Guild Wars 2

So currently you only need to log in during a certain period of time to unlock a Living World episode but im wondering how it will work in HoTs. Will people who haven’t bought the expansion still be able to unlock the episodes but not play them or will you have to have the expansion?

Very likely that you’ll need the expansion to unlock, unless they later make some LS that doesn’t happen in the HoT maps, but initially I’m pretty sure you’ll need it.

Belzebu, Bludragon is not asking about what it takes to play the new living story, just what it takes to unlock it. Maybe you knew that but just in case..

We don’t really know anything about living story post-HoT yet so there is no answer either way.

The next living story, let’s say season 3, will basically be the personal story of HoT. You’ll have to buy it if you want to play season 3. Season 4, the season you would have to login to unlock, probably won’t start for 6-12 months after HoT’s release.

If you don’t own HoT, you’ll probably still be able to unlock season 4 regardless. The catch would be that you wouldn’t be able to play the episodes that lead to the locked areas within HoT. ArenaNet’s fairly nice, so assuming they stick with the login or pay approach, I doubt they’d force you to pay just because you skipped HoT.

Diovid.9506:

Belzebu, Bludragon is not asking about what it takes to play the new living story, just what it takes to unlock it. Maybe you knew that but just in case..

We don’t really know anything about living story post-HoT yet so there is no answer either way.

I never thought about it separated … yeah it may be also likely that you’ll may unlock it but not be able to play it.
Pay attention to the constant use of “likely”, because no one have that info and any answer here is just speculation.

To me I kinda hope that they will make it available to everyone, but wether or not you can play it depends if you have access to the area where it plays.

As an example I use GW1. In that game you have some kind of dailies: e.g. daily bounty (you also got daily missions and stuff like that, but for explaining I’ll stick to the bounty.
To get it you need to talk to a flag in a place everyone can reach. It offers a quest to kill an bosslike npc somewhere in the world. If it is in a place you don’t have access to, you can close the quest again, cause you can’t do it.

To me the living world season 3, would be like this. Some chapters should be in the jungle, and some elsewhere. depending on the story and a good balance. If it is in the jungle and you dont have the expansion…you can’t do it and have to skip that one. If it is in e.g. lion’s arch, then you can do it like anyone else.

This way it functions as a very good promotion for the expansion. If people like the parts they can do, they have more incentive to buy the expansion to do the rest as well.

Given that the dlc is the ls 3, we should now pay upfront any ls release.