I was following the development of Guild Wars game since before its name was announced.

First generation MMORPGs (Everquest and others) didn't appeal to me much, so there were two massively multiplayer games I was waiting for: Guild Wars and World of Warcraft.

Although with reputation for making the best games possible, Blizzard didn't quite impress me with their vision for World of Warcraft. ArenaNet (whose founders are ex-Blizzard members) presented a much clearer vision of their first game; Guild Wars.

A shardless world with seamless download.

I was already impressed with the underlaying technology: even if their game would be less than good, hopefully there would be other games which would make better use of such great technology.

So, I was eagerly awaiting the first open Guild Wars beta event.

I had much fun that weekend.

Although lacking in some aspects (plenty of empty spaces), a year before release Guild Wars was fully functional in others. Going through the mission thankfully wasn't too easy and provided an interesting and new gaming experience for me.

The event had great atmosphere.

I suspect this was so partially due to a functional game, the awe we all felt, and a great community. Everyone was nice and pleasant to play with.

I'm proud to say I chased that suicidal maniac Prince Rurik through the missions and even slew the impressive looking bone dragon at the end of the last mission several times - had much fun every time.

My character was a ranger/monk, which proved to be a lucky choice: my team members died a lot of times, and it was helpful to have swift feet and profound understanding of resurrection!

I'm glad I was able to participate.