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Guild Wars: Eye of the North Review
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Eye of the North was released four years ago and was the final expansion for Guild Wars. In our latest review, MMORPG.com's Som Pourfarzaneh checks out Eye of the North and offers his thoughts on how it holds up after four years. Read on and then offer your thoughts in the comments.
Unlike the standalone Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall campaigns that comprise Guild Wars Trilogy, Eye of the North (EotN) is a traditional expansion in that it requires a level 20 character from one of the previous campaigns to play. It returns to the original setting in the Prophecies game and is meant to serve as a bridge between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, along with the out-of-game novels currently being produced. Rather than adding new professions and PvP modes like the previous expansions, EotN focuses on PvE content, offering 4 new explorable regions, 18 multilevel dungeons, 150 skills, 10 customizable heroes, 40 armor sets, and your own Hall of Monuments. It's more Guild Wars and introduces some key concepts that will appear prominently in the sequel, so if you like ArenaNet and NCSoft's style, you might want to check it out.
Read more of Som Pourfarzaneh's Guild Wars: Eye of the North Review.
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Dungeons in Eye of the North are epic in scale.
Comments
I loved all 3 guild wars games but I didn't pick up GWEN when it came out. Now I would like to play but I don't enjoy playing alone. It is super boring. I find myself browsing the internet while my henchmen do all the work for me.
If anyone knows a group of people who want to play through GWEN please message me..
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I agree with most of what is said in the article. It doesn't mention one big downturn regarding the completion of the Hall of Monuments (HoM), though: At this point in time, it is safe to say that no new player can achieve 50/50 on the GW-to-GW2 transition scale, at least not before the GW2 release. The problem are the elitist PvP modes Heroes' Ascent (HA), Guild vs Guild (GvG) and, to some extent, Codex Arenas (CA).
For HA, it is insanely difficult to find a party that accepts newbies, and even if you manage to find 7 other newbies, you will be crushed by the elitist Rank 12+ parties that inhabit this domain. You might be able to achieve Rank 3 (which requires 180 fame (the name of the points counting towards the title)) and get the first of 5 emotes (Deer (3: 180), Wolf (6: 1000), Tiger (9: 4,665), Phoenix (12: 21,600), Dragon (15: 100,000)) till the GW2 release, but in order to unlock the achievement in the HoM, you need to be at least Rank 6. It was fairly easy to get the title "back in the day", but as of now, HA is populated mostly by highranked teams, which makes earning fame extremely difficult.
Getting the required rank in the Champion title track (GvG) is even harder, since you get the points only for winning a match between two guilds with at least 1,200 rating on the ladder. Even getting this high is difficult enough (but definitely not impossible), getting the 100 victories required for the achievement, though, is. At least it will take a lot of time and patience.
Although CA, like the two above, is a non-random party PvP mode, it adds a significant amount of randomness by rotating the available skill pool every day. This makes it a lot easier for inexperienced players to actually play and slowly build points - of which you still need 2,000 to be able to add this title to the HoM - because you can hide your lack of skill behind the severely restricted skill- and therefore build pool.
I am aware of the fact that the review is also aimed at existing players, who played Prophecies, Factions, and/or Nightfall, but in order to be competitive, access to the complete skill pool is necessary - and for this you need all 3 standalone campaigns and EotN. If you are an active player with only Proph, Factions and NF and haven't yet bought EotN more than 4 years after the release, you probably don't have that much PvP experience and the list applies also to you.
On the bright side, most of the PvE content is easily accessible. A friend of mine bought all 4 campaigns in July and unlocked more than half of the HoM achievements in the 2-3 following months.
(Also, what's wrong with the bullet point feature in the comments?!)
What? 50/50 (50 Hall-of-Monuments points out of 50 possible) is not an easy feat, but what's written in the other post is bullox. You don't need to play high-level PvP to get there. There are ways through PvE to get the one PvP statue you do need. I know it sounds weird, but that's the way it is. Z-keys and Z-coins is all I say.
So, after this, you should also know that you don't need 50/50 HoM points to get good stuff for GW2. In fact, only the first 30 points get you items, pets, etc. For the last 20 you get four additional titles you can display, one at each 5 point increment.
Getting to 30 is still a bit of work if you start from scratch. There are some guides that help you focus on the easier points and how to score them. If you have played the other campaigns you are likley already at 10 points or so and can get a couple more with a little work. And the expansion can now be had for even less money than mentioned, from $10 down to $5 if you snag it at a sale. I would say it's definitely worth it.
HoM is 3/4 money, few heroes (you obtain em anyway) and just then (assume you play for at least few months) you need to finish some titles.
May I ask how long it takes to get 50/50 HoM? I bought the whole package on a steam sale and haven't played yet, waiting to get a new pc as the current one doesn't play for shit.
Really, most people are going to be satisfied with hitting 30 in the HoM since everything after that point is just titles (unless it's changed since I last looked). Some are even content to hit a part way mark once they've unlocked the one bonus item that appeals to them.
Most players aren't all that interested in reaching GWAMM. They want the shinies, which aren't that hard to obtain. The normal course of play will unlock a bunch of stuff even without any extra effort.
I couldn't tell you exactly, but I would guess in excess of six months if you were dedicated and had some help. One of the biggest hurdles is money and that requires you know how and where to farm, plus the time to actually do it. Realistically, I'd say a year for a new player who doesn't pursue it neurotically. But you can fill out quite a bit of it pretty quickly otherwise. I think I reached 25 in about three months from a fresh account, with no guild and no assistance from friends. I wasn't even all that dedicated to it.
exactly. Play for fun and it will come to you.
30/50 is not easy let alone 50/50
The most painful is getting the armors and the weapons, other achievements gets unlocked as you go, but some needs a lot of attention.
My suggestion is, as soon as you are able to get the Hero's Handbook just follow that story line to gain a lot of faction rep. You also get a lot of gold this way, which is badly needed to be able to purchased the over-priced materials for your Elite Armor set. This is basically your grinding guide.
After 3-4 turn-ins of this handbook, I got bored already -- that means, it's time to complete it in Hard Mode. >:D
GL, I already have my 30, no need for 50.
Ready for GW2!!!
You only need to be level 10, not level 20, to be able to starting doing EotN expansion.
Yeah, if you start now from scratch, getting to 30/50 is quite a lot of work. A lot of the things in HoM are things you normally accumulate over time when playing GW. Like the minipets from the birthday presents for toons and the armoursets. Getting those in a relative short amount of time needs a lot of ingame money.
Still 30/50 should be possible for someone who starts now.
One of the best expansions ever made, for any game.
seams a good expansioin
Reaching 30/50 shouldn't be too hard, I would think at least. You get 3 points just for playing (the account linking). Beating the three campaigns (and bonus modes for at least two) will easily nab you another 5 points. MOX is a freebie for your hero points, and as a Ranger any pet will add in a point as well. 10 points without trying.
The most expensive things in the game to obtain, without a doubt, is the Obsidian, then Vabbian, armor and lastly the Tormented Weapons (20-25ectoes for one armbrace). The rest can all be bought easily with just 50-60 platinum (Destroyer and Oppressor weapons) and a little closer to 80-90k for armor. That is assuming you just outright buy the items though from the material traders. In truth just going through the game will cover a good portion of material for your Prestiege armor sets, and rare crafting material itself can be crafted as well if necessary. Eye of The North also provides some cheap sets of armor that count towards the HoM as well.
It can look like a major grind on your own, but you'd be doing a diservice to the game then. Join a guild, have fun, join in the community events (while they still last). I jumped 8 points in my own HoM (20-28) thanks to a community-ran event I participated in. I got to that 20 points not even touching the armor or weapon set areas. Pets are also commonly traded, and if not given away for free, the first couple years of white mini-pets are pretty much just 2-5 platinum each (unless its the rare ones).
Also, it should be noted that there is the GW Beyond content being released, which takes place after Eyes of the North, and provides its own chances for HoM points (the earlier mentioned Oppressor weapon come from the War in Kryta/Romance plotlines).
Just to clarify some things, as there are some mistakes in the article:
1. You neither need a level 20 character, nor you have to complete a previous campaign(you still must own one though) to acsess EotN. As soon as you get to one of the major cities (Lion's Arch, Kaineng Center and Kamadan) you can obtain the quest to get to the new content. If you're not level 20 the game will automatically place a buff on you("Journey to the North"), which will scale your health, armor and skills to that of a level 20 character, but you will still continue to gain experience for your actual level . When you finally reach the level cap the buff will simply dissappear.
2. Getting all the items in HoM (30/50) is EXTREMELY EASY and almost grind free. It requires basic knowledge of the metagame, for example to know how "to do" the Traveller's weekly quest (basically a 35-40 minute long grind, that will give you rather neat ammount of gold 22-25K), Glint's challenge mission, Zaishen daily's, and another great source of money if you have Factions - Jade Quarry (you can get Zaishen keys pretty fast from there and sell them for about 4,6-5,5 K).
It took me around 3 and a half months, and I was playing about 8 HOURS PER WEEK ( I'm a higher education student so I don't have much time). Given I had completed all campaings, but then again if you play let's say 4 hours a day - you can be done in 3 months for sure!
3. Getting full HoM (50/50) is completely optional and, at least for me, POINTLESS - as it only grants you TITLES and NO ADDITIONAL ITEMS in GW2. It really requires a lot of time, and it's for hardcore fans only.
EoTN was that good that I bought my two brothers the Game of the year Edition each, to play with me. Shame the player base is too difficult to get along with now.. Although you do get some nic epeople who give out free runs in the high level content.
Rawr?
Never playing Guild Wars, it'd take you a while. And since a good bit of places will be empty it'll take you longer than normal. If you join a guild and get the basics withing 5 days time, it'd probably take you a month or 2 or 3 depending on how long you play and how often. Guild Wars has a ton of content to cover and it's challenging. Simply running past mobs is impossible unless you have certain builds.
I'd suggest just playing the game like normal and finding a helpful guild. Having RL friends you can play at the same time with will help a lot.
30/50 isnt hard. Just requires a lot of farming or cash. I pretty much stopped playing GW after I got my 30+. Just waiting for the game without a release date to finally come out