Last year, the re-named ArenaNet was acquired by NCsoft. This April, Guild Wars was officially revealed, immediately sparking tremendous interest on our part. In this "mission-based competitive online role playing game", characters will be persistent, and will be able to gain many abilities and items. Gameplay options will include cooperative group adventures that can also be tackled solo or with AI-controlled henchmen, team-based PvP battles and guild clashes, all emphasizing player skill over sheer accumulated playing time. The underlying technology will stream updates to gamers then they're logged in, and in North America at least, there will be no monthly subscription fee. Last Friday, at a session held in conjunction with this past weekend's open preview, I received the chance not only for some hands-on play, but also to discuss various aspects of the project with Jeff Strain and others.