How does ArenaNet manage to deliver updates every two weeks? We ask Matt Wuerffel, Isaiah Cartwright and Daniel Dociu for their secrets.

No Magic Formulas

With ArenaNet now working as a number of smaller, more focused teams, I naturally became concerned about consistency. Part of that is ensuring that the Living World story threads together and makes a continual narrative, while the other is making sure everything fits as part of a cohesive game. It’s a challenge that Cartwright is definitely aware of.

“We definitely have different processes and oversight to try and help with that. We do reviews with all the different team members and try to really make sure it’s consistent between the different groups, and have built some of our own processes on how to communicate new ideas out to everybody.

“We realize we’re doing something new, something that other people haven’t pushed as much, and so we’re having to pioneer our own systems for building that stuff. How we handle problems, and how we communicate things back and forth between the teams. When you get seventeen-plus teams all in, there’s a lot of interesting communication flows. It’s the nitty-gritty of how we’re trying to improve: always looking at what we can do better, how we can complete faster, and how we communicate back and forth on all the different things that we’re doing.”

Dociu agreed. “It doesn’t come easy. We’re definitely pushing our limits, we’re working really hard. It is, hopefully, sustainable, that’s the question on everybody’s mind, and will hopefully pay off generously.”

Does it mean that, if it all works, ArenaNet will be writing the book on how to do 2-week updates? Although Cartwright would settle for “leading by example,” Dociu doesn’t believe that there are any magic recipes or formulas for success.

“I think very much, in like a creative writing class that teaches you how building a character is not just about highlighting their strengths and special abilities, but also their weaknesses and vulnerable side. I also think that it gives us more credibility as developers, if we admit that we do make mistakes and that we still have a lot to learn.

“Every now and again we drop the ball, or let one team go off on a tangent, and down the road we may need to keep a closer eye on what’s going on. It is definitely still a learning experience, and with every release we have a post-mortem recap on what went right and wrong, and all those lessons get processed and disseminated along the team, so we’re going to get better at it. But to assume that it’s already flawless and completely streamlined would be dishonest on our part.”

Returning to Tyria

Though much of what we discussed was focused at keeping existing players interested, there’s also a desire to bring former fans back into the game. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a subscription, so it’s easy for a returning player to patch up and experience the latest event. Even so, part of the difficulty is knowing what particular piece of content will encourage that player to return. For Wuerffel, having that two week cycle makes it more likely to find something that resonates. “We’re able to update systems, we’re able to release new parts of story, touch a lot of different areas of the game. “

“The more that we figure out how to do this and how to be efficient about it, the more it gives us time to have some of the teams, that aren’t living world teams on the four month cycle, to start gestating and thinking about brand new systems, or what we might do with a very long story arc, and slot that in as we go.”

Dociu concurs, adding that it’s definitely something the team is aiming for. “We still don’t have enough of a history to draw definitive conclusions, but it’s definitely what we hope for. At some point, once we go through multiple cycles, connecting the dots will result in a curve that we can extrapolate from and decide whether it’s worth it or not.

“We don’t do this for the sake of bragging rights. If it turns out that it doesn’t serve its purpose the way we’re hoping for, and the numbers don’t confirm it, we’ll regroup and reconsider.”

As we wrapped things up, I asked if there was anything that they could share about future updates. While the nature of the Living World story meant that the team was keeping its cards hidden for now, there are definitely some big moments to come.

But when I asked what piece of content surprised them the most by how popular it was, the team was unanimous.

“The Super Adventure Box!” 

Returning in the latest update, Cartwright shared what development was like. “As it started building, internally people were excited about it in different ways. It was very polarizing. People were like ‘ah, it’s not for me’ or ‘oh my gosh it’s the best thing ever.’ Any time we have anything polarizing it’s always a bit of a gamble how it’s going to be received in a more global way.”

I think we can safely say it turned out rather well.

Gareth “Gazimoff” Harmer, Senior Contributing Editor

Follow me on Twitter @Gazimoff