Guild Wars 2

Long story short I want to buy GW2 for my friend but can only buy HoT now.
If I buy the standard edition can they play the core edition now and it will update when the expansion is released or will they have to wait to release to use the whole thing?

You can buy it as a gift from here. Once bought, you will get a serial code sent to the email you provided when buying. Go to the the registration site. Follow the on-screen instructions to make an account and input the serial code at the end of the registration.

EDIT: Answering your question too, yes he/she can play the core game now and HoT will be applied to his/her account when released.

You should be getting acces to the core game immediatly. You can play core GW2 for now and HoT when it releases. I ’m not sure if you can send it as a gift though.

Thanks guys, I’ll do that.

Do not purchase HoT and register it yourself. You will not be able to gift it if you do so.

You can purchase HoT, and send the Serial Key to your friend to register. Once your friend has registered the account, they will be able to access the core game immediately, and will be able to access HoT once it is released.

Good luck.