Guild Wars: Factions details

Guild Wars developer ArenaNet's revealed some more details about forthcoming expansion/standalone package Factions, which allows current players to enjoy new content and additions to the existing game and new players to play in a specific area.

You can check it all out for yourself this weekend thanks to ArenaNet's Guild Wars: Factions Global Free-for-All PvP Weekend event, more details of which are up on the official GW website.

According to IGN, Factions takes place on the continent of Canthra, just south of Tyria, where the one of the emperor's former bodyguards Shiro Tagachi was caught and killed for his betrayal, blighting the land with a Jade Sea and a Petrified Forest. Canthra's kind of Asian-themed, and deals with the return of Shiro's spirit.

In terms of what's actually there, you've got three nations - Canthrans, who you might remember as Guild Wars' storage NPCs; Kurzicks, a religious lot who occupy the forest; and Luxans, who travel the sea in peculiar walking machines and place a lot of importance on strength and whatnot.

One of the key changes is the backdrop of a war between two factions, and the way in which guilds can now form alliances, visiting each others' hall and joining together for alliances missions to try and capture Canthra's cities and towns from other alliances, based on a system of battling for control points.

Your alliance's allegiance to a particular faction will also have an effect on the outcome of the war.

Players will also be able to take part in co-operative challenge missions, elite missions, and - as previously revealed - engage in two new professions, the Assassin and the Ritualist. The game will also feature 300 new skills (90 elites), 50 new areas, 100 new creatures and all manner of other new weapons and so forth.

Finally, there's also an Observer Mode that lets you watch battles unfold and analyse them for tactics.

Factions is due out this spring from NCsoft.