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''Guild Wars Factions'' was announced at the ''Guild Wars'' website on '' franchise. ''Factions'' is a stand-alone product. The game is named ''Factions'' because of the new feature which allows players to join forces with one of the two rival factions, Luxon and Kurzick, who fight for total control over the new continent of Cantha. The battles that follow will have an immediate effect on the game world.

Players with ''Guild Wars'' that purchase the expansion will be able to travel back and forth between Cantha and Tyria with their characters. Players that only purchase ''Factions'' will get access to all eight professions - however, they will only have the ''Factions'' campaign and the full skillset of the new professions at their disposal and no access to the those of the original campaign. In addition, there will be two extra character slots added for those who own the original and decide to buy and link Factions to their existing account. The original ''Guild Wars'' continent and campaign will not be available to those who purchase ''Factions'' only.

Apart from Cantha and its full length campaign, Factions introduces two new professions - The Assassin and The Ritualist. Factions will also bring new armors, new skills, new gameplay modes and much more into the game The game was released on April 28, 2006[http://www.guildwars.com/press/releases/pressrelease-2006-03-10.php .


NEW PROFESSIONS


Assassin


Introduced with ''Guild Wars Factions'', Assassins rely on stealth, trickery, and swift strikes of their two daggers to subdue and confuse their enemies. While physically slim, the assassin's strength lies in using his enemy's weaknesses to his advantage, making the Assassin a very unique character in the world of ''Guild Wars''.

Assassins are a kind of hybrid class; though differentiated from the other classes, the Assassin combines the elements of a damage dealer and a spellcaster. Assassins also have a more complex attack system; Lead, Off-hand, and Dual attacks must be used in a particular order to work, but can be highly effective in dealing damage when combination attacks are successful. Dagger Mastery and Critical Strikes enable players to swiftly penetrate their foe's defences to land damaging blows; Shadow Arts and Deadly Arts give players a wide array of underhand tactics to confuse and annihilate their enemies.

  • Critical Strikes (Primary attribute): For each rank of Critical Strikes, the assassin gains an additional 1% chance to land a Critical Hit. The Assassin also gains energy whenever landing a hit in this way. They gain +1 at rank 3 in this attribute, +2 at rank 8 and +3 at rank 13 and above.

  • Shadow Arts: Shadow Arts skills enable the Assassin to improve their defense and instantaneously travel significant distances.

  • Deadly Arts: Deadly Arts skills harm the enemy through hexes that either injure the enemy or make them more susceptible to attack.

  • Dagger Mastery: Dagger Mastery provides a 2% chance of double-striking per rank of Dagger Mastery and increases dagger damage. Dagger Mastery skills are often attacks to deal more harm to the enemy.

  • Unique Skill Sets:

  • --- Attack system: Many Assassin skills are designed to follow a pattern, with certain attacks opening the way for other attacks. The system goes in the following order; Lead Attack, Off-Hand attack, and Dual Attack. Therefore, effective Assassins open the way with a Lead Attack, follow up with an Off-Hand attack, and then use a Dual Attack. Some combinations of these attacks allow a lengthy attack chain to be formed.

  • --- Teleportation: This skill set allows the Assassin to teleport on a whim via Shadow Arts skills, allowing him to strategically plant himself in enemy territory and deal some damaging blows to unsuspecting quarry.



Ritualist


The other new class introduced with ''Guild Wars Factions'' is the Ritualist, a class which employs living spirits that heal allies or spread death and destruction amongst foes. They also use the ashes of the dead to deal a wide range of effects.

The Ritualist skillset resembles a combination of the existing ''Guild Wars'' classes Monk, Necromancer, and Ranger. Ritualists offer an alternative, or supplemental, healing class to the Monk, as they, too, are able to heal and resurrect party members. While Necromancers use corpses to raise armies of undead minions, the Ritualist summons healing or damaging spirits, similar to the Ranger's Nature spirits. They can also sacrifice health for some skills and sometimes siphon resources from ally spirits, or even enemies, to empower themselves.

  • Spawning Power (Primary Attribute): For each rank of Spawning Power, the health of summoned spirits increases by 4%. Spawning Power also increases the effectiveness of skills related to spawning spirits.

  • Restoration Magic: Ritualist skills related to life stealing, self-preservation, healing and defence become more effective with a higher Restoration Magic rank.

  • Channeling Magic: Ritualist skills related to lightning damage and energy become more effective with a higher Channeling Magic rank.

  • Communing: Ritualist skills related to summoning spirits become more effective with a higher Communing rank.

  • Unique Skill Sets:

  • --- Binding Spirits: These beings are chained to the Ritualist's will and perform a wide range of tasks, from damaging, blinding and knocking down enemies, to healing and boosting allies' performance.

  • --- Ash skills: The Ritualist can use a wide variety of ashes, enabling him to perform many tasks, from healing, increasing maximum health, life stealing, to blinding and damaging enemies. Ashes have an Area Of Effect while carried by a Ritualist, and perform an additional effect when they are dropped.

  • --- Weapon Spells: Ritualists have a variety of skills which improve allies' weapons, with effects such as increasing the weapon's damage output or a player's attack speed.



NEW GAMEPLAY


Competitive missions

As could be observed during the Preview of the game, certain places in the game offer a new type of gameplay for ''Factions'' in the Competitive missions. In Guild Wars (Prophecy), the Competitive missions were Deathmatches between two randomly-composed teams of players waiting in special places called Arenas. In Guild Wars Factions however, this parallel between RPG and First-person Shooter is continued.

The new approach that ''Factions'' give to Competitive missions is similar to ''Assault'' missions in many FPS's , since both teams have an objective to fulfill : defend or attack one or several bases. When a player gets killed, he is respawned in his base, again like in an FPS. The game ends when one team reaches a certain number of points, gathered as the mission goes on by completing the objectives. Once it is over, the players then go back to the "waiting room".

Two of these missions were open to the public during the ''Factions'' preview:
  • The Jade Quarry mission was located in the eponymous location. The common goal to both Factions was to capture the Jade Quarries so that Jade could be dug from them. Each jade shipment that successfully made its way back to the Faction's base was worth one point. In addition, there were several Watchtowers to be captured, giving strategic advantage to the owner when attacking the jade shipments.

  • The Fort Aspenwood mission was closer to the ''Assault'' concept of First Person Shooters . The Luxons had to storm a Kurzick base and kill an NPC , a Kurzick engineer, to stop him from making a new weapon for the Kurzicks. Additionally, the Luxons had to intercept Amber shipments to slow down the development of the Kurzick weapon. The Kurzicks' objective was to defend the base, the engineer and the shipments.



New quests

There are already two quests to be obtained in Guild Wars prophecies that allow you to gain faction for both Luxons and Kurzicks. These quest can be obtained by two NPCs in Lions Arch and involve talking to the Commanders of the Luxon an Kurzick bases located outside of Lions Arch.


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