The root of all evil (true reason for Factions hate)

But great graphics doesn't make a great game. It's the storyline, the content and the ability to make you come back for more.

I used to and still do enjoy games like Pac-man, Super mario, Tetris and Pong. I guess it's because I've grown up with these games and because they have a special place in my heart.

QFT. What's more - today's games will also SUCK (in terms of graphics/sound/whatever) for people living in 2020. Think about it Sekkira.
BTW: I'm playing games since '86 and I really really enjoyed games then.

Just to help you along with your quest to find the reasons people dislike factions. First the size of the map doesn't make any difference at all to me, you can put the same amount of content into to a smaller area that isn't really an issue here.The issue here is the type of content. Basicly you have errand boy quest with lots of back and forth and kill the same guys over and over, that's just irritating to me. In this chapter i believe they give bigger rewards to get you to level 20 quicker so you can enter the PVP part of the game. This brings me to the real reason why i dislike Factions i'm a PVE player i do not like PVP at all and really want nothing to do with any form of PVP. In this chapter you are pretty much forced into pvp or your done. With the two new characters i have in factions as soon as i can get them to tyria i'm out of cantha permenately. I will personnally vote my displeasure by not purchasing any more Guild Wars products in the future. As for the statement that only the people that are venting thier displeasure are on the forums because the people who like it are playing the game instead. I don't buy that at all it is my experience that most people on forums are seeking people looking for answers to questions they may have about a certain subject.Forum users tend to be more knowledgeable and well informed about a subject because they seek out information to make decisions. This is only my opinion and not meant to be any thing else. Everyone out there should vote thier opinions with thier dollars enough said.

I've never seen so many Strawman arguments in a single thread before... wow.

Anyway, I had descided to not buy Factions due to it's content. I felt it didn't have enough content I would enjoy for my money. A week after it's release I finally caved in (I so wanted to play an Assassin) and picked it up. A week later, I finished the story line. I didn't rush through it, it was just done. I was like... wow. That was it?

For the OP, my reasons for really being disappointed (these are my opinions; any flaming or attempts to alter my opinions will result in /yawn - don't like or agree with what I say? Cool with me. This is not whining or an argument, it's opinion.):

The farming. Farming is so boring, so dull and feels like "work". Faction points are needed in such a huge quantity and are so boring to come by.

The Challenge missions are horrible. They are dull beyond belief after you've done it several times. You go the same route over and over and over and over... /bored

The Competitive missions are so empty. I sat in Aspenwood watching the counter reset for 30min just trying to find another way to farm faction points... At least allow people to enter vs the AI in these so we can play the game. Sitting there is /bored.

GLF "Cookie Cutter builds" for FF! OMG, I thought I had gotten away from this in quiting EQ. Sitting around for 30 minutes to an hour "X/X LFG" gets old so fast. Doesn't matter what class combo you are, if you don't fit into some mold, forget it. /bored.

Now with the above said, I know some one is bound to say "Well, did you unlock all the map?" or "Did you get all the elites unlocked?" - sorry, titles are not a goal of mine. If I gain a title it will be through playing, not because of working for it.

What I did like about Factions: The difficulty. First time I got popped with Dragon Stomp I was awe inspired. After a quick rez at the shrine I ran back with a grin on my face to go pay my respects to that ele. I dashed to him only to get leveled by the Knight and his nasty axe. I laughed so hard... now that I loved.
Oni. I love those things. Awesome. Really cause a moment of "Eeeep!" when they spawn right on you while you are fighting something else.
Jade Sea and Echovald Forest = really cool areas. Just wish there were more missions (not quests) in those areas.
No solo players. I like the need to group with others, but this is a double edged sword when nitwits demand you play "their" game (ie, cookie cutter builds). When I come across people like that, I always tell them I want them to change thier build so it will work with mine better. They 100% leave the group or kick me out of thiers.

But those good things are crushed under the farming and boredom factors.

Sum: Anet got Factions backwards. Less quests and more Missions. Drops and rewards are backwards. After level 20 you don't need more exp, you need more gold. You still get skill points (my Assassin has 80 now and I've bought all skills for primary and secondary - two secondaries actually) so why the exp?

As I said, this is my opinion, flame if you desire, I've got steaks needing to be cooked.

Ugh *smacks forehead*

My original point about backtracking was that is was a necessary feature for ANet to put into Factions. With a smaller map, there is less space to develop stories - which is what quests are. I understand that if all quests ended in the same zone you got them Factions would be even more boring and faster to complete than it already is, but that doesn't excuse having to plow your way through mobs upon mobs and then find out you're going to have to do it again just to receive the reward since they all respawn when you enter the zone again.

Effectively, each of the city quests makes me think of "Villainy of Galrath" without the scenery, and while I loved Galrath in Prophecies I would be crazy to voluntarily start "farming" Galrath by doing it over and over with henchies. That's precisely what the quests in Factions make me feel like, but where I could avoid Galrath by just not doing the quest (much as I can and will avoid quests in Cantha) there's no way to get around the Primary Quests.

While the repeated questing is necessary to accommodate the need to pack more content into same space, it is extremely disappointing to some people who didn't encounter this feature in Prophecies and weren't expecting it in Factions.

Oh, and I love bold text. It makes some of my points stand out, which helps people who skip over most posts to get to my main ideas

A game longer than 20 hours? Try " Legend Of The Dragoon" for the ol' PSX...The movies themselves are really long ( really good graphics in those movies too, sometimes better than the new consoles ) and the fastest I ever " beat " ( well, getting to the end-game cinematic ) was about 40 hours . I haven't beaten the bonus hard boss yet though.

I have no idea if this has been said allready but:

Factions is an expansion. It might be stand-alone, but it's still an expansion.
All of Faction's major content is level 20 content. If you compare the number of quests and missions after the Isle in Factions with the number of quests/missions in Prophecies after the desert (IE; the level 20 content in both games), Factions is a clear winner.

Prophecies is a very "one-step-at-the-time"-type game where you learn how to play the game as you progress trough the giant map, while in Factions, you have the 10min tutorial and a few low-level quests with a very high XP reward (presumably) created to get chars to level 20 as fast as possible so the *real* game can begin.

I've gone trough Prophecies several times with several chars, and IMO, theres not much of a challange in most (if not all) missions/quests there. In Factions however, I find that the difficulty level has increased (at least when you try to go for the Master Mission Bonus) which makes the game much more enjoyable for me.

Anyway, my point is, there's tons of content in Factions, but the content is designed for level 20's. ANet said ages ago that the expansion would focus on level 20 content, and that it would be an expansion even though it was stand-alone. Now If anyone doesn't like the concept of expansion packs, then maybe you should wait for "Guild Wars II: Return of the Charr".

QFT..

Mehehehehe... its all part of the evil anet plot you see. The idiot seer is simply part of a massive story of duplicity intent to sow mistrust and hatred amongst the people of both tryria and cantha.

Make everyone kill one another while the true evil lurks and smiles and bides its time for Chapter XXXX of Guild Wars. Lol.

Honestly though, i love factions in such that the level grind is all but gone but damn those henchies are somewhat ability challenged.

Hoping i can actually create a kurzick 15K armor for my charas despite being with the luxon aliance

Cheers!

OT: Agreed. For one thing Diablo wasn't first published with expansion.
And I can still remember initial forum reactions on D2, like "that's all? We finished the game in one weekend (like killing Diablo in Nightmare...)". Game lenght / content is very subjective, imo. I spent weeks in D2's first act to happily toy around with classes and builds.

I remember people rushing through games in easy mode to compile the first guides, then complaining that its over so fast... Knowing what to do and where to go, shortcuts for equipment, a network of friends if MP - all those things may speed you up a good deal. There's even a website dedicated to this stuff - morrowind in 20 min? Fallout 2 in 40? Killing Oblivions endboss with lvl 1? Rofl.

OP: I can relate. I'm not motivated to play factions. I feel like I'm dragged around the starting area, forced to play any stupid secondary prof quest because they give insane amounts of exp. I miss alternatives, and in the quests' course I have to clear the same mobs over and over again. /bored

In Prophecies I had the feeling that my characters progression was part of the game. I enjoyed getting slowly stronger, reaching max level after 2/3rds of the game. In Factions, design tells me that leveling up to 20 is a cumbersome duty, which I should get rid of asap, so that I can mix with all tose old lvl 20s from chap 1 and share content. /puke

As stated in another thread, if I could at least play Prophecies with a new class it would be a lot better for me (and would greatly releave the pressure in canthia, where 40% assassins, 40% ritualists and 20% others don't lead to balanced groups).

I agree, the Henchmen are a bit "out there" somtimes, and aside from the somewhat cheesy story line, they are the only thing that I don't like that much in the game. It would be worse if they wern't in the game at all though.

Edit by Swehurn: Removed deleted quote.

Don't worry about that guy. He had no argument, and did the cowardly thing and pointed out how you like to make emphasis on certain points.

Shit man, that was that fun game that made you press certain buttons while attacking. Man that was fun. I really wished they made a sequel to that. [edit: this is not sarcasm, by the way. I really enjoyed it, but my post made it sounded so. Habit. ]


Impressive posting, 'Shyft the Pyro'. It's one of the better topics on what is 'not fun' with this game. 'salaboB' I agree with many of your points as well.


However, I think we have come to a sticking point. All the things not fun with this game have or already has been covered, some not so eloquently put. It's best to let time run it's course, and allow for things to progress. We will see if ANET takes action, how GWF sales are, and in time bring these points up again when the time is ripe. Lets not forget these points, most of all.

I personally love Factions as much as Prophecies. Only 'wish that didn't come true' was more High-End areas with no strict limited access. Meaning more mysterious & dangerous dungeons, castles etc to explore that have very very challenging enemies & problem solving.

if the OP had bothered to get any information at all on the game he would have come across the simple fact that the pre area would be a small part of the game and as was officially stated

*FACTIONS WILL HAVE MOST (ABOUT 80% LEVEL 20 CONTENT*

he/she cant say that he/she wasnt warned about the shift in content level proportions.

Is that your entire response to all the points in the original post?

Good grief people, when did this thread turn into a free-for-all slanging match? Debate the topic at hand and stop trying to get one over on each other. Try to make your posts a little bit more constructive instead of resorting to name-calling. Meanies

O/T, I agree the run-around quests are a bit repetitive but it improves a bit once you're out of the city and you eventually also get some faction with your quest rewards. I still haven't completed Factions yet, but having a 9-5 job and a small person running around your feet doesn't allow for much time to play. I expect it'll be a while before I get to the end or build up any reasonable amount of faction points. Grinding for me is not an option. But I would have liked a few more missions thrown at us because I love to immerse myself in the storyline. Another thing that annoys me is the "you must have this quest to go here" factor. There's no room for exploration until you've done all the quests and by then there's no surprise outposts or areas as you'll already be able to map to them. I'm also sad with the lack of end-game areas. I know, I know, there are the elite missions... like I'm ever going to see them in my life time

this seems to be the problem-- the first few(i dont remember how many but more than 3) quests are just running back and fourth in the same zone(you only have to clear it once)... Who wants to play fed-ex? even if you have sprint it's a mindless time suck.

But that isn't the point. Its the fact that it takes less hours to complete than C1.

And I don't quite get the idea of that. I don't believe its possible to either rush it or take it slow. You go as fast as the game takes you.

There are some other advatages to faction, monastary/imperial credits. All of the dusposable stuff if id and salvage kits, you can trade for, no need for money there. Craftable supplies drop like rain. Collector stuff; I have more than I will ever use for weapons, I haven't even farmed for them. Even if the rune flood dries up I have enougn runes for my future needs. My ele just put 10k in storage just from drops.

IMO they atleast got the economy right.

Granted I'm not Fed EX, thats why I quit elder scroll for xbox.

Factions is much too compressed for my taste. There's hardly a square inch of map that's just there to be explored. Where are the Ice Caves, Dakutu villages, Maguuma Stades?

I think you've hit the nail on the head here, even if you didn't mean to drive it in my direction. Getting to mainland Cantha does feel like getting to the desert in Tyria: the content is geared toward the level 20 crowd, and the desert is the first "stall point" for people who still haven't realized what party cooperation and a good skill set are. But if we're talking Factions in Prophecies terms, what happened to the game in between?! If players are tossed from "pre-Searing" to the "desert," where's our Ascalon/Shiverpeaks/Kryta/Maguuma? Can you simply "chop out" that much content and expect that no one will notice or care?

There are 4 missions in the desert (counting Dragon's Lair), 3 missions the South Shiverpeaks, and 3 missions in the Ring of Fire. To me, those 10 come dangerously close to the 11 we have in mainland Cantha, and it feels very much like I've paid the same price for half the content.

Is that an acceptable learning curve for a stand-alone game? Only an expansion - where people already know the "basics" - can afford such rushed advancement, and only an expansion with less space if not content than the original requires this setup. Or do you really think the "Tablets of Wisdom" in towns can substitute for the experience generated by hours of gameplay?

Alright, let's examine the Master Mission Bonus and why it was introduced in Factions. The obvious answer is that players need more skill points and more gold in order to acquire the Factions skills, as the number of skills available to both old and new characters is far greater than it was in Prophecies. But look deeper: there are less missions in Factions than in Prophecies, and where you could acquire 25 skill points just by completing the Prophecies storyline, you will only obtain 13 (or 11, for Tyrian characters) by getting through the Factions one. That clearly isn't enough, so more reward is packed into the same content yet again. At double the Prophecies reward, you get 26 (22) skill points for completing the Factions storyline; at triple the Prophecies reward, you get 39 (33). All of the extra content that is implied by the extra reward in Factions does not exist. Instead, you're in the same position as with the city quests: the game is made to seem long rather than be long.

Ah, but I'm not trying to tell people what I personally think is wrong with Factions. I'm trying to get at the design elements that have caused the wave of grief over Factions, so that - if ANet is watching - they can do more than a "cosmetic" fix of the same model for the next chapter.

It's "he"

And how precisely does "mostly level 20 content" translate to "smaller map size?" If Factions was as big a game as Prophecies, there would most likely be less concern due to the fact that the same 20% of Factions would be bigger, as would the 80%. With a bigger game, ANet wouldn't have to make the "learning curve" part of the game so steep to make room for the "high-end content" part.

The root to all evil.

Isnt it evident that the root to all evil is having elite towns accessible by the top two alliances. Wasnt guildwars suppose to be a casual and friendly game different from the other online games. I see it now as war between those who hold elite towns and those who reside in little alliances. This system has made the obssessed more obssessed, the richer even richer, the greedy even greedier, and ultimately the less fortunate with little chance of getting the best of the game. Before it was hatred amongst those who held favors but at least favors can be easily won back. Elite towns are a different story. The winning alliances will always hog it and continuously gain more factions per day making it almost impossible for tiny alliances to even get near.

Good job to the elite town holders. Your work has paid off with being the one and only alliance in the elite town. I do thank some of those members that invite strangers into elite town for their kind heartedness. But for those members that disclude and even do malicious acts to non allies, I feel sorry for you. Infact, some of these members kick non allies out of elite town by disguising themselves as mission team leader, teleporting to local towns and booting them from the team. Congrats to these people, you have made elite town less populated and harder to make teams unless you plan on playing with the same group of people over and over again. Good job, you have a million dollar weapon, now you are richer by a million of artificial gold. These people have just created hatred towards their alliance and a growing negative reputation.

Wow i have just wrote a mini essay. A great topic for me to open my brain to and exercise my writing skills.

In Prophecies, a guild of 8 people can win HoH.
In Faction, a huge alliance ("big "guild") is required to hold capitals -> elite missions.

How many 800 people "guilds" do we have in GW?

I'd say it is an evil rather than the root of them all. With the emphasis on persistant warfare and alliance battles, a lot of players will indeed be excluded from accessing content - either by being on the wrong side or by not being a part of a faction-grinding alliance. But ANet chose to shift the emphasis of Factions in this direction, and I think one of the reasons was the inability, or unwillingness, to provide as expansive a game as Prophecies. Persistent warfare and elite missions allowed ANet to pack more content into same space, and just because most people won't be able to access the content the very possibility that they might seems to justify this shift.

Happy to oblige

This is why I don't think Factions deserves the title "Guild Wars." Instead, we're going to have "Alliance Wars" as more and more people want to get access to elite missions. The Last Pride, if I remember correctly, had under 10 people when it won the first GW championship, which was the highest point of "guild warfare." With the amount of faction points required to control even the smallest outposts, can you imagine anyone but a team of faction grind farmers being able to do the same in terms of "alliance warfare?"

My original guild, Hounds of Creegus, has grown over the year of its existence, and now numbers 300+ members. We've expanded into a fourth guild, Divinity of Creegus, only a week ago, and I just happened to become its guild lord. Even with as large a player base as ours, who is to say we'll be successful in gaining control of a town when that requires virtually all members of the alliance to obtain and turn in faction points - on a constant basis, I might add, so that the standing doesn't decline? And even if we do, what about all the other people who won't be able to share in our triumph? Holding the Hall of Heroes is something all members of the region are looking forward to, but do all members of a faction want a particular alliance to succeed in taking a town?

@Shyft the Pyro:

I understand what you mean, but I don't agree, at least not 100%.
I would agree fully if I thought of Factions as a stand-alone game (IE; GuildWars 2), but the way I see it, it's an expansion playable without the "core" game.

I know that Prophecies has more content when you compare the games directly to each other, but I don't think that would be a fare comparison when I review Factions as an expansion. While I would love to have a new campaign comparable to the content base of Prophecies twice a year, I just don't think that it's possible while still maintaining a certain level of quality. And since the game does not have a monthly fee, it's important for ANet to keep those additional campaigns coming as fast as possible.

I do agree with some of your points though, as I felt a bit stupid when talking some RL friends into trying Factions without having tried Prophecies and we ended up beeing level 20 in four hours of slow questing ("wow, that's it? we've reached the cap allready?" "err, yeah.. it appears so. uuuh.. maybe.. maybe we should play prophecies first instead"). But hey, it *is* an expansion after all, and it doesnt make sense to go trough that huge slope before reaching the cap in that case.

Anyway, It's all about expectations and perspectives. Imagine how boring it would be if everyone had the same opinions about everything.
Though, it would be very nice if ANet opened up pre-sear for Ritualists/Assassins for those that have both campaigns.

I don't mind not playing pre-searing with those classes. It would take a lot of reworking to make that viable. I just wish we would be able to enter pre-LA missions and do pre-LA quests. I feel a bit slighted. It's not like storyline mattered to prophecies characters.

actually i agree with the threadmaker..

Anet try to compress the gameplay of GW:F into one small area but putting the player back and forth doing a single quest..for me, i do not think it is effective..a more dynamic quest need to be implemented, and i think that this is not the way..

secondly, elite mission is too restricted..it restricts to those who are hardworking enough to farm factions 24/7 or those who are in megaloalliance to access to it..i mean even business wise, i think making it restricted to about 1% of total population of GW players are bad..

thirdly, about the alliance battle, what the community initially ask of the developer is to implement punishment for those who leave the game..not making it to what it is now..=.="..besides that, i think the objective of the battle..that is reaching 500 point is too hard to achieve as if a team cannot quickly control enough or essential post in the early part of the battle..then win/lose is quickly decided before the battle proceed into later moment..hence, for those who are losing, they eventually give up as their score is like 100 to 400 that leads to leaver..

my conclusion is that anet has made too many changes without consulting their fanbase first..if they implement changes to GW eventually, then they can study the reaction of their fanbase when one change is being implemented then if there are problem occurs, they can change it. Then, they proceed to another changes. In GW:F, there are basically too many new elements being implemented..that i admit change the gameplay of GW:P too drastically..some of the fans may take it and some may not..

and yeah, GW is not designed for grinding..what GW:F does is introducing the grinding element into the game..which probably a bad decision for the developer to enchance the replayability of the game..

the threadmaker has made some good points about the weak part of GW:F and i certainly hope that anet may view those rants positively and improve the game further in the future..

do not mistaken me, i certainly love guild wars and hope for all the best for anet in the production of the series..

[QUOTE=Shyft the Pyro]
Factions "pre-Searing" ends when you reach Seitung Harbor.
[QUOTE]

um faction presear ends when u get out of the annoying toturial, since u can accsess ur storage, weapon/armor crafter and traders.

also there is a huge gap betweenn the island and the mainland. the mainland is for lvl20s, hardly anyone is lvl 20 after u finish all the quests and mission, and some quest are stupidly hard, for example "The Captured Son"

Ok, read through the thread and I'm starting to feel like the only person who likes the game and the fact that leveling goes fast. Ok, not too many missions but I have so much to do when I have finished the last one. My list is so long that I often have a hard time to decide what to do. Playing with friends is always fun, but what do I know.

My 2 cents on this is that Factions is definitely stand alone as it obviously can be played on its own but the buck stops there. Now the point I would like to make is this: If factions had been the first offering from Anet and not prophecys, how many of us would keep playing it for a year waiting for the next chapter to come out? Not many. Factions is geared toward hurrying people into playing PVP no doubt about it. It is nowhere near as involved or as rich a game world as prophecys was. Already I find myself playing just as much back in Tyria as I do in Cantha.

As a PVE oriented player, if Factions had been my first taste of Guild Wars the ride would have been very short and I wouldn't have been back for a second one. Anet now has serious damage control to do if they want to have any success with chapter 3.

My biggest problem is that I'm a PvEer who generally likes to go out and explore, and usually uses henchies with exception of missions(I'm speaking of Prophesies).

GvG was fun for an ocassional thing, never did HoH, did some random arena fights on ocassion, and prefer a small guild of close comrades.

Is there even a nitch here for people like me, or should I look elsewhere?

edit* I love the idea of new classes and locals. I do not own Factions yet either. I am worried that I will not get much use from this game like I did the first.

Then your opinion smells because the economy is far from being "right".

I always say: Don't Complain if you can't do better. So basically anyone in this forum who has made an online game that has sold over 1 mil copies may speak....*waits*.........That's what i thought,

2 Things to say that really needed saying:

-I agree with a lot of the comments here. There is less content and more grind, and experience is seriously inflated. However, I still count Factions as one of my favorites games. No game is perfect, yet I see people ranting about how "Anet has betrayed us!" Why don't you all write letters to Anet telling them how YOU think it should be and how Anet is a "traitor" if it doesnt make all it's games exactly the way YOU want. It's easy to crizticize, but I still see people paying their $50 for the game.

-People, chill, and just play the game. If you get stop trying to give yoursleves heart attacks and actually play the game, you just might actually enjoy yourselves.

*puts on anti-flame shield"

Yeah well if my job was to be a computer game designer, maybe I'd follow that. As it is, maybe I (or any hypothetical person) actually am doing my own job better than Anet is doing theirs.

Also, popular != good. McDonalds is proof of that.

I don't know how anyone can call Factions a PvP-oriented game ... it's a FARMING game. Despite of ANet whining how much they hated farming, the essence of Factions is just that: faction farming. Just look at the guild that's sitting on Cavalon by farming supply quest over and over and over again. It's kinda pitiful that to be the strongest Luxon guild all you need is ... mindless farming. I already see chinese farmers & their bots farming faction with supply runs in near future, even not being a programmer it's not hard to see that these kind of scripts would be much simplier than the ones used to farm minotaurs.

I really wish they'd think at least a little about the PvP people and allow us to switch part of the Balthasar's faction we get for Luxon/Kurzick faction, so that we are not forced to go farm faction in PvE to be able to compete with the PvE farmers' guilds. (Ofc PvPers can do alliance battles, but IMO without 12 people parties they aren't that fun anymore and many would prefer to get their faction in GvGs instead).

I don't know what happened to "no grind" ... Factions is ALL about grind.

While i understand the Op's opinion, I must say your view is quite skiewed.

Backtracking at this level is nothing compared to the entire days I spent traveling on the back of a chocobo, doing basicly nothing, in Final Fantasy 11 just to prepare to travel some more on a chocobo tomorrow and waste hours upon hours standing in the same spot, killing something every 20 minutes, grinding for days upon days to obtain enough money just to buy my food for leveling. yes, I said Food. When I finished getting gil for food, I had to WALK back to a town, atleast 20 minutes of walking away from me. With absoloutely no speed boosts.

Now, in reality the amount of game play in FF11 only 40+ hours, but that only counts the missions. Not the insane months of grinding. some might say "You grind in GW for months too!" But what they dont realise is that the grind in GW has a shred of entertainment in it. You grind in FF11 to obtain something through basicly entering a zone, clicking on a monster and chatting to your freinds while the game does most of the work for you.

If you want to bitch about something like grinding in guild wars or lack of content, go play FF11. Either you will get all the content you could ever dream, or you will find that the grind in GW is about as tedious as playing your favorite game in comparison.

Again, I understand the Op's frustration with the "lack of content" or the amount of backtracking, but people such as I understand the good in what you say is only bad.

(Any posters that claim "Im off topic, I do not understand this, or that the two games are so diffrent you cant compare them" are subject to flames and insults)

Just to clear one thing.. stand alone != sequel or new game..
Stand alone means u can play it without the core game..
Factions is a stand alone expansion where you don't even need to know the story of prophecies to play..