Jeff Strain leaves NCSoft

Well, that's one way to look at it...

another way was the NCSoft was going to make GW2 one of their flagships, and wanted Jeff higher on board (hence the promotion).

I find it hard to believe that he just left behind GW2 with no thought or involvement....

Thats a good point, hopefully he will post something or say something about it.

It's hard to accept that Jeff did not have any strings tied to GW2 once he was promoted to NCSoft....

I have no idea how one comes to the conlusion he had no involvement whatsoever with GW2 in light of the fact that he co-founded ANet to create Guild Wars. Please explain the logic behind this reasoning.

True, we are outsiders to the internal workings of the company, and are thus ignorant without express information, but that assertion seems absurd.

Logic, what is logic?....No your right, he may have had something to do with Gw2, But who knows.

I think you are very confused on what happened to Richard Garriot:

http://www.underdevelopmentlaw.com/2...4-million.html

"Many of you probably wonder what my plans are, now that I have achieved the lifelong dream of going to space. Well, that unforgettable experience has sparked some new interests that I would like to devote my time and resources to. As such, I am leaving NCsoft to pursue those interests." - Richard Garriot

Even though Richard admits he left voluntarily, when someone told him he could have earned another estimated $10 million in 2011~ if he was "fired", he tried to take NCSoft to court to try and get them to "admit" he was fired. NCSoft is clearly in the right on this one. You can't say one thing (I left voluntarily) and then once you find out you can earn $10 million by saying something else (I was fired!), go ahead and do it. That's just wrong.

This is very bad news indeed, and to me indicates that there must be some major conflict between ArenaNet and NCSoft over GW2 (maybe NCSoft are trying to force them to release it before they want to?). It is a very bad sign for someone that high up to leave at this point in GW2's development.

Good statement, i couldn't agree more with you.

Not to mention, leaving a company a month before Aion release.

I think what people are missing here is this just doesn't happen very often. You do whatever it takes to keep someone in Jeff's position a month before a major release.


That tells me something is very, very wrong.

Kuntz, that situation is debatable and I'm not confused. You are just taking the NCSoft side is all. (Way to derail the thread Inde.) The courts, of course, will be who decides but Richard claims firmly that he was forced to leave. Hence why they "let him go amicably" while he was still in space. Who calls up their boss while in Russia/space to quit? Not to mention that the "leaving" statement was a blurb written by their marketing department.

Regardless, it will all play out as it will. And no debate or opinion on either side will affect the outcome. It's just a lot that NCSoft has in the terms of baggage right now. This certainly doesn't help.

I don't understand how people are still optamistic about GW2...

Let's just look at the facts here:

It was announced two years ago, and to this day there has been virtually NO information released about it, save for a few excerpts from an interview.

GW1 support and development has deteriorated drastically, with the excuse that "all our attention is being put toward GW2".

Now one of the original founders and developers of Guild Wars has left NC-Soft

How many more hints do people need? Obviously both Anet and GW2 are in serious trouble, and at this point it's looking very unlikely that GW2 will never be released.

I don't feel like this will have that big an effect on GW2 if anything, as far as quality of the game goes. I do think that this could slow down the production of the game quite a bit though, and we can be in for an even longer wait. Which is fine, things take time and shit happens. Unfortunately all we can do at the moment is assume what the reasons and repercussions of this are, but i reeeaalllly hope things still work over well with the GW2 team and more importantly arenanet itself.

Lol you say it like it's 100% true.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!

This is a bad day for ArenaNet, Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2.

I just read his How to Create a Successful MMO speech from 2007 (link:http://www.guildwars.com/events/trad...7/gcspeech.php)

Maybe his view of NCsoft has drastically changed.

I completely agree with you.

Fact: Guild Wars only accounts for 3% of NCSoft profit. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/guild...ml?sid=6209476

Fact: One of the original founders of Guild Wars just left NCSoft.

Fact: We've had no official news on GW2 in 2 years.


This does NOT look good, and I'm a Guild Wars fanboy.

I'm not really taking anyone's side, I'm just looking at it logically. Even if Rick was fired, he made his choice/mistake by publicly telling people he left on his own accord. He shouldn't have done that (if he really was fired). And based on how shatty Tabula Rasa was, I wouldn't be surprised if he was fired. That game was awful.

I think Mike O'Brien will probably come out with another "Letter to our fans". However, what can they say really? All you are going to get is "Don't worry, this doesn't affect GW2".

This is so true and you just don't let an extremely talented guy like Jeff Strain just walk away. As far as we kow Jeff Strain has been an extremely positive resource for NCsoft and Arenanet. Noone is impressed with NCsoft upper management and getting rid of a guy like Jeff Strain just creates more speculation on how bad things are at NCsoft right now.

They need to do better than that...

That GW2 trailer better be real.