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ArenaNet: Guild Wars 2 a 'reaction' to sluggish MMO design
Do you believe that the MMO genre has been stuck in a rut over the past few years? So does Christopher Lye, the global brand director for ArenaNet, who publicly denounced the post-World of Warcraft trend in the industry as stagnant. In an interview with Gamasutra, Lye stated that Guild Wars 2 is walking the walk when it comes to genuinely challenging the status quo in the industry. "Honestly, I think the problem is that there's been a lack of change in MMO design and that Guild Wars 2 is a reaction to that," he said. "People will call this risky, but we think it's riskier just to churn out the same MMO that everyone has played before." Lye pointed to Guild Wars 2's scaling dynamic event system and its action combat as examples of how ArenaNet is forging its own path. Observing that player consumption of content is "virtually insatiable," Lye said that the team has developed tools to allow it to implement changes and additions to dynamic events in hours, not weeks. Is this industry stagnation coming to an end? Lye says yes: "We're finally seeing a point where companies realize that they're not going to create the next great MMO by just copying what's come before."
