We interview ArenaNet president Mike O'Brien about Guild War 2's first year.

With this power of being able to constantly update the game, MMORPG asked Mike if the Living World is going to be a replacement for expansions, specifically adding new zones to the game.

"First, I hope we have been clear to the players that we are really focused on the Living World and not on expansions right now. We think there is so much that we can do through the Living World and, in terms of adding new zones, we have already done that through the Living World. We added dungeons including the endless dungeon Fractals of the Mist and we added Ascended gear. I know that was a controversial thing, but that was a major new type of advancement that we thought the game needed. We didn't wait for an expansion, but added that through the Living World.

So my general answer is yes because we will and have already done a lot of that. I guess the thing I will say is that Guild Wars 2 is a big game and I don't think players should judge the Living World by whether there is more and more landmass being added to the world. I don't think players should judge an expansion this way either. So while we have done it and added Southsun Cove, I don't think that is the focus or distinguishing mark of what makes great new content. I think the distinguishing mark of what makes great new content is that there things to do in the world that are new and challenging and that bring players together to learn new skills and defeat bigger and badder challenges than they ever defeated before. That's what we are focused on, but absolutely we are going to do that and you have been seeing us do that through the Living World."

With this focus on releasing good content every two weeks, some players may have felt they are falling behind the curve. GuildWars2Hub asked Mike specifically about this, asking why they are putting the pressure on themselves to keep this release schedule when players have a lot of content to do outside of the Living World releases?

"It's kind of funny, right? We come out with these updates and you'll see a lot of players consuming and loving the updates and looking forward to the next update. Then you see some players saying 'ArenaNet slow down. I have this and that to do in the game and you are giving me even more content!' It is just a bit funny to step back and think, when was the last time you heard MMO players saying they had too much to do in their game?

The philosophy is we came out with a game that is not about continual vertical progression and gearing up for one raid after the next. Our game is about going out into the world and taking on challenges together. We even have the inverse motivation against having that continual gear grind as it would separate players so they wouldn't be able to do these things together. If there is a dragon attacking in the open world, with a vertical progression would it end up being too easy for some people and too hard for others?

Our big focus then is to give people more horizontal progression, different things to accomplish and rewards from accomplishing those things. So when we think about the kind of things we can do to update Guild Wars 2, the more traditional way would be to lay out more runway for players. You would have players at a certain level and tier of loot and you see that players are running out of things to do so you lay out more runway: more gear progression, more raids, more grind. This works for some games and for some players, but I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to put another carrot in front of me.

Then from a game standpoint, I don't think the runway approach is good for the game. I will recognize and concede that some games have done and had very long lifetimes doing that. But what does that leave behind? Does that leave behind populated content with players wanting to do that content with you and the whole world feeling alive, or does it leave the new shiny that everyone is focused on and husks of what people were focused on years ago and are not really focused on anymore? We didn't want Guild Wars 2 to be about that. Especially if you look at our goal, to make Guild Wars 2 a truly living world then ask yourselves these questions.

Why did we get rid of quests? We got rid of quests because it forced the world to not change. Every new player that comes into the game has to do the same quests in the same order. How do you try to do that and have the sense that a player's actions can change the world? Sure my actions can change the world to a certain degree, but not in the sense of ever changing a quest or the circumstances that are causing a quest-giver to say they need your help. So we thought that the kind of content that you release into the world needs to be the opposite of that. It can't be something that when players run out of things to do we give them more challenges that they need to grind out to do and that add another 100 hours to the game. It just doesn't work. If you want to be able to have players impacting the world around them, not just progressing and leaving the old stuff behind, then all of your content needs to be about impacting the world."

This answer Continued -->