Guild Wars 2

Seeking knowledge and understanding. This is not a complaint. I like the game. And plan to continue playing it one way or another. I’m posting it here because it concerns GW2 Heart of Thorns

Bought Guild Wars 2 about two years ago. I’m a casual player. Stopped playing about 6 months ago. Recently started playing it again. Cannot explain why I stopped. I just bought GW2: Heart of Thorns. I feel rather stupid because I’m not sure what I bought. I’m not anything like finished playing GW2. My levels are only in the 30’s. I don’t want to stop playing GW2. Will I now be forced to play GW2HoT instead of GW2? Is the GW2 world now gone? :-o Will it run with or on top of the GW2 software app. I’ve been reading, & watching some videos. But sorry, still don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not sure about the difference between version, expansion, edition, etc.

This is obviously such an ignorant newbie post. What are these three games: GW, GW2, GW2:HoT? I don’t think they are different versions, at least not in the same way. They are not editions of GW. For example GW has the editions: Factions / Nightfall / Eye of North / Platinum / Trilogy. What’s an edition? An edition gives more stuff, more things, more ?. They also have add-ons & upgrades. GW2:HoT is an “expansion.” So what’s an expansion? Maybe it’s like an “edition,” only bigger?

I think updates, add-ons, & upgrades are new stuff to use in the same game. Editions are like that. Editions are software added into (or run on top of) the game app software you have already installed, except each edition must be paid for seperately. After being installed, does that installed edition run whenever the original game such as GW is started/opened??

GW & GW2 are different & separate software? Each plays online separately with a totally different set of other players? So each runs separately? I never played GW. Trying to decide whether to buy it to see the differences? Maybe I would enjoy playing GW too. It appears GW is being maintained & updated still with active players. And this too seems to be saying it is unique enough and good enough to be worth a look. I am interested in doing that. But I am feeling overwhelmed and a bit piggy—trying to cram everything GW into my little brain. :-) Also having trouble finding the time just to do the research to understand these things. Would rather be playing; but gathering this info on it is in a sense part of playing the game.

It’s likely this is all explained in some other post or web page. I have spent more than several hours searching this forum, the wiki’s, and the internet in general. Including Game Release Notes sub-forum. Learned a few things. Thanks for any info regarding GW +, GW2, & GW2HoT.

An Expansion is an add-on to the base game. It’s a pretty normal practice in video games to package additional content and major feature upgrades as expansions.

GW1’s Factions and Nightfall campaigns were a little different as they could be purchased as stand alone products. However, Heart of Thorns is an Expansion, like Eye of the North.

It does not represent a complete leveling experience or grant new leveling content like the “newbie island” areas in factions or nightfall. It simply adds on to the base game.

The way Anet is packaging expansions now is the same, only that every time they release a new expansion the older ones become free, just like the base game has become free now that HoT is coming out.

Just to explain about GW1:

GW has three separate, standalone campaigns: Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall. Those aren’t considered editions of the same game because they’re technically three different “games”, all produced using the same stuff and by the same people. EOTN is the only full expansion for Guild Wars, and it can be added to any of the three standalone campaigns. There’s also the Bonus Mission Pack, which is kind of a mini-expansion.

There are various Editions of the campaigns you can buy, including a Trilogy, Platinum Edition (which has Prophecies and EOTN), PVP Editions, Standard Editions, Deluxe Editions, etc. Editions are just the base campaign with extras added (weapons, summoning stones, another campaign, etc.).

EOTN was an expansion in that it connects to the three separate campaigns, adding new heroes, maps, dungeons, quests, skills, etc. HOT will be an expansion to GW2 in the same way; adding new maps, skills, traits, and continuing the story started in the base game.

You won’t really get to do much HoT content until you reach 80 anyway – so you can work up to it in your own time enjoying GW2 Core.

HoT adds on to the “end” of GW2 Core.

Thank you. All the information on GW2HoT & GW1 is very helpful.

You’ll load Guild Wars 2 and play it like you always have. The only that that changes for you, are changes in the core game. For example, they’ll be extra rewards for doing events you’ve already been doing.

When you get to 80, however, a boatloat of new stuff will be open to you.

tldr; you have nothing to worry about.

Feeling like I wasted my money. Wish I read your post about loading and playing as usual. I thought I had to reinstall GW2 with the new expansion. At first I was going to say it will not come up. On the Apple It shows up in the dock but does not come up at all. On the PC it says “Connection error(s) detected. Retrying…” But I found out it comes up but it takes about 4 or 5 minutes for the LOG IN screen to come up. This did not happen before I installed what I thought was the new GW2 onto the old GW2. The internet speed is okay. And the files from Arenanet will not all download.

Should I delete and install again? And wait again for all the files to download again? There should be directions on what to do with expensive “Expansions” to install it. Probably just missed seeing them.

Treemoon.6538:

Feeling like I wasted my money. Wish I read your post about loading and playing as usual. I thought I had to reinstall GW2 with the new expansion. At first I was going to say it will not come up. On the Apple It shows up in the dock but does not come up at all. On the PC it says “Connection error(s) detected. Retrying…” But I found out it comes up but it takes about 4 or 5 minutes for the LOG IN screen to come up. This did not happen before I installed what I thought was the new GW2 onto the old GW2. The internet speed is okay. And the files from Arenanet will not all download.

Should I delete and install again? And wait again for all the files to download again? There should be directions on what to do with expensive “Expansions” to install it. Probably just missed seeing them.

The expansion is not up. It’s in a month. Right now, it,s only a balance path for everybody. F2P, Core Account, and people that prepurchased HoT.

I didn’t downloaded the path yet, but like any patch there might be some problem. I heard about some people have the same problem right now. Leave you game, don’t delete anything. Just let Anet resolve the issue. It happen sometime when a lot of people are trying to download a patch all at the same time. It should be resolved in a couple of hours max.

LOG IN screen comes up okay now. You were correct Thaddeus. Thank you.
Side note: At the same time logging into Arenanet was slow, this forum also seemed to be slow.

Looks like nothing got messed up by reinstalling onto previous installation. Just wasted some time. Glad that there is no need to delete & reinstall again. So the serial code for the expansion has been entered. Now no need to do anything else regarding expansion. Except morn the loss of my dear sweet money. :-)

This will probably happen to a greater degree on launch day. Advice is either not to worry about it and just let the patch happen slowly or wait til non-peak hours and patch then.

If you are concerned about instructions on how the expac will join your game, don’t be. You just hit patch and let it sort itself out.