GuildWars2Hub interviews ArenaNet's President Mike O'Brien.

There are few people at ArenaNet I haven't interviewed, with Mike O'Brien having eluded me for quite some time. Thankfully, I managed to sit down with him (alongside some colleagues from Massively and MMORPG) for 30 minutes, to discuss his latest blog post. Here's how we got on.

GuildWars2Hub interviews ArenaNet's Lead Writer Bobby Stein.

Lewis B: There’s a huge push at the moment at ArenaNet to produce said content quickly, to guarantee something new for the player base every month. A large amount of this obviously involves the writing teams. How are you finding this challenge? Have you had to drastically change the way in which you work?

Bobby Stein: We’ve had to adapt to an entirely new production process to write stories for the live game, which has required us to approach each release’s narrative needs very differently. 

While it may appear to some that we're tying up simple short stories every month, there is a larger narrative that we're building toward. We’re about to make some larger reveals that will put the previous events into context. In my opinion, the best moments in our game are when our characters are tied to compelling gameplay and beautiful art, so that’s what we’re striving for.

We've had to rethink our methods of story delivery post-ship. We no longer rely on the two-shot cinematic conversations to impart plot. Instead, we try to involve characters in the action to tell the story as it plays out. The Living World allows us to take some chances and do new things with the Guild Wars 2 story, so you can expect some surprises in the coming months.