"So right now we're not really looking at expansions as an option," lead content designer Mike Zadorojny told me on his visit to London last week.
"It's something that's on the table but it's not something we're focused on, because what we want to do is - our idea here is that with Living World, we can do what expansions would have done but do it on a more regular basis."
I pressed him to tell me whether there would be a Guild Wars 2 expansion this year and he shook his head to indicate no. What about next year, I asked?
"If we do this right," he answered, "we will probably never do an expansion and everything will be going into this Living World strategy."
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But what about making money? Guild Wars 1 survived on paid expansions, editions, add-ons, whatever you want to call them - are we to believe that the boxed sales of Guild Wars 2 and micro-transactions are enough to sustain such a large operation?
"Yes," responded Zadorojny. "It absolutely is enough."
ArenaNet won't stoop to selling unfair pay-to-win Gem Store (real-money store) items either, he assured me.