Unlocking LWS4 chapters?

Quick Q about unlocking the chapters of season 4. It seems from the wiki to get free access to the chapters any time I'm ready is just be logged in when they're released, is that right? I'm aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages away from being anywhere near it (having just started HoT) and having had to cought up ~1800 gems for seasons 2 and 3 as they came out during my hiatus, I'd like to be able to access S4 with as little cost as possible

just being online the 3 month period is enough.

regardless if you had the expansion or was level 80 or whaterever

just be online when an episode is released and before the next is released

As long as you own PoF and log-in while the episode is released(usually the first 4 - 6 weeks, that is how it was for S2 and S3) and you'll unlock it, if you don't have PoF yet then you can't(unless they changed that too).

@Zaklex.6308 said:As long as you own PoF and log-in while the episode is released(usually the first 4 - 6 weeks, that is how it was for S2 and S3) and you'll unlock it, if you don't have PoF yet then you can't(unless they changed that too).

You don’t need to own PoF to unlock the chapters, just to play them. Someone without PoF now will still unlock chapter 2 by logging in, and then it’ll be available to play when they buy PoF, whether they buy it next week or next year. This worked the same way with HoT and season 3.

@Stitch.1794 said:

@Zaklex.6308 said:As long as you own PoF and log-in while the episode is released(usually the first 4 - 6 weeks, that is how it was for S2 and S3) and you'll unlock it, if you don't have PoF yet then you can't(unless they changed that too).

Yeah, I couldn't remember the exact way it was set up for unlocking vs playing, should've just left that comment out...but I do know for S2 at least that you had to log in the first 4 or 6 weeks after release, not going to confirm the same for S3 and S4, but I don't recall seeing a change on that part.

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@Stitch.1794 said:

@Zaklex.6308 said:As long as you own PoF and log-in while the episode is released(usually the first 4 - 6 weeks, that is how it was for S2 and S3) and you'll unlock it, if you don't have PoF yet then you can't(unless they changed that too).

Yes, that bit’s the same, it’s usually until the next chapter is released.

It's not 'usually', it is until the next Episode is released. Right now that's between 2 and 3 months time to unlock an Episode.

Good luck.

While it doesn't affect me, I've never been able to get my head around why they do it this way. If you come along and buy HoT or PoF, you should immediately have access to any of the LW released during as it's companions.

It's like the reverse situation of the people that feel punished for buying the game or expanions at release price when they are discounted later. As, like all things in life are. I mean, I can pick from any of hundreds of thousands of real world examples to explain why that makes sense. I can't think of anything else that works the way they make you pay for LW months/years later? Like, if I buy an older model TV 3 years later at 40% of the list price, I then have to pay for it to work when I plug it in, because I didn't buy the TV back when...uh...I have no idea what that would be. Would love to have that one explained. :)

Anyway, doesn't effect me. I would think that would be a huge barrier to ever getting friends to play down the road. I've never priced it, how much do those things cost if you didn't happen to login during it's release window?

200 gems per chapter if bought separately, or you can get bundle packs, season 2 for 1280, season 3 for 960. (Season 2 has 8 chapters, season 3 has 6.)

@notebene.3190 said:Anyway, doesn't effect me. I would think that would be a huge barrier to ever getting friends to play down the road. I've never priced it, how much do those things cost if you didn't happen to login during it's release window?

It's been a barrier for me in getting my friends back into GW2, they're not stingy but having an unlock fee for that content on top of the cost of the expansion packs well, they thought that was... a bit cheeky, shall we say.

I've always thought they should just have been a part of the expansion.

@notebene.3190 said:While it doesn't affect me, I've never been able to get my head around why they do it this way. If you come along and buy HoT or PoF, you should immediately have access to any of the LW released during as it's companions.

It's like the reverse situation of the people that feel punished for buying the game or expanions at release price when they are discounted later. As, like all things in life are. I mean, I can pick from any of hundreds of thousands of real world examples to explain why that makes sense. I can't think of anything else that works the way they make you pay for LW months/years later? Like, if I buy an older model TV 3 years later at 40% of the list price, I then have to pay for it to work when I plug it in, because I didn't buy the TV back when...uh...I have no idea what that would be. Would love to have that one explained. :)

Anyway, doesn't effect me. I would think that would be a huge barrier to ever getting friends to play down the road. I've never priced it, how much do those things cost if you didn't happen to login during it's release window?

Why should story content updates be free to those not playing the game during the time of their release. This incentivizes players to come back to the game periodically rather than abandon it for a year or more at a time.

@"notebene.3190" said:While it doesn't affect me, I've never been able to get my head around why they do it this way. If you come along and buy HoT or PoF, you should immediately have access to any of the LW released during as it's companions.

It's like the reverse situation of the people that feel punished for buying the game or expanions at release price when they are discounted later. As, like all things in life are. I mean, I can pick from any of hundreds of thousands of real world examples to explain why that makes sense. I can't think of anything else that works the way they make you pay for LW months/years later? Like, if I buy an older model TV 3 years later at 40% of the list price, I then have to pay for it to work when I plug it in, because I didn't buy the TV back when...uh...I have no idea what that would be. Would love to have that one explained. :)

Anyway, doesn't effect me. I would think that would be a huge barrier to ever getting friends to play down the road. I've never priced it, how much do those things cost if you didn't happen to login during it's release window?

The Living Story is DLC in all but name. In any other game it would be called DLC, everyone would have to buy it when it came out and apparently most people would be fine with that.

If they were to change the system at all it would most likely be making it so everyone has to buy it, like other games do. The only reason it's free for people who log in during the release period is because of the old system where Living Story releases were free temporary updates like festivals - they were available to everyone but only for 2-4 weeks, then they were removed from the game forever and no one could play them. Players didn't like that and kept asking for it to be permanent but I don't imagine it would have been well received if Anet had said "ok, it will be permanent, but you'll have to pay for it" - so this was a kind of middle ground to ease the transition.

Having said that I do think Anet should sell some kind of bundle pack of the base game, HoT, PoF and all the Living World releases together. Even if it cost the same price as buying them separately I think it would help get over the resentment some people have when the buy the game or return after a break and find there's paid content they've missed.

@Danikat.8537 said:

@"notebene.3190" said:While it doesn't affect me, I've never been able to get my head around

why

they do it this way. If you come along and buy HoT or PoF, you should immediately have access to any of the LW released during as it's companions.

It's like the

reverse

situation of the people that feel punished for buying the game or expanions at release price when they are discounted later. As, like all things in life are. I mean, I can pick from any of hundreds of thousands of real world examples to explain why that makes sense. I can't think of anything else that works the way they make you pay for LW months/years later? Like, if I buy an older model TV 3 years later at 40% of the list price, I then have to pay for it to work when I plug it in, because I didn't buy the TV back when...uh...I have no idea what that would be. Would love to have that one explained. :)

Anyway, doesn't effect me. I would think that would be a huge barrier to ever getting friends to play down the road. I've never priced it, how much do those things cost if you didn't happen to login during it's release window?

Okay, that makes at least some sense. I never considered to think of it as DLC. Mostly because I don't really play games that have DLC like that. Or, I guess that's not entirely true. My experience with it has always been through friends I used to play with, and the defacto leader of the group would tell us what to click on and how much it was all going to cost, and that was that. Never really stopped to think of what it all was before. :)

I guess the alternative is the expansions would be more expensive? I wonder how much money they get from people that have to buy LW content because they are new or inactive? I suppose at this point, keeping the expansion cost low and making people who stick with them feel good about sticking with them goes further in continued shop sales than the potential lost sales of new players confronted with a pay wall.

How visible is that DLC to people, though? I mean, when you are in Steam and looking at a game, it's pretty easy to see to tell what everything is and what it's going to cost you. As a new GW2 player, when/where do you see the LW (DLC) content presented to you?

@Pifil.5193 said:

@notebene.3190 said:Anyway, doesn't effect me. I would think that would be a huge barrier to ever getting friends to play down the road. I've never priced it, how much do those things cost if you didn't happen to login during it's release window?

There's no two ways around it, your friends are stingy(aka cheap), the LW stories are NOT part of the expansions, instead they are a BRIDGE to/between expansions and are NOT considered part of the expansion itself, if your friends had the core game to begin with all they would have needed to do was log in within the time frame and they would have unlocked the content, but only have been able to play it with purchase of one of the expansions...since they neither unlocked access to it or purchased the expansions they can only be described as stingy/cheap.

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@Pifil.5193 said:

@notebene.3190 said:Anyway, doesn't effect me. I would think that would be a huge barrier to ever getting friends to play down the road. I've never priced it, how much do those things cost if you didn't happen to login during it's release window?

Yeah, you literally don't know what (or who) you are talking about. They haven't played the game since 2014 and I was trying to get them interested again. They aren't. This was one of the reasons. There are others.