In an e-mail from their customer service after I had voiced my concerns over the shortages of the Collector's Edition of Guild Wars: Factions:

Thank you for contacting the Guild Wars Support Team regarding the Guild Wars Factions Collector's Edition game boxes. We regret to inform you that there could be a delay in the delivery of the Collector's Edition boxes to the retailers. We assure you they were shipped to those retailers as quickly as possible.

If you have already registered a Factions pre-order access key to your account, you will be able to access the Head Start when it begins. You will also have two extra character slots* available to you during the Head Start.

If you are not able to register your Collector's Edition Access Key to your account prior to the end of the Head Start, you will not be able to continue accessing the Factions game content. However, the characters you created in those two extra character slots will remain for a 10-day grace period (though will be unplayable).

If you are able to register your Collector's Edition key to your account prior to the end of this grace period, you will be able to retain those two characters.

If you are not able to register your Collector's Edition key until after that grace period expires, the two character slots will no longer show on your account. Once you register your Collector's Edition key, the character slots will return, but will be blank.

Please keep in mind that you are able to "stack" a Collector's Edition Access Key on an account that already has a Standard Edition Access Key registered. You can, of course, register a Standard Edition key to your account in order to ensure continued access to the Factions game content and the extra character slots while you are waiting on the arrival of your Collector's Edition game box.

We sincerely apologize for any frustration or inconvenience this issue may have caused, and hope for the speedy receipt of your Collector's Edition game box.

Kind Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team

Quite disappointing that many people that have spent the extra money for the Collector's Edition will not be given an extention on keeping their characters/names. I honestly believe they should extend the grace period as this is not the customer's fault but theirs. So now customers are faced with downgrading to the regular edition, or waiting until June for the Collector's, or buying both versions.

This information came from a NeoPortal