How come all of you know about this game?

It's a bit weird, it's supposed to be released only on the april but all of you seem to know in detail what professions there are, spells and secondary professions.

Did you guys just read up on it or already have been beta testing?

Most of us on the staff are Alpha testers, so we have a pretty intimate knowledge of the game, which is in turn reflected in the site.
I would suspect that the vast majority of people that post here also play on the Beta weekends, which is why everyone knows so much.

I found out about it the day the World Preview Event started around Halloween. I pre-ordered around Christmas and have played a couple beta weekends now.

Total GW access = ~9 days
Total time spent reading about/studying it = some stupid amount

Someone invited me to play the game during E3, found it fun. Forgot about it untill about mid-Oct when someone reminded me the Oct event was comming up, so I pre-ordered it and have been playing ever since.

There's a ton of information available on the net regarding the game on sites such as this one. As stated, most of the staff members are in alpha so we get to play every day should we want, most of the community members also play on the beta weekends so they've gotten to know the game pretty well too.

I started following this games development closely around May or June of last year. I had heard that some of the developers at Blizzard had started a new company called Tri-Forge, and when I started looking into this game, I realized it was the same group of people, only now called ArenaNet. I instantly became extremely excited about the game, and even more so as I began learning all the details of what they were trying to accomplish.

I've played since the E34E event, and have really spent too much time thinking about the game. It's been almost a year now since I first played.

I have been following the game for close to a year now, a friend showed it to me and convinced me to quit my other games for this one.

I tried to get into the beta way back when but no luck

But I've followed it and as soon as work and school freed up enough I got the Pre-Order for the last beta weekend. Then I played around the clock - lol!

Ciarre

My World of Warcraft guild (which I joined way in advance) was looking for games to play together while waiting for WoW. So we all decided to play GuildWars during ArenaNets E3 For Everyone event. I've played in every event now and have been following the game very closely.

Sadly, GuildWars has ruined WoW for me but I'm hopeing some oldies from my WoW guild end up trading Azeroth for Ascalon.

www.guildwars.com

It won't tell you everything, but it will give you a lot of information!

Check it out.

I found out about GW back just before E3 2004 through an article in PC Gamer. I played the E3 event and loved it, then pushed it to the back of my mind while waiting for a fall release. I heard about the WPE and ended up joining a guild and haven't looked back since. GW is the only game I can play now for more than a couple of hours.

The folks at ANet held a special event way back (before the E3 thing) and invited our guild's founder (TPJ) to check it out. He probably got to go because our guild has a good presence in Diablo 2 and we had a good relationship with the Blizzard team. TPJ then gave a neat report on it and buzz about this game started to spread in our guild. Then I was lucky enough to get picked for the Beta right after the WPE

The reason most of us know so much about the game is that Arena.net has been relaxed with their non-disclosure agreement. Some of us have been around for a long time (like myself), and other have joined fairly recently. Given a month or so a good study you will understand the game thoroughly.

Back before E3, not too much was known to the outside public, mostly skills, some pictures, the professions, and some other things were all we knew. The game was so unpolished back then that not even all of the professions were in. The Mesmer was just starting out and there were only a few known skills. They were thinking about making it a secondary only class. Then came the Sorcerer, oops PCGamer, you meant the Elementalist! Classes became more refined, and then came E3.

This was a players free look at the game. 250,000 rounded figure of people played this small weekend event that hosted the four Ascalon missions, the old skill system, an arena, the old tombs look (outside in the PvE area), and the Seige of Fort Koga (which still exists, the last three being PvP). They also hosted some previews into the Shiverpeaks such as the Rotscale mission, which has now been chopped up and placed into another mission, as well as a jungle preview which had nothing into it.

Then around the end of it, nothing happened for six months. The World Preview Event came late October which introduced a great number of new things, which the public debated over and still does. Then they started the next weekend with their Beta Weekend Events, which anyone who pre-orders can play in all of them, or whoever gets a friends pass can play in one of them. The information is given to us constantly.

Some of us (not myself because Gaile hates me, another story for another time), are in the Beta testing and know mostly everything besides the ideas that are just being formed. They have worked closely with skills and formulas to help balance the game. They are mostly our source of information because they are allowed to be.

That is a short history of why we know so much. To this date there have been two main previews (E3 and the WPE) along with four BWE's. This gives the public more credibility in their knowledge of the game, but there have been changes made that are so minor that even the public may be wrong at times. Listen to the Beta testers, or me, they know what they are talking about.

I first heard of GW via a website in august 2004 (I cant remember wich website - I think it is 1up.com or Overgame or a french one: 'mondes persistants') and the interest to look forward came with the no monthly fee promise. I dislike monthly fees. I tried GW during the october World Preview Event, I convinced a friend to try it too, I bought the pre-order copy immediately, and participated in all beta since. I read a lot myself too and I just discovered this forum a few days ago.

I agree with Black Arrow. Something fabulous about GW is that I don't get tired of playing it! Approximately 150 hours since the begining and still looking forward for some thousands more!

I've been researching this game like a mad man. And here's a good webpage that I'm sure all of you guys have heard about: www.guildwarsguru.com

I would hope so considering these are their forums

link's broken

no it's not... it's you. mines fine.

Bwahahahahahahahaha

As I recall, I first heard of it on DiabloII.net, in a thread on the Paladin forum discussing rangers (which in D2 are bow-using paladins) when someone enthusiastically mentioned GW and how you could play "real rangers", but also that the game wasn't out yet, so I just tucked the fact away and went on without giving it much thought. Then one day in late October I was cruising some sites when one mentioned there was an ongoing "World Preview Event" for GW -- now there's always some demo for some game or another available to download and play, most of which suck so I don't normally bother, but that little factiod from the DII.net forums floated to the front of my brain, including remembering the poster's enthusiasm and the fact that you could play a "real ranger", and I said, what the heck, let's download the demo and try it out.

Good thing I hadn't had plans for that weekend, like sleeping or anything...

I heard a gameplay movie for a mmorpg built by ex-blizzard members without a monthly fee in 2003. I watched it, wasn't that impressed, but I liked the info about the game, so I ignored the butt ugly graphics.

Then I waited a few months, starting to read more and more about it.
Something happened, they released a beautiful screenshot. I couldn't believe it was in-game.

Then I waited for E3, played that.
And now I haven't missed a event, news post, or interview by arenanet. =)

I still havn't gotten alpha status. :'(
I hate you all.

"Stupid?" I'd call that a wise investment of time!

"Too much time?" No, Uthar, I tell you, it's a good thing! Honestly!

How in the world can you call researching and thinking about GW remotely stupid?! Understandably we can't play on a daily basis... yet. I know I've gained one or two smart points since looking through all this and don't even think I have scratched the surface. That might be me though since I'm still relatively new! Thats all fine and good by me... I may get thrashed and trashed but its a learning experience, right?

Now... who to talk to about being an Alpha tester so I can become insanely wise in the things of GW.

Oh my, how I wish I had only known about this game earlier, because I'd have started screaming and kicking my way into the Alpha testing. Every few days I start up Guild Wars and try to log in, just to see if maybe they accidentally opened the servers and I could start playing.

From the sound of Aladdar's post, Alpha testers can log in whenever they want and keep playing. Who do I have to bribe to get access to that?

But to actually respond to Zijian's remark, and to not make my post seem like a spam, I've been hearing things on and off about the game for a while, but the Beta events are where I've actually gotten experience with the game, and the seemingly endless supply of fan sites have a nice range of info on them as well, especially concerning skills and character builds...