Guild Wars 1 Slow & Lore Playthrough: Lessons Learned

Channel:

Sientir

Subscribers:

527

Published on May 13, 2021 3:00:10 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNK_Nk9PBoY

Game:

Guild Wars (2005)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 3:06:23

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1

It's been a year since I first started the Guild Wars 1 Slow & Lore Playthrough. Join me today as I muse on the notes I made at that time! (Expand for some lessons learned.)

My notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-zv4TzMkKJEkvE36_bqVCo8U9qVUTVzRdSu3WZ99PC0/edit?usp=sharing
Slow Playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZWuCP6Z8YzEKvfxXbMHu6X_N_iwkYB4v

Major Lessons Summary (in no particular order):
• Mechanics form the lived experience of a game. Making sure the reinforce (and preferably emphasize) narrative themes and concepts is extremely powerful. This extends to all corners of the game! For example, your world layout is not what the map looks like, but how maps/levels connect together.
• Stories are stronger with foreshadowing. Also, it is useful to know what goal the player is working towards. These can often be the same thing!
• Make it possible for players to understand what is going on, particularly with tutorials. Sure, the lore may say that ordinary people can't change their secondary profession, but when the player isn't going to be simply ordinary, making them think they are making a permanent choice instead of a temporary one is probably not a good idea. As one example.
• Balancing content around the story is also a good idea. Related to the first point, if you place a lot of content in areas where the narrative is moving quickly or little content in areas where it is moving slowly, you send mixed messages to the players.
• More is not always better. Often less, but deeper, is preferable than more but shallow.
• Consider the impacts of narrative perspective on the player—but ESPECIALLY consider their impacts on your design team! It's very easy to turn things into caricatures if you forget the fuller picture.
• Beware The Uncanny Valley of Lore! This happens when too much is known, but that which is known seems very shallow. It is better to leave room for speculation or create a lot of nuance and depth. On the road between the two are dangerous shallows!
• If your story focuses heavily one the motivations of a specific character, it is a good idea to make sure that character has understandable motivations for their actions. This notably includes villains.
• Make sure everything you're adding is actually adding substance and not diluting. Yes, filler is needed, but that filler should be considered filler. Don't just grab tropes and plop them in without considering the core ideas of those tropes and how to apply them to your world.

There are definitely more lessons, but I think those are the major ones!

#guildwars #gamedesign #analysis

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