Guild Wars 2 Interview

Forbes is offering a new interview with Guild Wars 2 lead producer Chris Whiteside, which focuses on subjects such as fan feedback, accessibility, having a definite release date and more. Here’s an excerpt:

Has there been anything that surprised you through these recent betas that you’ve had to fine-tune based on feedback from players?

Some of the most surprising and interesting things are that the players, the communities, really have an exceptional understanding of some of the deeper areas of the game.like understanding the difference between difficulty and pacing, which is really complex. We got feedback on that and it really showed the relationship that they have with the game we’re making. I think that difficulty, which has obviously been in the news recently, is an interesting one. It’s very subjective. We’ve put systems in place now that caters for multiple audiences, including the more hardcore player who likes it more difficult. We also allow the player that wants to experience the game more at his own pace without being at 150 mph at all times. We have such a good relationship with the community, we already had a massive pool of players that were playing the game that we got feedback from before the beta weekends.

What’s it like to finally have a release date in sight?

Scary. The thing is there’s no arrogance here. One of the great things about relying on your community is that it’s less about Metacritic and that kind of industry pressure, and it’s more about the good pressure that’s put on us by our community. We don’t want to let the community down. It’s like we’re super excited about what we’re doing. We haven’t tried to over hype the game in any way. People have an opinion of the game and that’s fantastic. We just want to make sure that we exceed those expectations, and that we really put something special into the hands of the community and the people who are going to play the game. That continued support will allow us to sustain equally high, or even higher, quality moving forward. We’re nervous, but in a good way, about the launch. And we can’t wait to play with everyone once the gates open and the world is born, essentially, into digital space.