IGN Lets It Slide That Guild Wars 2 Is Going Free-To-Play

Someone at IGN seems to have accidentally published what appears to have been an exclusive. Earlier today, they posted an article saying that raids were headed to Guild Wars 2, along with the fact that Guild Wars 2's core game would be going completely free-to-play. Then, as soon as quick readers were able to grab a screencap of the resulting tweet, the article and associated launch video were gone. The original tweet is as follows.

A video had originally been included, which can be found here. In it, you can clearly see the link "GuildWars2.com/Play-For-Free" at the end, which is currently an inactive link that provides a 404 error.

I have so many questions about this. Is this why they were originally giving Heart of Thorns pre-purchases free access to the original game? The move originally resulted in quite a bit of backlash but, given the circumstances, it would make sense. How are those that bought the game originally going to be compensated? Will Heart of Thorns be next to go free-to-play if another expansion occurs? What limitations will be placed on free-to-play users? I suppose we will find out soon enough.