MMORPG recently got the chance to speak with Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer Eric Flannum in an interview that explains quite a bit about how Guild Wars 2 will differ from its predecessor. According to the interview, Guild Wars 2 will be structured more like an MMOG with less instancing and a persistent world. This differs from the first game that had more of a cooperative online game structure. Instancing still gets used in dungeons and personal quest chains, but it gets used a lot less than in the first game. Eric also briefly touches on the relationship between the races, the environments of the game, and what developers are doing to give it a more epic feel.

We use a lot less instancing than we have in the past. The game is structured much more like other MMOs, with the world consisting almost entirely of fully persistent areas. That being said, we have a number of different ways in which we use instancing. Dungeons, for example, are instanced areas designed for group play.

You can read the full interview here.