This is Amazing! Writing the Supportive Space Coach in Destiny

[Music] this is amazing hi my name is John tow I'm a writer ed bungee and that was the voice of lord shaxx one of our most popular characters from our first-person shooter destiny - shanks is the announcer of destinies crucible which is our arena based player vs. player mode today I'll be talking about how our team found that a well-written supportive character like lord shaxx can enhance the player experience in competitive game modes while telling an important story the players I've been working on checks since destiny the taken King our first big expansion and I brought the shoutcaster quality to Sax's dialogue I've been the fictional creative behind Jax's backstory in grimoire and background lore since then I worked very closely with senior designer Andrew Weldon who's sitting right there Andrew

masterminds the triggers for shacks in nearly all of destinies crucible modes he is an expert on the player's PvP experience in Destiny and he uses that expertise to decide the different context in which shax speaks before we go deeper here is a quick overview of the talk I'll be covering the writing process in the development of lord shaxx as Destiny's first PvP announcer character as a part of that process I'll broadly cover Jax's development history as far as his writing goes the character changed pretty dramatically between destiny 1 and 2 as you're going to see then I'll go into how shacks helps tell the player story in the context of Destiny's PvP mode the crucible I'll also cover how we continue to iterate on the techniques that we used in writing shacks through a new character called the drifter and drifter is Destiny's newest announcer in a new competitive

mode called gambit and finally I'll share the writing pillars that I developed over the course of this process and will continue to use for future announcers in destiny so first up for the who is shacks he is the voice of destinies crucible and the crucible is our collection of arena based player versus player modes in destiny shacks is unique from most first-person shooter announcers found in games like Unreal Tournament and halo in that both of those games featured disembodied voices as announcers that reacted to the player and gave game critical information but were not in themselves characters lord shaxx is an announcer in that vein but he also exists in the Destiny universe with a history and has a personal stake in the players in all of you here's an example of what shacks sounds like in destiny gameplay from the taken king expansion

one final push and victory is yours for now this is amazing outstanding you're unstoppable another battle one went to the next fight so as we just heard shacks is a little blood thirsty but he loves our players in the fictional world of Destiny shacks is a super-powered defender of the last city of humanity who no longer fights on the front lines he's given up that role to train new guardians of the city who are the players checks didn't start out this way though and it took a bit of work to get

him to where he is today lord shaxx is original execution in destiny one was a dystopian drill sergeant and the team identified several problems with that at the beginning of taken King's development while shacks delivered game critical information he was an announcer who lacked character many of Jax's lines focused on repeating player objectives that were already fairly obvious capture and defend Guardians very little dialogue was dedicated to who shacks was in Destiny's universe and he had a limited relationship with the player that sometimes boiled down to berating them for mistakes fight back control the zones Shack scared about players successes but not as much as he could and this was about as pleased as he got nice work Guardians your efforts have been noted I'm about to play another clip for you this is what the early version of shacks of what

shacks sounded like in d1 listen carefully to the clip and compare it to the one that we just heard think about how often Shaq speaks and it won't be much [Music]

[Music] all enemies have been eliminated mouth guardian revive your team heavy ammo inbound so for those unfamiliar that was an example of a pretty intense gameplay sequence in destiny our player was fighting one on three and had to kill the entire opposing team multiple times in order to win without dying themselves but noticed that shacks lacked streak announcements he lacked general excitement for what was going on audible excitement being a big part of the earlier clip which was actually later in Destiny's development cycle

this golf announced her tone during destiny one made shanks unique from other shooter announcers but as a result shacks did not share the players excitement during the climax of their gameplay we took a new direction during the taken king expansion by doing a couple of things on the design side we added features like streak announcements that built up on each other as the player gained momentum we shifted our direction in writing as well Lennie James Sachs's voice actor is a Shakespearean trained stage performer with supreme powers of projection so we gave shax a more vibrant personality with more lines while keeping instances of that dialogue still relatively short the end result was something like this in taken kings crucible the dignity is you [Music]

[Music] so as a result of these deliberate writing and design additions shacks took steps to becoming what the team refers to as the supportive space dad that he is today I don't think you know how to give up good recoveries on top of streaks and a more boisterous personality we had shacks actually reference his backstory from Destiny's grimoire cards Jax's dialogue changed to reflect that he is a decorated war hero who loved his job on the front lines and gave all that up to Train new guardians of the city like the player what I wouldn't give to fight again beyond the walls I would tear out a vex heart with my teeth

I would sear the cabal with my burning lights challenge the Fallen Kells to personal combat and scatter them I I've been watching too many crucible matches now how much does this lore actually matter to the players I'd argue on its own not much however it gives us a background to anchor shacks with and it's something for the character to speak to as a frame of reference to relate to what the player is doing this is key as it's what allows us to put the player on a pedestal and make the crucible all about them no matter what shacks starts off saying he'll always bring it back to our focus which is the players when I take the enemy vault I look them in the eye and I tell them this is mine now I see you do to this new shacks worked out pretty well according to our audience there are a

lot more reddit threads about him than pictured here some players went so far as to claim they engaged with PvP content in destiny simply to spend more time with shacks to reddit threads Asura's of the team's work stood out to me over the years the first was from a deaf player who was disappointed that there were no captions in the taken King to capture shacks is dialogue for them and we finally got the tech to support it in destiny 2 this player was not disappointed Lennie James Shaq's is voice actor is phenomenal and he can turn a 50 cent line into a dollar but in this case for this fan and apparently everyone in this thread the dialogue triggers and the writing for shacks carried the experience this will be more important later the second thread was from a player suffering from multiple myeloma a type of blood cancer he cites playing destiny as an outlet that helps and shacks lines in particular as something to help keep him motivated this meant a lot to me personally

because my mom passed away about six months before I got my first job in the industry but what was my take away from all of this I realized that even without a traditional plot the team and I had succeeded in conveying a strong character for shacks through his endless enthusiasm for watching the players fight each other the players story is at the center of every Shaq's line a vast majority of SH axis speech is triggered by player actions and even when shanks is talking about himself it's in reference to the player as an example players can choose between three classes in destiny Titans are armored super soldiers and when a Titan player goes on a streak Shaq says something like this with ten titles like you I could build all seven columns and shake the pillars to their core hunters or Han Solo scoundrel types and when a hunter goes on a streak Shaq

sounds like this with ten hunters like you I could make the frontier safe again and finally warlocks are mystical scholar warriors when a warlock goes on a streak sax reacts like this with ten warlocks like you I could turn ideas into weapons in each of these lines shanks is acknowledging the players class a little bit of what that class or the type is like in the fiction of destiny in other words the player fantasy and is also reacting to what the player just did the end result is that it feels like shax is watching you constructing a narrative out of your gameplay over time players feel like they know Shaq's as a character because he seems like he knows them plus the sheer amount of time that Shaq spends speaking to a player in PvP can be greater than the time it takes to clear Destiny's campaign missions so therefore pursuing storylines in competitive modes where the presence of

players alone encourages engagement can be very valuable to help support the story of Shaq's as a former frontline fighter turned coach he has a presence in the tower and the tower is Destiny's social hub where all players congregate to manage gear speak to NPCs to advance quests and hang out with each other in a non-combat space shax has a ton of ambient lines in this state where he gives gear and bounties to the player but practically none of these lines have anything to do with that gear and those bounties and instead serve to support the idea that shacks is still watching crucible matches when you're not in the arena he's always happy to see you and he acknowledges you as a fellow veteran you're doing good work in the crucible the recruits need to see it when you've finished your business with him he is jealous then you get to go out and shoot guns and he doesn't I'd be right there with you if these rookies could just learn to fight by themselves and as you walk off

you can hear Shaq's continuing to Train guardians in the crucible you can't fight when you're that tense Guardian what's wrong with you relax relax more I said relax this serves as an outside context for Shaq's when he's not announcing crucible matches it furthers the smoke and mirrors that Shaq's is alive when the player doesn't see him so to recap real quick Jax's announcer lines built on a character to serve as a point of reference in order to help tell the players story in the crucible the iron Lords six fronts the Twilight gap lord shaxx earned his name none fell more Guardians than you we further support this experience by allowing the players to visit visit shacks in the tower to continue to build a relationship with him outside of the crucible both of these things announcer and ambient dialogue together

encompass the crucible narrative experience shacks is a guy who's done what you've done he concedes that you do it better and he sings your praises telling you your story to you as you crush your enemies he's a window into the Destiny universe and he offers a way for you to make an impact on that universe through his reactions I wanted you to win and you set the whole bloody world on fire good shanks is your personal bard your advocate and your hype man we felt so good about how we executed on Shaq's that we repeated these narrative techniques using a different character The Drifter in a different mode called gambit to equal success all right all right all right let's see what we've got fallen on the horizon if shacks is a supportive coach The Drifter is a shady uncle who encourages cutthroat behavior red Legion these lowlifes took the tower

from you right make him bleed The Drifter ships the players around galaxies in a sci-fi Winnebago called the derelict he drops them into war zones across the solar system where they compete against other teams to see who can kill the most stuff and bring back the most stuff which drifter will gladly pay them for the PvP twist is that players can enter into each other's war zones as invaders to kill each other naturally for more stuff and it looks and sounds like this [Music] this is what the taking feel reveling this and seconds left

you make this drifter is an echo of destiny ones newest expansion forsaken which has the player questioning their morals in an old west-style story this necessitated a different dialogue style than shacks and even even though both characters are announcers drifter is a grittier less idealistic version of shacks but he shares the following qualities he never berates the player directly and he even encourages you when you lose just like shacks hey not every hunts a good hunt doesn't have to be so count your loot and come see me again huh drifter has a backstory just like shacks then informs everything that he says he's a person with a history and a reason for existing and for wanting the player to succeed what a ha

I promise you I'll do something special with all these moats something that'll make you shiver we've talked before about how shanks is presence in the tower adds to the characters detail and shows a side of him outside of the crucible you can't fight when you're that tense Guardian what's wrong with you relax relax more I said relax I just like that line we did one better for the drifter and we gave him a ship to halt the players around the galaxy in it allows him to give pep talks to both teams before a gambit match begins and we used this to paint a portrait of the kind of person that the drifter is across the course of many matches [Music] alright maverick ready to see what you're fighting today falling on the horizon

[Music] six fronts Twilight fallen man give them yeah my grandma - who wasn't shoot some vomit it's time to bang knuckles the fallin change things for us may type this famous go pain back no one hated the fallen more than saint-14 they say he's dead so to recap those shacks and drifter are vastly different both utilize similar narrative techniques in order to tell the player story in crucible and in gambit in the crucible players train to protect the last city by fighting other guardians in combat drills in gambit players are airlifted into war zones across the

solar system to engage the enemies of humanity and the drifter will pay them for the spoils so you've heard our thought process in writing for shacks and the drifter and why we think that it works to tell the players story in competitive modes if your team is interested in telling the player story in PvP consider these pillars in your writing the first pillar is consider a character for your competitive mode not an announcer and not a disembodied voice an announcer gives game critical data to the player and leaves it at that that's functional and it's fine but you're missing out on a powerful story channel a character has a relationship with the player that is grounded in the fiction of your universe you can convey this relationship in a couple of seconds of dialogue or less if you plan carefully a character can facilitate both game critical information like score and objectives while being a real person drifter for instance would not update you on score in the same way that shacks

would you're falling behind your team needs to pull your socks up writers need to be intimately familiar with the gameplay with the game and its gameplay mechanics in order for this to work you must write from the player experience in order to be effective don't use your dialogue here as an opportunity to publish your own unique brand of Sumerian poetry while the player fights for their life against other humans you are not publishing on paper back here you are making metaphors out of game mechanics through snappy dialogue so understand those mechanics and understand those timing constraints meanwhile designers need to understand the character that you're both striving for designing the triggers for where a character speaks says something about that character it's just as important as what the character says both roles are absolutely vital in this and the more in sync you are with each other the more coherent your character will be the second pillar is know your character and

their role in the fiction ask yourself who the hell is this person because the better you know them the stronger your dialogue will be know your character's relationship to the player this way when you're writing dialogue a character is speaking and not a game mode in game writing there is a natural desire to simply use dialogue to restate what you already see in order to explain something better or to give something more context this is especially true in competitive game modes against other players where there is more at stake than simply role-playing you'll be tempted to only give game critical information in these modes because dialogue is expensive and the window to deliver it tends to be small and that's fine the player needs to know what's going on the design and UI should strive to be as clear as possible without dialogue because you are sacrificing a potential story channel every time hearing a character acknowledge an

exciting play that you just made can be just as important as updating you on score or on an objective because in competitive modes those exciting plays those are the story I could feel that in my bones did you hear that my soul just shivered so here's an example of knowing who Jax's character is this is a picture of my father I have higher resolution photos but he didn't want those distributed when I wrote taken Kings shax I looked back on who shax was in vanilla destiny and I thought of him I thought of my father he would be deeply disappointed when I I failed and rightly so show me a better way to rear a child you can but destiny isn't about child rearing so we figured our audience could use some compassion in writing checks for the taken King I instead thought about the 12-minute

window on some days when my father was pleased by something that I did and I thought what if shacks was like that but all the time I wrote from this perspective on my first batch of shacks lines the result was that it became clearer that shanks was someone who had gone through what the player had respected them for it while giving advice and acknowledging their successes something like a father figure or a coach or audience understood it pretty quickly the third pillar is right to your actor through iteration and allow yourself multiple revisions if possible before ship don't let anyone tell you that it's just a PvP dialogue playing the game with the dialogue that you've recorded is vital just because it's a competitive game mode without a plot doesn't mean that the dialogue experience can't be improved players will notice the dialogue of destiny's competitive modes gets a lot more

attention today than it did before the taken king and make sure to write to your actors as I mentioned before the second take on Shaq's took full advantage of Lennie James's projection as a Shakespearean trained stage actor casting Todd haberkorn for the role of the drifter also changed that character from what we internally had pictured as a deep voice to McCrea type into more of a smokey Clint Eastwood who actually goes up in pitch when he gets excited so pay attention to your actors watch other stuff that they're in because they'll change your writing in a good way if you use them well the fourth pillar above all appeal to the player relate to the player understand their experience over time we've removed Shaq's lines that were even remotely negative to players when they lost because certain parts of our audience did not appreciate being kicked while they were down on the other side of the spectrum one of

the best ways to appeal to a player is to speak to player actions oh yes the battle lines have been drawn call the praxic order call the Thanet oh nots the ginseng scribes call everyone so they could witness you make sure to congratulate the player when they congratulate themselves you want your streak and climax lines to fire at the same time that the player leaps off of the couch in real life but you can only find these when your experience is solid try to have a good idea of what your climax moments are from the player's perspective as you're writing now here's an example of all of this coming together and I apologize for the audio it's a it's a raw feed it's gonna pop a little bit [Music] enemy captured [ __ ] yeah dude did you

hear that chill strong words and finally above all flattered the player put them on a pedestal flattery almost always works if it's genuine this is beautiful you continue to be my greatest success guardian so in summary one of the coolest things about working on video games is getting to make something out of nothing and we did that with shacks we created a character that people cared about because he seemed to care about them shacks does not take part in a single in

game destiny cutscene aside from one small cameo he's not in a single campaign mission across the lifespan of Destiny's first 5 years and yet people like him it's because Jax's plot is the players action in the crucible it's a story that never ends if your players stay engaged shax takes full advantage of video games as an interactive medium the success of sex in game has led to things like a todd mcfarlane action figure t-shirts internet memes it's because our artists are awesome but shacks is pretty cool too again this is all despite the fact that shacks has very little screen time in the linear narrative of destiny at the end of the day lord shaxx is just a series of dialogue lines that listen for specific player actions before firing and it creates the illusion of a buddy sitting next to you on the couch who loses their [ __ ] at the same time that you do for your team obviously the flavor of your character

will change based on your game and your fiction but the intent should be the same tell your story as player action as we've shown it can be pretty gratifying executed properly this kind of dialogue deployed in competitive modes can be used to connect with your players on a visceral level I hope you try it your players will thank you for it that's all thank you very much hey Andrew Weldon as I mentioned before is here he is available to field design questions will be out in the hall after this if you guys are playing the allegiance quest in destiny right now where we're asking you to choose your loyalty between the drifter and and the Vanguard the lady who put that together Mallory Schleif is right there and she'll be she'll be outside as well to field questions about that if you guys are interested Pierce Eric who worked on gambit as the the primary designer is right there we'll all be outside we don't have time for questions thank you very much for playing [Applause]