[2020] Narrative AMA

u/SouthpawSpidey Will there ever be full sized bosses? There has to be something bigger and badder than the epic mini bosses that exist.

The storm is going to continue to evolve over time as we become stronger and better at fighting back. I can’t make any promises about bigger and badder bosses, but I think that sounds like a lot of fun.

Don't worry, Ray is sticking around.

We love you guys!

u/Harryolo97 Question about Dennis: The guy who is asking for medkits and acts as melee defender is called Dennis during quest to grab him burgers. He might have been called so during christmas event too, but I'm not sure. But then again the dude that from Valentines event who loves Summer and his son in the future will lead the resistance if timeskips are real is also called Dennis. Are there 2 Dennises in the Homebase? How is it not confusing for people in Homebase? Or is it Oversight by you guys? ;) Also are TimeSkips real.

The character we interact with during the events and in the main questline is Dennis. We also have another character who wears a Durr Burger uniform named Ned who is searching for Medkits…

Time skips are not real. Dennis tends to get a little too wrapped up in whatever he happens to be interested in at any given time. During the Blockbuster event, it was time travel movies.

We'll be seeing those two in Canny :)

This is very tempting!

u/PigMayor Will we ever learn the name of that yellow pyramid-shaped robot in the Commander Support Crew? We know Ray (the blue one, the leader), Pop (the grey one with a red helmet that was temporarily evil after going into a rift), Lok (the 7-year old yellow-and-gray one that speaks in farm sounds), but the yellow pyramid-shaped one still hasn’t been named. He/she needs to be known too!

Kevin! We’ve been waiting for the right moment to introduce Kevin, and that time is now! Now-ish. Eventually and probably very soon.

Reasonable.

u/Sebastiao_Pereira How come Ray has two kids (according to the Blockbuster event) even though she's a robot?

Dennis assumed she had kids, but Pop, Lok and Kevin are her roommates.

We will be learning more about Dr. Vinderman, but I don't want to spoil the surprise.

A lot of our process is very collaborative. I don't spend too much time working on my own. We work together to define the concept and tone and once we have a nice, clear picture of where we're headed I jump right into writing the script.

u/tiger_boi The single most unbelievable part of the story isn't the storms or the husks... It's the fact that all the remaining people seem to get along...

I’m going to share a brief anecdote - Shortly before I left Seattle to join Epic in North Carolina our neighborhood was hit with a power outage. The summer heat and netflix-less boredom drove everyone outside. Thanks to the power outage we threw a surprisingly fun impromptu block party. Many of us had lived side by side for years without so much as a “hello.” and now we were finally getting to know each other. It was great. And then the lights came back on, and the moment was over. We went home and went back to ignoring each other.

That moment stuck with me, and it became something I thought about often as we started to work on Fortnite’s story. We were building a world where everyone jointed together out of necessity, and for now it least, they’re working together.

He was just imagining his future fatherhood. Thankfully. The world is not ready for Dennis Jr.

The narrative team is based here in North Carolina. The team sizes changes from time to time, but right now we can all comfortably take one car to lunch.

u/xOGx_Hermes 15 points 2 days ago Is there a....Ms.Smasher?

I don’t know, but you made me laugh out loud.

u/chrisd848 Will we ever getting to have Lok's amaxing voice and french Ray? :)

I think it’s safe to say that Lok’s announcer voice will return at some point. Announcer Lok was really fun to write and Tom Kane’s performance was incredibly well done.

(Pretend I wrote this in French) French Ray is very mysterious. She may return, she may not.

u/Uttermostdeer5 Please tell us more about the creepy easter eggs in fortnite. I not only want more underground jail cells with trapped children skeletons and empty wheelchairs at the edge of a cliff. But the little tidbit stories to them.

The artists and designers on STW love using ambient storytelling to bring the environments and theaters to life. Sometimes we’ll write these into the story, but I think it’s nice to come across something new and unexpected.

Right now I am watching someone add a new easter egg to Canny Valley, so I promise you there are more on the way. No child skeletons though. They’re not there now, and they won’t be there in the future. We think that would be a bummer.

We don't have anything planned for him right now, but I really want to bring him back into the game again.

Of course you do! We plan on expanding on character lore as the story plays out.

u/chrisd848 What's it like working with Ashly Burch? She's such a talented voice actress, does she ever bring an improvisation to the script?

I could spend this entire AMA talking about how talented and funny Ashly Burch is. She’s exactly as fun to work with as you’d expect. Ashly does improvise in the studio, and many of her improvised lines make it into the game.

And while I’m at it, I want to call out our entire cast for doing such great work. I feel incredibly lucky to be working with such a talented cast.

u/codygray3d First of all, I just wanna say how great the narrative/writing team has been doing with the event dialogue. I've literally laughed out loud almost every event. It's always so funny and not cringe-y in the least. The voice cast, especially Ashley Burch, has been doing a great job of bringing the script to life. My question is: What is the general process of coming up with "event" story lines? One of my favorite things about Save The World is the frequent events. How does your team put things like Fortnitemares, Blockbuster, and Into the Storm together story wise? Do you usually have to work around a pre-existing quest structure or do you decide those kinds of thing?

Once we’ve agreed upon the basic content and theme, we split up into our smaller teams and get to work. I work closely with our Lead Content Designer to come up with a quest plan I can translate to a VO script. From there we work with a team of artists and designers to make sure that the script we’re pitching is something we can actually complete by our deadline.

Then we write, hit the recording studio, and move on to the next event.

Yes.

u/HelenaLeonhart Are husks people? Most importantly are mist monsters people?

Husks and mist monsters are not people. We have hinted about the origins of the storm creatures, eventually you will be able to discover the answer yourself in game.

Speaking as the Vice President of the Steel Wool fan club, that would be amazing.

u/jjay554 24 points·2 days ago·edited 2 days ago Why is there so much bacon in toilets???

I guess I don’t understand this question. Where else would you keep your bacon?