Video: Crafting the 2.5 million words of Guild Wars 2

Courtesy of the GDC Vault is another free session video from GDC Online 2012. In this lecture, Guild Wars 2 lead writer Bobby Stein and narrative designer Angel Leigh McCoy share the challenges of going from co-op RPG to MMORPG: building on the lore, writing the text, and managing the voiceovers. The duo also highlights the importance of the designer/writer relationship. They explained how they did not stifle designers' creativity for those who wanted to help with the narrative. However, polishing up their writing to maintain a consistent voice and level of quality was essential. Session Name: Guild Wars 2: Finding Our Voice Speaker(s): Bobby Stein, Angel Leigh McCoy Company Name(s): ArenaNet Track / Format: Game Narrative Summit Overview: It took five years and 2.5 million words before Guild Wars 2 was ready. Among the many challenges the writing team faced, it was the inclusion of 90-films of voice-over that caused the most complications. Join lead writer, Bobby Stein and narrative designer, Angel Leigh McCoy as they share lessons learned from writing and editing a massive game, and how they're applying new techniques in generating post-ship content.

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