What attracted you to Guild Wars?

It had everything the last game i played didnt.

except for ingame gm, auction house, less lag, etc...

I saw some ad on Gamespy, saw it was free, was interested. It combined some RP-style playing with some MTG-style... and... well, that was new to me, and I liked it, as I like RP as well as MTG. And I liked the graphics.
I was really hooked from World Preview Event 2004 onwards. Exploring, seeing all the nice stuff... the views. It was fascinating.

I hate to admit this, but I actually got Guild Wars free from PCGamer in one of their giveaways. I got it a week after my son was born, so I couldn't play it much, but I really enjoyed it. (especially pre-searing, which I keep going back to, even now!) Of course, I bought Factions and Nightfall, and am planning to buy GW:EN and GW2.

I often wonder if I ever would have gotten into Guild Wars, if not for that mysterious package arriving on my doorstep... (or, what if PCGamer sent me another game, like The Matrix, instead!)

The last preview weekend before Prophecies launched. It was my first taste of GW, our whole gaming clan was on comms, and we were loving it.

HEard it on the internet -_-.

Started with Sonic, that loveable little dude when he was still 2D and giving me difficulty at my young age I think I was 6/7 -_-.

Went to Zelda

Lots of games latter into MMO's and bought GW. Although Gw cant compete with Tales of___ in my opinion.

I was playing Diablo 2 at the time and on the forums for it there was a lot of talk about it. People debated whether Guild Wars or World of Warcraft would be the better game, especially since some of the Blizzard team left to form Anet. The idea of no monthly fee appealed to my tight wad mentallity so I chose it over World of Warcraft and never looked back.

Friends had it, said it was good, and I thought the art on the box was cool, so I decided why the hell not.

2 weeks later with a level 14 necro in Kryta and I gave up.

3 months later I started playing again, and that's where I am today (about 9 months later)

The no-monthly fee was the biggest attraction.

Jeremy Soule doing the score was what interested me next.

And finally, some of my favorite gaming experiences had been with traditional competitive online games that offered Capture the Flag and similar styles, like the Jedi Knight series, Quake, Unreal, SW:Battlefront, Voyager; and since I'd been an avid single player RPG'er for over two decades, Guild Wars seemed to be a hybrid of the two genres, yet in an accessible MMO format, which I'd yet to dive into.

PvP ended up not being as accessible or fun as I'd hoped, but the PvE side of things turned out to be very cool. I'm looking foward to GW2.

The word "free", and no I'm not talking about the lack of monthly fees. I'm talking about an advertisement I saw for the Guild Wars E3 For Everyone open alpha event which was almost 3 years ago. It was free so I thought why not. I got hooked within the first 10 minutes and played it as much as I could throughout that event. It was nice completing it back then. Shame they removed skill gems and the Town of Khylo.

Used to be member in RuneScape, paying $5 every month. After playing it for one and a half year I got everything I wanted and decided to quit.
I was looking for a new MMORPG to play, but couldn't find anything that really attracted me. Though, one of my best friends I used to know from RuneScape, who quit a few weeks/months before me, told me about Guild Wars. He let me play on his account, and I really liked it.
The graphics and music was a very good first impression, and also the not over-crowded player areas was good. Also loved the instanced areas, the many skills you could play with and the battle system.
And of course the no monthly fee was nice extra, although I don't mind paying a bit for a game I like.
A few days later, after playing on my friend's account, I bought my own Guild Wars game.=D

I read Penny Arcade regularly, and back in October 2004 I saw them mention that this "Guild Wars" game was cool and there was an open beta weekend coming up where everyone could play. I hadn't ever heard of it before, so I visited gamespot and found some screenshots and thought the game looked really cool, thought I'd give it a try since I had nothing to do that weekend, and got hooked.

I had played other MMO games and I hated how you had to play forever and ever to get past the noob levels and there were always a band of tools running around in each area, ruining whatever anyone else was trying to do, and you had to pay $10-15 a month to put up with that. Once I saw that this game was fun and there was no kill-stealing, spawn-camping, item-ganking, and ending up dead was a minor inconvenience with no permanent penalties, I was shocked. I also discovered that I wouldn't need to play 60 hours a week to get to a high level, and that I could still have fun playing the game even when none of my friends were signed on and there was nobody to group with, and I wouldn't have to delete my character and start over if I made a mistake in their attribute distribution or skill selection. Shocked again! And I wouldn't need the newest awesomest computer to play. Gasp! It was like somebody had made a game designed to be fun all the time for all of the players! The game is totally awesome for me, and although it is not perfect, it is certainly my favorite game I have ever played on a PC, by far.

Side note: I can't wait to drool on all of my new storage slots and eat chocolate bunnies this weekend, ANet is so nice when they're not nerfing skills

First read an article in a PC Gamer awhile ago about GW a free MMORPG being made from some guys that left Blizzard. I was playing Dungeon Siege before, my bro got me hooked on that and then I bought GW one day (a couple days after release) when I saw it in the store. Been hooked to it ever since. And now I use it as a chat room (Grotto) if I'm not playing.

Oh, yeah, the music. Forgot to mention the music!

Autumn in Ascalon FTW.

id say it was something i could play again and not get bored for a long time. (even trying to get legendary on all the lvls in Halo gets boring even for a veteran. lol)

I wanted to buy the Nikon D100 but the shop that told me they had it (and i had to drive 100km to get there) made a mistake, i was so angry that i went into a game shop and bought the most expensief game (CE) for my self. lol, i did not even know it was an online game till I had install the game.....

Never palyed an online game before. The commitment to monthly fees was a bit intimidating for something you can't really test out until you buy.

GW presented the No monthly fee option, and opened up the world of online gaming for me.

I also thought it was a VERY beautiful game. Granted, I was born at the release of pong, and cut my teath on the original Atari, but GW was easily one of th emost beautiful games i'd seen in ages. I mean, that water on the character selection screen... I could almost dip my hand in and cup out a drink.

Played it at a friends house, checked their website and saw that it was made by the same guys who made Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft. I didnt need to see more.

Saw it. graphics looked great to me. Noticed it was different than all the other rpgs i played. i was in the mood for something different. It seemed there was lots of buzz about. It was new. Then i saw no fees and i decided to get it. played it for a while since the beggining. took a break that summer. came back and loved it even more and been playing ever since.

When I got ADSL for the first time after YEARS of dial-up I wanted an online game badly. GW was the 1st i set my eyes upon and then saw "no monthly fees"...

The day my internet connection arrived i ran to the store to get it.

Is that a true story?

Hmmm.... "Rage Join"?