actors are definitely not staff. You can Google what is involved in voice acting from home, learn the percentages of voice actors that own studio-quality equipment at home, how difficult is can be to direct themselves, and a myriad of other hurdles that might be presented.
Perhaps, due to a desire to uphold quality standard, ArenaNet is waiting until everyone can be onboard. /shrug

@ollbirtan.2915 said:Did I hear someone say WVW Alliances?

You kitten well know you did not.

How would those increase the sales of Gems and plush Quaggans?