Further hurting this situation is the varieties of armor and weapons you can actually use for yourself or your hero is slim. Since you start the game already maxed out in level (purchasing a large portion of your skills), the reward system in Eye of the North (outside of the story) is bland. Farming/grinding for short periods of time can be fun if you think you’re playing a slot machine. But if you have to work like mad to barely stay alive with little certainty of success, then it’s never fun. Therefore, the grind is just as bad as other MMORGS, but you only grind for cash – not levels.
Having no true auction house means scrolling through a massive list of ridiculous selling spam and it’s too easy to miss what you’re looking for. If you’re selling it can be a waste of hours waiting for someone to log in at the right time in the right town to take a bite. It’s a terrible mess.
The game still suffers from a lack of immersion into its world. Sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference and the sky and movement are good cases of this. The sky in Guild Wars is still too artificial. With little dimension to it, its use (or lack) of sun, clouds, and environmental effects dampens the immersion. Also a slight issue is the movement of your avatar through the world. It is flat in a way that reminds one of scrolling or panning through an area. This is partly because of invisible barriers and also due to the camera lock and scroll. It’s such a small point, but it makes a huge difference.
These points may seem so trivial at first glance, but when you spend upwards of a thousand hours across four titles, it’s some of those emotions that make or break your in-game time.
It’s easy to pick apart the game, and in the end that may be a bit unfair – it certainly does what it sets out to do and that is to add solid additional PvE content to the Guild Wars world for already established players, and if that’s what you’re looking for, then Eye of the North fits the bill; just don’t look for it to reinvent the wheel.
