Gamescom is the largest games convention in the world, and takes place in Germany every year. This year marks the debut of the first playable demo of my company’s massively multi-player online role-playing game, Guild Wars 2. Although I am not at the show, I’m still participating in my own way, by playing the game with attendees on the show floor from our studio in Bellevue, Washington. Our entire company has shifted its office hours from Pacific Daylight Time to Central European Summer Time for the duration of gamescom (18th – 22nd August). We start work in the dead of night, play the game during gamescom show hours, and don’t go home until the next morning. It’s basically an entire week of all-night LAN parties… And it’s really freaking awesome! Even though shifting our work, eating, and sleep schedules to CEST is a bit of an inconvenience, it’s completely worth it to make the game world feel more alive for our fans in Europe. The show in Europe has been going amazingly well, with tons of positive buzz in the games media as well as amongst gamers and our fans. We even won an award for Best Online Game! This has been one of the highlights of my time here at ArenaNet so far, and I’m loving every moment of it.