We interview Ree Soesbee, author of the new Guild Wars novel coming June 25th.

What about any impact of the novel within the game? There have been new additions in the game such as the Marriner Plaques and the statue. Do these connect with the book at all?

Absolutely! They are also planning some living story events to celebrate the book coming out that will reference some of the events or characters from the book. There is also on the beaches of Lion’s Arch in game a column of rock that serves as a monument. That is specifically mentioned in my book that when someone dies while fighting for Lion’s Arch they engrave their name on it and that is what the writing is all over it.  We absolutely want the book to expand the world and be interconnected with it.

What were some of the things that you couldn’t get to rhyme with the game world?

Well the game doesn’t have any open ocean stuff. You can’t actually sail a ship. So there was a lot of making up stuff such as the ships that people had. There was also the problem where in the real world there are a lot of cities on the coast, whereas in Tyria the cities just aren’t on the coast. So I had to look at the map and find out where are they were sailing to and from because there are no ports.

Is this in any way a hint of naval warfare coming to Guild Wars 2?

It is not a hint of naval warfare.

How long have you been working on the novel?

Well, I was writing the book when I was at Gamescom a couple years ago. That was where I was allowed to announce that I was writing the book and that the book was coming out. From there I finished the book and turned it in, but we had to finish the game and get it out the door so it kind of stalled in the editing process. It was easier for us to work on getting Matt Forbeck’s book and Jeff and Rob’s book than work on mine even though mine was finished just slightly after Rob King’s was finished. Once Guild Wars 2 came out we were able to put the book back in the editing cycle and get it out as rapidly as we could for the fans.

Did you think about writing the book from a non-Human perspective?

Yes. Lion’s Arch is a city of every race, and not even just the player character races. We see races like the Hylek and Tengu there as well, and I wanted very much to show cultures in conflict, a lot of different races and a lot of different perspectives.

Although the main character is Human, most of the body of his crew are not human. The characters that we get to know over the course of the book are of all sorts of races and you get to see all sorts of different perspectives. There is one particular conflict in the book that comes about because two races just see things differently and is actually a fairly major point.

You have written several works in various universes. What was the difference between writing a novel in the Guild Wars universe that you helped build versus a more foreign universe?

With some of the other IPs that I have written for, I am a guest. I am coming into someone else’s world and asking to tell a story there within what they have already created. With Guild Wars 2, even though I wasn’t involved in the production of the original Guild Wars it has very much been Jeff Grubb and myself who have created the world of Guild Wars 2 and that have changed it, done the backstory and invented the history that drew to where we are now. So I was very intimately aware of that game and that world. It made the book a little easier to write as I didn’t have to do as much research since I knew the material better, but it was also difficult as I did want to play into the things in the game and there is so much in the game. We have had so many designers, writers and other talented people working on the game that in order to call back to this history I needed to go into the game and make sure.

There is a scene at the end of the book where we get to see Lion’s Arch rebuilt and I actually logged into the game and ran around Lion’s Arch to make sure the character’s description as he walked through the city made sense. That if the character had made his way from this building to this building he would see that bridge and that is how I described it in the book. It was both really a lot of fun and a lot of work.

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