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The original Guild Wars, usually referred to as Prophecies, gave us a fantasy MMO with PvP, PvE and best of all, no subscriptions. Now a year later, Guild Wars Factions is released and lucky for us nobody told NCsoft what ‘expansion pack’ means because not only can Factions expand the original, it can be played entirely as a stand-alone MMO. Prophecies’ war was waged against the evil Charr creatures. The expansion’s angst is aimed at an ancient evil as well as between competing factions. Like any good expansion there are loads of new features all with the same ‘no-credit-card- required’ commitment. Once you buy the disc you can romp around the new Asian-influenced world of Cantha without sweating a monthly fee. 

Expanded Expansion

In addition to new items, skills and a slew of new monsters, there are two fresh character classes, Ritualist and Assassin. Of course any character class next to ‘Assassin’ looks wussy so you can be sure the first town you visit will be overrun with little wannabe murderers.

New to GWF (not to be confused with Gay-White-Females of the personal ads) are large-scale battles between competing factions, think gang wars. People join guilds, guilds join alliances, and alliances belong to factions, Luxon or the Kurzicks. These wars seem to be based on ‘made up word’ versus ‘sillier made up word’, but people get excited enough to kill each other over it.  

Jump in without a jump button

In Factions, it's quicker to get your character started than in other MMOs. As long as you don’t ponder over the red or green boots for too long, you should be questing within minutes of launch. Before you even draw your weapon your character will be level 2. All your usual role-playing staples are here such as a weapon, armor and dye dealers. Yep, dye. Don’t be surprised when the kids are dealing orange dye in a dark alley. Changing the color of your equipment turns out to be a big deal around some parts, but I just say no.

Using the same engine as the original game makes for good visuals, but Factions uses drastically different environments. Cantha is covered in panoramic photo-ops of snow-capped peaks, waterfalls and ancient monasteries, even if textures can sometimes look muddy and repetitive (what’s up, grass tiles?) close-up. But even with those graphical hiccups the architecture and landscapes are satisfying. The adequate draw distance teases you with areas to explore on the horizon, but actually reaching those new places can sometimes be a chore. Regardless of its open environment, there are paths you are forced to take and even your level 20 Warrior with 80+20 armor can’t walk (or jump) down a little hill if the game wants you to walk around the bend and down the path instead. The environment isn’t completely interactive either, so don’t even bother trying to kick chickens. But navigation of the menus is easy, with helpful tool tips and menu markers leading you along. 

A common complaint with MMOs is that they often require a life-sucking amount of dedication before you graduate to higher level content. GW switches up the generic ‘I am a higher level I can demolish you’ mentality by permitting players to only select a limited number of skills (aka spells). Each character has 8 skill slots to fill, but hundreds of skills to choose from, this makes fights more about strategy than brute strength. It may seem simple to just choose the most powerful but you will find yourself changing your arsenal often. Although your allies will always love you if in the darkest moment you bust out your trusty resurrection spell. I guarantee you will be the life of the party. 

4-way personality disorder

Factions has four character slots for you to experiment with, and a total of six slots for those that are linking their Prophecies account.  When creating your character don’t expect to create straight from your imagination as you are limited to only creating a human using a few pre-made face structures and styles. The RP level 20 cap can be reached fairly quickly by a good MMO-er (we are talking days not months here). Quicker than any WoW player earns their elite mount; you will have a topped-off Assassin/warrior for your weeknight sessions and a Monk/Ranger for your more casual Sundays all living on the same account. 

For the anti-social among us, Factions provides henchmen. NPCs for hire can either be added to your player party or used to build an entire clan of NPCs. They conveniently wait at town gates for you, they are not too bad at fighting in early missions, and you will never have to tell them to hold on because you have to pee.

Keeping with its ‘no commitment policy’ Guild Wars gives a clever way of working your role-playing skill points. After each level you get the obligatory opportunity to stare at your screen and make the big decision which precious points to distribute in each skill.  Factions doesn’t force you marry your decision because when you enter an outpost you can re-distribute your points as you please. If you had dreams of being a hammer-wielding freak on the battle field, but then found a good sword and changed your plan, you are free to head back to town and throw those silly hammer skill points into some sword slashing.  

Quick turnaround 

Owners of both Prophecies and Factions will eat up the Asian-themed landscapes and ability to travel between both games. For new kids, if MMOs freaked you out because of their overwhelming commitment, Factions will reward for your hard hours quickly. 

As a trade-off, GWF thrives in its fighting system strategies as opposed to countless hours spent leveling on WoW.  Guild Wars Factions easy to jump into style, diverse gameplay, and no subscription fee may convert some trepid gamers to finally check out the genre, while still giving diehards countless hours to earn those high-level elite skills.

Review By: Jess Reed
Video Produced By: Michael Leffler