Mike O’Brien on the Guild Wars 2 Beta

The other week we hosted our first Beta Weekend Event, when hundreds of thousands of players who pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 got their first chance to play the game. This was a huge milestone for ArenaNet; with no NDAs and no press embargoes, the beta version of Guild Wars 2 would have to stand on its own before the full force of the Internet.

I think it’s safe to say that the response was overwhelming in more ways than one. Firstly, the number of people who pre-purchased the game far exceeded our expectations, and we had to temporarily disable pre-purchases. In the end that wasn’t enough, and even with 48 worlds we didn’t have enough server capacity to meet the huge demand.

Fortunately, the vast majority of players were able to get into the game and experience Guild Wars 2 in all its glory. Seeing Tyria come alive, with players interacting with dynamic events or engaging in epic World vs. World battles, was an amazing experience. We’ve highlighted some of the great coverage coming out of the Beta Weekend in another blog post, but suffice it say that we were blown away by the reaction from the community. The positive feedback just strengthens our resolve to deliver the best game possible.

This was definitely a real beta, designed to find problems, gather player input, and learn what work still needs to be done before we ship the game. We’ve listened to your feedback and we’re making some important improvements to the game for the next Beta Weekend Event.

At the same time, we’re also working on server capacity to make sure that we’re prepared for the even greater flood of players who will participate in the next Beta. To that end, we’ve announced a Stress Test on Monday May 14th to test some changes we’ve implemented. This 7-hour test event, which runs from 11 AM to 6 PM PDT (-7 GMT) is open to all players who have pre-purchased Guild Wars 2. The good news is that we’re not wiping characters for this test; we’re using the same build that we used in the first Beta Weekend Event, so you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off. For more information about the Stress Test, log in to the Beta Forums. Please join us on May 14 if you can.

I want to thank each and every one of you for your support—every time you participate in our test events you help make the game better. We’ll see you in-game!

TH