Braham, Plus Overall Story Delivery

[Donari.5237]

I noted that Braham seems to have calmed down through the course of this episode. While it's realistic for people to get over being mad, having it happen so subtly in this particular instance feels a little anticlimactic. All that build up and then "hey, well, glad you had my back, maybe we should talk." Enough so to make me wonder, is this part of the overall planning of the storyline or is it in response to the general negative response by the players to his angstfest?

 

Semi corollary, how much behind-the-scenes knowledge do you guys have for your guiding canon that never makes it into player view? (This is not a jab -- the nature of the beast is that you'll have a bigger framework than can be shown in a game of this nature. But it does mean that sometimes we feel we are getting the glossy highlights and have to assume and infer a tapestry of detail).

[Jessica Price.1649]

> @"Donari.5237" said:

> I noted that Braham seems to have calmed down through the course of this episode. While it's realistic for people to get over being mad, having it happen so subtly in this particular instance feels a little anticlimactic. All that build up and then "hey, well, glad you had my back, maybe we should talk." Enough so to make me wonder, is this part of the overall planning of the storyline or is it in response to the general negative response by the players to his angstfest?

 

Why not both? :-)

 

I started here at ArenaNet in August, and part of the discussion from my very first day in the studio was how the character arcs for major NPCs should tie into the overall arc for the season--and Braham specifically was "We've got a character that our player base is angry with."

 

So I started reading/watching what was already written for Braham, and what I saw was a grieving teenager. His mom wasn't particularly present in his life, and then she died. And the big thing for him here isn't just that she died: it's that at some level he had to be hoping that there was a point in his life where she'd finally have time for him. If he was enough of a hero, if he built enough of a legend--or maybe once she'd finished building her legend, after she retired, so to speak, they'd be able to get to know one another.

 

And that is never going to happen. He largely grew up without a mother, but there was always the hope that he'd sort of retroactively get one, and now that's gone. I know it feels like forever in real time, but it didn't actually happen that long ago--it was last season. It hasn't even been a year in game time.

 

So he's been lashing out at the Commander. That actually seems kind of natural to me--not okay, not ethical, not right, but understandable--as does the Commander's restraint. They're not equals. Braham's what, 22? Your brain isn't even out of adolescence until you're 25ish. The Commander's an adult. I probably would have bitten my tongue, too, in that situation and, like, given him a year to finish mourning before I was like, "okay, my dude, let's talk about how you were kind of a jerk."

 

Anyway: I came in, read up on Braham, and that was my take. But it's clearly NOT much of the audience's take, which means that the story hasn't done its job in conveying all that.

 

Which makes our job going forward to try to nuance Braham, and show him thinking about his relationship with the Commander and what he _actually_ wants that relationship to be--not what feels good in the moment, not what's going to give him an outlet for his anger and his grief and his frustration at what can't be, not the Commander as a symbol of Eir's death, but what the future looks like.

 

I know a lot of people are like "just KILL him." That reaction's coming from two groups of people--one that's just annoyed by him and doesn't really want to have to deal with him, and one that cares deeply about story and character and recognizes that his treatment of the Commander was unfair. Can't do much for the former group, but for the latter, I think they _think_ that will be satisfying, but there's no actual closure there. I think what they actually want is to see him humbled. And that's not meaningful unless he comes to understand the problems with what he did, and looks for ways to make meaningful restitution.

 

So where he is right now, although obviously this is a guy who's gruff and it's not realistic to have him explicitly say it, is in a very reflective place. He's making tentative gestures toward reconciliation. (I mean, dude's 22. Don't expect him to be GOOD at this right away. I was crap at apologizing when I was 22. He's trying to figure out how you repair a relationship.)

 

And there's going to be stuff in his arc that's a lot more on the surface and dramatic, but what you're seeing right now is the soil above the seed starting to buckle.

 

> Semi corollary, how much behind-the-scenes knowledge do you guys have for your guiding canon that never makes it into player view? (This is not a jab -- the nature of the beast is that you'll have a bigger framework than can be shown in a game of this nature. But it does mean that sometimes we feel we are getting the glossy highlights and have to assume and infer a tapestry of detail).

 

When you're dealing with a game that's been around this long, and has been constantly updating and building new lore, you have some areas that have an entire ICEBERG of work supporting them and you only see a little bit of it above the surface. That's the way I prefer to do things, because I think the richness comes through even if the audience doesn't see all of it, and it makes for better-informed decisions. (When I was working on Pathfinder, I wrote a 64-page campaign setting book for one of the countries in the world. And before that, I wrote roughly 200 pages of content about the history and the surrounding political context and the food that they eat--none of which was intended to be published. Oh, and an 80-page reference grammar of the language they speak. And the reviews started coming in and they were like, "whoa, this feels like a real place." That's WHY.)

 

There are pieces of GW2 lore that are like that. Someone here loves that event or that character or that place and there's a ton of internal canon about it. At the same time, when you've got a game that's this expansive, you CAN'T do that for everything. We just don't have enough staff. So there are some bits where basically everything that exists is onscreen. It's like, if you've ever watched _Spartacus_ on Starz, that show had a tiny budget for a historical epic series, and _every dollar_ of their set budget was clearly onscreen. You look at this bedroom the characters are in, and at first glance, you're like, "Yes, that's a lavish Roman bedroom," but then you realize that outside the ornate bed in the center of the screen, everything is basically just cleverly draped fabric suggesting there's an expensive room there. And on the other hand, you have something like Lord of the Rings, where there was a ton of lovingly crafted stuff that was outside the camera's field of view.

 

Sometimes we're Lord of the Rings, sometimes we're Spartacus.

 

Internal canon can be a trap, too. There are times where we've proceeded on the assumption that something we all Know To Be True has been said publicly, only to find out that we... never actually said that. :-)

[Donari.5237]

> @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> Internal canon can be a trap, too. There are times where we've proceeded on the assumption that something we all Know To Be True has been said publicly, only to find out that we... never actually said that. :-)

 

What a wonderful answer, lots to digest there, many thanks. I think I'd best edit my title a tiny bit since this is going beyond one character.

 

On the last bit, yeah, that is what I was getting at. Sometimes it feels like my high school calculus class where the teacher just didn't bother explaining the middle part of solutions beyond "this part is just algebra." She could do that in her head so automatically that it didn't occur to her that maybe we students needed it spelled out ... So I hope you can find a way to track internal/external canon development and keep them more in sync :)

 

I do think you did a lot of good stuff with Sandswept Isles along those lines. The place does feel real, same as Lake Doric, because it has cohesive areas and tons of side bits to make it convincing as a place where people live.

 

[Oglaf.1074]

> @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> So he's been lashing out at the Commander. That actually seems kind of natural to me--not okay, not ethical, not right, but understandable--as does the Commander's restraint. They're not equals. Braham's what, 22? Your brain isn't even out of adolescence until you're 25ish. The Commander's an adult. I probably would have bitten my tongue, too, in that situation and, like, given him a year to finish mourning before I was like, "okay, my dude, let's talk about how you were kind of a jerk."

 

See the thing is that this only makes sense from the perspective from a non-Norn Commander's perspective. My Commander who is a Norn not only knew Eir way better than Braham, but also the way Norns "function" and as such should've been able to have a nice lil' talk with Braham over it.

 

That is my biggest gripe with how Braham was handled - my Norn Warrior was treated, and reacted, like a non-Norn character. I would've loved some special interaction with Braham to calm him down as a racial perk for Norns.

 

I mean, it of course wouldn't have affected the story and Braham would've still been mad and all (as to not break the overarching storyline) but it would've been nice to have my character at least try and resolve the situation as a Norn rather than a non-Norn outsider.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jessica Price.1649]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> > So he's been lashing out at the Commander. That actually seems kind of natural to me--not okay, not ethical, not right, but understandable--as does the Commander's restraint. They're not equals. Braham's what, 22? Your brain isn't even out of adolescence until you're 25ish. The Commander's an adult. I probably would have bitten my tongue, too, in that situation and, like, given him a year to finish mourning before I was like, "okay, my dude, let's talk about how you were kind of a jerk."

>

> See the thing is that this only makes sense from the perspective from a non-Norn Commander's perspective. My Commander who is a Norn not only knew Eir way better than Braham, but also the way Norns "function" and as such should've been able to have a nice lil' talk with Braham over it.

 

No argument there, beyond that the Commander's also had a lot else on her plate. Killing gods, dying and coming back to life... :-)

 

Plus Braham was the one who behaved unreasonably, so it's sort of on him to make the first move toward reconciliation.

 

 

[Oglaf.1074]

> @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> > @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> > > @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> > > So he's been lashing out at the Commander. That actually seems kind of natural to me--not okay, not ethical, not right, but understandable--as does the Commander's restraint. They're not equals. Braham's what, 22? Your brain isn't even out of adolescence until you're 25ish. The Commander's an adult. I probably would have bitten my tongue, too, in that situation and, like, given him a year to finish mourning before I was like, "okay, my dude, let's talk about how you were kind of a jerk."

> >

> > See the thing is that this only makes sense from the perspective from a non-Norn Commander's perspective. My Commander who is a Norn not only knew Eir way better than Braham, but also the way Norns "function" and as such should've been able to have a nice lil' talk with Braham over it.

>

> No argument there, beyond that the Commander's also had a lot else on her plate. Killing gods, dying and coming back to life... :-)

>

> Plus Braham was the one who behaved unreasonably, so it's sort of on him to make the first move toward reconciliation.

>

>

 

I'm kinda talking about earlier interactions right after Eir's death. Braham really talked down to my Norn about how I was disrespecting her memory. In actuality this probably should've resorted in a slap across the face, either literal or proverbial, from my character since as a Norn you have a very special relationship with Eir during the earlier stages of your personal story.

 

Quite frankly, Braham would be in no position to tell another Norn off in this sitatuation. Our characters really had a closer, more intimate relationship to Eir than he has ever had at this point.

 

But sadly, because the story doesn't take race into consideration much, my Norn just recoiled all confused as if he didn't understand how Norn culture works - as you would expect from the other races in this situation.

[Jessica Price.1649]

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> I'm kinda talking about earlier interactions right after Eir's death. Braham really talked down to my Norn about how I was disrespecting her memory. In actuality this probably should've resorted in a slap across the face, either literal or proverbial, from my character since as a Norn you have a very special relationship with Eir during the earlier stages of your personal story.

>

> Quite frankly, Braham would be in no position to tell another Norn off in this sitatuation. Our characters really had a closer, more intimate relationship to Eir than he has ever had at this point.

>

> But sadly, because the story doesn't take race into consideration much, my Norn just recoiled all confused as if he didn't understand how Norn culture works - as you would expect from the other races in this situation.

 

Ah. I can't really speak to decisions made before I was here. :-)

 

 

[Donari.5237]

But now you ARE here :) -- So, are there plans to take race (and profession) more into consideration at least insofar as instanced dialogue/puzzle solving goes? Obviously it's more work for you and for the VA's, but so far I think the pay off has been huge in terms of positive player response.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> "We've got a character that our player base is angry with."

Some of us aren't so much angry _at_ him as feeling that his dialogue made him whiny.

 

> So I started reading/watching what was already written for Braham, and what I saw was a grieving teenager.

Yes, that's what I saw, too.

> Anyway: I came in, read up on Braham, and that was my take. But it's clearly NOT much of the audience's take, which means that the story hasn't done its job in conveying all that.

Part of the difference I saw in community response was sometimes due to whether people had known a grieving teenager (or themselves aggrieved without being able to see their way forward).

 

That also speaks to the writing, but with a different point: this game has a very diverse audience and the same dialogue that resonates powerfully for one group, even a majority, might make no sense at all to others.

 

****

> So he's been lashing out at the Commander. That actually seems kind of natural to me--not okay, not ethical, not right, but understandable--as does the Commander's restraint. They're not equals. Braham's what, 22? Your brain isn't even out of adolescence until you're 25ish. The Commander's an adult. I probably would have bitten my tongue, too, in that situation and, like, given him a year to finish mourning before I was like, "okay, my dude, let's talk about how you were kind of a jerk."

My feeling was that the Commander never sounded like they were biting their tongue; they sounded like they had no clue what to say or how to be a mentor or a leader or any of the other things that the player character had seemed to have learned in fighting Zhaitain, in bringing diverse tribes together, in choosing to part from the Pact to worry about existential threats to Tyria.

 

 

 

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> Internal canon can be a trap, too. There are times where we've proceeded on the assumption that something we all Know To Be True has been said publicly, only to find out that we... never actually said that. :-)

 

Thanks for posting that. It can't be easy keeping track of what you said, what you thought of saying (but decided not to), what you plan to say (but haven't yet), and what you said (but wish you hadn't because it's tied the story into knots).

[Ashen.2907]

> @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> > @"Donari.5237" said:

> > I noted that Braham seems to have calmed down through the course of this episode. While it's realistic for people to get over being mad, having it happen so subtly in this particular instance feels a little anticlimactic. All that build up and then "hey, well, glad you had my back, maybe we should talk." Enough so to make me wonder, is this part of the overall planning of the storyline or is it in response to the general negative response by the players to his angstfest?

>

> Why not both? :-)

>

> I started here at ArenaNet in August, and part of the discussion from my very first day in the studio was how the character arcs for major NPCs should tie into the overall arc for the season--and Braham specifically was "We've got a character that our player base is angry with."

>

> So I started reading/watching what was already written for Braham, and what I saw was a grieving teenager. His mom wasn't particularly present in his life, and then she died. And the big thing for him here isn't just that she died: it's that at some level he had to be hoping that there was a point in his life where she'd finally have time for him. If he was enough of a hero, if he built enough of a legend--or maybe once she'd finished building her legend, after she retired, so to speak, they'd be able to get to know one another.

>

> And that is never going to happen. He largely grew up without a mother, but there was always the hope that he'd sort of retroactively get one, and now that's gone. I know it feels like forever in real time, but it didn't actually happen that long ago--it was last season. It hasn't even been a year in game time.

>

> So he's been lashing out at the Commander. That actually seems kind of natural to me--not okay, not ethical, not right, but understandable--as does the Commander's restraint. They're not equals. Braham's what, 22? Your brain isn't even out of adolescence until you're 25ish. The Commander's an adult. I probably would have bitten my tongue, too, in that situation and, like, given him a year to finish mourning before I was like, "okay, my dude, let's talk about how you were kind of a jerk."

>

> Anyway: I came in, read up on Braham, and that was my take. But it's clearly NOT much of the audience's take, which means that the story hasn't done its job in conveying all that.

>

> Which makes our job going forward to try to nuance Braham, and show him thinking about his relationship with the Commander and what he _actually_ wants that relationship to be--not what feels good in the moment, not what's going to give him an outlet for his anger and his grief and his frustration at what can't be, not the Commander as a symbol of Eir's death, but what the future looks like.

>

> I know a lot of people are like "just KILL him." That reaction's coming from two groups of people--one that's just annoyed by him and doesn't really want to have to deal with him, and one that cares deeply about story and character and recognizes that his treatment of the Commander was unfair. Can't do much for the former group, but for the latter, I think they _think_ that will be satisfying, but there's no actual closure there. I think what they actually want is to see him humbled. And that's not meaningful unless he comes to understand the problems with what he did, and looks for ways to make meaningful restitution.

>

> So where he is right now, although obviously this is a guy who's gruff and it's not realistic to have him explicitly say it, is in a very reflective place. He's making tentative gestures toward reconciliation. (I mean, dude's 22. Don't expect him to be GOOD at this right away. I was crap at apologizing when I was 22. He's trying to figure out how you repair a relationship.)

>

> And there's going to be stuff in his arc that's a lot more on the surface and dramatic, but what you're seeing right now is the soil above the seed starting to buckle.

>

> > Semi corollary, how much behind-the-scenes knowledge do you guys have for your guiding canon that never makes it into player view? (This is not a jab -- the nature of the beast is that you'll have a bigger framework than can be shown in a game of this nature. But it does mean that sometimes we feel we are getting the glossy highlights and have to assume and infer a tapestry of detail).

>

> When you're dealing with a game that's been around this long, and has been constantly updating and building new lore, you have some areas that have an entire ICEBERG of work supporting them and you only see a little bit of it above the surface. That's the way I prefer to do things, because I think the richness comes through even if the audience doesn't see all of it, and it makes for better-informed decisions. (When I was working on Pathfinder, I wrote a 64-page campaign setting book for one of the countries in the world. And before that, I wrote roughly 200 pages of content about the history and the surrounding political context and the food that they eat--none of which was intended to be published. Oh, and an 80-page reference grammar of the language they speak. And the reviews started coming in and they were like, "whoa, this feels like a real place." That's WHY.)

>

> There are pieces of GW2 lore that are like that. Someone here loves that event or that character or that place and there's a ton of internal canon about it. At the same time, when you've got a game that's this expansive, you CAN'T do that for everything. We just don't have enough staff. So there are some bits where basically everything that exists is onscreen. It's like, if you've ever watched _Spartacus_ on Starz, that show had a tiny budget for a historical epic series, and _every dollar_ of their set budget was clearly onscreen. You look at this bedroom the characters are in, and at first glance, you're like, "Yes, that's a lavish Roman bedroom," but then you realize that outside the ornate bed in the center of the screen, everything is basically just cleverly draped fabric suggesting there's an expensive room there. And on the other hand, you have something like Lord of the Rings, where there was a ton of lovingly crafted stuff that was outside the camera's field of view.

>

> Sometimes we're Lord of the Rings, sometimes we're Spartacus.

>

> Internal canon can be a trap, too. There are times where we've proceeded on the assumption that something we all Know To Be True has been said publicly, only to find out that we... never actually said that. :-)

 

I dont want him to be humbled, or even killed off. I just dont want him around. He is a detraction from the mission. How likely, if lives depended on you, would you be to allow a tantrum prone adolescent to hang around and interfere?

 

Sure someone may not exit mental adolescence until age 25, and sure it makes sense for a character to grieve when their mother dies, and sure an adolescent might, understandably, lash out in response to that loss...but why must we deal with that distraction from what actually matters?

 

It is decidedly foolish to risk the lives of thousands because one has decided to babysit some kid we have no reason to associate with.

[Boris Losdindawoods.3098]

Just drop his grumpy butt into the mists, have him meet Eir, she tells him she's proud of him, she tells him to man up and stop acting like a butthead to people who care about him, pass around the tissues, and then everyone can move on.

[Jessica Price.1649]

> @"Donari.5237" said:

> But now you ARE here :) -- So, are there plans to take race (and profession) more into consideration at least insofar as instanced dialogue/puzzle solving goes? Obviously it's more work for you and for the VA's, but so far I think the pay off has been huge in terms of positive player response.

 

Yes, we try to look into providing race-specific variants in dialogue. Bear in mind, however, that it's not just a matter of _work_ for us and the VAs--it's a matter of budget. Our line count is budgeted very tightly.

[ziad.4270]

> @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> > @"Donari.5237" said:

> > But now you ARE here :) -- So, are there plans to take race (and profession) more into consideration at least insofar as instanced dialogue/puzzle solving goes? Obviously it's more work for you and for the VA's, but so far I think the pay off has been huge in terms of positive player response.

>

> Yes, we try to look into providing race-specific variants in dialogue. Bear in mind, however, that it's not just a matter of _work_ for us and the VAs--it's a matter of budget. Our line count is budgeted very tightly.

 

Speaking of VAs would you be open to volunteers/players doing some lines?

[Donari.5237]

Not sure if this should be a new thread, but it feels like part of the flow in this one:

 

Would you be willing to deliver some story out of game? There's been mixed reactions to that by players, true, but short bits like Marjory's meeting with E or Taimi's lab issues prior to Embry Bay really helped flesh things out. It would be a way to give us more on (for example) Malyck and his Tree without having to use full game development resources.

[Haleydawn.3764]

> @"ziad.4270" said:

> > @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> > > @"Donari.5237" said:

> > > But now you ARE here :) -- So, are there plans to take race (and profession) more into consideration at least insofar as instanced dialogue/puzzle solving goes? Obviously it's more work for you and for the VA's, but so far I think the pay off has been huge in terms of positive player response.

> >

> > Yes, we try to look into providing race-specific variants in dialogue. Bear in mind, however, that it's not just a matter of _work_ for us and the VAs--it's a matter of budget. Our line count is budgeted very tightly.

>

> Speaking of VAs would you be open to volunteers/players doing some lines?

 

Ooo I'd love to do this!

[swbanach.9456]

> @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

 

> So where he is right now, although obviously this is a guy who's gruff and it's not realistic to have him explicitly say it, is in a very reflective place. He's making tentative gestures toward reconciliation. (I mean, dude's 22. Don't expect him to be GOOD at this right away. I was crap at apologizing when I was 22. He's trying to figure out how you repair a relationship.)

 

Pulling in your own experiences can make him feel more real and that is awesome. However, as a player, I also want everything his actions to also pass the test "He is a norn, would a norn act this way?" If you do this for each character/race in our little band of heroes, they'll feel all the more distinct and special. Sometimes I worry they all feel too human when it comes to their motivations and their logic.

[Helreginn.1894]

> @Jessica Price II.9813 said:

 

Since a Braham topic is already open, and he's the one I mostly wanted to talk about in this episode, I might as well put this here. First of all, thank you, Jessica, for the detailed explanation above. After reading through that I breathed a sigh of relief that my friend and I (we always play together) weren't going insane speculating Braham's behaviour.

 

What we usually do is we pause and talk for fifteen-twenty minutes at the end of each instance, sometimes between story steps within an instance, to discuss what's going on. I think the instance we discussed the most was LS3-3 last one where Braham went and did all that. Now, ever since HoT itself we knew it was coming, and since I came into the game late (just before PoF), I'd been spoiled a little, but when it did happen it was quite a blow. It hurt to hear what Braham said, and I think he hated saying that too. Anger and grief do that to you. He knows he's hurt the Commander and he can't take those words back, and perhaps he feels they were justified in some manner, but his manner of expressing was entirely uncalled for. I _love_ Braham, so that just hurt a lot more. So, back to LS4-2, at first we weren't sure what Braham was trying to do with his reluctant tone and words, but at some point it occurred to me that he was actually kinda worried for the Commander? I might be wrong, of course, but I think you guys have been working towards a theme that shows that the world shouldn't depend so much on heroes as much as work together to beat back great evils. If the story until LS3 was all about the failings of the hero (in this case, the Commander), then the theme from PoF onwards seems to be building toward that. The Commander can and does fail. They've always failed to protect what's most important to them, in order to protect the world at large and you can see it wearing them down.

 

There's also blatant disregard the Commander has for their own life and their inclination for doing everything alone (which, of course, is the nature of the game), so we were wondering if Braham's sullenness before the middle part was somewhat out of worry. Of course, by the end of the Charge, I was pretty sure that Braham really does want to make amends, and he cares. It's just that he has no clue how to fix this, and the Commander being the Commander doesn't make it easy. However, they care a lot about him so I guess it wasn't that hard. (I'm a little peeved we didn't get to see that hug you guys mentioned in the Guild Chat episode, or that Gorrik interrupted that conversation, BUT.)

 

Anyway, tl;dr version is that I loved the episode quite a lot. And please don't worry, we love to spend analysing the story and what path it's trying to take. I'm sure quite a few people do even if they are not the vocal majority. Braham's arc was a bit too offscreen, yes, but it wasn't invisible. I'm guessing it's hard to decide what to show and what to tell. Thank you for bringing us this wonderful episode.

[Cronos.6532]

He's going to rollercoaster back into being the final boss of the Shiverpeaks expansion along with his guild of norn. The Commander & Aurene vs. Braham & a newly woken Jormag.

[Jessica Price.1649]

> @"ziad.4270" said:

> > @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> > > @"Donari.5237" said:

> > > But now you ARE here :) -- So, are there plans to take race (and profession) more into consideration at least insofar as instanced dialogue/puzzle solving goes? Obviously it's more work for you and for the VA's, but so far I think the pay off has been huge in terms of positive player response.

> >

> > Yes, we try to look into providing race-specific variants in dialogue. Bear in mind, however, that it's not just a matter of _work_ for us and the VAs--it's a matter of budget. Our line count is budgeted very tightly.

>

> Speaking of VAs would you be open to volunteers/players doing some lines?

 

All I know is that the guild rules for actors make using non-guild actors really complicated, so the answer is probably no. We have sometimes used internal people to provide uncredited sound effects (like a scream or laughing--nothing with words) but that's all we can do without getting into complicated territory.

[Jessica Price.1649]

> @"Donari.5237" said:

> Not sure if this should be a new thread, but it feels like part of the flow in this one:

>

> Would you be willing to deliver some story out of game? There's been mixed reactions to that by players, true, but short bits like Marjory's meeting with E or Taimi's lab issues prior to Embry Bay really helped flesh things out. It would be a way to give us more on (for example) Malyck and his Tree without having to use full game development resources.

 

Wait and find out. :-)

[Donari.5237]

> @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> > @"Donari.5237" said:

> > Not sure if this should be a new thread, but it feels like part of the flow in this one:

> >

> > Would you be willing to deliver some story out of game? There's been mixed reactions to that by players, true, but short bits like Marjory's meeting with E or Taimi's lab issues prior to Embry Bay really helped flesh things out. It would be a way to give us more on (for example) Malyck and his Tree without having to use full game development resources.

>

> Wait and find out. :-)

 

Oops, I left out one comment as part of that -- what ever happened to the traveling asura and her moa? I don't think her series of story blogs ever concluded.

[Helreginn.1894]

> @"swbanach.9456" said:

 

> Pulling in your own experiences can make him feel more real and that is awesome. However, as a player, I also want everything his actions to also pass the test "He is a norn, would a norn act this way?" If you do this for each character/race in our little band of heroes, they'll feel all the more distinct and special. Sometimes I worry they all feel too human when it comes to their motivations and their logic.

 

If I may jump in for a sec with my two cents: all of the Commander's friends/followers/guildmates/grumpy guardians (however you may want to see them) are not typical examples of their own race. Canach's not a typical Sylvari in any way possible. Kas is not a typical noble. Jory isn't a typical human female either. Rytlock was associating with humans way before the Charr-human peace treaty happened. His sword is human in origin. He doesn't give much thought to his warband and hangs around with the Commander or DE instead. Taimi's not a typical Asura. We don't have enough characterisation for Rox to make a good point here, but considering how taken she's by the Olmakhan, suffice to say that she's also not a typical Gladium. So then why must Braham be a typical norn?

 

[Arden.7480]

> @"Jessica Price II.9813" said:

> > @"Donari.5237" said:

> > I noted that Braham seems to have calmed down through the course of this episode. While it's realistic for people to get over being mad, having it happen so subtly in this particular instance feels a little anticlimactic. All that build up and then "hey, well, glad you had my back, maybe we should talk." Enough so to make me wonder, is this part of the overall planning of the storyline or is it in response to the general negative response by the players to his angstfest?

>

> Why not both? :-)

>

> I started here at ArenaNet in August, and part of the discussion from my very first day in the studio was how the character arcs for major NPCs should tie into the overall arc for the season--and Braham specifically was "We've got a character that our player base is angry with."

>

> So I started reading/watching what was already written for Braham, and what I saw was a grieving teenager. His mom wasn't particularly present in his life, and then she died. And the big thing for him here isn't just that she died: it's that at some level he had to be hoping that there was a point in his life where she'd finally have time for him. If he was enough of a hero, if he built enough of a legend--or maybe once she'd finished building her legend, after she retired, so to speak, they'd be able to get to know one another.

>

> And that is never going to happen. He largely grew up without a mother, but there was always the hope that he'd sort of retroactively get one, and now that's gone. I know it feels like forever in real time, but it didn't actually happen that long ago--it was last season. It hasn't even been a year in game time.

>

> So he's been lashing out at the Commander. That actually seems kind of natural to me--not okay, not ethical, not right, but understandable--as does the Commander's restraint. They're not equals. Braham's what, 22? Your brain isn't even out of adolescence until you're 25ish. The Commander's an adult. I probably would have bitten my tongue, too, in that situation and, like, given him a year to finish mourning before I was like, "okay, my dude, let's talk about how you were kind of a jerk."

>

> Anyway: I came in, read up on Braham, and that was my take. But it's clearly NOT much of the audience's take, which means that the story hasn't done its job in conveying all that.

>

> Which makes our job going forward to try to nuance Braham, and show him thinking about his relationship with the Commander and what he _actually_ wants that relationship to be--not what feels good in the moment, not what's going to give him an outlet for his anger and his grief and his frustration at what can't be, not the Commander as a symbol of Eir's death, but what the future looks like.

>

> I know a lot of people are like "just KILL him." That reaction's coming from two groups of people--one that's just annoyed by him and doesn't really want to have to deal with him, and one that cares deeply about story and character and recognizes that his treatment of the Commander was unfair. Can't do much for the former group, but for the latter, I think they _think_ that will be satisfying, but there's no actual closure there. I think what they actually want is to see him humbled. And that's not meaningful unless he comes to understand the problems with what he did, and looks for ways to make meaningful restitution.

>

> So where he is right now, although obviously this is a guy who's gruff and it's not realistic to have him explicitly say it, is in a very reflective place. He's making tentative gestures toward reconciliation. (I mean, dude's 22. Don't expect him to be GOOD at this right away. I was crap at apologizing when I was 22. He's trying to figure out how you repair a relationship.)

>

> And there's going to be stuff in his arc that's a lot more on the surface and dramatic, but what you're seeing right now is the soil above the seed starting to buckle.

>

> > Semi corollary, how much behind-the-scenes knowledge do you guys have for your guiding canon that never makes it into player view? (This is not a jab -- the nature of the beast is that you'll have a bigger framework than can be shown in a game of this nature. But it does mean that sometimes we feel we are getting the glossy highlights and have to assume and infer a tapestry of detail).

>

> When you're dealing with a game that's been around this long, and has been constantly updating and building new lore, you have some areas that have an entire ICEBERG of work supporting them and you only see a little bit of it above the surface. That's the way I prefer to do things, because I think the richness comes through even if the audience doesn't see all of it, and it makes for better-informed decisions. (When I was working on Pathfinder, I wrote a 64-page campaign setting book for one of the countries in the world. And before that, I wrote roughly 200 pages of content about the history and the surrounding political context and the food that they eat--none of which was intended to be published. Oh, and an 80-page reference grammar of the language they speak. And the reviews started coming in and they were like, "whoa, this feels like a real place." That's WHY.)

>

> There are pieces of GW2 lore that are like that. Someone here loves that event or that character or that place and there's a ton of internal canon about it. At the same time, when you've got a game that's this expansive, you CAN'T do that for everything. We just don't have enough staff. So there are some bits where basically everything that exists is onscreen. It's like, if you've ever watched _Spartacus_ on Starz, that show had a tiny budget for a historical epic series, and _every dollar_ of their set budget was clearly onscreen. You look at this bedroom the characters are in, and at first glance, you're like, "Yes, that's a lavish Roman bedroom," but then you realize that outside the ornate bed in the center of the screen, everything is basically just cleverly draped fabric suggesting there's an expensive room there. And on the other hand, you have something like Lord of the Rings, where there was a ton of lovingly crafted stuff that was outside the camera's field of view.

>

> Sometimes we're Lord of the Rings, sometimes we're Spartacus.

>

> Internal canon can be a trap, too. There are times where we've proceeded on the assumption that something we all Know To Be True has been said publicly, only to find out that we... never actually said that. :-)

 

About the first part:

I am not mad at Braham, I never was, but what I think was the worst that the Commander just abandoned him, the Commander hurted him even more, because he wasn't cautious (keep talking about the Commander), but what was the worst thing ever in Season 3 was that his plot was also abandoned. I mean it happened in A Crack in the Ice and after we were only getting some small news from Taimi about Braham, that was planning something stupid. Why didn't you solve this problem back then?

 

I think it would be much better to have the friend on your side, than worrying about the fake Lazarus, I think the friends don't do such things, and the Commander proved he doesn't really care about the ones that he's been working with for years- since Season 1. And the Commander just said: Oh he doesn't want me near, so let him do what he wants.--- We didn't just leave Braham, but also Rox. We sent her to care of Braham and make her make the dirtiest job, because we were too busy because of some potions.

 

I don't know you meant that to happen or not, but leaving the Braham's plot so suddenly was a bit weird. Why couldn't you just solve this problem 1 or 2 episodes later? And you waited until the hatress of some of the community was rising, and rising, and rising each episode.

 

Season 1&2 Braham was so great. *_*

 

"I like you because you are big and dumb"~Taimi- the finale of Season 1. The cutest moment ever.... Nostalgia...

 

[MithranArkanere.8957]

I was kind of hoping we'd have to do the norn version of the 'airing of grievances' to reconcile with Braham. He is under pressure to deal with Jormag now that he managed to put a dent on the tooth, but now the commander goes and says we can't kill more dragons.

 

So it would make sense to go to Hoelbrak, have the commander and Braham fight it out, the commander wins, and it's decided to follow the Commander's plan. Who would disagree with the results of a good and fair brawl?