Jeff Strain leaves NCSoft

that is one of the most assuring, calming posts from a CR ever (seriously, not kidding)

that's the kind of work we like to see, that can calm people and quash rumors. Keeping the lines of communication goes a long ways here

now......xth, second content update.......

What she said.

- Quoted for truth.

Mike o'brien is so awesome!! ^_____________^

It is exactly word for word what pretty much anyone would expect him to write.

But it contains the same amount of content and information that they have provided in the past.

So we wait.

But I still believe there is more to this story. If there are troubles in paradise he certainly wasn't going to put it in his little note to us.

Damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

I know it's asking a lot, but can you comment on the reason why Jeff Strain left NC-Soft Regina?

Anet, no other company but Team Shanghai Alice excites me like you guys do.
This is great news!

Nice to know it's being released soon.

This too!!!!!!!

Yun your right on

That was a really nice message.

Ugh, im so sick of the "its so soon now" and "you'll like what you see."

You lost my blind devotion after the mess of the north.

You lost my expectations after nothing happened in 2008, despite plans of a beta, a new site, screenshots, trailers, etc....

ON TOPIC: It's clear Strain stopped being directly involved awhile ago, and supposedly soon we'll see if it was for better or worse.

Inde, I love your post

To all the people QQing about gw2:
You're going to buy it in the end. No matter what you say now. And anet knows it
Also, it will come. Games take years. A simple Rom Hack of Chrono Trigger took 5 years that a whole community worked on. And the new Kid Icarus for the wii has nothing but Concept Art. And the new Luigi's Mansion has NO concept art yet. Nor' the new Michael Jackson game. Imagine a game with the quality and standards of GW though. To be even better than the original Guild Wars, should take waaaaaay longer. But Anet is fast to deliver games!

To me, it looks like Anet is doing very good. It was all a problem of announcing too early.

Finally, some good news. Thank you for that Anet. At least we have SOME reassurance. I'm excited about GW2 all over again.

He's such a quitter isn't he?

Okay.

Now we REALLY need someone to talk to us.

Lack of GW2 info is a bit more understandable, but that coupled with Strain leaving is just WAY too much.

@Below: Whoops, missed Regina's post. Well that comforts me a lot more.

Awesome news!! Thanks for the info!

Last year at the ANet Party at PAX Jeff mentioned to me that he was not very involved in the day to day operations of ArenaNet anymore, and he did seem to have a lot on his plate with NCSoft. I would not be surprised if he just found the publisher side (what NCSoft does) to not suit him as well as the developer side (what ArenaNet does). Since Mike is/was leading ArenaNet, it would be kind of hard for Jeff to step back into a role with them without the situation being somewhat awkward for all concerned.

As far as GW2 development, the folks I know at ArenaNet have been been 10 times busier in the past year than I ever saw them while working on GW. ArenaNet feels badly about GW2 being behind schedule so everyone there has been busting their butt to get things going. How it turns out only time will tell, but I feel very confident that it is not vaporware and that it will be much more polished than AoC or WAR were at release.

This is indeed a most shocking news! can Jeff not return to ArenaNet?

On the other hand, a great game developer is out on their own and this might be a good thing if he decides to create yet another even more interesting and fun mmorpg!

Please do not rush GW2, let it out only when its ready!

BTW, Mr Jeff, Many luck in your future undertakings! Have a wonderful life where ever you are, thanks for creating Guild Wars! Most fun game, I've ever play!

well this could mean alot of bad things or could mean nothgn bad at alll

My thought..

Peoples come and goes in job situation. Who knows the real reasons why he left the company? Could be finical reason, difference of opinions, personal, or better job opportunity out there.

Either way, the company (A-Net) is still around so I guess nothing bad will turn out because of this. I'm being optimistic and hope that GW2 will eventually come out.

Good luck Jeff and hope you find somewhere that suit you.

GW2, day AFTER pax, simply to screw with us...
On topic... I find it highly interesting, and wonder why he left...

GW was never a Blizzard trademark - they developed it after they left (although they likely had the idea beforehand). IP tends to be the last thing a dying publisher is willing to let go (costs nothing to hold even if they don't DO anything with it, and if someone else does something with it that might be competition further down the track - no company wants to be beaten by IP that they sold), so I don't see this happening any time soon.

That means it's still a subsidiary - it is possible that ANet could rig an employee buyout if it comes to that, as long as the GW IP is assigned to ANet and not NCSoft proper. It's probably still better for all concerned than NCSoft dissolving ANet entirely.

Still worrying, though.

You say that as if it that's a hard standard to beat...

Hey you make a pretty good point. Although when you have a talented guy like Jeff Strain, it's inevitable that you will eventually move up from being on the technical aspect to more of a management role. Still, kind of sad to see him go, but best of luck to him.

If he was never much involved with the development of GW2, it may not be such a loss towards GW2 to have lost him, but with him being a fairly influential part in the making of GW, I wonder how different the goal of GW2 will be at start-up in comparison to GW.

All these negative comments... you can tell me I'm being overly optimistic, but this sin't the first time in the history of gaming that a game has been in development for almost three years without a scrap of info, and then info been released, then the game. It happens a lot. I know. I've waited for lots and lots of games. I have no proof, but I think that GW2 is being made, and although you may scoff now, I'll be proven right in a bit.

How soon we forget the horrendous waits for Diablo 2 (delayed for at least a year, over a year waiting for patch 1.09-1.10, etc.) Compared to some of the crap Blizzard pulled with that title, the GW2 situation is still looking pretty good.

Thanks for the insight Billiard, it didn't even occur to me the awkwardness if Jeff returned to ArenaNet.

Maybe Jeff is just the kind of person who has to change things up every once and awhile. I hope this site keeps track of his future endeavors, even though it's a Guild Wars site.

Hahahaha, this is a sign that GW2 is in significant development trouble. Whether that be with the design or financially, this is pretty worrying. Now not only do ArenaNet have tons of annoyed "fans" who have been waiting for almost 3 years for info, but they're more worried than ever about the game's future.

Time to put up or forget about retaining a community.

I think I may of misjudged the role NCWest had with ArenaNet.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10328104


I'm actually excited again, with rumors of a GW2 trailer being shown at Gamescom in Germany, and then PAX coming right after....

I think we'll be getting some news soon. Maybe Jeff left now so as not to "ruin" the good news?

You know this won't happen.

That article said "Jeff Strain will be working at NC West to manage all NC West development studios across all existing and future products and he will also direct the production of NCsoft’s Asian-developed titles for NC West territories".

Aion does the exact opposite of basically everything he said in his famous How to build a great MMO speech (except regarding bugs/quality issues), so maybe he got fed up they weren't taking his advice, and left.

So, can Mike O'Brien now rehire Jeff Strain into ArenaNet or will NCsoft not allow it?

Ty Regina, great way to kill the rumors .

The reason that proof of resources expended on development isn't persuasive is that the famous vaporware cases were generally also developed. Vaporware generally results when a company sinks some money into development, realizes that it will take too much more expenditure into the project to justify to the prospective returns, and decides to cut its losses.

All we can do is update our prior beliefs about the final product based upon the dribbles of new information we get. The simultaneous departure of multiple key figures is a very bad sign, and you cannot spin that away.

The ball is in ANet's court now. If they have a good product in development, they can show it to us and counter the bad press. If they don't, the only reasonable explanations are that they choose not to do so because they don't have the product at a stage of development where it is ready to show, or that the product is just plain bad.

Also, ANet's in a tough strategic bind. They're competing for the same market with two heavy hitters (Blizzard and Bioware) that have long, proven track records of success, huge budgets and major marketing muscle. It's very unlikely that either will release a bomb, which means that there are only two ways to beat them: hit the market first, or blow their games out of the water. The disparity in resources makes the second resolution unlikely.

Given that, it's plausible that NCSoft might pull the plug on the project despite the sunk outlay. If they were ocnvinced that the game was years off and that one or both heavy hitters will beat them to market, it would be smart to cut and run now. This is why the cries of "vaporware" have traction.

The speculation will swirl until we have a visible product and a "come hell or high water" deadline with upper management's reputation staked on that deadline. Until that happens, there's good reason for such speculation.

EDIT: The wiki post is encouraging. We now have someone's reputation staked on providing a demo in the near future. Just be sure to take it for what it is: confirmation that we'll see something soon. If what we see is sufficiently advanced, we can then rest assured that we will see release.

Oh my! Although very soon could still be a year away...this sure sets things a-tingling.

I remember Jeff Strain for joking about ArenaNet not being supposed to be turned into the "GW Company"; which it still is three years later.

I also remember him passionately railing against Grind-MMOs and user unfriendly payment schemes. Yet he ended up in charge of bringing Aoin to the West.

But he is not dead, and if he needs to quit his job as "president" to finally do what we wants, then that tells more than 1.000.000 denials.

Best of luck to Jeff Strain, I know I'll buy his next game whatever it may be. It'll be worth its money that much will be sure.

Thanks a lot Regina

I wish Jeff Strain all best in what every he attempts in the future.
As for GW2, I am waiting with baited breath and high hopes.

Good post, my thoughts exactly. Also, as other have mentioned, Jeff can not have been happy with having to manage Aion, a game that goes directly against some of the design principles that he always stood for.

Whilst I thought it was needed for Arenanet to speak out and assuage the fears of the existing GW playerbase (thus the intended core GW2 playerbase) , again the way they handled this was laughable, the CRM pops into the forum and says "hey check out the post from Mike on the wiki" and scarpers off before anyone can ask her a question.

Since her appointment just what has Regina done? besides dodge,hide and give out the company standard "bear with us, can't say much at present, things will turn up in time" ppl had some issues with Gaile but tbh she was by far a more community driven CRM and actually seemed to know what was going on, maybe Regina needs to hibernate less on realise her job is Community Relations so relating to the community would be a good idea, she isn't supposed to be the corporate hat wearing carebear that she appears to be, other people are employed to do that.

Back on track, good of Mike to say something, but again it is pretty much the standard reply "bear with us, can't say much at present, things will turn up in time" (maybe that is the new company motto)

At present all I get is the "Duke Nukem Forever" vibe about "GW2" and we all know how that ended.

she also openly admitted that she was wrong and that the beta WOULDN'T happen and appologised for the bad info