The Death of Guild Wars 1

I've started playing GW1 from scratch again after 10 years. Let me tell you, this game has aged like a fine wine

The fact that ALL the content was released within 2 years actually blew my mind. While I was IN it, it felt like it was going forever?!

I was never really that excited by new features or systems (in this timeline, or the Utopian timeline).

I loved Factions. Depresses me Guild Wars 2 wasn’t nearly as fun and I couldn’t get into it

Not dead to me, started new characters a month or two ago and bought my son of 9 years old an account, training up the new generation with a low learning curve game, teaming up to go through missions and having fun. Making it even more fun and immersive through little things like yelling "Run, just run, I'll hold them off a little!!" while running from the destroyers during the first Eye of the North quest to get there. :)

GW2 introduced me to the franchise. Then I strated playing GW1 in 2014 and it became one of my favorite games ever - and it remained until today. It is more than nostalgia, something is there that you don't find anywhere else. Today I play both games and appreciate them for what they are.

There is no death of Guild Wars 1. I just re-installed it and am starting all over again. The memories are undeniable.

The problem with making games is you see all issues everyday and your dealing with the problems of something you did long ago. So when you go to making a squeal you often want to fix all the core issues you've been dealing with, and sometimes your so focused on those problems. What you should do is focus way more on what went right fix everything you can but if your focusing on what went right you would do a better job of not letting those fixes touch what you did right. Here is an example.

I still remember the Prophecies story-line so well. The fall of Ascalon and everything after that was amazing. Every now and then I boot Gw1 up, just to play that storyline again, such fond memories.

Your understanding of game design (in particular of this franchise) and capacity to convey it, is truly exceptional. If you ever come across those means to get that RPG project together you mentioned during your Super Q&A, I'd be lining up at a chance to play it. Love your work WP.

I just started playing GW1 again last week. I think what gamers love about GW1 is the same reason gamers love MTG (Magic the Gathering); in both games, players are able to customize their build unlike most games out there, and that extreme flexibility and customizability are so exciting and exhilarating, at least to me. This flexibility is multiplied by the number of heroes one can add to the party. MTG, enticing me to constantly try to form a "dream team".

It is about time someone develop "Guild Wars 1" 2

In fact my wife and I just started a complete GW1 playthrough just 2 weeks ago, coincidentally a week before the content patch^^ We both played the game many years ago (both our oldest characters are over 14 years old) but we never actually progressed much throughout the game. I basically only played Factions PvP and my wife was a die-hard pre-searing gamer. And let me tell you with the whole game ahead of us at this point we are having a blast with it. But I agree with most of what you said. In my opinion the core game was built with very little foresight when it comes to sustainability. But on the other hand while I like GW2 quite a lot it feels really shallow compared to it's predecessor. It just lacks the depth the old skill system had, where you could make your character really your own. I hope the combine the two systems in GW3, so a perk and skill tree system combined with the ability to explore the world to actually learn new skills by finding trainers and conquering bosses. They could even keep the 5/5 split between profession and weapon skills but let us have more choices. The overall skill pool in GW1 was to huge though at least to begin with. They left themselves really little headway to come up with new ideas for skills because the core ones were so varied. They should have limited themselves to 8 per attribute + 1 elite skill. That would still have made for a huge variety. Also the duplicate problem could have been omitted by implementing sort of an "attunement" questline where every profession could have grinded out skins for their skills that then fit the respective environments. That would haven given players more content and them more breating room. I really hope that they will make a GW3 at some point because I think both games have much potential but also waste much of it. Combining the best of both could make for the ultimate game. Sorry for the wall of text^^

I have to confess something. I've never fully completed a GW1 campaign. And this recent update with 10 new skills i'll never use has made me want to go back to that game because it made me feel like somebody still cared.

God I loved gw1 so much, the memories the super fun missions, and the awesome GW1 people!!GWAMM here :3

15 years of playing and I just learned you can see and add heroes via party search at

I'm having a blast this anniversary event. New skills are on the verge of being broken. And that's amazing. It's a 15 year old game played mostly by veterans who had already beaten the game. And devs who worked on this update managed to make something new and exciting. I would like to see something like that every year. But I guess that's impossible. I imagine that 2-3 ANet devs had been working on this update in their spare time for several months or maybe even years.

Thanks for making this!! Stopped playing GW1 after a few thousand hours, after most of my ingame friends had switched to GW2. Never put much thought into when and why things went wrong with the game, but this gave me some closure.

As long as the servers live, the game will live. I never stopped playing, it's an awesome nostalgic game!

I lived 6 years of my life playing GW1. It was very memorable and met so many nice people.