Why did you originally purchase Guild Wars?

Prophecies was given to me as a gift a long time ago before the new expansions came out mostly because of the no monthly fee part. Went through PvE and learned game mechanics, then tried PvP and fell in love with it.

Can't say that about now though. PvP has really gone downhill after the new expansions like Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North came out because of the power creep. The Golden Age of PvP was back when it was Prophecies only because a strong balanced was the best build and not whatever the meta gimmick was.

well seeing how it was free to play and plus diablo 2 was starting to bore me so i had to start a new game :P

I wanted to get into the whole MMO scene, and I'd heard about GW a while ago (in fact, that first GW poster was my wallpaper for a long time ), and when Eye of the North came out, I decided to pick up the game after I read some hype about it on IGN.

That, plus the fact that its free 2 play.

I actually worked for the distributor at the time, and there was a couple of spare copies going around (I think one of the deliveries to the warehouse was over). So they gave the spare copies to the employees. After installing and creating a toon. I didn't play for 6 months. Slowly I worked my way through the game. Been playing ever since.

I heard some of the Diablo developers had broken away from Blizzard to make this game. Until I played Guild Wars Diablo as well as DII and LoD were my favorite games.

No monthly fee, no ganking me and taking everything I might work hard to get, and unlike WoW the graphics were more like those of Diablo. I looked at WoW as well but between the two the monthly fee thing killed that for me. I’m against monthly fees, never joined battle net because of fees, I paid good money for the game as well as internet fees, why would I want to dole out more cash for game fees.

The funny thing is I'd gotten away from gaming for a while and my wife talked me into buying it, boy did she regret that. Have to say this game is by far one of my favorite games of all time. I've been playing for 3 years now. Not as much as I had been in the start, but I still enjoy it.

I have to say if Anet had continued rolling out new chapters, I'd kept on buying. Not sure about GW2, I'll just have to see how it turns out.

Oh please don't remind us about that... I try to pretend the game wasn't any better than now because it makes me sad to think otherwise.

My bro played, got me to play it which lead to me buying all 4 campaigns and becoming addicted

i thought it was diablo 2 with better graphics. that, combined with free to play and skill > time played. i'm a university student, and the two things that i severely lack are... well, money and time.

My cousin played and I really wanted a game to play with him. No monthly fees+good graphics, updates etc, I just had to have it.

He quit less than a month after I got it >.<

My former guild leader was actually a huge Guild Wars person and was always recruiting her friends for the guild. She begged me for about six months before I caved. She had agreed told me that if I didn't like the game, she'd pay me back and take the account for herself to use. Needless to say, 2 accounts with all campaigns later, I have continued playing and have surpassed her in skill.

Bought for me.

Got if for the ole Lady actually. Saw it was free and it was an MMO so being that she was staying home with the kids, I thought maybe she'd like to have a little entertainment other than crying babies, lol. She took to it like a fish does water. So much so that she took over the comp and I had to get another!!! Long story short, she got me to try it out and we both found it's something we really enjoy doing together.

My brother told me about this game he'd been playing and showed me a webcam of it (his necromancer) and I bought it the next day once he told me it was free to play because I was not going to play a game that I had to pay to play, it's outrageous to me.

My older brother played the beta and said it was awesome. When Guild Wars came out he bought me a copy and I was hooked from there.

I was originally playing WoW. Then WotLK got announced and I saw they were raising the level cap AGAIN to 80! and thought right thats it no more grinds for me!

Also liked the idea of no monthly fee for an MMO and Alliance Battles looked quite cool and better than WoW BGs so I went for it, still love it today

Was looking for a new game as the one I was playing was quickly fading away. My former clan mates and in game friends were split almost equally between GW and WoW, and talking both of them up. I looked at both games and the pay to play of WoW, was a serious turn-off. My wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas (2005), I jokingly said GW. That was what I got. Two full accounts (11 & 12 char slots each) and 4000+ hours later, still at it.

A friend who used to play got me into it, I still regret not getting the collectors edition >.>

Bought it because ArenaNet promised a game where skill > time, and it was pretty freaking awesome. Then you had to PvE to unlock everything at release until they added the Balthazar Faction system which would only give you 1 point per kill in RA. Suffice to say, it wasn't exactly the skill > time game that was exactly promised (pretty grindy!), although it was still pretty fun and still one of the best PvP games out there (not much in the way of competition).

friend made me buy it a gunpoint... funny thing is he doesn't play it anymore the moment I get addicted which was a year and a half after i bought it >_>

Watching some gaming show on TV. And the guy starts talking.
"Well , we have Guild Wars here. You see this game is not like the traditional MMORPG's. The game is instanced, with small levels of players and monsters and without overpowered stuff. Yeah, you can bring 8 skills."
I was like "Meh" untill.
"The game is primarily pvp oriented and the player versus environment is here to teach the player the basics and tell a story. No matter how much time you spend getting items in pve, if you suck at playing gear won't save you from losing.
And once you buy it you don't need to pay any monthly fees."
That had me and I bought GW.