Guild Wars 2

Apologies in advance if this is a stupid question, but – is 8 the maximum or is it possible to buy more?

The max is about 60 slots, I think it is even more.

60 slots?? on ONE account? Really?
Wow….

Yup, the limit is pretty crazy, there are accounts with about 40 slots that I know and a few guild mates of mine have 12~15 slots and I have 9 slots.

EDIT: the limit is 64 slots http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Character_Slot_Expansion

why on earth would someone need SIXTY-FOUR character slots?

Well, 40 for each profession/race combination, and then…?

Maybe the different biography or order choices?

Haha, I have 40 currently (one for every profession in every race) and the leftovers would be (if I had 64) are for different personal story choices, different genders within classes/professions etc. Though, to be honest, I probably don’t need 40 slots as I tend to delete characters with as much regularity as I make them, but there are a lot of people who have 40 slots and more.

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

why on earth would someone need SIXTY-FOUR character slots?

In City of Heroes we had 132 slots. 12 per server. This wasn’t enough for some who bought multiple accounts to get more than that per server until they offered addition slots per server, up to 36.

Then again CoH was a very altoholic game. Ability to customize your character look repeatedly for free (well for trivial in-game currency) from the very start. Ability to develop your own backstory. Just enough world building to accommodate all backstories without contradiction. Some people were just very creative.

I don’t know for sure but the reason I’ve most often heard for MMOs limiting character slots is the space required to save them all on the servers.

I assume Anet figured out a new system which means it’s not an issue for them. Or (more likely) they estimated worked out that only a few people would create a huge number of characters, and they’d be balanced out by the people who only have 1 or 2 characters so it won’t be a problem for them and they may as well allow it for those who want it. Especially since they get to sell all those character slots.