Quote Originally Posted by blowfin View Post
I'm not so sure about that, remember this game has been in development for 3 years and GW2 was released only a year ago.

I mean if we're getting really picky, open world events were in XI too (e.g. Campaign battles). The only real difference with fates is they don't occur at an outpost and there's slightly more variety. The positions are still fixed though, just like campaign.
If I recall, they even said somewhere their entire design intent with FATEs was to be like XI but to allow open groups. In XI you would have tons of people camping a spawn point because they wanted to be the first to tag it so they would get credit for the kill and the rewards and such. They wanted to make the game less campy, so they made them open groups, if you are in the area, and you are contributing in a "meaningful" way (this needs some work, still, but you get the idea) then you get just as much credit as the person who "tagged" it first.

So I would agree and say their initial "inspiration" would be XI, and then likely drew ideas from other sources.