Guild Wars 2

Ok im a bit confused. So with the launch of the story journal I was under the impression that if you just logged in during the time of the episode, you would unlock that episode, to be played at your leisure. However, the episode didnt become unlocked until AFTER I completed it. I was also of the understanding that it would be unlocked for all characters at lvl 80 on your account. I haven’t tried with a lvl 80 alt yet, but others have had issues with it being just for that character.

So was I grossly mistaken as far as the first part is concerned? That you need to COMPLETE the story in order for it to be unlocked? Or is this just an unintended side effect?

Doss anyone else have the same issues or thoughts? I dont know if its already been addressed or not. If so can someone direct me to where it was addressed?

Thanks! !

I think you may be confusing unlocking (the ability to strive to complete) the achievements with unlocking (the ability to play) the Journal’s story instances.

And, yes, you have the ability to play the Journal story instances with all your Level 80 alts, and then subsequently unlock the achievements for the alts to strive to complete.

Regarding the ability to play:

What counts as “logging in”? email/pass at the client or actually joing a map with a character?

I ask due to another post where a user mentioned they’d be traveling throughout an entire episode in the future and was annoyed they may lose access to one chapter of LS2 as a result (and would need to buy the episode).

If the former counts as a “login”, that’d be easily fixable using a combination of GW2’s command line arguments + a batch file or shellscript + a scheduled task/cronjob, and finally a scheduled task + batch file or shellscript to kill the process.

If the latter, it would still be possible to add a “tap spacebar” automation (using various means) a short period of time after the above launched the game.

It didn’t unlock for me until I had already played for a while and got my daily done and then only after I clicked on the ‘Play This Episode’ button in the Hero Panel. Once I clicked the button this green icon popped up above my mini-map (like hearts/chests/trait unlocks do). Opening this green icon brought a pop-up onto my screen saying I have unlocked that episode.

The only in-game mail I received was immediately after closing that pop-up and it was a message from “E” telling me to go to Brisban. Others mentioned the episode unlocking for them immediately upon logging in (into the world with a character) and having an in-game message already waiting for them…not sure if that is the same message and I only got mine after it unlocked for me.

Many others also found that they had to pick up whatever was waiting in the Pick Up tab of the TP (even if it was only some coin and no items) and then re-log before they would even get the ‘Play This Episode’ button and unlock the episode for them.

Interesting….

I got the unlock notification roughly 60 seconds after loading into the game on my ele. It pops up as a green star on the right hand side of your screen, similarly to how hearts now pop up upon completion. Clicking on it, it opened and told me the story was now unlocked on my account, after which I was able to locate it in my hero panel.

For my husband, it took about 5 minutes for it to pop up after he loaded in.

So there seems to be a little bit of variation in how long before it pops up, but we had not even touched the content before we got it. So it does “unlock” / “become available” for your account without needing to do it. What causes the variation in the time it takes to unlock probably depends on a lot of variables. I’m sure the server load right now probably has an impact…

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I think you may be confusing unlocking (the ability to strive to complete) the achievements with unlocking (the ability to play) the Journal’s story instances.

And, yes, you have the ability to play the Journal story instances with all your Level 80 alts, and then subsequently unlock the achievements for the alts to strive to complete.

yeah thinking back I think thats what it is. so “unlocking” the episode differs from “making the episode available for replayability” I guess it’s the terminolgoy that threw me off, both us the term “unlock” but apparently mean different things.

I did get the shiney green star upon logging in, and was able to go play the episode, but the episode indicator in the journal had the pad lock icon over it. After I had completed the episode it became unlocked, at I am now able to go back and replay it and do the achievements.

It appears there were several bugs that gave initial introduction of the Story Journal a rocky start.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Interesting….

I got the unlock notification roughly 60 seconds after loading into the game on my ele. It pops up as a green star on the right hand side of your screen, similarly to how hearts now pop up upon completion. Clicking on it, it opened and told me the story was now unlocked on my account, after which I was able to locate it in my hero panel.

For my husband, it took about 5 minutes for it to pop up after he loaded in.

So there seems to be a little bit of variation in how long before it pops up, but we had not even touched the content before we got it. So it does “unlock” / “become available” for your account without needing to do it. What causes the variation in the time it takes to unlock probably depends on a lot of variables. I’m sure the server load right now probably has an impact…

The 60 seconds after first login is when I got the green star, too.

For those of level 80 who haven’t completed the Personal Story yet (still two years in the past!), know that once you choose to play the new S2 story (clicking the white button “Play this…”), it replaces your Personal Story, but then, you only have to choose to play the Personal Story again to have it replace the S2 story. You may switch from one to the other as will.
I’m speaking only about the green marker and the head-up notification. I’ve still to test about the interactions with NPC and instances in game.