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'Guild Wars: Factions (PC)'. (EAN 5060094440491)

The 2nd chapter in the Guild Wars world has now been released and as a player of both I can comment with some authority on the new chapter.

Positive points:

Player learns loads of new skills as part of their training without the need to look for specific quests (as in the original).
Player can get to highest level within days but cannot learn all of the skills so easily (skills are more important than level in this game)
The game dynamics are the same as Prophecies (original version) , apart from the new player types. Nice continuation.

High level weapons and armour can be obtained early on in comparison to Prophecies.

The ease of changing characters is a big bonus for me, I've got 6 lvl 20 characters and I can easily delete an unused character if I want to play a different profession.

Once you decide on a character you can leave it where it is and play another type of character alltogether depending on your mood.
You can travel between games with characters created in one game so skills can be learnt by travelling inbetween games.

About skills - the good thing about this game is you can learn the skills but then choose if you can be bothered using them in battle.
In response to the reviewer who found it too hard to play, I'd suggest reading the manual. The gameplay couldn't be easier to grasp, choose what skills you like according to the role you want to perform so if you want to be a healing monk, choose healing skills, if you want to be an offensive warrior, choose attack skills or if you want to go as a combination, thats entirely up to you, its your choice and there is no wrong answer - play to how you want to play and choose the skills YOU like.

Negative points

The game doesn't have the epic feel of the original where some missions were truly awesome once completed (no similar feeling here - Thunderhead Keep anyone?))

Too many quests and not enough missions......

Too easily solo'ed with Henchmen in quests, would've preferred more proper missions so I could play with Humans.

If you have never played Guild Wars original, then there is no point reading any more of this review (but I thoroughly advise you to buy Guild Wars Original as its far better than Factions)

I was a big Guild Wars original fan, I can honestly say it was one of the most addcitive PC games I have ever played. I loved everything about it, the maps, the gameplay, the enemies, the story, the characters etc....

So when I heard Guild Wars II - Factions was coming out I was over the moon, as I thought there would be all sorts of new things to do and explore in the game and there really isnt, its extremely dissapointing.

The maps are not half as good looking as the original game and as a fantasy lover Guild Wars Factions no longer looks like a fantasy game, it looks more like something out of the film "Enter the Dragon" or a martial arts game.

The game play is exactly the same as the first Guild Wars with no changes what so ever but in this game its ten times harder to complete missions and ten times quicker to move up the levels (which was why the original Guild Wars was so addictive, it took time to get to level 20). Due to the quests being so hard a little later in the game you just end up getting frustrated and give up on them.

There are slight differences from the original Guild Wars....

(1) There are two new characters you can choose: Assassin and Ritualist. Characters in my eyes that have taken minutes to create without any real thought. They are both terrible (one is meant to be like a fighter (assassin) but you cannot purchase any good armour so its simply suicide when you go into battle, and the other (Ritualist) is a glorified Monk that can produce spirits to aid you in battle, only the spirits dont move from the same spot you cast them so its usless if the battle moves anywhere else). Why not have new characters such as Dwarf, Char (from original game), Sorcerer, Halfling. Something people can get their teeth into.
(2) The new spells for existing characters from the old Guild Wars are very lame and are pretty much existsing spells but with a slight deviation. Nothing really new and exciting here.

I thought if you had both games it would be easy to transfer players from the old game to the new factions and likewise but this takes time and does get a little tedious.

The only good thing about FACTIONS is to use it as a tool, so you can level your characters up very quickly to level 20 and then bring them across to the original Guild Wars (Where the gameplay is better and it takes a long while to build character levels up). Its ideal if you have want build several characters up to level 20 quickly.

Overall if you want to buy and play a fantasy role playing PC game with free monthly subscriptions which kicks butt then by the Original Guild Wars. Guild Wars FACTIONS is far too hard and looks like a bad martial arts film. I really would not advise you to buy this game, and I just hope the creators come up with something new and exciting for the next installment. I wont hold my breath.

A poor poor sequel.

I came to Guild Wars fairly late, and so had not nearly finished the first one (it's huge!!) by the time Factions came out. However, I'm such a fan that I had to get it. I am glad that I did!

Factions is set in the world of Cantha, which has an oriental theme going on. The graphics are still as breathtaking as the original and it is fun to take on new monsters (and rain fiery death down apon them!)

I must say that you level up much faster in Factions because the quests(even the wussy early ones) give you lots of XP. Having said that, the missions are a bit more difficult than the last, but I think that this only adds to the fun because you have to be careful about what spells you take with you.

There are a lot more spells now so you can put together some really devastating combo's. The new characters are pretty nifty too.

All in all it is a great game that will keep you playing for ages, well worth the money!

I bought the original Guild Wars in 2005 and became addicted! I played the game solid for about a month. Every spare moment I had that wasn't spent working was spent playing Guild Wars. I finally found my life again and stopped playing and starting getting in touch with reality again. Then, afew weeks ago I started playing Guild Wars again but only in small doses. Then, I remembered about Guild Wars Factions. Came on here. Read the reviews and bought it. 2 days later I created my first Assassin and can't stop playing the game.
Factions gives players the chance to create two new professions. Assassin and Ritualist. I haven't played as a Ritualist yet but the Assassin profession is alot of fun. The Assassin has daggers and if you build up your critical strike points then you are more likely to kill your foe with a single blow and as far as I know, no other profession can do that.
The graphics in Factions are just as good, if not better than the graphics in the original. Whenever I explore the countrysides in Factions I notice how realistic everything looks. The grass flowing in the wind, the trees and bushes rustling in the background all looks so realistic that you can imagine being there.
When starting the game you can choose to train (which I did and you get experience points for this) or you can go straight to the first city. If you have played both games then the first difference you will notice is how many more experience points (XP) you get for missions and quests in this game than in the original. I think in the original game you get about 250XP for your first quest/mission but in Factions you get about 2000XP which is a big difference. I've already hit level 10 in the space of two days. It took me longer to reach lvl 10 in Guild Wars because you don't get as many XP points. I really do appreciate the way you get more points for the simplest missions because I HATE being at a low level.
One reason is because alot of the more "experienced" players don't like "noobs" and although I'm not a noob because Ive been playing for about 10months or so it still makes you feel abit worthless and embarassed when everyone else around you is level 10+ and you're not. I haven't a problem with new players but certain ignorant people do. Certain higher level/longer playing members look down on new players. That would be my only negative thing to say about Guild Wars (original and Factions).
Oh and "Lagginess" can get very annoying. For example when you're doing a mission with other people the computer often stalls and you can't control you're character properly. This usually only lasts for about 30 seconds but it can get very annoying all the same. Ofcourse, none of these negative aspects are the games fault. These have to do with certain players and the speed of your computer.
If you liked Guild Wars then you will LOVE Factions. It's brilliant!

i bought this game when i actually wanted world of warcraft but i wernt allowed because of the monthly payment, so i saw this game on the top shelves of the game stores n i thought i might aswell. this game turned out to be very hard and complicated. i play runescape which is an online rpg game and i think that is much better than this. i have never played any of the guild wars games but i friends say that it is meant to be very popular and it is. the trouble with this game is that it takes ages for levelling up, it is not very exciting and one of the 1st missions expects you to kil a group of crop thievs when you are at about a level of 2. practiclly that mission was impossible and i still havnt done it because i still havnt quite worked out what this game is all about. one of the most enoying things is that people dont talk very much on it, its not a friendly game. and i dont know how to switch islands or where any of the shops are and to get decent weapons. this game is too complicated for me and it might not be for other people. but i still want world of warcraft becausei think it is easier to work out as 2 of my friends have it. guild wars is not fun at all and it laggs allot on my computer. if your the type of person that likes games were you level lots of levels up like runescape or world of warcraft i wouldnt get this game it is terrible and really complicated.