GUILD WARS FACTIONS - Information and Details

Start of Event information coming soon. Reports are that the event will last the 24th - 26th.

Guild Wars Factions Pre-order will include: (GWF) pre-order CD, a GWF beta access key, a "friend" key that allows access to the beta event, a 14-day, 10-hour trial key for the original Guild Wars game, a tactical guide, and a quick-reference card. The Guild Wars Factions pre-order key also adds one unique item for each of the game's two new professions, the Ritualist and the Assassin, and authorizes the user to play Guild Wars Factions 24 hours before the game's street date in spring 2006.

Alex Weekes: OK, I now have a little more information on the European preorders that I can share:

• For anyone who *does not* have an original Prophecies campaign account, there will be online preorders available from 3rd March that will include a key granting access to the FPE and the preorder items.
• For everyone else, our preorder box will be available in stores from 31st March. The key in this box will give you access to the preorder items, and there are a few other things in the box.

For both of the above, I don't yet know which stores will be participating. I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Alex Weekes: If you already have an original Prophecies campaign account, you do not need the preorder key to access the Factions Preview Event (FPE) at all. You'll be granted access automatically, and in fact be able to send out three invites for friends to come and join you. More details will follow, um, soon? (I think I'm using that word too much today!)

They will remain in your skill listing, but they will be inactive until your acquire the release version of Guild Wars: Factions. On the other hand, the things you acquire on your normal retail account -- Faction points, Fame, Increases in Rank, Ladder Ratings -- would remain on that account.

Gallery:http://www.guildwarsguru.com/gallery...s.php?album=16
Trailer: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/GuildWa...onsTrailer.zip

The Kurzicks are an ultra-conservative and highly religious culture whose socially frozen society worships the status quo. In fact, the world of the Kurzicks is a mirror of the petrified forest in which they carve their beautiful homes.

The Luxons, on the other hand, are a wild nation of seafaring nomads who have traded in their ships for magical walking machines that traverse the jade ocean. As a group, the Luxons are a walking advertisement for the Darwinian social order -- only the strong survive.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/gallery...e.php?pos=-303
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/gallery...album=2&pos=32
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/789/78...g_3316315.html

http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/78...g_3313649.html
http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/78...g_3313647.html

Alliances will share chat channels, visit one another's guild halls, access to a real-time map, discounted merchant prices in controlled towns, display of banner in controlled towns, trigger speical events, gain access to exclusive areas, and coordinate huge global straegies.

Gaile Gray: There will be a strategy guide for Guild Wars, and this time, we're writing it ourselves. We'll have a company publish the book, of course, but the authors will be on the Guild Wars team this time, rather than external writers. There are more than 20 people involved in the production of the guide, those most on a part-time basis, of course. We'll be sure to provide a publication or shelf date when one is available.

Alex Weekes: OK, I now have a little more information on the European preorders that I can share:

• For anyone who *does not* have an original Prophecies campaign account, there will be online preorders available from 3rd March that will include a key granting access to the FPE and the preorder items.
• For everyone else, our preorder box will be available in stores from 31st March. The key in this box will give you access to the preorder items, and there are a few other things in the box.

For both of the above, I don't yet know which stores will be participating. I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Gaile Gray: Consider GW one game, and Factions the other, as they are. Consider them both halves of a great whole. If you have GW, you have GW content only, and 4 slots. If you have Factions, you have Factions content only. If you have both, linked, you have 6 slots, with access for all_6_slots to BOTH games. You can keep them seperate, but linking is better, because you have 6 with twice the content. As opposted to four with 1/2 the content each. If it makes sense to you, thank you. I have to admit, I took 10 minutes of Mike O'Brien's time to learn it. I didn't understand the 6 x 100% is greater than 4 x 50%, you see?

Linking is a very important factor. You MUST decide to link, or not link, and cannot change later. I would heartily recommend that you consider the advantages to both BEFORE you make a decision. We cannot merge accounts, so if you set up a seperate account, we can't fix it later. And that of course means that your Factions account characters cannot enter Tyria.