Progression and Leveling in Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 designer Isaiah Cartwright took to the game's official blog for a refreshing editorial that outlines their plans to more-or-less remove the leveling curve that permeates virtually every other MMORPG on the market.
You know that point in other MMOs when, after playing for a few hours, you look down at your experience bar and wonder, (WTF? Has my experience bar even moved at all?) Nobody enjoys feeling like they haven't made any progress even though they've been playing their character all day. We hate it as much as you do; it drives us insane!

Our goal with Guild Wars 2 is to flatten out the leveling curve, keeping progression simple and straightforward. We expect everyone to make a reasonable amount of progression with each play session. It shouldn't take days of playing before you feel like you have made any progress, and you definitely shouldn't have to kill a bunch of creatures or do a bunch of repetitive tasks just to see what's over that next hill. We want our progression to keep up with your play style. If you're a causal gamer who plays for a few hours here and there, why should you feel like it's going to take you a decade to finish your character? If you're a hardcore player, why shouldn't you be able to blast through the game with skill and speed, trying to experience every last bit of content?

So how did we accomplish our goals, you ask? Good question! First off, we set the level cap for the game at 80, but we made the time between levels rather short. Instead of taking longer and longer to reach each level, it takes about the same time to go through each level. It's pretty simple; if we expect you to level up every few hours, then why shouldn't it be that way all through the game?