Question: When you set down to evolve an established MMO, is this part of an overall design plan, or are you reacting to the way the players are evolving within the game itself?

Matt: “The whole process is part of one and part of the other. When you release a game, there were many things that had to be cut in order to get the game out. Once the MMO is out and becomes successful you want to get those ideas back into the game, but of course the end-user never knew of those ideas in the first place and they might see a different direction for the game. You can either implement an unused idea that the players might find really cool, or you can look to the player-base as to the direction for the game to evolve. A good designer will take a mixture of both.”