Guild Wars World Preview Event Announced

Pre-order product to be available in stores in September; beta period starts in October

Bellevue,WASH., August 9, 2004—ArenaNet™, creators of the highly anticipated online role-playing game Guild Wars™, and NCsoft® the world’s leading developer and publisher of online computer games, today announced that they will host a World Preview Event October 29-31, officially kicking off the game’s beta period. During the World Preview Event game players from around the world will be invited to play Guild Wars and enjoy exciting cooperative quests, challenging competitive play and robust guild support.

Guild Wars will be available for pre-order in September. Subsequent monthly beta events will allow gamers who purchased the pre-order product to return to play the Guild Wars beta during the first weekend of each month.

“Beta events are a unique way for players to get a taste of Guild Wars and participate in the crucial beta process,” Jeff Strain, Guild Wars producer and ArenaNet co-founder said. “We welcome feedback from the millions of players invited to join the events and plan to incorporate their input as we polish, tune and balance the game.”

The October World Preview Event is the second time players have been invited to play Guild Wars. The May 2004 “E3 for Everyone” event drew more than 200,000 players from more than a dozen countries who experienced Guild Wars first hand.

Guild Wars, a competitive online role-playing game that rewards player skill, is the first title from ArenaNet, which was founded by key members of the creative teams behind the hit games Warcraft®, StarCraft® and Diablo®, and the creators of Battle.net®. Guild Wars features large, head-to-head guild battles, cooperative group combat and single-player missions, players explore a fantasy world while pursuing professions and acquiring skills to develop their own personalized characters. Missions are not scripted adventures, but are open battlegrounds where victory is determined by skill and teamwork.

More information about the October World Preview Event and subsequent monthly beta events will be provided at http://www.guildwars.com .