Guild Wars 2

Hi, I am just wondering if there is a way to get just the Heart of Thorns expansion without it being bundled with the core game than I have already purchased. I really wanna check it out, but don’t wanna pay $50 for an expansion that includes content I have already purchased. This is why I didn’t pre-order the expansion, but I was just curious as if they made a way to buy just the expansion alone.

I assume there isn’t as of today which just deters me from getting back into GW2.

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

Hi, I am just wondering if there is a way to get just the Heart of Thorns expansion without it being bundled with the core game than I have already purchased. I really wanna check it out, but don’t wanna pay $50 for an expansion that includes content I have already purchased. This is why I didn’t pre-order the expansion, but I was just curious as if they made a way to buy just the expansion alone.

Here, have 147 pages explaining that it’s not a bundle, it’s a way for new players not to have to buy two games to play.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/HoT-Price-Feedback-Base-game-included-merged/first

Gotcha. I figured you couldn’t. I just wanted to play the expansion, but $50 is a little too pricey for me for an expansion. I know they have sales all the time, maybe I will see if they have the expansion on sale for like $25-30 or something and snatch it up then.

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

Gotcha. I figured you couldn’t. I just wanted to play the expansion, but $50 is a little too pricey for me for an expansion. I know they have sales all the time, maybe I will see if they have the expansion on sale for like $25-30 or something and snatch it up then.

I’d hold out until it’s $9.99 and comes with a $20 Amazon gift certificate…..

You could look on Amazon. I see some “used” sellers, and at least one claims it is in a sealed package.
http://smile.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000WJQXQE/ref=sr_1_2_twi_gam_1_olp?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1453000523&sr=1-2&keywords=heart+of+thorns

But the one that says “no keycode!” is to laugh at.

$50 isn’t really that much for a game without a sub. If the game charged $30 and $15 a month would it be worth it then?

MMOs tend to come in four types. Subscription games, non-sub games that often an “optional” subscription, which you end up needing, and freemium games which require you to buy stuff in the cash shop to stay competitive (or buy content and professisons) and buy to play games where you buy the game and expansions but you don’t have to pay between them if you don’t have the money.

$50 isn’t really that much in the over all scheme of things for an MMO expansion when you look at all MMO expansions.

Wait for a 10$ sale, expansion is too expensive and doesen’t offer much except some good elite specs, everything else is in gem store.

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

Hi, I am just wondering if there is a way to get just the Heart of Thorns expansion without it being bundled with the core game than I have already purchased. I really wanna check it out, but don’t wanna pay $50 for an expansion that includes content I have already purchased. This is why I didn’t pre-order the expansion, but I was just curious as if they made a way to buy just the expansion alone.

what your saying is that you want to play the latest expansion for free (the one the devs just spent x millions on and are building a return on it) no game is going to survive do that.

I would do what you do with any other game, research using videos and unbiased reviews, or wait for discount offers.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

Hi, I am just wondering if there is a way to get just the Heart of Thorns expansion without it being bundled with the core game than I have already purchased. I really wanna check it out, but don’t wanna pay $50 for an expansion that includes content I have already purchased. This is why I didn’t pre-order the expansion, but I was just curious as if they made a way to buy just the expansion alone.

what your saying is that you want to play the latest expansion for free (the one the devs just spent x millions on and are building a return on it) no game is going to survive do that.

I would do what you do with any other game, research using videos and unbiased reviews, or wait for discount offers.

Heh.. Millions he says… With the amount of added content, I’d be surprised if they broke 500 thousand

Dog Poop. Wander around and then join the assault, get massive numbers of chests. Easy gold. True you have to wait for the big fight but it is every couple of hours.

I’ll have to agree with Blunticus.
I bought HoT, i bought the MOST EXPENSIVE package that was offered, i then bought that AGAIN for my brother, expecting Arena Net to walk the walk after they talked the talk.
Sadly talk is cheap, but the expansion wasn’t.
Everything that was promised was delivered in the most mediocre way possible:
- Legendary and precursor crafting are 1/3 fun, 2/3s resource sinks.
- Guild halls, pretty much the same, which is worse when you think that they revamped most guild systems to be behind the guild hall, including that you’re required to create a building that’s locked behind 3 other buildings simply to be able to capture a camp in WvW.
- Scribing is a personal craft locked behind guild level material requirements*, so you can see how fun that is.
- PvP has 0 balance, leagues are farmable, and guild team leaderboards allow the same guild to have as many teams in it as they wish, which makes the current EU leaderboard have the same guild in 7/10 positions GG
- Fractals are less rewarding, but they also severly cut down on rewards from dungeons, thus forcing people to raid, which requires a big time allowance, and the ability to schedule said time allowance with 9 other people, not an easy task in a game that was so heavily leaned towards the casual up to now.
- The story was short, seemingly rushed, and missed out on so much they could have added to it (like having the map metas integrate with the story, i mean they do mention that the fight against the mouth is disrupting Mordremoth’s attention when we fight him in his mind, but i only did dragon stand meta weeks after finishing the story).
What Zaithan lacked in mechanics, Mordremoth lacks in feel of fighting a overpowering huge opponent. In fact the Dragon Stand meta feels way more like what should be slaying a elder dragon than the current fight.
- Most masteries are under-used, and still they force-gated the story behind some, instead of allowing us to try a harder path through the story without them. They mostly don’t feel useful (except gliding and mushrooms), their implementation and system feels forced (levelling them up and then spending points feels like we’re doing it twice).
- Ok, specializations were nicely implemented, i enjoyed most of them, but they failed miserably to balance them for pvp, and as such pvp is crap. After being at its peak before HoT it plummeted entirely due to the lack of proper balance, and i fear it will be another year or more (or never if they plan on adding more specializations soon) until we have such a good balance as we had pre-HoT.
-Adventures are nice, but still only happen in the jungle, another missed oportunity there.

All in all, the price tag didn’t meet the content we got, that’s for sure, it didn’t help that they ostracised old players big time, and that they failed to deliver on most promises, leaving the expansion as mediocre at best.
Don’t misunderstand me, GW2 is still the best MMO IMO out there, but they are sure making it hard for me to consider them as such for much longer.

Its a modern issue, some players don’t take responsibility for their own action and blame the game developers when they don’t like a game they bought. You do your research, you decide if you will like a game, you buy it or not. You don’t need to document every subjective dislike in a forum.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

Hi, I am just wondering if there is a way to get just the Heart of Thorns expansion without it being bundled with the core game than I have already purchased. I really wanna check it out, but don’t wanna pay $50 for an expansion that includes content I have already purchased. This is why I didn’t pre-order the expansion, but I was just curious as if they made a way to buy just the expansion alone.

what your saying is that you want to play the latest expansion for free (the one the devs just spent x millions on and are building a return on it) no game is going to survive do that.

I would do what you do with any other game, research using videos and unbiased reviews, or wait for discount offers.

Not at all what I was saying. I was saying I want to buy the expansion, not the expansion + core game. If the expansion was $20-30 I would pick it up. But from all the things I have read it isn’t worth the $50 price tag. I will just wait till they put it on sale or drop the price, till then I shall play the core game or another game.

You’re not buying the expansion plus core game. I gave you a thread that explored that debate in detail. If the core game weren’t included HoT would still be fifty bucks. You may not think it’s worth that, and that is your call to make and your wallet to open or keep shut.

But the core game is just an extra that new purchasers don’t have to pay for on top of the expansion. They even had a grace period of several months for people who bought the core game after the HoT announcement to get a full refund without losing account progress (people rightly thought they would need to purchase the core game before they could play the expansion, that being industry practice, and when ANet announced it would be bundled in there was quite a bit of outrage. Which was then quelled by the refund).

Also if you wait until the next expansion and buy that expansion, core and HoT will be included in the price.

It’s already available in the UK at a significant discount so just keep an eye on the price wherever you are and buy it when the price makes you smile.

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

Hi, I am just wondering if there is a way to get just the Heart of Thorns expansion without it being bundled with the core game than I have already purchased. I really wanna check it out, but don’t wanna pay $50 for an expansion that includes content I have already purchased. This is why I didn’t pre-order the expansion, but I was just curious as if they made a way to buy just the expansion alone.

what your saying is that you want to play the latest expansion for free (the one the devs just spent x millions on and are building a return on it) no game is going to survive do that.

I would do what you do with any other game, research using videos and unbiased reviews, or wait for discount offers.

Not at all what I was saying. I was saying I want to buy the expansion, not the expansion + core game. If the expansion was $20-30 I would pick it up. But from all the things I have read it isn’t worth the $50 price tag. I will just wait till they put it on sale or drop the price, till then I shall play the core game or another game.

Ah i see. As other have mentioned, your not paying for Core when you pay for HOT. the going rate for an AAA expansion is $40-50, so for example WOD " $50, or even Rift Storm legion years ago at $40. Existing players like myself are buying an expansion at the normal expansion price, and newcomers are getting core for free as it makes little sense (and technically hugely expensive) to have them restricted to the 4 new zones. Same would apply to any other game, e.g a player buying WOD and being restricted to those zones makes little sense either.

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

Hi, I am just wondering if there is a way to get just the Heart of Thorns expansion without it being bundled with the core game than I have already purchased. I really wanna check it out, but don’t wanna pay $50 for an expansion that includes content I have already purchased. This is why I didn’t pre-order the expansion, but I was just curious as if they made a way to buy just the expansion alone.

what your saying is that you want to play the latest expansion for free (the one the devs just spent x millions on and are building a return on it) no game is going to survive do that.

I would do what you do with any other game, research using videos and unbiased reviews, or wait for discount offers.

Not at all what I was saying. I was saying I want to buy the expansion, not the expansion + core game. If the expansion was $20-30 I would pick it up. But from all the things I have read it isn’t worth the $50 price tag. I will just wait till they put it on sale or drop the price, till then I shall play the core game or another game.

You are forgetting one thing. You’re not just paying for an expansion. In this game an expansion is sort of like a season pass, so it’s not just what’s in the box, it’s what comes in the box and what comes later.

Right now, it’s okay to wait, because you’ll still get what comes later, but if you wait too long, lets day past the end of the start of Season 3 of the Living Story, there’s a chance you’ll miss out on free content that you’d later have to pay for as DLC. That’s assuming Season 3 is handled the same as Season 2.

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