Surprise! A beta version of Guild Wars 2 for Mac OS X entered public beta today, for anyone who already owns the game to try out on their shiny white box. Delightfully, the beta version runs on the live servers, so Macateers can jump right into playing with their chums on William Gates' Windows.

"Keep in mind as you play the Mac Beta that it is a beta product. Performance and system requirements aren't finalized," ANet does warn in the announcement. "Review the beta hardware specification, and understand that your overall experience will be better when we release the final version."

ArenaNet's working with port specialist TransGaming on the Mac version, and plans to release all future updates for both Mac and Windows versions simultaneously. An awful lot of free content is planned, hoping to "make it so you get more from Gw2 for free than you get from a game you pay a subscription for."