Good news for those who were disappointed by earlier rumors of shipping delays (which was actually the "Collector's Edition" from NCsoft) - Guild Wars Factions is out of the gate and on its way to a store near you.

The announcement came today from ArenaNet's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington.  Guild Wars Factions is a stand-alone follow-up to the innovative Guild Wars, which broke new ground in terms of design and the absence of a monthly subscription fee. The retail price is expected to be $49.95. Servers supporting this new release are going live this coming Friday, 28 April 2006, at 12:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time (07:01 GMT). If you pre-ordered the game, you'll be able to log onto the Guild Wars Factions Head Start Event 24 hours earlier, and enjoy access to the game until Saturday morning.

Mike O'Brien, co-founder of ArenaNet, says, "New features in Guild Wars Factions such as guild scrimmages, alliance battles, ranked character titles, and some surprises still to come all resulted from our drive to create a truly unique gaming experience for existing and new fans of the Guild Wars universe."

All this - but still no subscription fee.