GDC Online adds new narrative sessions on Halo 4, Guild Wars 2, more

In the latest update for GDC Online, show organizers have debuted a trio of new sessions in the Game Narrative Summit for October's Austin event, including talks on Halo 4 and Guild Wars 2, as well as the ever-popular Game Writing Tutorial. Now in its seventh year, the Game Narrative Summit -- formerly the Game Writers Conference -- will once again take place at GDC Online, showcasing leading industry professionals on the many facets of interactive storytelling, with sessions ranging from roundtable discussions, workshops, case studies, and more. The full details on these new Summit sessions are as follows: - In "Building Transmedia Worlds in Halo 4," 343 Industries' Armando Troisi and Kevin Grace will discuss how to juggle a sprawling franchise that exists across video games, comics, novels, and much more. They'll share anecdotes from managing the Halo brand to help other developers grow and sustain a blockbuster video game franchise. - Elsewhere, ArenaNet's Bobby Stein and Angel Leigh McCoy will discuss how to craft a story for a sprawling MMO in "Guild Wars 2: Finding Our Voice." Looking back on the game's five year development cycle, the pair will outline how the team wrote and recorded hours upon hours of recorded dialogue, and created enough written content to fill the game's enormous online world. Along the way, they'll offer advice to help other studios avoid the common mistakes of writing for an online game. - In addition, the Game Narrative Summit will also include the "Game Writing Tutorial," a one-day workshop discussing the theory and practices of game writing and narrative design. During this event, novices and pros alike will learn from some of the industry's top designers and writers, and will get a chance to go hands-on with a number of collaborative exercises to hone their game writing abilities. Confirmed speakers for the Game Writing Tutorial include Evan Skolnick (LucasArts), Andrew S. Walsh (Freelance), Toiya Kristen Finley (Schnoodle Media, LLC), Carl Varnado (Intuitive Interactive), Tobias Heussner (Bigpoint, Berlin GmbH), Clara Fernandez Vara (MIT), Lisa Brunette (Big Fish Games), Steven Williams (Zynga), and Jonathon Myers (Zynga). These sessions join other previously announced talks for GDC Online, including a host of talks in the Game Dev Start-Up Summit, sessions on Kabam and King.com, and a classic postmortem of Ultima Online. For more information on these or any of the other 100+ talks in the show's lineup, check out GDC Online's official Schedule Builder. For more information on GDC Online, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.