Matthew Medina über die Story und die Umsetzung
Vor zwei Tagen wurde ein Interview mit Story Lead Matthew Medina veröffentlicht, in dem es sowohl um seine Arbeit, als auch um eine paar persönliche Dinge ging. Dieses Interview wurde auch auf Reddit gepostet und es gab einige Kommentare dazu, unter anderem auch von dem Nutzer Novuake, der wissen wollte, ob Medina selbst mit der Story und dem Ablauf der Geschichte in Heart of Thorns zufrieden ist.
Matthew Medina hat daraufhin einen längeren Kommentar geschrieben, in dem er seine und damit wohl auch die Sichtweise von ArenaNet genauer darstellt. So sollte die Geschichte eben nicht nur in Instanzen ablaufen, die dann durch einen plötzlich Stop unterbrochen werden sollten, sondern der Übergang sollte mit Missionen in der offenen Welt besser gelingen. Die Suche nach verletzten Verbündeten sollte so nicht einmalig, sondern in vielen Bereichen stattfinden. Statt einer Serie mit einzelnen Episoden wurde aus der Geschichte laut Medina eher ein Blockbuster, was auch dazu führte, dass viele Spieler sofort zum Ende durchgegangen sind, ohne unterwegs die offene Welt wahrzunehmen.
Rückblickend gibt es ein paar Dinge, die Matthew selbst verändern würde, auch wenn er allgemein mit dem Ablauf der Geschichte und auch mit dem „Blockbuster-Ende“ sehr zufrieden ist. Seine zwei wichtigsten Kritikpunkte liegen im Bereich der Suche nach Mordremoths Schwachpunkt und mehr nicht vertonte Texte mit den NPCs in der Geschichte, die mehr Hintergründe zu diesen enthalten sollten.
I appreciate the clarification. And the honesty, so let me be honest back. From a player’s POV, I definitely prefer games that take their time to develop a rich world and story and I personally strive to deliver that as much as possible in the content I’m responsible for.
Heart of Thorns however, was a very peculiar case for us in that the story’s pacing from the get go just never felt right to us whenever we stopped the action to go into the deeper lore behind everything. When your game’s story begins with a tragedy of epic proportions and there’s a need to maintain the time pressure of the drama we’re working within, any stops along the way felt artificial to us during development. We did have plans to delve more below the surface with some areas, but because of the concerns we had with maintaining the narrative momentum, we opted instead to let those tales be told outside of the instances and through open world exploration (the „story“ of Guild Wars 2 is not just about the chapters you see in the journal, or at least, it’s supposed to be) so that the story would be more focused on finding and rescuing your allies. Clearly, that decision was not popular with some of our players, and we’re taking that feedback as a learning experience. I guess the way I have come to think about it looking back is that I think we approached HoT story more like a „summer blockbuster“ than a 13 episode run of your favorite TV show – which was a departure for us and quite possibly too far outside the comfort zone of many of our players who are invested in the GW2 story.
Looked at through that lens when answering the question „Was I happy with the pacing?“ I would say that yes, with some notable exceptions, I was happy because we met the goals we set for ourselves and delivered a „blockbuster“ ending – of course it wasn’t perfect, and there are always things I can look back at and say we could have done better, but I would disagree that there was a lack of any kind of emotion (and I realize that’s my subjective opinion, but it’s my honest opinion).
The exceptions where I might have done things differently with would have been: 1. It would have helped for us to have re-framed or spent more time on the discovery of Mordremoth’s weakness and 2. I would have wanted to go back and add non-VO text conversations on the PC’s allies throughout the story so that we could have given more optional background information or additional context that was lost by us choosing such a deliberate pace.
Again, thanks for the follow-up post. No hard feelings here, and we just may share a fundamental difference of opinion which is fine. We know we can’t please everyone, but we try our best to be responsive to feedback, even if/when we disagree with it. Your critique is valid, as it your opinion – that isn’t the insult. It’s in how you phrased your words that carries the sting of contempt, but we’ve since had a rational discourse so I accept your apology and offer my hand in respect. 🙂