With Guild Wars 2 chugging away at full speed and new content coming out each month, today’s announcement isn’t a huge surprise. Development for the original Guild Wars has officially come to an end and ArenaNet is switching over to an automated service. What this means for players is that there will be no new content save support for the automation (bug fixes, emergency fixes, and so on), but the gaming servers will remain available for players to revisit the old world of Tyria as long as they like.

"I want to make sure that players correctly understand our intentions behind these changes and the overall push for automation. As I've said, we want the game to be in a place where it's able to take care of itself. While we will not be producing new content, the Live Team will still be around to perform critical fixes for crashes or other serious issues. We want to support the players who made us successful by ensuring the game provides the best service possible without constant supervision and attention. Reducing the need for manual intervention makes it easier for us to keep Guild Wars running in the years to come. "

This also means that certain features will also be automated and no longer require GM intervention such as monthly tournaments rewards and weekend events. You can get a rundown of the planned changes on the Guild Wars website.

Source: Guild Wars Development and Automation