Guild Hex

Guild Wars Factions is the second in the Guild Wars series of games. The great thing about Guild Wars is that this multi player role playing game is that there is no monthly fee, you only pay once, which sets it apart from most other online games. With Guild Wars all you have to do is buy the game or purchase an account key online and you can play for an unlimited time. Guild Wars was released just over three years ago and has completely changed the face of massively multi player online rpg games [MMOPRG].

The first Guild Wars game Prophecies was criticized by some players and so there have been some changes made to the campaign. Players can get Factions as a game by itself or they can choose to add it on if they already have an existing Prophecies account – even if you buy Factions on its own you can still access quite a lot of the content of Prophecies.

Guild Wars Factions introduces players to a new continent Cantha where two opposing groups or factions, the Luxons and Kurzicks are constantly engaged in battle. When you play the game you decide which of the factions you want to belong to and then you can join in the war.Players help their factions to claim towns on the map from their opponents. This game has a new PVE or player versus environment campaign. The Luxons respect strength more than anything else, they have no religion and they live in the Jade Sea. The Kurzicks on the other hand respect religion and social order, they live in the dark environment of the Echovald Forests.

Originally Guild Wars had six professions (hence the guilds) but in this game another two professions, the Assasin and the Ritualist have been added. The chief skill of the Assasin is getting into a situation or battle quickly and getting out again just as quickly once the mission has been accomplished. An Assasin can teleport around the battlefield and they can also shadow step. The Assasin’s special skills means that they can do a great deal of damage to their opponents. The Assasin’s major weakness is the armor that used, it is not quite up to the task expected of it and this means that the Assasin is of little use in the front line of combat.

The Ritualist has a direct link to the spirit world and is able to conjure up spirits into the field either to protect their allies or attack their opponents. In addition to this they can communicate with the spirits of their ancestors in a ritual involving ashes and urns to create ghostly weapons to put into the hands of the spirits they have conjured up. Factions also contains new skills and armor for the six existing professions and there are new ways of playing the game for both player versus environment and player versus player.

Tom Kranz has been playing Guild Wars since its UK launch. As well as writing about the three Guild Wars chapters – Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall – he also covers Guild Wars gold and Guild Wars maps.

Guild Wars is an extremely popular massively multiplayer online role playing game; it is different to most online games because there is no monthly subscription – once a player has bought the game or a key code they can continue playing for as long as they wish.

Guild Wars is quite a complicated game because it is made up of a number of different campaigns and each campaign has its own extra additions to the original campaign of Prophecies. In the Guild Wars players have basically two modes of action, player versus player game and player versus environment. In the first players compete against each other or they become part of a team that is competing against another team. The environment, the virtual world is an important part of Guild Wars, unlike other virtual worlds the Guild War world is not static – this means that characters can move on in their lives and the story takes place in real time.

Each campaign in the Guild Wars series has its own territory or continent and each continent has a set of maps. Maps are necessary to any campaign and in Guild Wars they allow the player to see where they have come from, where they are, and where they should be going. They have to make their way through the map in order to gain rewards with which they can buy certain skills. Players choose the profession or guild to which they want to belong and then they start to build their character. Guild Wars builds are accomplished by making use of certain skills, each player can have only eight skills, one of which may be an elite skill which cannot be bought.

Players can recognize their allies, those who are on their side by green dots on the map, their enemies on the other hand are represented by red dots. Players have to accomplish a series of tasks or missions to take their character to another level where they have access to more armor and skills.

Guild Wars is fast developing a cult following and there is a Guild Wars wiki containing a lot of basic but useful information concerning the game. There are also Guild War gurus who compete every now and again to see who has the most up to date knowledge on the game. Like many other online games there are also a series of cheats that some people claim they use, but if a player is caught cheating then they risk having their account suspended.

Derek Smithson

Guild wars is a massively multiplayer online role playing game that is made up of a series of campaigns of which Prophecies is the first. Prophecies was launched in 2005 and its story revolves around the prophecies of an ancient dragon, the Flameseeker Prophecy.

Prophecies is the first Guild Wars campaign and it was in this game that the core professions were introduced these consisted of the warrior, the elementalist, the ranger, the monk, the necromancer and the mesmer. The warrior is character with high armor who wields a variety of weapons their energy comes from adrenaline skills that need to be charged up after a certain number of games.

The elementalist casts spells and specializes in the elements of earth, air fire and water characters in this profession can be offensive, defensive or a combination of those two things. The ranger uses a bow, has moderate armor and often has a pet with them. The monk specializes in defense and in the healing arts, it is also a spell casting profession, usually a healer the monk has the ability to call down holy wrath on its adversaries. Necromancers are also spell casters they cast hexes, steal life and have the abilityu to summon up undead minions. The mesmer also casts spells and specializes in the manipulation of energies. The world where the game takes place is known as Tyria.

There are twenty five missions in Prophecies story line and there are certain objectives to be fulfilled in each one by a team of four to eight and non-playing characters that are managed by the players. Prophecies introduced different arenas where player versus player battles are played out. In Guild Wars the game world is not static or timeless but subject to change with stories that advance in time.

Prophecies had two high end dungeons that are accessible by the avatars of the in game gods and has some of the best weapons and armor in the series. This makes it one of the most intensively farmed areas. Farming refers to the process whereby players aquire gold or other valuable items to help them progress in the game. Like all Guild Wars campaigns the action takes place through either player versus player action or player versus environment.

In Prophecies as in all Guild Wars campaigns players have to build their characters using a maximum of eight skills, which can include one elite skill. Unlike the basic skills elite skills cannot be bought. Since the release of Prophecies a number of other campaigns have been launched including Nightfall and Factions.

Derek Smithson