Over the last year, Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet has been dedicated to its ambitious Living World philosophy. Aiming to create constant new challenges and dynamic events for players, the team has released major content patches around themed story events at an incredible two-week cadence. Throughout the year, over two dozen beautifully executed events took place that changed aspects of the MMO permanently, culminating in the utter destruction of a beloved city.

Where it all began

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“ We underestimated the volume of speculation that would happen.

Less Patch Notes Means More Fun

IGN recently had the opportunity to speak with Guild Wars 2 game director Colin Johanson about what ArenaNet learned from the development cycle and how player speculation has driven the Living World’s success.The Living World began in July 2013 and took players through the treacherous rise and glorious fall of Scarlet Briar.With Season One, there was a clear path ArenaNet wanted to take with the story, but it left some wiggle room to adjust to player feedback. "We're trying to do something here that you don't see in the video game genre very often," Johanson said.Telling stories through events and having a world that really feels like it's constantly changing makes player decisions matter. In an era where many games stick to only what works, this is how Guild Wars 2 is different.As the team sees what players respond to, it’s able to change designs and adapt to what players find appealing. Not only does this bode well for the community, but it also helps encourage even more speculation."I think the capacity is there for us to really take advantage of that in this medium, and do more twists that are unexpected," Johanson said."We underestimated the volume of speculation that would happen," he explained. And it turns out, sometimes players get it right. A Reddit user predicted Lion's Arch would be destroyed back in January, and he was absolutely correct. "It was really interesting for us to see that, and to be able to point back at him and say, "Hey man, you nailed it!" and to be able to call that out was really cool."It also showed the team that they could play with even deeper and more hidden plot twists. It pushed them to put things in the story that drove speculation, and this ended up changing some development philosophies.Rather than spelling out all the features of a new patch for example, ArenaNet started going in another direction. They let players discover dramatic in-game changes organically.One of the best examples was during the Halloween Tower of Nightmares event. ArenaNet secretly snuck a giant shimmering barrier around a huge lake in the Kessex Hills map that eventually led to the discovery a gigantic veiled tower. Aside from some NPCs pointing to it, there was nothing mentioned about it to players. "We just threw it in and waited to see what would happen," Johanson recalls. "It was the first real chance for us to do something huge, put it in-game, and not put it in the patch notes."

See How Guild Wars 2 Handled Halloween Expertly

Within a few hours of the patch's release, tons of people were flocking to the map and the forums started blowing up with theories. Ultimately the barrier led to a story that would evolve over the next month, but players were initially drawn in by the mysterious events surrounding the barrier."That really was the moment where we were like, "Yes!" that player speculation thing, this is what it's all about. This is the coolest part of Living World," said Johanson.

Head to page 2 to see how the team felt about destroying Lion's Arch, and the new community-driven direction future of Guild Wars 2.