Inspiration From ArenaNet's 2009 April Fool's Day Event in Guild Wars

I was inspired by ArenaNet’s April Fool’s Day event. Normally, I frown upon a day that’s dedicated towards playing pranks. But today, Guild Wars was filled with fun, love and happiness. There were adorable little people running around. All the players were dressed up as Gwen. But not just a regular Gwen… it looked like a Plush Gwen.

plush-gwen-april-fools-2009I was thinking about giving up on the Guild Wars Fansite thing. But after seeing how my website adds to the life of the game, I became inspired. My site is going to be a mess for about a week, as I’m going back to the blog format. The forum thing just didn’t work out. The format didn’t seem to help much with adding website traffic.

As a result of this change, the Plush Gwen contest will need updating. No one was qualified to enter the contest, so it seems necessary to bring new life into the contest. Check back soon for a contest update.

Oh, and if you haven’t logged into Guild Wars today, I highly recommend it. Little Gwen dolls are running around the game. I wonder if ArenaNet is delaying the release of Guild Wars 2 to add more social aspects to their game. It’s stuff like this that I enjoy. A game that’s based only on kill… kill… kill is not going to attract a wide enough audience. MMORPGs are more immersive when they have other aspects to the game. I’ve been known to enjoy fishing and crafting.

5 thoughts on “Inspiration From ArenaNet's 2009 April Fool's Day Event in Guild Wars”

  1. This is disapointing. When I did my daily checking of Photics.com on april 2nd, I saw this! I thought it was just some April fools joke and I thought “Good gag Photics, now wheres the link to continue to the forums?” Then I read this article. Lately I’ve been wondering, was this such a bad thing? Maybe this is the direction the Photics.com does need to go in. Well I don’t think so, my love for forums and message boards started on this website.

    So instead of having a site where people can come and give their 2 cents on things, you have a website where people get to read your opinions. Yeah, that will sure bring in the hits. This is upsetting, I can’t imagine anything worse you could have done for the site.

    And second: Thats not plush Gwen, thats Gwen-Chan from the japanese Guild Wars site, heres the wiki article: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gwen-chan

  2. Hello Moo! Unfortunately, the forums weren’t that popular. Switching from the blogging format to the forums resulted in a 50% drop in traffic. And even though I had a blogging add-on installed on the forum, no one was qualified to enter the Plush Gwen [Hard Mode] contest. Also, only a few people actually posted regularly on the forum.

    Meanwhile, how am I silencing visitor commentary? You just stated your opinion. Here it is, for the whole world to see. As for traffic, the site is doing better than it has done in years. With the release of two web games, traffic was roughly 1000% better in March than February. That’s one-thousand percent! So, you’re still able to make comments on this website and traffic is doing well. More importanly, the Plush Gwen Content will relaunch with focus on encouraging discussion. Basically, the best comment between now and the release of Guild Wars 2 will win. It’s easy, yet encourages creativity and intelligent discussion.

    Finally, about the wiki link, I don’t see which image looks like the Gwen from April Fool’s Day. Looking at the image on this page, Gwen looks like a stiched doll. Where else can one get such a doll, other than through a photics.com contest? Regardless, the event made me happy. I might even do a new issue of Photics.

  3. Well, you do have a point there, you can make comments. But people can’t post their own ideas and thoughts! Just the other day I wanted to post up about the birthday thing and how far Guild Wars came, and I can’t! All I can do is post up for what I think about what YOU wrote, I can’t put what I think about my own subject.

    Throw me a bone here Photics? What are you going to do?

  4. Moo makes a good point how else am I supposted to say lost in ascalon number 1 is broken and shows number 9

  5. You were right Photics, it IS a gwen doll. With the MASSIVE update, they added gwen dolls to summoning stones and tonics and whatnot. It sounds like more people are going to become familiar with it = more people entering contest.

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