Bound By Blood Guild Chat tomorrow--do you have questions for the dev guests?

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Hi all, we have a big dev guest lineup for tomorrow's Guild Chat, so if you have any questions leave 'em here and we'll try to answer as many as we can.

One thing though: I know people are loving Metal Legion and the concert, and we're going to touch on that a bit tomorrow, but there's another episode of Guild Chat next Tuesday that's all about Metal Legion. So hold on to those questions until next week please!

Here are our dev guests for tomorrow:

• Novera King, Writer/Narrative Designer
• Connor Fallon, Game Designer
• Kirk Williford, Game Designer
• Erik Fagerstrom, Content Programmer
• Tracey West, Environment Artist
• Chris Burgess, Senior Sound Designer
• Greg Bekken, Senior Cinematic Artist
• Jason Byfield, Cinematic Marketing Lead

[hugo.4705]

-Is something happening again to Auris Weirdbringer, will it go further than what we saw?

-What is your favourite activity in Grothmar Valley? The derby is awesome.

-Was it fun to create the characters of Crecia and Bangar? Both are imposing, and feel living.

-Already said it in the other thread, the map is stunning, some dialogues are priceless.I think I will reuse "Fill the emptiness of your life with local merchandise!"

[Randulf.7614]

No questions, just a well done for delivering a vastly better episode than the last few

[Sime.3681]

Is the cub Prisca Efram's daughter? The dialogue during Revels & Rivals and Deeper and Deeper heavily imply that, but would be nice to have direct confirmation.

[Kaliwenda.3428]

Do you plan the ambient dialogue to have payoffs in later episodes? ( I'm thinking specifically of the charr book club).

[Cronospere.8143]

First of all. Thank you for the amazing charr content soo far. You really did great.

Grothmar Valley is a place from gw1: eye of the north. How do you start creating a map that players already know from gw1?

And what happened to the charr siege devourers?

[Wwefan.4982]

How did you choose which characters were in this release and which weren't. By this I mean why was Kas and Jory who its nice to see back in the episode celebrating Kralks death but Canach or Caithe who were there through everything with Kralk weren't.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

who came up with bringing the norn vendor from DR and having him sell bread? I loved that. Also who/where is the sylvari who had his waterproof baskets destroyed?

[Nebilim.5127]

How many people in total is working on the environments? Do tracey decide what's get added to a map or is a team of everyone else? I'm really interested to know in how the process of designing the map works because if i had to pick one thing this game does well, it is the environment, the world, the little details. You guys never fail to make me awe when i explore a new world with all the itty bitty things spread around, so i keep wondering how, let's say, tracey? Go around touching things up. Like during the concert, the charr actually walk over there, they just don't teleport in and then vanish when it is over, there is a big line of charr running over, and this kind of thing is what makes exploring the world so fascinating.

[Knighthonor.4061]

Will future episodes take place on this same new map?

[Weindrasi.3805]

Please, please, PLEASE give us more background info on what has occurred in the Flame Legion!! Who is Efram Greetsglory? Is he related to Gaheron Baelfire? (they look similar.) How did females in Flame regain their right to fight on the battlefield, and how are they feeling about that right now? (Based on NPC conversation, not all of them seem very excited to have their roles changed). How are the males feeling about it? Efram and the Shamans seem on board with equal rights, but do all the Flame refugees feel the same? Any additional background info or lore details on the Flame Legion would be fantastic.

[Donari.5237]

What Weindrasi said! This came out of nowhere, though there's dialogue saying there's been years of negotiations leading up to it. Did I miss something seeded in earlier releases that suggested the Flame Legion could change its culture that dramatically?

I know that it can be spun as unreliable narrative combined with prejudice of the narrators that has shown Flame Legion to be raving misogynistic fanatics and now we're seeing a deeper truth, but were there clues to this reversal, even obscure lines in interactable books or side comments from NPCs off in corners in previously available lore?

[Aaralyna.3104]

First of all, I love the music and map (I feel it has a little more replayability and the views are stunning). I also love the dictator kinda vibe with the speakers.

My question is: What is the name of the song/tune in the new map that sounds very fairy like (has some sort of choir voices) and is it availbale/will it be available on Soundcloud? I heard it around the Flame Legion Camp.

[Fengzhou.9853]

I really am enjoying the Charr content thus far. I have a couple questions. Thanks for taking the time to read!

1. Can we get new faces/hair/horns for Charr please? We can NEVER have too many options :o

2. I love this new long bow skin, the problem is, longbow is a very dicey weapon in that most builds/specs currently won't use them often, they just suffer a lack of identity and viability. Can we PLEASE do something about Dragonhunter's longbow being totally unused? It feels super bad having an elite spec's weapon be so weak in pve. Please give me a reason to use these beautiful longbow skins aside from afking in Lion's Arch!

[WhatLiesBeneath.9018]

QUESTION:Auris Weirdbringer, will this mystery continue in future episodes?

Oh and amazing job on the map, the environment, ambience, dialog, events everything is just perfect, its my favorite map of all time! And I absolutely love the strike mission!

[Krigjeger.4396]

Will you continue to use the Event Schedule boards in future maps/episodes and if so, will we get an option in the in-game clock to show "Tyrian" time instead of local/server times? Awesome job on the prologue, and yes, Metal Legion and more Metal Legion!

[DietPepsi.4371]

• What does the map design workflow look like? - that is, how do you go about designing and making maps now? and how does the story affect that process?
• How big is episode 1 compared to the size and scale of the prologue? Overall content-wise.
• Is there the possibility of any upcoming maps having Verdant Brink or Silverwastes styled dynamic Metas? and what maps influenced the events in this map.

Sort of off Topic: Is there more Charr-centric themed content (armour, mount, and glider skins, makeover kits, etc...) coming, and will the Norn get as much of a focus in the coming episodes.

[Frostfang.5109]

Will we get new faces, manes and horns for charr?

[Menadena.7482]

Why can you only buy the portal scroll at the end of the story when you have 2 seasons where you could buy it immediately (or at the most after doing some events)? While this story was not long my concern is with future stories that could be longer or even have something blocking them from being completely done.

[perilisk.1874]

1. Great job on creating a slowly building sense of menace toward the end that felt much more real and ugly than the more cartoonish villainy that we've faced so far. How far do you think you can take it before it starts to clash with the overall heroic fantasy feel of the game?

2. The use of camera tricks, rather than pure cutscenes, was new. Is it something we'll see a lot more of going forward?

3. Any reason that the episode was called "prologue", and not "episode 1"? Other than maybe a mastery, it seemed to have most of what you would expect from an episode, and definitely wasn't short on content.

4. The events were great fun, and I didn't remotely miss having hearts. Will the Icebrood Saga maps focus on more, and more unique, events instead of hearts?

5. What's your favorite legion?

[Zeike.7469]

Firstly just to say the content has been so much fun and engaging. Expected far less from a prologue. I've thoroughly enjoyed myself, great work guys and thank you. Just want to add that I love the Personal Story additions you added for those Charr in various Legions, I've done this with my Blood and Ash Legion Charr, and the acknowledgement of my chosen Legion is really nice to see.

Questions:

With Flame Legion looking to make peace treaties with current legions, how will this be added for future characters who want to be Flame Legion as part of their Personal Story?

Noticed there were some newer features on some Charr, are we going to get some updated Character Customisation features for Charr and other races?

I know we have some themed armour sets around the races, but with going to the Homelands of the Blood legion are there any plans to have some additional Armour sets for Charr, perhaps weapons and other cosmetics?

Strike Missions are great fun, but I wanted to know if there are plans to add dungeons which have bosses staged throughout. Perhaps like Doomlore's Shrine, getting down and dirty with some new fun challenges, as well as additional lore benefits for those that are interested.

Lastly, in terms of size, this feels about the size of an episode over an actual Prologue, are we expecting to go bigger when we get to Episode 1?

Thanks!

[Healix.5819]

The game will soon surpass the 100,000th build. Anything?

[Weindrasi.3805]

Thanks for answering my questions about the Flame Legion! It's super interesting to me that Flame females had as many diverse roles as they did--I was under the impression they weren't permitted to do anything except cook and breed. I'm excited to watch Efram and Prisca develop as characters, and hopefully to get more juicy details on Flame Legion lore, culture, and daily life.

[Ron Bradach.8479]

Is there a glitch with broken brand stomper #9 by the ooze stadium? The first day I couldn't fix it, I was overwhelmed by devourers and grubs. Then it was fixed and wouldn't reset for hours. I tried again today Fri. 21, still can't fix it. Do I need to concentrate on killing branded devourers or branded grubs? Or is it a glitch? Are you going to open more areas for exploration?

[Aaralyna.3104]

@Ron Bradach.8479 said:Do I need to concentrate on killing branded devourers or branded grubs?

Click on the stomper (some clock circle will start). Focus on killing anything at the stomper itself (the ranged ones won't stop the progress). If the mob at the device itself is not killed in time the stomper will abort the repair and you have to start the timer again.