When dealing with concepts like “synergetics,”it’s important that we have clear writing and striking visuals. Wshoo! We needed this cinematic to do more than many others: define the asura colleges and mindset as well as establish the race’s place in the world. By doing so, we encourage the player to see those traits in their character -and get excited about it.Īlthough the asura played a modest role in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, it’s only in Guild Wars 2 that we’ve been able to really establish them.įrom their magical cities to their high-minded philosophy of the Eternal Alchemy, the asura have a marvelous depth to their culture that we wanted to showcase - all in a minute and a half of cinematic. We write the asura with an attitude of complete intellectual dominance. We have a certain advantage on our side the player chose this race, that specific biography answer, because the player was already interested in those things. The cinematic has to grab the player and show them - through imagery and words -things that strike close to the heart. In an ideal world, we want the player to be so busy yelling ‘AWESOME!’ at the end of the cinematic that it takes them a minute to find their keyboard and mouse again.ĭuring our creative process, these cinematics go back and forth between lore writers and artists a wonderful succession of ‘one-upsmanship’ where both sides are trying to contribute more and more amazing into the work. But, packed in amid all that lore is the hope that the cinematic will be inspiring. Opening cinematics are designed to educate a player as to the world background, the racial background, and the impact of the choices they made for their character. (After you watch the cinematics, that is…) I can’t wait to see you all playing in the game! I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into our creative process. We hope you’ll give us two minutes of your time, and in return, we’ll set the stage for one of the most amazing games ever. The opening cinematics of Guild Wars 2 are intended to sweep you into the game with high drama, visuals, and a quick but compelling summary of your character’s racial perspective. Add to that the need to represent biography choices, introduce the iconic character Caithe, and define the sylvari attitude and “feel.” We needed to show the sylvari mindset, but also who they are, how they relate to life in Tyria, and what kinds of roles they fulfill in our stories of the world. It’s informative, but it also has mythical quality, a sense of imagery rather than concrete reality. Because the sylvari are awakened as fully-grown individuals, we chose to make their tutorial experience happen within the Dream, and to have their opening cinematic reflective of it. But even as challenging as that was, we had a tremendous opportunity to establish part of the sylvari experience that is critical to understanding their race - the Dream of Dreams. We’d never established the sylvari before, and players had no history with the race in the Guild Wars universe. However, for the sylvari, the opening cinematic was even more important. For us, those cinematics represented the birth of each race a player’s first emotional investment in the game universe. “Cinematics are ready!” the Cinematics Team would call, and we’d squee as we ran to see it play on an artist’s computer (Jeff Grubb may stoically reject the word ‘squee,’ but even he was grinning like a maniac when we got to see the asura ones). It felt like opening a birthday present every single time. Even though I was directly involved in creating ideas for the race intro cinematics, it was always a rush to see them realized by our amazing art team.
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