Wow, it's all different!

Hello people...

As someone who has for a long time read but not participated on this forum, it's time I did.

I started playing GW this time last year. Loved it. But come September when away to Uni, where a firewall prevented me from playing. I was a lvl 20 W/Mo who still had a few quests to do, and was looking forward to finishing the tasks.

But I come back and... 'ello... Factions? What is this Factions? An add on? A new game? Will I lose my character? Do I have to complete all the original quests first?

I hear I can be an assassin now as well, excellent!

So before I go out and spend my hard earnt student loan on something else to waste my life on, can someone give me the low-down on Factions, and what exactly I can expect from GW since I last played? It sure has changed!

Many thanks knowledgable ones!

Factions: An expansion pack/stand alone game that can be purchased at your local gaming store.

New Classes: Assassin and Ritualist

New Skills: For all classes, most of them are pretty good.

New Armor: Butt-Load of new armor for each class.

New Weapons: Lots and lots and lots of new weapons.

New Quests: Brand spankin' new story line.

No, you do not have to complete all the original quests first.

You can take your W/Mo into factions once you buy it by going into Lion's Arch and doing a quest.

You can only become Assassin or Ritualist if you buy factions.

And yes, GO BUY NOW.

No, don't buy. There's too many problems with the game. On top of that, its not as fun as the first GW. And another problem is you paying full price for what amounts to only an expansion. A normal expansion is $30, whereas Anet try to label it as a "stand alone" to charge the full price.

Read thru some of the complaints some more, Faction is very boring. This game was rushed out the door without any consideration for gameplay. And if you can deal with the boredom, then try dealing with the many lags and error issues.

Don't buy faction until they fix the problems...if they ever fix it!

Not all thats true. Yes, there are still some problems with the game, but give ANet some time to fix it. They dont only have to worry about GW, you know. Also, how would it be fair that people who bought prophecies have to pay 49-59$, when factions only users have to pay 30$? Theres not that much lag anymore, and lots of people like this game. Everyone has different opinions. If you wanna stay in tyria with no more updates, go ahead. If you wanna buy factions and be able to travel both tyria and cantha, with more armor, weapons, and 2 new professions, go ahead.

Anyways, since last year MANY things have changed. Too many to say, I think you'd have to start playing to find out.

You also forgot:

No more grind, all the materials for your armor drop like rain.

Quest pay cash, so no more useless items that you sell for pennies, just playing the game will net a few plat an hour.

All but the starter skill need to be bought, but see above, still not a problem.

A Tyrian going to Catha is easy; go to LA talk to Sergio, go outside talk to Menhlo, go inside talk to the ships captain; boom you're there.

A lot of the skills are repetes so you don't have to buy both.

Cathan female armor are sweet, my Luxon jadite Ele is HOT!!!, just not sure what it protects.

Choosing sides is actually interesting, you get to see the game from a different perspective.

Getting the jade or amber can be a bit of a grind, but still easy enough to do. BTW based on my performance in Aspenwood, the Kurziks will rue the day they let thtough the front door of Zu Heltzer.

Finishing the game nets you a green and a nice show, people actually care that you beat the bad guy.

Henchies will now tell you their back story. "It is an honor to fight with me" FTW

Some of the quest are just helping people. "Die you lone shark scum", which is always fun to do

But:

No more running; all mission cities have to be unlocked, which means 1st or the 10th, you still have to do Viznuh square.

Some of the mission are Co-op from the other side, so your success depends on another team that you have no control over. See Viznuh

Alot of the skills are repetes.

To many assassin don't know what they are doing, they are just too new, so it is hard for a 'sin to get in a group, a lot like the mesmer, so you might want to wait a bit on that 'sin

Too many quest are of a fed-ex variety, give this to person x, but with a little planning the entire zone can be cleared in one sitting.

All-in-all I find it more fun than prophecies, defintely worth the money.

Yes, I would DEFINITELY hold off on making an assassin. Your ability to find groups will grind to a screaching halt as the storyline continues. Hopefully this will subside as the bad assassins get fed up and the general perception of the quality of assassins increases. Actually, the last few missions are difficult to get a group together for any profession as there is a severe lack of monks around. Make a monk - fly though the missions.

Having just finished Factions last night with my Ritualist/Necromancer, I can say buy the game if you liked the first one. The first half of the game is a pain in the patoot, but once you get past that crowded city, the rest of the game is quite beautiful. I still enjoy hunting on the Jade Sea as well as the repeatable faction missions like aspenwood.
I wouldn't say the game is boring. Quicker, perhaps, than most would like but completing the game as the other faction adds a little more length. I say take the government's money and buy it!

I would recommend Factions. It's a new place full of stuff for your Warrior to do after you finish however much you want to finish in Tyria. And of couse, it's a whole new story to start from scratch if you want to make a new character. It's very different from the first game, which seems to have made some people unhappy with it, but I've found it very much worth the money I paid for it.

Assassins are fun, but as mentioned they are VERY common right now, which makes it hard to find groups willing to take you along. I'd stick with Warrior for a while at least, or make a new character of another less common class until the initial rush of ninja wannabes dies down a bit more.

it is not even close to what is was a in beta!

Buy it! Buy it! Buy it!
Factions is VERY very nice, and i really enjoy playing it. The only whiners are people who "zomg i rushed through the game..´-.- it waz 2 fast! nutting funneh"

Thanks guys.

I deleted all my characters and started my W/Mo from scratch. Level 6, pre-seer here I come! A work in progress me thinks...

Hopefully this way i'll be coming to the game as a n00b but with some skill so that should help. Hopefully by the time I get to Factions stage, any bugs will be ironed out.

lol i wish we all could do that.

i would say buy factions, i dont think any of my old chars will ever set foot in tryia again...

Mine either there is nothing there, well I never did get all of sorrows furnace, so I might send my necro back after she gets her Kurzick MM armor.

I would say buy it ASAP! The game has great value. The $50 you pay for Factions doesn't compare to the entertainment hours you will spend playing it. Someone did a calculation a while back, and (depending how much you play of course) it's comes out to like two cents an hour or something really low like that.

Buy it if you want the 300 new skills and new armor sets. I am a skill freak, what can I say.

Anyway, there are only about 13 missions, but it doesn't mean much because there are quests (about 150 or so).

I'm a little tired of people quoting arbitrary figures (not particularly in this thread, but the pent-up angst has been building for a month) and saying: "Expansion Packs cost 30 dollars. This is the Way. Do not question the Figures." This is of course usually followed by: "Factions is an Expansion. It did not cost 30 dollars. This is Heresy against the Way." I'll shut my trap as soon as someone produces some evidence that there is in fact a convention to pricing, but I have yet to notice one. In my experience, the vast, vast majority of games cost either $CDN 49.99, or (increasingly) $ CDN 59.99.

And another thing? Factions is not an expansion. Wanna know why? Answer me this - Do you need any other game to play it?? Not last time I checked.

Anet needs to drop the price of Prophesies down to level B pricing, the game is over a year old.

Factions is only a standalone game in name only, the fact that you get 1/2 the professions, half the map, half of the missions, and all of the same PVP content as Prophesies (as well as the chapter one players gaining all of the chapter 2 PVP content) means it's not worth level A pricing.

At the very least, Factions should've been priced at expansion pricing for previous owners of Prophesies.

And the game features massive amounts of grind, mainly in gaining faction. You grind quests and runs over and over just to get enough faction to complete the game. It takes 25 runs (for example) out of Bauer Academy for the Duel quest just to get 10K in faction. The 12v12 takes even longer - it's more interesting, but you're dependent on the rest of the team to not be total noobs all fighting over one rez shrine. Not to mention the AFK lamers. Without the generosity of some alliances ferrying folks into the "elite" missions, people would still be doing nothing but grinding out faction - and a lot are.

All the new skills - mostly nothing more than rehashing of existing skills - hell, some skills are completely the same as others.

All of the "new weapons" - just reskinning the same statistical weapons doesn't mean "new" just looks different. Painting a 10 year old ford escort doesn't suddenly make the car "new". There are some nice new armor sets - but are mainly money sinks (there are a ton of money sinks). Otherwise, meh, the original armors are just as good.

I'm pretty bugged that ANet sold us this game at 50 bucks, it's hardly worth it. I'm glad I didn't buy the collector's edition. I bought three copies of GW when it first came out, for factions I bought one, and I'm no longer sold that the next chapter is going to be the "must buy" game on my shopping list next November.

Half the professions? You get two additional professions.

Realizing you don't know what you're talking about, my mind wanders at this point...

Definitely, so be careful when you buy new skills leviatian's sweep+griffin's sweep=oops

Weapons and armor are the same but then again so is Droks and Grotto, so thats not new. There are some new stats worth looking into: Necro Minnion Master and Ranger Trapping comes to mind.

Bottom line, is faction stand alone? Yes, you do not need Propechies to play factions.

If you only own Prophcies should you buy Factions? Yes, you will enjoy Factions.

If you only own Factions should you buy Prophecies? Yes, but wait for the price to drop.

Do you want the +5 energy weapon, you can now have one, for only 10k plus supplies, beats 100k + ecto.

Is Factions worth $50, thats up to you, we all gave you our feelings/opinions on the subject, but remeber even consol sequels like .hack were the same price.

I would call this a sequel/continuation rather than an expansion.

i dont understand how you can define 'rushing'. you can only go as fast as the game lets you, people just accept that its less than prophecies

I'll say it again: I believe that there is much more content than prophecies.

In GW1, you were stuck in areas that were ok for your level and you just moved on, slowly. In the end, all you could do is kill stuff in the "endgame areas"

In GW2, all the areas are designed for lvl20 players. All of cantha mainland is endgame area.

Too bad nobody notices this and only believes that the elite missions are endgame.

Seriously, there's level 20+ monsters everywhere. Something like that you only see in the shiverpeaks and certain desert areas in prohecies.

Just wait a while, the greenfarminggroups aren't represented too well yet but in a few weeks time you'll be seing warcamp all over cantha X.x

Hmmm dunno what all the big deal about the price is. I didn't bother converting currencies but factions cost me £20 where I am which is about as cheap as games get here.

Don't waste your time on making an assassin unless you love teaming up with retarded Henchies.

Ignore the people telling you not to buy Factions because it's not their idea of a full game.

Do you enjoy Guild Wars? Would you like to get the most possible fun playing? Buy it. Even if it's not as good as Prophecies, it's better than nothing at all.