Returning player in need for some answers...
All paid accounts unlock Living World Season 3 at no cost, as long as the account logs into the game while the Episodes are live.
In your case, with the purchase of Heart of Thorns, you would gain access to Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, Tangled Depths, Dragon Stand, and Bitterfrost Frontier maps. You would need to acquire Gems to purchase/unlock Bloodstone Fen (Episode 1) and Ember Bay (Episode 2)(at 200 Gems each via Gold-to Gems or cash).
If a Play4Free account was created 2 weeks ago, they would pay the exact same price. If they, or you, had logged in previously, they would have unlocked Episodes 1 and 2.
Welcome return and good luck.
(edited by Inculpatus cedo.9234)
The Living Story is downloadable content (DLC) in all but name. As such it works just like any other game’s DLC – a paid extra you can buy or not buy as you wish, not something that is included in the base game or a boxed expansion.
The fact that it’s given free to anyone who is online during the release window is a courtesy/hold-over from Season 1 when it was only available during that period and if you didn’t log in you missed it completely. (And even if you did you still can’t ever go back to it.)
Some games have similar systems – my other MMO gives “free” access to DLC to subscribers because years ago when it was pay-to-play only they said paying the subscription would get you all the new content. Others require absolutely everyone to buy DLC separately, regardless of what other products you’ve bought.
Likewise bundling HoT and the base game together is also standard practice. The first MMO I know of to do it was Ultima Online when they brought out their first expansion pack. Some other games don’t – you have to buy the base game and then each expansion individually if you want them all and personally I think that’s more unfair. (And having worked in a video game store I can tell you both confuse and annoy different customers.) But I don’t know of any games that give all future expansions/DLC to people for free just because they bought the base game.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
(edited by Danikat.8537)
Because I paid to play story and I can’t do that.
I just wanted to address this point specifically.
“Story” is not one thing in games. When you bought the base game part of what you paid for is access to the storyline that was in the game at release, which is commonly called the Personal Story and covers the war against Zhaitan. You still have access to this and do not have to pay any extra.
If you just want to play the storyline you already paid for then you can and you don’t need to worry about buying HoT or anything else.
After release Anet then created and released new storylines, Living Story Season 1, 2 & 3 and Heart of Thorns. Like most post-release content in games these are purchased separately.
- The Heart of Thorns story is obviously part of the expansion and if you buy HoT you will get full access to the entire storyline and all the maps it takes place in.
- Season 1 is the odd one out, this is no longer available to anyone regardless of whether you played it before or how much money you have spent/would be willing to spend.
- Season 2 can be purchased for 200 gems per episode, or slightly cheaper if you buy the bundle.
- Season 3 is currently being released. Episodes 1 and 2 can be purchased just like Season 2, episode 3 is currently free and later on will be purchased like Season 2 and future episodes will follow the same pattern.
(At some point there will also be another expansion, but we don’t know anything about that except that it’s being developed.)
By the way in case it’s unclear (I know some people have been confused by this) in all cases stories are account-wide unlocks. Once you’ve got it you can access it on all your characters, including ones you create in future, forever. The only restriction is that they have to be the right level (levels 10-80 for the Personal Story and level 80 for all others).
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
(edited by Danikat.8537)
You don’t need to unlock the story seasons to access Bloodstone Fen, Ember Bay and Biterfrost. You only need the story if you want to enter those zones by following the story. If you don’t care about that, you can certainly use a teleport to friend to get you into those zones.
First of all, excuse me if I posted this on wrong discussion or if appear rude in this post.
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.It’s bullsh… if I need to buy HoT and LW to have access to whole map.
That’s not appearing rude. That is rude.
Welcome back to GW2 but please save that attitude for some other game….