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Q&A with the Narrative Team


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@"Chadramar.8156" said:I definitely agree with the approach of cutting down the number of NPCs in an arc/episode because there are frankly too many to include with the limited time and budget. However, I've long felt that the supposed protagonist gets put on the emotional backburner a lot in the name of giving the NPCs and their issues spotlight time. Are there are plans to improve on that? As it is, it leaves the impression that nobody really seems to care about the player character or what s/he is going through up to and including death -- which in turn makes it very hard for me to develop any positive emotions for these supposed "friends" the writers made us abandon the Pact for (still a massive kitten moment IMO). Braham's apology is an overdue step in the right direction, at least.

What about the PC and Aurene, will their connection matter in the future? In keeping with the above, Caithe (a character I like, mind) swooping in to become Aurene's emotional focus and interpreter while I'd been craving a moment of connection and reunion with her ever since Balthazar dragon-napped her made me wonder what our bond with Aurene was supposed to be good for after all, except to provide a handful of places to press the special action key. Yes, the final cutscene with her was great and so was flying with her at last, but there are so many "missing moments" and missed opportunities between that and the long-ago episode where we teach and play with her.

If you hope to give a bit more attention to the different races/cultures, will that also include letting them shine in the department of providing unique inputs and solutions? LS3 onwards has been far too heavy on Taimi knowing everything and solving everything with magitech, IMO, and the addition of Gorrik doesn't help in that regard. I really want to see sylvari magic and Dream-connection, Norn prowess and spirit-lore, charr discipline and ingenuity, etc. given room to help us save the day too!

I have to agree with some of this and want an answer too, or at least want them to read this. The Commander's arc is really great, but there were too many missing moments in that regard, especially about the Commander's death. (Kas' reaction and Rytlock's reaction was nice, but come on, Taimi??? Taimi loves the Commander!) This is especially egregious in episode 4, sans the Braham moments, which made it my least favourite episode in the whole thing DESPITE ME LOVING EVERY BIT OF THE BRAHAM MOMENTS. (Yes, even if you threw a bone to us Trahearne shippers out there in that episode!)

When the Commander asked Caithe what it felt like to be bonded to Aurene, it felt a little bit.....sad for them, the voice acting made it feel like they're so starved to have that connection with her after not being sure for the entire season lol. It made the ending incredible when they finally realize she truly loves them only for her to ascend.....I'd like to think that that is very intentional and you're going to explore it more in the future!

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@draxynnic.3719 said:I think the idea here is that Caladbolg, being originally a sword, is only so malleable. Orchida, Rosa, and Solana are all blades of various lengths. If you look closely at Iridi (the scepter), it's essentially the original handle of Caladbolg, with the ball at the end being Caladbolg's pommel. Astera (the shield) is the furthest from the original Caladbolg, but it is still essentially a greatsword with the blade shortened, widened, and twisted to become more of a barrier than a blade.

Turning into other weapons, particularly weapons with intricate moving parts like firearms, was probably well outside its capability.

It could be interesting, however, to see a future chapter - after the Pale Tree has recovered more fully - where it's possible for the Commander to commission a customised Caladbolg-style weapon of a different type.

That does make sense (thank you). Still a bit curious why we couldn't have gotten, say, a staff (especially since there's now a class - daredevil - that uses staves as melee weapons) but that's just my own personal pet peeve talking... Anyway, thanks again for answering. :)

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Another question that i hope gets answered is who died when Kralkatorrik escaped the Auditorium? We know DW, Logan, Caithe, Gorrik Almorra, Zafirah, Sayida, and some nameless Corsairs, Zephyrites, and Pact members survived. But what about characters from the previous episode such as Wurmmarshal Ekolo and Troopmarshal Pelu Egan, Ogden, the inquest R3d and his golem, as well as named pact members? Will that be addressed?

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Hi, sorry for posting so late but I was curious about a few things dating back to Guild Wars 1. Have there ever been any plans or discussions to revisit some of the memorable areas and characters from GW1 and maybe expand on their history and roles within the game as well as how they fit into the lore in general. Characters like Duncan the Black in Slavers Exile. The frozen Dragon/monster thingy in Drakkar Lake. Other god realms, I always wanted to visit them, will we ever go back to any? How about Menzies and his Shadow Army? There are many other things, but I dont want to put up a giant list :). Thanks all, always loved the lore in the Guild Wars universe. Looking forward to the next season.

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  • ArenaNet Staff

Hi everyone,

It's now time to close this thread. The Narrative Team will give a few more answers next week, whenever team members have time for it, and the team wants to thank everyone for participating in this Q&A. They had a lot of fun reading and answering your questions, and hope you had as much fun as them!

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  • ArenaNet Staff

@NeverLoseGuy.3894 said:Oh, and one more thing, should we expect some optional dialogues similar to raids when there are multiple players in instance?

Living World and Personal Story content treats the instance owner as the main character in what is effectively a single-player story (with multiplayer gameplay support). For that reason, we limit dialogue participation to a single instance owner. Other players in the party don’t speak during story moments, and can only talk using their systemic chatter. In Raids, however, we treat the group of PCs as a squad of mercenaries trying to complete a mission together, so we wrote those stories in such a way as to allow anyone in the group to initiate a scene or participate in group dialogue.

It’s a stylistic choice that makes the two content types feel distinct, while also leaning into the tech that drives dialogue in a multiplayer context. So, while it’d certainly be neat to have additional group dialogue or variants for parties when playing LW stories, we have no plans to move in that direction.

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Hi, everyone! Thank you again for your patience. Tom's out on vacation right now, but he's left me some answers that I'm going to post on his behalf.

1) Had you full creativity freedom, what would you do story wise? Would you bring another unseen menace? Would you bring back something from the original game? Introduce a deuteragonist?2) About the process. Could you give us an overall glance on how the magic works? Are you guys given a strong guideline/ hook ( for example: The dwarves are back) and then build upon it or the team just brainstorm until something gets greenlit?3) I personally believe story is always the first step, then the rest of the team (art and tech guys) work together to "translate" the story into content. Is something like that?4) Who are your favorite writers?5) How difficult/different is to write for games compared to write other stuff (to say novels, short stories, etc..)

Tom says:

  1. We have a fair amount of creative freedom. The main things circumscribing our choices are a) making sure that whatever story we want to tell works in concert with the gameplay that the content designers want to make, and b) staying within scope and budget, which is vital with an always-on game like GW2 that drops new content on a regular basis.
  2. Not going to talk about how the magic works, because that could get spoilery. (It’s a thing we fully intend to deal with as time goes on, which is one reason we had to spend some time at the beginning of planning for the upcoming story arc discussing and nailing down some “cosmology” questions, as I mentioned in an earlier answer.) As far as the sort of hook you mention, we generally decide those things ourselves, with the participation of the content leads and Z. We also all pay a lot of attention to what players tell us they’d like to see—where they’d like to go, what cultures they’d like us to focus on, etc.
  3. Not exactly, no. We firmly believe that the best game narrative is one that is developed in concert and collaboration with the content designers (and we love Art, Audio, and Cinematics into that process as well, when they have time to be involved). When the narrative and the gameplay are designed separately and don’t support each other, the result can range from an experience that seems disjointed to outright ludonarratve dissonance. We much prefer (as players and as devs) experiences when all the different disciplines that come together in a game to communicate the story collaborate on the development of that story, so they can make choices that support it (and so we can make choices that support what they’re doing).
  4. A few of my favorite game writers in no particular order: Erik Wolpaw, Jill Murray, Chris Avellone, Susan O’Connor, John Gonzalez, Rhianna Pratchett, Steve Jaros, Meg Jayanth, Antony Johnson. A few of my favorite screen/TV writers: William Goldman, David Simon, Jordan Peele, Jill Soloway, Quentin Tarantino, Aaron Sorkin, Robin Thede, Cameron Crowe, David Milch. Fiction-wise, I’m a big fan of Stephen King, John Irving, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and honestly too many others to mention.
  5. Great question. It can be devilishly difficult to write for games, because interactivity and, frequently, non-linearity are inherent in the medium, and the human brain simply did not evolve to think in ways that are conducive to telling stories in those ways. In games, there are tools you’re used to having in your writer’s toolkit—sequence, pacing, suspense, dramatic irony, just to name a few—that are less viable or even outright impossible in a lot of situations. The degree of difficulty in game writing is thus an order of magnitude greater in games than in any other storytelling medium I’ve worked in (and I’ve worked in a bunch), and, to make it that much harder, a lot of the time we’re still blazing trails and having to invent ways to do things that no one has ever done before. And you know what? That’s also why it’s the medium I’ve most loved telling stories in; the challenge is unlike any other and it’s stimulating as hell.

First, I have to say that I'm one of those maybe 3 people on the internet who really, really love the Commander's character and what you've been doing with it. Even if it could be smokes and mirrors and you intend for us to see them as blank slates, what I perceive to be their personality (disconnected from the personality I had for 'my mc' at the onset) and their character development arc combine to make one of the most engaging main characters I've seen in RPGs, singleplayer or no. They have such realistic flaws. Realistic despair. Whatever it is that you're doing on sculpting them as a character, it's working for me and my friends!

Tom says:

Thanks for noticing all that! I completely agree with you: Our player character straddles the line a bit between a totally blank avatar (á la Destiny) and a fully defined character (like, say, Lara Croft); it’s not an easy balancing act, but I think it’s right for our game. And the fact that we have ten different Commanders, of five different races, two different genders, and ten different actors, means each Commander has a bit of a distinct personality, which personally I love.

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being skale and 10 being Kralkatorrik, how much fun did you have writing Joko's.....questionable dialogues and did Mr. North laugh when he read them the first time?

Tom says:

There are no words for how much fun we had writing Joko. BEYOND Kralk levels. And yes, Nolan absolutely loved performing all that material (and totally killed it).

The environmental storytelling for Joko's reign was one of the best things about PoF and early LS4. It was truly oppressive and horrifying in how insidious it is, but it IS insidious enough that it appears many people did not understand just how much Joko's rule has warped Elona (I recall some talking that he was OOC in Twilight Oasis because he's too funny and incompetent to do that, but.....when you look at his realm, ahhhh). If you could go back in time and redo that again, would you have decided to make things more clear-cut and put more of it in the main story of PoF itself, instead of focusing everything on Balthazar?

Tom says:

I think, all things being equal—and this also answers a question asked elsewhere on this thread—we probably would like to have spent more time with Joko before killing him off. The production cycle of something like GW2 Living World is such that, by the time we realized what a gold mine we had struck with him—which was during the writing of “Long Live the Lich”—the episodes containing the main S4 story arc, about Aurene and Kralkatorrik, were already in some state of production. It was simply too late to change the plan. So I’d say we share the feelings of those who wish they’d gotten more Joko.

Speaking of turning back time: I recall some of the staff saying that you didn't anticipate that players would be so affected by Aurene's death and want to see their characters mourn her. If you can go back in time and give the Commander a chance to mourn, what would you have written to show the Commander's grief over her loss in a lengthier way than what we got in LS4-6? Or would you not have changed anything?

Tom says:

Julia and I talked about this on the Guild Chat we did after the episode was released, so feel free to check that out for a full answer. To hit the main point, there were a lot of reasons the plan for the episode was what it was, a lot of reasons we planned to revive Aurene quickly. It was only as the episode began to come together in a build, not long before “All or Nothing” was released, that we started to get an inkling that the choice we had made for a lot of valid reasons maybe didn’t work creatively for one or two very specific ones. And once we saw the player reaction to Aurene’s death...I guess the best way to put it is, we hit people harder emotionally than even we had expected. Which was great for “All or Nothing,” but set us up in “War Eternal” for a problem.

In fact, we did make some adjustments to the first chapter of “War Eternal” to make it feel as earned as possible, but, given how far along the episode was, those changes were mostly limited to some additional dialogue and beefing up the roles of Caithe, the Commander, and the Zephyrites, for example. In retrospect—and this is after contemplating other stories with similar story lines, like “Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock,” it might have been good to have at least one chapter before that one, in which players could do some work assembling the components necessary to help Aurene revive, so it would feel like they had played an essential role in making it possible for her to do so. It was a good lesson to learn.

I know you pretty much figure out the details of each arc as you get there, but how long did you have the broad strokes of the story set in place? Some character arcs finished while dovetailing nicely with what you did going back as far as LS1. (Braham, mostly.) Did you simply go back to examine what you wrote there, or did you already have an idea of where you needed to go with the characters arcs and just needed to figure out how to get there?

Tom says:

Season 4 started out a little chaotically—I was new to the studio and coming into the middle of the PoF process and the beginning of S4 planning—but I’d say we started off looking about two episodes down the line and, by “Long Live the Lich,” knew what the rest of the season’s story was. It’s not ideal, but we were triaging stuff on PoF and S4 while working on rebuilding the narrative team, which had three writer/narrative designer vacancies when I arrived, which was almost half the S4 writing staff, so there was a lot going on. However, as I say, as time went on we got a progressively better idea of where we wanted the story to go, particularly as we began to contemplate the upcoming story arc. At this point we have a high-level idea of the rest of the serialized story GW2 will tell (although obviously those plans can and probably should change in some ways as time passes; we always want to give ourselves room to be responsive to player feedback, for example).

  1. Shouldn't there have been more fallout in the world after the Commander and the Pact killed two Elder Dragons and then suddenly the commander changed his opinion on the Elder Dragon killing? Shouldn't at least the Norn and the Vigil have objected more? And why are not large groups of people questioning the fact that we gave Aurene a huge amount of magic, making her the most powerful Elder Dragon to date? Why would people in the world accept that she is benevolent? Most people don't know her. Do you not think that these questions should be explored in a real sense, through more than a throw-away line from Rytlock for example?

  2. Now that 3 Elder Dragons are dead, 2 are asleep and 1 does not affect the continent of Tyria directly, what are some of the challenges you face in writing the story going forward? To what extent do you think the game world of GW2 depend on the Elder Dragon threat? A lot of the status quo depends on the Elder Dragons being an active force. The forming of the Vigil, the forming of the Pact, the Human-Charr treaty, the withdrawel of the Tengu and so on. Shouldn't this status quo change now that the Elder Dragon threat is so much more distant?

Tom says:

Those are really good questions. So good, in fact, that we might be planning to examine some of them in upcoming story arcs. :)

We haven’t had an episode release since “War Eternal,” remember, so we haven’t yet had a chance to deal with any of the fallout from that episode’s events. But you’ve done a thorough job of enumerating some of the big issues that may arise from them.

This isn't a question, just a quick story that I thought the Narrative team might appreciate, if that's okay.My wife doesn't play the game, but she enjoys the story, so when I play through it she'll sit and watch like it's a movie. She mostly teases me about it, blames me for every 'stupid' decision the commander makes, laughs at me when I die, and makes fun of some of the cheesier lines.But playing through All or Nothing was totally different. She was riveted the whole time. When she saw the loading screen for the final fight, she just kept shaking her head saying "No, she's too small....". When it came to the 'long walk' and Aurene's death, she was legitimately all-out crying. I've never seen her cry like that over a movie or anything, she's usually pretty stoic. She was completely heartbroken.By that point, I had unfortunately caught enough whiff of spoilers that I vaguely knew things would get better somehow if we pressed on. So I gently reminded her that this wasn't the end of the story, that there was one more episode, this wasn't the finale. That was the only thing that snapped her out of it. She finally stopped crying, sniffed, then got a hard look on her face and just said "Fix it."Long story short, she didn't let me stop playing until Kralkatorrik was dead. She can be vengeful.I just thought you all might get a kick out of knowing that there are even a few non-players out there who are pretty invested in the story you're telling. And that for the two of us, at least, Aurene's resurrection was well-earned and couldn't come soon enough.Also, maybe smarten the Commander up a bit in the future so I stop getting in trouble.

Tom says:

Appreciated, and noted. :)

Also, regarding Kasmeer & Marjory: I think a lot of people disliked their writing when they originally were introduced because we had to listen to their relationship talks during our missions and it literally felt like their main gimmick was being a gay couple. Later on this got a bit better with Kasmeer, but Marjory still doesn't have much of a personality to mention. Maybe it would've been better in hindsight if you guys did kill her off on the Breachmaker like the plan was originally?

Tom says:

Actually, that would feel like giving up to me. I think a much better idea is to bring them back, like we did with Braham and Caithe, and continue their arcs to take them in more interesting directions. I will say that, in pondering Jory and Kas, it’s occurred to us that thinking of them as a couple was part of what had sort of run them aground, as far as their arc, and that it might be fruitful to consider them first as individuals. Only once we understand them as their own characters can we then figure out what we want from them as a couple. As I said in another answer on this thread though, this is something we’re thinking about. More to come.

Which #GW2 character...(a) are you most like?(b) do you find most intriguing?© is your favorite to write, and why?(d) is most difficult to write, and why?(e) would you would most enjoy getting a beer with?(f) are you most excited for everyone to see going forward? (Not sure if you're allowed to answer that one.)

Tom says:

a) Honestly not sure. Ask my team which character they think I’m most like.b) Probably Caithe. Everything about her is intriguing to me. Also Sayida the Sly. (Doesn’t hurt that Kari Wahlgren and Sumalee Montano are two of my very favorite voice actors to work with.)c) Joko, hands down, followed by Braham and Taimi.d) Oooh…that’s a tough one. Writing the Commander well isn’t as easy as it may look. I haven’t actually had to do it yet, but I’d say at the moment that I’d anticipate writing for Marjory and Kasmeer would be particularly challenging, simply because, as noted elsewhere, they could use some some serious thought and development.e) Gotta say Braham. (Although we should probably bring bail money with us.)f) There are so many things I’m excited for people to see going forward...It’s true, most of them we can’t yet talk about. I think I can safely allow, however, that Braham’s arc will continue to develop in the next few episodes, and I really like where that’s all going. He’s come a long way since his emo teen days.

Will Season 5 feature an obligatory singing episode?

Tom says:

Well, we do love our singing.

What can you say of the Crystal Bloom faction? Do they see Aurene as a Savior and Caithe as her herald? Are the awakened linked to her as she is now part Joko? Does that perhaps explain why the Awakened remain functional? Are all Sunspears Crystal Bloom now?

Tom says:

All good questions. We’re just beginning to explore the Order of the Crystal Bloom, so we don’t have a ton of answers yet. But it does help to know what players are wondering as we ponder them.

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  • ArenaNet Staff

And some more answers from Narrative Director, Tom Abernathy...

Are we gonna see Zojja again in the future season? Don't know if it's a matter of Felicia Day's availability, but we haven't heard from her since the beginning of Season 3, and it's really glaring that she wasn't even mentioned in War Eternal, when she deserved to be in the final fight with Kralkatorrik just as much as Caithe, Rytlock and Logan, if not even more so (not to mention missing out on Snaff's ghost)

Tom says:

We’ve addressed this before, but, to recap: we’d love to be able to bring Zojja back into the story at a moment where it made sense (not sure “War Eternal” was the best place, since we had so many characters in that that we couldn’t even give some of them dialogue, and, anyway, she’s got a pretty serious health issue that would have to be dealt with first). The practical challenge is that we’d have to have the material to record written a lot farther ahead of time than our production cycle currently allows for (we write and record the cinematics an episode ahead of time because of the length of time it takes to make them, but we’d probably have to have to have Zojja’s scenes written at least six months in advance in order to give sufficient flexibility in when they’d get recorded). We’ve discussed it at length and it could happen, but it’s challenging.

  1. Was the order of the Crystal Bloom just created for the Episode 6: War Eternaland was disbanded after Aurene becomes an elder dragon or we will see it later too?
  2. Aurene absorbed the power of Kralkatorrik, did some of his magic escapeand reached other remaining dragons too or it's solely hers now?(we know that when a dragon dies, his magic gets absorbed by other dragons in a distance)
  3. Now that we know that dragons can hold multiple magics. Was it the same with Glint?Did she pass the "light" magic to Aurene on birth or it got transformed as from Kralkatorrik's magic?

Tom says:

  1. No. I expect we’ll see it again.
  2. Good question. Highly relevant. Strong chance it will get addressed.
  3. Also a good question. We haven’t discussed it, but I think it’s worth noting that containing multiple magics at once pretty clearly drove Krakatorrik mad (and who knows what other impact it may have had on the behavior of other Elder Dragons in the past). Aurene is unique in a number of ways; whether this is one of them is a question yet to be answered.

Are there any postgender beings or societies in GW2?

Tom says:

Gosh, that’s a very interesting question...

Hi, I'm a representant of the French forum of GW2. We want to be a part of this Q/A but I don't think someone will answer us in the french forum, so I propose you a translation of our questions, if you could answer it or some of it, it would be very gladly apprieced ^^.NB : I didn't read all this topic so if a question was already asked, please ignore it. Thank ^^• Why there is no teaser of the season 5 at the end of the season 4, like did it for the rest of the story ?• Do we will see Aurene again ?• Do we will see the humans gods again ?In France, we love GW2 and all the work you did in this game. We support you no matter what and we were sad about the February events. We are a very strong community too and we hope GW2 will live a very long time. Kisses.

Tom says:

Thanks so much, Jude. We appreciate the questions from our French community!

A lot of your questions we can’t answer, but, to the ones above:

  • One was in the works, but we never planned to put it out with S4E6. I don’t recall it coming up in discussions.
  • Since I’m on record as saying the spine of the GW2 story is Aurene’s journey, you can probably assume that’s a yes. :)
  • Only if they decide to come back. Who knows if that will ever happen? Gods are inscrutable.

Before I pass out I actually had a really question I wanted to ask.Judging by all the information we've been given in PoF it's pretty obvious there's a new god of war, Kormir insistently uses the terminology of the Six in Facing the Truth, Zafirah hears a voice that is dissonant with Balthazars in some way, I wouldn't put it past Lyssa to somehow caretake Balthazars power considering how he talked about...or didn't talk about...her, and of course he doesn't melt peoples eyes and had to drain a whole lot of magic to get back to where he was before. I heard there was a line about Aurene being the new God of War too but for some reason that got cut.Balthazar playing humans got relatively little development in PoF despite the fact you'd think they'd probably have the most interactions given the expansion. Will we ever get to see where Balthazars divine energy went? or is that plot thread unlikely to be resolved in Guild Wars 2?

Tom says:

I don’t recall there being a line about Aurene being the new God of War, cut or no. Zafirah may have pondered it, but that’s not really a thing we’ve discussed. Interesting idea, though.

Balthazar’s divine energy—assuming you mean his magic—went into Aurene, Kralkatorrik, and, presumably, every other Elder Dragon on Tyria. And yeah, that probably matters enough that it will come up again at some point.

What did you learn from writing Aurene, and what was your biggest challenge you faced with writing and characterizing her?

Tom says:

Marvelous question, and a good one for me to end on.

The biggest challenge to me was: what should she sound like? Both in terms of her written voice and her speaking voice.

We’ve already discussed (in the Guild Chat post-War Eternal) that having Aurene literally speak so soon wasn’t our original plan; that’s part of why we had Caithe accede to being Branded by her. We expected that situation to continue for at least a little while. Gameplay, however, waits for no dragon: as we were working on Chapter 2 of “War Eternal,” we realized that the Commander needed to be able to communicate with Aurene as s/he rode her in pursuit of Kralkatorrik—but that bringing Caithe along to translate was most definitely not an option. Ipso facto, we really had no choice but to give Aurene her own voice. (Fortunately, we had already cast Nika Futterman in the role so we could record her saying “I am not him” under Caithe’s voice in the Branding cinematic in “All or Nothing.” (So we obviously knew we were going to have Aurene speak at SOME point. The fact that she hadn’t yet was one of the very few things we didn’t really have much of an explanation for, since pretty much all the other dragons we’ve met in the game do.)

What I personally learned from writing Aurene was that dialing in that moment in a person’s evolution when, though still young, they go from a teenager to an adult, is a delicate thing. Aurene was learning to speak at the same time she was figuring out what she wanted to say, and so we started her out in Chapter 1 of “War Eternal” speaking a little uncertainly, like the verbal equivalent of a new foal standing up. But Aurene isn’t a child in that moment—in fact she’s really just crossed the Rubicon into adulthood. I think one way to think about why it took her so long to talk is that, until “I am not him,” she’d never had any thought that was so urgent she needed to find a better of expressing it than physically indicating, like a dog or horse might. But we’ve always been very clear: Aurene is NOT an animal, she’s a person. And making sure her friends and surrogate parents knew they needn’t be afraid of her was something she wanted so badly to be unambiguous about that she decided to ask Caithe to be her voice. It’s just a fabulously rich set of emotional circumstances within which to write a character.

Also, we knew throughout Season 4 that—as you can tell when you see Aurene’s head in the last shot of PoF—her mental, physical, and emotional development during the season was definitely that of a teenager, with all the concomitant sturm und drang that implies. She was no longer Baby Aurene—but, much like Britney Spears once upon a time, she was also not yet an adult. So we basically got five episodes to explore that dynamic between her and her surrogate parents, the Commander and Caithe. Except, for most of that time, she couldn’t speak at all. Writing a character who’s got a lot going on inside and needs to express it but can’t talk (and, in this case, is a quadruped to boot) was a challenge in and of itself. Honestly, it was a bit of a relief when we got to the point where we could start having her use actual words.

Also also, we then had to get Nika to work out both teen Aurene’s voice, which she uses for “All or Nothing” and the majority of “War Eternal,” and also adult Aurene’s voice, which we originally thought we might hear in the final cinematic after she has Ascended to Elder Dragonhood. We ended up deciding we liked it better if she didn’t talk then, though; it keeps her new self and future that much more mysterious and enigmatic. But, whenever she’s ready to speak again, Nika has the voice cued up and ready to go. :)

Thanks for all the questions, everyone!

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  • ArenaNet Staff

Just wanted to reiterate: Thank you.

We had other writers who wanted to participate, but everyone is working hard on what's being announced at the end of the month--not all of us could step away to engage with the community. You guys had wonderful questions; I wish we could have answered all of them. Your passion for the game is very much seen and appreciated here at the studio by all of us, regardless of our team/discipline. Hopefully we can try to do another one of these in the future if time allows. If not, we'll see you on Guild Chat. :)

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