Gabranth's Profile

Guild Wars: Eye of the North

Published: Fri 2 Nov, 2007 | On:

Alright, Eye of the North...or GW:EN as we like to call it, had some hefty promises, but fell a little short in a few areas, See, I loved guild wars because of how different it was to WoW, grind wise, but every expansion adds a little more grind.
Factions - Gather 10,000 Unspent Lux/Kurz Faction, alright thats not too bad I guess,
Nightfall - Theres about 3 points in the story with title grinding (Oh Noes!)
GW:EN - While the grind isn't needed, it is frustrating that you need to spend about 2 hours killing monsters or roaming the dungeons (I'll get to that in a sec, trust me) just to be able to talk to the people to craft 'Consumables' (Nice things added, but was the grind really needed) then a further 2-3 hours to get the armour, and thats just for one faction, theres 2 more that you'll have to grind if you want that armour.

Dungeons - Alright, lets get into this shall we? When GW:EN was announced, the wording was as followed

"Three different acts"
Act 1: 18 Different dungeons in Tyrias depths
Act 2: Three Different Story arcs involving the Norn, Asura and Charr
Act 3: Fighting the Great Destroyer (I'll be getting to this soon too)

What we really got?

Yeah, sure there are 18 Dungeons to play through, but very few of them are to do with the central plot, meaning you dive right into 'Act 2'

You complete 3 fairly simple plots with about 1-2 dungeons each, and then you're onto act 3...

Yeah it's not that GW:EN was bad, it's just...really short, coming from playing all 3 Campaigns and going into this was a large dissapointment, but I 'spose when you delve into the dungeons and do everything the game will flesh out a bit more.

Now, the final boss (No Spoilers) you're expecting an epic battle between the dwarves and the destroyers, as prophecised in 'The Tome of Rubicon"

"An ancient Dwarven prophecy states that when the Great Destroyer arises out of the depths, the Great Dwarf will appear to aid in the fight against it and it will mark the end of the Dwarves."

This led the final battle to be fairly dissapointing, as there were NO DWARVES there, come on Anet!

The epic battle between the Dwarves and Destroyers... yeah they try clear it up after, still left me asking "Where are they?" and also "Why was he such a threat?" After beating him in less than a minute.

Now, AI has been revamped, all henchmen have been given more decent skills. (No more damn charge! Yay!)

Some enemies have 2 clesses, and thats a nice change.

Difficulty: Some people who are new to Guild Wars, or haven't had as much end-game experience as others might struggle a little, as GW:EN is intended as max level content, but theres a large number of experienced played floating around the place.

GW:EN gets 9/10, adding a nostalgic feel to the old players like me, people who haven't played prophecies (Guild Wars) may not get the same feel.

When players met up with Gwen, or got to smite some charr again... it was satisfying.

Even better was Pyre Fierceshot (:

Even through all the dissapointment GW:EN add's lots of shiney new content, and with the release of Hard Mode, even harder shiney content.

If you've never played Guild Wars, I'd suggest picking up the Platinum Pack, containing both GW:EN and prophecies. worth the $100 or so dollars.