Guild Wars 2

Will there be story content unavailable as the living world progresses on the 20th of September and I haven’t started yet? I want to take my time with the story and follow what is going on, so it really bothers me that season 2 is locked behind gems. But it would be worse players are forced to hurry up due to a coming update.

I haven’t had a chance to finish the Maguuma story yet, and after me and my gf will start with living world season 3. I am wondering if there will be issues starting if we don’t hurry.

Zero.6592:

Will there be story content unavailable as the living world progresses on the 20th of September and I haven’t started yet? I want to take my time with the story and follow what is going on, so it really bothers me that season 2 is locked behind gems. But it would be worse players are forced to hurry up due to a coming update.

I haven’t had a chance to finish the Maguuma story yet, and after me and my gf will start with living world season 3. I am wondering if there will be issues starting if we don’t hurry.

If you logged on between now and next Tuesday, it will be available to you forever. You will need HoT to access it though if you don’t already have it.

The content is not going anywhere. You just need to have logged on before the 20th to have the first part of S3 unlocked. There will be less players in the area than now, but that does not interfere with the story.

People who do not log on before the next episode comes out will lose the opportunity of getting this one for free, that’s all.

Okay great, thanks!

There’s an important note, though:
The journal, which is called the Living Story, is unlocked for free when you log, but only if it’s the most recent chapter. If it’s not, then it becomes gem store property. Just by logging in during that period you unlock the chapter in your Living Story Journal.

the Living World is something else, though, the Living World includes Current Events, Wintersday, Festival of the Mad King, and various similar events. Some of these have remained permanently, some last 2-4 weeks, this is important to look up before deciding ‘oh, i’ll do that later’

Actually what it looks like you are asking is do you need living world 2 to continue Living World 3. The answer is no they make it so its assumed that you have already done it. They will do that with all LW seasons. So even though u may skip over stuff or not there are no worries.

Now I would suggest if you have not done the first episode of LW3 then yes you may need that done before the second episode comes. Ya get to buy gliding attack skills also you will want your gliding maxed out so may wanna work on that part too especially for the second episode it seems. But the first episode it will help too.

Hope that helps ya some.

Amaimon.7823:

There’s an important note, though:
The journal, which is called the Living Story, is unlocked for free when you log, but only if it’s the most recent chapter. If it’s not, then it becomes gem store property. Just by logging in during that period you unlock the chapter in your Living Story Journal.

the Living World is something else, though, the Living World includes Current Events, Wintersday, Festival of the Mad King, and various similar events. Some of these have remained permanently, some last 2-4 weeks, this is important to look up before deciding ‘oh, i’ll do that later’

Thanks for your contribution, that does indeed sound like an important note! But I am a little bit confused. Are you simply saying that by logging in, the active season will be unlocked for me? For example, anyone who has logged in between July 2014- Jan 2015 should have season 2 unlocked completely?

I am not certain that would be true, because I started playing in 2014 (Lion’s Arch had just turned into a ruin). I don’t remember when exactly I had breaks, but for me only the first and last chapter of season 2 are unlocked. So maybe that is why you refer to “the most recent chapter”? My girlfriend started playing recently, and she said that for her season two was locked entirely.

In that case, the season doesn’t get unlocked at all because there are plenty of chapters between the first and the last. So this would be bad, and Garambola’s comment would seem inaccurate. Also, it would still mean that I must hurry with the story.

You also mention that Living World is different from Living Story. That makes sense. So Living Story is not changing now, but Living World is? So that is why for now I have nothing to worry about?

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Actually what it looks like you are asking is do you need living world 2 to continue Living World 3. The answer is no they make it so its assumed that you have already done it. They will do that with all LW seasons. So even though u may skip over stuff or not there are no worries.

Now I would suggest if you have not done the first episode of LW3 then yes you may need that done before the second episode comes. Ya get to buy gliding attack skills also you will want your gliding maxed out so may wanna work on that part too especially for the second episode it seems. But the first episode it will help too.

Hope that helps ya some.

Also thanks to you for your contribution. To clear things up, what you suggest was not my question. I simply want to know if I have to hurry with what is available on the season 3 story so far.

In your post I assume that LW3 is actually NOT different from the living story, as otherwise I’d be even more confused. So you say I need to be underway with Living Story season 3, otherwise the content will still be locked in a few days?

Zero.6592:

Amaimon.7823:

There’s an important note, though:
The journal, which is called the Living Story, is unlocked for free when you log, but only if it’s the most recent chapter. If it’s not, then it becomes gem store property. Just by logging in during that period you unlock the chapter in your Living Story Journal.

the Living World is something else, though, the Living World includes Current Events, Wintersday, Festival of the Mad King, and various similar events. Some of these have remained permanently, some last 2-4 weeks, this is important to look up before deciding ‘oh, i’ll do that later’

Thanks for your contribution, that does indeed sound like an important note! But I am a little bit confused. Are you simply saying that by logging in, the active season will be unlocked for me? For example, anyone who has logged in between July 2014- Jan 2015 should have season 2 unlocked completely?

I am not certain that would be true, because I started playing in 2014 (Lion’s Arch had just turned into a ruin). I don’t remember when exactly I had breaks, but for me only the first and last chapter of season 2 are unlocked. So maybe that is why you refer to “the most recent chapter”? My girlfriend started playing recently, and she said that for her season two was locked entirely.

You have to login during each “Chapter” of the Living Story Season. So during LS2, you would have had to login during each Chapter of that Season to unlock it.

We are currently in Chapter 1 of LS3 so if you have logged in, you have unlocked it. If you haven’t logged in and don’t login until after Chapter 2 is released, you will have missed unlocking Chapter 1.

Once the Chapter is unlocked, it will remain available for you to complete. You don’t have to hurry to complete it.

It’s a little confusing because ANet doesn’t use consistent terminology.

• Living World Seasons are (currently) divided into episodes. You unlock each episode by logging in and launching any character while the episode is ‘new’.
• Free unlocks expire when the next episode launches. So “Out of the Shadows” is unlocked by anyone logging on until Tuesday’s update and “Rising Flames” will be unlocked by those starting any character after that (until the 3rd episode).
• You do not need to own the HoT expansion to get the free unlocks. However, you cannot play LS3 unless you own HoT.
• If you haven’t unlocked an episode, you can purchase it for 200 gems.

LS2 worked the same way: if you logged on while each episode was active, you unlocked each episode — one at a time. There were 8 episodes, which means you needed to startup/launch a character a minimum of 8 times over the course of roughly 8 months.

Your confusion may be because LS2 episodic content was basically coming every ~2 weeks, so you needed to be logging on fairly consistently – it sounds like you missed the first period of 2 weeks, and maybe stopped before the last episode so missed that one as well.

(Edited to use the correct terminology, see Gaile’s post below.)

To summarise: The only story content which is currently inaccessible is Season 1, which has been unavailable to everyone since it finished.

All the other storylines are permanent additions to the game, once you’ve unlocked them you’ve got them forever, even characters created years later will be able to play through them, and everyone can unlock them but the methods vary.

Here’s a quick summary of the different types:

Personal Story
Part of the Core game and therefore available to everyone (even free accounts) but can only be played once per character.

Heart of Thorns
Available to everyone who purchased the expansion (works the same whether you upgraded your account or created it with a HoT key). The instances are repeatable but some parts in-between are not instanced and can only be played once per character.

Living Story Season 2 and 3
This is where it gets complicated. Each listing in the Story Journal is an episode (e.g. Gates of Maguuma is episode 1, Entanglement is episode 2 and so on) and each episode has a 2 week or 1 month release ‘window’ (the time between it’s release and the next episode being released). During this time if you log in you will unlock that episode for free.

(This also applies to everyone – even free accounts will unlock the episode, but they can’t play it until they buy Heart of Thorns.)

If you don’t log in during that time you can get access by purchasing episodes in the gem store or through the story journal. Each Season 2 episode costs 200 gems (I assume Season 3 will be the same) and there is also a bundle available which unlocks all the episodes you’re missing. The price of this is based on how many you’re missing.

Character Access
As noted above once an episode or storyline is unlocked it’s available to every character on your account, but they are level locked. The Personal Story unlocks 1 episode at a time, one every 10 levels. All the other storylines are for level 80 characters only.

Once you’re level 80 however you can play the storylines in any order and switch between them at any time using the story journal.

For reference chronological order is: Personal Story, Season 1 (replaced with the Scarlet’s War cinematic), Season 2, Heart of Thorns, Season 3.

A couple of things that may be confusing:

The terms Chapter and Episode are interchangeable. Same for Living World and Living Story (for many). Since Living World/Story Season Two, these Chapters/Episodes are unlocked free of charge while current, and purchasable in the Gem Store once no longer live for Gems (acquired either with cash or in-game Gold). Bundles are discounted and offer any Episodes/Chapters a player may need to unlock.

During Living World/Story Season Two Episodes/Chapters were live (usually) for approximately 2 to 4 weeks. During Living World/Story Season Three Episodes/Chapters have been/will be live for approximately 2 to 3 months (as stated previously by the Devs).

As stated above in this thread, once a Chapter/Episode is unlocked for your account, you can play it at any time, in any order, as many times as you desire.

Additional ancillary content (such as Current Events) may, or may not, be available permanently, so one might consider taking part in this content some time near its release. This content is, of course, optional.

Good luck.

I think Episodes are the Living World releases, and Chapters are the different ‘story instances’ within.

Such as Living World Season Three – Episode One – Chapter Two is ‘Research in Rata Novus’.

Maybe that makes it a bit clearer. =)

(But, on the forums [and elsewhere] players/commenters may use some terms interchangeably.)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Two things:

• We are trying to use consistency in our nomenclature, and are using the word “episode” rather than “chapter” when referring to Living World seasons. While it may be “chapter” in the Personal Story (I’m actually not sure about that), it’s definitely “episode” in the Living World seasons.

• It is recommended that you get Ley Line Gliding in addition to standard Gliding. Although I believe the latter would not be absolutely required to complete the episode, it’s a very useful (and fun!!) thing to have when playing Episode 1: Out of the Shadows content.

Oops, that’s me getting it wrong. I put it down to being an avid reader who doesn’t watch much TV.

Djinn.9245:

You have to login during each “Chapter” of the Living Story Season. So during LS2, you would have had to login during each Chapter of that Season to unlock it.

We are currently in Chapter 1 of LS3 so if you have logged in, you have unlocked it. If you haven’t logged in and don’t login until after Chapter 2 is released, you will have missed unlocking Chapter 1.

Once the Chapter is unlocked, it will remain available for you to complete. You don’t have to hurry to complete it.

Perfect, all is clear now!

Gaile Gray.6029:

Two things:

• It is recommended that you get Ley Line Gliding in addition to standard Gliding. Although I believe the latter would not be absolutely required to complete the episode, it’s a very useful (and fun!!) thing to have when playing Episode 1: Out of the Shadows content.

Hope you all realize that getting 31 mastery points is a bit of a grind, especially when you didn’t need it in HoT to complete most of the activities there, to start designing LW episodes around them. That’s a pretty high bar to climb to make map travel not a thing to dread.

From what is seen in the video, it looks like the newest Mastery would give the players something like Nuhoch Wallows travel, except one is on fire! =)

Perhaps, with this, Leyline Gliding won’t be as obligatory. I guess we will find out soon. =)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Two things:

• We are trying to use consistency in our nomenclature, and are using the word “episode” rather than “chapter” when referring to Living World seasons. While it may be “chapter” in the Personal Story (I’m actually not sure about that), it’s definitely “episode” in the Living World seasons.

• It is recommended that you get Ley Line Gliding in addition to standard Gliding. Although I believe the latter would not be absolutely required to complete the episode, it’s a very useful (and fun!!) thing to have when playing Episode 1: Out of the Shadows content.

I don’t have the Mastery Points to get Ley Line Gliding and probably never will since I detest Adventures. I seem to be doing fine without it and some people have mentioned that it can be irritating to be flying around and suddenly be “captured” by a Ley Line and shot off somewhere.

Djinn.9245:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Two things:

• We are trying to use consistency in our nomenclature, and are using the word “episode” rather than “chapter” when referring to Living World seasons. While it may be “chapter” in the Personal Story (I’m actually not sure about that), it’s definitely “episode” in the Living World seasons.

• It is recommended that you get Ley Line Gliding in addition to standard Gliding. Although I believe the latter would not be absolutely required to complete the episode, it’s a very useful (and fun!!) thing to have when playing Episode 1: Out of the Shadows content.

I don’t have the Mastery Points to get Ley Line Gliding and probably never will since I detest Adventures. I seem to be doing fine without it and some people have mentioned that it can be irritating to be flying around and suddenly be “captured” by a Ley Line and shot off somewhere.

If the new chapter is anything like the last, living story may get you there eventually – the last chapter added 6 mastery points, most of which were relatively easy to get, but only added 1 point’s worth of new mastery.

I was able to do the latest episode, and complete the map and get the mastery points on the map without leyline gliding. There was one mastery point (the one in the cave) where I thought I needed leyline gliding but it turned out I was just going the wrong direction when trying to get there.

I assume the new map will be similar – it might be faster to get around using leyline gliding or easier to get to some places but you won’t actually need it to be able to complete the map.

Also as someone else said the new living story chapters are helping with completing masteries, both by giving more points and by giving us more stuff to do to train them up so we’re not having to play the same maps over and over.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Yes, as I said, Ley Line Gliding is a optional mastery that adds, in my opinion, fun to the episode but is not required.

Danikat.8537

:Also as someone else said the new living story chapters are helping with completing masteries, both by giving more points and by giving us more stuff to do to train them up so we’re not having to play the same maps over and over.

Yep! Thanks for pointing that out.

I believe you meant to say the former wouldn’t have been required, not the latter, which was standard gliding.

In the past, the ‘free’ period ended at reset (00:00 day of patch), rather than at patch time. Something one might want to take into consideration, in case it still applies.

This would mean there is (would be) only about 6 hours left to unlock Episode 1 at no cost.

Good luck.

Oh wow yeah, it’s tomorrow. For some reason I thought it was coming out next week.

I want to make sure I understand this because I get confused :P

I have done Bloodstone Fen but hubby hasnt. Im good to move on with the new patch tomorrow but as long as hubby logs in … he will have episode 1 forever unlocked??? He doesn’t play much and I dont want him to miss out and have to pay for it using gems. Log in only? or log in and start episode 1?

Here’s what he needs to do:

1) Log into his account.
2) Log into a character.
3) Click on the green star that appears in the bottom right corner.

Step 3 may not actually be necessary but I’m not sure and it doesn’t take much more time after steps 1 and 2.

Once he’s done that Episode 1 will be unlocked on his account permanent, for free, and he’ll be able to play it whenever he wants on any character.

Is it account wide or per character? Do I have to start episode 1 on all 10 of my toons before tomorrow?

Felahr.9830:

Is it account wide or per character? Do I have to start episode 1 on all 10 of my toons before tomorrow?

It’s account wide, you only need to log in on a single character.

It’s an account unlock, and you don’t need to start the Episode, as in open the instance. Just log into one character (and to be extra safe, click green star, if desired).

Also, to be safe, make sure to do so within the next hour and a half.

Good luck.