Guild Chat - Episode 45

The following is an unofficial, player-written transcript of the episode. The accuracy of this transcription has not been verified by ArenaNet.
The 45th episode of Guild Chat aired on December 15, 2016. Join host Rubi Bayer and her developer guests for this week’s Guild Chat! They talk about designing our new friend, the baby dragon Aurene!
Transcription[edit]

Note: The text below hasn't yet been converted from raw subtitle text into pretty print like above.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xfWSAkSiwo
everybody happy friday and welcome back
to guild chat i'm your host Ruby and
we're going to be talking about the baby
dragon or in today and her design and
story and implementation in guild wars 2
so we're going to go ahead and jump
right in i'll let our developer guests
introduce themselves just let you talk
about who you are and what you did to
bring our rain into the game i am kevin
freeman gamed game designer planned
thank you i worked on the orient the
precocious Orion instance force episode
3 cracking ice roskelley a narrative
designer mostly just figuring out her
role in our world I guess
Ronald curry creature artist the graph
holder ideas and turn it into something
visual pretty much awesome thank you
guys for coming and spending some time
today and you'll have a lot to do
yeah we and it's snowing and we all want
to get outside and play in the snow
because it's gonna be like five more
years of predicting snow that doesn't
actually happen before we get real snow
again so let's just go ahead and jump in
i want to talk first about story and how
this got started can we talk a little
bit about the first conversation between
your team's between narrative and design
and the initial ideas when this happened
how we got started
yeah i mean i came on in the middle of
hot heart of thorns and we had already
had this egg at this point so you know
we knew sometime in the future we're
going to have to pay off this egg so
kind of one hot was wrapping up as when
we started having our first
conversations of ok this thing will
hatch at some point what is it going to
look like what's going to be and that's
when we basically myself and the
narrative director who was here at the
time went to Ronald and like started
opening up that kind of
window of conversation of a so you know
it's one of Glenn's eggs who was a
lieutenant of crockett auric but it at
the end of hot absorbed all this mortar
month energy so we want to kind of get
all these kind of things you know in one
tiny little baby in what kind of started
and you were telling me it just there
was more and more getting pylon and it
was super simple and not a problem at
all
well the 80s always start very simple
like we always start with like oh yeah
we're gonna make this like a very pretty
creature we're gonna make a baby dragon
and it's going to baste of this specific
dragon which was a plant and so the
first thing that we do is look for the
previous reference and see you like how
much because we need to update the the
graphics we can't just go back into the
old model for me to make it cooler and
more adapted to the new our style so
it's like how much do we adapt how do we
keep it consistent and recognizable and
it was kind of a challenge because my
the first thoughts that I had and I was
like okay we're going to make a baby a
baby drag your sorry ass a dragon and
then turn it into a baby dragon but
because we didn't have a dragon rig for
creatures only a difference of the time
i had to design a full-grown dragon and
they can shrink it so the process
started from then and then it turned
into it's going to be a baby dragon to
make a cute is gonna be a girl baby
dragon to make it
female a cute you know and then also
make it look like Martin mouth but have
elements of cricket or it can have
elements of you know for certain that
going into this tiny little creature
yeah it was yeah and interestingly
enough i was blissfully unaware of this
fact but we've earned their hands are
part of their wings & Dragons four feet
wings that was the creature model
consideration that you're like oh no
we'll just put it on
oh yeah they are different this
yes they actually had to get a lot more
people working on it was gonna be like
just another model specifically but now
we need it triggers animators and you
and its essence whole yeah well we've
talked before on episodes of guild chat
how we take models take risks that we
already have four creatures and just
kind of repurpose them for new creatures
this is the first time I've heard about
us creating an entirely new rig for
something so that's interesting to me
that attacked on a lot of time i'm
assuming did that sounds like it did I
took a lot of planning as as I said one
of the things that we looked for in the
new Dragon rig was we can't just make a
brand new rig just for baby dragon
because we're not going to have that
many baby dragons but if we do an adult
dragon we retrofitted to get a baby we
can actually get a much more usable
reusable break so in case we decide to
ever use or ever make dragons we have
now a rig that we can use
I saw that look don't get me in trouble
I mean there's always talks and skilled
or so yeah I mean that's her dragons in
this
oh yeah i have heard I just heard from
my room I'm mostly just saving myself at
this point you guys are on your own
I said nothing that's interesting you
said that as far as dragons vs wyverns
and the design as soon as you said that
it's one of those things that I've never
really consciously paid attention to ya
soon as you say the same here probably
makes a little bit of difference for you
so you're you're asking us before like
what I'd like that some of the
complications so like your design
process one of the biggest complications
that we had during the process was how
to pronounce whimpering nervous where's
then I think that argument given Jim are
here and ok you can you can have the
river and pronunciation argument or you
can have the gift vs jeff argument we do
not have time for both because I want to
go home at some point today and I don't
want to sit here until saturday or
sunday we we can only have one of those
arguments or we can have none of those
arguments and I'm fine with that third
option
and I'm not gotten that great
ok so you have mentioned all of these
little elements that had to go into this
into this baby dragon you have glitches
her mom so you've got this crystal
dragon element and then there's the
mornin goin in there so there's this
combination of like crystal and plant
that somehow worked out really well I
kept after you told me that I spent a
lot of time in the personal instance in
the precocious for instance just like
walking little circles in asking her to
please help me around so thanks for that
it's adorable but when I want her to
hold still it's good for problem back i
don't know what you're talking about how
did you even find that balance and make
it work out so well was it hard so
during the sculptor sculpting process
actually the different passes there's a
couple of renders I think we have oh
yeah we can look at those while we're
talking to help
so there's different treatments that we
had for the skin
this is when i got the base model kind
of working and start working on the rate
because you don't want to get too in
depth with model before you have it
functioning well thank you you can't
have just like a specific person the one
thing that i particularly like to do for
modeling is to post it a little bit to
get a little bit of the physicality of
the model a native to the mesh but uh
yeah the the they were different paths
on the leather texture of the skin or
the kind of thick wooden kind of quality
that order month had and we didn't want
to go to the tail we didn't want to go
to all we had as you said order month
was undead and plants and thorns and
then we have the crystal elements and
then we had the dragon elements and we
had a little bit of a on that element
and it was just a juggling act like okay
what if we put this how much do we
accentuate one thing or another so the
main things were it's a dragon comes
from Glen's the face definitely
resembles more term on some of the that
the sculpting that happened in the neck
and the tail and a sense of the body has
a lot of the elements of more modern
itself we decided to remove some of the
horniness around because that would just
make it way too busy
yeah that would there's a lot going on
but it's just enough at this point
yeah i mean that the most important
thing when designing something is just
to make it look how you would expect it
to look it looks good and it translates
the idea that you want to compete with
the model like it's you know influenced
by mortar month and it is a crystal
dragon and it is a baby and hopefully is
cute that mission accomplished
yeah and I remember like normally we we
will go back and forth you know like
felt submit like a concept that we go oh
maybe a little bit more this because of
the story points for this and I feel
like this was just like one or two
things that we saw her just like oh yeah
that's her
yeah you got it yeah they look very
little content from this one yeah it's
just a feeling they just gotta write it
was great it works ok so I have to ask
speaking of her being cute I've just
been watching a lot of player reaction
and talking to the community since she
hatched back in September and there's
been an innocent the majority of the
playerbase that I've heard this is
totally anecdotal I haven't done like
poles or anything
the majority of the player basis just oh
my god this is the greatest thing this
is adorable but there are some players
who are like I don't this is a drag
why is it cute this is I don't
understand why this is this thing is
cute this should be a shrunken model of
an adult dragon and scary and not how
did you come down on the side of yes
this is a baby it should look like a
baby instead of this is a dragon make it
scary
um I don't know it's just if you look in
nature most even scary things when
they're tiny are cute
even little tiny squids or anything
you're just like oh the little tiny
squares nice me and now it's but uh you
know we wanted people to have an
emotional attachment to her and
feel the bond that the commander feels
with the Dragon so yeah I mean you're
not you know what's the Abraham Lincoln
you can please
some of the people some of the time but
also yeah and not everybody's going to
like every not every player is going to
like every piece of content we've always
said that that's totally fine
yeah so we just shot for what we wanted
and we as far as I'm concerned like hit
it out of the park everybody did a
really great job and it's you know even
coming from a narrative perspective like
it's tough to like say oh this is her
character yet because she's so young and
undeveloped but you've just seen what
she looks like gives her character you
know scripting her eighth and the
animators doing making her do something
in an instance with you gives her
character and how it's all like coming
together in a really really nice way to
think that's true actually
big props to the animators I mean
there's one to bring everything to life
I just make a shell but this isn't it so
cute game
yeah her information has been incredible
I'd like to talk about that a little bit
just her set up a movement we talked
about her rig some there are a couple of
specific postures that I noted right
away as i was interacting with her and
the last couple story instances that she
featured in and though there were few
that stood up to me and I didn't know if
there were some maybe that I hadn't
caught or that i had missed right after
she hatched and you know everything was
under attack
she went into that defensive posture
where she had down a little bit hissing
tail up over her back and the one that
everybody has been freaking out over
when she's happy and she sits down and
does the little padding on the ground
whose idea where did these come from was
this kind of collaborative thing truck
because they're so much fun
yeah I think chuck was doing most of
that stuff
who if you haven't seen him and had him
on he's a large man with a burly beard I
had that nose cute
I know well I know you chuck
yeah we asked yeah we tried to we've
been trying to drag me in front of the
camera but but he's a he's a he's a
master of bringing that stuff out
because it apparently worked for the
poor thing he asked us what we wanted
and we just said we want a short little
animation sequence for her to do when
she's happy you're pleased and that was
pretty much all we told him he was like
okay he went off couple days later he
came back i have this what does this
look and everyone just melted and also
yeah and we should also give props to
the audio team to because we kind of
came with them with this at them with
the same request of like we need her to
sound like she's happy we need her to
sound like she said we need her to sound
like she's scared by the way she's not
going to talk and you need to make all
these sound effects of lately motion
yeah yeah yeah yeah and then I ran away
as quick as possible and then they
actually came back with stuff that I was
like oh she sounds sad and that's great
yeah the idea team we've talked to them
a lot before on the show the audio team
works miracles I don't do i go in there
and I talked to him I'm like yeah we had
this we had this old milk carton and a
really big rubber band or not
yeah we and we did the whole boss with
these two things and it's not like you
have a squeaky door so no III don't know
what I think they're casting spells
yeah once we heard because like when we
were developing Kevin's instance once
Aaron the other one of the other riders
and I like heard the sounds we were like
okay we have to do a little bit of
rewriting where she really like she
talks to you you know because it was
just like two great to like miss the
opportunity of her took like acknowledge
something that you're saying you know so
we're like we gotta put that in which
part was that
do you remember I don't remember it's
just like swear you don't you think our
rain and you know she like affirmative
Lee is like let's go here
yeah whatever but it just sounds yeah it
just sounds like you're like yeah she's
understanding this you i am i'm assuming
it's when you're trying to tell her
please don't eat the fish it's literally
from starving
doctor there's a lot of those back and
forth with Orion wasn't originally there
but then they like he was saying but I
put that in after they heard the really
great audio that they made yeah they do
incredible work so huge shout-out to the
audio time because everything they've
put out has just been so impressive
so um the attack posture i'm assuming
was the same came from Jackie just work
miracles
I need to happen as a cat because i'm
seeing I feel like maybe he went home
and looked at a pitch was like yeah this
is this is the thing that we need to do
so I want to talk a little bit about the
interactions inside the precocious or in
instances like hide-and-seek and some of
the training because you talked a little
bit i asked you last week about what did
you study what did you do to come up
with what kind of training and you
touched on it a little bit i wanted to
have you expand on that some ok how did
you decide what are we going to teacher
all right well like I'm i mentioned last
week i first went and looked at some
code of chivalry and prosciutto codes
and child development theories and what
I learned right off the bat was Bushido
is way more strict than I was ever
anticipating really
yes and it's very it's a little more on
unquestioning loyalty than i was when i
was expecting but what the two like
chivalry codes of chivalry should have a
lot in common in terms of in terms of
being being loyal and helping people who
are less fortunate than you then coming
to the defense of people who can't
defend themselves and and that's pretty
much what kind of got the ball rolling
for me and you take the you take the
really big points of helping those
who are in need and defending those who
are in need and that just kind of went
from there
that's such that such I don't want to
see it's like a weird mix it's just such
a different mix between chivalry child
development but somehow it it's for
teaching a baby dragon how to be a hero
yeah that was that was the other tricky
thing because now that you have these
points of all right these are kind of
the values and morals that we want to
get across then the child development
stuff came in and how it how do you
present this to a still-developing mind
that does not necessarily grasp these
big concepts innately and and that's
that's primarily why I kind of went down
the route of using the the exalted
holographic projection type imagery you
know so it was it was still playful
without there being an actual sense of
danger so the the the in this case will
the the child Orion was never really in
any danger
so she never really felt like her life
wasn't in threat and that allows them
that allows the child to pay more
attention or be more more impressionable
for lessons that you're trying to teach
means they're not worried about oh my
gosh we're gonna be hit by this car back
at any minute
this is true that if they aren't worried
about being hit by car more apt
to listen to your list right if it's
exactly this is a true thing now that
I've heard Kevin say that I'm really
glad we removed the how to make a pizza
haha that sounds super trivial on top of
what you're talking about
it's good yeah the pizza was a good call
yeah have the pizza making it simpler
because that sounds incredible and I'd
love to I would play that immobilizes
are in spinning pizzas on the world
crystals on her back out my commits it's
not me that's not know now is just
committed to data I need to see that
you're gonna love you go to check them
are probably somewhere going
no he's waiting her desk yeah what were
you gonna say i was for for those who
have gone back into the instance and
seeing the plane catch that yes it's a
it might not seem like a big deal
the surface but there's a really there's
a really big difference
psychologically between the idea of
playing catch with a child and playing
fetch with a pet and originally people
were saying play fetch play fetch and I
it was that was something that I really
tried to break because we're trying to
were trying to to present Orion as an
intelligent creature and one that you're
trying to guide and that kind of breaks
down if I'm playing fetch with my pet
dog you know it's in two completely
different mindset but playing catch with
a child is something that helps it in
that bonding process as well so that
that was a really big difference for me
anyway I was really adamant about that
being not fetch but that is a huge
difference that such it's such a tiny
little thing in one word and one change
to the game that you're playing with her
that makes all the difference in how
you're interacting with her decide know
too well you can't really strongly about
this
well it's another Chuck thing so that's
why I'm excited about this check is
awesome and doing the in the plane catch
where Orion throws the ball back and she
doesn't a little jump to the to throw
the ball back to that was something that
he did like unofficially on the side
went in his spare time because that he
we didn't have enough time to get all
the all of the animations that we wanted
and he was like but he said I feel so
strongly about this and I think it's so
cute that i'm just going to put this in
on my own time and you'll see you try to
get this to work yeah so let's check
yeah I hadn't noticed that she was I was
pretty far away when i first played
catch with her and I had noticed I was
like wait a minute she's like flattening
your head down and her wings are coming
out what's going on so I kept throwing
the ball and I'd like it a little closer
a little closer so calculus gonna get
we're gonna get a really good look at
this thing yeah so she's also going to
be scouted by a major league haha so
like it
oh yeah haha place and I gonna have to
fight with a letter to his head down to
see her butt and she's going to be
scouted well she's making pizzas well
that's like her road to you know like
she was just a lowly pizza maker in this
village and then she got brought up to
the big leagues
I'm pitching it's a fox next week's not
you are committing some weird stuff
today but stores i was very much okay
with it i actually had this moment as
you said that about episode 4 like it
what are you doing is you do know i was
mostly like dude that's all you i'm
looking at my notes and there's nothing
about this year because I'm covered but
I do i do like the storyline please let
me know how it works out yeah
do not look I will from the unemployment
line that's how you how that fanfic goes
in my head I just want to see her i'm
i'm really stuck on the idea of her
spinning pieces on either the crystals
are the wingtips I'm I'm just not
getting past how hilarious that would be
if nothing else comes out of this life
dragon ate so mama this our entire
living world took the weirdest left turn
today visited just went super strange
so we are i mentioned earlier we are
going to take questions at the end so if
you've got them put them in chat i want
to talk about a couple of extra things
that are maybe story definitely
precocious serene we are bringing her
gifts to put on her little pedestals
which is super fun by the way I love
filling those out and look at all the
cool things have got for her
how did you guys decide what to put in
there because it's all here stuff from
the outside world like Kevin do this
alright so it was a night it was an idea
that that right so Orion is pretty much
locked inside of this area
she can't leave because we're mean or no
no it's for her own protection you know
it's still protecting her and making
sure so she can't leave but we still
there are two things that kind of went
into this first you can't really build a
bond with some with someone when you
just spent 45 minutes with them one time
and then walk away alright see you later
oh I just you know you're right here
look at that doesn't really happen so we
want for christmas
see next Christmas so we wanted to make
sure that there were opportunities for
the player to go back and interact with
Orion repeatedly and additionally i was
the first motivation the second
motivation is she's in this
she's interior it's that is this the sum
total of her experience his career
yeah so if we want her to appreciate the
cultures of the world or the the the
races of the world and not see them its
food importance super important
that's what's on our beaches but then I
kind of wanted an opportunity to or to
piggyback on this wanting to bring the
player back okay well she if the player
is collecting cultural trinkets from the
major races and bringing them back and
like here let me expose you to the world
in in some fashion at least I mean as we
all know souvenirs are not the
experience of the world but it is an
experience of the world and much more
than what she has locked in Tahrir so
the player brings these cultural
souvenirs and was that artifacts brown
word up
springer some fridge magnets different
and by these these souvenirs we expose
her to various the cultures of the at
least some aspect of the cultures and so
honest I don't
growing up my parents used to tell me
that way to experience the culture is
through eating the culture so maybe
we're into something with whole piece of
things but it's not Papa we need to
bring her food from
it's going to be a myth she's just gonna
instance understood this and be like I
thought you might eat the corporate
culture
well that was going to be another thing
like that if you if you notice in the
helping the needy encounter at the very
end the your your quest contact gives
you some food back saying oh this is so
much food thank you very much here's
here's something for you
yeah there's extra food and that was
actually supposed to be kind of a
breadcrumb for a larger larger thing of
also getting food from around the world
and bringing that back to back to read
but really yeah that unfortunately
didn't get in is that way you make that
face yeah i don't know that i was like
oh gosh what did I just do the scope
face
oh that's cool face gotcha okay are you
okay do you need a moment there
okay that's that's the face when you
return from the magical land in your
head where everything is possible in
love and we have a management technology
infinite technology and literal magic
powers yes so alright is there anything
else about Orion the and her design and
creation that you guys want to pass on
really
oh I do have one more question about
precocious ordering that i forgot to
write down but her homesick i didn't set
that up
I don't care that much as i can do that
if I went to her hide-and-seek game at
the beginning was that just a way of
like said she's a little cute of getting
her wiggles out and so she can settle
down and be series
yeah that that ended up being kind of a
demonstration of her playfulness she's
still she's still a child and a way for
the two to show the commander gently
leading the child into school time as
opposed to just being demanding you play
with you play with her a little bit like
okay well no we played we played a
little bit i did something for you now
you can do something ok let's go and you
know we didn't want to
instantly be like I'm here where's my
death machine right get it you know he's
ease into that fair enough
yeah I kind of wondered about that
because I liked her playing around like
hey look i can be invisible find me by
you're like okay let's do this because
as a parent I've experienced that
yes ok we will we will play but we
really have stuff to do so let's play
for a little bit but really really got
to do this so that was that was kind of
a fun and familiar thing to see and I
was sort of hoping that's where that was
going like or am I missing an important
lesson here haha alright so we're going
to take a short break and I'll let you
guys ask some questions and we'll be
right back in a few minutes
thank you
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alright we have questions from Lady
Oriana why did you choose the name
Maureen doesn't mean anything special I
think primarily it was based on the
coloring that we are kind of landing on
because she has this green turquoise
green blue gold blue gold anything and
that's the there's like Orion glass
which is that's kind of the spectrum
that it runs well
ok so i think that was primarily it
right that was a good thing to land on
it it kind of works for her yeah how
about okay I'm gonna need somebody to
have written this down how long has the
idea of rnb been around get your
calendars yeah that's a specific date
I don't know it's upsetting because like
you know once we had Glenn's egg you
know there's always the notion that it
was going to pay off and hatch so when
was it like specifically like when we
were thinking or green
I guess it was just kind of the end of
hot when we are wrapping that up and
having those first conversations like
kind of when she in that general time
yeah that's it just you know that down
because these conversations go on for a
long time and there's a ton of planning
yeah in that timeframe that works um why
was the shadow rig not reused instead of
making a new raid was too old
uh no actually well the reason we didn't
necessarily have a dragon Rick which was
a whole separation of like dragons and
women's was mostly because the way that
we create creatures are separated
between creature rigs and prop creatures
or prop bosses and so the shutter is
actually a prop which can actually have
a lot more stuff on adversus a creature
which is controlled into specific
directory and specific rigs and so we it
turns out all our dragons were like
gigantic drives we didn't have any
smaller brands for the specific reason
we needed a small dragon so what we
wanted to reuse the Ray so right we made
a brand new array for
okay so something actually meant to be
small
yeah and also reusable yes ok this is an
excellent question can or even be made
into a ranger pet law not me I can't
take this no good going you guys do you
want that money or means well okay
yes you want that money or not we can't
do that i'm asking the wrong questions
here we can't do that i'm sorry
alright how about a question number six
other than being influenced by the
absorbed Elder Dragon magic is there
another reason why or rain looks cuter
as a hatchling than her older sibling
gleam did as a hatchling in guild wars
one
well as you mentioned the nature usually
happens that babies are cuter uh kinda
like a natural instinct that is booked
in the parents to protect this
defenseless child so you wanted to be
cute you if this fish is looking like
wow shows up you're probably gonna be
like let's get what we want to protect
that you're probably gonna think kill it
with fire
so it's true it's mostly because of the
character design past like if you look
at her just by itself
she's not pretty like let's be honest
she looks like yeah whatever but she's
not
we were talking about that really
aesthetically speaking she's not pretty
yeah I just got like magal to the room
in like gigantic like i don't recommend
headlines
yeah like she's still dangerous but her
demeanor like the the personality that
comes out is childish playful you know
nan vicious the thing so you need to
translate that I had a little bit and
endorse one claims model i believe that
was just a really scaled down version of
the adult model yes
so now we're talking about the
technology that we have a departmental
resources that we had at the time so now
we're actually able to put a little more
of an investment into yeah we have
better stuff deal
alright i believe that is our last
that's the last question we have so i
will tell you guys thank you very much
for spending some time and talking about
our new baby dragon in the game and
thank you guys for coming and watching
the show and make sure you follow us on
twitter and subscribe on youtube if
you're watching this later we will see
you on the next killed Chet have a good
weekend by thanks guys
sure
External links[edit]

Guild Chat episode 45, Baby Aurene on ArenaNet's official channel on YouTube
Guild Chat - Episode 45

Transcription[edit]

External links[edit]

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