Travelling to the Far Shiverpeaks in Eye of the North

So with the Sneak Peek weekend upon us, it's time to have a look at Eye of the North. As I was already in Kamadan, I spoke to the NPC Bendah. He gives you a new mission - apparently a fissure has opened up on the cliffs behind Kamadan! We must investigate!

Instantly Kamadan starts shaking with an earthquake - note this is a shared realm so this affects everyone in that district. Lots of people start chatting in Local, wanting to know what's going on. It's pretty good fun :-)

Ooze and rats appear and start bouncing and running around - you can't attack them though and they do nothing but get in the way. The ooze in particular looks pretty good and is very fast - wouldn't want to take on a large mob of them.

Running out of the gates and you can head round the side of Kamadan. You've eventually come across a glowing hole in the cliff, labelled Fissure.

You can click on this to get the message "Before you is a massive crak in the ground that leads deep into the earth." Choose to 'Explore the fissure'.

This takes you to the next area - Caverns below Kamadan. Big download time as the GW client streams down all the new data - it's around 100mb and obviously everyone is jumping on the GW servers at the same time.

The caverns are pretty cool. They're a lot like the Catacombs in pre-searing Ascalon, but on a much grander scale. There's some pretty nice artwork and artifacts to look at, as well as several groups of low-level Corsairs skulking about. After wandering around you eventually come across a bunch of dwarves stacking up some explosive barrels, led by Ogden Stonehealer.

The dwarves are trying to blow their way out of there (genius!), but are being chased by some creatures called the Destroyers. You get to see your first glimpse of the freakish little Asura when one pops up and says the Destroyers have taken a gate.

You mention there's another way out, and that's your new mission - to leg it.

You've got 3 minutes to do a runner to the other gate. There's a whole bunch of Destroyers after you - they look a bit like the Elite Covenant from Halo. They're very fast and pretty tough - don't stop to fight, it'll take too long and you'll get swamped.

Follow the Ogden and Vekk, the two main (and suddenly very fast) dwarves, and leave your Heroes, henchies, and assorted other dwarves to the Destroyers.

As an aside, Guild Wars seems to be like Star Trek in this regard. If an NPC doesn't have a proper name, they're the equivalent of those Star Trek crew members in red tunics. You know they're gonna die.

After some frantic running - with more groups of Destroyers popping up at random - you finally make it to the gate. With no speed boosts my Elementalist made it with 45 seconds to spare, so you can see how pointless it is to stop and fight.

Dive through the portal, and it's another download as you're transported Into the North.

There's a short cut scene where Ogden introduces the Norn, who look a lot like Vikings with less clothes. After a short chat, with the Norn making some ominous comments about bad things up ahead, you get transported to Boreal Station in the Far Shiverpeaks.

This unlocks Ogden Stonehealer as a level 20 Monk Hero, and completes your mission. You'll also find that on the map for each chapter is a special purple town, called the Asura Gate.

Clicking on this and selecting travel will transport you back to Boreal Station - pretty handy.

So that's it - the trip to the Far Shiverpeaks. Now it's time to start poking around and having a good explore.

Cheers,
TOM

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