Flipping to the Factions campaign with a Nightfall character, it feels like some important story elements were left out. No no, don’t tell me, I can work it out from inference and wiki, but again pretending that you had not already run through Factions, imagine the new player.
There is a plague in Cantha. That sounds bad, and I’m objectively anti-plague (outside the Epidemic skill), so off I go. I meet up with Brother Mhenlo who is an old friend of my character that I’ve never met before. I’m from Istan, who’s this white guy? Oh, he’s someone from Tyria who I meet when I start a Prophecies character. Who apparently trained under Master Togo and, what, did a tour of duty as a healer with the Sunspears? Is that where I met this guy? This NPC is far better traveled than I am.
I was called into Cantha to deal with a plague. Afflicted monsters, check, I’m on this. The plague rots the soul as well, check. First mission, lots of Afflicted, big fights and it ends with Shiro. Shiro is the guy behind the plague, and he is some sort of death god or spirit guide who is breaking the death god rules to take over the mortal world? But he was just in a cinematic, alive and talking to a fortune teller? Vizunah Square is only the third mission in this campaign, but there seems to have been a lot of exposition in that prologue, unless the Factions players are also just along for the ride until things get explained later.
I’m apparently saving these people from a plague and a death god, and I’m off to become some form of ascended being to facilitate that. I haven’t gotten a chance to care about the people I’m supposed to be saving. Most of them seem to be named “Canthan Peasant,” and they live in what appears to be a ramshackle slum that covers a third of the map (big town, desperately in need of some zoning laws). Folks referred to Factions as the quick campaign, and things are indeed moving very quickly. Plague, death god, run across an entire zone, assassins, NPCs on your side who seem to hate you, different assassins, plagued assassins, keep running across zones, more scornful NPCs, take a different winding path across that zone, escort missions with suicidal NPCs, and they’re all timed missions. Go!
: Zubon