christmas specials

Guild Wars Holidays In The North

Guild Wars is celebrating the holidays by trying to give themselves the gift of more players and expansion sales! Starting today at noon, everyone who ever purchased and played the original Guild Wars gets free access to the first true expansion, Guild Wars: Eye of the North. For five hours. Whee! To make things even more enticing, players from levels 10-19 will receive a special buff that allows them to have a chance of surviving in the level 20+ lands of the expansion. It's their special way of saying, "Happy Holidays - Buy Eye of the North." Players who already purchased Eye of the North will also be getting bennies in the form of triple experience for primary storyline quests, double chance for rare items, triple drop rate on Lockpicks, double gold and experience for clearing EotN explorable areas in Hard Mode, and three special items that drop off of expansion mobs. This Christmas, give Guild Wars the gift that keeps on giving: your expansion cash. More »

clips

Guild Wars: Eye of the North

I don't know, I think this could possibly get me back into Guild Wars, at least for a taste.

With almost four million copies sold across the original game and its two expansions, Guild Wars is doing just fine as a franchise.

With Eye of the North, the final expansion before next year's Guild Wars 2, NCSoft aims to both bridge the gap between the old and new games while giving the dedicated Guild Wars players something to sink their (sword's) teeth into over the next year.

Guild Wars 2 will feature multiple races for characters instead of just humans. All three are introduced in Eye of the North as hero companions. Consider the mish-mash of influences that form Guild Wars's backstory, it doesn't feel that strange to suddenly have friendy cat warriors, goblins, and elves appear in the world.

Most of the content in Eye of the North are inspired by traditional pen-and-paper dungeon crawls, which may be something new to Guild Wars, but won't likely entice too many other genre fans into the fold. A new "battle music engine"—I'm not quite sure if that should be capitalized or not—will change the ambient soundtrack depending on how well—or how poorly—you're doing in the fight.

The new "Hall of Monuments," once discovered, will let you memorialize your achievements from past Guild Wars games. When Guild Wars 2 arrives, each achievement will garner you unlockables in the sequel, although in the interest of fairness none of the new gear will be too overpowered.

Although you'll barely see them in game—and then only as loading screens—the concept art for Guild Wars: Eye of the North is really great stuff. Paintings mostly. They'll be on display at a special gallery at this year's PAX.
Joel Johnson

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NCSoft's E3 Line-Up

Joining the ever-expanding list of publishers bragging about their showing at the upcoming E3, NCsoft announced that Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, Aion, Guild Wars: Eye of the North and Dungeon Runners will be among their titles. Hit the jump for the full release with descriptions. More »

feature

Feature: Guild Wars 2, GW Expansion Unveiled

By: Brian D. Crecente More »