Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Q&A with the Narrative Team


Recommended Posts

@Randulf.7614 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:Has there been any seeds towards the new content in either the open world, cities or festivals (incl the current one)? I'm not asking for what they are, but seeding clues used to be a fun thing players used to look for before an episode, but that seems to have dried up. Is there anything added that we can go and hunt for that might give us some early in game clues? Ambient dialogue, map changes and so forth

We plan pretty far out and, because we can only fit so much into any given release, we have to make very deliberate choices about what we include. In an earlier GuildChat I think we said something to the effect of: "Everything is intentional." That still holds true. We don't want to send anybody spinning down a rabbit hole, but...

Soo...there are.....some....clues.........somewhere?

It's gotta be the Commandos from Jahai. Mark my words, they're up to no good...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 184
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • ArenaNet Staff

@Edge.8724 said:Will there be more race specific diogue in the future story? For exemple, if you play as an Asura, characters will react and speak to you knowing you're one.

Thank you for noticing we do that! In regards to future story: We've been trying to identify more situations where these sorts of variants have the biggest impact, so we can write alternate lines when it makes the most sense to do so. You may notice an uptick depending on what race you play.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Julia Nardin.9824 said:

@Edge.8724 said:Will there be more race specific diogue in the future story? For exemple, if you play as an Asura, characters will react and speak to you knowing you're one.

Thank you for noticing we do that! In regards to future story: We've been trying to identify more situations where these sorts of variants have the biggest impact, so we can write alternate lines when it makes the most sense to do so. You may notice an uptick depending on what race you play.

Thank you for your answer!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not a writer by any means, but I'm under the impression that the story of the expansions and personal story appear to follow classical narrative structures similar to such that you can also spot in Hollywood movies (Starts with setup -> development -> resolution/climax).

How did the sequential nature of the living world influence the storytelling and how does it differ from the narrative approach of television series aside from the interactive element? Could you imagine the episodes completely replacing the classical personal story lines we've been introduced to in HoT and PoF or are you planning to keep both in the Canthan expansion?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Will we see livia again/ go into the scepter of orrs sister at some point? (Or is it at least in the minds of the devs.)

Now that you seem to have a handle on things, can we get norn and charr stories?

What happened to razah?

Where did the gods go?

Why haven't the spirits of the wild gotten involved, especially with balth doing what he did.

WHEN WILL BUBBLES/STEVE LET US SEE HIS ELDRITCH GOODNESS!?!?!

Can we expect the story to lead into more cosmetics racially?

will we get more about asgeir, and potentially the fate of jora at some point?

are all the dwarves really dead?

Is jormag based on Jörmungandr ?

Can we maybe have more viking/celtic themes added into the plot, lore and game ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@"Arden.7480" said:Caithe's Branding was quite an interesting thing to see, and I wonder how the Pale Tree and other Sylvari will react to her being... different.

I wish to ask if there will be any consequences of this situation in the future, but I will impatiently wait for Season 5 :)

What actually made you to put Caithe in such a big spotlight?Was it because you wanted to let her leave her shadows? Or maybe connect the Sylvari (the Dream) with Aurene?

I thought about the Pale Tree vision from Season 2 instantly when I witnessed the Crystal Bloom cinematic. And I thought that it was the Pale Tree that made us realize how important the Egg aka Aurene was...

When Kralkatorrik said "Mother"... Did he call the Mother Tree?

Gosh Season 4 made me ask so many questions, and I thank you for that.

I also like how Aurene talked to Kralk and the Commander - She calls them by who they are, she is so transparent, so... prismatic.

Grandfather. Look at me!

I cannot explain what's about to happen, Champion...

Champion...

So much empathy... I always knew Kralkatorrik was different.

The Forgotten's ritual worked, but only on his Heart, Glint was too blind to notice, and Aurene noticed that instantly.

There are things about the Ascension that can only be expressed between Dragons... She said.

Heart to Heart.

I want to share it with you. All of you.

Gosh... every word you choose for Aurene to say was spot on, no other words would be more perfect.

Thank you for tears and laughs this Season, Guys.

First, thank you for the very kind words. We’re very touched that those Aurene lines moved you.

Taking your two big questions (for which we have answers we can share):

RE Kralkatorrik, we confirmed in our Guild Chat in May that he does indeed say the word “Mother...” as he’s dying. Whom he’s referring to is as yet unclear.

RE Caithe and why we put a spotlight on her, we made a decision as we were planning Season 4 that, given our approach is highly character-based, we wanted to pick a character or two who, there seemed to be a player consensus, had been last left in a place, arc-wise, that people weren’t particularly satisfied with. (Or, in one case, that WE weren’t satisfied with.) We felt Braham and Caithe were great examples and so set about figuring out how to move their arcs forward. In Caithe’s case, she didn’t really fit easily into the first three episodes (the Joko arc), but, as Aurene and her role as Glint’s Scion moved center-stage in “A Star to Guide Us,” that seemed a perfect moment to bring Caithe back into the story. As we discussed her long history with Aurene, even in the egg stage, it occurred to us that Caithe and the Commander were, in a sense, like Aurene’s foster mother and father (regardless of gender), and that Caithe would feel drawn to help Aurene confront the legacy Glint had left her. (We also kind of loved the idea that, at some point after eating Joko in “Long Live the Lich,” teen Aurene might have gotten mad at the Commander and flown off to cool off with Caithe, like a teenager whose parents are divorced might get mad at one parent and take off for the other’s house for the weekend. :D ) It also gave us the opportunity in “All or Nothing” to have Aurene repay that maternal love by choosing Caithe to bind with her even more intimately, be Branded by her and be the voice Aurene did not yet possess. And, of course, that led to the Crystal Bloom and all that came with it, as you noted.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My questions go way back, and require a little background. I ran 30 characters through the main storyline, to get a chance at all the branches. When I did so, I was flabbergasted by how much the early storyline missions were weaved together. Like, a passing reference in Asuraland to the Floating Grizwhirl, which figures heavily in the human storyline and dungeons. I wasn't expecting so many tie-ins.

So, my first question is how much work did you guys have to do in order to make all those tie-ins happen? Or, was it that the teams just worked together often enough that it just "clicked"?

The second question has to do with the storyline noble human friend Faren. How come he doesn't recognize your character later in the story (if you started as a noble)?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@"Windrider.3718" said:when did you all know you were going to go for the "dragons are also victims of magic" bombshell plot point? the writing has been on the wall since S3Ep1 (the bloodstone crazed white mantle and Pact soldiers), so what made you all decide that S4Ep6 was the right time? was it back in S3, or in S4 and you all decided to pay off on the other stuff?

Actually, Bobby is the only non-Editing/VO person on the team who was around during S3 planning, so I can’t say what the folks who worked on that season had in mind. What I can say is that, in the earliest discussions for what we’ll be introducing at the event at the Moore Theater on August 30—and, when I say earliest discussions, this is over a year ago—we realized that, before we could decide where the story was going, we had to answer a whole category of questions that I refer to as “cosmology” questions. Things like, what exactly is magic in our universe? What’s the relationship of Elder Dragons (and of other creatures) to that magic? Etc. Like you, when we looked at what the player-facing lore on those topics was, it suggested that, assuming one wasn’t prepared to simply accept Elder Dragons as naturally evil and destructive beings (which we weren’t; as I’ve mentioned in my answer to someone else’s question, we were pivoting to seeing them as people so we could make use of them as characters, and characters need to be emotionally comprehensible)...it suggested that something might be making them act as if they were. Like you said, dragons eat magic, so...the answer seemed pretty obviously to lie in that direction.

At this point in the story (meaning following the events of “War Eternal”), we know that Kralkatorrik had been driven mad, to the point of his mind fracturing into two warring personalities, and the implication is obviously that that was at least one factor in his long history of destructive fury. We also know that he had absorbed the magics of Zhaitan and Mordremoth upon their deaths and the death of Balthazar, and we also know that Aurene had absorbed much of the same, both in the egg and after she hatched. What exactly the effect of all those magics was on Kralkatorrik, and what it, plus his own magic, will be on Aurene, especially now that she has Ascended, are questions yet to be answered.

I think it’s safe to speculate, though, that Aurene herself, and those who love her, are probably going to want to find those answers. ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@MakubeC.3026 said:Regarding a bit of the future:With the Dragon menace mostly controlled by the end of last season, should we expect the narrative moving away from Elder Dragons or is that something you still want to pursue in other ways?

When we were beginning Season 4 planning just as I joined the company in February of 2017, I asked Mo what, in his opinion, the story of Guil Wars 2 was about, in as few words as possible. His response: “Dragons.”

By my count there are still four Elder Dragons on Tyria. Draw your own conclusions. ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Will Blish be gone for good? It seems his remains could be recovered, he is attached to tracking device. We also saw that Snarf's golem was only partially branded in glints lair. He could also be revived as shown in episode 3, where he was disconnected and reconnected to the golem network. This seems like the only loose end not resolved at the end of LS4. It seems there were a ton of clues showing he could be brought back, similar to how lich magic was used with another character.

I don’t see a flaw in any of that reasoning, FWIW.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@"Crystal Black.8190" said:

Why were Majory and Kasmeer not included in Story episodes of LS4?

Two big reasons:

  1. We have VO budgets, which require line count caps, which place a practical limit on how much dialogue and, to a degree, how many characters we can feature in any given release. At this point we have so many significant characters that there’s no way we can have all of them around all the time. (Not that we didn’t try in “All or Nothing” and “War Eternal.”)

But maybe more importantly:

  1. We weren’t sure what we wanted to do with Jory and Kas. They are the example I referred to in another answer of characters who’d been left in an awkward place—Kasmeer runs away while Balthazar is torturing Marjory, and then has a major episode of religious disillusionment when Kormir and the other gods “peace-out,” as Linsey likes to put it. Oh, and they’re engaged. Those were the facts on the ground coming out of Path Of Fire. And, while we love those characters and we know players love them too, the facts on the ground didn’t suggest easy or obvious directions to take them in.

So what does that mean for their future? We can’t give any solid details, but I can tell you we have spent quite some time discussing Kas and Jory. And I will tell you that we were indeed able to see a way forward with them, and that the secret to doing so turned out to be stopping thinking about them as a couple, a unit (Marjomeer?), as important as their couple-ness is for lots of reasons, and starting to think about them first as individuals. Only once we feel like we really know who they are as individual human beings can we then start talking about them as a couple who are in love with each other—because the reality of relationships is that just being in love guarantees nothing. People are people, we are all flawed and complicated, and simply treating Marjory and Kasmeer as some sort of poster couple doesn’t do justice to them as human beings and doesn’t do justice to the truth and reality of same-sex relationships (or any other kind, for that matter). And it’s very important to us to do justice to all that.

So. It’s taken us some time. We now know where we want to go with Kas and Jory. More to come.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First, I have to say that I'm one of those maybe 3 people on the internet who really, really love the Commander's character and what you've been doing with it. Even if it could be smokes and mirrors and you intend for us to see them as blank slates, what I perceive to be their personality (disconnected from the personality I had for 'my mc' at the onset) and their character development arc combine to make one of the most engaging main characters I've seen in RPGs, singleplayer or no. They have such realistic flaws. Realistic despair. Whatever it is that you're doing on sculpting them as a character, it's working for me and my friends!

I commented mostly just to say that to you lol. But are there a few questions!

1) On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being skale and 10 being Kralkatorrik, how much fun did you have writing Joko's.....questionable dialogues and did Mr. North laugh when he read them the first time?2) In The Departing (PoF) there's this Norn/human couple who state that they're staying there together because if they go into the Mists, they have to separate to different afterlife realms according to their religions. Yet, in LS4, we see Eir and Snaff appearing together. How do the Mists work in this regard? Did the couple misunderstand the issue, did things change after the human gods left, or were Eir and Snaff a special case?3) Speaking of that couple: nearly all the interracial couples and interracial attractions I've seen in the game are Norn/something. Will we ever see the consummation of Rytlock/Logan B)4) The environmental storytelling for Joko's reign was one of the best things about PoF and early LS4. It was truly oppressive and horrifying in how insidious it is, but it IS insidious enough that it appears many people did not understand just how much Joko's rule has warped Elona (I recall some talking that he was OOC in Twilight Oasis because he's too funny and incompetent to do that, but.....when you look at his realm, ahhhh). If you could go back in time and redo that again, would you have decided to make things more clear-cut and put more of it in the main story of PoF itself, instead of focusing everything on Balthazar?5) Speaking of turning back time: I recall some of the staff saying that you didn't anticipate that players would be so affected by Aurene's death and want to see their characters mourn her. If you can go back in time and give the Commander a chance to mourn, what would you have written to show the Commander's grief over her loss in a lengthier way than what we got in LS4-6? Or would you not have changed anything?

(In a separate paragraph because this isn't a question.....this was probably the only gripe I had with the episode. Actually, this is probably one of the weaker points for the story overall. The Commander's life is studded with important losses, from their mentor to Trahearne to Eir to Aurene......but the only ones we got to see them having a real reaction for are Aurene and Blish, the latter they only knew for a short while and mostly as Taimi's friend/potential boyfriend. The rest we had to infer. I do think you did very well to give us clues about many of their feelings----the shellshockedness over Vlast, for example, but there are so few direct reactions to death, even if you take in consideration the Commander being generally stoic. Heck, there are few reactions to the Commander's death. I don't think dramatic deaths ala other MMOs are a good fit for GW2, but I'd love it if you can trust us players a little bit more and let the characters react to the devastation around them.)

6) I know you pretty much figure out the details of each arc as you get there, but how long did you have the broad strokes of the story set in place? Some character arcs finished while dovetailing nicely with what you did going back as far as LS1. (Braham, mostly.) Did you simply go back to examine what you wrote there, or did you already have an idea of where you needed to go with the characters arcs and just needed to figure out how to get there?7) Lastly, the Commander's journal tends to be wildly at odds with the tone of the episode itself. Is that just them being cheeky and/or having a habit of writing everything in grocery list format and not recording any of their feelings/epicness of the thing, or was that convention so players can go back and look at quest details quickly and just get the meat of what happened?

Thank you so much for the great story over the years! It had its weak spots, but I greatly enjoyed it and am really, really looking forward to the next installment! There are so many other questions I'd like to ask, but they'd probably fall into 'asking for spoilers' territory so.......that's all I can think of right now. Thank you reading lengthy post!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@Invidia.9074 said:In the fight against Kralkatorrik's Torment, we're fighting the manifestations of foreign magic inside him. Manifestation of Balthazar is named Facet of Fire and War, Zhaitan's is called Facet of Death and Shadow, however Mordremoth's manifestation (whose domains were called Plants and Mind in Living World Season 2) is called 'Facet of Roots and Madness'. Is there any bigger significance behind this change in naming, or is it simply an oversight/retcon? It would have actually interesting implications if Mordremoth's mind magic magnified Kralkatorrik's insanity to the point of developing split persona.

It would, wouldn’t it?

As Julia likes to say, we don’t do anything by accident.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@"Ayalet.4970" said:On the season 4 finale "War Eternal", Canach did not have a single word to say with everything that just happened or throughout all the episodes.

Did Canach had anything on his scripts in this episodes? Why did he had no interactions or nothing to say?

It was a very crowded episode, and we wanted to have as many characters involved in the battle, but inevitably had to focus on fewer than we might have liked. Epics are unwieldy beasts from a writing perspective.

Also since Aurene can talk on her own now will Caithe's branding/connection with Aurene come to any use on the future in the story? ( you can be vague )

That connection isn’t going away anytime soon (or maybe ever).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@Incognito.3529 said:Do you guys ever think about returning Scarlet in any form (spirit, clone etc)? I kinda miss this character (mostly thanks to Tara Strong VA performance).

Speaking only for myself, I’ve thought about it. Haven’t come up with anything I really like yet, and, anyway, that whole area isn’t where we’re focused at the moment. But never say never.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@"zealex.9410" said:A couple of questions:

1.What was the thought process behind having a "meaningful character deaths" panel after ep5 regarding the death aurene only to have her back in action in the first 5 minutes of ep6? Doesnt that kinda devalue the whole "meaningful" part? (not trying to be a kitten, just curious on the thought process)

2.Looking back at it would you have done smth regarding her death and revival differently?

And finally, the concept of her resurection for many ppl ended up not being quite the surprise some (maybe you guys and gals too) whould've hoped for. Alot of us found the implications of her eating Joko so clear that were expecting her to die past that point.

3.Do you believe it was the right call to make her imminent revival thanks to eating joko so clear for tho who paid attention to the story? Do you think that could've been handled differently? Maybe in a less apparent way?

Legitimate questions. I recommend you watch the Guild Chat Julia and I did in May after “War Eternal” was released. I addressed a lot of that in our discussion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  1. Shouldn't there have been more fallout in the world after the Commander and the Pact killed two Elder Dragons and then suddenly the commander changed his opinion on the Elder Dragon killing? Shouldn't at least the Norn and the Vigil have objected more? And why are not large groups of people questioning the fact that we gave Aurene a huge amount of magic, making her the most powerful Elder Dragon to date? Why would people in the world accept that she is benevolent? Most people don't know her. Do you not think that these questions should be explored in a real sense, through more than a throw-away line from Rytlock for example?

  2. Now that 3 Elder Dragons are dead, 2 are asleep and 1 does not affect the continent of Tyria directly, what are some of the challenges you face in writing the story going forward? To what extent do you think the game world of GW2 depend on the Elder Dragon threat? A lot of the status quo depends on the Elder Dragons being an active force. The forming of the Vigil, the forming of the Pact, the Human-Charr treaty, the withdrawel of the Tengu and so on. Shouldn't this status quo change now that the Elder Dragon threat is so much more distant?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

People are still asking about who is "E".

It's obviously Anise:

1) She wasn't there during the White Mantle attack on Divinity's Reach, because she was busy with her letters.2) In one of the letters E said that Kasmeer is very important and should not step in. Only Anise and Jennah would be powerful enough to say that, it was like a royal decree.3) In One Path Ends, Anise said that she has watched us... FOR YEARS.4) Livia said that "The Razor of Fate is precocious" to which the Commander responded: "Fate's Razor? Nevermind"

A little girl during Eir's memorial was talking about a sword, that she wants to join us too. And shouted: Fate's Razor on how we should call Dragon's Watch.

Sword - the Shining Blade?

I mean it must be Anise who is the mysterious E...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This isn't a question, just a quick story that I thought the Narrative team might appreciate, if that's okay.

My wife doesn't play the game, but she enjoys the story, so when I play through it she'll sit and watch like it's a movie. She mostly teases me about it, blames me for every 'stupid' decision the commander makes, laughs at me when I die, and makes fun of some of the cheesier lines.

But playing through All or Nothing was totally different. She was riveted the whole time. When she saw the loading screen for the final fight, she just kept shaking her head saying "No, she's too small....". When it came to the 'long walk' and Aurene's death, she was legitimately all-out crying. I've never seen her cry like that over a movie or anything, she's usually pretty stoic. She was completely heartbroken.

By that point, I had unfortunately caught enough whiff of spoilers that I vaguely knew things would get better somehow if we pressed on. So I gently reminded her that this wasn't the end of the story, that there was one more episode, this wasn't the finale. That was the only thing that snapped her out of it. She finally stopped crying, sniffed, then got a hard look on her face and just said "Fix it."

Long story short, she didn't let me stop playing until Kralkatorrik was dead. She can be vengeful.

I just thought you all might get a kick out of knowing that there are even a few non-players out there who are pretty invested in the story you're telling. And that for the two of us, at least, Aurene's resurrection was well-earned and couldn't come soon enough.

Also, maybe smarten the Commander up a bit in the future so I stop getting in trouble. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can we have some more information about the Order of the Crystal Bloom?

What are some difficulties you had to overcome in the final episode?

Can we have a new (not-rigged) election between Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade?

In the seasons finale. In which direction did Aurene fly after becoming an ED?(over the endless ocean?)

Some part of the mists are now a part of Tyria are the mist shadow creatures bound to their domain? Or could they possibly roam around Tyria?

Taimi was drunk, what's the legal age for Asura to drink?

And final question:Where is Zojja? Can't you bring her back as a mute character, because of the Mordrem Pod stuff?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Tom Abernathy.5893 said:

@"zealex.9410" said:A couple of questions:

1.What was the thought process behind having a "meaningful character deaths" panel after ep5 regarding the death aurene only to have her back in action in the first 5 minutes of ep6? Doesnt that kinda devalue the whole "meaningful" part? (not trying to be a kitten, just curious on the thought process)

2.Looking back at it would you have done smth regarding her death and revival differently?

And finally, the concept of her resurection for many ppl ended up not being quite the surprise some (maybe you guys and gals too) whould've hoped for. Alot of us found the implications of her eating Joko so clear that were expecting her to die past that point.

3.Do you believe it was the right call to make her imminent revival thanks to eating joko so clear for tho who paid attention to the story? Do you think that could've been handled differently? Maybe in a less apparent way?

Legitimate questions. I recommend you watch the Guild Chat Julia and I did in May after “War Eternal” was released. I addressed a lot of that in our discussion.

I did watch that yes, it does go into some good detail about aurene's resurection andnwhy u choose to bring her back that fast.

I dont recall it going into joko's death how that set her revival in motion. Thanks regardless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm incredibly tired of the Commander character. It's just too big, too grandeur. It feels incredibly distant from you, the player, like going through the story beats without much personality, especially when no one can refer to you by name. I wish for a fresh start for the player character in the next living world, new places, new NPC's, a chance to play without being a world-saving hero.

Also, regarding Kasmeer & Marjory: I think a lot of people disliked their writing when they originally were introduced because we had to listen to their relationship talks during our missions and it literally felt like their main gimmick was being a gay couple. Later on this got a bit better with Kasmeer, but Marjory still doesn't have much of a personality to mention. Maybe it would've been better in hindsight if you guys did kill her off on the Breachmaker like the plan was originally?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...