The History of Guild Wars 2 - 2000-2021 Retrospective

You did such a fantastic job on this retrospective! When you mentioned at the end that it was a lot of work- it shows!!!! A buddy and his wife got me into GW right after the Factions release but they told be to buy Prophecies. I was hooked and finished everything available. Did every beta weekend for GW2 and wish I'd have had the presence of mind to save all the screen shots I took to something more permanent than the hard drive of the time. Still play at least 3 times a week unless something else is taking my time and love WvW. You covered everything!!!

I've spent a total of around 3,000 hours in GW1 and GW2 since 2008, and this video was a great watch! You give really good insight into the history of the game, and your presentation is top-notch. Keep it up and have fun!

The Skyscale timegates omg It made me insane. Luckily I was one of the first to get mine in the week of release although I had sleepless nights

I love that Dutch accent omg

Super Adventure Box is the best thing in the world! I love this event

I really hope they pick up on Utopia and its concept again.
I have a concept art book that goes into a bit of detail about it and it sounds amazing!

I remember leaving work early and rushing home to do the southsun stuff, still have my 20 slot bag and "celestial" exotic accesory lol

As a new player, I'm playing for 2 months, I think that this is very much quite well though. The only thing where I felt lost was crafting and some of endgame things. Compared to WOW that I used to play for last 10 ish years, lv 80 here feels similar to lv 20 in WOW and many other games. Luckily other players explained many things to me so now I'm not overwhelmed.

this game has the superior combat system..not sure why anyone wants to play sh*t tier tab targetting like wow

Oh gosh that music.

You’re so gorgeous 😩

I first started playing Guild Wars when I was eight years old, sometime around when EotN came out, give it take a few years (not digging for exact publishing date). My dad played it first, then he introduced it to my mom. Playing Guild Wars together with them really shaped a large part of my childhood.

We have an infamous story in my family about my mom coming home from work the summer my dad stayed home with me and asking what we’d been up to. My little six-year-old self very proudly says “I watched dad play the Girl Running Game!” Because I was six and he didn’t want to get into combat while I was watching, so he just ran his character around pre-searing for twenty minutes. 😂

The year that the first GW2 PAX Demo was announced was the first of many years we went together. Another of our family stories takes place here - ANET set up a Guild Wars Trivia Contest, and the prize was a pair of tickets to a party that ANET was hosting with the developers that night. Mum won us two tickets, but Dad got some really hard questions and didn’t get the third. Then little old me goes toddling up the stage. Purportedly, everybody waiting for their turn in the audience starts cooing over this actual child who plays Guild Wars. I got my first question right, my second one wrong, and then the host asks “Who is the patron god of warriors?” I legitimately start counting them off on my fingers, process of elimination style. He gives me the hint that “He has a great tower,” and because I was a ranger main obsessed with my pets and frequently visited them in the Zaishen Menagerie, I actually recognized the tower. “The great tower of… Balthazar?” And everyone just starts cheering. I don’t actually remember the day myself, but… well. I’ve heard the story told enough times to picture it.

I played gw1 for a few years. My favorite game of all time. I'm getting a pc in a month and gw2 is the first game I want to grab. Do you think it will be worth it now. The thing I'm worried about is that maybe no one is playing the older content. So I won't be able to experience the full game and all the old dungeons. Plus no one would want to play with a noob that has no idea how to play the game. From what I seen it's completely different then gw.

God, I do miss GW1 Between 6th and 9th grade I put nearly 3000 hours in and made so many friends. Really helped me break out of my shell as a kid as lame as that is haha
Had a guild (The Final Kingdom lol still remember the name) with an alliance of over a 1000 members and we had a great time. Swear I learned marketing/management skills as a child trying to recruit players and keep them in by planning fun events and entertainment.
I still believe that GW1 had the best gaming community for its time. Or it seems that way with rose colored glasses maybe haha

i liked most of the IB Saga/season 5. i was not fond of DRMs though, so yeah, it did kind of drag for me, but i otherwise liked the ending and epilogue. i feel bad that i don't really go back to IB maps anymore, like they can be fun, but i am also fairly reward-driven, and i just don't feel rewarded by Grothmar or Bjora, and i'm generally burnt out on Drizzlewood for a while. other than that, pretty good story and maps, and i'll get back to them eventually when i have friends catching up to them.

Cool! I started on FSP also, but doing mostly WvW with FSP Vanguard and Diva. We moved to Gandara afterwards.

At this point i think everybody left blizzard. And that other dude, who left to make League.. Anyways good vid👍🏻

As a beta player that quit in the middle of LS season 1 and that now recently missed the game and decided to play again, this was very cool to watch (and really helpful because lots of stuff changed from what I remembered!). Thanks a ton for your work on this video!

Bring back the Ritualist and multiclassing lol.

Oh my, my oldest character got 8 a few days ago and listen to this my heart... It's so nostalgic ;w;

Thanks for this very interesting video, i enjoyed watching him. I love and share your enthusiasm for the game. I think it is a big challenge for Arenanet to keep the original idea of the game and develop it challenging and interesting "End Game Content". In my opinion they are doing well💕👌

Very good job, I was more into the Original Guild Wars, getting older and all. :)

i've been playing FFXIV since 2019 but i wanted to see what else was out there in terms of mmos, so i picked up GW2 and i'm really liking it so far! i appreciate the content you make, it helps a lot

I just wanted a GW2 remastered or something

It's always super fun to see footage from the GW1 playthrough

volt of waarcrows

I love this so much. I’m just getting back into the game after playing it for short times here and there since it’s release, and I’m now finally digging into it more seriously. Listening to your genuine excitement and passion for the game as you explain it’s history actually has me a bit choked up. I hope I’ll be able to find even half of that excitement and passion this time around, I’m really enjoying it so far though so I’m sure I will.

incredible video, that must have bin a real load of work, thank you so much for that! It made me so melancholic, i really appreciate you diggin for old footage. it is so incredible how much has happened and this video makes me even more excited and grateful for the new addon. cant wait..

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 for almost 9 years now & I still love this game. But I HATE the 'new' Lions Arch. I want the old one back..

Cool video, I loved your enthusiasm telling us about the history and your experiences!

Fun retrospective video. It would have been interesting to mention how ArenaNet was acquired by NCSoft way back during GW1's development and how that support did benefit GW1. I can remember those early videos of GW1's gameplay and it was quite rough. Once they got more funding, they were able to hire the outstanding artists that gave the game its signature look.

Also wasn't the it originally supposed to have been solely a PvP game in its initial concept? I thought the RPG side (and story writers) were added after the NCSoft acquisition. But that was over 20 years ago, so I might be fuzzy on the history.

Are those clips of you playing GW1 from back in 2000? (I'm assuming not, unless you literally haven't changed at all lol)

11 years old when GW1 came out, I feel old. 😢

Brilliant video 🤩

Thank you for making this video. Brought back many memories of when I first got the original game at age 13 and now at 31 with a baby on the way this game will always have a place in my heart. No matter how many times I try to find a new game of this genre I somehow always end up back on GW2 because there really is nothing else like it :D

The biggest problem, and one that isn't ever going away, is that ArenaNet has Korean overlords. That in and of itself will keep the game and the company from ever achieving true greatness.

I can almost guarantee that at some point we played together in the original Guild Wars. I had five accounts and was completely addicted.

good video!

I started playing gw1 in 2006 , great memories , when gw2 came out i was very excited , i was on devona reach , small population server , made friend with an americain and a guy from malaisia , but after 3 months when the story was done and reached lvl 80 , there was nothing to do , WvsW was dead on devona server, the big servers would just zerg and no one was figthing back, so i quit . I came back every years after that for the expensions , but always ended up leaving for a year when there was nothing else to do , my last expansion was thorn , i got my 2 legendary weapons and my ascended gears , did fractals wich was enjoyable , especially when you party is all dead and you have to solo the final boss with mace and shield as a guardian.But what put the nail in the coffin for me was when you needed to be full Berserker gear to do anything in group, the point of being a guardian for me was not to be full DPS , so i left for good, i now been playing black desert for 4 years and a half . Game is not perfect , but unlike gw2 , it kept me playing.

I played GW1 and liked it but that was, I guess, over 9 years ago. Good to see how it's changed.

Very nice video

hmm so GW2 has already done what FFXIV players are so proud of Square Enix shutting down game sales

What's crazy is we are truly in a content drought like you said but it really doesn't feel like it. The Seasons of the Dragons achievement chain plus legendary armory has absolutely given me stuff to do the entire time. I still feel like i need to do so much before End of Dragons comes out. Guild Wars 2 is a really massive game and its hard to believe its about to get a whole lot bigger! cant wait for Feb!!

I met one of my best friends in Spamadan aka Kamadan. It was around 2006/07. This game runs deep. This video takes me way back, thank you for it. While I can't be motivated to play (still log in daily) when EoD lands, I'm taking time off work, and getting my game on.

great video !

ah crazy already nearly 10 years still can remember the karka event of season one the games performance has really come along way compared to thoses times

great video, I am a returning player that hasnt been on since 2012, so this was cool to see!

What a great video. One of my greatest pleasures was going back to GW1 and rediscovering how superb it is. I say this as a GW2 player who has respect for older games but often find them difficult to get into. Not so GW1 it feels so fresh, if it was an indie game in current year it would sweep the board.

I'm glad that you mentioned the lay-offs and the pandemic. Those 2 tragedies together was the main cause of the Icebrood Saga story feel rushed and it's sad to see that it happened to GW2. Despite that I still have a lot of fun playing GW2 and I can't wait to play the next expansion!

You are wearing the Pendant of Arah in Real life?!?! That's so Cool!!!