Arena.Net's Colin Johanson has revealed (again) that the closed beta for Guild Wars 2 will likely kick off before the end of 2011.

According to an interview at NOWGamer.com, Johanson indicated that the open beta has a fluid start date that will be based on results of the closed beta. In its turn, the open beta's results will determine the final retail release date of the game.

Another interesting nugget from the interview comes when Johanson, talking about PvP, states that the team wants it to be "taken as seriously as any FPS online or RTS competitive game.’ We want to be number one." Johanson also threw out the possibility of some sort of competitive "expo" for PvP players.

Read the entire interview at the link above.

Thanks to Piasek for the tip!