Well since Friday night when it began up till now other than sleep and things, I’ve been playing the preview of GWEN. Early verdict is it’s quite polished with a lot of promise.

Basically Arena.net have learned from Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall and implemented all the best things together for the first true expansion.

The way to Eye of the North involves going through a fissure outside of Lion’s Arch, having a brief run in with some creatures named Destroyers who are revealed as antagonists. Then you have to trek to the Eye, from there the storyline branches into 3 paths, all required. One with the ex-ascalonian Vanguard, another with the intriguing race known as the Asura (I have a mini-pet of one,) and the final path with a giant-like race known as the Norn.
Only the Norn path is open till next week-end.

As for heroes, well there are quite a few it seems, and no longer do we have to make sure they’re in our party if needed for a cut-scene or some such, they’re assumed to have been travelling with you in a party.
So far I’ve collected a dwarven monk, an asuran elementalist, an ascalonian mesmer and a norn warrior.

As for the so called Hall of Monuments, it only begins with 1 tapestry within it’s walls which works with title tracks, the other tapestries are quest rewards and such, giving you the option to customise mini-pets, display armour and weapons and even heroes if you’ve upgraded their armour.
All in all very cool and I look forwards to seeing how this will be integrated towards Guild Wars 2 next year.

Anyway now I’ve said all this, it’s 10am and I think I should finally sleep for like 4 hours so I can get back to playing GWEN some more. A very sleepless weekend indeed.

AmK.