Guild Wars 2

So, I stopped regularly playing with the game after finishing the main story and seeing the game was just one big long grind for cosmetics. I returned for the crab island event, which was a shambles, and here and there to test out WvW, which felt like a shambles too.

So, I see the game has been updated with a lot of story stuff. I’d like to chomp through it. Where do I start, if I’ve just finished the main story at release and nothing more?

From the sounds of it you won’t like much especially since you will need to buy the story chapters with gems.
All areas are open without doing the story, and you can tag along with another player to see what the story was like without paying (you won’t get rewards).
Try it and see is the only thing to do.

You’re having luck and bad luck at the same time!
- You missed Season 1 and 2 Completely (well maybe final part S2 not)
- Season 1 is gone forever so far (Check youtube for let’s play vids)
- Season 2 is pay 2 play, 200 gems per episode = 1400 gems for all 7 you missed?

Why you’ve got luck?
There will be a big announcement this saturday on PAX EAST about GW2. (Expansion, new content, new races, new skills, new classes? We don’t know anything yet!)

Wow, that sounds totally stupid. I know they’re pushing an ever-evolving world, but why not have story be phased so that players can take part in old events? Most likely so they can make more dosh from microtransactions through gems.

Just unbelievably rubbish.

Well, that’s cynical.

What’s going on is they have been experimenting with content delivery, and some mistakes have been made. Season 1 was designed to be a living evolving world, where if you missed it too bad, just like people born after 1969 didn’t have a chance to see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon (I was 4 years old, and I saw it, and it’s one of my earliest memories. Younger people have to watch recordings).

Season 2 fixed a number of mistakes (and made more, because experimentation will not always pan out to perfection), by making the events permanent but needing an unlock to participate. The unlock is free if you log in during the event, or 200 gems thereafter. Once unlocked your whole account has it available forever for all alts forever, even ones made later. This is their current method of having the story phased as you suggest. They are likely to refine it further in Season 3.

If you don’t want to pay a couple of bucks per episode, you can buy gems with gold in game. No, I don’t find that feasible myself as real cash is far easier for me to accrue than game gold, but those more adept at gold generation have posted it doesn’t take much game play at all to make enough gold for 200 gems.

Its not very cynical at all, as you yourself just proved it. Real money is easier to acquire than in-game gold, so they’re obviously hoping for people to buy in with dosh rather than virtual money to play the story.

And if their plans to phase content to let people play past its introduction, why haven’t they done the same with earlier stuff? You can say mistakes all you like, but for me, it just looks like laziness.

When they made Season 1, they didn’t intend it to be replayable. They have a ton of work to do to convert it to something one can revisit. They’ve expressed interest in doing this, but I think they have other large things to work on first.

/smiles

Me, I like expecting the best out of people. It makes my world a happier place.