Guild Wars 2 Interview

ArenaNet's Daniel Dociu was on hand during last week's GDC, so Massively took the opportunity to ask the Guild Wars 2 senior art director a handful of questions about the upcoming MMORPG sequel.
In terms of the art and architecture, how do the two different worlds differ in terms of the design? It takes place far into the future from the first game -- what are a few main differences that you focused on in terms of design?

The fact that it takes place in the future is kind of a double-edged sword for us as a developer. On the one hand, it opens a lot of opportunities for us to depart from conventional fantasy, and do wilder, more imaginative things, which we always strive to do. But on the other hand, you need to keep the world somewhat familiar, and make sure you don't alienate your fanbase by their not being able to find any kind of point of reference in the new one. So there is this constant kind of balancing act between how much new stuff you want to introduce, and how much of the old vibe of the world you still want present.