From Arenanet’s latest Press Release:

ArenaNet suspended first-party sales and retail replenishment on August 30—just two days after the game’s retail release—to catch up with record demand and to ensure that players who bought the game would continue to have the best online experience possible. Despite the suspension of first-party sales and retail replenishment, Guild Wars 2 grabbed the number one position in the All Formats charts across 10 European markets— the first PC game in the UK to have accomplished this in nearly two years.

Since suspending sales, ArenaNet and NCsoft have substantially expanded the game’s capacity by deploying new servers in both North America and Europe, and by nearly doubling the number of customer support agents. Game systems that have been under extremely heavy demand, such as the Trading Post, have been bolstered and prepared for the continued influx of players.

“Preserving the customer experience has always been our top priority,” said Mike O’Brien, president and cofounder of ArenaNet. “We’re supporting Guild Wars 2 for the long run. We’ll always do what it takes to deliver the best online gaming experience for our customers, even when that means throttling sales.”

To celebrate the reopening of sales, ArenaNet has released the Our Time Is Now video. The video was directed by James McTeigue, known for his work on the Matrix Trilogy and V for Vendetta. Our Time Is Now captures the revolutionary spirit of Guild Wars 2 and puts forth a call-to-arms for gamers everywhere.

There is now an ongoing Ask Me Anything on Reddit right now. Jump in and participate and find out what has already been asked. Stay tuned for when the AMA ends and we’ll have a final tally of the whole Q&A for your reading pleasure.

Hi, everyone.
This is Mike O’Brien, and I’m the President of ArenaNet. We’re working on a game called Guild Wars 2. We have a Beta Weekend Event coming up this week from June 8 – 10, and I’d like to take this opportunity to answer your questions about the game and the upcoming beta event.
I’ll also be joined by ArenaNet designers and developers and we’ll be here to answer as many of your questions as we can in the next three hours.
Here’s who will be participating (and our sigs):
Mike O’Brien – President/Founder – MO
Chris Whiteside – Lead Producer – Chris
Mike Zadorojny‎‎ – Content Designer – z
Mike Ferguson – WvW Designer – Ferg
Peter Giuntoli – Programmer – Peter
Jon Peters – Systems Designer – Jon
Isaiah Cartwright – Lead Systems Designer – Izzy
So without further ado, AMA!
~ Mike O’Brien

Today Mike O’Brien, president of ArenaNet, wrote a blog giving us our first glimpse to what kind of Microtransactions we’ll see in Guild Wars 2.

We think players should have the opportunity to spend money on items that provide visual distinction and offer more ways to express themselves. They should also be able to spend money on account services and on time-saving convenience items. But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who spend time.

One other interesting phrase we saw was Mike O’Brien likening their system to EVE’s; where you can buy in game currency with “gems” or GW2′s pay-for currency.

MMO veterans will note the similarities of our system to EVE Online’s PLEX system. As in that case, our system takes gold trading out of the hands of real-money trading (RMT) companies and puts it directly in the hands of players.

Stay tuned after this weekend’s beta test as they will begin showing what the store will look.

Check out more beta footage, this time from one of GW2′s dungeons.

To celebrate the successful press beta weekend for Guild Wars 2, the nice folks at ArenaNet gathered us all together in the main courtyard of Divinity’s Reach and killed us over and over again.

Just a warning, the video’s audio is a little rough.

Kotaku also has a full preview article titled, “10 Things I learned from Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend”

Combat in Guild Wars 2 retains the same simple elegance as the original game, a welcome in a genre that tends to lean towards complicated mechanics involving multiple rows of confusing icons. Here your weapons determine the first five abilities in your single toolbar and skills and traits determine the final five. There’s no need to rearrange your toolbar every time you switch weapon sets; those pre-defined skills populate automatically, leaving the player free to ponder which tools to use rather than how to use them.

The MMORPG genre is growing faster now than ever before. From Everquest to World of Warcraft, Warcraft to Age of Conan, and in 2011 we saw two major titles released in Rift and Star Wars: The Old Republic. With the clock beginning to tick in 2012, there are multiple AAA titles scheduled to be released, but nothing grabs our attention more than Guild Wars 2. With the massive success of it’s predecessor, our expectations are sky high.

Last year we got our hands on the game at PAX Prime, and all we can say is that our expectations aren’t high enough!

To give a little background on the series, in Guild Wars 1 the only time you had to spend money was buying the box. It proved that there is a way to make a quality game, enjoyed by millions, and not require a subscription to sustain a high quality experience. On top of that, ArenaNet did a fantastic job of creating a beautiful world, with a unique art style that still looks great to this day. These are the two major features that both Guild Wars 1 and 2 share but beyond the story and lore, everything else has changed; changed for the better.

Guild Wars 1 did not have an open, persistent world. Players met in instances cities or towns where they could form groups, sell and trade goods and hire NPC mercenaries before setting off to do quests in individually created instances. Guild War 1 was also limited to the fact that you could not jump. Detractors of the game often complained that you had to walk around the smallest drop in terrain and much of the game was hidden behind invisible walls and closed off maps.

For those that weren’t Guild Wars 1 fans, they often assume that Guild Wars 2 is going to be exactly the same, but they can’t be farther from the truth. Guild Wars 2 will bring to you everything you would expect from a modern AAA title. GW2 has full modern control schemes, including jumping and swimming, along with a wide open and beautifully crafted world that is not only persistent, it’s dynamic. At PAX Prime we were shown the Charr starting area where the world appeared to be alive and doing things regardless if we participated or watched. You really got a sense that you were part of the environment rather than playing through the environment.

Let’s take a moment to explain the difference between being “part of the environment” vs. “playing through the environment”. Most modern MMORPGs have you playing through a series of scripted events or quests to progress your character, this is often referred to as a “theme park”. This is what we mean by “playing through the environment”; the world is there for you to consume in a certain scripted series of events or plot-lines and often does not leave you with choice. In Guild Wars 2, this is not the case: the player becomes “part of the environment”.

When we say you are “part of the environment” we mean that as the player you are not the main focus of the events going on around you. Yes, Guild Wars 2 has individual story lines for each character, but that is just a small part of the world around you. When you step out of the starter area you are immediately placed in a world where things are happening. You see friendly NPCs rushing to different points of interest and defending them from incoming enemies. You can see the world around you physically change as these events shift back and forth. When we say you are “part of the environment”, we mean that you are either the hero or the voyeur, the assistant or fighter; these events continue whether you do something or not.

The great part of these events is that you can change the outcome. You can choose to be the hero and complete local objectives to turn the tide of the events going around you, or you can run by and ignore them; it’s up to you.

In our opinion, if you are “playing through the environment”, the environment becomes a tool or a means to an end. When you are “part of the environment”, it alters your perception of the world around you and it becomes something bigger. You are now living in this world, and you become part of it. This is what Guild Wars 2 is bringing to the table.

Guild Wars 2 has taken the dynamic elements of Warhammer’s Public Quests and the spontaneity and open world dynamic content of RIFT and created a world around that design philosophy. From our experience with the hands-on demo, Guild Wars 2 is primed to become something special.

Guild Wars 2 Junkies is going to help you bring this experience in the months to come. Beta is just around the corner and release is coming this year. Stay tuned to our website as we share our experiences from PAX Prime and PAX East where we’ll talk about classes (hopefully the Mesmer is demoed at PAX!), weapons, skills, pvp and more.

Welcome to Guild Wars 2 Junkies!

GuildWars2 Junkies is a fan site dedicated to the MMORPG, you guess it, Guild Wars 2 by Arenanet. This site has been created with the intent to support the GW2 community as a whole. In doing so we hope to provide up-to-date coverage about anything going on with the game; this will include News, Media, Community Updates, Opinionated Blogs, Guides, and other events such as contests and polls. Additionally we have created our own forum that we invite everyone to discuss anything about Guild Wars 2. This may include theory crafting, strategies, debating news topics and, or lore.

GuildWars2 Junkies was created by two partners, Teljair and Draegan. Both have been successful at creating fansites in the past such as WAAAGHHammer.com and AOCmmo.com. The most successful of all has been the all purpose MMORPG Media site, Rerollz.com. With the success of FORCE Junkies and Rift Junkies, Jason and Ryan have expanded their vision to bring to you Guild Wars 2 Junkies.

Welcome to Guild Wars 2 Junkies.

Contact Us
If you wish to contact GW2 Junkies please send all emails to either [email protected] or [email protected] and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Eric Flannum, Lead Game Designer for Guild Wars 2, gives us an end of the year update:

Hey, there! It’s time for another update on some of the new things we’ve been working on. Jon and I have a lot to talk about this time, so I’ll get started with our achievement system before I hand things over to Mr. Peters, who’ll talk about some more subtle combat refinements as well as recent changes to the thief.

We’ve spoken about and even shown achievements briefly in the past; however, we’ve never really spoken in much depth about the system.

The first thing you’ll need to know is that there are now three different types of achievements located in your achievement panel. First, there is what we refer to as just “achievements.” You’re probably familiar with these: they tend to be similar to the achievements in the original Guild Wars and many other games, which means they tend toward things that are difficult or time consuming to achieve. These types of achievements are designed to reward long-term progress and are all account based. They include things like the Centaur Slayer achievement, which tracks how many centaurs you’ve killed, as well as achievements specific to each of the different story arcs. Achievements encompass all aspects of the game from WvW to PvE to PvP, and even noncombat activities, such as trading and leisure games. Each achievement is divided into tiers, and every tier you complete awards you with achievement points. As your achievement points accumulate, they are reflected in your account’s achievement score. This score is easily viewable in both the friends and guild panels and is an easy way for you to compare your overall level of achievement progress with your friends and guild mates.

Follow the link above for the full update.