I was wondering how my post got on the home page. I thought I goof'd somehow when posting. XD

When I first read this letter, I thought it was from 2010 because the link I jumped to didn't have the date posted. After browsing around a bit more I was able to hunt down the date it was posted. I was more than a little shocked.

Wouldn't it be nice if the Anet team confirmed a release date on the two year anniversary of this letter? I think...I think I'd shed a tear of happiness.

I thank you for the hope of a new letter.
The information really lightened my day :)

Interesting find Aaarica, both bitter and sweet :) On first read I hadn't spotted the date, thinking it recent. I still assume that the 'delay' in release is because as the developers progressed they just kept adding to the game, hence its magnificence :)

I know that i have always counseled patience, and still do, however it is time for some clarity, for Arenanet to at least say "definitely not before July" or something of that ilk. We can then relax and look forward to news releases rather than be a pack of rabid dogs tearing every morsel apart looking for clues :)

Speculating is fun though, within limits :)

I've never seen this.

It was posted almost 2 years ago. I couldn't help but to *facepalm*.

Anyway, other than the facepalm I don't have any other reaction. It's just the same stuff over and over for three years.

I think sometime this year we will get an "It's almost ready.", then we'll have to wait six to nine months for beta or a release date. As well as more lore articles instead of profession reveals.

Nice find!

It's not healthy to wait for this game as if it is going to be released tomorrow. I think the biggest and only mistake they did was announce the game too soon. My logic tells me if they were on this years gamescom, it should be out untill the next gamescom but I don't believe it works that way.

Off Topic: I love the quick reply boxes, here. They don't actually lag Firefox to a state beyond usability, in fact, they're very zippy. Well done, whomever is responsible for maintaining this forum!

On Topic: Hmmm...

The interesting thing is that Guild Wars 2 is a standard, isn't it? There's a lot of hype, and they're doing things so differently that I can wait for the release, it doesn't have to be tomorrow, and really, I'm so happy that it exists. I can wait for them to do a good job with it, because whilst we wait, we're watching. And by we I mean not only us MMORPG players, but MMORPG developers as well. It's something of a hallmark, if you ask me.

There are so many things I could pick up on - the personal storyline, the gigantic cities that feel like cities, the beautiful art style, the dynamic events, the story-based nature of the whole game, how everything is voice-acted to aid with accessibility for those who're short sighted (no more painfully long quest dialogues for most content, if not all), and so on... but it goes beyond that, they're doing things across the board that just make me smile. They're even doing things that I approve of on a very, very personal level.

If I may speak frankly for a moment?

I've nothing against oversexualising - but don't you find it gets dull? Men without shirts, women with holes in their armour, and so on, we've been doing that for years. We did that with Barbarian for the ZX Spectrum (yep, I'm old enough to remember the advertising for that), and we've done it with so many things since. We're still doing it today. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, because love is still superior to violence in my opinion, but it gets a little bit boring. I'd like to see the odd fully armoured, believable combatant.

Enter the Charr.

There is very little sexual dimorphism between them, it's subtle and enough to tell Charr women from men at a glance, but it's not overdone. I feel that these days, too much attention is given to thunder thighs and havok-enabled boobs rather than the face of a person. But with the Charr, a lot of it is in the face. So if someone wants to play a race that does something differently to what gaming has been doing since the 80's, then we can play Charr. And that's refreshing on so many levels. It's refreshing because it's new and barely anyone ever does it. Sex sells, so usually people go with sex, and this even means sexing up the beast races (see: Worgen and Tauren), but just this once it's nice to have one option that differs. Something new to play!

Again, another thing about Guild Wars 2 is that usually a human race or a human-like race (dwarves/gnomes) are responsible for pushing all technological enhancement in the world. But in Guild Wars 2 you actually have a split of things, and this fascinates me, it really does. You have some people that hate it, and think that certain races shouldn't be allowed to excel past the others in their given fields, but I don't understand that. And I'm hoping this sets a precedent for the capability of various cultures and races in future games.

Humans: Artists, diplomats, aristocrats, politicians.
Norn: Tale-tellers, warrior heroes, explorers.
Asura: Insane quantum magicks proprietors, mad inventors, colleges.
Charr: Hard Sciences, physics, biology, ballistics, tactics.
Sylvari: Hive mind/genetic memory, empathy, logic, horticulture.

And each has their own culture, too...

Humans: Renaissance Italy, and all that that implies.
Norn: Celtic warrior heroes, mixed with a little Viking, and a dash of Native American thrown in.
Asura: Mesoamerican, with a dash of nerd/college culture thrown in.
Charr: Equal parts of Mongol and Roman society, with dashes of hardnosed dieselpunk.
Sylvari: ???

I admit, I don't know enough about the Sylvari to say, yet.

But all of this is new! No MMORPG has yet gone to this degree of providing culture and a place in the world for each of their races. Sometimes, the races just feel tacked on. I could give so many examples of games where the 'lore' is absolutely horrible, and doesn't even begin to have the depths of what ArenaNet has cooked up here. And usually you have 'dominant' races, where the others are just subservient to them, you see this in World of Warcraft, for example, with Humans and Orcs being the dominant races, and everyone else being subservient. But in Guild Wars 2 you have equality, dignity, and pride.

I can wait for Guild Wars 2, because whilst we're waiting and watching, we're also learning of what an MMORPG can be, given the chance.