In the most recent Guild Wars 2 story, you and your merry band of warriors face off in opposition to the Living World’s greatest menace but – a crystal dragon named Kralkatorrik. In All of Nothing this colossal beast has been turning everybody into a military of corrupted minions known as the Branded, and it’s your mission to face the beast in a single ultimate showdown and reverse the harm they’ve achieved to Tyria.
This story is probably Guild War 2’s most bold up to now. We go to the tropical shores of Siren’s Reef, and battle in opposition to creepy ghost pirates and Captain Arabella Crow, the pirate queen. We additionally see the dwarven zone of Thunderhead Peaks now utterly plunged underwater, a dramatic aspect impact of Zhaitan waking Orr from the ocean.
In the aftermath, we had a chat with narrative lead Armand Constantine, design lead Lindsey Murdock, and narrative designer Alex Kain to be taught extra about what went into creating the epic story for All or Nothing.
PCGamesN: What’s your finest Hollywood pitch for the brand new episode? Imagine we’re at the back of a limo and I’m already trying up my subsequent appointment on my disgustingly costly smartwatch.
Armand Constantine, narrative lead: You imply one thing like: ‘a band of heroes and their pleasant dragon face off in opposition to a titanic, world-ending serpent’? Thankfully, the staff right here actually values the narrative craft and we don’t do harried Hollywood fashion pitches in limousines. If we’re pitching a story internally, we take the time to speak about all of the essential components – the plot, the turns, the characters and their arcs, related themes, and the way this specific piece of narrative content material works within the context of bigger tales we wish to inform. I believe all of that materials must be examined to evaluate if a proposed narrative is value pursuing, and we’re lucky that we’ve got a course of that does so.
A thousand-foot tall dragon sounds just like the sort of factor a author comes up with, and designers shoot down. How did you promote one thing as giant as that to the staff?
Huge stakes are an enormous a part of the sort of tales we inform. But I believe it’s essential to seek out methods of personalising the villain
Linsey Murdock, design lead: Actually, it was very a lot the writers and designers being excited concerning the epicness of all of it. Selling the artists was the troublesome half since they have been on the hook for constructing these huge property. In basic, all our devs wish to actually pull off the massive epic stuff, it’s all the time only a query of how. We needed to develop new tech to even simply get him all on display screen.
Constantine: Everyone on this staff, no matter self-discipline, needs to be bold concerning the content material we develop and the tales we inform. What that requires is a very collaborative course of throughout disciplines. You wish to inform a narrative a few dragon the scale of a mountain? You have to get everybody concerned to determine what’s doable and what’s not. And usually that dialogue is much less about answering a binary sure or no than developing with intelligent options for conducting issues that appear not possible at first look.
Have any advances in tech at ArenaNet lately modified the sorts of tales you’ll be able to inform?
Murdock: Yes, completely. We have gotten much more instruments to do storytelling within the open world which is why gamers have began to see extra main characters in our maps, and the main throughline of the story has taken place an increasing number of there. It’s been thrilling for us to be integrating extra of the story with the world.
Ghost pirates sound enjoyable, and ripe for comedy or horror – what method did you’re taking with them for All Or Nothing?
Alex Kain, narrative designer: With the Siren’s Reef fractal, we didn’t need issues to veer too far in both course – finally deciding {that a} balanced mixture of the 2 would go well with our story wants completely. So, whereas your group is battling a cruel military of undead pirates or sneaking by a maze with their cursed treasure in hand, your fractal information, Dessa, gives commentary from a purely rational, logic-minded standpoint. For instance, she doesn’t wish to say “pirate curse” (it doesn’t sound “scientific” sufficient for her). She additionally has a enjoyable private connection to one of many characters within the fractal, which makes these interactions much more fascinating.
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You’ve plunged an authentic Guild Wars space underwater – what was the impetus for that, and what has it allowed you to do?
Murdock: When Zhaitan rose Orr out of the ocean, it triggered an enormous tidal wave that terraformed and shifted the local weather in lots of places on Tyria. We have been seeing the results of that since GW2 launched, with many historic places being underwater or modified. The approach we dealt with the Ice Floe space was merely a continuation of that. Not all of Ice Floe is underwater in GW2, however a few of it’s. We have some content material within the space that offers with fishing these waters and numerous chests and gathering of supplies within the water. In the elements that aren’t underwater, we’ve got a big scale meta occasion chain that options dredge, branded, and oil elementals.
Soap writers good the artwork of incorporating a lot of info into dialogue, in order that new viewers can choose up the story shortly. Have you developed related methods for writing your Living World tales?
We did should pay shut consideration to the stakes of what we’re coping with
Constantine: This is one thing we expect by for every episode. What makes recapping our narrative content material a bit tough is that we will’t make sure how lengthy it’s going to have been since a participant was engaged in earlier content material. One participant is perhaps launching into an episode proper after finishing the earlier one. Another is perhaps dropping in after weeks or months. We should strike a stability – sufficient to jog reminiscences and remind gamers of the bigger story context, however not a lot to litter our restricted narrative actual property with stuff that we’ve stated earlier than. We attempt to discover the stability, conserving in thoughts that the story journal is a great tool for individuals to recap on their very own time.
Villains have all the time been a cornerstone of MMO tales, however may also go away gamers jaded in the long term – if there’s all the time an existential menace, the sense of peril fades. How do you get round that sort of feeling with a personality like Kralkatorrik, particularly in a game as long-running as Guild Wars?
Constantine: Huge stakes are an enormous a part of the sort of tales we inform. But I believe it’s essential to seek out methods of personalising the villain. You search for alternatives to discover the inside life and frame of mind of the villain – difficult within the case of Kralkatorrik, however for instance, we get a little bit of that on this episode from Glint describing her interactions with him and the way he reacted to his imaginative and prescient. You additionally search for alternatives to personalise the stakes by the experiences of different characters, main and minor.
Murdock: Kralkatorrik is especially distinctive for the reason that story of Destiny’s Edge facilities across the battle with him. He is, in some ways, the primary dragon we confronted so there’s a whole lot of momentum constructed up for this combat. We did should pay shut consideration to the stakes of what we’re coping with and ensuring that the participant is following alongside on the significance of all of it.
There’s a brand new legendary weapon on this episode – do you contemplate it a part of your job as writers so as to add intrigue and backstory to highly effective gear, to lend it weight?
Murdock: Not all the time, no. Some of our legendary weapons have in depth backstories however not all of them. It’s nice once we are impressed and have the finances to do one thing cool, however we don’t contemplate it required for each rad new weapon. The artwork actually carries these things.
Does neighborhood dialogue ever encourage plotlines?
Murdock: Not precisely. Community dialogue may emphasize to us the issues that are necessary to the participant base and information us to pursue solutions to their questions. More usually than not, gamers will contact on issues that we have been already planning and reinforce to us that we’re nicely aligned. Our gamers are following proper alongside.
Constantine: Community dialogue is a good way for us to get details about participant expectations and the place their pursuits lie, which is efficacious. But the plotlines and character arcs are developed internally by the staff.
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