Fear and Frustration in Factions:

I have been strolling around in this open-ended universe for a year. A strange year lived online in a persistent world as a person who does not exist. My avatar has a personality, a life, friends and possessions. She has a collection of memories that are called 'screen shots' which are snapshots of her growth and evolution. She is invincible, powerful and as tall as the character generator would allow. On top of that is a purple up-do with a blazing tiara. She is a nuker and she can hurl a storm of meteors that does a satisfying amount of damage. "Bless me Goddess Dwayna, it has been 400 hours since my last review."

For a long time I had ranger skills as a second profession. I had wanted a pet. But later I it changed during the Ascension missions for the additional self-healing properties that having a Monk second profession gives. There is a convoluted process of steps that you can go through to regain a second profession which I may do when I am done seeing as much of the game as I can.

When I talk / write about my character I will simultaneously call it 'her', 'she' or even 'me'. I refer to my character in the first person often as "I". Am I her? Is she some part of me? All this speculation sounds like dialog from an anime.

For a birthday present my character received a pet, an ugly little lizard called a Miniature Fungal Wallow. It and I are sitting still inside the original edition of Guild Wars called “Prophecies” that takes place in the land of Tyria. I linger in Lion’s Arch, one of the major towns that leads to the new expansion pack for Guild Wars. The new continent in the sequel is called “Cantha”. I'm hesitating outside Lion’s Arch on a beach enjoying the sounds of the sea long after the sun has set here in real life on Buzzard's Bay. Why is my level 20 Elementalist Monk is sitting and then pondering here in the original Guild Wars territory instead of enjoying the new expansion areas? Because Cantha frightens her at times. Maybe it is supposed to.

First Impressions:

About two months ago on my birthday—by fate or by design—my copy of Factions arrived. I had gotten a new blue Dell laptop rig that I positively love for my birthday also. With great anticipation I opened the beautiful new DVD box. I read the manual while it took a short time for the installation.

Then I created a new character. I chose the assassin because I wanted to try the new bag of tricks. The ritualist also looked tempting. Since my Guildie Nightpoet chose a ritualist I thought I would do something different. I wanted to use entirely new and alien skills. The wide variety of skills and weapons in Factions is one of its many strong points.

However in a game like Auto Assault where the main point is to kill and smash with a tank mounted cannon. you have an almost unlimited amount of slots in the skill bars. Too bad there are only 8 skill slots in both volumes of Guild Wars.

This character can use a wide selection of knives, daggers, sai, kamas, divided chakram and more. She can chain melee combat skills together. I tried the ritualist as a second profession but those skills seems to lack firepower. This time I chose air as my main element and concentrated on lightening and earth magics. My Prophecies Elementalist is mainly a fire elementalist with some earth magic too. I enjoy those crisping ranged wallops that allow my character to keep her flimsy outfits clean of gore. There is a distinct tasteful lack of goo in Guild Wars.

Graphics:

I was awestruck by the gorgeous visuals. I opened up Guild Wars and Dungeons and Dragons Online Stormreach on the same day and there was no comparison. Factions is so finely detailed right down to the blades of grass and flowers. D&D looks like a skin over Asheron's Call which had all ready seen its day a couple years ago.

The graphics are lush and colorful. The vegetation, water, skies and landscapes are top of the line. It is an astonishing work of art. The Asian inspired environments take you away to an unparalleled garden of the senses. You become immersed by the musical score that stands every hair on your body on its ends. This is a stunning game and maybe even the finest in MMO art.

I flew through missions right up until level 12. Then it became agony. Areas were populated by huge mobs that were difficult for even groups at my level to take out. There was a tremendous lag. there had never been any lag in Prophecies. That can be for all sort of reasons, but people in all the parties I have been in, in Factions have experienced it.

I tend to group in the mornings in my time zone. That was the way I got through many tight spots. For some reason there seem to be more mature players online in the morning. Are these people in offices with nothing to do until the phone rings? Stay at home mom's, people who are out of work or are up very late someplace where it is still the weekend in another time zone?

There were a few times when I couldn't control my character. You want to have a gamers night mere come true. Imagine that your character starts running away from you on her own. Twice she ran off into a mob or a wall and stuck there spinning around. Did she eat some Datura berries or something?

Sound/Music:

The music playing in my headphones is a combination of strings, flute and synthesizer that is accompanies by a sound effects of a variety of birds. There are deep forest voices as well as gulls. If you walk near a torch, you hear it crackling. The score itself ebbs and flows with the wind in the background and the snapping fires. The sound takes you up and carries you off with it. Standing near the sails of the boat that will take my character to Cantha again. I stop to reflect, to listen and to watch the sails and the clouds. There is a feeling of home here. After all this looks much like the boats and marinas around here... Am I a ghost in this cyber shell?

Gameplay:

Cantha is the new continent that is provided in Guild Wars Prophecies. It is another chapter in the saga. It stands alone, you can play that and you don't need the first game at all. If you have the original Guild Wars then your character can take the boat from here (I mean the city of Lion's Arch) to the new expansion in Cantha. The line between reality and the game continues to blur.

Something that bothered me is that when I added the Factions key to my account, my new character was automatically added to my existing guild. That is annoying because I think each character you create should be able to join a different guild. I don't know why players are restricted to only one guild per account.

The game was no less kind even to my level 20 character. I arrived—oh I mean my character arrived at the Kahneng Docks and did several difficult missions in the marketplace and the undercity. There was no lush introduction. There weren't any breathtaking vistas. It was a very linear trip through a very intricate maze of streets.

The map system looked like a blurred version of aerial photography taken from the back of an unwilling pigeon. Finding one's way through these ambushed rabbit warrens was tedious. Where were the birds, the trees, and the great outdoors that were found on "Noob Island"? In the claustrophobic tiny back streets, although detailed in their portrayal, it made you glad that the game did not also include the sense of smell in some places. Instead of those engaging seagulls and song birds, roosters were crowing.

I enjoyed the little touches of shrines here and there. But more often I was lead into a dead end by a pack of wizards that far out classed myself and my party. In Guild Wars you can chose a party of AI or humans to play the game with. It is handy to bring along one of the game generated healers. When I play other MMO's I miss the carefully laid out healing and restoration features in Guild Wars Factions.

When you are killed you may regenerate at an altar along the way of your journey. Each time you are given a deduction or death penalty. This can be redeemed by killing named monsters and replenishing your parties morale boost. You can also choose to return to the last out post or town that you were in where you will regenerate to full power instantly. It is a neat little 'death system' and too often I wonder why more games have not lifted it.

Enjoyment:

Guild Wars is a fun game. You can chose from a wide variety of characters to play. Everything is very customizable. You can set up your character to look and fight however you wish. The monsters and enemies are good fodder for axe, sword or spell. The game's AI is smart enough to be challenging and simple enough to make the fights funny. The game has a general look that is classy, clean and upscale. The gorgeous graphics and music make it a cohesive game experience. You can play however you like to. If you want to wander around looking at architecture and listening to music you can. If you want to get all fired up and fight oncomers in an arena, you have that option as well. What makes a game into a world is the options that it offers. Guild Wars provides a range of freedom to—play.

Overall Impression:

Guild Wars continues to be a fine MMO. It has instanced play so you can choose who you group with. There is less chance of being robbed or other unpleasantness. It is still free per month and well worth the expansions that are only offered occasionally.

There is a very popular contingent for PvP play that is kept separate from those who are only interested in PvE play. The game is very strong in that area and has many fan sites and forums dedicated to the contests of the individuals and guilds. In Factions a powerful player -vs - player character can get going right away.

Unless you are in a huge, successful guild you may not see all of the game. You can walk around and play for years in Guild Wars and not see everything. There is a great deal of content that requires a big dedicated group of people to play together at the same time. Organizing things like that take an enormous amount of time and dedication. Not every player can put that much energy into the game to get to that level.

Making these giant end games the way that was done in Lineage and Lineage 2 are epic and amazing. But the influx of new players into Factions have a different vibe than they did in Prophecies. Guild Wars used to be the safest game for girls to play online with the least risk of abuse and spam. Things change. Once the word gets out about a good thing that may have occupied a niche, then it changes and might not be as good as it was when it was fresh. I prefer Prophecies to Factions, in spite of the heart stopping graphics in the beginning of Factions.

Factions is far from the perfect game I hoped it would be. It is still fantastic and my personal MMO of choice. I give it a well addicted 8 out of 10.

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

Guild Wars still straddles the line between having over-sexed female characters and sexy female characters that women like to play as. The new assassin and ritualist are covered up for the most part. If you want to do a strip tease in a town square no one will stop you. The female avatars are very pretty, and they wear low cut outfits. They aren't exactly skimpy. My boundaries in games are two fold. I want to see female characters wearing outfits that they can actually fight in. I can accept clothing in games that shows as much skin as you would see on a day at the beach.

As more people are drawn to Guild Wars more women are reporting harassment and abuse. The first year in the game was relatively free of that negative aspect of MMO's. The instanced play helps to limit the amount of player killers and jerks that you have to deal with. But when you are in situations where you are forced to group, there is nothing stopping the people in the group you end up with from being nasty and abusive.