Guild Wars: Eye of the North Sneak Peek

"Finally, a post of substance!" you say. Yes indeed.

This weekend (24-26) was the Guild Wars: Eye of the North Sneak Peek weekend. A week before release, Arenanet allows people who have pre-ordered Eye of the North to play the first couple of missions and explore the starter area of the game. Early last year, they held one for Guild Wars: Factions, and then later in the year, for Guild Wars: Nightfall. Both times I played along with my guildies, exploring new lands and forging memories.

Eye of the North brings players back to the continent of Tyria, several years after they began their journey in the Ascalon Academy. Earthquakes have been tearing apart the world, leaving gaping chasms into underground chambers never before seen. Races from myth, such as the Asura, have been sighted working with the Dwarves. For what reason? The Great Destroyer has arrived. Geez, that's a corny name! However, the generic title is held for a reason: Should its name ever be spoken aloud, it shall return with great fury and strike down the world. Its name long forgotten, locked in the Tome of Rubicon. Yet somehow, this great demon has escaped its fiery prison, and seeks to return to the surface to claim the world. It's up to us to end that.

Now, review time. First impressions from me were that it is epic. The first quest has you running through the Asuran Gate Central Complex, escaping from rampaging Destroyers (the minions of The Great Destroyer). As Vekk, a friendly Asuran, leads you to an Asura Gate to escape, you can't help but notice he sounds a lot like Brain from the classic show "Pinky and the Brain". You would be correct. Maurice LaMarche is indeed the voice of Vekk.

After this intense escape, you end up in a Dwarven outpost known as Boreal Station. From there, the adventure begins, as you try to aid Ogden the dwarf in gaining the assistance of the warrior-race of the Shiverpeaks; the Norn. The preview ends with you securing this army, with the promise that next week, when the game is released, you must make the choice: Help the Ebon Vanguard, a band of human survivors from Ascalon, rescue their captain, or go to the Tarnished Coast and assist the Asura in reclaiming their gate network, as well as their Central Complex. For as long as the Central Complex is compromised, nowhere in the world is safe, as the crafty Asura have gates all over the land.

First of all, the graphics are beautiful. The dominantly snowy lands are of a scale that hasn't been seen in many places during the Guild Wars storyline. EotN also brings with it more dungeons, which are multi-level explorable areas containing high-level monsters, and a boss at the end. After defeating the boss, your party of hardened adventurers is rewarded with a giant chest, which will randomly reward each member of the party a high-end weapon. The dungeons are a lot of fun to experience with other players. It's one of the things that Guild Wars has lacked forever (and one thing I've missed from WoW). The dungeons don't only present challenge in the form of difficult mobs, but also in the form of puzzles, making for an interesting exploratory experience.

One of the main complaints of the new expansion is: TITLE GRIND!
In Guild Wars, you can get displayable "titles", which is a string of text that gets displayed underneath your name when someone selects you. These range from the different degrees of the cartography track (which you get for exploring % of the world), to the Drunkard title (how many minutes you've spent under the "Drunk" effect after drinking in-game ales and beverages). Now, they've introduced reputation titles. You can gain reputation with the Ebon Vanguard, the Deldrimor Dwarves and the Norn. In the preview, the Norn is really the only accessible one, as you can talk to various NPC's which will give you rep for killing monsters in an area, whereas the equivalent Ebon Vanguard and Dwarven NPC's are in other areas (Dwarven rep NPC's are in the dungeons). To get the new armor in EotN, you must amass an insane 32,000 Norn reputation for the Norn armor (nobody is sure how much it will be for the other factions). Considering you get one point of reputation for each monster, this means you have to kill thousands upon thousands of mobs. It is made a little easier by bonuses in the form of quests, as well as talking again to the Rep NPC's who will give you +50 reputation after killing 70 mobs (it scales, so the more you kill, the higher the bonus), but in this weekend, 32,000 has only been reached by a handful of the most hardcore grinders. This has brought outrage in the community, as many people play Guild Wars as it is more casual-friendly than World of Warcraft and similar MMOs. It is unknown whether Anet will respond by lowering the requirement by release date.

Another major complaint is disappointment with the Hall of Monuments, which has been hugely hyped by all Anet reps, and has failed to deliver on many of the promises. The Anet faithful like myself cling to the hope that the Hall present in this preview is only a placeholder for the real Hall, which will deliver on the promises.

Overall, I'm pleased with how this game looks so far. I'm glad there's now something new to do in Guild Wars, and I'm glad I can finally complete the circle in the storyline alongside friends I've made over the past two years in this game.