I’m beginning to wonder how Eric Flannum has enough hours in the day. JeuxVideo, a french gaming website, has just put up another interview with ArenaNet’s chief interview wrangler.
If you are French literate then check out the interview here, if you’re not then we have some of the key points translated in the forum thread here: Interview with Eric Flannum | JeuxVideo
“The personal experience of each character is tailored according to the history of the character but also choices made during his career. For example, a player may decide to save some NPC and go on a mission to free him while another may choose to let die. Depending on this choice, the NPC will be dead in the story of a player, and living in the history of the other. The purpose of a personal history is to give each player the feeling that the game reacts according to its own choice. If a character is afraid of spiders and another to be afraid of the opposite sex, the encounter with the villain of the Nightmare Court materializing your deepest fears will be different.
That being said, we are determined to let the player choose how to play Guild Wars 2. If a player does not follow the story and just want to participate in WVW or stroll through the world and see what happens there, then it is free to ignore history.”
