Guild Wars Factions

Guild Wars Factions
Developer(s)	ArenaNet
Publisher(s)	NCSoft
Platform(s)	Windows
Release	April 28, 2006
Genre(s)	CORPG and MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Guild Wars Factions is a computer game released in 2006 by ArenaNet and is the first stand-alone campaign expanding on Prophecies, the original Guild Wars game. Factions introduces the player to the continent of Cantha where two warring factions, Luxon and Kurzick, battle for domination. Players are able to join in this conflict, assisting their chosen faction in claiming towns on the game map.

Factions has a new PvE campaign, two new professions, new skills and armor for existing professions, new gameplay modes for both PvE and PvP and also addresses some of the criticisms of the original game.

Buying Factions as a stand-alone game does not allow access to the original game continent, Tyria, and PvE campaign. The professions from Prophecies are available for Factions players to create. However some skills from the original campaign are not available, but new skills for these professions are introduced. Most of the PvP content from Prophecies is available to Factions players.

A player who has purchased more than one campaign, can link the games, which allows their characters to travel between the game's continents and to maintain two more concurrent characters for each campaign added.

Story

File:Canthamap.jpg

Cantha, the continent in which Guild Wars Factions takes place.

The story is only loosely linked to that of the original campaign, the original games NPCs being the most notable link. Cantha was also mentioned many times in the original game, most notably by the Xunlai storage agents.

In 1332CC (872AE on the Tyrian calendar), the Canthan Emperor's bodyguard, Shiro Tagachi, murders the Emperor after receiving an ominous omen from a fortune teller and calls great power to himself. The champions of the Luxon and Kurzick factions, Archemorus and Saint Viktor respectively, and Vizu, an assassin, are able to kill Shiro. However, before dying, Shiro gathered up all his malice, hatred and rage and his death wail triggered what became known as the Jade Wind, turning everything to stone within a hundred miles and turning the sea to jade. However, this was not the end, as 200 years later, in the year 1532CC, Shiro has returned from the Underworld, using his powers as an Envoy to create an unholy army known as the Afflicted in a bid to regain his mortal form and rule Cantha.

File:Gw031.jpg

A screenshot from Guild Wars Factions in Shing Jea Island.

New characters join the Shing Jea Monastery for training. During their training the initial impact of Shiro's attempts to return becomes apparent through the illness which is starting to travel through the islands inhabitants, turning them into the vile Afflicted. Once the danger is confirmed the players accompany Master Togo, a revered training master and half brother to the current Canthan emperor, on his travels to Kaineng City to warn and petition the Emperor for his assistance.

Master Togo also expresses his concern to one of his Tyrian students, Mhenlo, an NPC from the Prophecies campaign and requests his assistance. Characters from the original campaign accompany Mhenlo as he travels to the Canthan mainland to assist his master.

It becomes clear that Shiro is abusing his power as an Envoy for the dead to meddle in the affairs of the living and turn the souls of the dead into his weapons. Other Envoys approach the players and ask for their assistance to stop Shiro, saying the players need to become Weh No Su (ancient Canthan for closer to the stars, the Canthan equivalent of Ascension) which will allow them to see and fight beings from the spirit realm.

Vizu, the spirit of the assassin who was key in slaying Shiro the first time, reveals the way to stop Shiro is to use artifacts of the Luxon and Kurzick heroes who originally killed Shiro. After acquiring these artifacts the players are able stop Shiro forming an army in the city, destroying his constructs and closing spirit rifts he had opened. Shiro himself however is not destroyed, although the artifacts are. The players then choose a side; going with Mhenlo to convince the Kurzicks that Shiro returning is more important than their ongoing war with the Luxons, or travel with Master Togo to convince the Luxons to stop fighting the Kurzicks.

Once the players convince their chosen side, players from the Luxon and Kurzick factions meet again to seek advice from the dragon, Kuunavang. However they find that Kuunavang has been corrupted by Shiro, but when defeated Shiro's corruption ends and Kuunavang is able to assist the players on their quest. It is concluded that Shiro is putting together a spell to return to the mortal realm and needs only one more ingredient, the spilt blood of someone descended from the Emperor he killed centuries before.

Shiro raids the palace and kidnaps the Emperor as the players hurry to his aid. The players rush to save the Emperor through Shiro's army of fearsome Shiro'ken. As Shiro is about to kill the Emperor, Master Togo throws himself in the way, saving the Emperor. Unfortunately, since Togo is the Emperor's half brother, his royal blood is still good enough to complete the spell. Shiro therefore slays him instead. Shiro then returns to his mortal form but now with amazing powers. In doing so, however, Shiro loses the one thing that kept him from being defeated in the first place: his immortality. The players rise to the challenge and take on Shiro. Shiro is defeated, his mortal form sealed in jade, and the Envoys banish him to the Realm of Torment, a special portion of the Underworld reserved for only the most evil in life.

Gameplay

Factions follows many of the same game mechanisms as the original Guild Wars, making modifications and introducing new types of gameplay.

Professions

A male assassin

A female ritualist

Guild Wars Factions adds two new character classes to the game.

• The Assassin is a master at getting in quickly, striking and getting back out just as quick. They are able to instantly teleport around the field of combat using their ability to Shadow Step. They are capable of dealing a great deal of damage to a particular target, especially spellcasters, in a very short amount of time. This is offset by their weak armor, making them relatively ineffective frontline fighters.
• The Ritualist is a living conduit to the spirit world, capable of summoning bound spirits to the field that can attack enemies or protect allies. They can also summon ghostly weapons for their allies to wield, and commune with the spirits of their ancestors through the ritual use of ashes and urns.

PvE modifications

Cooperative missions in Factions are different from their equivalent in Prophecies. In Prophecies players complete a main mission and an optional bonus mission. Cooperative missions are easy to avoid in Prophecies as most areas are accessible without completing missions. Factions makes all missions compulsory for accessing new areas and completing the game. The bonus mission has been removed and replaced with a tiered reward system based on the time taken to complete the mission. Gold, experience and a skill point is given at each reward tier. Several new concepts for co-operative missions have been introduced, such as missions with two teams of eight and missions specifically for killing a single boss.

The time taken for a new character to reach the maximum level of twenty is reduced and most of the areas are designed for level twenty characters. Experience, and therefore skill points, are easy to acquire once level twenty is reached. This means that the time taken to unlock skills through PvE play is reduced from Prophecies. Skill acquisition is modified also, most skills must be purchased from Skill Traders, rather than received by completing quests.

Boss enemies now do double damage and take half the time to use spells and skills instead of having shortened hex and condition durations.

Factions and alliances

Factions introduces two factions which players and guilds may side with;

• Kurzick - respecting art, religion, and social order, the gothic Kurzick dwell in the Echovald Forests.The Kurzicks wear dark clothing to capture as much sunlight and heat as possible in their dark environment.The Kurzick culture seems to be more European than Asian, but the hair-dos of some of the Kurzick males and females do somewhat reflect the Japanese style.
• Luxon - respecting strength above all else, the Jade Sea dwelling Luxon are often compared to pirates, and are somewhat religion-less. The Luxon culture is loosely based on the Filipino and Greek cultures. They tend to wear light clothing to reflect the heat from the sun.

Neither faction is considered to be inherently 'good' or 'evil'.

An alliance is a group of up to ten guilds aligned with the same faction who agree to join in an alliance under the name of a single lead guild.

Each faction has a number of towns which they own, the control of these towns is given to alliances with the highest standing with their faction. Standing is earned by the alliance by accepting donations of faction points from the players in the alliance.

A player may earn account based Kurzick or Luxon faction points while they are playing Factions. Faction points are earned doing PvE quests for a faction, competing in Alliance battles, in Competitive Missions or some Challenge Missions. If the player does not wish to donate faction to the alliance, or if they play for the faction which the guild isn't allied with, they can trade their faction points for armor crafting materials. A player is considered Luxon or Kurzick by having a majority of unspent faction points for the faction they support. To change faction a player needs to acquire a majority of factions points for their new faction.

Competitive missions

Factions provides PvE players access to two competitive missions, a new game type for the Factions campaign. In these missions, two random teams of eight compete to reach specific objectives. If a player dies they respawn in the base and are able to rejoin the fight to meet the objectives. When the match finishes the players are returned to a waiting area to start the next battle.

• The Jade Quarry is a point capture mission. The common goal for both factions is to capture the jade quarries so that jade can be dug from them. Each jade shipment that successfully made its way back to the Faction's base is worth one point. In addition, there are several Watchtowers to be captured, giving strategic advantage to the owner when attacking the jade shipments.
• In the Fort Aspenwood mission the Luxons must storm a Kurzick base and kill three NPCs known as Gate Guard Radick, Gate Guard Poletski and Master Architect Gunther, a Kurzick engineer, to stop him from making a new weapon for the Kurzicks. Additionally, the Luxons must intercept amber shipments to slow down the development of the Kurzick weapon and base repairs by the Kurzick team. The base must be defended by the Kurzicks long enough for the engineer to complete the weapon.

Challenge missions

These missions are a new gameplay type introduced in Factions. They set specific scoring objectives for a team to meet, offering rewards of gold, experience or faction points dependent on the teams performance in the mission. The best teams over all time, each month and each day are recorded for players to view online. There are five different missions each with different objectives. For example, Dragon's Throat requires the players to kill as many enemies as possible over a period of time and Amatz Basin (named by ArenaNet after the player community of The Amazon Basin, which also contributed to the official Guild Wars strategy guide) requires the players to save as many NPC refugees as possible in a set time.

Alliance battles

Alliance Battles are where the Luxon and Kurzick factions battle for control of towns on the game map. Each faction is represented by a team of twelve, split into three squads of four. Players form squads of four which are randomly teamed with two other teams for the match.

The objective of the battle is to be the first faction to reach 500 points. Points are rewarded for capturing and holding strategic map locations and player kills. If one team holds all map locations for a minute, the team automatically receives 500 points and the victory. Players do not get a death penalty and are automatically resurrected. Players on both the winning and losing side are rewarded with Kurzick or Luxon faction according to the amount of points their side gathered, with bonus points being given to the winning side.

The battles are fought on a series of five maps which are weighted from strong advantage to the Luxons, through neutral to strong advantage to the Kurzick. The map played on depends on the land held by the faction. For example, if the Luxon are holding a lot of land, the maps played on give advantage to the Kurzick. Teams that are playing on maps where the opposition has an advantage receive a bonus to the number of Alliance faction points accrued during the match.

Critical Response

Factions didn't garner as high acclaim as the original Guild Wars, although it still scored well overall by critics. Reviewers were mostly impressed by the addition of the new Kurzick and Luxon factions that players could fight for in claiming territory on the game map, however Factions was criticised for having a poor storyline when compared to Prophecies which was due to poorer voice-acting and your character reaching level 20 far too quickly to feel the need to continue. Also the continuing problem in Guild Wars with the UI not supporting an easy way of forming parties or selling items has also received some criticism. The former was, however, rectified shortly after the release of Guild Wars Nightfall with a new party search system.

Factions was also nominated for a BAFTA award in the best Multiplayer game category and won the Best Multiplayer game award from DEMMX.

Also the introduction of Guild Wars Factions helped boost the number of units sold in the Guild Wars franchise to over 2 million. This does not equate to 2 million players since the vast majority of purchasers will be adding Guild Wars: Factions to existing Guild Wars: Prophecies accounts.

Editions

In addition to the Standard edition which includes the games CDs, basic Account Creation Code and Manuscript Book the following editions have been available for Factions.

Pre-order edition

Players who pre-ordered Factions were able to get a bonus CD. The disc included;

• concept art
• unique pre-order only weapons
• early access to Factions game play
• access to beta events
• 10-hour trial to the original Guild Wars

This disk is no longer available.

Collector's edition

A Collectors edition is available for players to purchase. Players purchasing this edition will receive in addition to standard edition materials;

• Soundtrack CD
• Art Book
• Sticker Set
• Mouse Pad
• Desk Calendar
• Factions Poster
• Special dance emote for Assassin and Ritualist characters
• Code for free Factions Music mini pack
• Cloth picture (European edition only)
• A Minipet Kuunavang (Miniature NPC Dragon that follows the player)

There was a delay with the initial shipping of the Collector's edition due to unforeseen demand. ArenaNet introduced a mini Kuunavang dragon pet to the Collector's edition as a thank you for those who had purchased and decided to wait for the Collectors edition to arrive.

PvP Edition

This version of the game is only available for purchase from the online store. It unlocks the two Factions specific professions and the skills available in Factions but does not allow the player access to the PvE missions and areas only the PvP areas. This version of the game may be purchased as a stand alone game or may be added to an existing account. Currently the PvP edition does not feature any additional character slots. The PvP Edition has been criticised by current players because it gives new players a chance to get something that they have been working on since the game launched.

External links

• The official Guild Wars website
• The official Guild Wars Wiki
• ArenaNet's listing of recognized Guild Wars fansites