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Guild Wars: Eye Of The North - Expansion Pack Review (continued)
More User Submitted Guild Wars: Eye Of The North - Expansion Pack Reviews
Date: 2007-09-08
Possibly good but not tested enough
Eye of the North might have been a good expansion to Guild Wars, but it wasn't tested nearly enough. Once the expansion went live, many people started to have their CD keys for their Guild Wars expansions disappear off their account. This made it very difficult, if not impossible, for most of the players with this problem to play the game at all. That wouldn't have been a problem if the problem was resolved immediately by customer support, but it seems customer support has been swamped and response times have been horrible.
I am not saying that the expansion is bad or shouldn't be purchased, but I would reconsider purchasing it until they have time to get some of these major bugs worked out.
Date: 2007-09-07
A great idea that wasn't playtested enough
I've been playing GW since shortly it came out and have bought every campaign and expansion and have been generally very happy with it. I wish I could say the same for Guild Wars: Eye of the North (GWEN). First off, let's start with the good things:
1. Tons of eye-candy. Tons of attention was paid to making the dungeons et al. look amazing. There are gas traps that shoot out amazing fountains of poison, there are cogs and wheels in motion, etc. It is very well done in the graphics dept.
2. The story line is really good. It ties in various factions from previous campaigns.
3. Tons of new PvE skills. There are new Title tracks and skills to go with them (Norn, Dwarf, and Asura) with benefits for displaying the title (similar to Lightbringer track from Nightfall). There are also standard skills you can buy for PvP and PvE from a skill trainer as well, but by and large, the new skills are on the Title tracks, which also means they can't be used in PvP.
Now for why I am disappointed in GWEN:
1. Dungeons - These were touted to be oh-so-amazing things to explore. Well, they are in an entirally visual way. The problem that arises is that most dungeons are a pain in the rear. You basically have to meta for each specific dungeon and if you don't ahead of time, expect to finally reach the boss at the end of the dungeon after 2-3 hours fighting your way there and find out that you have no way of beating the boss, and will have to start all over. There are some simple puzzles in dungeons which I will say is a good thing, but they are childishly simple. There not even to the level of say Knights of the Old Republic series (whose hardest puzzle was a modified Towers of Hanoi). Another issue is the benefit/difficulty ratio - it just isn't worth the time to go through the dungeons (except when required to). On average, there is 7.5K xp and 1.25k gold for clearing out a 2-level dungeon (plus a guaranteed gold item or gem drop at the end). But be prepared to spend 2-3 hours earning it. Yes, you'll get tons of swag to sell and score some pts. for the various Title tracks, but you can do other things with a lot less hassle for the same, if not better, rewards.
The dungeons just feel like they were thrown in without making sure they were not a NPE (negative playing experience (a playtesting term used to indicate an experience where the fun was pretty much sucked out of the game for a player)).
Unfortunately, some dungeons are required to complete the story line, and one is very heinously a NPE. After spending quite some time to fight your way to the boss, you find out that he has a shield that requires you to run through fire to be able to drop explosive to bring down the shield (requires 3 runs). Problem is that the enemy can explode the explosives you are carrying, deals almost lethal damage (very lethal if you have any death penalty), and that he never misses under ordinary circumstances. Even if you bring down his shield, you have about 30 secs. to kill him before the shield goes back up and he starts healing. Then you have to try to bring his shield down again! My description just doesn't do justice to how much an NPE that dungeon is! Unfortunately, just about all dungeons are like that.
2. Lack of universal (usable in both PvE and PvP) Elites - the new Elites are PvE only ones. This is a minor gripe but some new universal Elite skills would've been good.
3. Polymock - this is a new side game that allows one to basically duel an NPC one on one and play as a different creature (skale, ice imp, etc.). Sounds neat, right? Problem is that you have to go sequentially against your opponents (you can't just go to the local Polymock NPC and play him; you have to fight your way to him), and those that you have to challenge always have better pieces (the creatures you can take the shape of come as playing pieces). The only way to get better pieces is to beat people in the Polymock series, random drop in a dungeon (only found after beating the boss of a dungeon), or the secondary market (i.e. buying it from someone (prices currently run around 60,000 for one piece)). Furthermore, once you actually play Polymock, you find out that you and your opponent are stuck on towers, and your opponent always has Area of Effect spells that he can't miss with. While there are people that can excel at it, most players find it generally a pain to do. Fortunately, it isn't required to complete the story-line.
4. AI has been changed for heros/henches - In past, your heros and hechmen/women would continue to fight if you had to back off to heal yourself for a moment. Well, they've changed the AI so that if you move at all during combat, the AI interprets that as a call for retreat and your heros/henchmen will immediately stop fighting and break-off. It doesn't matter that all you were trying to do was get in to position to attack - your heros and hench will break off and form up behind you!
So, to sum it all up: GWEN is artistically amazing and is generally fun, but feels that while the makers wanted to make the final chapter of GW 1 memorable, they forgot to playtest to make sure the fun of playing the game all-the-way-around exists.
Date: 2007-09-04
Enjoyable Experience
I have enjoyed the Eye of the North expansion pack so far. Here are some positive and negatives I've seen about the expansion from playing it since the release.
Positive:
- More content for the seasoned players
- More spells
- Reputation gains
- Hall of monuments (achievements transferred to Guild Wars 2 when released)
- New Armor set for each class
- Expanding questline, elite boss fighting (Notorious Monster kills)
Negative:
- Heavily populated areas in Expansion parts (large server ping)
- Short quest line than actual campaign (casual players don't worry, it still is pretty lengthy when you take your time)
- No changes in PvP beyond new spells
- Confusing Hall of Monuments and Dungeon Exploration / Explanation
- Traveling to other towns is extremely hard, and lengthy.
The biggest pet peeve I found is that it's easy to get lost in the content of the game. The main story line follows a linear pattern but early on, then splits into several different quests which then don't have markers to run to. It doesn't help that the explanation given in the quest log is difficult to understand, and sends you "South" or "North" to a city you have no idea where it is at. I want to follow the main story and do the quests later, but I feel like I'm being forced to do other things instead which I don't care about doing.
The reputation grinds are a scary memento of how World of Warcraft handles "content" for the hardcore players. I don't enjoy grinding reputation. I don't have time to kill 10,000 enemies for someone to like me. I would suggest NCSoft to not go the way of their Lineage II folks or Blizzard entertainment and stray away from it. You're not fooling anyone when you call it reputation. Its just another way of leveling a character that is already level 20.
Beyond those two big sticklers, I have enjoyed the content overall. The expansion dungeons are vast and very well done graphically. It felt like an epic adventure at times, and the difficulty bar was raised significanlty. Just crossing to a new area is a challenge in itself. I recommend this expansion to anyone with the original Guild Wars campaign. It wont knock your socks off with content, but it is a good addition to people looking for something fresh in this already vast game.
Date: 2007-09-01
Completed in 6 hours...
I love Guild Wars... I have every Chapter... but this expansion... hmmm... it's got plenty of 'things' to keep people busy (i.e. grinding for titles), but other than that... it took me 6 hours to go through the primary quest line and defeat 'The Destroyer' (a boss that went down in under 5 minutes) - which was dissapointing.
The team was left going - "Is that it?" .
Then there are the mini-games... Polymock - supposedly dubbed "Pokemon on steroids"... I take 'steroids' as a negative... and unfortunately Polymock is waaaa~y off the mark... enforcing limited skill sets, and user choice which is NOTHING like the flexibility of Pokemon... it's more like Pokemon watered down. The AI is terrible at the moment too - anyone care to compete with AI interrupts?
Having said that - there are the good points, which are all over the press if you look for them... for me... I'm going back to Factions and playing AB.
Date: 2007-08-31
Once again, Guild Wars gets it right!
This expansion pack requires that players have at least one of the previous Guild Wars campaigns and at least one character at level 20. If you want to play Eye of the North (EotN), you must already have Guild Wars: Prophecies, Guild Wars: Factions, and/or Guild Wars: Nightfall installed or purchase at least one of them now.
PREVIOUS CAMPAIGNS
(1) Guild Wars: PROPHECIES has a good story line and is also the most natural "prequel" for the story in Eye of the North. However, leveling to level 20 in Prophecies is comparatively slow and reaching the city of Lion's Arch (where you can access the new region in EotN) will take you many hours of concentrated (though enjoyable) play.
(2) Guild Wars: FACTIONS is the quickest of the campaigns in which to level up to level 20. It also has the best story of the three campaigns, although some players did not like Factions as well as the other two campaigns. I enjoyed the campaign's Asian theme and locations, although I found the missions in Factions to be much more challenging than in Prophecies.
(3) Guild Wars: NIGHTFALL introduces Heroes (customizable non-player characters), which are very helpful as you level your character, but has the weakest storyline of the three campaigns (it is still a good story, however). I also found the leveling to be a bit slower in Nightfall than in Factions.
WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT EYE OF THE NORTH
Everything that I appreciate about Guild Wars is in EotN:
(1) It has an intriguing story, punctuated by entertaining and often amusing cut scenes (mini-movies). The story is also divided into three main "arcs", allowing players to go this way or that in the story line, as they so choose.
(2) It has additional Heroes (you get a monk, elementalist [mage], and mesmer almost from the get-go, and more Heroes come soon after via questing).
(3) Once again, Guild Wars is packed with extraordinary landscapes, monsters, and battle effects. I spend a lot of time just snapping gorgeous landscape "photos" (Print Screen) to use on my desktop.
(4) Numerous multi-level dungeons have been included. The dungeons are challenging and often fun (but sometimes extremely difficult if not downright impossible [see below]).
(5) The option to play in groups of "real" players or alone (with henchmen/heroes) or in any combination of real players and henches you want. I LOVE the fact that the Guild Wars campaigns accommodate so many playing styles. As for me, I like to play on my own or with a friend most of the time but I do group up with others occasionally. Grouping is also a great option for normally solo players that are having particular difficulty with some mission or quest.
(6) The story arcs involving the new races--Norn, Charr, and Asura--are entertaining and the associated missions are challenging, occasionally humorous, and creative.
WHAT's NOT GOOD ABOUT EYE OF THE NORTH
(1) Guild/Alliance interface--It would be helpful to be able to "see" not only who is online but where and what they are, for both your guild and alliance, but you cannot.
(2) Polymock/Dwarven Boxing/Norn Fighting--The new "minigames" introduced in EotN are not very fun in my opinion but, since they are optional, this is not a big problem.
(3) Hall of Monuments--The Hall of Monuments is a place where you can display past campaign achievements. As other reviewers have noted, the Hall is a letdown but, like the minigames, is incidental to the story.
(4) Dungeon Difficulty -- A number of the dungeons and associated quests are irritatingly long and/or difficult (at least with henches and heroes). I wish Guild Wars offered a more reasonable range of dungeon difficulty settings to choose from. Online sites such as guildwiki do provide helpful information and tips for defeating these dungeons and bosses. (With the right heroes and skill sets, many of the dungeons and end bosses can indeed be soloed with henchmen and heroes, but several of the dungeons [see Comments for dungeon list] are, in my opinion, too long, too difficult, and/or NOT WORTH THE TIME AND EFFORT with hero/hench teams. In ratcheting up the difficulty to such an extent, ArenaNet has inexplicably opted to post, in effect, a "Keep Out!" sign for a substantial portion of this expansion for many of its more casual/solo players.)
Overall, however, I am still pleased with and greatly enjoying EotN. It is a welcome addition to an already great game series, this time designed as an Expansion Pack tailored for veteran level 20 players. For new players, Guild Wars is a great game and it's easy to get started. One can jump in via any of the previous campaigns listed above and have a great time with it.
[*This review was updated 10 October 2007]
Guild Wars: Eye Of The North - Expansion Pack Reviews Page: 6 of 6 Prev<< 1 2 3 4 5 6
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