I’ve always admired ArenaNet for its willingness to gamble and it’s clear that the company is gambling with its future considering some of the changes mooted for the sequel to Guild Wars.

The biggest concern I have about Guild Wars 2 is the decision to change the instancing system. Currently, Guild Wars players only congregate in towns and outposts; once on a mission or quest, parties of players are placed in separate instances. As I said when I started playing, I like this approach since it minimises nonsense from obnoxious players.

This will change in GW2.

According to this Eurogamer interview with ArenaNet game desiger Ben Miller, there will still be instances in GW2 but most of the game will take place in persistent areas where players are free to interact with each other.

What ArenaNet imagines will happen: players rushing to the aid of a desperate party to heroically despatch a vicious dragon.

What will most likely happen is you’ll be in a life and death struggle with a vicious dragon when another player comes along and does this:

That’s the sort of thing that goes on in Guild Wars towns and outposts right now.

Still, I have full faith in ArenaNet. Its designers are ever willing to make changes and the changes are almost always for the better as far as the casual player is concerned.