Julia Nardin.9824

That's true! Every line of dialogue between Ryland and Braham serves a purpose! Braham's young, he's gregarious, he's still high on life after killing Kralkatorrik. The celebration is a great opportunity to celebrate in lieu of a moot. He was an easy mark for Ryland. I like to think Ryland genuinely started to befriend Braham by the time he was ready to steal the bow -- they have a lot in common, after all -- but orders are orders, and Braham's not charr. We framed it the way we did so it didn't feel ominous or on the nose. It's one of those things we wanted people to notice in hindsight rather than in the moment. Ryland is really interested in that Jormag story...

She's a necromancer. :3

I love seeing these sorts of conversations pop up on the forums! :3 Bangar is pretty divisive, even here in the writers' room. When we sat down and started the storybreaking process for Icebrood Saga, it was really important to us that our antagonist be the hero of his own narrative. A villain is only as good as their motivation--and if Bangar doesn't feel that heat, that fire, that conviction, then players aren't gonna buy it either. One of my favorite examples in film is Mayor Vaughn from Jaws. You guys know the story: Man-eating shark terrorizes a small town on Long Island during the height of summer. Local bureaucrats refuse to close the beach, so a trio of unlikely heroes decides to hunt the shark down before it can kill again. From the mayor's perspective, he is protecting the town. If the beaches close or people are afraid to swim, they're going to lose the "summer dollars" that sustain the community during the rest of the year when it isn't tourist season. He's a great antagonist -- really underrated, actually -- because every choice he makes is consistent with his internal compass. And it's infuriating. Bangar's similar in a lot of ways. He was raised on stories about humans skinning charr and using their fur and horns as armor, and has spent almost all his adult life in direct opposition to them. He's lost people he cares about -- members of his warband, good soldiers, friends -- to that conflict. When you live and breathe that narrative for fifty-odd years, it's very difficult to shake free of. The Ebonhawke Treaty is still a recent development, and not something he was ever on board with. As Smodur says, the only reason he agreed was to prevent additional conflict between the legions. He's been biding his time, playing along, waiting for the right moment to make his move. Now the Pact appears to have their very own Elder Dragon at their command. Bangar's charr. He's military-minded to begin with. The folks who have compared this to an arms race are exactly right. If there's any way for him to subjugate and/or ally with an Elder Dragon, he's going to try so he can protect his people via mutually assured destruction. Primordus isn't really an option, and he knows nothing about the Deep Sea Dragon. So. That leaves Jormag. And if the Sons of Svanir claim to have a positive relationship with Jormag, well... Some people have correctly surmised that Jormag is addressing Bangar (not the player) in the trailer. And it isn't a coincidence that one of the first images we see is a charr and her cub reduced to ash while Grothmar Valley burns around them. It's so, so wonderful to see everyone enjoying the prologue and picking up on all the little things we snuck in. We've been working hard to take a more nuanced approach to our world-building and character development with Icebrood Saga. Glad you're enjoying it so far!

Just wanted to reiterate: Thank you. We had other writers who wanted to participate, but everyone is working hard on what's being announced at the end of the month--not all of us could step away to engage with the community. You guys had wonderful questions; I wish we could have answered all of them. Your passion for the game is very much seen and appreciated here at the studio by all of us, regardless of our team/discipline. Hopefully we can try to do another one of these in the future if time allows. If not, we'll see you on Guild Chat. :)

And some more answers from Narrative Director, Tom Abernathy... Tom says: We’ve addressed this before, but, to recap: we’d love to be able to bring Zojja back into the story at a moment where it made sense (not sure “War Eternal” was the best place, since we had so many characters in that that we couldn’t even give some of them dialogue, and, anyway, she’s got a pretty serious health issue that would have to be dealt with first). The practical challenge is that we’d have to have the material to record written a lot farther ahead of time than our production cycle currently allows for (we write and record the cinematics an episode ahead of time because of the length of time it takes to make them, but we’d probably have to have to have Zojja’s scenes written at least six months in advance in order to give sufficient flexibility in when they’d get recorded). We’ve discussed it at length and it could happen, but it’s challenging. Tom says: No. I expect we’ll see it again.Good question. Highly relevant. Strong chance it will get addressed.Also a good question. We haven’t discussed it, but I think it’s worth noting that containing multiple magics at once pretty clearly drove Krakatorrik mad (and who knows what other impact it may have had on the behavior of other Elder Dragons in the past). Aurene is unique in a number of ways; whether this is one of them is a question yet to be answered. Tom says: Gosh, that’s a very interesting question... Tom says: Thanks so much, Jude. We appreciate the questions from our French community! A lot of your questions we can’t answer, but, to the ones above: One was in the works, but we never planned to put it out with S4E6. I don’t recall it coming up in discussions.Since I’m on record as saying the spine of the GW2 story is Aurene’s journey, you can probably assume that’s a yes. :)Only if they decide to come back. Who knows if that will ever happen? Gods are inscrutable. Tom says: I don’t recall there being a line about Aurene being the new God of War, cut or no. Zafirah may have pondered it, but that’s not really a thing we’ve discussed. Interesting idea, though. Balthazar’s divine energy—assuming you mean his magic—went into Aurene, Kralkatorrik, and, presumably, every other Elder Dragon on Tyria. And yeah, that probably matters enough that it will come up again at some point. Tom says: Marvelous question, and a good one for me to end on. The biggest challenge to me was: what should she sound like? Both in terms of her written voice and her speaking voice. We’ve already discussed (in the Guild Chat post-War Eternal) that having Aurene literally speak so soon wasn’t our original plan; that’s part of why we had Caithe accede to being Branded by her. We expected that situation to continue for at least a little while. Gameplay, however, waits for no dragon: as we were working on Chapter 2 of “War Eternal,” we realized that the Commander needed to be able to communicate with Aurene as s/he rode her in pursuit of Kralkatorrik—but that bringing Caithe along to translate was most definitely not an option. Ipso facto, we really had no choice but to give Aurene her own voice. (Fortunately, we had already cast Nika Futterman in the role so we could record her saying “I am not him” under Caithe’s voice in the Branding cinematic in “All or Nothing.” (So we obviously knew we were going to have Aurene speak at SOME point. The fact that she hadn’t yet was one of the very few things we didn’t really have much of an explanation for, since pretty much all the other dragons we’ve met in the game do.) What I personally learned from writing Aurene was that dialing in that moment in a person’s evolution when, though still young, they go from a teenager to an adult, is a delicate thing. Aurene was learning to speak at the same time she was figuring out what she wanted to say, and so we started her out in Chapter 1 of “War Eternal” speaking a little uncertainly, like the verbal equivalent of a new foal standing up. But Aurene isn’t a child in that moment—in fact she’s really just crossed the Rubicon into adulthood. I think one way to think about why it took her so long to talk is that, until “I am not him,” she’d never had any thought that was so urgent she needed to find a better of expressing it than physically indicating, like a dog or horse might. But we’ve always been very clear: Aurene is NOT an animal, she’s a person. And making sure her friends and surrogate parents knew they needn’t be afraid of her was something she wanted so badly to be unambiguous about that she decided to ask Caithe to be her voice. It’s just a fabulously rich set of emotional circumstances within which to write a character. Also, we knew throughout Season 4 that—as you can tell when you see Aurene’s head in the last shot of PoF—her mental, physical, and emotional development during the season was definitely that of a teenager, with all the concomitant sturm und drang that implies. She was no longer Baby Aurene—but, much like Britney Spears once upon a time, she was also not yet an adult. So we basically got five episodes to explore that dynamic between her and her surrogate parents, the Commander and Caithe. Except, for most of that time, she couldn’t speak at all. Writing a character who’s got a lot going on inside and needs to express it but can’t talk (and, in this case, is a quadruped to boot) was a challenge in and of itself. Honestly, it was a bit of a relief when we got to the point where we could start having her use actual words. Also also, we then had to get Nika to work out both teen Aurene’s voice, which she uses for “All or Nothing” and the majority of “War Eternal,” and also adult Aurene’s voice, which we originally thought we might hear in the final cinematic after she has Ascended to Elder Dragonhood. We ended up deciding we liked it better if she didn’t talk then, though; it keeps her new self and future that much more mysterious and enigmatic. But, whenever she’s ready to speak again, Nika has the voice cued up and ready to go. :) Thanks for all the questions, everyone!

Hi, everyone! Thank you again for your patience. Tom's out on vacation right now, but he's left me some answers that I'm going to post on his behalf. Tom says: We have a fair amount of creative freedom. The main things circumscribing our choices are a) making sure that whatever story we want to tell works in concert with the gameplay that the content designers want to make, and b) staying within scope and budget, which is vital with an always-on game like GW2 that drops new content on a regular basis.Not going to talk about how the magic works, because that could get spoilery. (It’s a thing we fully intend to deal with as time goes on, which is one reason we had to spend some time at the beginning of planning for the upcoming story arc discussing and nailing down some “cosmology” questions, as I mentioned in an earlier answer.) As far as the sort of hook you mention, we generally decide those things ourselves, with the participation of the content leads and Z. We also all pay a lot of attention to what players tell us they’d like to see—where they’d like to go, what cultures they’d like us to focus on, etc.Not exactly, no. We firmly believe that the best game narrative is one that is developed in concert and collaboration with the content designers (and we love Art, Audio, and Cinematics into that process as well, when they have time to be involved). When the narrative and the gameplay are designed separately and don’t support each other, the result can range from an experience that seems disjointed to outright ludonarratve dissonance. We much prefer (as players and as devs) experiences when all the different disciplines that come together in a game to communicate the story collaborate on the development of that story, so they can make choices that support it (and so we can make choices that support what they’re doing).A few of my favorite game writers in no particular order: Erik Wolpaw, Jill Murray, Chris Avellone, Susan O’Connor, John Gonzalez, Rhianna Pratchett, Steve Jaros, Meg Jayanth, Antony Johnson. A few of my favorite screen/TV writers: William Goldman, David Simon, Jordan Peele, Jill Soloway, Quentin Tarantino, Aaron Sorkin, Robin Thede, Cameron Crowe, David Milch. Fiction-wise, I’m a big fan of Stephen King, John Irving, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and honestly too many others to mention.Great question. It can be devilishly difficult to write for games, because interactivity and, frequently, non-linearity are inherent in the medium, and the human brain simply did not evolve to think in ways that are conducive to telling stories in those ways. In games, there are tools you’re used to having in your writer’s toolkit—sequence, pacing, suspense, dramatic irony, just to name a few—that are less viable or even outright impossible in a lot of situations. The degree of difficulty in game writing is thus an order of magnitude greater in games than in any other storytelling medium I’ve worked in (and I’ve worked in a bunch), and, to make it that much harder, a lot of the time we’re still blazing trails and having to invent ways to do things that no one has ever done before. And you know what? That’s also why it’s the medium I’ve most loved telling stories in; the challenge is unlike any other and it’s stimulating as hell. Tom says: Thanks for noticing all that! I completely agree with you: Our player character straddles the line a bit between a totally blank avatar (á la Destiny) and a fully defined character (like, say, Lara Croft); it’s not an easy balancing act, but I think it’s right for our game. And the fact that we have ten different Commanders, of five different races, two different genders, and ten different actors, means each Commander has a bit of a distinct personality, which personally I love. Tom says: There are no words for how much fun we had writing Joko. BEYOND Kralk levels. And yes, Nolan absolutely loved performing all that material (and totally killed it). Tom says: I think, all things being equal—and this also answers a question asked elsewhere on this thread—we probably would like to have spent more time with Joko before killing him off. The production cycle of something like GW2 Living World is such that, by the time we realized what a gold mine we had struck with him—which was during the writing of “Long Live the Lich”—the episodes containing the main S4 story arc, about Aurene and Kralkatorrik, were already in some state of production. It was simply too late to change the plan. So I’d say we share the feelings of those who wish they’d gotten more Joko. Tom says: Julia and I talked about this on the Guild Chat we did after the episode was released, so feel free to check that out for a full answer. To hit the main point, there were a lot of reasons the plan for the episode was what it was, a lot of reasons we planned to revive Aurene quickly. It was only as the episode began to come together in a build, not long before “All or Nothing” was released, that we started to get an inkling that the choice we had made for a lot of valid reasons maybe didn’t work creatively for one or two very specific ones. And once we saw the player reaction to Aurene’s death...I guess the best way to put it is, we hit people harder emotionally than even we had expected. Which was great for “All or Nothing,” but set us up in “War Eternal” for a problem. In fact, we did make some adjustments to the first chapter of “War Eternal” to make it feel as earned as possible, but, given how far along the episode was, those changes were mostly limited to some additional dialogue and beefing up the roles of Caithe, the Commander, and the Zephyrites, for example. In retrospect—and this is after contemplating other stories with similar story lines, like “Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock,” it might have been good to have at least one chapter before that one, in which players could do some work assembling the components necessary to help Aurene revive, so it would feel like they had played an essential role in making it possible for her to do so. It was a good lesson to learn. Tom says: Season 4 started out a little chaotically—I was new to the studio and coming into the middle of the PoF process and the beginning of S4 planning—but I’d say we started off looking about two episodes down the line and, by “Long Live the Lich,” knew what the rest of the season’s story was. It’s not ideal, but we were triaging stuff on PoF and S4 while working on rebuilding the narrative team, which had three writer/narrative designer vacancies when I arrived, which was almost half the S4 writing staff, so there was a lot going on. However, as I say, as time went on we got a progressively better idea of where we wanted the story to go, particularly as we began to contemplate the upcoming story arc. At this point we have a high-level idea of the rest of the serialized story GW2 will tell (although obviously those plans can and probably should change in some ways as time passes; we always want to give ourselves room to be responsive to player feedback, for example). Tom says: Those are really good questions. So good, in fact, that we might be planning to examine some of them in upcoming story arcs. :) We haven’t had an episode release since “War Eternal,” remember, so we haven’t yet had a chance to deal with any of the fallout from that episode’s events. But you’ve done a thorough job of enumerating some of the big issues that may arise from them. Tom says: Appreciated, and noted. :) Tom says: Actually, that would feel like giving up to me. I think a much better idea is to bring them back, like we did with Braham and Caithe, and continue their arcs to take them in more interesting directions. I will say that, in pondering Jory and Kas, it’s occurred to us that thinking of them as a couple was part of what had sort of run them aground, as far as their arc, and that it might be fruitful to consider them first as individuals. Only once we understand them as their own characters can we then figure out what we want from them as a couple. As I said in another answer on this thread though, this is something we’re thinking about. More to come. Tom says: a) Honestly not sure. Ask my team which character they think I’m most like.b) Probably Caithe. Everything about her is intriguing to me. Also Sayida the Sly. (Doesn’t hurt that Kari Wahlgren and Sumalee Montano are two of my very favorite voice actors to work with.)c) Joko, hands down, followed by Braham and Taimi.d) Oooh…that’s a tough one. Writing the Commander well isn’t as easy as it may look. I haven’t actually had to do it yet, but I’d say at the moment that I’d anticipate writing for Marjory and Kasmeer would be particularly challenging, simply because, as noted elsewhere, they could use some some serious thought and development.e) Gotta say Braham. (Although we should probably bring bail money with us.)f) There are so many things I’m excited for people to see going forward...It’s true, most of them we can’t yet talk about. I think I can safely allow, however, that Braham’s arc will continue to develop in the next few episodes, and I really like where that’s all going. He’s come a long way since his emo teen days. Tom says: Well, we do love our singing. Tom says: All good questions. We’re just beginning to explore the Order of the Crystal Bloom, so we don’t have a ton of answers yet. But it does help to know what players are wondering as we ponder them.

Hmm. Nuance could be a problem in the GW2 story set up based on overall stylistic choices for the narrative. But it's certainly doable for very alien Terran animals. I'll refer you to Adrian Tchaikovsky's recent novels Children of Time and Children of ruin, featuring uplifted spiders and octopuses. Granted they do also have human characters but for the bulk of the novels the focus of interest is on the fascinating, very nonhuman psychology of the main races. That said, thank you for this solid look at Charr lore, I'm definitely referring my guildies to this post :) Man, I would love to write some dialogue variants for some spiders and octopuses. That sounds rad.

Good question! I'll use the charr as an example, since we discussed them pretty in depth while Alex was working on his Rytlock piece for the Requiem Twine series. On the surface, you've got a militaristic race of cat-people separated into three High Legions + the Flame Legion (and the Olmakhan). Before that, they were one group led by a Khan-Ur--so the closest real world parallel we've got is the Mongol Empire with Genghis Khan at its head. Like the charr, the Mongol Empire was formed by someone who united a bunch of nomadic tribes for the purpose of conquering. Both were very good at it (and both were responsible for the large-scale massacres of civilian populations). In Guild Wars 2, we're further down the road; the Khan-Ur is dead and most of the charr are split across the Blood Legion, the Iron Legion, and the Ash Legion--all of which are led by a descendant of the original Khan-Ur. Something similar happened after Genghis Khan's death--if you're interested you can check out the Toluid Civil War, even though it's not a 1:1 comparison. Our imperators are on relatively good terms with each other (with the exception of the Flame Legion, which is a whole other kettle of fish) because there's strength in numbers, and so far this setup has been working pretty well for them. They're also on good terms with the other races of Tyria due to the Ebonhawke Treaty, which is itself an extension of this agreement that the imperators have with each other. That is to say: they're willing to work together for a common goal. In the past, that was expanding their territory and influence. Now, it's dealing with the Elder Dragon Problem (and other localized threats). That doesn't mean the desire to conquer goes away, though--especially not in older charr whose worldview is pretty entrenched in their personal identities. The Ebonhawke Treaty is still very new in the scheme of things, and no group of people is a monolith. The Renegades and Separatists are pretty clear evidence that not everyone is on board. The charr's culture functions the way it does because that's what it was designed to do. Cubs leave their parents when they're weaned to join the fahrar because that's most effective. They're brought up to believe their legion comes first because that's what makes an efficient soldier. They're indoctrinated to view their warband as their family because it strengthens the warband as a military unit. None of this is biological. It's a sociological. Both the Mongols -- and the Spartans, who the charr are also inspired by -- are human, even if their societies function in very different ways from each other... and from our own. Present-day Mongols aren't conquerors. Circumstances have changed dramatically. The charr are experiencing a similar shift, and Rytlock is among the first to start questioning the way his culture does things. This doesn't mean he's going to go out and buy a baseball mitt and play catch with his cubs--but it does mean he's no longer shunning his impulse to be more involved in their lives. Historically, charr haven't been allowed to invest much in their young; that doesn't mean they wouldn't. The Olmakhan certainly do. And Rytlock has spent enough time with Destiny's Edge and Dragon's Watch that this sort of thing is no longer the taboo he was raised to believe. Not everyone would agree with him, though. Bangar certainly wouldn't--because Rytlock's way of thinking is a threat to his authority. The way things currently work allows him to maintain his power (while putting others, like gladia, at a distinct disadvantage). Again: Sociological, not biological. These things aren't fixed. They can and do change. Gosh this is already much longer than I anticipated, and it's a really simplified view of everything that only scratches the surface of what's going on with the charr, but I hope it gives people an idea of where we're coming from when we make these sorts of choices--like with the Twine. At the end of the day, the charr aren't human, but the people writing them are--and so are the people playing them. We're not trying to make them exactly like us, but we have only human cultures to draw from. Which is a good thing, I think, because they're all so rich and varied. You could make an MMO where all the cultures are based on chimpanzees or dolphins or ravens -- which are some of the most intelligent animals on our planet -- but without nuance or a human spin on them, it's probably not going to be very interesting.

Can't speak for everybody, but for me it's psychology. Also: sociology.

This was a tough call. We had only so many characters we could include in the epilogue--you might notice Gorrik is missing, too. Almorra lost her warband and made it her life's mission to take out the Elder Dragons by forming the Vigil and brokering the Ebonhawke Treaty. But she wasn't our only ally who had lost someone close to her because of Kralkatorrik. Rytlock and Logan confronted their past in "War Eternal" as well, helping to finally avenge Snaff and Glint. Having conversations with Rytlock, Logan, and Almorra felt like a bit of a double beat, so we opted to save Almorra's perspective for another time when we could give it slightly more room to breathe. You'll hear from her again. A general's work is never really done...

We've been discussing this a lot in the writers' room (among other things). You guys definitely aren't alone; the shapeshifting is on our list of things we'd like to be able to explore. When Alex said we're taking a more nuanced look at races, this is the sort of thing he's referring to: core pillars that merit more time and attention, even if it's a bit of a balancing act sometimes. We hear you!

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.

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...

It generally depends on which episode you're looking at, but everything goes through the writers' room and table reads--so the truth is it could be anybody, or multiple people if a line has been iterated on (and they often are).

We're fortunate to be writing for an IP with a really rich history and lore, so there's already a lot for us to draw from. The team starts by looking at what's already been established, whether at launch or during the course of the game's lifespan, and then we work together with designers to find fun, engaging ways to explore the world we've all inherited. Once we've picked the direction we want to go, we have storybreaking meetings that include as many different disciplines as we can fit into the room to discuss what we want to do -- and, ultimately, how to do it. There are a lot of people at the studio who have been around since the beginning, so if we're uncertain about a particular detail or want to be sure we're factually accurate, we'll seek those people out to make sure we're in alignment with what already exists -- just in case. We do our best not to contradict ourselves, although we'll occasionally put a new spin on things if we think tweaking it slightly will make the experience better. When I came onto the team last year, I spent the first two weeks wading through the wiki, reading the forums, and watching YouTube play-throughs to bring myself up to speed as quickly as possible, and to better understand the playerbase we're writing for. Everyone else on the team has made similar efforts. We're all committed to consistency, even if we make the occasional mistake.

Rytlock has a very... complicated relationship with his imperator and his warband, which is touched on in the Rytlock Twine story Alex Kain wrote for our Requiem series! It's here if you missed it: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/january-29-2019/ You can bet this dynamic played into those events.

I play a charr, too! Hi! The challenge you're highlighting comes back to the choices we give players during character creation. That is to say, we've got five unique player races with countless combinations of Personal Story options. We also have a ceiling on the number of lines we can fit into our episodes, both voiced and not, so it's very difficult to service all those branching threads. The goods news is that we're taking a closer look at this as we move forward, and are working with designers to find unique opportunities to tailor the experience in manageable ways where possible. You'll see more of this approach in future Living World content, too, although not as much as we wish we could do.

Thank you for bringing this up! My answer to this one is going to be pretty broad, but I'm hoping it cuts to the heart of what you're asking. There are a lot of questions in this thread about the future of specific threads like Malyck, Zojja, Rytlock's past, Spirits of the Wild, Wizard's Tower, etc. that would require specific answers we aren't in a position to give at the moment. However! Lately, the team has spent a lot of time discussing the game’s foundation and all the stories that different configurations of designers and writers have told since Guild Wars 2 launched. We’re very aware there are certain plots, characters, and lore that our players are curious about and want to see explored or resolved, so we made plans for future content with many (but not all) of those things in mind. The team is actively looking for opportunities to shine the spotlight on areas of the world that haven’t gotten as much attention as others while balancing the need to drive the narrative forward. It's impossible for us to address everything without things getting muddy or feeling randomized, so we have to prioritize by picking and choosing what works best for the direction we're going. One of the reasons we wanted to do this Q&A was to let you guys know that we are listening because what you have to say is important to us. We're looking forward to sharing what we've been working on at the August 30 event, when we can be more specific in regards to what we say about what's coming.

Thanks for the thoughtful questions, everyone! It may take us some time to respond, and we'll probably respond out of order as different members of the team are available--so if you don't see your question answered right away, don't despair. We won't get to all of them, but we'll address what we can. Feel free to keep them coming, too.

Personal story is fair game, too!

The ArenaNet Narrative Team is here to answer your story-related questions through Friday, August 2! Please use this thread to ask us about the game’s characters, plot, or lore—we’ll respond as we’re able. Although we can’t get into specifics about our upcoming Living World content (we’re saving that for our streaming event on August 30), we can speak to previously released content as well as the craft, their process, and what it’s like to be in a writers’ room.