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Wow...Why All The Whining?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 100 / 113
Date: May 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Well I was surprised to see so many complaining reviews. I have been playing this game since the original came out...and I've played Factions since its debut.
So...let's see what all this fuss is about.

1. Bugs...
I have yet to be unable to complete any mission because of bugs. I did on one occasion become 'stuck' in the scenery. My team simply ported to a new location and all was well. However, I was not at all concerned...the game hasn't been out for a week yet. Did you expect perfection in 3 days? I find that unreasonable at best. Now if the problem were to persist say a month from now...well maybe then you'd have cause.

2. Oh Poor Me They Keep Beating Me Up.
Well yeah. probably because, like many players I've seen, you didn't bother to do any of the multitude of very high experience giving quests before you left the starter island. (Doing them all takes approximately 2 hours- I timed it) You just skipped em all and went straight for the primary 'get off the island' quests. I've seen many a level 10 on the mainland trying to get in a group. Then they complain they keep dying. Well of course you are. When I left the island I was level 17...from quests only, I didn't do any 'farming' and after about two quests outside the first 'mainland city' I was level 20 with both sets of bonus 15 attribute quests (available on the starter island). And so you know, I did all of this with one partner and the rest henchies.

3. They All Look Alike...
Yeah, but they did in the first Guild Wars too. What's your point? They added all new armors...new appearances for the new classes as well as the old ones. For a game that has thousands of players did you expect every one to look different?

4. PvP Is Cookie Cutter.
Yup. It is. But hey they all started somewhere. Each month finds a new PvP trend. Gale Warriors one month... Massive Minion bombing the next. So, if you wish to try a new tactic I suggest you gather a few friends and do it. There's nothing stopping you. I'm sure you've also had occasion to put down someone elses strategy so maybe the problem is inherent in the system. But nothing really prevents you from doing anything you want, provided you have good people willing to try.

In conclusion, considering the fact that this game basically has a yearly fee of about $45 (the price to buy the game)I think it's a worthy addition to any MMO fans collection.

Great follow-up to Guild Wars

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 14 / 17
Date: May 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Guild Wars: Factions presents itself as a huge sucess both as an expansion to the original Guild Wars and as it's own standalone game.

If you enjoy the original Guild Wars, this add-on is highly advisable. The two new professions are well made and enjoyable to play. It comes with an entire new world, new skills, new armor and other such features that increase the gameplay.

If you never played Guild Wars before, this is game is still worth the shot. It's graphics are stunning, especially compared to the normal MMO (Massively Multipler Online) games. However, it is not an MMORPG and should not be viewed as such.
The game is centered around how you can develop your own combat style by the way you customize your character and its skills, not on levelling him up and finding that super-powerful weapon. While it does stay true to the RPG genre, it is so much more.

On top of that, there are no fees.
Nothing wrong with not paying extra,eh?

Simply Beautiful

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: May 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Factions is a fantastic game and a perfect addition to Prophecies. Combining both accounts is the way to go. Sharing worlds, storage, outfits, gold, etc. expands the gaming experience exponentially. When a character gets to the point of crossing over between games, suddenly there is a proliferation of characters and everything gets 'really' interesting.

I've got to mention how beautiful this game is. Starting with character design (which puts the butt-ugly characters of WoW, EQII, Oblivion and all others to shame... who the heck cares how far apart the eyebrows are!!!); the Asian-influenced landscapes are like walking through a movie; and, even the battles made my wife look over and comment "Wow, that's really stunning." As an artist, I've impossibly high graphic standards and this one hits it.

I think the most important element that sets these games apart from their competitors is Design (with a capital D). Loading times are invisible; the log-in/character creation screen appears instantly, is straight-forward, and very easy to navigate; the game experience is not overly complicated and has an intuiative user interface; the storyline (mostly non-existent in other MMORPG's) is engaging and drives the action forward (c'mon... you get to the "end" of WoW and what happens?... what?... nothing... they want you to keep playing and soaking online fees out of you); and finally, speaking of no online fees there's no need for the Guild Wars website to be sneeky... (try logging onto EQII and not having the feeling you're being charged for something!).

The only problem is you'll find yourself buying multi-copies of the game, setting up several accounts, and maintaining a large character base (I've got 3 copies each of Prophecies and Factions with 18 characters in 3 guilds).

Suggestions for future builds would be: increased interaction with the environment making use of the great emotes available; unlockable character traits & outfits for a second go-round; more variation on where monsters spawn; and, a bit more control of your henchmen.

All that said... buy this game! Pick up both while you're at it, combine your game keys into one account and you won't regret it.

And don't get me started about the Dance Parties... the new Assassin and Ritualist dances are to die for! Makes the chat part of the game a hoot!

Awesome Game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: May 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Guild Wars Factions is great! There are now over 50 new armor, weapons, etc. Quests are plentiful and fun. But there is one thing that still haunts this game, the level max, which is 20. That isn't very high considering little games like RuneScape having Lv126. I don't think that they understand that people like to have a challenge of trying to higher levels. All that set aside, this game is powerhouse of fun. Leveling up is still fun. Here is something good about this game, you still get to keep your account from the original and play it on factions. There are 2 new professions, which are the Riualist and the Assasin. The game also provides new skills for professions. The graphics are still amazing, and the enviroments pump life and never look the same. There is no repetitive monster killing, just like the original. This game surpasses the original Guild Wars due to the new content, This game is amazing, there is barely anything wrong, except the max level, but that doesn't stop such an amazing game like this.

Good: Graphics are amazing and enviroments look amazing.
The 2 new professions
Bunch of new skills
Fun to level up
No repititive creature killing
Over 50 new armor, weapons, etc
You get to keep your account from the original
New Quests and Continent to play on

Bad: Max level is 20

Simply Great!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 15
Date: May 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is superb. I have listed Pros/Cons Below

Pros:

Invisible Loading times (Doesnt seem to load at all)
Steller Graphics
Great Sound
Lengthy List of Professions
FREE!!!!! NO MONTHLY FEES!
PVP/PVC Areas

Cons:

20 level cap
WAY to addicting :)

A great sequel for those who own Guild Wars, a great game for anyone who likes rpgs!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: June 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm a 36 year old woman with more hours logged on this game than I care to mention. The graphics are stunning, the story line is interesting, and game play is intuitive and addictive. Over the past year, the AI of the npcs has improved which makes enemies more challenging to kill and henchmen and npc allies more useful.

You can play this game as pvp or pve. There's a wide varitey of armor, weapons, skills and pets- and plenty of quests and missions.

The servers are always up, load screens are fairly instantaneous, maps are unique to you and your party- so there's plenty of spoils, and game play is free.

Games don't get any better than this.

Good game. Better than World of Warcraft

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The comparisons to World of Warcraft (WoW) abound because the games are similar genres -- fantasty-styled mmorpg (massively multiplayer online role playing game). But this game has some cool differences

Pluses:
+ You only pay for it once and have unlimited online play (unlike WoW's $15 per month subscription).

+ It is great for solo play. Unlike WoW, if you don't have a party, you can bring along 1 to 5 AI characters of varying classes to suit your game style.

+ Gameplay is very well done. It is easily on par with Blizzard in terms of graphic quality, controls, depth of character development, etc.

+ I think the options created by dual class character is more fun than WoW's "professions."

+ Guild Wars doesn't have lame cartoony gimmicky characters (there are no cutesy engineering gnomes that ride robotic birds ruining an otherwise believable fantasy storyline).

Minuses:
- WoW has better sound design. (Guild Wars could benefit from better ambient sound design, but GW is not horrible and not obnoxious, it's just not on par with Fable or WoW on this front.)

- Guild Wars is not available for Mac, unless you're using Apple's Boot Camp with an Intel-Mac (duo core or duo core 2). (Note: It doesn't yet run with Parallels because Parallels doesn't support DirectX.) It runs very well on my Duo Core 2, MacBook with ATI video card.

Fantastic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 17
Date: April 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I think this game is as good as Guild Wars.Not only new type of armors and characters are very fantastic,but also new environments and user interface are very successful.

the most beautiful game ever made

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: July 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Ever so slightly more stunning than Shadow of the Colossus. Art direction on a level with Colossus, Anarchy Online, and Eve. Graphics almost equal with Half-Life 2. Character, costume, and weapon design about as good to Anarchy Online's. Jeremy Soule's best music since Icewind Dale. Subtle and dark and just lovely.

Sweet area design. A real sense of grandeur, with none of the depressing dustbowl imagery of the original Prophecies release, but far more vertical than its pre-Searing segment. Vistas, man! Vistas! Did I mention grandeur? Lush scenery recalling the best of Asheron's Call 2 or (again) Anarchy Online. Mountain views. Lots of sunflowers.

Sound effects are better than average, and better than Prophecies, especially the ambient sounds. Nothing too special, but you also won't have to hear the over-familiar stock effects every few seconds that most RPGs seem to resort to here than there.

The counter-intuitive geometry bugaboos are gone. You don't feel like you're having a nightmare about Final Fantasy X. If it looks like you can get someplace, you can. You can't jump around. Whether this is a good or bad thing I'll leave to gentle reader.

The same fun-but-not-quite-perfect combat you may know from Prophecies, but there's a greater feeling of violence owing to contrast with the serene setting. And with this game Guild Wars takes a step nearer to true MMO status, as not quite all of the content is personalized and instanced to the point of being meaningless. Things happen in town from time to time, and there's a shared global conflict underway.

For those on the fence who haven't played Prophecies, know that the instancing actually in some way increases the sense of one world with many players, as there's no sharding and the sense of isolation seems to encourage socialization within the not-so-instanced towns. However, as in Prophecies, you will never unexpectedly cross paths with other players while adventuring. The Diablo-style "adventure created just for you" stuff is still the order of the day - but then that's apparently how they avoid charging a subscription fee.

Overall, the best purchase I've made since Shadow of the Colossus, and the most visually impressive game I've seen in several years.

Excellent game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: August 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I won't go into a lot of detail because most have described the game enough. But just wanted to say this is an excellent game.

My Opinion:

The graphics are very good along with nice sound effects. I LOVE the opening music that Factions has on its character select screen. Normally I don't care for that kind of music.

The main thing I miss in this game is the feeling of an entire real world. All the fighting zones in this game are "instanced" zones, meaning the only people you will see in a zone while fighting is either your computer controlled teammates, or human teammates. If they had made this game with non-instanced zones it would easily kill games like Everquest.

I still love this game though even with the instanced zones. I also wish you were able to wield your weapons inside of cities (the only place where you get to meet real, live players). It would be nice to be able to "show off" your cool looking weapon, which this game has a lot of. Currently the player model does not wield his/her weapons inside of cities.

The no monthly fee is a HUGE plus for this game over other games of this type. Its also gives you the freedom to take however long you want to level, there is no rush because there are no fees. And your best taking your time.

I do plan on buying the next expansion that comes out for this game if I can afford it, although $50 seems a little high. I purchased my copy on sale.

World Of Warcraft is also an excellent game, but costs a monthly fee. Most of these newer games have learned from the apathy of the Everquest authors and designed the game towards the player.

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