NCsoft 'very encouraged' by Guild Wars 2

Massively recently got to talk to David Reid, the newly appointed President of Publishing for NC West, about several key NCsoft matters. We took the opportunity to ask David about ArenaNet and Guild Wars, and in particular, what was happening with Guild Wars 2.

Massively: Something we know the Guild Wars players are very interested in, is with Jeff Strain now moving into his new position within the company, what does that say for ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2, which is obviously a product that ArenaNet's been working on for some time? Guild Wars players are... well, they're dying for you to let them know what's going on with that game. Is this a good sign or a bad sign for the company, and what should this say to Guild Wars players who are looking forward to the sequel with more than bated breath?

David Reid: First thing: I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that we, too, have an enormous amount of enthusiasm for Guild Wars 2! And we're very encouraged by what we're seeing.

David Reid: We are not yet ready to make any really big announcements about that, but we will, and when we do, you guys are among the top of the list of people that we'll be in touch with. Because we know your audience is right there at the top of the people who are just rabidly waiting to get news. So as a publishing guy, that is very exciting to me, to have something like that in our portfolio.

Now, specifically to the changes there: as you guys probably know, Jeff Strain and Patrick Wyatt (who, as part of the NCsoft West announcement, we announced as taking on the chief technical officer role) and Michael O'Brien were the co-founders there, and came together from Blizzard to build the Guild Wars franchise and found ArenaNet.

And in reality, Michael O'Brien has been the Executive Producer on Guild Wars 2 for quite some time in addition to having been formally named the ArenaNet studio head, with Jeff's transition. And of course, Mike was the guy who was the executive producer on the first Guild Wars as well.

So, people should look at this as: number one, the Guild Wars franchise is in incredibly capable hands; and two, that we at NCsoft realized that there was more talent at the ArenaNet studio at large than we wanted just working on Guild Wars. And I don't say that because I think Guild Wars is anything other than a spectacular franchise for us that is going to be amazing when we get... it's great today, and it's just getting better.

But it is an acknowledgement that there's a lot of talent there that could help with the rest of the NCsoft portfolio, and Jeff and Pat's transitions in particular are a big part of that.


Read what David had to say on Tabula Rasa and on the recent changes within NCsoft.