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But what if your business model isn’t based on a subscription? What if your content-design motivations aren’t driven by the need to create mechanics that keep people playing as long as possible? When looking at content design for Guild Wars 2, we’ve tried to ask the question: What if the development of the game was based on…wait for it…fun?

If we chose fun as our main metric for tracking success, can we flip the core paradigm and make design decisions based on what we’d like to play as game players? Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience? Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to? It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun!

Access the entire blog here.

I have to say the WvWvW was fun and I wasted many hours in there over the last beta weekend.

Saying their business model isn't a subscription is being a tad disingenuous... they're relying on a ton of cash in the cash shop.

Girls just wanna have fun doesn't apply here.

While I am not sure this is the game for me, I am going to try it since no subscription fees are involved. I can take the $60 hit if is ends up disappointing me - - I have wasted more than that on a simple evening out. I just might enjoy it, then it will be nice to always have a go-to MMO as back-up.

Shayde wrote:
I played the entire weekend without being tempted to buy any of the items for sale on the item/service mall. It was being tested and giving out a ton of free "tokens" to use in it. It was all fluff and a 1 hour XP bonus potion. Pretty non-essential stuff.

Kazara wrote:
This is exactly how I feel. Its a fairly decent game but nothing Earth shattering like the fanboys have been screaming for years now. I played and enjoyed GW1 off and on for a few years and I think this will probably be the case here.

Temploiter wrote:
That's how it starts.