Guild Wars 2, the next highly-anticipated MMO is set to launch next Tuesday, but players who pre-purchased the game will get access starting Saturday, August 25. Since nearly everyone who is looking forward to Guild Wars 2 has pre-purchased a copy, that means the action really begins tomorrow.

“Five years ago we set out to develop a game that finally fulfilled the promise of online worlds,” said Mike O’Brien, president and co-founder of ArenaNet. “We questioned everything that had previously been taken for granted and we never settled for ‘good enough.’ Now, we’re finally ready to introduce Guild Wars 2 to gamers who are looking for the next evolution in online gaming.”

ArenaNet is highlighting several features that it hopes will set Guild Wars 2 apart from other MMOs. It states that dynamic world events and personal stories will customize a play experience for each character created. The “action-oriented combat” of Guild Wars 2 is promoted as an enhancement to normal MMO player-versus-player (PVP) interactions. In addition to normal PVP, the game will feature a world-versus-world experience that pits entire servers against each other in two-week-long wars.

“Guild Wars 2 is launching at a time when players are looking for something different in an MMO: a game that offers them an innovative and unique experience without a monthly subscription,” said O’Brien. “Guild Wars 2 is that game, and we believe it will fundamentally change the way people think about online RPGs.”

O’Brien is confident that Guild Wars 2 will be a success, and that confidence might be justified. Launching as a free-to-play MMO means Guild Wars 2 was designed with that business plan in mind. Where other recent MMOs have had to adapt to the changing MMO market and experiment with half-breed subscription/free-to-play plans, the clear free-to-play vision of Guild Wars 2 should make it a strong contender in what is becoming a highly competitive MMO gaming market.