I'm in Munich today - it's freezing - checking out Guild Wars Factions, the latest addition to the online fantasy game. Yes, I appreciate those last three words my cause some of you to frantically click elsewhere, but stay with me here - Factions does look rather impressive.
Guild Wars came out in 2005 and offered a couple of features that were almost unheard of in online multiplayer titles - no fees and streamed content. The latter basically meant that players could team up and play through their own version of the world. This meant that story lines could be deeper - as the designers knew how many players were playing and what they had previously done - and more realistic, as players could permanently change the environment. Sadly the innovation stopped there, with the clichéd fantasy characters - busty women, impractical armour, you get the picture - very tiresome. Most importantly though, there was always the feeling that something was missing with GW. I always saw it as a Fisher Price MMO, with none of the sense of scale associated with games like WoW.
Factions may change all this. Yes, the streaming model remains, but there appears to be far more depth to the combat now, with some of the battles taking on quasi-RTS proportions.
But back to the demo. I won't bore with you the back-story but the general gist is two factions, split into guilds and lots of clouting each other. Yes, PvP (player vs player) is pivotal to the action, but there seems to be much more for peace-loving folk to get involved in now and crucially, the two play styles are more interlinked than before. Victory in the battles and quests results in a daily shift of the frontline which allows towns and villages to change hands. Win a big city and your guild alliance will be entitled to new quests, better prices on gear and even a victory parade. Whether this is enough to encourage a feeling of real advancement remains to be seen but it certainly appears to offer more than the pyrrhic victories often apparent in other online games.
How Factions will pull together before its spring release remains to be seen. A play session after the presentation proved that the game is certainly beautiful - although it lacks warmth, with some of the environments feeling more like film sets - but it was hard to fully gauge the impact when bumbling around the maps with inexperienced journalists. Certainly the new characters - I played with an assassin - will please the veterans, but whether they will tempt in newcomers remains to be seen.
Jeff Strain of the developers ArenaNet, who gave the presentation, was confident. "We've raised the bar about what you need to pay for in a game," he said. "We have live content and support without the subscription fee". But when you throw in the fact that they are planning bi annual updates (Factions is the first), which, while not essential to own, are likely to become de facto purchases, you end up spending more than you may think. Yes, it will be less than a monthly sub, but it is hardly free.
Guild Wars Factions then? It looks promising and the tactical elements are appealing - if these really gel this could be something special - but if you want that true epic virtual world feel I still think you have to look elsewhere.
