Guild Wars 2

So I upgraded a F2P account of mine today using the core game that I bought. When I went to access the bank, I noticed that there are three conditions required in order for a newly upgraded F2P account to access the guild bank.

• Upgrade to Heart of Thorns
• SMS verification or additional authentication has been added to account.
• Newly unlocked accounts require validation. This feature will unlock in four days.

My question is regarding the first item:

Are players actually required to purchase the expansion in order to access guild banks?

My accounts that I bought prior to HoT, that are still on core, can access the guild bank.

There is a waiting period when you upgrade an account to a paid account. From the website, it says this

I upgraded my account, but the game is still acting as though I’m on a free account!
After you upgrade a free account, you’ll need to exit the game and log back in to see your permissions change. There’s also a longer delay (up to five days) before mail attachments, the Black Lion Trading Company, and guild banks are unlocked. You should see a message in-game displaying the time remaining before you have full access to these features.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157-Account-types-Free-Core-HoT

My bet, they won’t advertise that you can get the core game to access it (as in, No HoT) since that’s really hard to find AND HoT includes core access.

Ellieanna.5027:

There is a waiting period when you upgrade an account to a paid account. From the website, it says this

I upgraded my account, but the game is still acting as though I’m on a free account!
After you upgrade a free account, you’ll need to exit the game and log back in to see your permissions change. There’s also a longer delay (up to five days) before mail attachments, the Black Lion Trading Company, and guild banks are unlocked. You should see a message in-game displaying the time remaining before you have full access to these features.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157-Account-types-Free-Core-HoT

My bet, they won’t advertise that you can get the core game to access it (as in, No HoT) since that’s really hard to find AND HoT includes core access.

That’s what I’m hoping is the case. I guess I’ll find out Monday.

the ‘Upgrade to Heart of Thorns’ thing isn’t actually needed, buying just the core game, and doing the SMS verification will unlock the account fully after 5 days.

not sure why it says to upgrade to HoT, but you can ignore it.

nottsgman.8206:

the ‘Upgrade to Heart of Thorns’ thing isn’t actually needed, buying just the core game, and doing the SMS verification will unlock the account fully after 5 days.

not sure why it says to upgrade to HoT, but you can ignore it.

Cause ANet doesn’t officially sell the core game anymore. Sure you might be able to find some online retailers selling codes or boxes cheap but from ANet’s PoV, there is only HoT available for purchase.