I remember looking at the ArenaNet website well before they announced what they were working on, reading the articles there and wondering what exactly they will come up with.

Fast forward a bit to the first Guild Wars preview event: I had so much fun! The people were nice and there was this sense of great anticipation.

Looking back, ArenaNet and Guild Wars have sure come a long way.

It was interesting for me to see how people reactions slowly went from "Guild Wars, what's that?" to "Ah, Guild Wars!". A small gathering of developers, unknown as a group, created an international phenomenon.

I hoped back then that Guild Wars and the design strategies behind it will achieve the success they deserve. Today it is nice to see this has become true.

I attribute a large part of this success to the attitude of the developers: the pursuit of clarity, foresight, balance, simplicity and perfection. The ability of the collective of these developers is to envision the big picture - and then go on and create it!

This is by no means a small feat, and unfortunately, also quite rare. I believe it requires a great amount of inner, personal clarity.

The other large part of this success I attribute to the community, whose members have embraced this quality of clarity and dynamically co-created the Guild Wars world, game, and social phenomenon.

I find the degree of trust on both sides admirable and of natural ease - which kind of gives me hope for the world we live in.

Those who paid attention could witness something beautiful being created.