Guild Wars: Eye of the North Sneak Peek Weekend commenced yesterday at 3pm. This preview of the expansion is for those who got the Preorder Bonus Pack and the event will end on Monday at 3pm. It’s hard to resist playing as much as possible in order to get the most out of the preview.

My initial enthusiasm was quickly curbed, though, as I spent most of my first two hours downloading files. It ordinarily doesn’t take me that long to snag 70-plus MB on my 1Mbps connection but I was only getting 16KB/s yesterday. Staring at a loading screen for 50 minutes is not a great way to kick things off.

Continued…

Spoiler-free screenshots from the Guild Wars: Eye of the North Sneak Peek Weekend. (Click on each for larger versions.)

I’ve managed to earn the Guardian of Cantha title after earning Master’s rewards for all 13 Factions missions in Hard Mode.

With the exception of Arborstone, which I duo’d with a very accomplished player and his equally impressive Heroes, and The Eternal Grove, which I fortuitously hooked up with an accomplished team, I completed the rest with my Heroes and henchmen. I’m genuinely surprised about this since I could’ve sworn that some of the missions could not be completed in Hard Mode with a Hero/henchman team.

I find the outcome invariably hinges on party composition. Putting together a party of Heroes and henchmen for a Hard Mode mission is akin to trying to solve a riddle by putting together a jigsaw puzzle. That sounds odd and yet I find it a perfect description. Some missions required multiple tries over several sessions as I experimented with different approaches.

I beat Boreas Seabed after packing Margrid the Sly with Broad Head Arrow, I beat Vizunah Square after changing Olias to a minion bomber and spamming spirits with Razah and I beat Gyala Hatchery after packing Razah with Wanderlust and Earthbind.

Another thing I’ve noticed about Hard Mode Factions missions is you will either fail abjectly or earn Master’s. I’ve only managed to beat one Hard Mode mission without earning Master’s and even then I narrowly missed out on it.