Source: ArenaNet Blog
ArenaNet has vastly improved upon it's characters in cinematic discussions. Their guestures and lip-sync have been completely refined making characters more unique and a lot more realistic - human even!
"After some prototyping and experimenting, we decided to use a layered approach to the cinematic-conversation animation system, utilizing motion capture, hand-keyed animation, additive animation, and very robust lip-synching software." - Chunk Jackman
Catch up on exactly how this is all done in their latest blog entry! http://bit.ly/vJrtA1