Guild Wars Factions Preview

IGN PC has whipped up a two-page preview of ArenaNet's Guild Wars Factions, after spending some hands-on time with the upcoming expansion. Here's a bit to get you started:
The graphics rendering will also get a facelift, with new shaders and particle effects. Arena regularly updates the visuals with tweaks here and there, but Factions will introduce some cool-looking areas like an inland sea that's made completely of jade and contains huge sea monsters frozen in time. (This body of water was turned to jade in a cataclysm that occurred a while back.) The whole place is pretty shiny, but it still seems to run pretty smoothly, despite all the additional effects. Factions will still be fully DirectX 8 compliant, though. Jeff Strain tells us that it's important to the company that the game can be enjoyed on a wide range of machines.