I'd like to take a moment to express my appreciation to the ArenaNet team for their contributions to my gaming life for the past three years.

At the time, I was playing an MMO made by Cryptic which, while excelling with character creation and a wide array of character emotes, fell short on satisfying content, quality of life updates, and general customer service.

One day, my friends began telling me stories about the game they had started to play. Some medieval-magical-fantasyland MMO called 'Guild Wars 2' where you could run around collecting potatoes and onions and where giant gift boxes could fall out of the sky and crush you during the winter season. In fact, one of my first memories of the game is of a friend holding a brief fifteen-second funeral in voice chat for our buddy who had been killed by a falling Wintersday present.

Me personally, I heard the words 'you can collect potatoes' and resolved to get the game. I spent months taking art commissions and setting aside scraps of my paycheck until the day I could finally afford it. And then that day came.

I was instantly blown away by two things: The immersion, and the freedom.

For the first three months of playing, I shut off all of my chat channels and did nothing but renown heart missions and personal story. The music and visuals and tiny details in the environment (cats chasing dogs, merchants complaining about their jobs) blended together to create a truly magical experience that any single facet of the game couldn't have pulled off alone. For me, Tyria came alive and separated itself from any other game I had played in the past.

I couldn't believe that a renown heart mission let you act like a roleplayer (which I am!). Want to help the farm in Queensdale without hurting anyone? Water some corn. Entertain the cows. Want to run through Tyria like a viking and solve all of your problems with your fists? You have the option to help the farm by kicking Wurms in the face and then summoning their Wurmmother and beating her up too. The options available in this game feel limitless. The broad way missions are coded allows for many avenues to success instead of trying to herd players along a predetermined path.

And then I discovered another delightful thing: The Downed State.

When a player is downed, not only do you have a chance to fight for your life (Like you do in a certain Gearbox game I enjoy), but other players have a chance to help you back onto your feet. Like missions, there are different ways to do this as well (Character skills, physical reviving, killing the offending mob) which makes the whole system feel natural and free. For a while, reviving other players was even a daily achievement, encouraging people to help one another for a reward -- now people do it as a reflex, reviving other players as a knee-jerk reaction of kindness.

Speaking of which, about two years ago I made a Thief named Flynngan, and I got the crazy idea (as I often do) to see how much of Tyria he could explore at level 17. He made it halfway through Gendarran Fields on skill alone before a Centaur Archer finally took him out. I was sad that his mission had come to an end, but not entirely surprised. What was surprising was when an ArenaNet staff member jumped down from god knows where and revived him. Flynn'd received so much damage that his shirt and shoes were gone (This was back when broken armor used to vanish), but I saluted the staff member and continued on my journey. He made it all the way up to the Vigil Keep from there!

And speaking of ArenaNet staff members, let me just say that their team is one of the friendliest and most dedicated gaming crews I have ever had the fortune of dealing with. They have been respectful and responsive to reports, bugs, and game problems I have submitted, showed a genuine love for the game they've created, and made a serious effort to listen to the requests of the playerbase over the years.

Little things, tiny things; these are the quality of life changes I mentioned earlier.

The wardrobe system was a player request, free re-dying of armor was a player request as well as the ability to unlock dyes across all characters rather than one. When the expansion hit, veteran players were offered a special deal for buying it in response to feedback from players. More recently, account-wide inventory slots and additional emotes were added into the game (some for free!). What shocks and pleases me the most about these small tweaks and responsive additions to the game is that, often, they don't even generate that much revenue for the company. They are being added in order to make people happy. And that is significant.

Looking back, I could tell a thousand stories and list a thousand things I've appreciated seeing from the company these past three years. And even though I wasn't here at launch, I still feel like I've come home whenever I log in.

ArenaNet, thank you for providing this massive and awesome world. Thank you for paying attention to it, keeping it current, and for respecting your players.

“Happy Birthday, Elayne Lothaire!”

My main since beta; my pirateborn, adventerous and scholarly elementalist! This is a snapshot of her for every year of Guild Wars 2 since pre-release, taken over 1632 hours of playtime with this character alone. My account age? 2625 hours.

It make a little more than a year since I joined Guild Wars 2 and I feel like it make much more time already. As you can see I went through a lot, either with my character progression that my own life and I just hope I will be able to enjoy the game as much as I did the first few hours I discovered it