The Evolution of Narrative in Personal Story

Hey, everyone! I’m Leif Chappelle, a member of the content design team responsible for implementing the personal story in Guild Wars 2. While we have gone into detail about some of our other content types, including dynamic events and PvP, we haven’t yet given you a behind-the-scenes look at how the personal story is designed. This blog post is here to remedy that, with a personal story of my own to help illuminate the process of creating the stories that will guide you through the vast world of Tyria.

Since it’s been a while, let’s recap how extensive the personal story is.

To start with, let’s talk about the numbers involved. “Each of our five playable races begins with its own starting area—this is where your story commences.”Each of our five playable races begins with its own starting area—this is where your story commences. You likely know about the biography in character creation, where choosing one of several options translates into a different story for your character. This three-way split exists for all five races. Furthermore, each of those three stories contains decisions you must make that further affect how the story plays out. This means that, to experience every potential storyline being told from level 1 to 10, you’d need to play the game 30 times (5 races times 3 initial stories times 2 internal branches in each storyline). And that’s just the first ten levels of the game. We have 80 levels of progression for your character, and every ten levels or so, you’ll begin a new chapter in your story. The game does not sputter out at the end, either, as you’ll be experiencing some of the most involved and epic story steps in the game with huge battles and fearsome bosses, but that’s a story for later.

Granted, if you’re not the type of person to play the same game 30 times, you can always team up with friends that have made different choices and see how things could have played out differently. We have full support for players teaming up in their personal stories. While the tale will still be told from the perspective of the story “owner,” friends who group up and are on the same story step will be able to share their progress when it is completed.

“What if my friend made a choice I don’t agree with,” you ask? Well, you can always opt out of sharing progress, go back into your own version of that story step, and complete it how you want. That way, you can actually experience all of the story splits with a single character, while keeping your own personal progression the way you want it.



Behind the Scenes

Stepping back a bit, here’s a glimpse at how we go about creating these experiences.

Back when we started designing the game, the entire storyline and all of its twists and turns were planned out by the designers and writers. We’ve used this initial road map when designing each story step, so we know where we’ve come from, where we’re going, and how to keep the story a cohesive whole. That isn’t to say that we always strictly follow it when something doesn’t quite feel right, but it’s a very helpful tool when looking at the overall scope of the narrative.

When we’re about to tackle a new chapter of the story, we get together as a team and talk through the road map, discussing the story arc, the characters involved, and how player choice plays into the story and its branches. With that fresh in our minds, we split up into designer pairs that then tackle a single storyline in the chapter. The two of us then figure out who is working on which steps, what we’re planning on implementing for each of them, and how we’re going to maintain continuity across the arc. If the original blueprint for the story we’re working on doesn’t quite work for making an interesting and fun experience, then we’ll come up with something new that still serves its narrative purpose while creating more entertaining gameplay.

From Chatter to Combat

One good example of this occurred when we were planning one of the asura storylines. In this story, golems are the big thing: something has happened that implicates one of two genius golemancers. It’s up to you to investigate these two individuals and figure out which one of them could have been responsible. In our original plan for the story, the narrative was strong, but there just wasn’t much opportunity for interesting gameplay: you traveled to each asura’s lab, talked with them, and convinced them to give you information.

Now, the potential for fun dialog was pretty strong, and we could have just designed a lot of milk runs to gather information, but our goal with the personal story steps is to make each one a memorable gameplay experience, not just a collection of interesting cutscenes. As a team, we brainstormed: What would two genius golemancers have in common? Well, obviously, golems! Now, what would those golemancers do to show off in an appropriately asuran manner? Clearly, a golem throwdown! With both of the potential culprits in one spot, it would be far easier to talk with both of them without running all over the place, and it provided something interesting to do while playing the story.

With those new elements in mind, I went to figure out the details of what that experience would entail. The answer was pretty obvious: a golem fight is about to be held—a sort of underground off-the-radar type of thing—and these two geniuses are far too busy to talk with you. Prove yourself in the throwdown, however, and they might be a bit more cooperative.

Then the next conundrum presented itself: with each story step, we like to get the player out into the world, taking them to new locations and through areas where dynamic events pop up. I had to figure out a location where this tournament could be held. Well, there was an appropriately cool-looking energy tower in the northern half of Metrica Province, the first asura map. It could be the Throwdown at the Power Grid! I checked with the event designers for the map, got the okay, and began setting the place up for an impromptu tournament: pitched some tents, set down some hover hammocks for the crowd, brought in an enthusiastic announcer with her commentator hologram, and a cotton candy vendor for hungry fans to line up at.



With the set appropriately dressed, it was time for the big event. Your potential culprits are at the tournament, but they want to see what you’re made of before giving you the information you want. So it’s time to break out your best golem-fighting skills and take control of a battle golem, complete with a skill bar full of attacks, taking on colorful opponents in tests of superior golemancy.

Once the story step is designed and implemented, it then heads over to the writing team for final dialog, conversations, as well as all UI text. Our internal QA team also plays through and provides some excellent feedback, answering the important question: how does it feel with a group? While your personal story is meant to be just that—personal—bringing friends along introduces the multiplayer element that we want to accommodate. This is a multiplayer game, after all! Just like dynamic events, personal story steps scale up to the number of players participating. In some cases, there are elements added when a multiplayer experience would otherwise seem odd: the golem tournament, for example. While the player whose story is being told controls the golem, what do the other players do? Well, they form a mini-golem support team, of course!

The Spice of Life

As an overall takeaway about personal story in Guild Wars 2, I’d say the most important thing to keep in mind is that Tyria is a vast place with many stories being told, in many ways.

When you’re playing through the game, you’re going to see an amazing open world with plenty to do, but you also get to play through the equivalent of a full-fledged single-player RPG into which you can bring friends in order to experience it together. And the diversity of gameplay you experience in these storylines is truly varied. Whether you’re chasing a mystical creature through an undead-infested swamp, going undercover as a pirate and competing in a bawdy drinking contest, playing a bit of tower defense with turrets and troops against an onslaught of invading ghosts, sneaking through a city at night, or leading a huge army against an overwhelming foe, you’re going to find a lot to enjoy as you experience your character’s own personal story.

TH

good read, dynamic event system combined with the personal story makes up for a lot of different choises. What I find nice is even if you play together you can split the personal story and then maybe even rejoin at another part.