User talk:Bobby Stein/Archive talk 1

Favorites

Hi there! Caught you off of Emily's page, and I have a few questions for you if you don't mind. What has been your favorite character to create and/or dialogue? What is your favorite piece of flavor text you have added to the game? Did you add any fluff that really added to the background of the game, and if so what is your favorite bit (e.g., "I thought up the slave stones that the SS use on the Dredge.")? --Ravious 04:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi yourself! Guild Wars is an ever-evolving collaborative creation, so to take sole credit for any one idea, character, or short story within its universe would be a disservice to all the other folk involved. The writing team works closely with designers on every quest, mission, and scene. Sometimes the basic dialogue is largely unchanged from original concept, while at other times it undergoes a series of revisions, rewrites, and polish passes. That stated, from time to time we're allowed to put on our thinking caps and let loose. My personal favorites are: The Bog Beast of Bokku, Tihark Orchard, and Just My Luck. Those first two I worked on with designer Colin Johanson since we share the same silly sense of humor. I think we were both happy to try something a little less serious. And if it weren't for programmer John Corpening, Tihark Orchard wouldn't have had half the unique gameplay features that made it into the final version. Just My Luck was something I worked on for the 2007 Canthan New Year Festival. I'm a better story teller than gameplay designer, so you can thank John Stumme for making that tragicomedy a functional reality. Background, lore, and all things grandiose are handled by the likes of Jeff Grubb, Ree Soesbee, and my former boss Jess Lebow (now at Flying Lab). All three of them are stellar writers that I'm proud to have worked with. With GW: EN just around the corner, I'm having a hard time containing my excitement. I'm proudest of our work on it. Without spoiling any surprises, let's just say we pulled out all the stops. ;) See you online. --Bobby Stein 22:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll be honest. I did not like the gameplay of Just My Luck, it was a tedious UPS quest, however, I really liked the story to it, and I am pretty sure I laughed at the end. Tihark Orchard is also a lot of fun. The mime gets frustrating but the drinking contest is hilarious. I love that you steal drinks from the nobles to play a fraternity-like drinking game. I am interested in your thoughts about GW:EN after it is released. --Ravious 15:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I hear ya. To be honest, I intended Just My Luck to be somewhat of a fetch quest since the quest giver, Guwon the Wise, is something of a hack. She sends the player on a wild goose chase for her morning tea, only to promise Hapless Chong salvation from his bad fortune (and we all know how that ended). But I can sympathize that it might have peeved a few people off in the process. It's comedy at the expense of the player as much as the quest giver--not something that's worth slipping in more than once, for sure. Glad you enjoyed the writing, though. It's great to hear constructive feedback. I'll definitely be up for discussing GW: EN content after it ships later this month. We put a lot of care into the dialogue and quests and I hope that comes through. Take care. --Bobby Stein 22:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Cuts?

Hello! I don't know if you may answer this, but has there anything been cut from the game (say, thanks to a matter of not having enough time to fully implement it, or something changing making something else to be unnecessary or contradictory, and so on)? Do you think you could talk a bit about those things? For example, Linsey (I think it was her, although I'm not sure) mentioned how she had written more about the Bleached Bones we find in Elona, but in the end it was not possible to add all of it to the game. Did anything like that happen to something you worked on? Erasculio 21:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I speak on behalf of the entire industry when I say that game design, much like photography and film, is a subtractive art (take that, Roger Ebert!). I've never heard of any game that didn't ship without some ideas or concepts left on the cutting room floor. As a writer I've learned to become unattached to anything that I draft, simply because it will invariably undergo revisions, edits, and possibly get ripped from the game. Sometimes I forget we're a T-rated game and I get carried away with suggestive language or themes, and either Jeff Grubb or James Phinney has to come over and bop me on the head to remind me. But not everything that gets omitted from the final release is due to risqué wording. Sometimes there just isn't enough time to get things scripted, coded, and adequately tested, no matter how badly we want them in. I wrote a bunch of dialogue for the ghost of Hapless Chong for GW: EN. I wanted him to make a random appearance in a certain EA and mutter some lines about his death, observations of the afterlife, and musings on what it's like to "see people naked in their beds." Needless to say, that got cut, among other things. I'll refrain from printing any seamy dialogue on the wiki, but you know those snarky accept and decline boxes at the end of every quest description? Let's just say some of our best ones never make it outside the building. ;) Thanks for the question. Bobby Stein 04:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, now you made me curious about the accept and decline texts, I love the ones we currently have : D Thanks for the reply! Erasculio 21:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Text issues in the game

Hi and welcome to the wiki. :) I noticed that one of the writing team members had arrived at the wiki so I decided to ask a question.

Gaile has put up a page for reporting text issues on the wiki here. As she now has to send that list to your team, wouldn't it be easier if the page would be moved under one of the writing team members user name spaces and you guys could directly check on it? This would also make it possible for you guys to archive all the stuff that you have fixed and implemented in the game or tell us if you wont change it for some reason, so that we don't need to check every single text issue again in the game and wonder if some of them will be fixed or not. If both the writing team and Gaile agree we can easily do the move and you could put a link to the page on your user and talk pages. -- (gem / talk) 18:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a fine idea. I'll bring it up to Gaile on Monday. Thanks for the suggestion. If you don't hear anything from me in a week, feel free to drop a reminder. As an aside, Gaile has been sending us some user-discovered text bugs and we've been fixing them fairly quickly (usually within a day, though they don't make it to the live server until the next update). Localization takes some time but anything we fix in American English usually carries over to the other languages shortly thereafter. Thanks for dropping by. :) Bobby Stein 22:13, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks! The lists Gaile has been sending to you were gathered from the page that I linked to. Would it be possible for you to spend a little time going through all of those which have been marked with a green tick and then move all of those entried to the arhive that your team has fixed. That would help to clear the page quite a lot. I understand if you do not have the time to do it so don't take a problem about it at all. :) -- (gem / talk) 22:25, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I created a page for text bugs and believe that Gaile Gray will be placing a link from the old page to the new one. Feel free to hit me up with any questions. Again, I'm somewhat of a wiki newbie, so it may take me awhile to get up to speed with formatting, archiving, and things of that nature. I thank you in advance for your patience. :) Bobby Stein 01:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Should we just move the old stuff from Gailes user name space to your new page? Or do you want a fresh start? -- (gem / talk) 01:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we've already fixed a lot of those bugs, but I'm not sure if that's reflected in the list. If it's possible to "close those out" in a manner of speaking and only move over the open items, that would be great. If not, bring 'em all to the new page and I'll comb through them when I have some free time. We're in the middle of Bonus Mission Pack and Guild Wars 2 development, so please don't get offended if it takes a little longer to update than usual. ;) Bobby Stein 01:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I've been moving all of the items that I've been able to confirm to the archive of the original page. It's a tedious task to check all of them so it owuld be great if you could check the page and cut-paste all resovled issues to the archive page. The rest can then be moved to the new page. No hurry with it though, we are all busy with hard mode. ;) -- (gem / talk) 01:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure thing, boss. ;) I've been pretty busy the last couple of days fixing what I can and escalating what I can't. I'll clean up these pages and archive the necessary entries once the Bonus Mission Pack is out the door. So very close.... Bobby Stein 08:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Tihark Orchard

Caught this page off of Recent changes. I am a guilty Recent Change lurker.

Anyway, You worked on/created Tihark Orchard? I must say kudos. Nightfall was already one of my favorite campaigns but that mission is so fun, it's the exact one I strive to throw every character I have into if and when possible. Hard mode may not be different but it's fun to get the extra rewards. But yeah, I must say damn good job on a fine mission. There's not many good ones in the game :( Vanguard 01:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Vanguard. I'm one of those lurkers, too. :) Tihark Orchard was the work of a lot of people, actually. Jeff Grubb was the overall story architect for Nightfall, so the cinematic dialogue and setting for this mission came from him, I believe. Designer Colin Johanson came up with the non-linear/adventure game mechanics along with programmer John Corpening if I recall correctly. My job was to edit/rewrite/tweak all NPC dialogue here with Colin, so I helped with everything from the band chatter to the party commentary and sub-quest text. We went with a lighthearted tone for the most part, and used liberal pop culture references and humor where we thought appropriate. I really like how this mission turned out because it's markedly different than others in the game. There is less emphasis on combat and more on minigames and conversation. In a way it's more like a single player RPG in that you have the freedom to do things in the order you want (or you can skip some events altogether) and there are multiple outcomes for each sub-quest. On a professional level, I try to insert humor wherever I can, so Tihark Orchard was a blast to work on. Thanks for playing our game, and also for posting your feedback here. It means a lot to folks like us. Bobby Stein 01:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is by far one of the BEST missions in the entire campaign compilation. Make sure to pass that on ^_^ I'll have to go through it again and find all the references, I didn't pay too much attention to all the political chatter. I wanted to get to some of the fun stuff.
Part of me thinks the bonus minigames were entirely too easy, but I guess that was done on purpose, as a bit of the cooldown from the more annoying NF missions like Moddok Crevice and others. And that mime minigame. Ugh, it always takes me like twenty tries. That guy plays the guitar and violin the same way or something. Anyway, Keep doing that VooDoo that YouDo. Vanguard 01:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

BSG

You a Battlestar Galactica fan? I'm getting a major Cylon vibe off the model for Bobby the Costume Brawl NPC, who we assume to be named after you. It's funny, "Blobby" and everyone can't get a hint being beaten over our collective heads, but take off that L and suddenly everyone's right on it. - Tanetris 20:07, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey Tanetris. I'm actually old enough to remember the original Battlestar Galactica from the late 1970s, cheesy sfx and all. I do like the new version quite a bit but haven't been keeping up with the episodes, so you can consider me a casual fan. What's funny is that I didn't name the Costume Brawl NPC. Assumedly, one of the designers did. I'm not sure, really. But I am grateful that they made me pretty buff. I guess my ghostly form gets the chicks in the afterlife. ;) Bobby Stein 23:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Jora's Quotes

Jora's quotes are really, really great. Some are almost frightening in how they portray someone who not only welcomes a fight, but also revels in it; her quote about the "age of the Norn" is priceless, for example. I have no idea who wrote them, but whoever it was did an excelent job - we can feel her personality and her strenght very clearly from those quotes. Erasculio 01:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

We divvied up all of the Hero chatter text between the members of the writing team and the embedded writer/desigers, so it's hard to remember who wrote what at this point. We go through multiple rounds of revisions, so a text string might originate with one particular writer or designer and then change a few times over the course of development. I'll be sure to relay your compliments to the team. Thanks for the feedback. Bobby Stein 21:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Text issues

I hope you haven't forgotten User talk:Bobby Stein/Text bugs. -- (gem / talk) 15:36, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Gem. Nope, I haven't forgotten about them. In fact, I just had a conversation with the QA Manager on Friday about how to proceed with the remaining items. I've been really busy with the upcoming Bonus Mission Pack and GW2 stories, but should have the bandwidth to deal with the open bugs by next week. Thanks for your patience. :) Bobby Stein 17:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, I'm glad to hear that. No hurry, I just wanted to make sure that it doesn't get buried under the heaps of stuff that must be going on there. -- (gem / talk) 22:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I updated the status of about 20 bugs this afternoon. I should have more time next week to chip away at what's left. Bobby Stein 23:21, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I noticed already, thanks! Can you move the issues to an archive page after the fixes have gone live so I know when to update the corresponding articles? -- (gem / talk) 23:47, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The archive page is up. All items there are either fixed or slated to be fixed with an upcoming build. Bobby Stein 23:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Great! Thanks. -- (gem / talk) 08:07, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, if you have the time sometime could you also look through the old text issue page and archive the fixed issues there too. :) -- (gem / talk) 08:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Updated and fixed pretty much everything on that page. Cleaned a bunch of bugs off my plate today. *phew* Bobby Stein 23:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

PodCast

Any plans to provide a transcript for that Podcast you mentioned? GW players who are also deaf will appreciate it. Barinthus 23:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Barinthus. I touched base with the Marketing folks regarding the PAX panel podcasts. As you may have noticed, the official PAX website hasn't been updated in quite some time. If the podcasts make it to the web (that is, if they haven't been deleted, lost, or otherwise rendered unplayable) I'll see about getting them transcribed. I can't promise anything in terms of a deadline (there's a lot going on behind the scenes right now) but want to make sure anyone who'd like to enjoy them can do so. Thanks for playing. Bobby Stein 02:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Much appreciated :) I understand that transcribing can be a time-consuming and uses up resources so a summary instead would be great if powers that be doesnt feel they want to down the transcribing route. Anyway either way, appreciate the thought. Barinthus 06:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been informed by our marketing team that the podcasts are unavailable for posting and transcribing. Unfortunately, I don't have any more details to share. If there is public demand for similar content on our site (articles and/or videos about "Breaking In" or "Working at ArenaNet") please post a note here, on Gaile's page, or in a public forum and I'll pass it along to our content folks. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news. Bobby Stein 03:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

BMP Feedback

I hope your reading Gaile's talk page the the bottom of the Bonus Mission Pack talk page. A lot of praise for you and the BMP team is going on there, great work guys! Most polished GW product ever! Anon

Glad to see that people are enjoying it! Bobby Stein 04:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Loved Gwen's story

Gwen's story was great. Jack 02:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! Gwen was the first mission that I've written, and as such, it gave me a lot of opportunities that I normally don't have with quests. I really wanted to make something that would convey what it would feel like to be Gwen - a character that is, for all intents and purposes, starting off helpless. She can't fight back against the Charr, and as she goes along, she is exposed to more and more of their atrocities... (the arena, the corpses, the story of the ghosts, etc.) all the while, slowly building up the resolve to do something about it. I think that sets her mission apart in Guild Wars - it isn't a grandiouse tale of a hero, it's the story of why she wants to become one, and why she is the person she is in EoTN.

I think Gwen is a point of fondness for many of us, and the Writing team played a big part in getting the feel right, especially the events within the catacombs. That started with me saying "I have an idea for some ghosts..." which became a big session of "We could do this," "and/or this!" with Bobby, Will, Brian, and Sean. What you see in-game is the result of that, and vastly different from the original design - which required Gwen to fight off the ghost of an ancient Charr warlord by using a giant statue of Lyssa brought to life by slime that reacted to people's emotions. Actually I'm just confusing that with Ghostbusters 2 for some reason, but the point remains! John Stumme 05:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, that mission was great. What amazes me the most (as has always been the case with GW) is the attention to details in the game. Gwen's animation when crouching is, as far as I'm concerned, something new - I don't remember seeing that before. The mechanics of being able to break aggro and pretend to be dead is really fitting both with Gwen (deceive and stealth were the only possible weapons of someone in that situation) and with her chosen profession of a mesmer. The description of the spells in the old books was really, really cool - we almost never hear the characters talking about magic and how it works in the game, so having in-game lore about how some skills work was a nice surprise (and those descriptions were really well written). I really like the idea of being able to learn new skills by finding them - that gives a nice feeling of the game being a RPG (it somewhat reminds me, for example, of Final Fantasy 2, when we have to go past a very long dungeon in order to find one of the most powerful spells in the game). Having enemies that do not attack us despite we being within aggro range (such as the Charr ghosts following the Ascalon ones) is a novelty, and it really changes the "protect NPC X" routine. Lastly, the cinematics in the mission were great - not only the animation in the last one had the characters interacting with each other in a way I didn't think was possible under the GW engine, but also the first cinematic has a very "gorey" that reminds me of a bug being squashed. Very nice work. Erasculio 13:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey, who let Stumme in here? :) John isn't kidding when he mentions all of the tweaks and rewrites that went into this mission. The original version had Gwen chucking rocks the size of Abaddon's fist at the Siege Devourer and fighting monsters throughout the cave network. I like the fact that he took the mission in a different direction. Now it plays more like a traditional single-player RPG or *gasp* adventure game! It was definitely a challenge to get everything right, from the motivation of the ghosts to the balancing of the PvE skills in solving puzzles (my favorite is the one where you have to slow down the Charr pursuers). Our story pow-wow was pretty intense. We spent awhile tossing ideas around and figuring out how we could justify why the ghosts were trapped there, how the skills would factor in solving the puzzles, and what sort of mood should be conveyed to the player. I agree with Erasculio in that the lore descriptions that trigger when Gwen finds those skills really fleshed out the story. John wrote the original versions and Will then tweaked them for length and clarity. The BMP missions were a true collaborative effort from start to finish, and I think it shows. Everything from the gameplay to the cinematics and story show a level of polish we're really proud of. We took some chances trying new things, for better or worse. Stealth missions, classic RPG problem solving, and even some old school adventure game nods found their way in. The feedback we've received has been amazing. Thanks for your comments. Bobby Stein 16:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of all the quests in the BMP. Not that I expected them to be bad or anything, but they were all among your best work. I especially liked the attention to detail. But I guess most people will miss ironies such as the Devourer egg eater being killed by a siege devourer. Backsword 07:10, 15 December 2007 (UTC)