Continuing the apparent obsession we have with releasing games on April 28th, in case you weren’t aware today is also the three year anniversary of Guild Wars’ original release.
(For the record, Guild Wars Factions was released two years ago to the day, while Guild Wars Nightfall was released in October 2006 – possibly even the 28th of that month, or darn near. We do like our symmetry.)
April 28th 2005 was a pretty big day for us in Europe – it was the first time we’d released a game simultaneously with the US*, and it was actually as a company the first time we’d released any title globally at the same time (Guild Wars went live in Korea on the same day). There was champagne and video conference link-ups, if memory serves, and given the time differences some of the participants were in pyjamas (Seattle), some were bleary-eyed (Austin), some were having breakfast (Brighton) and some were going to bed (Seoul).
Massively has a couple of retrospective articles up to mark the date, and of course if you’re a player there have been in-game celebrations going on for the last few days, although today’s special; today is when you get your character’s birthday present, assuming that your character was created on launch day, of course.
I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I haven’t finished the original GW campaign, Prophecies, and I always told myself I wouldn’t play Factions or Nightfall until I’d finished the original. (I did dip into Factions a bit with an Assassin character; it was just too tempting.) This isn’t through lack of trying; I just got stuck on a particular story mission and haven’t been able to get past it! I know, what a slacker… one day, one day.
Anyway; happy birthday to all of our April games, and many happy returns.
* If you’re wondering: NCsoft Europe didn’t exist when City of Heroes and Lineage II were released in April, 2004 in the US. We launched them as soon as we could after we did exist, mind you…
#1 by Gangrel at April 28th, 2008
Alas, i still have a few months before i can get my 3 year gift for Guild Wars, but at least i know it is coming.
And i do like the fact that NCsoft are also releasing games across the world at the same time nowadays (or at least turning the servers on at the same time
)
May the next 3 years be just as great for ALL NCsoft games
#2 by Dante at May 3rd, 2008
I really should play Guild Wars more. I just think the other half would chop off my fingers if I did.
#3 by Zortel at May 6th, 2008
I’ve started playing Prophecies again. Not sure if I like my 8 Me/E or my 5 E/Mo more… considering grabbing some of the other packs too. It’s certainly an interesting game, and an interesting way of going about offering the MMO experience. Considering I tend to fade in and out of moods for games, not having to worry about cancelling and resubbing helps a lot.