As a group that looks to play a variety of games together, I thought you'd all be interested in the following news:
ArenaNet and NCSoft have confirmed that Guild Wars 2 will go into beta and also see release in 2012. This isn't unexpected news of course; Guild Wars 2 has been in development since at least 2006, and a 6 year release window is a reasonable time frame for a well developed and polished MMO.
Guild Wars 2 promises (or alleges) to change up the MMO formula, doing away with such staples as grinding, the Holy Trinity and stale PvP at end game. Of course ArenaNet is no stranger to these claims; Guild Wars is probably one of the most revolutionary titles in the MMO genre, and steered clear of many of the mechanics that bog down titles like World of Warcraft and Star Wars The Old Republic.
As per our agenda, we'll be starting to ramp up our efforts to penetrate the Guild Wars community in the next few months. If - and it's a big if - Star Wars The Old Republic doesn't hold our interest, we'll look to other games to pass the time: one of these games may well be Guild Wars. Even if Star Wars does tide us over, it may be worth picking up Guild Wars as well as the three expansion sets; as a Buy to Play title, there is no monthly fee and it gives us something else to get our teeth into as a guild!
