This review is about GW (Guid Wars) Factions and is written for those who have
already played the original Guild Wars. I intend to outline what has changed
with the factions release so you can judge if it is much different to the
original GW.
I've done everything there is to do in the original Guild
Wars and after starting two guilds and playing for 7 months, I was pretty much
close to hanging up my sword and shield and look for something different to
play.
Then came factions. It's been out for two weeks and I've been
playing it for one week with a keen eye for noticing what's changed. This
article is about what's changed.
As I have both games I have the option
of starting a character on either continent - the old Tyria continent, or then
new Cantha continent. This is an important choice to make. If you want access to
the two new classes, Ritualist and Assassin, then you need to start in
Cantha.
Characters can move between the old and the new continents (if
you own both games and choose to link them during install) but the new Factions
skills, equipment and armour is not available on the old continent. Your
characters need to be around level 15 before you can move between continents as
well. That's how long it takes to do the set quests and unlock the gates - so to
speak.
Just like the original Guild Wars, Cantha has a newbie area to run
around in and level your character easily. It is also here that the storyline
starts. For high-level characters that come across from the old continent of
Tyria, you'll miss a bit of the Factions storyline. If you are playing factions
for the first time, I suggest you start a new character so things make sense the
first time through.
The original GW storyline was great and it seems the
faction storyline may be even more intrigueing. It starts off with mystery and
you slowly discover the evil source behind it, but then you get sub-plots
involving two other factions - the Luxons and the Kurzick. It gets complicated
but I'll just say that it does engage you and you do want to play more to find
out what happens.
PvE is more engaging. It is still a matter of starting
in a town, moving through a hostile zone and reach the safety of another town at
the far end of the zone, but the zone's look, act and feel like towns often and
there are hundreds of friendly NPC's in these hostile zones. You often forget
you are in a hot spot and let your guard down. The town-zone-town-zone format is
still there, but they have cleverly helped to make this seemless and improved
the continuity. Thankfully too, the maps are designed so that there is often
more than one way to get to a place. If you come up against a boss monster that
you know you can't defeat, you can often back-track and circle around him by
alternate means. This is great news for those who were worn down by travelling
the same routes in Tyria time and time again.
I think they made a bad
move in the PvE format by 'gating' area's. You can't move to area B until you've
done certain quests in area A first. I can only guess this stops people running
from area to area without completing quests and content. It's frustrating and
may kill my PvE attempts as I'm a habitual runner. I just don't like being lead
around by the nose as I play my games.
As mentioned, there are two new
classes to get your head around with a swag of new skills obviously. The six
classic classes also get some new skills. For those not interested learning
about the new classes, you'll have fun researching the new skills for the
classic classes. If you're into PvP, you'll need to find out what's available
and how to best use/combat those skills.
The graphics and terrain are
just as breathtaking - perhaps more so. The Jade sea is truely unique and needs
to be walked on at least once. The sound is still good with different asian
themed music. The whole of factions is very asian in appearance. The
chinese-like names take a little to get use to but I guess that's the whole
point. It makes you feel like a foreigner in a foreign land.
The Player
vs Player (PvP) side has been dramatically expanded. You can PvP against AI
robots now. You can play capture-the-flag style of 12 vs 12 team play - the
Guild vs Guild arrangements are much more flexible and as before, PvP can impact
on the world of PvE by means of shifting borders, or zones of control. There are
so many PvP options in Factions, it's hard to know where to start. The classic
Hall of Heroe's is still part of the original game and remains popular
still.
Overall, Factions is more of the same. For the PvE players, there
is an enormous amount of new content and a new storyline. For the PvP plyaers,
there are many more formats available now to ensure you don't get bored. And for
the WoW player - not enough has changed to bring you over to the light side.
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