Guild Wars 2: "When It's Done"

Speculation ran wild last week when NC Soft's financial data showed Guild Wars 2 with a "To Be Announced" release date rather than giving a more specific date. Many had anticipated a 2009 release and rumors began flying that GW2 might not be released until 2010 or even 2011. ArenaNet's Mike O'Brien is setting the record straight. Find out the real word on the subject below:

To our fans,

There have been some published rumors over the past few days about Guild Wars 2 delays, and I'm writing you today to set the record straight.

You've all seen announcements about restructuring at NCsoft West, and it's natural to wonder whether that restructuring impacts ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 development. In fact, the reason NCsoft West is restructuring itself is so that the company can put all of its focus into its top-tier games like Guild Wars 2. Our team continues to grow, and has the strong support and financial backing we need to achieve our goal of making Guild Wars 2 the best online role-playing game ever created.

On Friday, NCsoft released investor materials that showed a very broad release window for Guild Wars 2, with the explanation that release timing is still "to be announced." ArenaNet has never given a release date for Guild Wars 2 other than "when it's done." NCsoft's investor materials are a reflection of that philosophy.

I know some fans had hoped for a smaller gap between the launch of Guild Wars: Eye of the North and the start of beta testing for Guild Wars 2, but we communicated last summer that it would be some time before we could commit to any beta or launch dates. Guild Wars 2 is a large and ambitious game, and we're going to take the time to do it right.

I'm immensely proud of what our team has accomplished and continues to accomplish with the development of Guild Wars 2. We'll have a lot more to say when we're closer to release. Until then, we thank you for your continued interest and ask you to stay tuned.

Mike O'Brien

So...there you have it. Thoughts?

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I've been looking forward to this game for a while. I understand that they want to do it right, but if they take too long, then they may lose a lot of their fanbase. If the GW1 players get totally bored with GW, then they may not want to buy GW2.

Maybe and maybe not. Given that most of the founders of ArenaNet came from "we'll put the game out when it's finished" Blizzard Entertainment, this is no surprise at all. Look how many people are clamoring for both Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 YEARS after the original games came out. ;)

It'll pan out to be a nice game. How nice is anyone's guess at this time. They way NC rushed other games out the door in the past few years, its no surprise that they would want to focus on launching fully operational games from here on out.

I just hope I can jump around like a buffoon in this one ;)