Guild Wars Factions, many we guild wars players waited for a long time. Is it any good? Yes and No. Here's why.
1. you can now buy Amber and Jadite from rare material.
2. lag issues in some major town has been fixed.
3. slightly improved henchmen A.I., but still not enough.
Edited: 09/28/2006.
Guild Wars Faction is both expansion and stand-alone game. It acts as an expansion for those people who own the core Guild Wars prophesies campaign. It acts as a stand-alone those people who started without the core version. This time Factions has an Asian theme, which is a nice change from the core version. It contains 2 new professions (Assassin, Ritualist), new skills, new monsters, and new location that made turning point to aging core GW gameplay.
Graphics:
This game has the exact same requirement specification from the core GW. If you ran GW fine, you will have no problem running Factions. I will write this section with the highest graphical settings. Once again ArenaNet did a wonderful job making this version looks as beautiful as the core version if not better. But still lacks on character animation. It looks like they used the same basic character models from the core version.
Sound:
Once again boring. No varieties and gets old fast. Core GW had boring sound and this one is no different. You will have couple backgroud music throughout the entire game. I have never complained about voice acting from the core version. I wasn't a fan, but it was acceptable. Some of the NPC from Factions has the annoying voice acting that you won't want to hear it again. ArenaNet should consider improving this department for the next version. Sound adds a lot to the game itself. They should realize it.
Gameplay:
Not much changed. Players will still force to choose 8 skills take. Players will be able to take one elite skill with them. Characters still have level 20 locked. Do missions and quests to advance to the game. Game itself is way too short. I was truly expected a longer game, but no different, it's short and ends too quick. This time around, ArenaNet actually made monsters' A.I. harder, but when players find out the easier way, it starts to fall apart. New classes didn't "WOW" me either. They are a nice change, but it didn't capture me enough to enjoy them. Getting gold (in-game money) is still hard. Reasons are, monsters don't drop enough gold. When you pick them up, you share with your teammates. If you get 100 gold and have 8 people in your party, you will get 12.5 gold. Players can sell junk items that were picked up during the missions or quests to sell them to the merchants but it's never enough. To craft armors, you will need a lot of materials plus a lot of gold for the armor itself. Now, Factions requires special crafting materials called: Amber and Jadite. You can't buy this with gold instead you will need to earn each side's faction points to get them. Although you can buy from people, but obviously prices people put on these items are not trustworthy.
ArenaNet should balance this. Such as making auction house to ease the players to sell and buy the items they want. People in this game set any random numbers of gold on items that are hot. They put random numbers and start ripping people off. We should have some type of standard value to start with. GW's favorite word: WTS (Want To Sell), WTB (Want To Buy). For once, I really don't want to see these words, I really want buying items or selling them can be done without dealing with other players such as player to player trade.
Story:
I really think, ArenaNet should make in-game story more interesting. Once again it's boring and weak.
Henchmen (Computer A.I. characters that players can put them into the party instead of real human players) are dumber than before. Here's why
1. They get stuck between the buildings.
2. Monks (healer) focus more on ressurecting fallen team members instead of focusing on healing on active members during the battle.
3. They follow the player too slow. If you take a look, they run for a while, then they stopped, then they start to follow you again. If players are running a long stretch path, they will start to notice the gap. Force players to stop and wait for henchmen to arrive to your location.
Even core GW's henchmen A.I. improved, but all of sudden Factions were getting worse.
Community is getting worse. I see more "idiot" players than the core version. Maybe ArenaNet decided to make Factions as a stand-alone product that attracted more new players that never played the core version. Or more immature players started to pouring in. When I started core version last April to present before the Factions were released, I didn't have too much trouble dealing with people, but playing Factions, made me think different.
Connection:
Some of the later towns have massive lag issues. Players can't walk no more than 3 steps and they get lags. ArenaNet yet fixed this problems nor plan to fix at the moment. This is getting pretty annoying considering consumers' point of view. I myself ended up not going into those major towns.
Conclusion:
I liked GW becaused it was free to play, great graphics, and intense action. It still doesn't have monthly fees, but I've read at official GW websites that ArenaNet is planning to release expasion packs twice a year. Considering each copy will have $49.99 price tag, that's over $100 a year including sales tax. It's still cheaper than pay to play service such as WoW and FFXI. But my complain is, if ArenaNet start charging players $100 a year, they really should listen to our complains and make our suggestions into reality to keep the players keep coming back to GW. Original GW was a great game, and Factions still is, but after I saw there were not that many major improvements on Factions, I am starting to have my doubts. I will see a bit more how ArenaNet treats GW franchise before I make my final decision.