Curse

cellardweller · Sep 12, 2007, 03:04 AM // 03:04

I'll start with what I liked about GW:EN

Dungeons
These are a good fun and diverse enough to offer interest of all play levels, they make a fine replacement for the "elite missions" found in other games.

Atmosphere
Quests were a lot of fun and riddled with humour and surprises. The environment is definitely one of the prettiest anet has provided us.

Enemies
Players have been crying out for multiclass enemies for some time now and they did a good job of bringing foes with good skillbars for us to kill.

Henchmen
We've finally got henchmen that are don't have skillbars chosen via a dartboard... If only we could take them back into other games.

Now for the bad bits:

The Hall of Monuments
A large part disappointment around the HoM can be attributed to the months of hype that anet drummed up about it. The truth is that what they delivered was a spectacular failure, right down to the basic design. How could they honestly not imagine that locking out players with multiple characters would be a good decision is beyond me.

Unfinished Product
There is the glaring omission of hardmode from what they gave us. If you're going to deliver something, make sure all the essential features are there. After defeating the other campaigns in HM, playing in NM reeks of ho hum.

Title Based Access to Content
In the other GW games, if you wanted to access elite armours you were able to choose how you obtained the required resources, whether by farming, running, trading or speculating. In GW:EN, these choices are taken away from you. To access weaponsmiths and crafters, you must farm for hours in order to obtain the requisite faction title before can craft your armour. Removing choice from players is never a good thing.

Overpowered Title Based Skills
Towards the end of Factions, they released the Sunspear and Kurzik luxon skills which introduced significant imbalances into the PvE environment and gave distinct gaming advantages to grinders over casual players. GW:EN took this concept and increased it tenfold. Now the PvE environment is rife with unbalanced skills wielded by grinding players forcing casual players to either start grinding themselves or play at a massive disadvantage. These skills sound the death knell for the original guiding principle of rewarding skill instead of time - the principle that made GW a unique game in the first place.

Overall Score 4/10. I'd say skip it, but unless you want to play at a disadvantage to the other players who are brining the overpowered PvE skills back into the other games, you don't really have a choice.

(By comparison: Prophesies 9/10; Factions 7/10; Nightfall 7/10)

nimloth32 · Sep 12, 2007, 03:18 AM // 03:18

This is my comment after finishing GWEN just a moment ago.

In contrary to other player's point of view, i think the story of GWEN draws you into the world of GW more than other episodes of the series. I mean for me, there are more twists added to the storyline. As you know, each faction (charr, asura and norn) got its own storyline in GWEN. Each storyline outlines the differences of the culture of a race from another race well. For example, norn relies on individual ability more than team effort, asuran regards themselves highly in comparison to other races of tyria, charr's society are more 'orc-like' imo. Although i admits that i am quite disappointed with the storyline of Gwen, i mean, gwen has the most attention among the other characters in the universe of gw and i think anet can do better in tying up the loose end in Gwen's part of the story. Dungeons deserve another applause. Unlike previous episodes of GW, the missions in GWEN are triggered by different methods. Dungeons are featured with 5 classes of difficulty. Each are meant for different crowd of players so that both casual and hardcore can spend and enjoy their time. The music in GW improves a lot since GW:P as well as the scenery in game. The cinematics in GW are wonderful to behold due to its graphics. It is a farcry in comparison to GW:F.

I admit that i felt cheated after being told GWEN will be presented in three acts which gives a false impression that each act will be long-lasting individually. However, it turns up that the first and last act only lasts for a short while. The mobs are another letdown, i mean, we paid our money for a bunch of reskin monsters and weapons??!!!! wtf is going on with anet??!!! Although destroyers look fascinating, other creatures (including pets) are either taken from other campaign directly or with their colour being modified.

In addition, HoM needs improvements. Each monument only allows a total display of five titles ONLY!! I felt cheated because i had earned myself a few titles after spending tons of times in game and now i am being informed that i am not allowed to display all my titles in HoM? Since we cannot transfer our characters to GW2, i think we are well deserved to pass all of our achievements to GW2 as we spends a lot of times in order to get those titles.

In short, i think that GW:EN is a good expansion. However, i felt that anet finishes it quite harshly. There are more negatives than positives in GW:EN. I am quite disappointed as this is the finale of GW1 and yet anet ends it badly.

Overall i give a score of 7/10 for the improvement in game mechanics and storyline despite of the fact that the ending can be improved further.

Lourens · Sep 12, 2007, 07:19 AM // 07:19

I Love the dungeons

I dont use any of those grind skill regulair skills are much better

Bit of a short story line especially the vanguard would love to kill some more charr

But u can repeat those mission and thats nice

Lots of nice new explorable areas

My Black Dyed Norn longbow rocks !

It doesnt give as much content as the stand alone campains

But i still find it enough for a expension

I like the heros u get in Gwen especially hayda and livia

I Also love to hunt down big strong dinosaurs

My overal rating for Gwen : 7/10

Prophecies 9/10 Factions 7/10 Nightfall 8/10

Mocha Dawns · Sep 12, 2007, 09:23 AM // 09:23

Ok I have been a huge fan of Guildwars and have always defended it over WOW even when I have had server problems which were rare, but frustrating, but I have just got to put my two cents in here.

Eotn Pros:
Nice scenery and some great fire back drops.
Good to see real benefits in accumlating points for titles.
Smooth looking skins for the weapons.
A good bunch of hero's to choose from.

Eotn Cons:
POLYMOCK aka Poppycock ............ what a have...... If I wanted to play pokemon then I would !
Title based skills, and oh so many of them........ !
No new Elites, not even one.
Quests and missions that are profession based .... Like running drunk .... Ever seen a Necro skill to make you run fast, and Nice getting a lovely pair of knuckle dusters, pity I not an assassin so I dont have the pre-requisites !
Quests, Mission have completely lost the feel of previous installments ..... whats with the big chest at the end .... yippie more gold items that are useless except for trading.
Quests and Missions that have XP and Gold rewards are just a waste of time this far on in the game .... give us title points, give us skills .....
Dungeons, are nice but can I get a donation for my power bill as I have to leave the PC running all day now. If I dont complete them I have hide in the corner of a dungeon, until I can continue.
Hall of Monuments, well hey nice idea, pity it wasnt account based .....
Drops .... not very exciting are they

Eotn Summary:
What a let down, I really hope this is not a glimpse of things to come in GW2 cos I sorry but it just not gonna keep this player interested. Keep mini games to handhelds and leave the killing to us. We are here to save the world not to play patty-cake with oversized gremlins !

zanntos · Sep 12, 2007, 01:15 PM // 13:15

This is probably going to be a bit reposty from my "new players perspective" post but so far so good. I guess my view might be squed by my only playing for about a month now, but i'm enjoying GW:EN.

Length:
i can see how some people would find the game "short" if they were only counting the storyline. Sure, It's short, requires full runs of what 3-4 of the dungeons to complete (Fells and Orr don't count you only do the top floor for those and you can run them) But doing every quest and as a result every dungeon, that'll take time.

Variety:
Maybe it's because i only own Prophecies and GW:EN but i view GW:EN as a good thing because other than HM my options for lvl 20 content is basicly South Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire Island. I'm sorry but i enjoy hunting in the Asura and Charr lands as a bit of variety from my alternatives to hunting in the Snowdrifts and Firewrecked landscapes of my Prophecy alternative.
Also the dungeon monster variety is nice, i have alternatives to the "stone summit and ice monsters" and "undead and lava monsters" of prophecies. Maybe with the other 2 campaigns end areas there isn't any "ooo get to fight THESE" or maybe being used to hard mode itself takes the "ooo shiny" out of the variety i see.

Difficulty:
I can handle or avoid a decent amount of it, some places are rough if you're not careful or uberspecced. And some places i see as being nastier is you ARE Uberspecced (such as the monkey packs in Asura areas. I can see better now with another couple weeks exp why people are chirping for Hard Mode, since some of this stuff COULD be harder, particularly the Norn Area though HM Jotun packs i find a bit distressing to think about.

Story:
Meh, typical end of the world stuff, but then that seems fairly par for the coursein any MMO if there is story at all. HOWEVER i find even my "trivial" heroes to have a bit of personality particulalry with their "story quests" to flesh them out a bit. Maybe Nightfall does this too, i don't know, but it's more than alot of the Henches. And even the henches feel a bit more alive with them in their little clics in the different outposts. Outside GW:EN there are only a few key quests that make them feel alive like that. Also i find the cultural factor of the quests to be interesting.

The "Grind":
Ok i get a bit annoyed on this one because i feel like you guys don't know what a grind IS, and what a REQUIRED grind is. Any exWoW players that remember the attunement reqs for Tempest Keep before they took that out? Or the betrayal questline in EQ2? I still shudder at the number of Gnoll i had to annilate on my Lizard to change sides, much less the Month(s) of grinding Molten Hell it took to clear it and have your guild geared enough to down Vael and Razorgore in WoW. So people that do the "grind" have PvE skills that work a little better. That's a HELL of alot better than having attunement and endgame dungeon gear checks so intensive that 90% of the population doesn't see half half the endgame content. (ok i need to stop the WoW hating, but seriously THAT stuff is grind, don't even start on this cake walk)

Mini-games:
Like them or hate them we HAVE them now. nothing says you have to play Polymock but have a minigame you can play and if you want a minigame to break things up or kill a bit of time it works. Norn fighting or Dwarven boxing, both nice solo fighting and Norn Fighting is a nice place to test my builds for general strength since since the ring likes to throw all kinds of specs at you.
Also i personally consider riding the Siege Devourer around the Charr lands it's own minigame, and i find it quiet fun.

Hall of Monuments:
I'm new, i just view it as my "get out there and DO stuff" motivation. if i already had tons of stuff accomplished yeah i might have some of the complaints that others have. I can see how wanting to organize or have your green weapons displayed might be of interest. Also i personally boggle a bit at it not being account based just do to the sheer logistic strain of it being charactor based when GW2 rolls around, i'm betting when they get around to thinking about that it'll be account based. And again since i don't HAVE alot to put in it yet i really don't care, i was thrilled just to finish the Prophecies campaign this past week and put my Lich statue in as my first trophy.

Reskins:
Ok, i can understand people fussing about reskins but have you PLAYED other MMOs. just about anything you can get without selling your soul to a heavy raiding guild is "same old same old." Any WoW Burning Crusade players that can witness for the amount of mob reskin factor? or the item reskin factor, sure there ARE some new things, but alot of those are focused in endgame raids that you will probably never see without raiding 20+ hours a week.
There IS some new stuff such as Destroyer weapons and Asura weapons, plus a few other things, and the armors might be a mixed/reskinnish but they still look fairly nice and i'll probably be targetting one of them for my first armor addition to the HoM. Also the "generic" armor items aren't reskin and some of them look pretty cool. You know your WHR Necro hairstyle needs the Asura glasses.

I'm not saying GW:EN is perfect, sure if i'd been playing longer some of the issues people present would effect me. Would i want GW:EN armor if i was already in Primevil or Obsidian, probably not. Would i be crabbing about needing to "grind" after already putting in my time and energy grinding the Gold needed to raise my titles and get things like my Luxon/Kurzic rank and Sunspear/Lightbringer titles, probably. But as it stands I'm new, i'm having fun, and i'm still at the bottom looking up and GW:EN presents me lots of intersting/fun ways to ascend the heights of title and skill. (I SWEAR i'm going to figure out how ot solo that Siege Devourer on my own, though i'm sure there is a "how to" post on it somewhere)

Maybe GW:EN falls short for the vetern player who has been everywhere and done it all. But for a younger player like myself it's full of "ooo shiny" and the thrill of exploration and battle against new things. Also maybe the access to things from multiple campaigns helps generate interest in the campaigns i don't have yet. Especially Nighfall as Heroes are amazingly useful to me and Kahmu has been generating a bit of interest in the Dervish class. Not to mention all the Nightfall skills i'm seeing thrown around i don't have access to

Gwen's story quests back in Ascalon are made of win too. I Can't wait for the mission pack to come out so i can fill in the rest. Anyway off to finish my Titan quests in Prophecies and have Pyre help me kill his former "gods" he hates so much. Good hunting all.

Vinraith · Sep 12, 2007, 03:54 PM // 15:54

I'm a bit diappointed at the amount of overland explorable territory, and the corresponding lack of a new cartography title. The scenery is gorgeous, the new heroes are useful (they'd be even moreso if I could use seven of them...) and I like the dungeons and minigames.

Lots of people complain about grind, but for my part I just play the game and if I happen to accumulate a fair amount of reputation (I always take bounties when I enter a new area) that's fine. Playing that way, rather than being compelled to "grind grind grind" I've had no problem getting what I want out of the game so far, so I don't see a problem with that component of the design.

I look forward to hard mode, and anything else Anet cares to add. I do hope that at some point the solo players will see a bit more love on the hard mode front, I only have a few other friends who play this game and they're frequently not on when I am or not doing what I'm doing, so ultimately my enjoyment of the game hinges on heroes and henchmen being usable. It's not a big issue in the normal game, but in the elite missions and in hard mode it's a real problem.

Shayne Hawke · Sep 13, 2007, 01:40 AM // 01:40

I may be looking at this post later for revision, because I can't believe ANet would leave EotN as it is. That would be a con to trump all.

Pros:

-Soundtrack. I usually listen to Japanese, techno, or dance, but for going into the North, I let the background music play, and I must say that I'm impressed. The transition from traveling to battle and back isn't perfect, but the music still sets a great mood for any point in the game. Plus, bringing back music from Tyria was a nice blast from the past.
-Length. I saw someone post here about it being too short, but I know that it's an expansion. However, when I look at it again, I realize that the length is just right, because players that just want to get through the main storyline can buzz through it pretty quickly. Other players that want to enjoy their surroundings can take up one of the many repeatable quests that are available to them.
-Monster skills. It was nice to see different species in EotN use various Monster-only skills. This kept a person from playing the same build over and over, and caused me to shift my plans every now and then to fit the environment. I also liked how you took creatures from other parts in the game, like the Stone Summit, and changed around a few of their skill bars, so I wasn't totally whooping them when I got to 'em.
-Faction bonuses. I liked how my increasing rank in a faction boosted my character's and heroes' stats.
-Flexible storyline. At the beginning, when I was asked by Gwen, Vekk, and Odgen which faction I would gain support from first, I was somewhat overcome by the decision, because I never really got this choice before. Factions somewhat had it in picking Kurzick or Luxon, and Nightfall somewhat had it with picking different heroes to follow. EotN hit it right on with how I wanted to be able to do things: any order.
-Single piece, non-set armor. The Dwarven, or Deldrimor, armor is not included. The addition of items like spectacles or magma gauntlets was an amazing idea, and is along the lines of what I've been waiting for for a long time. Now we just need to get Festival Hats for 20s to have the same kind of stats, and you'll hold my good favor as long as you hold festivals.
-Henchmen. God bless, ANet. You gave them super skill bars this time.
-Heroes. I'm jealous that they seem to have x100 better armor than the players got, but I've read arguments on it and understand why it is so, so I shan't complain on that. That aside, I enjoyed getting a new hero for every profession. I actually haven't gotten two of them just, just for my lack of use with those professions as hero (Assassin and Paragon). Each of them seems to have a pretty good story to them, and it's nice to see them react to each other as you move through the campaign and cinematics.

Cons:

-Armor sets. Re-hashed, re-skinned, whatever they may be, they don't cut it for me. I was glad to see the Norn armor sets only, because they appeared to be the only fresh sets in GW. The Woads were also nice. Every other set, however, fell to the trash bins, because it's been done before, and most often at better quality, or better availability.
-Silver Eagle Armor Set. Not fair. Not even close. I know the story about it being a leftover concept and it being introduced into the game because you didn't want an idea wasted. I call "favoritism", and before you say it isn't, I declare that it is, because someone somewhere had more ideas to throw around for Warriors and obviously had more creative powers going to the Warrior class. An easy remedy would be to produce armor sets of equal status, not re-skinned either. Silver Eagle looks original to me for the most part, so I would expect the same from other armors.
-Bounties in dungeons. Too many bonuses for Deldrimor points and not enough bonuses for other factions. In fact, I think every dungeon awards you Delver points instead of for the faction that would be more associated with that dungeon. Plus, it seems that player bonuses that players get from the titles don't work in the dungeons. A dungeon in the Far Shiverpeaks should benefit from a high Norn title and should award Norn points for the bounty. There are only so many places to fight Destroyers, and if the dungeon doesn't have any, then I see no use for the title, nor do I see why I should be earning points for said title.
-Not enough ways to earn faction. Right now, I see myself having three options: farm areas for points, do quests, or do dungeons. Dungeons give a great bounty the first time, but the reductions afterwards make me shy away from doing it multiple times. See above section on bounties on more of why I don't do dungeons. Next, there's quests, but those don't seem like they'd award a very great amount of points for the time they take. Ones with quests I might do, but just like the dungeons, there lacks reason for me to do them again. Lastly, I can vanquish an area for mass points, but that takes a long time, and getting +2 or +3 to my bounties is never a guarantee, which makes this method fluctuate for value. I also don't find great desire in cleaning up an area just to clean it up. In a dungeon or quest, at least I have some goal, or some end. A fix would be to make increases in points less random, or to add some other repeatable way of earning faction.
-Experience awards. Why 15k every time? Do I really need that many skill points? There are two things I see skill points going to: earning skills and buying consumables. Once I get enough experience points for enough SoCs to get all of the elites, I don't need skill points for skills, because I can just buy tomes. Also, consumables are not necessary for any job, so I don't have a use for those. I feel like every time I complete a major quest, I'm getting such an insane abundance of experience points, and my faction rewards are so shortchanged.
-Farming. Goes hand in hand with earning faction points. See above.

Hopes:
-Hard Mode. I personally liked the way I farmed SS and LB points. Probably won't show up again, but with Hard Mode, I expect ways of earning many more points for faction for what it's worth.
-New armors. Not as a bonus pack either. See Silver Eagle Warrior Armor above for more.
-New ways to earn faction. Something. Anything. Anything that doesn't involve carpal tunnel.
1. Hit C + Space.
2. Repeat.
3. Repeat. A lot.
Not good!

Overall:
-Score: 6/10. It almost feels like you took a used, run-down car, threw confetti and streamers on it, and hoped I wouldn't notice. Get down deep and fix the problems that really mean something, and my perception of EotN would increase.

Tahlia Tane · Sep 13, 2007, 01:45 AM // 01:45

GW:EN so far is extremely disappointing. I've MURDERED the Great Destroyer and it was not satisfying at all. I mean, The GREAT DESTROYER OMG OMG OMG was just another Destroyer, but level 31 instead of 28. What the hell!?

I'd like to start with grind. I see so much complaining about the grind, but the grind is anything but the issue. The grind is great, actually. I love the whole reputation thing and awesome, almost overpowered PvE-only skills. What I don't like is how you are introduced to some of these PvE only skills and how reputation works.

It still works with titles and I don't like that. I have a HUGE list of titles now, most of them displayable and the little title window I open up with H doesn't cut it anymore. I'd like some new interface thing to enable the titles to have the bonus that comes with it. Maybe it shouldn't even be a title, but some kidn of an aura that gives you the bonus. It just seems so half-assed.

Some PvE stuff like Raven blessing and Ursan blessing, they aren't introduced properly in my opinion. The first time you use them... it's terrible. You're just given it and you're supposed to use it, and even though there's only 4 skills (too keep things simple), it's very complicated the first time. When I had to use it in certain primary quests, I felt like I was just pushing some random keys on my keyboard. It's was a very disappointing, unsatisfying experience.

As for the reskinned stuff in the game, I think it's becoming apparent that this is because ArenaNet has focused much (too much?) on Guild Wars 2 while developing Guild Wars Eye of the North. I can't think of any other explanation. If it's one thing I don't like, it's a lazy developed game. I'm sure people worked hard doing this expansion, but it feels very lazy. Reskins are not nice.

Also, the new armor is hideous. The Heroes have some of the most incredible, fabulous armor, but the real players are left with nothing. Ugh!

Alright, so there a lot of things wrong with this expansion and one other thing is what happens after defeating the Great Destroyer (once again, that final battle was terrible and anti-climatic).

After I defeated him I was like... that was it? Meh. But there's Master Dungeons. I don't understand why the game didn't introduce me to Master Dungeons through some kind of quest or something. I haven't even done a Master Dungeon yet (I think...). What I'm trying to say is that I think after destroying the great destroyer the game should have felt like it 'continued' because it still has a lot of content (I think........ or hope.........)

I realize this is supposed to be a hardcore game (see: difficulty, level 20 only), but that doesn't mean the introductions to so many things has to be so miserably weak. For example, introducing a person to increasing reputation by talking to people at the rez shrines with a simple exclamation mark over their heads doesn't cut it. I would have liked some sort of introduction and further explanation on the whole dealio on killing creatures in an area for reputation (a primary quest could have introduced you to this).

There's some more stuff I can't come up with right now, but overal it's very disappointing... There's a lot of really, really good things with GW:EN. The battle music is ace, much better than Nightfall. The environments have a much, much better design. The PvE-only skills and reputation grind are actually fun. And by far the biggest improvement of all, and I find this pleasantly surprising, is the improvement in, what should I call it, drama? There are some very touching moments in GW:EN that make you go like "whoa" or whatever. There is some nice dramatic cutscenes, plot twists and everything. I noticed that it got better with every release, and GW:EN has the best drama of all. I remember when Prince Rurik died in Prophecies, it was such a quick death I was like "what the hell..." but in GW:EN, even a side character like Gadd gets its own cutscene of his ashes being released at a waterfall, with accompanying mourning asuras and everything. Pretty cool.

Overal I'd give GW:EN a 7/10. This could change since I haven't completed everything.

p.s. Polymock is atrocious

bungusmaximus · Sep 13, 2007, 09:51 AM // 09:51

I very much liked the EOTN expansion, but theres a difference here with many of you. I didn't pay $40 for it, only $20. For $20 EOTN is worth it, if you payed $40, sry, but your rectum has been stretched beyond belief ^^.

I was very fond of the monster mobs, they had sensible skillbars (I even recognised some PvP builds) and they were quite challenging. The sceneries are just breath taking and the quests are fun.

A bit too bad that especially monsters and skins are just old stuff with new names. The story was a bit short, but since it all seems to be about dungeons I don't mind too much.

t h i n e eyes b l e e d · Sep 13, 2007, 11:47 AM // 11:47

I'm dissapointed. I tought that GW:EN would be the ultimate GW expansion and it would give us something more than just the dungeons and the skills (the armor were crap). The story-line. It felt good in the start but then.... when you realized that it was just "go there, there and there and then go there and just simply kill the bad guys"... did that REALLY take allmost a year? And GW:EN didn't even give us any new pvp battle types. I know that anet will give us some new pvp battle types in the near future but will it only be GW:EN owners or all the palyers?

Racthoh · Sep 13, 2007, 01:40 PM // 13:40

Cons:
Dungeons are cut and paste from other dungeons. This is the biggest let down to me since the first few dungeons were so enjoyable, but once you start to do more of them you're faced with the repetitive background. This would've been acceptable on my cartridge games for the NES in the 80's.

Reskinned armour. There are a LOT of people that enjoy dressing up their characters, and apparently Anet decided it would be a good idea to let a LOT of people down by making reskins. Anyone can download txtmod and make their own reskins, you got very lazy Anet.

Title grind for reskinned armour. Seriously why do we have to earn 26k rep just to craft something we could buy simply by progressing through the story naturally in the three chapters? At least the weapons look new and you only need rank four to craft them.

Swap > Duncan the Black. Please try to make the climax of your elite areas less of a cakewalk with one skill.

Not enough enemies with a primary and a secondary profession. This was the only interesting aspect of GW:EN but aside from Slaver's and Charr you were just in for a big disappointment.

Hall of Monuments is terrible.

No hard mode.

There is probably more, but I guess I'll talk about the pros.

Pros:
Occupied me for a week. Now I'm back to DoA to kill Mallyx yet again for the monument I should already have.

Enemies with a secondary, but this was a failure as mentioned already.

haggus71 · Sep 13, 2007, 03:56 PM // 15:56

This has been the most painless thread I have read: concise views, no flames or troll bait, and a good overall view of the opinions of the game. I think this would be the best thread for the devs to get a good idea of what people think of the game.

Pros:
-Great graphics; beautiful scenery; cut scenes were great.

Cons:
-Grind
-given great drops in the preview, then given a bunch of gold non-max in the game(fight 6 lvl 28 Jotuns for a 10-18 gilded sword ftl)
-too much running from zone to zone, which seems meant to fool players into thinking there is content when there isn't.
-all storylines seem to peter out in the end. Very anti-climatic.

Overall, I think if it were $20 bucks, the game would be worth it. $40.... I can imagine what a body cavity search feels like. If they had given in the preview what was in the actual game, I could have saved my money.

Sparks Dawnbringer · Sep 14, 2007, 09:59 AM // 09:59

I have enjoyed playing GWEN very much. It is beautiful to walk in and I am grateful for the wonderful Pre like places to visit. The quests and missions are certainly hard enough for me, but I know some have thought they are too easy and I wish them well in hard mode where I will probably never tread. I agree that the story should have been longer.

I think you took the easy way out and reused too many of the dungeons over and over. I've only done about 4 dungeons and they look the same to me. I have no problem with doing several thing in the same dungeon, like a couple of quests and a mission. But when I travel to the Ooze pit and see it's Frostmaw's lair repopulated with new traps and mobs, I can't help but think that you cheated big time. This is the sadest part of GWEN, we were all looking forward to the dungeons. The reward chest at the end of a dungeon is quite cool and I have enjoyed getting my treasures.

Frankly, the music I turn off. I find it annoying and distracting. As far as I'm concerned you could save the money on music and put it to better use.

There are some wonderful things in the armor department. The spectacles, the head rags, many will like the crazy gloves but I think the buck is not worth the bang. I know many of the Necros are going to want those masks, so save your golden rin cups. I think some of the best armor is in the origional GW and you have had a hard time topping it. But that's your job and most of the new armor is just down right ugly. Of all the GWEN armor there are about 4 that are good, the Asuran Paragon is the one that sticks out as my favorite. I looked at the offerings for my Monk and went and got the Ancient Armor in the Bone Palace. I never bought elite armor before except I had to have the elite Gladiator for my Warrior. I have always thought if you were going to spend all that money it should be a little bit better protection than the stuff you could get at Droks.

The Hall of Monuments is a really cool thing. I think you should be able to arrange the order of statues not just move up or down the line. And do you need to wait until you max a catagory or will it upgrade as you do. I know people want to use mixed armor and you are selling mixed armor so you kind of opened that can of worms. I guess the head pieces don't go in and I got the feeling that your runes and upgrades are not in eithor. I wish my glasses would go in. What about infused do you need to have it done before you put it in or can you do it later or does it even matter? There are just a bunch of questions about this room and it is a bit frustrating that you might be screwing up your future if you do it wrong. And I guess the only weapons that can go in there the ugly lava ones. Well, why are we getting all these named Greens. Which is kind of disapointing that the weapon you can put in you just have to go to the store and buy it like a bottle of milk. I thought they would at least be the ones we get out of the dungeon chests.

I don't like that your pets are customized to a character if you want them in the hall. But if you must do this at least find a way to get them out of storage. You put your mini pet in the hall you get a options button for minis and it goes in your list and out of your storage. But be prepared to know that many people are going to have lots and lots of minis and be able to deal with it.

I like all the new title tracks. I like the bounty system and the kill counts that reward you every 25 kills. I actually feel all the titles should be account driven not character driven, so that whoever we play with on an account would advance them. But, now that you have changed favor to title driven, this would be harder to do. In order to have favor we need to be grinding titles. But, you have to take into account how long it takes to get these titles and realize that a poor working stiff like myself might have to pay the rent instead of playing 90 hours a week. Having account driven titles would also help with a lot of the HoM issues. I mean realisticly the only person playing is me.

I really like the new skills. But can't for the life of me understand why I can't use them on my heros. Just like the light bringer skills you seem to be trying to reward us for Pugging. If 8 players can each take that skill why can't I give it to my heros. People need to be able to play the way they want. If they want to PUG, good for them, but don't give us heros then stab us in the back by crippling them. My favorate way to play is with one other person and 6 heros. I have Pugged, and I often go alone with heros and henches.

I hope you don't consider this a flame. I really have enjoyed GWEN, but you set the bar very high for yourselves with the first GW. Now, you can't complain that we want the same quality. I think it's wonderful you don't charge a monthly fee, and I have tried to help by buying all the little upgrades and campaigns offered for each of my 3 accounts. We spend a lot of time in this world and want it to be the best possible one available.

I really would like to hear from the powers that be in regards to these questions and see some feedback on these pages. I often get the feeling that no one is listening.

Thank you.

DarthChar · Sep 14, 2007, 01:36 PM // 13:36

Gwen is alright, I only bought it because I had the money. There are some cool new spells and skills and some new pets for the ranger. However I find it very confusing and the Asuran part takes a very long time.

Qwerty25157 · Sep 14, 2007, 11:01 PM // 23:01

GWEN is a major disappointment to me.
The graphics and music are fine, not any real difference from the original three campaigns. I know, the graphics are pretty, but most of them are just pretty wallpaper in the background - big deal.
The story line is again ok. Pretty much like the first three, just a bit too short to justify $40.00.
The dungeons are the main improvement. GW still doesn't have the feel of a good dungeon, but it's nice to see them giving it a try.
The childish additions are my biggest problem. There is just too much junk that has no business in the game, and is completely out of character with the first three campaigns, and with a good RPG in general.
For example:
1. Polymock - go play Pokemon if you want this kind of game. At least don't have game skills as rewards so those of us who hate it can skip it all together. Put this onto a pvp carnival island with ring toss, bowling, and horseshoes.
2. Dwarven brawling - so what does this have to do with the story line? Put this on one of the pvp carnival islands and, again, don't have game skill rewards connected with it.
3. Magni's tournament - another addition for the amusement park. Please let us get our heroes in the normal fashion and let us skip this out-of-place side game.
4. Snowman dungeon - how inane. I realize any RPG is fantasy, but the writers should keep some kind of basic theme to the game. What other dumb dungeons would it take for people to realize that this just doesn't belong in GW?
5. The asinine quests - drinking ale from kegs, stacking kegs. Give me a break.
6. Fighting the Norn at each resurrection shrine - why?
That is enough for now. What a stupid ending for a good game series.

rong626 · Sep 15, 2007, 12:05 PM // 12:05

GWEN is making players do missions alone with henchmen/heroes.Why?

**cosyfiep** · Sep 15, 2007, 12:49 PM // 12:49

review.
hm
3/10
I will try to make it short as many have already posted about the major problems with this rather expensive 'expansion':

pros. ok the scenery is nice and a few new things to kill, however; there is a lot they did reuse as well so not much of a pro.
length---if it were any longer I would pull out my butt length hair, so this is a pro.
new allies...like the norn and the asura ideas (not that they talk when you click on them, thats just annoying).
the quest for the black moa chick, while a bit taxing was great fun (and a nice way to use the fact that I had been unable to finish the final assault so it was still in my quest log

)

cons...so many to list, but will hit the biggies.
grinding....so much has been said no need to repeat (though the name of the 'expansion' should be Gr:ind not gw:en)
reskins. also been said but a real biggie (armor, weapons, monsters...)
new heroes, ok I can see if you didnt already have nightfall where this would be a pro, but 10 new heroes with no bonuses for them...a big con for me (and unless they are required for the quest they wont be seeing any play time).
Hall of Monuments....the achievements are good, the armor one needs working on as well as the weapons one, the heroes one is ok, and the minipets is totally and completed unnecessary!
no new storage tab! with all the crapp we get from this one we desperately NEED more----pillymuch pieces, consumables----though a total unnecessary addition to the game, etc.
new skills, yawn, seems that they were more an after thought, and pve only skills---not very useful outside the dumb 'games' (unlike the sunspear ones I use regularly).

In whole, I feel that the 'expansion' was a half-baked idea, may have been that it was supposed to have been chapter four, but when the higher-ups determined that the game mechanics were not working they decided instead of trashing the whole thing that the factions team had been working on, they would put out what they had---and not finish it, no new classes, afterthought skills, another set of the same heroes, rehashed armor and weapons, and a few maps they had worked on plus the 2 new races (probably the ONLY thing that is really new in this thing).

so this reviewer is not very happy with what I spent my $40 on.

Verkinix · Sep 16, 2007, 03:04 AM // 03:04

I havent played GWEN very much since its release, but what I have played has been both positive and negative.

Pros:
Very pretty scenery and graphics in general.
Solo missions are alot of fun.
Dungeons are quite challenging.
Gwen as a hero.

Cons:
Level 20 req area, yet still having level 5 items drop. I mean what is up with that?! Everything should be max or near max that drops from here on out. That goes for enemies as well. All enemies should be level 16+ in GWEN. Further, I've heard there is no HM. So now we play through something that is supposed to be for level 20s yet it feels like it is geared for level 14s at least in the early stages. This includes the chests. Out of the 20 or so chests I've opened, I've gotten 3 golds and none of them max. Thats just rediculous for a level 20 area w/o HM possibility.

I'm not sure I like how they presented Gwen. It's been this big, hyped mystery, yet they seemed to have trivialized her, made her less significant then she was to many of us. Also, being a mesmer, I rarely use her because I, personally, suck with mesmers and mesmer builds.

Price tag of GWEN. For the content we got and quality of the overall game compared to the previous GW products, the price tag was hefty. As a game in general I find it fair however.

HoM wasnt quite what it was hyped to be. I hope GW2's version of the HoM lives up to the hype. Customizing minipets to a single char is absurd. It should be customized to account and each char should have the mini pets in thier HoM. I kinda think the HoM should be account wide, not just character based. When I go to GW2, I wont be playing more then one or two chars in general, so all of my achievements should be combined as I, myself, have spent the time on them. Its not like I was playing 6 characters at once and didnt have my time divided between them.

Lack of new elite skills was kinda annoying.

Overall seems like little incentive to play for non hard core players. Even for hard core players, the rewards dont seem to live up to the hype. Maybe that is just a limitation of GW in general. I still dont see why they dont add PvE only weapons and make them super uber so at least people have an incentive to do the grind and dungeons.

New pets dont grow?! For some reason factions and GWEN, pets dont grow. Drives me nuts. Its a simple features that is already in prophecies and I think NF. I dont see why its not added to all pets. I like seeing pets grow that I've raised from cubs. Its one of the little things that just make the game better.

Anyway, I like GWEN so far, for the most part, but it feels sorta halfassed compared to previous GW products. Ultimately you end up paying more per content then the other games. All I can say is I hope they do a superb job on GW2 with the extra funds they made at the expense of the quality of content.

Keifru · Sep 16, 2007, 07:41 AM // 07:41

Pros:
Sound; I love myself some good music (although the transitions being optional or more-tuned would be spiffy)

Art; The landscapes were beautiful.

Giant Balls; Yes, the giant rock/snow/fire balls of DOOM were very much fun.
Heroes; I like so many of the EotN heroes *coughXandra/Liviacough* that I'm going to try and just keep them their primary class (except Vekk because he's an idiot and loaded an E/Mo build =_= )

Black Moa Chick; Finally a minipet I can craft! And it's pretty cute

Little Gwen Things; The stuff that happens when you take Gwen places is just so good and well-thought. Little things like that are delicious.

Armor; Well, since 2/3 of my time is on my female derv, all I can say is what's about that and so far she's liking her Norn armor...so much she even leaves it on as she runs around in the desert.

Polymock; Fun game, and would definatly be the type of thing I would play religiously were I practicing to play an interrupter.

Cons:
People griping about grind. They stated they were adding 50 PvE-only skills; There are 2 choices: Make them static, and therefore either useless, or immediatly "THROW IT IN THE BAR", or they could make it based on a title (of which they said there would be lots more of) . I like having to invest some time to improve my skills.

Destroyers; specificly lack therof. Ok, it's nice I fight them a couple times, but there really isn't much about them; They also don't seem to know the concept of "Healers".

Dervishes (and I guess Paragons); Since NF is the "only one with them" they only have 1 set of leet skills to choose from which is fairly limiting; atleast Rits and Sins have Factions and NF's worth of leets and skills to choose from. Makes me kinda sad that Dervs have to take that kinda shortage.

Gwen's Garden; Look, if your "garden" that you've been making has only two red irises then that is a very lame garden. I atleast want charr-eating carniverous plants of DOOM on that hill.

Polymock; Might be added later, but a PvP option would be oodles and noodles of fun. Also, maybe slowly expand the available pieces somehow? Like ALL dungeons have a piece? (Secret lair of the snowman: Snowman piece. Now that would be AWSOME.)

EotN has been fun for me; dungeon crawling takes me back to my Nintendo days playing Zelda and hacking through Ganon's forces. Some good memories. And I love Zealous Sweep+Radiant Scythe =D

P.S. Clockwork Scythe: WTS Soul. <_<;;

joomongj · Sep 16, 2007, 02:09 PM // 14:09

Pros:
1. Much improved graphics
2. Little or no failure in missions or dungeons
3. Big, multi-level dungeons
4. Mini-games
5. Common gloves, head pieces for all professions

Cons:
1. Armor reskins
2. HoM
3. Many many many reused & recyled & reskinned foes, music, dungeon design
4. Grindin for titles
5. No new GHs
6. No new random/team arena maps
7. No new pvp elite skills
8. Main storyline seems rushed

Overall
A big disappointment for 40 bucks. With all the things that were lacking in this expansion, I should at least get tons of new pve experience, but instead I saw more of the same stuff than the new stuff. The main storyline is too short, rushed, some dungeon designs are reused even up to 4-5 times, practically all armors have been reskinned, majority of foes, music are recycled, reused, HoM is useless to store hard-earned pvp titles(hero, champion, gladiator).