Originally Posted by EAT U ALIVE

what are keys???? and what do they open where at?

Originally Posted by EAT U ALIVE

what are keys???? and what do they open where at?

Originally Posted by Esprit

I can see it now, trade channels being flooded with, "WTS keys! Only 50k!"

Originally Posted by Weazzol

So, for those of us at work with stupid freakin' "Websense" blocking everything, can someone post the IGN review here? If its not too long? Or the patch notes from guildwars.com? Thanks.

Originally Posted by IGN

Sorrow's Furnace Update Hands-on
We travel to Seattle and into the fiery depths where sorrow is forged.
by Dan Adams

September 6, 2005 - Guild Wars has been a huge success for ArenaNet. There are a good number of reasons for this, one of which is the developers' great love and attachment to their own game and subsequent commitment to making Guild Wars all it can be. Considering the game's business model, this is a very happy surprise for many gamers who tend to find paid online games seriously lacking in these areas. While the developers of this fantasy RPG have continuously updated the game with little tweaks and fixes, they've been saving up a bunch of big additions for one gigantic update named after the area it's focused around. Sorrow's Furnace is a bleak stop on the tour of Guild Wars with some nasty surprises in store for players of skill. Entering the Furnace isn't for the timid, but those looking for some serious co-op play that'll add some big fun have a treat in store for them.

The message at ArenaNet is "Onward and Upward!" Anyone that you talk to in the company is very proud of what they've accomplished with Guild Wars and it's no surprise. It's been on the list of top selling PC games for weeks and has a huge worldwide following. But to think that these guys are simply satisfied to only do what they've been doing without looking to the future is a big mistake. There's always room to improve and they don't think big change needs to wait for a paid expansion.

With the addition of Sorrow's Furnace, players will receive two new zones with a ton of new quests and content along with smaller additions to existing areas and new gameplay mechanics. These guys play the game a ton themselves and workers dedicated to looking through player feedback and compiling it for the team to see have found some obvious areas of improvement. One of the most glaring bits that many players have mentioned is the issue of progression and reward. As it is right now, players making their way through the story campaign will tromp along swimingly, growing in power and skill at a great pace, when they'll run smack into a wall that slows progression mingling frustration with the fun.
Fixing those kinds of issues is a challenge. Most players don't really realize that "balance isn't just a matter of tweaking some numbers." It's a matter of adding new gameplay ideas that balance the issues at hand. For instance, getting players out of certain areas where they simply mine creatures for magic items is a big issue. The additions of keys and chests found around the world is a gameplay addition to fix the problem. These keys are expensive, but will also be dropped by creatures. Chests hold nothing but uncommon and rare items for players to use.

Even better is that no one will have to fight over a chest in an area. Everyone will have a chance to search it with their key (should they have one) and grab a nice treasure. ArenaNet has also chosen to add more scrolls like the Scroll of Slayer's Insight that will give players incentives to fight in more aggressive ways and move about maps more. This long term approach to gameplay fixes seems like a much better idea than simple number crunching.

In some cases, the player behavior is even driving gameplay design. Take the economy as an example. After some crazy fluctuations based on the play times from around the globe (this is truly a global economy here) all of the servers from around the world have been made to communicate with each other more efficiently in order to keep crazy fluctuations down. Even more interesting is the idea of item speculation. Lots of players have been collecting rubies for monetary amounts much greater than they would sell for at a vendor. Now, the rubies don't really have a use at the moment. Players knows that but have been collecting them with the thought that they will have a good use at some point. Because the demand for them is so high and people have been spending exorbitant amounts of cash on what are basically useless items, the design team has had to evaluate the ruby situation. The solution just might be to make rubies into something a bit more representative of the value given to them by the players.
It's this kind of a thought process that allows ArenaNet to expand their content into new frontiers. They watch where players like to be the most, what kinds of quests are the most fun, and then run with the data to create something new and unusual in the Guild Wars universe. Sorrow's Furnace is the first big update to take advantage of that.

Nestled in the welcoming bosom of the Shiverpeak Mountains, Sorrow's Furnace sits just inside Grenth's Footprint. Both of these new zones offer plenty of stuff to see in a much denser package than has ever been seen in Guild Wars before. What the developers have found is the denser an area is, the more likely players are to come back and adventure again. The fights tend to more intensity, the rewards (both tangible and emotional) are greater, and the environments can be fashioned into a much more detailed look.

The story behind Sorrow's Furnace is separate from the overarching story of the base Guild Wars game, but is tighter with more emotional impact than what has been done in the past. The basics behind the fiction lay with the different dwarf factions in Guild Wars. The good Deldrimor Dwarves have found a new gathering of their Stone Summit enemies in Shiverpeak where they've created a massive forge towards some nefarious means.

Along the way, the Stone Summit dwarves have managed to enslave various races, including the new Dredge army and turn them to their evil task. One of the first missions players will have to embark on is finding a way into the Furnace to scout the place out for the Deldrimor. In order to do that, players will have to sell themselves into slavery. Normally, it would be a reluctant thing for players as slaves don't usually get to keep the things they've collected over time. But the Stone Summit have come up with some ingenious magicks called the Spirit Shackles that make it impossible for their slaves to do harm to their masters while still allowing them to carry out important tasks.
Once shackled, players will have the run of the Furnace and be able to collect all kinds of information. In fact, because of the shackles, players will have the opportunity to talk to enemies for the first time and interact with them, even going so far as to accept quests from them. Eventually, plot twists and turns will change the landscape of the fiction and place heroes on the path to victory over the Stone Summit dwarves, but not without a serious fight.

The levels themselves are gorgeous as always. The Guild Wars art team continues to show their technical prowess and artistic vision. They manage to make the game look spectacular without many of the processor intensive tricks of the high spec games. It's all about style, theme, and in this case, contrast. The Shiverpeak area is a wintery wonderland full of fun surprises, but as players wander into Grenth's Footprint, they'll notice some changes. Lush forests are clear cut and the land blighted. Eventually, as players wander far enough, they'll find themselves looking over the edge of a gigantic man-made hole housing the mammoth Sorrow's Furnace complex. The surrounding pure white snow quickly gives way to charred landscape and hot colors unfamiliar in the mountains.

Entering the Furnace itself is like moving into some sweaty nightmare. Slaves wander the halls while Stone Summit Dwarves crack the whip. The air is murky and thick inside the caverns. This huge indoor area will be a pretty interesting thing for players. The engine was originally designed to render outdoor areas with aplomb, but the design team has managed to turn it into an indoor wonder. Each new area inside this maze of heat and pain bring players closer to the belly of the beast, a gigantic furnace churning out massive amounts of heat. Everywhere in the furnace are moving parts, chains, scaffolding, gears, cogs, mechanisms for this and that… it's a wonderland of industry. It's also incredibly severe with dangerous sharp points and easy use of reds, oranges and yellows.

Everything about Sorrow's Furnace and its surrounding areas scream danger. That danger is real to players and only those with a good handle on the game should enter here. The game designers at ArenaNet have made this area very difficult for even seasoned veterans as I soon found out when they handed over control of a warrior/elementalist to me.

I've played a lot of Guild Wars, but I wouldn't call myself a master. With members of the Guild Wars team on my side, I figured fighting through Sorrow's Furnace would be a cake walk. After the first death within a couple of minutes, I started to think otherwise. While the group was certainly on the ball as far as casting spells and using abilities (while I basically whacked on creatures hoping not to get the other guys killed), the enemies were everywhere and were some of the strongest to be found in the game. I suppose that's why it was so much fun. It didn't matter to me that I wasn't as good. The action was intense and non-stop. The occasional death didn't really dampen the mood.
The first quest was actually one of four named quests received from a dwarf standing at the top of the level. We talked to him, picked one of four names, and then ran to meet whoever that was down at the Furnace. The guy waiting for us was an impatient dwarf looking to cause some serious damage and reach a certain area of the Furnace. He was a bit of an homage to the type of character that just runs ahead without thought for his or her teammates. You know, like WoW's Leroy Jenkins. In fact this guy yelled his own name and ran off into battle as well regardless of having any backup.

This is just one of the types of quests that ArenaNet is hoping will keep the action moving at all times. There's not a moment for relaxation when you have a dwarf drunk on battle lust pulling you along. At least he's nice enough to cast haste on everyone so they can keep up. It's funny as hell when you're just finishing up the enemies in the area and that little bastard is already running after the next group. Thankfully, he'll wait up until the first member of the group catches up when running from place to place. The key here is that if he dies, the mission is lost. He'll fight on his own and do a hell of a job at it (unlike some other NPCs) but if you don't help, he will die. The pace is frantic, but well worth the trouble.

After the quick pace of the first mission, we skipped ahead to the very end. There are a lot of quests here that I didn't have the chance to experience such as those requiring machinery to be activated or repaired and bombs to be placed (well, the last mission had some of that), but that's understandable considering time constraints and the fact that there are 30-40 difficult quests in the update not even counting those dealing with Titans and other zones.
I can tell you first hand that the last mission in Sorrow's Furnace is one mean bastard. Even with the group of developers, the number of deaths by the completion of the mission was rather high. Every one of us was suffering from serious Death Penalty woes (I was up to -60% much of the time) but even so we were able to fight our way through scores of Stone Summit dwarves, ettin slaves, and huge furnace guardians that packed one hell of a whallop. All of this to get to a boss battle with a gigantic mechanical Golem so difficult that it was hard not to weep with laughter as the slaughter began. He has so many nasty tricks it's hard not enjoy the punishment. After the battle seemed to be won, it became clear that it barely even started as some of the most powerful and nastiest creatures in Guild Wars flew in to continue the beating.

I'd be surprised if any Guild Wars fans weren't satisfied with this update, especially considering the wonderfully free price tag. Eventually players will need to put some money on the table for an expansion, but right now, ArenaNet is happy to keep their fans hooked. While this particular update is pretty much story campaign only, PvP players also received a treat with the recent PvP Extreme Weekend. What those who experienced the weekend didn't know was that it was a bit of a test to make sure the systems really worked before being implemented permanently. Apparently the weekend went over swimmingly so players can expect to get a permanent patch to the PvP experience before too long (after some more minor tweaks) as well including the increased faction rewards (hopefully because it's there all the time, players won't feel it necessary to cheat the system to get all they can out of it in a short amount of time) and skill balances. Eventually players also have to look forward to the PvP Tournament Season, which for reasons of legal wrangling, Championship event location, and prize considerations hasn't had a date officially announced yet.

Finally, sometime next year, players can expect to see an expansion that opens up new lands and brings entirely new gameplay into Guild Wars. If players pay attention, they may actually see some hints of things to come in this update.

Watch for more info about Sorrow's Furnace every day this week!

Originally Posted by burai

The article suggests keys as drops and "expensive" buys - presumably from a merch. Woohoo! Neat! Let's hope not too expensive.

Originally Posted by Snowman

hmmm.. the last boss can be done with a team on -60 DP ? but that big mechanical boss isnt even the hardest baddy?

"All of this to get to a boss battle with a gigantic mechanical Golem so difficult that it was hard not to weep with laughter as the slaughter began. He has so many nasty tricks it's hard not enjoy the punishment. After the battle seemed to be won, it became clear that it barely even started as some of the most powerful and nastiest creatures in Guild Wars flew in to continue the beating."

and they fly....

im thinking...

Dragons?

Originally Posted by sir skulkcrasher

get a group of elementlist and use metor showers (and firestorm) on that mechanical golem!