It’s been a full decade of life over at ArenaNet. I can still remember anticipating their first offering, and getting way more excited than World of Warcraft (I did not like Everquest). I still remember seeing some of their first screenshots with the horrible-crafted trolls. I can still remember posting my first suggestion on the only Guild Wars forum at the time (I think it was The Guild Hall, but I can’t remember). I wanted to be able to have grizzled trophies of foes I had slain in my own guild hall. I suggested that if a guild kills 500 goblins, they could get a goblin head mounted by the fireplace. Sadly, it never made it in the game.
More importantly, ArenaNet is sharing their memories in this amazing video. I think with how Guild Wars 2 is shaping up, they will definitely have ten more.
What are your first memories of Guild Wars and ArenaNet?
–Ravious
I remember F&F/beta testing Guild Wars and slipping into the un-instanced world devoid of mobs… just vast expanses to explore.
I remember the first time Gaile Gray began appearing in-game to promote helpfulness among the testers and helping stage events. I remember the Frog just being a bit of eye-candy beneath a shrub and the testers that began talking/worshiping it… and the day it began to talk back!
I remember testing the game on an old Pentium 2 system with dial-up connection speed… in PUGs, no one knew I was on a slower system. The game was so efficient even way back then!
I remember the great forums, the Guilds that started creating reputation across the servers, and all the updates since the release date.
Oh how to single out a small amount of memories :D
Unfortunately i didnt start playing during beta testing… i only started at Oct 2005
i must say i miss my 55hp monk :P the days when you could farm Griffons in the desert, Ettins in Ascalon Settlement… Underworld Duo 55/SS when Superior Absorption was 100k for some reason :) That 1st wintersday wonderland.
Meeting people online which i am RL friends with to this day… the friendly people on GW willing to help…
Happy 10 years Anet… may we say happy 20 years with GW2 being a major success!
I logged in on a low level mesmer tonight after reading this blog post and seeing the video. Within two minutes a complete stranger handed me a high-end mesmer staff. Things like that have happened to me several times over the years. What a game and what a community!
I remember buying Guild Wars when it launched and raving about it for a month. Best game ever, did everything so much better than every other MMO, this was how games should be etc etc.
After six weeks I was done with it. Mrs Bhagpuss played for another month and completed all the content I hadn’t. By then I was back in Everquest, where she rejoined me and we didn’t revisit Guild Wars until the GW2 hype re-kindled a nostalgic interest last year.
I still think that had the whole game been set in the “Pre-Searing” world I’d have played for months, not weeks.
Great point! It was a truly masterful move to take pre-searing away and drop you in this brown wasteland – from a story perspective! Not so much from the “hey, you’re new to this game, have 10 hours of bleak, hopeless gameplay!” perspective. :)
I got into Guidwars late, because I had a Mac for many years. I’ve played on and off for more than three years now, but most of that time I was playing Random Arena, Guild vs Guild, or other games. I only really started making my way through the campaign after the HoM update, and I’ve actually been enjoying it quite a bit. ANet has really crafted an amazing world and a really unique narrative experience for an online RPG.
But really, Guildwars has never been like other online RPGs, which is both a blessing and a curse. If you’re looking for something truly different, it’s a huge breath of fresh air. But if you just want a big open world to run around in like you get in other MMOs, it doesn’t really scratch the itch.
Guild Wars was the first MMO I really played; I bought Anarchy and FF XI before it, but even getting either of those to the point of actually playing is beyond the endurance of a newbie.
Consequently it’s not the earliest memories of playing GW that have stuck with me, it’s the memories of starting every subsequent MMO and – almost without exception – thinking:
“Why isn’t this as good as Guild Wars? And they expect me to pay £96 a year for this?!”
^_^