The guided tour from the designers of Eye of the North was a thorough experience. We even had a few plot details spoiled for us, but rest assured I won’t do the same here. Suffice it to say I feel like I got the full monty.

Even with all that, I know we barely scratched the surface of GWEN. It’s easily the size of one of their other expansions all by itself, and looking at the map it’s immediately obvious just how much space has been added to the surface of Tyria. Of course … we didn’t start on the surface.

Below is my tale of the far North: starting in the depths of a dungeon, meeting the heroes of the story, touring the Hall of Monuments, Oola’s Lab, facing down an assault by the Charr, site-seeing in the prettiest parts of the North, and playing the three new mini-games on offer.

We begin with a race …

Dungeon Delve, Destroyers Attack

Dungeons in Guild Wars, you think to yourself, are going to be your standard fare. Especially the first dungeon, right? Kill some guys, get some loot, take in the scenery … the usual stuff. The first dungeon (and each thereafter) really shook up my view of what a dungeon in this game would look like. Arena tossed right out the concept of a closed-in space with twisty passages all alike. Soaring caverns, glistening ice palaces, strange adobe-esque structures … you’ve seen their concept art, right? After I got done gawking at the entry chamber for the first complex, I took my Air Elementalist into combat for the first time. We were slaughtered like wolves.

I dunno if you’ve gotten the concept fully down yet, but this expansion is intended for high-level players. The important distinction here is that, of course, Guild Wars only has 20 levels. Therefore ‘high level’ doesn’t mean “I ground my way to 80 in a week.” High-level means “lots of experience playing my class.” With only a handful of the assembled ever having played the game before, and only myself and the guy from Destructoid as regular players, we were meat for the beast. Thankfully, zerg-spamming our best attacks and the (cheatz!) developer resurrection command allowed us to take all comers.

We’re making our way through the depths in this fashion, doing our level best to make good on the bad name of adventurers everywhere, when things take a turn. All of a sudden we’re warned by our NPC companions of an incoming threat: Destroyers. Like something out of a Gigerian nightmare, they’re pretty much everywhere, all at once, and they’re more than a bit ornery. There’s much laughter from the designers as some of us fall back to take screenshots and are slaughtered. Thankfully only a few of us have to make it to the gate in order to escape safely.

The expansion kicks off with a bang, no two ways about it. What I initially dreaded as a mind-numbing dungeon slog quickly turned into a full-on rout; no thoughts of xp or loot were in our heads as we ran from the oncoming hordes. We initially tried to fight but quickly learned the futility of that choice. The Destroyers are an integral part of the expansion, we’re told, and our first sight of the creatures leaves an indelible impression on all of us.

Meeting Jora, Vekk, Ogden and Gwen

We did make it to the gate, thankfully, and out into swirling snow of the Far Shiverpeaks. Just outside, we have the chance to enjoy a cutscene and delve further into the backstory of Eye of the North. Our Asuran friend Vekk, along with the dwarf Ogden Stonehealer, are joined by Jora the Norn barbarian. Ogden was initially leading our expedition, and Vekk joined us along the way.

Just in case you’re not hepp to the new Guild Wars races, here’s the screed on the Asura from GuildWiki:

The Asura are a subterranean race which originally dwelled in the Depths of Tyria, but were forced into the Tarnished Coast by the forces of the Great Destroyer. The Asura are diminutive, intelligent, ambitious and arrogant. They have a large subterranean empire, and are magically and technically adept. For example, in GW:EN, players can gain the ability to operate a GOLEM with enough reputation with the Asuran, suggesting that Asuran possess this ability as well.

Just as an aside you can’t actually control the GOLEM; you get to kind of ‘direct’ where they want to go. Vekk is a unique personality, and is already my favorite of the new races in the world. The most likely reason? He’s voiced by veteran actor Maurice LaMarche. That’s the Brain to those of us who grew up in the 90s, though he’s done work on a number of other shows.

The Norn, on the hand far away from the Asuran one, is a very different animal. Our first introduction to the species is in the form of Jora, a tall statuesque blonde with a grim demeanor. The look on the dwarf’s face when he catches sight of her for the first time, when he realizes what you’re up against, is a precious thing. Here’s GuildWiki’s blurb on the Norn:

The Norn are a race of half-giant shapeshifters. They will be featured in Guild Wars Eye of the North. They dwell in the Far Shiverpeaks. They have a skill which allows them to assume a half-bear form. Concept art depicts the Norns as stocky, muscular humanoids with thick red or blonde hair and celtic knotwork tattooes. A recent screencapture shows a Norn and a Human, and the Norn look to be about twice the height of the human. The half-bear form is also mentioned in IGN’s Eye of the North Dungeon Crawl article as an example of a possible PvE-only skill for Eye of the North.

A few addendums to that: They deliberately had a (tallish human) hero stand next to Jora … she’s huuuge. They estimated she’d probably be about 9ish feet tall. If, you know, she wasn’t fictional. Further exploration of Norn culture comes in the form of Norn heroes scattered through the various zones of GWEN; they can be challenged to single combat as a way of proving your worth. Defeating them earns you faction with the Norn race and certain benefits (depending on the individual Norn).

With Ogden leading our party, we headed deeper into the Shiverpeaks, to the fabled Eye of the North itself. There, outside the imposing structure, we were stopped by a group of Ebon Vanguard soldiers and a particularly feisty Mesmer. That’s Gwen, of course, and her introduction is an incredibly memorable one. Other than a few snappish comments here at her introduction and later during another cinema, we weren’t allowed to get much of a sense of what Gwen’s deal is. She’s obviously extremely scarred by the experience with the Searing, by the Charr. Other than being a cute ball of anger and the revelation that she’s a Hero usable in the game later on, there was little on display at the event to spoil what is almost certainly one of the central elements of Eye of the North’s storyline.

Touring the Hall

Inside the Eye of the North lies the much-vaunted Hall of Monuments, the feature that sells this expansion as a tie-in to the upcoming Guild Wars II. It’s here that you’ll place the Heroes and pets, the accomplishments that mean the most from your time in the first Guild Wars game. In Guild Wars II your baubles here will translate into shinies. They took pains to clarify that items and accolades in your Hall of Monuments will not give you a substantial leg up on other players in Guild Wars II; they’ll mostly be visually impressive items, or other non-stat-based elements meant to show a player’s dedication to Arena.net’s games.

Each of the different altars in the Hall not only shows the subset of accolades the player wants on display, but clicking on the scroll in front of each altar shows a complete list of the player’s shinies. It’s in essence a complete history of your adventures in the current game.

At the center of the Hall is a scrying pool that allows you to re-watch cinematics from throughout the different expansions you own … I think. There were some troubles viewing that feature because some of the characters in our group didn’t have the right permissions.

The only other element of note in the Hall of Monuments was three of our NPCs: Gwen, Vekk, and Ogden. Apparently they hang out in there at various points, offering you further information on the Eye of the North questline and commentary on the world in general. They didn’t clarify this bit very much, so I can only assume there’s more to it than that.

Oola’s Lab

With our need for story sated, we headed back out into the dangerous underground realms, to a little place called Oola’s Lab. Specifically, we warped to the third level of a multi-tiered challenging uber-dungeon. Crawling with Asuran GOLEMs gone bad, it was a lesson in why not to imbue life in the inanimate. At the start, they showed us how they’ve encouraged exploration in the game via the obscuring of information. Dungeons have fog-of-warred minimaps which can be cleared up by either physically moving through every area, or by obtaining maps and items within the corridors of the zone. Their hope is to inject an element of Zelda-style action-adventure into the game.

That concept is expanded on by the occasional trap. Rolling boulders, earthquakes, random damage elements are strewn throughout the new dungeons We got a first-hand look at those works of art at the end of the zone. Having worked our way through the trash to a raised platform, we were presented with one heck of a challenge. At the top of the stairs were a pair of fire-throwing columns, controlled by two firey red GOLEMs. Take out the GOLEMs, we take out the traps. This news came just a few moments too late, of course, as we charged up the stairs and were instantly destroyed. Thus began a confusing several minutes attempting to take out the control GOLEMs while luring the boss of the dungeon down onto a set of stairs.

The boss, a TPS GOLEM (yes, like in Office Space), eventually went down. We half-heartedly took out the fire GOLEM on the right, but at this point we were dying left and right under the withering fire from the traps. The designers admitted that they were still tweaking the damage from environmental elements; considering the number of times we died I’m very much glad such things are still up in the air. Despite the wanton death it was a great example of a more focused and traditional crawl set in the Guild Wars world. The subtle humor and specifically laid out goals made it easy to get into the moment; if not for the fire traps the event would have been a lot of fun.

Pyre and the Charr Siege

Satisfied that we’d gotten the gist of a dungeon’s end-game, the designers whisked us away to another, very different style of event. There cinematics set up a scenario where the players, Gwen, the rest of the NPCs, and a new Hero called Pyre Fierceshot readied for a massive battle. Our tiny band and Pyre’s renegade Charr were together with a specific purpose: assaulting a heavily defended Charr base. Our side rolled out all the toys: a pair of giant assault scorpions tossed ballista at the walls, cutting down the ranged Charr manning the base. Down the center, right up to the reinforced central doors, ran our seige dinosaur. Looking something like a Triceratops, the beast slammed the area around it with AOE damage that slowly wore down the only entrance to the base. Naturally our job was to keep the assault scorpion and dinosaur safe, all while keeping the population of Charr thin on the ground outside of the base.

It was, in a word, hard. Really hard. As I mentioned earlier, this expansion is for veteran players. They’re definitely still tweaking difficulty, but the wave after wave of Charr made it almighty hard to stay on top of things. Again, a lack of coordination would have doomed us all except for cheating. Breaking through the front gates led to a running fight, an ambush, and a climactic encounter in a circle obviously sacred to the Charr. With fewer baddies and a more confined space our AOE had a better time making a difference, and we brought the fight hard.

I actually ended up landing the killing blow on the boss, triggering a cutscene that raised as many questions about the game’s story as it answered. The one given element: Gwen is very, very angry. The boss’s death and the dramatic discussion that followed capped off our official guided tour. Various designers went off for time with journalists and interviews, others needed to get back to work. For those of us still wandering around in-game, there was still plenty to do.

Polymock

The Asuran game of Polymock is described by the Arena team as Pokemon on Steroids. Polymock forms are unlockable creatures, which you can control in a 1v1 head-to-head encounter. The abilities are quite different from normal Guild Wars skills, with each creature having a particular ‘rhythm’ to their power use that must be learned. As you can’t customize the critter skill bar, it requires you to adapt your play to the creature and not vice versa. Each match consists of three forms chosen out of your deck. You’re then asked to choose the form you start in. Your opponent does the same, and you go to town. The first one to defeat the other is out that form, and must choose another from his pre-selected three. First player to three rounds wins.

My first match went poorly. I didn’t realize the power of the Skate until too late, as its Necromantic powers leeched away my Gargoyle’s health far too quickly. I jumped right back in, though, as one of the core elements of all of GWEN’s mini-games was quickly apparent: inherent fun. Despite losing, my first reaction wasn’t “woe is me”, but “I can do better!”

Playing Polymock not only fun in concept, but it captures the Pokemon collection vibe as well. Polyforms can be found via quests and through fighting other Polymock players; you get your fourth form immediately after defeating your first opponent, so they hook you early and often. Again, that collection element they referred to in the morning discussion. Since players have no ‘up’ to go towards, people are primarily interested in just having fun and getting more fun toys. This experience is aimed directly at that idea.

A catch: just like the other two mini-games here, this is meant to be a solo experience. You can’t play against other players at this game. Of the three, this is the one they were thinking of making into a PvP game. The journalists in attendance seemed to be in favour of the idea generally when we were asked about that possibility; no knowing whether PvP Polymock will make it into the launch game.

Dwarven Boxing

Easily my favorite mini-game introduced to me this week, Dwarven boxing is a fast-paced action experience very different from the usual Guild Wars combat. After entering a Boxing zone, the player’s skills bar is replaced with Boxing skills. There is a dodge, several fast punches, and a few other more powerful moves. Boxing goes on adrenaline, much like a Warrior’s playstyle. Adrenaline in Boxing, though, accumulates scarily fast. The basic jab can be spammed over and over again on an opponent, and as you work up a head of steam your more powerful abilities become available. Fighting your way up through the ranks gains you access to new Boxing skills, tougher and more varied opponents, and increasingly varied Boxing arenas.

Your first match is against a series of seven bruisers in a simple dirt pit. This gives way to an icy cavern, with other encounters following. The story of the dwarf who’s owed money and his hilarious hijinks is funny, and fun to work through, but the real enjoyment is the actual gameplay. It’s, as I said, extremely different from the more considered Guild Wars skill use. The considered and darting activity of PvP and the rote repetition of PvE fall away, allowing you to spam away to your heart’s content. There’s even a ‘get up’ button that allows you to regain your feet should you be knocked out.

It gets increasingly less effective with each use, of course, and so some tactical awareness is still required. The whole thing is a real gas, though, and I would have played it for the rest of my alotted time … except there was a bug that kept you in a perpetual ‘falling-down’ loop if you were knocked out and got back up. They’ll have it licked for retail of course, but it meant I had to press on at the preview event.

Norn Fighting Arena

That meant I got to see another of the 1v1 mini-games, the Norn’s arena. As with the Asuran Polymock game, this is a reliable way to earn Norn Faction while having a good time. Combat pits you against a single opponent, drawn at random from a ‘deck’ of baddies at each combat level. These foes range the gamut from new NPCs created especially for the event all the way up to bosses and heroes from this and previous Guild Wars experiences. Versions of the end foes of Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall are all somewhere in the higher-ranked decks; serious challenges to be sure.

In addition to xp and faction, certain defeated opponents actually become unlocked Heroes. These are real-and-for-true members of your extended family, with just as much utility as the characters from Nightfall and the rest of the Eye of the North Expansion. Each has his or her own quest series to boot, explaining what they were doing in the Norn Arena to begin with and further fleshing out the evolving backstory of the gameworld.

The Arena may also be one of the most subtly whimsical elements of the new expansion. The big boss of the Arena has the name M. Bison; along with that (rather obvious) allusion, countless fighting game references have found their way into Norn culture and (especially) the pit. It was a great lot of fun to play, though I still enjoyed Boxing more. :)

Touring the Pretty

Not wanting to spoil anything more for me, and the mini-games already under my belt, my last bit of time in-game was spent touring some of the most beautiful areas of the new in-game world:

Interestingly, the forest fire has an intriguing backstory that I only caught a portion of before I was whisked away for my first interview: there’s a demon loose in the forest. A demon with family issues.

What I Didn’t See

I only saw a small portion of the expansion. More than a few things weren’t explored or covered in my tour. Here’s just the few that I know are out there somehwhere, but I don”t have answers to:

• The ultimate purpose of the Eye of the North. Dwarven-crafted, but for what?
• What exactly happened to Gwen.
• How you hook up with Charr hero Pyre Fierceshot, and why Gwen lets him into the group in the first place.
• What the Charr homelands exactly look like. (Pre-searing Ascalon was the implication.)
• The full details on the demon of the forest fire.
• What the hell was in the super-secret development area at Arena’s studio. They had a whole room where they freely admitted they couldn’t tell us what was going on, and wouldn’t for probably another year or two.

Final Thoughts

I hope you’ll draw your own conclusions from my statements here. For me, as I said in my last post, it’s hard not to walk away from this mightily impressed. As a semi-veteran Guild Wars player (though nothing like hardcore), it was amazing to be able to see plot threads coming together and the potential for storytelling. I really want to know what happened to Gwen, as well as what’s up with Pyre. Every new zone I saw was absolutely beautiful. And, of course, the gameplay was rock solid. The mini-games especially were wonderful to be able to try; extensions of the Arena philosophy that players should be able to play how they want to no matter what way that is. If you’re waiting for a group to get together, a game of Polymock usually takes less than five minutes. Dwarven Boxing might be even quicker.

The biggest surprise, for me, was the level of humor the team has put into this game. Inspired by fan appreciation of quiet humor and pop-culture references in skill names and quest themes, Arena made a deliberate effort to include more of them in Eye of the North. They’re not everywhere; you certainly won’t find a Brittany Spears look-alike waiting for you in the first outpost. The references are around, though, if you’re willing to look.

Whether you’re laughing at M. Bison or crying over Gwen’s angst, I think Arena has without a doubt gotten at least one thing right about this expansion: it’s for the fans.