Guild Wars 2

Haven’t played for a while, logged on and under living word it says I can “buy now” for 200 gems. What’s up with this?

Instead of missing the living world entirely, you can now buy the episodes you missed if you’d like to. If you’re able to log in while the episode is live, they’ll be unlocked in your journal. You don’t have to buy any of the past episodes to play future episodes, however, and you can join someone else’s instance (like with the personal story) for free to see the content.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-story-journal/

so it is actually paying for quests? wow, I’m surprised and disappointed. the whole point of not having a subscription is I can take breaks from the game without having to pay for it.

Nausiation.1469:

so it is actually paying for quests? wow, I’m surprised and disappointed. the whole point of not having a subscription is I can take breaks from the game without having to pay for it.

It’s paying for the living story.

During season 1 if you weren’t there when a living story was live, you lost it forever, no way to play it. Now you have the option of paying 200gems to unlock it on your account if you weren’t there (note, if you log in at any time, even for a second, while the living story episode is live, you unlock it for free forever), so while it is indeed paying for the story you missed if you’ve been away for a while, it’s an option to miss it completely and never be able to play it again if you missed it.

BTW, you’re paying for the actual instanced story elements, everything else added (new bosses, maps, and so on) is added for free, so if you don’t want to pay you can also just read the story on the wiki, or watch it on youtube, and then get the follow up for free when it resumes in november.

Whilst i am no fan of the paying for story system which punishes returning players, there is the option of buying the story for gold too. I think the current transfer rate is something like 25g for 200gems right now.

It is also possible to join someone that already have it unlocked and to the content that way.

I missed almost all of Season 1 and the first three episodes of Season 2. I was very glad to have a way to catch up on at least the beginning of Season 2, and wish there was a way to catch up on the first season. It is no worse, and much cheaper, than paying for DLC for single-player games.

The Season 2 episodes of the Living Story can be purchased if you missed the two-week opportunity to unlock an episode.

Season 2 takes place after Season 1, which took place after your Personal Story.

Nausiation.1469:

so it is actually paying for quests? wow, I’m surprised and disappointed. the whole point of not having a subscription is I can take breaks from the game without having to pay for it.

This is quite easy to explain really…

During living story, season 1 – If you took a break, when you come back you miss out on living story rewards. i.e have no rewards and nothing to pay.

During season 2 – when you come back you miss out on living story rewards. i.e have no rewards and nothing to pay. You chose not to buy them and you are in the same situation as you were when you took a break during living story season 1.

In fact you haven’t lost anything, because if you took a break on both living stories and you had no option to buy you would have lost them anyway.

The only difference is now when you take a break you can actually go back in time and get the rewards, if you didn’t log in to the game (when the updates are free) during the release you pay for them, although its charged by 200 gems, its just an option you are not forced.

I prefer the buying system of this year’s season compared to last year’s… Last year I was busy moving and handling college/work obligations and ended up taking a long break. Missed pretty much everything but the end of the season. (Course, at that point, none of it made sense so I just didn’t feel like participating.)

This year, same thing pretty much. Moved back to college and it demands I give it attention :p I came back and ended up buying the previous parts of the story so I could be caught up. If you log in during the month of that part of the story, its free. If you miss it, come back, and want to play.. its a small 200 gold fee.

For a college student with very little income, this is a perfect set up. I can’t afford to dedicate a portion of my very small, far stretched income to a subscription fee, but if all I need to do is set aside 1 minute a month to keep everything free, and if I miss something, pay a small fee to unlock it (if I want), then I can do that.

Overall, this change was welcomed with open arms by me.

People keep complaining about this without thinking just a little bit.
When you bought GW2, you paid for the content that was released at that time. Every game change or fix is a given maintenance.
Everything else, be it living story or whatever, is a completely new content. Any normal company would put this on purchase, but Anet is being friendly by giving it to us for free during the first 2 weeks.

So instead of whining how you have to pay for new content (it’s like whining about having to pay for WoW expansions or whatever)
You can just log in during the two free weeks, You don’t even have to play, just log in for a second and log back out, you have 2 weeks for that

People who complain about this make me feel like they go to the mall and complain something costs money while it was on discount a month ago.

^ THIS! +1

Please don’t ever forget that GW2 is buy2play, like GW1 was. Devs don’t HAVE TO give us free content, but they choose to do so.

If you can’t play the LS, just log in a second and forget about it until you are able to play through it. If you can’t log in at all, 200 gems isn’t that big of a deal, imo.

Ayakaru.6583:

People keep complaining about this without thinking just a little bit.
When you bought GW2, you paid for the content that was released at that time.

Can I request a partial refund because some of the base content was removed?

Arianhod.3485:

^ THIS! +1

Please don’t ever forget that GW2 is buy2play, like GW1 was. Devs don’t HAVE TO give us free content, but they choose to do so.

If you can’t play the LS, just log in a second and forget about it until you are able to play through it. If you can’t log in at all, 200 gems isn’t that big of a deal, imo.

Actually… They do Have to give us content (or at least a reason to stay). Because most of us aren’t Ok farming precursors the rest of our lives.

Devs give us content in the hope that players will stay and spend money in the gem store (but they can’t make you if you don’t want to), because players are only a cost otherwise (servers maintenance etc…). They’re more focused on getting new players, I guess (see latest patch).

My point is, you don’t pay a fee as in other games so you can’t pretend a regular service, or in any case you can’t compare the two types of mmos (b2p vs p2p).

of course, that’s just my opinion (and sorry for my english :P).

Nausiation.1469:

so it is actually paying for quests? wow, I’m surprised and disappointed. the whole point of not having a subscription is I can take breaks from the game without having to pay for it.

So you preferred taking a break, coming back, and finding out you missed out on a bunch of content because it was temporary and there is no way to experience it again?

This is a huge improvement. And it only costs 200gems if you don’t log in at all during when it is released. Perhaps for the future you should check the website, find out when the next story takes place (November 4 I believe) and take the 30secs to log in. That way you get it for free and you can play it whenever you feel like it.

And also, like someone said, it’s roughly 25g to unlock each episode (4 total, so 100g—which isn’t a crazy amount anymore) if you don’t want to use real money. I’ve spent easily 20x that throwing swords into the Mystic Toilet if it makes you feel better. And got absolutely nothing out of that endeavor.

Dasenthal.6520:

Arianhod.3485:

^ THIS! +1

Please don’t ever forget that GW2 is buy2play, like GW1 was. Devs don’t HAVE TO give us free content, but they choose to do so.

If you can’t play the LS, just log in a second and forget about it until you are able to play through it. If you can’t log in at all, 200 gems isn’t that big of a deal, imo.

Actually… They do Have to give us content (or at least a reason to stay). Because most of us aren’t Ok farming precursors the rest of our lives.

No, no they don’t have to. The only obligation they have is to keep te servers working fine and keep fixing programming issues. Anything else is new stuff. If you don’t like farming precursors, then don’t. You’ve bought a fruitbasket, to say, and if you don’t like one particular fruit in it, don’t eat. But you can’t buy the fruitbasket whilst not buying everything.

Bob F It.5701:

Ayakaru.6583:

People keep complaining about this without thinking just a little bit.
When you bought GW2, you paid for the content that was released at that time.

Can I request a partial refund because some of the base content was removed?

I think the following video will answer that question best

Ayakaru.6583:

Bob F It.5701:

Ayakaru.6583:

People keep complaining about this without thinking just a little bit.
When you bought GW2, you paid for the content that was released at that time.

Can I request a partial refund because some of the base content was removed?

I think the following video will answer that question best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtaUHMWQpiI

So, what I got from that post is that ANet cares about it’s customers’ experience of a product about as much as the Arcane Council cares about skritt social order.

Bob F It.5701:

Ayakaru.6583:

Bob F It.5701:

Ayakaru.6583:

People keep complaining about this without thinking just a little bit.
When you bought GW2, you paid for the content that was released at that time.

Can I request a partial refund because some of the base content was removed?

I think the following video will answer that question best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtaUHMWQpiI

So, what I got from that post is that ANet cares about it’s customers’ experience of a product about as much as the Arcane Council cares about skritt social order.

Well put. But customer experience is something different from financial management and reposession. When you play/buy and MMO, community expects you to know how that community works. it’s in the ToA, they can always change the core product.

However: If they change or replace something, then it’s still part of the original content. If they add new content, it’s not, and then they can choose wether or not they want to charge you for it. If they remove core content, they can also freely do so.

However, name core content that was removed and that is ACTUALLY missed.
Core content that was changed during the NPE update, this core content wasn’t removed, only changed, which as previously stated they are allowed to do.

Ayakaru.6583:

However, name core content that was removed and that is ACTUALLY missed.
Core content that was changed during the NPE update, this core content wasn’t removed, only changed, which as previously stated they are allowed to do.

The “My greatest Fear” section was removed from the core content, and it is missed. It may be that it’s written in the T&Cs that AreanNet can change content in the game (and it’s pretty important that they do), but just because they do, it doesn’t make them immune from critique to what they do. By equal measure, just because content is added with no additional fee in a majority of circumstances, that doesn’t absolve it from scrutiny either.

The “buy to play” argument is also highly flawed. That model applies when you buy a game, and you run that game; with GW2, you buy to get into the game, and then someone has to keep the lights on. This does need people to put more money into the system, but if you think that means that you can just ignore everybody else that doesn’t put money in, I can’t explain why that’s wrong better than these guys did. I’m linking this video now, because I keep seeing people trivialising the cost for past episodes as “only 200 gems”. It’s “only” 200 gems per episode, which is currently 600 gems (or $7.50, or 95 gold as of the time of this post), and that cost will only increase with time. If season 1 was charged at “only 200 gems” per each of the 25 episodes, that costs “only 5000 gems” or $62.50 plus tax, or 790 gold and likely more as the cost will inflate. You’d have to really, really want to play that content to justify putting up the cost.

Bob F It.5701:

I’m linking this video now, because I keep seeing people trivialising the cost for past episodes as “only 200 gems”. It’s “only” 200 gems per episode, which is currently 600 gems (or $7.50, or 95 gold as of the time of this post), and that cost will only increase with time. If season 1 was charged at “only 200 gems” per each of the 25 episodes, that costs “only 5000 gems” or $62.50 plus tax, or 790 gold and likely more as the cost will inflate. You’d have to really, really want to play that content to justify putting up the cost.

You don’t buy the living story when you buy the game. The living story is extra. We are fortunate that we can get it for free by logging on regularly.

The cost of past episodes is a matter for the sales staff and new customers. The episodes have to be priced so as to be good value for the people who buy them. If anyone feels that the story chapters would not be value for money then they don’t have to buy them! That’s a far better solution than arguing on forums.

Bob F It.5701:

Ayakaru.6583:

However, name core content that was removed and that is ACTUALLY missed.
Core content that was changed during the NPE update, this core content wasn’t removed, only changed, which as previously stated they are allowed to do.

The “My greatest Fear” section was removed from the core content, and it is missed. It may be that it’s written in the T&Cs that AreanNet can change content in the game (and it’s pretty important that they do), but just because they do, it doesn’t make them immune from critique to what they do. By equal measure, just because content is added with no additional fee in a majority of circumstances, that doesn’t absolve it from scrutiny either.

The “buy to play” argument is also highly flawed. That model applies when you buy a game, and you run that game; with GW2, you buy to get into the game, and then someone has to keep the lights on. This does need people to put more money into the system, but if you think that means that you can just ignore everybody else that doesn’t put money in, I can’t explain why that’s wrong better than these guys did. I’m linking this video now, because I keep seeing people trivialising the cost for past episodes as “only 200 gems”. It’s “only” 200 gems per episode, which is currently 600 gems (or $7.50, or 95 gold as of the time of this post), and that cost will only increase with time. If season 1 was charged at “only 200 gems” per each of the 25 episodes, that costs “only 5000 gems” or $62.50 plus tax, or 790 gold and likely more as the cost will inflate. You’d have to really, really want to play that content to justify putting up the cost.

Everyone is saying that the My Biggest Fear plotline is missing, but I completed it on my Thief last week and started one on my elementalist today. it’s still there.

Ayakaru.6583:

Bob F It.5701:

Ayakaru.6583:

However, name core content that was removed and that is ACTUALLY missed.
Core content that was changed during the NPE update, this core content wasn’t removed, only changed, which as previously stated they are allowed to do.

The “My greatest Fear” section was removed from the core content, and it is missed. It may be that it’s written in the T&Cs that AreanNet can change content in the game (and it’s pretty important that they do), but just because they do, it doesn’t make them immune from critique to what they do. By equal measure, just because content is added with no additional fee in a majority of circumstances, that doesn’t absolve it from scrutiny either.

The “buy to play” argument is also highly flawed. That model applies when you buy a game, and you run that game; with GW2, you buy to get into the game, and then someone has to keep the lights on. This does need people to put more money into the system, but if you think that means that you can just ignore everybody else that doesn’t put money in, I can’t explain why that’s wrong better than these guys did. I’m linking this video now, because I keep seeing people trivialising the cost for past episodes as “only 200 gems”. It’s “only” 200 gems per episode, which is currently 600 gems (or $7.50, or 95 gold as of the time of this post), and that cost will only increase with time. If season 1 was charged at “only 200 gems” per each of the 25 episodes, that costs “only 5000 gems” or $62.50 plus tax, or 790 gold and likely more as the cost will inflate. You’d have to really, really want to play that content to justify putting up the cost.

Everyone is saying that the My Biggest Fear plotline is missing, but I completed it on my Thief last week and started one on my elementalist today. it’s still there.

Word on the street is that if you were already in the middle of the arc, you can still play it. I’ve done PS from 40 to 80 the past two weeks and went straight from Forging the Pact to The Battle of Fort Trinity.

Ayakaru.6583:

Everyone is saying that the My Biggest Fear plotline is missing, but I completed it on my Thief last week and started one on my elementalist today. it’s still there.

Danikat.8537:

I think there’s a bit of confusion because there’s 3 different possibilities.

1) Your character had finished the story
Originally the September 9th patch changed the story journal to show the new format. On the 16th this was reverted so characters who had already finished the story had the Greatest Fear arc included in their journals.

2) Your character had started the level 70 arc before the 9th September
You will get to play through the original format, including the Greatest Fear arc. I wasn’t able to confirm this myself but I believe all the other chapters will be in the original order too.

3) Your character had not reached the level 70 arc before 9th September
This applies to both new characters and existing ones below level 70. These characters have to play through the new format, where the Greatest Fear storyline has been removed.

I’m 100% sure that 1 and 3 are correct. I’m not willing to risk taking one of my permanent characters who were below level 70 through the story to check 2 but that’s what’s been reported by other people in this and other threads.

Bob F It.5701:

Ayakaru.6583:

However, name core content that was removed and that is ACTUALLY missed.
Core content that was changed during the NPE update, this core content wasn’t removed, only changed, which as previously stated they are allowed to do.

The “My greatest Fear” section was removed from the core content, and it is missed. It may be that it’s written in the T&Cs that AreanNet can change content in the game (and it’s pretty important that they do), but just because they do, it doesn’t make them immune from critique to what they do. By equal measure, just because content is added with no additional fee in a majority of circumstances, that doesn’t absolve it from scrutiny either.

~snup~.

Technically you are incorrect, it wasn’t removed, it’s a bug and they’ve stated that several times, however, it’s proving difficult to track down, correct it and get the stories in the correct order/location and functioning properly…unless they’ve changed their minds(which is certainly their right, it’s their game).

IF they’ve changed their minds and aren’t going to try and fix it, then I stand corrected.

I wasn’t at lv 70 yet when the patch came out, I only got to that bit this week, and it’s just there. and my thief also hadn’t started until after the patch.

Nausiation.1469:

Haven’t played for a while, logged on and under living word it says I can “buy now” for 200 gems. What’s up with this?

you are paying for stuff that you would have completely missed (never got to play ever again).

The morale to this story is, log on for 5 seconds every time a new one is released and you can do them anytime.