NCsoft's biggest Western product launch in two years will have to do without two of its key executives. MMORPG.com is reporting that Jeff Strain, the co-founder of NCsoft's ArenaNet developer, has left the company. NCsoft's president of publishing David Reid has also left the organization but a spokesperson for NCsoft said Reid's departure was "an unrelated and separate event" from Strain's.

Strain helped to found ArenaNet in 2000 after working at Blizzard as the early lead programmer of World of Warcraft. ArenaNet was later bought by NCsoft and launched the highly successful Guild Wars series of fantasy online RPGs starting in 2005. In 2008 Strain was named the President of Product Development at the newly revamped NCsoft West.

The company plans to launch its next major MMO game Aion in late September. A spokesperson for NCsoft states that the departure of Strain "does not change our plans or negatively impact our upcoming launch of Aion." However many might be speculating over the fate of ArenaNet's long-in-development Guild Wars 2 which was announced over two years ago but which NCsoft has kept under a cone of silence since then.