Guild Wars 2

I see some of them are for sale now and I was wondering what the extra benefit is.

What I know: they are a one way waypoint to a special location, free to use and you have all utilities in a small area.

When I open my map and pay at most 4 silver to get to Lions Arch, I pretty much get the same. So there must be more to it.

Is it the special location that you can not reach otherwise? Do people dislike the 10-20 yard runs that you still have in Lions Arch? Do the silvers that you save add up to a substantial sum over time? Is there whacky roleplaying going on in those locations?

I am considering buying one. People with passes, please enlighten me.

Not having one myself I’m straight up guessing here, but I can imagine:

• More convenient placement of services relative each other
  • LA’s one-way connection from bank to tp comes to mind, as does the Dungeon vendor
• Shorter load times
• Convenient placement in the map/world (primarily heard that about the Ember Bay and DR passes)

A collection of rather minor things, but how minor/annoying they are varies from person to person.

It’s all about convenience. During gameplay, you need to access these locations/perform these operation frequently:

• vendor
• account bank
• trading post to claim money and items you bought
• crafting stations to craft something
• travel to main cities

Without pass, I did this:

vendor:

• open guild panel, enter guild hall, go to the vendor near the spawn location
• if I know that I need access to more than only the vendor, I would enter the pvp lobby instead.

account bank:

• open pvp panel, enter pvp lobby, go to the right to the bank access

trading post:

• open pvp panel, enter pvp lobby, go to the right

crafting stations:

• go to Lion’s Arch. If in the pvp lobby, use the portal there. If somewhere in a map, either go directly or through the pvp lobby and again through the portal there (no travel costs).

travel to main cities:

• go directly

The lobby passes makes this a bit easier, you click an item in your inventory and you don’t have to think where you should go, because you have all services available at a singe location. It’s even possible to transport to the main cities for almost convenient access to your home instance. Depending on your map loading times, you save 5-30 seconds and time you need to think if you need this or that service, thus need access to this or that location.

I have a permanent pass. Would never buy one of these 2-week time limited passes. I bought mine before all services except crafting were available in the pvp lobby and the guild hall. Today, I would not buy it again but use the services in the pvp lobby and the guild hall.

If you have real money to spend for the game, get one of the permanent passes. If you consider buying a pass with gold->gem exchange, don’t do it. Much too expensive that way.

I use my pass perhaps about 10-15 times a day.

Permanent passes are worth it. You always have what the previous post mentioned. In addition if you put it in a shared slot now all your toons have access to this. I find the Royal Pass and the Verdant Brink one to be the two I always have on hand, though, the Royal Pass is the one that I use most due to the convenient layout of the area.

Silmar said it perfectly. I would say it’s a medium tier quality of life purchase. I personally think things like bank slots, character slots, shared slots, invincible farming/savaging tools are higher priority but a permanent pass is definitely close.

Count all the load screens and menu opens you normally do every day, then every week, every month, the passes make you avoid so many and it adds up fast. It’s something I would use real money on because the gem exchanges during sales etc are a very bad way to lose gold @ a bad ratio.

Tyncale.1629:

I see some of them are for sale now and I was wondering what the extra benefit is.

I think you’ve summarized the benefits well: one-stop shopping.

Tyncale.1629:

What I know: they are a one way waypoint to a special location, free to use and you have all utilities in a small area.

Correct.

Keep in mind that the utilities include a Mystic Forge, all crafting stations, a variety of vendors (laurel and, for some areas, the dungeon token dude), and portals to the major cities.

Tyncale.1629:

When I open my map and pay at most 4 silver to get to Lions Arch, I pretty much get the same. So there must be more to it.

Nope, there mustn’t be

Tyncale.1629:

Is it the special location that you can not reach otherwise? Do people dislike the 10-20 yard runs that you still have in Lions Arch? Do the silvers that you save add up to a substantial sum over time? Is there whacky roleplaying going on in those locations?

Special location: yes, although usually not important to reach.
Dislike the moving around? Yup, much more convenient for those who use the services daily.
Silvers add up to savings? Nope.
Whacky Roleplaying? Not usually in the exclusive zone.

Tyncale.1629:

I am considering buying one. People with passes, please enlighten me.

It’s a convenience item. Nothing more. Don’t buy it if it doesn’t sound helpful to you.

Like most people already said, it’s nothing you can’t live without. But I definitely don’t regret buying my DR pass, since I always hated running between services in LA, just to notice I forgot something, and repeat that run multiple times every day. Saves time and frustration.

Thanks guys, I think I will buy one. The running you still have to do in Lions Arch is certainly inconvenient since I like to craft and often buy a lot of mats on the AH.

I am a convenience guy, I do not mind putting a few gems in that.

Thanks.

I have the Royal Terrace pass (in a shared slot) and it’s easily my favorite item in the game. It’s not about saving gold, it’s about convenience. I love NPCs in a small area.

Edit: lol, I was slow, I’m glad you’re buying one. Enjoy!

Seems I was too late, apparently they were only available for 7 hours, I thought that was 7 days.

Better luck next time, maybe the other 2 lounge passes will soon be up for sale.

Aw! Hey, if you don’t mind waiting, get one during a sale when they are only 800 Gems! I got mine during the anniversary sale a year ago. It’s in August but we might get perma pass sales before that.

I use my Ember Bay Lava Lounge pass all the time. Once you get used to that convenience, it’s hard to imagine going back. One thing I especially like about the Lava Lounge is that it deposits you right by the travel golem, so you can use the pass and pretty quickly use the city travel if you want to without even needing to walk into the lounge itself.

I like the Captain’s Airship Pass because it’s right over the Vigil Keep asura gate to Fort Trinity. Get your characters at the story level where they can use it and it gives you a free jump to Orr. I think it’s the best to have because of this. Plus there is an large flat area directly under the airship that you can drop down to and test things on characters or take pose shots of your characters with the Shiverpeaks in the background.

I have the Royal Terrace Pass. I love it but I like logging off my character in a “safe area” so the one way port from anywhere to the terrace is good enough for me. But I know a lot of players reject passes because it doesn’t return you back. I enjoy the compactness of the bank, TP, MF and crafting stations.

It’s not “worth it” in terms of actual in-game gold value. You probably won’t save enough wp costs or time it would take to use HOTM.

But it is convenient. It’s nice if you only have time to log on for a few minutes and all the services you need are there. In particular Mystic Forge and Crafting.

I dont pay any silvers to get to la ever, use spvp lobby and enter portal to la bam.

Unless you need to use the MF then Rata Sum has the best placement. Pretty much why I would never buy one of those.