GamersFirst (G1) is the company that produces Sword 2 in North America. Their offices are located in Irvine, CA, USA. Most GamersFirst game servers operate in the PST (GMT -8) time zone, and the games they license are governed by California law.

History

Originally called K2 Networks, the company originally released Sword 2 under the name Sword of the New World: Granado Espada in early Summer 2007 following a short early beta. Initially, the game was released in a "pay to play" model, but due to requests from the community, this model was thrown out in favor of the more user-friendly and flexible Free to Play model. Shortly after the switch, K2 Networks decided to rebrand itself as GamersFirst. Free to Play is now the overall business model of GamersFirst.

Notable G1 Staff

Certain G1 staff are more involved in the community than others. Names to know include:

Raiden Profile	Joined the Sword team in February 2009, as the new muscle in the house. Quickly took over handling of the Official Forums and community PR, eventually rising to the rank of Associate Producer. Very stern, but has a great sense of humor and is on good terms with the child side of him, making him an ideal staffer to spam the forums throughout maint. Manages the Sword2 Twitter, Facebook and Forums.
Neume Profile	Began in the very early days of Sword's release, as head of the Game Master team. Being truly awesome, he rose quickly in the ranks to become Sword's Associate Producer, then Producer of both Sword and WarRock, another GamersFirst title. Often the liaison between GamersFirst and HanbitSoft, Neume is extremely active and extremely powerful, and has always been described as fair in judgment. Has a Twitter account that discusses both Sword2 and WarRock, and general GamersFirst stuff. Trivia: Neume's favorite UPC is Lorch Feurholden.
Quinzel Profile	Sword2 community rep, and, we suspect, often the PR person that gives publicity interviews about Sword2. Incredibly nice person who cares about the players, she often runs Cash Shop promotions and discounts with unusually generous awards. Trivia: Quinzel's pseudonym is derived from the birth name of Batman character Harley Quinn.

All three of these main G1 community representatives in the Sword2 team are active readers and contributors to the forum. GamersFirst will often make changes to the game or related to the game based on player feedback, thanks to Raiden and Neume carrying player requests into the meeting rooms. We owe them all a big thanks for making the game as good as it is for us, even in cases when there is still room for improvement.

The Unseen

Much of the work of handling player problems is done by Customer Support Representatives, or CSR's. The most famous of these are Mena and Dragunnair. From what we can tell, CSR Mena appears to be the seniormost, and perhaps head, CSR.

Legend

If you hang around the community long enough, you will find yourself hearing the name "AM-Ruffo". Don't ask. He was just an extremely friendly and conversational in-game G1 representative (also known as AM, or Ambassador, in keeping with Sword2 style; other games refer to this position as Game Master) back in the day, and most of us players had secret crushes on him (yes, even us guys). He was last seen in-game the Friday before Raiden was introduced on the G1 forums (note: Ruffo was never identified on the forums). Since their personalities are wildly different and G1 refuses to comment on the sudden disappearance of AM-Ruffo, players are left with the queasy feeling that, perhaps, Raiden destroyed Ruffo upon entry with a massive blast of lightning.

On a realistic note, many theories have been thrown around that Ruffo was favoritist with players, perhaps to the point of being unethical in judgment. No official confirmations of this theory exist. What we do know is Ruffo was extremely responsive to players, and held a lot of in-game events on the servers (more than any other AM before or since). His mastery of the game was awesome, his knowledge of Bristian players was comprehensive, and eventually he seemed to become the game's senior, perhaps head, AM. Ruffo, being a fake name, exists now solely as a legend in Sword2 lore.

Note: GamersFirst is not the developer of Sword 2; the original game, called Granado Espada, is developed by a Korean company named IMCGames, and produced in Korea and licensed to external companies by HanbitSoft.


See also:

• GamersFirst website
• HanbitSoft website
• IMCGames website