Guild Wars Fourth Anniversary Interviews

ArenaNet continues to promote Guild Wars’ fourth anniversary by fielding questions about the event in two new interviews.

First up is OMG RPG:

What is it that keeps people playing after four years?

I think what keeps people playing is a combination of things. Some continue to play new characters, exploring the hundreds of combinations in the Guild Wars dual profession system, tweaking their skill selections to make a character that really feels like their own. That sense of ownership can mean a lot. Others are still perfecting their first character, exploring unusual corners of the world and getting that (just right) look, or filling out their Hall of Monuments in anticipation of Guild Wars 2. There’s also a lot of great competition going on in monthly Hero and Guild versus Guild tournaments, and a community to hang out with, watch the action in Observer mode, and chat it up in some of the social hubs. Finally, it doesn’t hurt that after all this time, the graphics still look amazing. I really feel our artists and technical wizards knocked it out of the park and made Guild Wars a fantastic place to hang out. There’s just no downside to players sticking around or coming back to visit.

And the other is at Gamervision:

How is Guild Wars 2 development progressing?

Very well! We’re having a lot of fun putting this game together and we’re applying many of the things we learned from building Guild Wars. Everyone in the company is looking forward to unleashing all the info we have about Guild Wars 2 upon the world. Our company is in the very lucky position of being supported by a publisher that gives us the time and support we need to make AAA titles.

I’m a firm believer that great companies can’t make great games if they’re on tight schedules that don’t allow them to polish the little things that make a game great. Great companies can make amazing games when their schedules allow the staff to focus on all the little details that make a game shine. When you listen to people talk about the things they love about Guild Wars and the stuff that made their experience great, they almost always point to the little things that we added in the polish phase. NCsoft is giving us the time and support we need to make this the very best game we possibly can, and it’s going to show in the details—the little things players notice when playing through the game that make their experience stand out from everything else on the market.