Mike O'Brien overwhelmed by Guild Wars 2's first Beta Weekend Event

In the wake of Guild Wars 2's first Beta Weekend Event, ArenaNet president Mike O'Brien has stated that he was "blown away" by the reaction from the community.

In a post on the ArenaNet Blog, O'Brien said that the player response was "overwhelming in more ways than one", with "hundreds of thousands" having already purchased the game,

He explained that the number of people who pre-purchased the game "far exceeded [ArenaNet's] expectations" and, as a result, they were forced to temporarily disable pre-purchases in order to cope with the demand. Even with such measures in place and a total of 48 worlds available to players, O'Brien says that ArenaNet simply "didn’t have enough server capacity to meet the huge demand."

In response, O'Brien states that ArenaNet is working on server capacity to "make sure that [they are] prepared for the even greater flood of players who will participate in the next Beta". A seven-hour 'Stress Test' will be held on Monday May 14 from 6pm GMT. The test is open to all players who have pre-purchased Guild Wars 2.

Despite the debilitating demand, O'Brien states he was "blown away by the reaction from the community" and says that the positive feedback "just strengthens [ArenaNet's] resolve to deliver the best game possible".