Guild Wars: Eye of the North - Sneak Peak Weekend First impressions.

Well, I took part in the Sneak Peak event just over a week ago, and thought maybe I should jot down my impressions of the expansion pack for those that didn't take part.
First off, GW:EN is the first true expansion pack for Guild Wars, the previous "expansions" have been stand alone games which didn't require you to already have GW installed. This new expansion is not standalone, and is only open to Level 20 characters.
The initial plot has earthquakes occuring in the various entry cities (Lions Arch, Kamadan, Kaineng Centre) and silvery coloured Oozes and Rats fleeing the sewers and into the towns (you'll see these things buzzing around in town even now). A mission giver will tell of a chasm opening up outside of town and off you go to investigate. I don't know how this goes from the other entry towns, as I only went through from Lions Arch, but once you find the chasm, less than a 5 minute walk from town, you'll gain entry to Below Lions Arch. Down here you'll meet up with a few undead creatures (Hellhounds, Undead Monks and Sorcerors) before stumbling across a bunch of dwarves and a single floppy eared Asura (you may have seen Asura mini-pets already in town) named Vekk who seems to be voiced by Brain from Pinky and the Brain.
A vicious enemy, the imaginatively named "Destroyers", are rapidly introduced and you are sent fleeing to some sort of warp gate which takes you away from (immediate) harm, and into the new area in the far north Shiverpeaks.
The plot from here seems to involve getting support from the three races found in the North to face the Destroyers. The three races are the Norn (a race of agressive humanlike people who's only difference from the humans is their large size and ability to transform into bears), the Asura (a small race of creatures who apparently know alot about the warp gates, and originally driven from their homelands by the Destroyers some time ago), and some human refugees from the fall of Ascalon.
During the Sneak Peak weekend, only the Norn related quests were open, and these proved to be good fun. I found the rewards gained in killing creatures and fighting the Norn I met to be alot more engaging than the previous installments of GW, and got me fighting everything I could, rather than avoiding combat to save time getting to new areas, and in the 2 days I played (no more than 10 hours I'd say) I picked up a couple of new skills and a new title on the Norn title track (Slayer of Imps).
Story-wise, it was great seeing Gwen, the little girl we met just outside Pre-Searing Ascalon, alive and well and leading the human outpost, perhaps here I'll find a use for the broken flute and preserved Red lily I've been carrying for the last year and a half. When I saw her, I actually had them in my inventory and got a "I can't believe you kept that all this time" comment, but ot much more. Perhaps they'll come into play later.
The various Norn that you meet at the spawn points and also the collectors, can all be fought, and should be too, in order to gain reputation among the Norn and more information. Also, after killing numerous enemies, it is worth checking in with each Norn you can find to raise your reputation further. For some reason, I actually found this to be a nice touch, and it actually made it feel like I was getting somewhere rather than randomly being allocated a new rank every now and then.
Pretty much everything else is as it was in the earlier installments, you can gain heroes (in fact the first dwarf and Asura that I met under Lions Arch joined me immediately) as in Nightfall etc, but there doesn't seem to be any new mechanics to learn this time round. The plot thus far seems quite engaging, as it has in all previous installments, but I've found thus far that the plots seem to get more and more disjointed as I play through the game, but that perhaps is down to me rather than the game.
In short, if you liked the other GW installments have got bored with or finished them, and you've got some spare cash to throw at it, go get it, I doubt you'll be disappointed.
The price listed on the PlayNC store online is £24.99, 5 quid cheaper than Nightfall is currently retailing on the same site. There's an alternative of buying Guild Wars Platinum though which contains the original game plus the Eye of The North exansion for £34.99, which is a good deal I guess if you don't have the original Prophecies campaign.

Sneek Peak Weekend - 24th-27th

The new Eye of the North expansion (GW:EN, an auspicious acronym it has been revealed) is being previewed this weekend for those that have put down their cash for the pre-order.
you can find out more info here.
I'm up for a bit of a session here, so if anyone is keen for a run this weekend, either post here or e-mail me.

Cheers.
CodeMonkey

Longtime no post.

Things have been a little quite on the posting front, so I thought I'd bash out a quick post. For those who don't keep up with the news, there's a mission pack called "Eye of the North" being released soon. It's available for pre-order now at the ridiculous price of £3.49. Pre-ordering gives you access to the weekend preview on the 24th of August. This seems too cheap to me, and I suspect that I've just coughed up money for the privilege of being able to access the sneak-peek weekend, not the actual mission pack... I'll let you know if I find out more.
I'd suggest a meeting that weekend to hit Eye of the North and see how much new stuff we can collect. Maybe on the Saturday or Sunday morning (British time).
I'll try to make myself available.

For those people in the Guild who wonder why they never see me online, it's because I live in Australia, and so am hitting the game servers when most of you guys are tucked up warm in bed. I'm seeking to remedy this by inviting a few Aussies and Kiwis into the Guild. You'll probably be able to pick the Kiwis out by the propensity to call everyone Bro'.

Cheers ears.

Guild Wars: Forum Topic: Unlocked Chests by Tribina on the GameAmp Network

Guild Wars: Forum Topic: Unlocked Chests by Tribina on the GameAmp Network

Family fun

Here you can see Guild Leader Lilith and her 2nd in command Amsorn posing in front of a massive statue. You can see Amsorn was a bit peckish and took a nibble out off the leg of the statue, sadly it fell over after this, sorry.

Just after the calamitous event we were able to meet up with Sariss who rather kindly gave us 15 attribute points each, hurrah. Not bad for a snake man really, it saved us having to mug him!

Ok here is the family outing to Kessex Peak, after killing Galrath and his minions we picnicked in front of this lovely floating castle, one day we hope to buy this for our property portfolio.

You can see Amsorn with his dodgy helmet on the left, Aryan lurking in the rear (favourite position)and the mighty Lilith front and centre.

Allow me to Introduce - The Erizan Clan.

Here we have 3 fine upstanding members of the Erizan family, Chareeth the Elementalist/Monk on the left from Ascalon, Kim the Assassin/Ritualist in the middle from Cantha and Jingo the Dervish/Necromancer on the right from Elona. Chareeth is my main character, level 20 now, with Kim coming up close behind (as is fitting for an Assassin) at level 18. Jingo is a relative newcomer at level 9, and still on the newbie island.
Chareeth is mainly devoted to pyromancy and likes nothing better than to sit by side of a nicely burning Jungle Troll of an evening, singing campfire songs. In Cantha though, Chareeth has had to expand his repertoire to include some geomancy spells as a number of the enemies there seem to be covered with some sort of fire retardant material.
Kim, as an assassin likes stabbing things repeatedly, poisoning creatures and retreating to a safe distance to watch them turn green and fall over. She's currently saving up for some max armour to help stop her targets fighting back.
Jingo doesn't get out much and is still cruising around the newbie island chopping up plants and skales. Currently she's working to infiltrate some bizarre cult on the island and killing harpies. She had an unfortunate incident at birth which has resulted in her having a head of nasty looking straw coloured hair, as a result she'll never take of her hood.
And there you have it, the Erizan clan.

Lillith is One!!

Lillith made it to the big 1 on Friday. That's right Lillith Darkholm has been in existence for one year. The lovely people at Guild Wars gave her a present and it turned out to be this little fellow. He is a Mini Jungle Troll and I'm thinking of calling him Fish-Lips. This may sound like a strange name for a Jungle Troll but when he wanders off in Lions Arch or The Sunspear Sanctuary I can go up to people and ask "Have you seen my Fish-Lips?? Failing that I was thinking of Dave.