Guild Wars 2

I know that I should have been there in time, I know that it’s better than Season 1 which I will never be able to see, but I came back into Episode 7.

I had to spoil myself and immediately go into episode 7, because I don’t have 1200 gems to pay up right now. Now that I pretty much figured out the story, I won’t exactly be buying the other 6 episodes. Though it did leave a bad taste in my mouth that the characters treated me as if I know what’s happening.

Skins, achievements, tonics, put those under a pay wall, but when it comes to the story I would have rather had a chance to play it all from the begging.

They give you 2 weeks to log in just once…

Name.9128:

They give you 2 weeks to log in just once…

what if you’re in the army for example? Not everyone will be playing even weekly for years.

200 * 7 = 1400 gems, or $17.50. I’m not sure I’d consider it an outstanding value if you have to buy all of the episodes, but $2.50 here or there to catch up a couple missed releases isn’t terrible, considering how much some people will pay for snacks, coffee, fast food, etc. on a whim.

As for figuring out the story and being unhappy that the characters treat you like you know what happened in previous episodes, when you skipped to episode 7, I’m not sure what else you were expecting.

Although you haven’t played through it, it is assumed that your character already has. You’re basically reliving past events if you don’t play an episode within its original release and since the world also changes, you’re also not getting the original experience. The storyline in GW2 plays out in pseudo real time.

If you don’t want to pay for it, you can join another player’s instance, though you won’t get any rewards out of it.

Redenaz.8631:

200 * 7 = 1400 gems, or $17.50. I’m not sure I’d consider it an outstanding value if you have to buy all of the episodes, but $2.50 here or there to catch up a couple missed releases isn’t terrible, considering how much some people will pay for snacks, coffee, fast food, etc. on a whim.

As for figuring out the story and being unhappy that the characters treat you like you know what happened in previous episodes, when you skipped to episode 7, I’m not sure what else you were expecting.

the problem is, what am I supposed to do if not skip to Episode 7? Wait long enough to have to buy that one too?

Wouldn’t it make sense if every 2 weeks you could unlock one episode from the start of the season and play catch up rather than have to choose between paying money or starting in the middle?

I’m not saying skipping to Ep. 7 was a bad idea, if you want to jump into Ep. 8 when it comes out with a minimum investment of time/money. I’m just surprised you picked out “characters assume I know what’s happening” as a bad thing, because the alternative would be writing each episode to explain previous episodes. That would work for people who missed previous episodes, but would be aggravating for those who have to sit through “LAST TIME, ON GUILD WARS 2…” sequences every episode.

It would make sense to let you unlock them over time, as you suggest, at least from one perspective, but other perspectives make sense, too. By having a “log in now or pay later” model, Anet gets a new revenue stream that doubles as a steady player reward system. It seems like an agreeable trade-off to me.

(Of course, I have the luxury of logging in during LS releases, even if I don’t play them right away. I don’t think their fees are outrageous, however, especially if you’re unable to log in because your job keeps you busy, which means you do have some income. That income might not be disposable, but they’ve got to pay the bills somehow.)

Wow.. I wasn’t even aware of this because I haven’t been able to log into the game in quite some time due to current circumstances — I probably have like 2-3 episodes unlocked.. everything else I would have to use gems for…. just got a bad taste in my mouth. Oh well. It’s my fault I missed out I guess.

Now, I know better and will do my best to log in at least once per release during that 2 week time frame.

Remember you can exchange gold for gems. You don’t have to pay a cent of real world money.

Though, you aren’t missing too much.

Yeah, true, but don’t think it’s worth exchanging gold for gems… not that important.

Mirta.5029:

Name.9128:

They give you 2 weeks to log in just once…

what if you’re in the army for example? Not everyone will be playing even weekly for years.

and that is why this is the cost of not logging in once for those 2 weeks, because the majority of players can do that, and the few that happen to miss it regardless of the situation, will have to pay

(to anyone, not partcularily you)
200gems an episodes isnt even much, 10bucks gets you half of them,be happy it’s not worse

Andred.1087:

Remember you can exchange gold for gems. You don’t have to pay a cent of real world money.

Though, you aren’t missing too much.

idk, i highly enjoy playing the living stories, they seem to be the only real adventure in game outside of farmville drytop/silverwastes

Aetheldrake.6395:

Mirta.5029:

Name.9128:

They give you 2 weeks to log in just once…

what if you’re in the army for example? Not everyone will be playing even weekly for years.

and that is why this is the cost of not logging in once for those 2 weeks, because the majority of players can do that, and the few that happen to miss it regardless of the situation, will have to pay

(to anyone, not partcularily you)
200gems an episodes isnt even much, 10bucks gets you half of them,be happy it’s not worse

I was under the assumption (also by reading an early article about Season 2 content) is that you’ll be able to play ANY episode you missed during Season 2… and that GW article failed to say that if you didn’t log on during that time, you would have to pay 200 gems to access it. I don’t know if it was an early early article or what… but it was pretty misleading.

Options :

Log in ONCE during the release window.
Farm a teensy bit o’ gold. I believe it should be around 30Gold per episode, which is not much.
Live without it.

And as noted above, another option:

Play the episode with someone who -has- unlocked it. You will see the story, which seems to be your main beef with not having access.

I have a lot of free time (not today, got a party tonight) and a lot of 80’s, so if you’re on NA send me a mail in game and I’ll pick an alt to run through things with you some time between now and the Jan 13 patch. I’m typically available midafternoon eastern on any given day except Tuesdays, and evenings as well most days (not Tuesdays).

MIRTA if you dont whant to buy em think of em like s1 – if you mist em you cant replay em
But you can quick get thet money – on new zone SW you get (I think) 3 rears – ~1.5-2 g
then you have labrint event thet is 20 min long and you can get a lot more then 2g ther
and in 2-3 days you can get 1 ep and in month you will ahve all ep
Or make a friend thet ahve all ep and ask him to spedrun you tru all ep

Yep. If a friend does have the episode unlocked, they can open it and you can play through with them. I don’t think you get any of the rewards, but most of those aren’t too exciting anyway. And you do get to experience all the story and gameplay in the instances, which are the main things.

The one caveat to having a friend open it is that you won’t be able to control the dialogue pace or interact with items such as the books in Hidden Arcana — I think you can’t even see the text of the books there. So you need a friend willing to take your direction on when to open the next thing and which dialogue choices to make (such as they are, it is mostly linear).

Novuake.2691:

Options :

Log in ONCE during the release window.
Farm a teensy bit o’ gold. I believe it should be around 30Gold per episode, which is not much.
Live without it.

or youtube a playthrough

well episode 6 is nice for the BL key… if you deduct it from the price it’s considerably cheaper

Well tbh not cheaper, just the return seems bigger.

Hmmm? I Always skipped those stories because I assumed I could play them later when I have a lot of time (hollidays). Paying gems to play content sounds rediculous since I play most content to earn enough gold to GET gems lol! It’s not the story I’m interested in, its the rewards. Oh well, just wait until season 2 rewards are for sale at the laurel vendor I suppose…

Albadaran they are in game
you can get itmens for mawdrey at dry top oasis

Albadaran, if you logged into game any time a LS chapter was active, you don’t have to pay, it’s unlocked for your account’s alts forever, even alts you haven’t made yet. The only people who must pay are those who were absent from the game during the time that LS was active.

HykCraft.4610:

Aetheldrake.6395:

Mirta.5029:

Name.9128:

They give you 2 weeks to log in just once…

what if you’re in the army for example? Not everyone will be playing even weekly for years.

and that is why this is the cost of not logging in once for those 2 weeks, because the majority of players can do that, and the few that happen to miss it regardless of the situation, will have to pay

(to anyone, not partcularily you)
200gems an episodes isnt even much, 10bucks gets you half of them,be happy it’s not worse

I was under the assumption (also by reading an early article about Season 2 content) is that you’ll be able to play ANY episode you missed during Season 2… and that GW article failed to say that if you didn’t log on during that time, you would have to pay 200 gems to access it. I don’t know if it was an early early article or what… but it was pretty misleading.

Just going to leave this here.

To unlock an episode and have it added to your Story Journal, you simply need to log into a map with any of your characters during the two-week period that the release is live to be given permanent, free access to the storyline of that episode. Once you’ve unlocked it by simply logging in, you can replay that episode’s storyline on any character on your account as many times as you like from your story Journal forever. Past episodes will be available for purchase for 200 gems. (Don’t forget you can earn gold and purchase gems to unlock the episode for your account).

Source

Donari.5237:

Albadaran, if you logged into game any time a LS chapter was active, you don’t have to pay, it’s unlocked for your account’s alts forever, even alts you haven’t made yet. The only people who must pay are those who were absent from the game during the time that LS was active.

Ah, ok. Thanks for the info

Only if i really really like the Living Story parts, i would consider paying 200gems for a missed part.

But i am loosing interest already. So, missing a future part.
Having to pay 200gems for a LS part, for me, has the effect of completely loosing interest in LS.

It’s only gets expensive if you manage to miss a lot of episodes.

I was away from the game for more than six months during the last parts LS1 and the beginning parts of LS2, I had to buy two chapters because I hadn’t been logging in; I did this by buying gems with gold; it was relatively easy.

200 gems is not a lot…and you can make gold in the game fairly easy even prior to 80.

Yes it’s too much, specially considering most episodes last about 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Anet doesn’t know how to reward players coming back and is just discouraging them by asking them to farm for 50g or take out their wallet to play content that was promised to be free. It’s inconsistent with their free to play business model.

Xillllix.3485:

Yes it’s too much, specially considering most episodes last about 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Anet doesn’t know how to reward players coming back and is just discouraging them by asking them to farm for 50g or take out their wallet to play content that was promised to be free. It’s inconsistent with their free to play business model.

They have never ever in any way or form said that every single piece of content ever released in the game will be free of charge.

There is also the fact that you can trade gold for gems which makes it even less of an supposed issue.

Xillllix.3485:

Yes it’s too much, specially considering most episodes last about 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Anet doesn’t know how to reward players coming back and is just discouraging them by asking them to farm for 50g or take out their wallet to play content that was promised to be free. It’s inconsistent with their free to play business model.

First, GW2 is not F2P, it’s B2P. In other words you have to buy it to play it, it’s not free.
Second, every episode is available for free for 2 or more weeks.

Some people have vacations that last 2 weeks. In fact, it’s something of a standard to take 2 weeks off at least once a year during economic highs. Particularly when Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and New Years are all on weekdays.

You’re only about the 2,000th apologist to point out that it’s free for two weeks. It’s about as enlightened as a television network claiming “you can watch this show between the hours of 9pm and 10pm only and if you ‘timeshift’ it you owe us money and if you don’t pay you are a pirate”.

One could of course point out that people that have the ability to take 2 weeks vacations don’t really have that much trouble spending those few dollars to buy the gems needed either.

It’s a whole $2.50€ per episode. Are you seriously saying you can’t afford that much? I can see how funds might be a bit tight after your 2 week vacation but skip a soda or coffee for a day or two and you’ve got it. Heck, pack a lunch one day instead of eating out and that’s several episodes.

I haven’t read everyone’s replies here, but I agree with the topic. I have never liked the fact that you have to pay to unlock old episodes of the living world. I don’t think it’s a good move for the game in the long term. It might make some money in the short term, but I think it harms the game in the long term because fewer people will see the entire story if they have to pay to play past episodes than if they could play past episodes for free. People who don’t see the entire story won’t be as interested in future stories, and they will be less likely to keep playing the game long term, which could mean less money for ArenaNet in the long term. For example, I have several family members that play the game, but most of them took a break from playing the game for a couple months. They have missed most of season 2, and I’m pretty sure they are not going to want to pay for old episodes even if they aren’t super expensive. I think this will make the future stories less interesting to them, and it will make it harder for me to recommend that they come back to play the game when a good story episode comes out in the future. I wish that they were able to play through all of season 2 for free when they start playing again.

^ Well to be fair you can just have them join you and do the story that way. You can join the instances if someone that have them unlocked starts them after all.

Brave Mallyki.1563:

HykCraft.4610:

Aetheldrake.6395:

Mirta.5029:

Name.9128:

They give you 2 weeks to log in just once…

what if you’re in the army for example? Not everyone will be playing even weekly for years.

and that is why this is the cost of not logging in once for those 2 weeks, because the majority of players can do that, and the few that happen to miss it regardless of the situation, will have to pay

(to anyone, not partcularily you)
200gems an episodes isnt even much, 10bucks gets you half of them,be happy it’s not worse

I was under the assumption (also by reading an early article about Season 2 content) is that you’ll be able to play ANY episode you missed during Season 2… and that GW article failed to say that if you didn’t log on during that time, you would have to pay 200 gems to access it. I don’t know if it was an early early article or what… but it was pretty misleading.

Just going to leave this here.

To unlock an episode and have it added to your Story Journal, you simply need to log into a map with any of your characters during the two-week period that the release is live to be given permanent, free access to the storyline of that episode. Once you’ve unlocked it by simply logging in, you can replay that episode’s storyline on any character on your account as many times as you like from your story Journal forever. Past episodes will be available for purchase for 200 gems. (Don’t forget you can earn gold and purchase gems to unlock the episode for your account).

Source

yep, fiendishly misleading and obfuscating indeed. Probably needs CAPS and exclamation marks…

How does this work for new accounts? Now that my brother has a gaming PC, I’m trying to convince him to play.

Fraggle.1236:

How does this work for new accounts? Now that my brother has a gaming PC, I’m trying to convince him to play.

He either pays to access them. Or join you when you (or anyone else) do them (if you/them have it unlocked).

Fully agree, 200 gems is way too much. I prefer to watch someone else playing that crappy living story part on youtube. F2p game my kitten ….

Oulov.7913:

Fully agree, 200 gems is way too much. I prefer to watch someone else playing that crappy living story part on youtube. F2p game my kitten ….

Good thing no one forces you to pay then, aye? Seeing as you would rather watch someone else play, which you can without too much issue.

The game have never been F2P nor have they ever called it F2P.

$2.50 is nothing to a player who can afford a 2-week vacation/holiday. stop complaining.

All these people saying that 2.50 is nothing to a player who can afford a 2 week vacation in here make me laugh. I mean, does nobody work in a place that has holiday time you need to use? Heavens forbid that someone is scrounging to pay for a vacation for their family on top of paying their taxes and real world bills.

Seriously, we all need to stop acting snooty one of these days whenever topics like this come up.

The question here isn’t about it costing less, it’s about the worth of the LS episode. In that account, I agree that mostly all these story entries aren’t worth the cost of 200 gems – the value just isn’t there. I wasn’t particularly happy about paying 800 gems for a unbreakable pick – but it was worth ever one of those gems when I no longer had to constantly switch to mine things, replace broken picks, or deal with it in any way beyond just hitting “f” to interact. A new character slot for 800? Sure, I mean, I’ll get to play the entire game over again with that character in a new style (and possibly some new story selections), and that’s gonna get me at least 20 hours of time if I go for completion. These LS episodes though… I mean, before the whole Carapace armor thing, the rewards were pretty much laughable, and the story took a whole of 30 minutes to an hour to beat – sure, you could get replay out of it with the challenges if you’re that kind of person, but is that really worth 200 gems?

More off topic about it – the part that bothers me is that this was supposed to be a game without a subscription fee, but in order to play the game without logging in during every event and still play the story means you are gonna be paying – particularly with new players. It’s certainly nice that the story segments are available (as the first season is gone to the wind), but the behavior itself comes off in that money-grubbing light that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Yeah, they need to make money, but it feels like if the already expensive-feeling gemstore isn’t making them enough, maybe they should just switch from the living story over to the classic form of “60 $ expansions for new story content” instead of this other one that feels like it’s punishing people for not playing.

Just my two cents.

KorbanDallas.7389:

All these people saying that 2.50 is nothing to a player who can afford a 2 week vacation in here make me laugh. I mean, does nobody work in a place that has holiday time you need to use? Heavens forbid that someone is scrounging to pay for a vacation for their family on top of paying their taxes and real world bills.

Seriously, we all need to stop acting snooty one of these days whenever topics like this come up.

The question here isn’t about it costing less, it’s about the worth of the LS episode. In that account, I agree that mostly all these story entries aren’t worth the cost of 200 gems – the value just isn’t there. I wasn’t particularly happy about paying 800 gems for a unbreakable pick – but it was worth ever one of those gems when I no longer had to constantly switch to mine things, replace broken picks, or deal with it in any way beyond just hitting “f” to interact. A new character slot for 800? Sure, I mean, I’ll get to play the entire game over again with that character in a new style (and possibly some new story selections), and that’s gonna get me at least 20 hours of time if I go for completion. These LS episodes though… I mean, before the whole Carapace armor thing, the rewards were pretty much laughable, and the story took a whole of 30 minutes to an hour to beat – sure, you could get replay out of it with the challenges if you’re that kind of person, but is that really worth 200 gems?

More off topic about it – the part that bothers me is that this was supposed to be a game without a subscription fee, but in order to play the game without logging in during every event and still play the story means you are gonna be paying – particularly with new players. It’s certainly nice that the story segments are available (as the first season is gone to the wind), but the behavior itself comes off in that money-grubbing light that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Yeah, they need to make money, but it feels like if the already expensive-feeling gemstore isn’t making them enough, maybe they should just switch from the living story over to the classic form of “60 $ expansions for new story content” instead of this other one that feels like it’s punishing people for not playing.

Just my two cents.

Let me just repeat this.

2.50…

You can quiet literally not drink a coffee at StarBucks for 1 day and have enough + a bit…

As for worth, I find it worth more than 2.50. A lot more actually.

The alternative is that if you just want to experience what the story is like, you could always ask someone to play those story bits with you in a party. Of course, you won’t get rewards that come with completing the instances but that is the tradeoff and since it’s not your instance, the party leader is controlling the flow of the story.

KorbanDallas.7389:

All these people saying that 2.50 is nothing to a player who can afford a 2 week vacation in here make me laugh. I mean, does nobody work in a place that has holiday time you need to use? Heavens forbid that someone is scrounging to pay for a vacation for their family on top of paying their taxes and real world bills.

The thing is, that episode cost Anet money to make. Its content and content have a cost. Anet is a private company and they sell a product for profit, they don’t and neither should they care if you don’t have the money for the episode. The current system mean that hardcore player or ppl with money to spend can pay for most content, so Anet give them free to ppl that can’t pay for it. In return you play their game so it stay alive and keep those money cow into the game. That’s me, i’m one of those money cow that keep the game alive. I pay for the game I like so that content keep coming and I’m happy that some ppl can enjoy it without never putting any more money in it than that initial game. Ya it would be nice if you could miss some episode and still play them, but don’t you think its nice that ppl like me pay enough to keep content coming that other ppl can play for free? I think that’s pretty awesome already.

KorbanDallas.7389:

The question here isn’t about it costing less, it’s about the worth of the LS episode. In that account, I agree that mostly all these story entries aren’t worth the cost of 200 gems – the value just isn’t there. I wasn’t particularly happy about paying 800 gems for a unbreakable pick – but it was worth ever one of those gems when I no longer had to constantly switch to mine things, replace broken picks, or deal with it in any way beyond just hitting “f” to interact. A new character slot for 800? Sure, I mean, I’ll get to play the entire game over again with that character in a new style (and possibly some new story selections), and that’s gonna get me at least 20 hours of time if I go for completion. These LS episodes though… I mean, before the whole Carapace armor thing, the rewards were pretty much laughable, and the story took a whole of 30 minutes to an hour to beat – sure, you could get replay out of it with the challenges if you’re that kind of person, but is that really worth 200 gems?

I largely agree. The chapters, maybe Episode 5 aside, have not been worth spending money on. The quality of the writing isn’t there. I like the rewards though and I find the Carapace armor kinda cool. The thing is, the rewards aren’t THAT special and you can complete the Carapace sets without having to do the story at all.

More off topic about it – the part that bothers me is that this was supposed to be a game without a subscription fee, but in order to play the game without logging in during every event and still play the story means you are gonna be paying – particularly with new players. It’s certainly nice that the story segments are available (as the first season is gone to the wind), but the behavior itself comes off in that money-grubbing light that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Yeah, they need to make money, but it feels like if the already expensive-feeling gemstore isn’t making them enough, maybe they should just switch from the living story over to the classic form of “60 $ expansions for new story content” instead of this other one that feels like it’s punishing people for not playing.

You’re right, it can be seen as either a punishment or a reward, depending on perspective. I wouldn’t call it a “subscription” though, as you seem to indicate that the story isn’t worth playing, so it’s content you wouldn’t even touch, and everything else remains accessibly in it entirety without having to pay additional costs.

Back on topic, 200 gems is a great price for a chapter, in theory. For this story, however, it’s not that I think 200 is too expensive, it’s that it’s not worth spending money on, period. Add to that that you can’t buy exactly $2.50 worth of gems and you end up with a real incentive not to buy.

Well i paid for all from 1 to 6 … because i think it is worth the money and its only 200 gems you pay like 10 euro and you get all of them … but i am kind of disappointed that they give no recaps of season 1 for people who never been there … i did leave the game after madness thingy first scarlet appearance so i only missed lions arch fall and the last chapter which is not that bad because it was predictable …

if you really want to see the story and everything it is worth buying it … i am loving the characters and awards are nice…

and well while doing story you enter many zones that you always seen but could not enter

I think peoples real issue with this is that people get this for free if they are fortunate enough to play during the two week time frame. I think a lot fewer people would be bothered paying the £2.50 if everyone else had to as well.

The point is, why should I have to pay when others got it for free?

If I was in hospital or I was working to support my family or if I was just too busy with real life to log into the game (that I might still love and want to play) why should I have to pay for something other people got for free?

Regardless of “you can make the gold and turn it into gems” that’s actually quite a bit of gold. If you’re then paying for multiple story quests, that can be up to what 200 gold. I know quite a lot of players who have never seen over 100 gold let alone have it to spend on content other people got for free.

I guess what really bothers me, is that people that have the ability to log in daily, are rewarded in ways that seem to me, counterproductive to the whole idealism of GW2.

Having achievement points on display for everyone to see, like they mean anything at all (yet you still see p1p2p3 exp full zerker 5k AP )
The majority of people with 15k~ AP most of that comes from daily/monthly achievements which lets me honest really didn’t mean anything at all.

Giving out content for free if you happen to be able to log in during a certain time frame. “oh i’ll have my friend log in for me” breaking the TOS while we’re at it.

Play how you want as long as you play in a way that we deem acceptable and in the time frame we give you, otherwise don’t play

And as I said, if cost is your issue, then you can choose NOT to pay for the episodes and just jump in someone else’s instance instead. You won’t get the achievements and rewards associated with it, but that’s going to be a decent tradeoff for not paying 2 bucks.

Malkavian.4516:

And as I said, if cost is your issue, then you can choose NOT to pay for the episodes and just jump in someone else’s instance instead. You won’t get the achievements and rewards associated with it, but that’s going to be a decent tradeoff for not paying 2 bucks.

This makes SOOO much sense.