What's Going on?
O.K. anyone think something strange is taking place at Anet? Good Luck and Have Fun! For those of you who have not heard yet, I will be moving to a new role at ArenaNet. When I first heard about Gaile’s decision to step away from CR, I started thinking about my career and my future. You could say I found myself at a sort of crossroads where I could either continue on my current path of serving on the community relations team moving towards GW2, or explore new possibilities. It has always been a dream of mine to be involved in game development. I have been a gamer since I was old enough to sit up, and ever since getting horribly addicted to the StarCraft map editor when I was a teenager, I have always been particularly interested in the development side of the industry. While community relations is a very enjoyable job (most of the time, heh) it does not really teach the skills and knowledge necessary to move into the development role I am interested in. I spoke with Jeff Strain about my long-term goals and he told me what pretty much anyone in the industry will tell you—the best place to learn the skills and gain the knowledge needed to move into game development is the QA team. Their hands-on interaction with the pre-release game, the dev team, and the overall development process gives members of the QA team invaluable insight that directly correlates to a number of other jobs in the industry. Jeff also felt my knowledge of the game and the community would be valuable tools that would allow me to contribute a lot to the QA team. So, I’ve accepted a position on the team and will be moving there next week. Deciding to make this change was not an easy thing to do, but taking all things into consideration, I feel it is the right decision. I am getting married this summer and, as many people do while staring down life as a family man, I have started thinking a lot about my future. Getting more directly involved with the development team now will open many doors for my career down the road. Not only that, but the irregular hours that go along with community relations have prevented me from spending as much time with my fiancé as she or I would like. With Gaile moving to a new position, I would likely have even less free time to spend with my soon-to-be wife. I truly enjoyed serving on the Guild Wars Community Relations Team but for both my family life and my career, I feel now is a good time to move on to new things. I will still be playing practically every day like I do now, so if you ever need a guest for GvG or HA, give me a shout! Also, I will continue to handle ATS prize distribution through the conclusion of the Anniversary MAT in April. Good Luck and Have Fun! --Andrew Patrick 17:29, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

What is the QA Team by the way?

Questions and answers i guess. I recon that what goes on internally can hardly change the game to worse in any way. This was bound to happen some point along the road. I guess Gaile and Andrew freaked out by the thought of having to answer noob question all day long throughout gw2 history as well :P

rumours are ... its someone we know already its someone some of us know from other games its a girl its a boy its a panda... ;)

I hear its a human

.... thats the point of rumours ;) but its a girl from another game that some knew... so.... game over

Thank god, even if he has played competitively for so long I don't think he has any ability to run it properly.

I read that wiki thing she posted about herself and she sounded kinda noobish tbh. Or PvP noobish atleast the way she talked about working on her warrior or something.

yeah twig i wasnt impressed with her either. :roll:

they are always pvp noobish... remember.. PVE players > PVP players its the way of the world....

QA team = Quality Assurance team. They are the inside "beta -*test*-('")ers". They are the ones that play the alpha of the game when they try out the basics. From that point on, they play the game, give feedback and start over again. Usually about 20-30 people, which means they really focus -*test*-('")ing, which means they dont cover a lot of ground, which is why most MMOs use open beta's to both stress -*test*-('") and find bugs that the QA team missed. but anyway, no i dont find it strange. Everyone needs change, in my eyes CR = boring!