Product Description

Guild Wars Factions takes place in Cantha, an Asian-inspired three-nation continent far to the south of the lands of Tyria, the setting for Guild Wars (the original Prophecies campaign). Players who own both Factions and the original Prophecies campaign can travel between the two continents by boat.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2043 in Video Games
• Brand: NCsoft
• Released on: 2006-04-28
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: Windows XP
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds

Features

• Hundreds of new creatures, guild halls, skills and more
• Two new professions: the deadly Assassin and the necromantic Ritualist
• A whole new continent, Cantha, either connects to the lands of Tyria or stands on its own
• Guilds band together into alliances to gain control of towns and access exclusive Alliance Missions
• New game types include missions with ranked scoring and large-scale Alliance vs. Alliance battles

Amazon.com Product Description
When NCsoft released the original in 2005, it promised a revolution in Massively Multiplayer Online games: an online game with no monthly fees and completely standalone expansion packs. With simple gameplay, and endless multiplayer and solo options, the first game gained a devoted following of experienced and new players alike. Exactly one year later, Guild Wars Factions widens the horizons of Guild Wars, almost doubling the size of the world. The expansion pack offers whole new worlds to explore, and it doesn't require Guild Wars to play. Players can explore the new continent of Cantha by traveling from the lands of Tyria or they can travel in Cantha alone--and even those who only own one of the Guild Wars games can invite their friends to join their questing areas and share the game content without forcing each other to buy the other game.

Cantha's elegant castles house both beauty and intrigue. View larger.

Exotic new armor sets, faces and hair styles offer even more unique character options to players. View larger.

Hundreds of new monsters await in 50 new quest areas.View larger.

Cantha's Warring Factions
The expansion pack adds whole new ways to experience the game: alliances and factions. In Tyria, players banded together in small guilds and warred against each other, but Cantha is a land of much more complicated politics. Guilds can join together in alliances, align themselves with one of Cantha's two warring factions, and battle other alliances to gain and hold territory. The epic Faction Battles can change the face of Cantha in real time, shifting borders and changing the control of entire cities and towns as battles are won and lost. The Battle Isles play host to most of the new Player vs. Player content, providing alliances a huge battlefield to supplement the Tyrian arenas.

Player versus Player combat reaches a new dimension with massive Alliance Battles.View larger.

Alliances will also have access to two new kinds of missions, Alliance Missions and Elite Missions. Alliance Missions feature multiple teams battling for control over resources and strategic locations, earning faction points for their alliance. The best and most powerful alliances can venture on Elite Missions, which are designed to be the ultimate challenge for even the most experienced teams.

New Player Options
Solo players have not been neglected either, and those who choose to remain separate from alliance and faction politics still have a lot to enjoy in the expansion. Two new professions are available to the denizens of Cantha: the deadly Assassin and dark Ritualist. Assassins wield daggers with fatal precision and can teleport to strike down enemies up close, while Ritualists summon the spirits of the dead to control the battlefield. New faces, hair styles and armor sets give the two new professions their own distinct look, evoking the exotic feel of Cantha. To allow players to experience the new professions without deleting their old characters, four extra character slots will be added to players who have previously existing Guild Wars accounts.

The Assassin emerges from the shadows as a playable profession in Factions. View larger.

While the level limit has not yet been raised from 20, players who still love the six professions from the core game have not been forgotten. Dozens of new skills are available for the older professions as well. Players have more options than ever before, and the new story missions and quest areas will test their ability to adapt to new styles and situations. Hundreds of all-new weapons, items and pets offer characters a huge amount of customization, and a new mission type will put each player's skill to the test. Challenge missions are cooperative missions with scoring objectives, and NCsoft will post the highest scores and display the rankings in-game, adding a new competitive element to the game that doesn't require direct combat.

NCsoft has taken care to cater to their entire player base with Guild Wars Factions. Team players have new options that range from Braveheart-style mass PvP battles to the online RPG version of organized sporting events. Solo players and lone wolves have plenty of character customization to play with as well as the continuation of the Guild Wars story. Even those who only own Guild Wars Factions or Guild Wars can expand their game experience by sampling the content with players who own the other game, making Factions an expansion in the true sense: it broadens the horizons without being essential to enjoying the complete game.

Customer Reviews

Wow...Why All The Whining?
Well I was surprised to see so many complaining reviews. I have been playing this game since the original came out...and I've played Factions since its debut.
So...let's see what all this fuss is about.

1. Bugs...
I have yet to be unable to complete any mission because of bugs. I did on one occasion become 'stuck' in the scenery. My team simply ported to a new location and all was well. However, I was not at all concerned...the game hasn't been out for a week yet. Did you expect perfection in 3 days? I find that unreasonable at best. Now if the problem were to persist say a month from now...well maybe then you'd have cause.

2. Oh Poor Me They Keep Beating Me Up.
Well yeah. probably because, like many players I've seen, you didn't bother to do any of the multitude of very high experience giving quests before you left the starter island. (Doing them all takes approximately 2 hours- I timed it) You just skipped em all and went straight for the primary 'get off the island' quests. I've seen many a level 10 on the mainland trying to get in a group. Then they complain they keep dying. Well of course you are. When I left the island I was level 17...from quests only, I didn't do any 'farming' and after about two quests outside the first 'mainland city' I was level 20 with both sets of bonus 15 attribute quests (available on the starter island). And so you know, I did all of this with one partner and the rest henchies.

3. They All Look Alike...
Yeah, but they did in the first Guild Wars too. What's your point? They added all new armors...new appearances for the new classes as well as the old ones. For a game that has thousands of players did you expect every one to look different?

4. PvP Is Cookie Cutter.
Yup. It is. But hey they all started somewhere. Each month finds a new PvP trend. Gale Warriors one month... Massive Minion bombing the next. So, if you wish to try a new tactic I suggest you gather a few friends and do it. There's nothing stopping you. I'm sure you've also had occasion to put down someone elses strategy so maybe the problem is inherent in the system. But nothing really prevents you from doing anything you want, provided you have good people willing to try.

In conclusion, considering the fact that this game basically has a yearly fee of about $45 (the price to buy the game)I think it's a worthy addition to any MMO fans collection.

Do You Have A Choice?
Let's face facts--when you sign up with an online game, you're pretty much buying in for the long haul. As far as that investment goes, if I'm reviewing the Guild Wars franchise as a whole, I still think you're probably playing the best game of its kind that's available on the market.

That said, Factions could have been better. For instance, when you, as a developer, know that you have problem with changes in the z-axis (which this game doesn't really recognize), it doesn't make a lot of sense to put a lot of stairs in the game. If you know you're introducing two new professions, it makes sense to include lots of things that they would be good at doing in the cooperative content.

Don't get me wrong--I like my ritualist. I'm kind of enjoying playing through the campaign a second time with my old character from Tyria. Sort of. But if I had picked this game up as my introduction to the series, I think I would have a MUCH more negative opinion of it than I already do.

The problem, of course, is that this is NOT a stand-alone game, no matter what their marketing department says. If you don't know how the professions are supposed to work and you just roll up a character with no extra money in storage, you better hope that you're lucky enough to figure out an effective way to do things the first time through, because the skill acquisition system has a HUGE built-in penalty for experimentation (skills, which are the lifeblood of the game, are only acquired in this expansion by purchase from skill trainers, but the ramp-up in cost is pretty dramatic, and before you even leave the training area you can find yourself spending 1000 gold - the maximum - for each new skill you open up for the character). The game has never done a particularly good job of explaining effective cooperative play either, and this is only emphasized in this expansion by the inclusion of two somewhat subtly nuanced classes, at least one of which (the Assassin) is not ideally suited to the cooperative game in the first place.

In terms of additions to the competitive arenas, there's not much to find fault with. The two new professions are effectively balanced against the existing ones to a certain extent. Their utilization, however, is not now and never will be on the scope of the six core professions. There are some interesting tricks and gimmicks you can use, but ultimately, if you're buying this game as a competitive player, you're getting it for completeness. The new skills added for the existing professions are, in some instances, critical new additions to the competitive game environment and are a lot of fun to play around with.

On the whole, for new players, I'd have to recommend starting at the beginning and buying the original Guild Wars (Prophecies). The slower ramp-up, quest-based skill acquisition, and graduated complexity present a much better learning environment for somebody new to the game. For players who already have the game, you probably know what you're getting--a new set of maps and a couple of new professions. The maps are adequate, though the composition of enemy groups in this edition is just as homogenous as in the previous release (though different) and haunted with more of the frustration that plagued some of the late-game areas of Prophecies. On the whole, I'm not sorry I bought it, as an established user, but I had certainly hoped for more.

Factions pales in comparison to the original
The graphics are stunning, even better than they were in Prophecies, and that is really the best aspect of this game. Factions was marketed as a stand alone game but it lacks content and most experienced Guild Wars players view it as an expansion. People who play the new assassin class have had a tough time getting groups and alot of players won't party with them and some players even spew spiteful comments toward them. The class dies too quickly and easily if you don't know how to play it, and unfortunately the tutorial portion is rushed so that you level too quickly without enough experience to really get to know your skills. Factions is really meant for level 20 characters and once you are done with the starter island all of the enemies are level 20 and higher. If you are new to Guild Wars I suggest starting with the first chapter, Prophecies, before wasting your money here. Factions is too short, in my opinion, and the developers resorted to adding a level of grind to it to extend it's life. Rather than grinding levels you grind faction. Also, if you begin with Prophecies you will be more familiar with the skills that the high level monsters in Factions use against you.