I was more than a little mad at myself when I realized I missed the Guild Wars 2 signup window. ArenaNet had only made it available for 48 hours and, though I knew about it well in advance, I neglected to get myself into the pool. I feel a bit better about things now. I just found out that more than one million players signed up for the beta over those two days. That’s 4,000 interested players every minute. That’s a lot of people.

Granted, beta sign-ups are free, so its a bit dubious to compare the numbers to something like, oh, SWTOR. Still, I can’t help but wonder what would bring about that kind of feeding frenzy. I’ve dipped into various SWTOR communities here and there over the past couple months and found a lot of discontented players. Players are already bored with the game, a situation I find totally unsurprising given the careful cloning process that spawned that familiar beast.

If anything, I think we can definitely say that gamers are on the prowl for the next big game, and they have yet to find it. A million PC gamers rallying around anything in 48 hours is a big deal. The fact that they’re looking at the one MMO that really promises to do things differently tells me that players are bored, tired of the MMOs they’ve been playing for the last decade. I’m right there with them. I’m ready to be plucked from the clutches of weeknight boredom and shown a compelling game experience. I certainly hope ArenaNet can deliver.

Damn you ArenaNet. Why must you suck back in to the Guild Wars 2 news circuit? Why must you entice me to watch your manifesto again? Why am I yelling “yes!” after every point you make. Stop making me care about this game. At least I can’t be disappointed if I don’t care.

I do care, though, and you should too. Beta signups just opened for Guild Wars 2. You can bet this thing won’t be out until late Q3, early Q4, so there will probably be other chances. All the same, it doesn’t cost anything to sign up – you just have to submit your system specs.

The release of information about NCSoft’s Guild Wars 2 could best be described as a slow trickle. Way back in March of 2007, ArenaNet got everyone pumped up with predictions of a late 2008 beta, which would likely mean a 2009 launch. Well, here we are today and we have neither of those things. There is a light on the distant horizon though, as NCSoft CEO Jaeho Lee recently told investors. We should see at least a closed beta for Guild Wars 2 in 2010, with a public release in 2011.

As Lee put it, “I believe there will be certain public events in the year 2010… at least a closed beta test for those titles. Commercialisation will be expected, at this point, probably some time in the year 2011.” When he says “those titles” he’s lumping in Blade and Soul, the martial arts MMO NCSoft also has in development. I see it as great news for both titles. The Guild Wars announcement is long overdue, but Blade and Soul sounds promising. Besides, who can say no to a little beta time?

Source: Massively