Guild Wars Factions

"What is the sound of one gamer lagging?"

Guild Wars Factions is a something of a combination between a stand-alone and an add-on for gaming, where players can take their Prophecy creation and carry them to the world of Cantra, or create their own games. You have to have both games to be able to travel between worlds, through. The good thing is that this allows you to have up to six characters for your first account, with four additional slots per account.

The themes between the two are rather similar, through. Both deal with PvP and PvE themes, although many veteran gamers will tell you that everything in Guild Wars is done so that you're eventually goaded towards playing the PvP section, even through roughly 2/3 of the player base only play the Players versus the Computer, or PvE (Environment). This I consider to be something of a problem, since playing favorites with a game really wrecks the whole experience of playing. It's not that big of a problem, in my honest opinion through. While Prophecies had a more Arabian/European feel, Factions is clearly Asian in feel and sound.

The PvP side deals with two factions: Luxons and Kurzicks (sounds more like rivals of Tiffany & Co. than Asian factions huh?). Your guild chooses alliances in many different ways. You play for one side or another, and also, you select other guilds you wish to be affiliated with. The guilds themselves have seen a pretty big upgrade with more themed islands to choose from and a Guild Lord to which you can purchase additions for your guild ranging from various merchants you see in the larger cities to your own skills master. There's even a training island where you can see how your skills, conditions and abilities work, and can even practice, which is really cool.

The coolest PvP idea is the 12 on 12 Battle Royale, where you are in a group of four. Three groups of four battle three other groups of four in a battle royale. Generally speaking, mass mayhem ensues, with fighters fighting everyone and Rangers taking pot shots at anyone worth hitting. Death ranges from being completely gone, to just being instantly resurrected and returned to the game, with no death penalty. It is pretty interesting.

The PvE area has changed as well. The plot isn't that much different from Tyria, through. While Tyria you had to deal with a masterminding White Knight wanting to turn Tyria into his own land of the dead, Cantha has a similar problem. A man becomes a god (his death actually altered the landscape of several locations) and is threatening to turn all of Cantha, if not the whole world, into a sickened or afflicted world where everyone becomes sickened or malformed afflicted creatures of evil intent. You can easily guess what happens or what you will have to do.

The missions or quests range from almost too easy to extremely hard and really not worth the xp and gold and whatever other booty you might get from this. (The Intro island seems really easy, while the mainland is very hard with every enemy at least at level 20.) Unlike Tyria where you might receive items along with experience and/or gold, Cantha uses "monastery credit" or "imperial commemoration" as a secondary reward. Alas, the rewards for trading them in are not as good as what you might purchase. However, the costs and items needed to make new armor or weapons have really gotten expensive. Thus, players are generally forced to go out a lot of times to kill and recover a lot of items so that you can get enough items and money to pay for better armor.

The "eyecandy" (graphics, sound, etc.) is a bit better. Guild Wars has captured the Asian landscape, especially the nature surroundings very, very well. When you have the sections in the really huge metropolis, the graphics aren't as good, and it gets confusing which section you are in on the map. Your characters have a bit more style in their dresses, hairstyle, and face. And they look pretty cool. The saddest thing about this game is how much time they seemed to have done with the new dance routines. It seems sometimes they spent more on the dances and what the new classes can do with them than the actual game itself. Music and sound are pretty good, but I wish there was more variety in music.

They included two new classes (Ritualists and Assassin), and revamped the spells and skills the other classes recieved. I'm mixed on the changes. They've made the Necromancer seem to be the class you could play without feeling really challenged for most of the game. The Assassin (or Ninja) has its moments, but the Ritualists seem pretty vulnerable even with it's ability to summon spirits. But as for the other classes, I'm not sure if the revamped skills rebalanced the classes. Also, I've noticed that some spells seem too overly powerful and some people have commented to me how the calculation for damages from certain spells seem off. Hopefully they've fixed the changes. Personally, I don't understand why Meteor Shower is no longer in the Cantha Elementalist's list of spells.

The biggest problem I have so far is with connecting to the game. NC Soft and the other creators should have known that adding a new section would really double or triple the number of gamers on. And thus, there have been problems with connecting ranging from having problems connecting to a city to being stuck in a waiting room waiting for the mission to begin. There have been some spots where even with a really high-speed connection, you have lag problems, which seems to be from the server. This is the kind of trade-off to not having to pay a monthly fee for playing.

Overall, Guild War Factions is pretty good, but I do wish they would have taken cared of the connection problems and made the gameplay more fair between playing against the computer and playing against people. (If the connection problems are resolved when you are reading it, it does not change my overall grade.) I also am not completely impressed with the new classes and wonder if they are really tweaked for the better. However, if you want an MMORPG without the problem of paying a monthly fee, Guild Wars is your best bet. Maybe your only bet.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/17/06