Returning player questions

So I might be coming back to guild wars me and my friends play a bunch of wow and want to take a brake so I thought I would look at gw2 for a game for us to play. So I logged on real quick made a random level 1 just to check some things out and the game gave me a level 80 boost. Now my friends will probably be free to play for starters so here are my questions

1. if I delete that random level one character I made will I lose my level 80 boost?

2. if me and my friends started now how much of the story is locked from us?

3. what kind of end game group content can we do I plan to level and experience the game with 6 of us total. So I don’t know if we could do dungeons with 6 or something what can we do as a team after leveling is what I am asking?

1. You wont lose the lvl 80 boost until after you've tried it and confirmed that you want to keep it. You can even use it on multiple classes to check out how they play at the end game. It's a great way to check out different classes.

2. The free game is huge. Living World season 2 and 3 (Season 1 was a one time event) will be locked out unless you pay for them. But they happen after the free base game storyline, which has a ton of content. The HoT and PoF expansions are also separate.

3. Base game has all the dungeons I think. You will be able to access them without problem. They are fairly easy with a party of 5.

The free game is the original launch version and is a lot of fun. I still like going there even 5 years later, so do most players. You wont have access to mounts and the later expansions but you will have a lot to do before then.

1) It should be impossible to lose the level 80 boost, even if you delete the character. It's in a shared inventory slot which means it will be in all your characters inventories and won't be deleted when the character is. It can't be removed from that slot except by using it and you can't use it permanently without clicking several confirmation messages.

Incidentally you can double click it to temporarily level your character to 80 and be teleported to The Silverwastes. You can stay there as long as you like to try out the character at level 80 with all your skills and (non-elite) specialisations unlocked to make sure you like the profession. If you leave the map you'll go back to your previous level and still have the boost to use again.

2) The full GW2 story goes: Personal Story > Season 1 > Season 2 > Heart of Thorns > Season 3 > Path of Fire > Season 4.

Season 1 is completely inaccessible to everyone because it was designed to be temporary (each episode was available for 2-4 weeks before being replaced). They gave up on that idea because players didn't like it and started making permanent content from Season 2 onwards. Accessing the rest is just a matter of paying for it. The Personal Story is included in the base game so everyone has that (even free players). It's split into chapters which become available every 10 levels (all the other stories require a level 80 character). The HoT and PoF storylines are obviously included in the expansions and Seasons 2 and 3 are sold in the gem store (which means you can buy them using either gold or real money, or a combination of the two). Season 4 is a bit weird. At the moment Episode 1 is available free for anyone who logs into the game. Literally anyone, even free players can unlock it. When Episode 2 comes out that will unlock for free when you log in and if you don't have Episode 1 you'll have to pay for it, and when Episode 3 comes out that will be free and Episode 2 will be paid, and so on.

Once any part of the story is unlocked, regardless of how you got it, you've got it forever. All your characters will be able to play it at any time (after they meet the level requirement), even if you create them after unlocking it.

So if your friends create free accounts they'll only have access to the Personal Story. You'll have access to that plus whichever expansion/s you've bought and all of you can unlock everything else except Season 1 by buying it.

3) The fact that there's 6 of you is awkward, because parties in GW2 are 5 people maximum. So for anything which needs a party you'll have to leave 1 person behind, which is annoying. But that's only the story instances (designed to be done solo but can use groups), dungeons and Fractals and that's actually a pretty small part of the game. The majority of content, including a lot of the group content is in the open-world so all 6 of you can do it together, probably playing with a lot of other people too. (In case you're not aware there's no kill or loot stealing in GW2 - you get the same stuff whether you kill something solo, as part of a party or with random people who happen to be around, so most open-world content is designed for large semi-organised groups and random people can and will join in with whatever you're doing and you can join in with whatever they're doing.

It might be worth finding a guild you can all join so you've always got people to play with even if you can't play together.