TrinitySK.6713 Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 I'm really interested in anything you may want to share :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Cameron Rich.3905 Posted January 8, 2019 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted January 8, 2019 This was a very, very difficult episode to create, from both a narrative perspective and a technical one. I won't get too into the details here, as we plan to talk more in depth about this Friday during our Guild Chat livestream. One of my favorite aspects of this episode was working with our audio team to incorporate the zephyrite choir into the core narrative of the story. Our composer, Maclaine, did a wonderful job orchestrating a live choir to create a beautiful theme, that was truly moving. The passion coming from that team was palpable. The final boss of the last instance was also a great challenge. Lots of new tech and complex scripting involved. It went through countless iteration cycles before we finally landed on the final design. And the art team had to solve some MASSIVE technical hurdles in order to get the model to work. Animation in particular went to great lengths to bring a level of fidelity to the creature that, for me, was incredibly moving to see. Suffice to say, we put a ton of love into this and the response so far has made it all worthwhile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Clayton Kisko.5207 Posted January 8, 2019 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted January 8, 2019 Creating this episode was amazing! There are so many things that went into it as this was so ambitious. When we started the episode we decided to all jump into guild wars 1 and play through the original Thunderhead Keep campaign. That was a great exercise to freshen up on the area and provided plenty of details for us to think about when determining what homages and Easter eggs we wanted to create. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Da Hee Im.4327 Posted January 8, 2019 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted January 8, 2019 I'm really proud and really grateful that we fought hard to push the boundaries of what we can do cinematographically (say that five times fast, haha) with gameplay. It was a fun challenge to tackle with the extensive collaboration of many people beyond the Cinematics team, especially Design, Audio, and Tools. The end result is, in my humble and probably biased opinion, something quite different and compelling. I won't discuss any particulars though, as this post doesn't have the [spoilerS] tag, haha. Thank you for your question! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Clayton Kisko.5207 Posted January 8, 2019 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted January 8, 2019 Music also plays an important part in the episode and as such our composer and game director got a choir in the recording studio so that they can get a genuine sound and feel when walking around the map. It makes a world of difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Andrew Gray.5816 Posted January 8, 2019 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted January 8, 2019 Challenging. But after seeing people's reactions? Totally worth it. There were a lot of emotional moments we had to make sure we got "just right" and you'd likely be surprised how much effort goes into the small details at those points of an episode. There were many-a-meetings where we had narrative designers/writers, designers, cinematic artists (even for cinematic moments that are not actually a true cinematic) map artists, etc. In the room painstakingly making sure we got everything just right. The amount of inter-discipline collaboration that went into this episode was a personal highlight for me, and I think it shows in the final product. On a personal note, I really enjoyed getting to work on the Thunderhead Keep map. Getting to re-envision the classic holdout that was originally so hard there was a literal Monk (healer) strike in the outpost was a joy. And our map artist (Dan) did an amazing job recreating the map in a way that was true to the original. It may be hard to tell what with the...how to say...slight difference in graphics quality between the two games, but he showed up some 1 to 1 comparisons between the original and the GW2 version and it's very, very close to the original. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrinitySK.6713 Posted January 8, 2019 Author Share Posted January 8, 2019 All these answers are amazing! You really all did a great job on the episode and I'm glad to see you're happy with it too! I'd write more about how I loved the episode but I already did here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/793260#Comment_793260 But I guess one more won't hurt, GREAT JOB LADS! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Meagan Glennon II.7251 Posted January 8, 2019 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted January 8, 2019 Working on the three instance maps was super fun! I would swap between the first and last maps often because they both had drastically different moods and color palettes. The final boss and scenes were also challenging. Getting the feel just right of all the emotional beats we wanted was difficult but I think we nailed it! At least the reactions from today say that we did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Andrew Gray.5816 Posted January 8, 2019 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted January 8, 2019 > @"TrinitySK.6713" said: > I guess one more won't hurt, GREAT JOB LADS! And ladies. :) But honestly, thanks a lot. I don't like to call this job "hard work" because I'm not, like...in a salt mine all day or something, but it can certainly be taxing and stressful. Seeing your guys' reactions after every release is always reinvigorating. This is what we do it for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Lily Yu.9467 Posted January 8, 2019 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted January 8, 2019 Collaborating with this team was a joy and a delight. There was a lot of shutting ourselves into a room and working and laughing. More on Friday! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArenaNet Staff Clayton Kisko.5207 Posted January 8, 2019 ArenaNet Staff Share Posted January 8, 2019 Oh man one of my favorite meetings was with QA, Design, Narrative, and Audio where we sat in a room and designed out how the forge works from a mechanical, narrative, and auditorily acurrate stand point. It got so complicated but it was just amazing to see the various disciplines use their talents to solve such a complex problem. But also any meeting with narrative is a hoot. Those folks are so witty! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 8, 2019 Share Posted January 8, 2019 A fascinating, sometimes frustrating, but utterly fulfilling experience! The scale of this Episode was absolutely immense, and we are all so proud of the results! Creating Glint’s Lair and the beats between the Commander and Aurene was an absolute thrill. Aurene nuzzling the remains of Glint was a standout favourite, and working with Meagan and others to create such an emotionally resonant moment was grand. Branded Aurene was a pleasure to create, and it was wonderful adding another layer to Aurene’s fears. As her mother knows too well, there are fates worse than death when it comes to Kralkatorrik... Plus, everyone needs a “Dark Link” doppelganger fight to sort out their senses! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gambit.9501 Posted January 9, 2019 Share Posted January 9, 2019 > @"Andrew Gray.5816" said: > > @"TrinitySK.6713" said: > > I guess one more won't hurt, GREAT JOB LADS! > > And ladies. :) > > But honestly, thanks a lot. I don't like to call this job "hard work" because I'm not, like...in a salt mine all day or something, but it can certainly be taxing and stressful. Seeing your guys' reactions after every release is always reinvigorating. This is what we do it for. Don't sell yourself short. Mental labor is no less a test of endurance than physical labor is. And frankly, in my opinion, that misconception needs to go die in a fire anyways. Simply put, y'all do good work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrinitySK.6713 Posted January 9, 2019 Author Share Posted January 9, 2019 > @"Gambit.9501" said: > > @"Andrew Gray.5816" said: > > > @"TrinitySK.6713" said: > > > I guess one more won't hurt, GREAT JOB LADS! > > > > And ladies. :) > > > > But honestly, thanks a lot. I don't like to call this job "hard work" because I'm not, like...in a salt mine all day or something, but it can certainly be taxing and stressful. Seeing your guys' reactions after every release is always reinvigorating. This is what we do it for. > > Don't sell yourself short. Mental labor is no less a test of endurance than physical labor is. And frankly, in my opinion, that misconception needs to go die in a fire anyways. Simply put, y'all do good work. True, but I'd still prefer having a headache from too much thinking then black lung from being in the coal mines too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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