Why are all the new zones isolated
You cannot just walk into any of the new zones, they are completely isolated from the rest of the world. LS2 (dry top and silverwastes) arent like that. so why is is LS3 set up like that?
Because you need HoT to play the LS3. It’s how they bar non-HoT players from the new zones.
- Bloodstone Fen: cannot walk in
- Ember Bay: cannot walk in (interestingly: that was the same for GW1; you had to do a story mission to get into the Ring of Fire, too).
- Bitterfrost: you can walk in, as soon as at least one toon completes the first chapter of the third episode (subsequent characters need only talk to the NPC outside the portal)
- Lake Doric: you can walk in, as soon as your toon has completed the first chapter of the fourth episode (unlike Bitterfrost, portal is soulbound rather than account bound).
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
- Bloodstone Fen: cannot walk in
- Ember Bay: cannot walk in (interestingly: that was the same for GW1; you had to do a story mission to get into the Ring of Fire, too).
- Bitterfrost: you can walk in, as soon as at least one toon completes the first chapter of the third episode (subsequent characters need only talk to the NPC outside the portal)
- Lake Doric: you can walk in, as soon as your toon has completed the first chapter of the fourth episode (unlike Bitterfrost, portal is soulbound rather than account bound).
lake doric can only walk in on the character thats done it. you cant just walk an alt in. so 1 of 4 are travelable….. its really annoying when you want to poke around with a mesmer or something
Unlike season 2, these new zones require the episodes in order to enter them. There’s really no reason why you need to play through the story however, except to give context. It was probably just an easier way to trigger the unlock (does the player own HoT and this episode vs chapter complete). Ember Bay is the exception however, since it has no direct access, though they could have had a ship like the old Southsun. BF could have simply breached VB.
(edited by Healix.5819)
its a normality based from the expansion design anet has decided to go for… and all the living story content, that requires to own HoT to have access to the new maps, like Healix said it …
In my opinion an absolutel terrible decisipon, that will hurt the game only on the long run, because this terrible decision splits the whole player base between expansion owners and non expansion owners….
Way better would it be for the whole game, if all players, regardless of the expansions should have access to all new story content and maps..
The expansions in GW2 should be only just bigger Feature Packs, Story Content should be completely excluded out from the expansion – therefore exist Living Story patches to continue the Story Content for everyone, without that players get excluded from having access to new maps.
Would have Anet gone for this way better game decision to exlude new Story Content from expansions, then they would have also no reason at all to make access to new maps to overcomplicated just to isolate them from the whole rest of the game so much.
The only isusre for 100% sure was it only, that I guess, NCSOFT and the whole marketing department of anet/NCSoftb totally had something agaisnt this way better game design, because then they would have had not the option to advertise the expansion with the new story content and the expansion would have lost for a huge target group of players surely alot of attractivity to be bought, if the expansion wouldnt have added new story content and instead would have worked only as a qualitative bigger and better Feature Pack only instead.
player Exlusion is never an intelligent and good wax of designing a game, it creates a
n obsoltete 2 class system and a kind of discrimination that should never exist in a game.
Games that willingly split the player base by giving only those full accecs to new maps, which buy the xpansion, will always suffer from the fact, that these new maps will die out quicker, as if anet would give their full player base right from the begin full access to all new maps, regardless if you own now the latest expansion, or not.
Thats the way how I do see that.
its no must, that expnasions have to bring new story content, just to count as expansion, if you have the better alternative to concentrate all new added story content as a whole onto Living Story Patches, so that you can concentrate yourself on your expansions to bring the game further on first line with improved features and added quality of life mechanics ect.
New story content is for a expansion not neccessary and never should be for an expansion its main focus for its sale.
The main focus of an expansion should be always its features and improvements that it adds to the current game.
Personally I like the idea behind sub classes ~ quoted from Chris Whiteside
- Bloodstone Fen: cannot walk in
- Ember Bay: cannot walk in (interestingly: that was the same for GW1; you had to do a story mission to get into the Ring of Fire, too).
- Bitterfrost: you can walk in, as soon as at least one toon completes the first chapter of the third episode (subsequent characters need only talk to the NPC outside the portal)
- Lake Doric: you can walk in, as soon as your toon has completed the first chapter of the fourth episode (unlike Bitterfrost, portal is soulbound rather than account bound).
It would be nice to have a way to walk into Bloodstone Fen from Verdant Brink. Ember Bay could have a portal from Rata Sum.
It would help for my immersion purposes. Which are very important.
You can’t enter Bloodstone Fen because it’s simply not realistic to do so. Same with Ring of Fire, you can’t just walk into an island thats far away from everything else.
lake doric can only walk in on the character thats done it. you cant just walk an alt in. so 1 of 4 are travelable….. its really annoying when you want to poke around with a mesmer or something
You don’t have to do the story on more than one character in order to access any one of the new zones. You can buy a port scroll for each zone for 1000UM and 50silver each. Trade it around via bank or drop it into an open shared account slot and you can use any character you like to look around the zone.
edit for clarification: There is one port scroll per zone, and they are specific to each zone.
Where are my gem sales? I want gem sales! Nerf EVERYTHING!
- Bloodstone Fen: cannot walk in
- Ember Bay: cannot walk in (interestingly: that was the same for GW1; you had to do a story mission to get into the Ring of Fire, too).
- Bitterfrost: you can walk in, as soon as at least one toon completes the first chapter of the third episode (subsequent characters need only talk to the NPC outside the portal)
- Lake Doric: you can walk in, as soon as your toon has completed the first chapter of the fourth episode (unlike Bitterfrost, portal is soulbound rather than account bound).
lake doric can only walk in on the character thats done it. you cant just walk an alt in. so 1 of 4 are travelable….. its really annoying when you want to poke around with a mesmer or something
Yes, just as you quoted:
- Lake Doric: you can walk in, as soon as your toon has completed the first chapter of the fourth episode (unlike Bitterfrost, portal is soulbound rather than account bound).
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
As been said by others it for HoT players, which IMO is a good thing because you need all the incentive you can get for thos F2P players. I don’t have a problem with it because you got to pay the bills somehow. Sure it separates the player base but that’s the general business model for a MMO. Players excluded because they didn’t buy the xpac will always find something to kitten about because of the “unfairness” for not getting something for nothing. They did offer HoT for 50% off before LS3ep4 released too. Bottom line: you got to make money somehow, to keep the wheels of progress turning, so you need a “carrot”.
Also, it makes sense, story wise. The whole reason you are entering the area is for progressing story step. The area has been there just not accessible, so having a story step explaining why you can suddenly enter the area just makes sense.
It’s not like ANET didn’t take the alt thing into account. Portal scrolls are relatively cheap and permanent. They could have easily made it a one time thing.