10 for the Writers: Episode 02 (2015.01.05)

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] hello hi and welcome to another edition of 10 for the Chairman's writer Edition volume two with Will I Am uh so this is where we take uh questions from our subscribers and uh well answer them I guess yeah and do our best to answer them yeah you so thank you very much to the subscribers for continuing to support programs such as these for local viewers like you and oh thank you for Gora too for this wonderful vintage 2940 Cabernet Avenel uh I have not drank it yet but

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   I'm looking forward to it even though we need better glasses as found out uh all right so let's just jump right into it from dblr ther how do you approach the act of writing SLC Creation in regards to the lore do you work from an initial outline idea either Source from yourselves or elsewhere and then add flesh or do you pick a topic sand outline and see where the fancy takes you how much of what you each write gets reviewed by the other I'm thinking that working so closely together gives you a great opportunity to share and collaborate on most pieces we we do like you kind of mentioned we do both processes where sometimes it starts from an idea from us and other times we're handed kind of a design pitch and you know a designer will come to us demanding high quality lore which we always deliver and um you can go either

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   way really and um so we talked about that a little bit before but probably the interes thing that we haven't talked about is kind of how we coordinate between each other and how being in the same office is fun and helpful oddly enough when I first started here I was like slight farther away from Dave we had we had a smaller office so there was not room and our collaboration is definitely approved now that our desks are touching yes and yeah but yeah you know I mean sometimes we we do take uh it sort of depends on what we're doing you know for for uh the more the Squadron 42 based stuff we have a very kind of rigid not rigid but a worked out outline that we're sort of going through and we're starting to work from uh particularly because as things come online asset wise uh we're sort of

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   jumping around we're not writing it from start to finish whereas something like a news dispatch for example which we sort of alternate on week week in and week out uh I mean sometimes we'll sort of say hey I got an idea I'm thinking about doing this for for Tuesday's thing what do you think and maybe talk it over and otherwise other times it's just sort of a hey I wrote this out you know here's what do you think type thing but we I mean we review all of the stuff we kind of WR it's very yeah I mean Dave definitely reads pretty much 99% of everything that goes on so he takes his lead writer position very serious so you know it's kind of unified content through him I I don't necessarily look at everything I try to try to read along but uh it's it's pretty

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   great oh my turn your turn Ajax Wilhelm thanks in large part to the Civil War the life expectancy in the US in the middle 18 00s was roughly 40 years old in 2014 thanks in large part to Blade Runner bacon and Mario Kart 8 it's right around 80 80s Mario Kart 8 it's right around 80 years old with advances in medicine but the added danger of living in space what's the average lifespan for a space man space woman in the year 2944 so we've been saying 150 years uh uh yeah I mean it's sort of I mean that was a in the early days of the sort of Asad Dev that was a a a raging discussion uh about about age and stuff

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   and a lot of a lot of people think that with medical advances as they are now that the life expectancy would be much much larger than that um but I I remember early on in conversations with with Chris there was this sort of we wanted the there was this idea that the the universe should that people should not be living beyond like 200 years just because you start to get into immortality and like you know wanted to have these sort of various phases of human development and then uh that were sort of isolated to themselves like the fact that there aren't any humans that were alive during the Messa era speaks a very different thing about that era because it's all through you know historical fact and uh rather than personal recollection um yeah so so why like so we're kind of thinking you know that

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   human bodies have a shelf life as much as we can extend it but probably what tech has done is improved the quality of those 150 years medically speaking like the senility and other kind of problems that come with old age disorders and that kind of stuff has probably been eliminated so you get a much Fuller healthier full 150 years more bang for your buck kind of thing right be one way to think about it so Lord I'd like to see more about human alien relations are there hybrid colonies or other joint ventures uh I I I think no for that just because it was mostly I think it was an art thing I mean you can get into I remember there was a little bit of a discussion about this about you know physiology and biology and DNA based life forms versus

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   other life forms and you know that type of thing but at the end of the day I think it was actually just a sort of a technical thing like having if you have human alien hybrids you have have to have degrees of that so you know what is a 10% hybrid what is a 20% 30 you know and it's just it's extrapolate it's a it's a lot more stuff that you have to build in order to to make it believable in in the universe rather than and hearing you talk I'm wondering now if the question because of relations they're asking by hybrid Colony like Gian and humans building a city together oh uh in that regard yeah I mean I think there were you know even just are there interpersonal relationships regardless of of of um uh producing

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   Offspring uh I mean I think sure yeah yeah I think there'll be mixed Crews I mean Tarn we're hoping to have a fully integrated even though there's some political and social issues going on with the Taran people they are part of the UE right um and then we're also talking about having you know ports where there's a lot of interes trade going on so you'll have you know Banu and Shion and humans all living side by side in one city and kind of seeing how that Melting Pot will develop would be real interesting for us to explore and develop but basically yeah you're going to be able to get your band new best friend BBF bbbf um Taris I have read a lot of awesome material on history events planets and

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    people but what about the Arts has the shake experience Sonet survived will I discover a ha cou spray painted on walls I mean I think so I mean I would imagine I hope that Shakespeare and Son it survived they're pretty awesome uh but I mean what is what is music other than art and we still have music kicking around it's true and just set to music you know man yeah man yeah man yeah I mean you know I we haven't gotten into it I mean because I guess the thing is we we've sort of made references to uh and we even had a lore Builder about celebrities you know artists and Painters and stuff like that uh that that you guys actually provided um you know I guess the thing that's that that's tricky about it is you know if you start talking about prolific authors and Poets and all that type of stuff

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    then you have to kind of write the stuff in order for it to exist and that's just a lot to didn't we have that art film that was going to get kicked out of the the film contest I mean we made a mention of a of a a like a not performance artist like an abstract artist that the the band new guy who discovered the stretch goal system was was enamored with he loved what she did uh and named the system after her uh just in the most recent L Builder we talked about one of the Pas times that people can do is like crafts you know turning you know people are still carving and whittling and building stuff to pass the time so but as far as like the the historical stuff too I mean the shakes specifically the Shakespeare and Sonic I mean I imagine as you know I mean even now as technology has allowed us to save and preserve stuff you know I

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    mean it probably won't have the prevalence social prevalence that it would have today but you know I mean think about Homer you know not Simpson uh like you know the Odyssey is still one of the classic novels of human kind you know I mean and that's survived for 3,000 years yeah something like that I know uh it's a good book good book good book been a lot bit long from dups coming from a huge horror fan has the idea been tossed around for maybe finding a deric capital ship that upon exploring has a haunted house a supernatural Vibe think of an horizon or alien isolation and if so has any lore been discussed that can tie in something like this yeah I mean I think it's it's that thing you know was it the Isaac

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    azimov quote that to the common person technology is indistinguishable from magic I mean you could have something that could be conceived to our perspective Supernatural that is just simply because it's outside of our current realm of understanding but I mean I think we're still bound within the realities of the universe that we're building so it's not you know um zombies uh I mean there's definitely like ghost stories floating around in the lore yeah Hades system good good example um but yeah you know I mean the the the floating derel ship where there's you know just bodies and you don't I that's a that's a classic you gota you go to at least kind of shout out to that there will often be something right behind you yeah bomb squad how is your

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    writing Focus for Star Citizen change from the start of the project until now and how do you see it changing in the future when it comes to making missions or things to do in the PE do you create the stories for them first or do they get built based on gameplay requirements well we'll start with the first part how how do you feel writing has changed since we have begun this crazy Journey called Star Citizen yeah it's I mean it's certainly become much more interesting because it's now that we're having things come online you know conversation systems and actual mechanics and stuff like that like you can you get more of a direct plugin of like you need to write something for this that needs to accommodate for this system uh rather than before where it was you know I mean we were for the early news updates I mean we were trying

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    to write about what the plan was for for game design aspects and now we can actually kind of write about you know game aspects you know I don't know I mean the project has definitely gotten to the point now where we're starting to really focus on you know specific content and and churning out scripts and getting things done you know for moving into recording stuff and really heading into uh production phase of things and moving out for more of our kind of brainstorming and and dreaming of lore days so that's kind of fun to see that kind of switch MH happen get more focused and a lot more panicked panicked all the time yeah a lot of panic um so the second question uh when making missions and things do we create the

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    stories first or do they get based on gameplay requirements yeah I mean I think at this point we're still building a lot of the mechanics around the Pu so we haven't gotten into specific St I Tony and the guys have been doing a lot of experimentation with figuring out like without the story applied on top of it just how the missions work from getting the player from here to here and so we're going to once they sort of have a handle on that we'll be able to dive back in and start building up with stories and how to tie it into this bartender and going to this you know system and you know what are you carrying that's interesting and yeah but I mean maybe once once the process gets sort of equalized you know it it might be a half and half type thing if we come up with something based on because we

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    have a better understanding of how it could be implemented uh you know we could theoretically pitch ideas and they could just pitch stuff back to us and go hey we have this new thing you could do could you do a mission for so it's probably going to be a bit more even right now we're sort of taking cues from them as to how they want to how they see that sort of mechanic working out yeah and we'll come in more definitely on those missions that are going to be designed to kind of twist your expectations or a spin on kind of the normal everyday missions and that's where we'll come in and um with Squadron 42 uh even though you didn't ask with with that it's kind of it's a kind of more we start with a a very highlevel story that kind of sets the initial road map down of where we're going narratively and then the designers take

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    that and kind of plan locations and more specifics of gaml and then they pitch that back to us and we take it and we start saying like oh well that's interesting if they're going to be in a fight right before they have this big heartfelt talk then maybe we can adjust the fight maybe rather than being a big battle we make it just a one-on-one fight with this guy because it'll be more impactful and desci says no that won't work how about three guys and so that kind of finding that beautiful Middle Ground between gameplay and narrative from Nomo 1977 will the writing team make a conscious effort to include a little humor and Star Citizen it would be awesome to see a few NPCs with comedic personalities some humor could be subtle some witty onliners and some could make a tent situation lighter with some well-timed comedy um uh definitely yeah I mean I

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    think that I was going to say maybe I was going to go definitely uh yeah I mean the thing is it's it's important to remember I mean is as long as it's not there's a weird thing with humor I've always looked at as um if they're it's great to have funny people people in it and because you can have funny people in a serious environment like Hudson from Aliens is always my sort of classic go to example like he's a funny character who's in a very serious situation and he he takes the seriousness of the situation seriously but he reacts to it in a funny way because he has a a dynamic personality uh but yeah I mean I think you need that you know and I was actually talking with Chris about this uh last week was you know he he was like you know if you have too

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    much if it's if it's too monotone and too you know dark and angry and violent the entire time it gets overwhelming and it feels flat you need kind of levity to kind of punctuate the darkness and you know it's one of the great things about Firefly too is I mean that's a show that can get very dark and get really violent uh and part of it is because you have those that warmth of the comedy that to counterbalance it so it can when it gets dark it feels really dark and really bleep because you have these big personalities who are scared yeah and and I think it just kind of I I try not to when I'm writing a lighter funnier moment not to have the characters poke holes in the world or make fun of the world but rather have the humor come from a a place with inside the story and evolve out of that cuz you know it can be an easy joke

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    sometimes or the more obvious one to be like isn't this stupid that we're doing this isn't it stupid that I have to go get this box but then you're just kind of of shooting yourself in the foot rather than trying to build up to something yeah but yeah one of your wingmen will just have a horn that he honks as you're flying around he's got really big shoes actually I kind of really like that like a Harpo as a wingman like cover my six I got your back oh no one long too short um Captain R Mason what are some political parties within each government is there a small group in the that would like to cease trade with humans or something like our modern day political parties and governments so at the moment for the humans we have three political parties that we've established there's

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    the universal party centralist party and the transitional party uh the we haven't really gotten into the the alien ones yet the specifically the Banu one well we're not ready to talk about it quite yet but basically though because we want to have a lot of variety in the things that you can do in the Pew you can always be insured to whether it's not a majority of the population believe something you know I'm sure there is a group of Banu that would like to cut off trade from the humans whether it's just two guys on a ship and they're trying to sabotage this other thing you know like that it all comes down to we want to have the full rainbow of beliefs it's always just about how many people believe that we think like the more Fringe the belief is the less people you'll run into in the universe that

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    believe it but you know it could be one of those things that is it something that could happen down the line maybe but they would have to grow in power or something would have to happen that would you know shift them or something like that but yeah and I'm sure there's just as many humans who want to cut off trade with the Bandu and the other things as we covered in a recent news update right the the party that I want to join is the Afterparty hey from amonti do you anticipate allowing players to contribute to the ongoing lore of the verse with flavor items like the recent drinks and clothing lore Builders once the game goes probably I I mean we we're kind of getting to the point where we have so much of stuff that you know that we might hold off on for a little bit I don't know why I'm saying this but yeah I assume we're going to continue that

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    practice of when we need things of looking to you the backers to help us fill in the universe um like we said once the Pu goes live a lot of you know the galactic pedia stuff is going to be filled in by your actions and what you're doing so right I mean maybe yeah I mean it'll be it's interesting cuz I mean the thing is what I'm I'm wondering is like if once the game is live live full live if yeah but just how you how you divide between the you know uh if if we're going to be doing this sort of daily content updates that we do I don't know uh yeah well might is not be so formalized and we might not need as many because we're already live and it's already functioning and you know uh so it just might take on a different form but I assume I mean it's one of our stated

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    goals to have you the community affect the game and affecting the lore is part of that so Trent Hawkins what is the lore approach to nukes and other weapons of mass destruction it's been 900 years and I can't help but look at a miss or Retaliator and imagine all the Forbidden technology treaties and regulations that are behind still having explosion based missiles I mean I'm not sure what the if nukes are a specific missile payload or not um I don't remember that's a design I mean I've there's definitely been talk about having nuclear payloads I'm not sure where that's going to end up but I mean you know the funny thing is that it at the end of the day I mean it is interesting I mean this is a society where common people can go out and buy really heavily armed warships you know in in a nutshell I mean Fighters and

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    stuff like that so it's a bit of a a a different Society I mean mostly that's just because it's dangerous out there you know they're Vandal they're Pirates they're slavers there's all sorts of kind of craziness happening outside that you know you have to you'd have to protect yourself uh this space is is too big to police fully with a with a unified Force yeah so uh I mean as far as nukes I mean specifically I think that's a that's more of a design thing I I would imagine that yeah that I would you know if you're you saw you've seen the size of these frig I mean they're huge you would have to use some kind of you know nuclear payload to put a dent in that thing I mean it's interesting because we have the notion of mpec weapons like when we release a military ship to

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    civilians we say that they don't include everything so we have this line of there being some technology that's too powerful too dangerous right or that the military wants to contain an advantage over the civilian population oh yeah so that's implying that there is a certain level of Devastation that's considered inappropriate for commercial use and in order to get that you start having to go to the black market um so like an off-the-shelf ship made by a major manufacturer wouldn't really have any forbidden Tech in there because they wouldn't want to lose their manufacturer license or put themselves on the long wrong end of the wrong end of the what the hell am I saying they wouldn't want to lose their manufacturing license and um so so there is a line it's just you know what that definition of the line is

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    cuz the thing also I mean uh you know me part of the part of the devastation of of nuclear weapons is his atmosphere you know I mean radiation radiation Fallout air carrying particles beyond the blast radius and in the Fallout Zone and all that stuff so uh which you don't don't really get in space yeah just being in space is like awful for you radiation wise yeah so you know maybe nukes lose a little bit of their luster I mean you know obviously I don't think and I don't think it's restricted to nukes I don't think you could you know try and do an orbital strike on a planet they would shoot you down in a second uh but yeah so I guess a long way around uh yes there's a line because as well say there's the mpec thing but what that division is I think we're still sort of

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    trying to figure out and part of that is also just with game balance you know I mean with with Arena Commander um you know there's there's a a huge amount of focus put on making sure that what weapon does what and is countered by what and what are its strengths and weaknesses and stuff like that and so just getting a basic Baseline understanding of what civilian weapons do then you could figure out what the mpec weapons do and why they're so much more powerful yeah and just like we're going to have to handle you walking around with weapons on a planet surface I think it'll be the same way of like when you're flying into you know AR Corp and you have a nuclear payload missile you know we'll have to figure out ways while you're not firing five of off into the middle of the city right um not sure what but something to think about I

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    don't so that's it thank you so much again and it wouldn't be possible without the wonderful help of the subscribers and to all our backers out there thank you and a happy holidays see you next time