[Suggestion] LS2 should be free

I've always thought that the original Personal Story doesn't really do justice to all the content locked behind expansions as it's rather boring.LS2 is a trailer to HoT, so why is the trailer locked behind a paywall? I think making all of LS2 free would be a pretty good idea as that's where the story starts to pick up. It would convince more new players to buy HoT and eventually other Living World Seasons and Expansions.It will also help populate maps such as Dry Top as people will need to farm for Geodes for Mawdrey.

Having an old LS story does not add anything a new player would want. It doesn't even unlock new maps for them.

New players are already overwhelmed by the amount of things to do, and suffer from a lack of direction. They need a tip bubble pointing them in the right direction, not an extended baby sitting story

@Klipso.8653 said:Having an old LS story does not add anything a new player would want. It doesn't even unlock new maps for them.

New players are already overwhelmed by the amount of things to do, and suffer from a lack of direction. They need a tip bubble pointing them in the right direction, not an extended baby sitting story

@Klipso.8653 said:Having an old LS story does not add anything a new player would want. It doesn't even unlock new maps for them.

New players are already overwhelmed by the amount of things to do, and suffer from a lack of direction. They need a tip bubble pointing them in the right direction, not an extended baby sitting story

You are aware that the pointers already exist, right?

I find that it is fine as it is. The maps are accessible for players without and people still do Silverwastes and Dry Top for their meta's. F2P players will not play an expansion because LWs2 is free for them. They pay for expansions because they hear it unlocks their restrictions, they give a lot of maps extra, story extra, gliding or mounts, raids, .... And most of all because they are willing to support Anet for the work they do and the effort they put into this game. Once you have any expansion bought you can easily get LWs2 via ingame gem purchase. It doesn't even take that long (did it like that myself). Its also a 1 time purchase. And once you got an expansion you also get the living world seasons you missed out logging on which again is not that hard to get. Getting a Griffon in game costs more (you can currently get 1/3rd of living season 2 with same cash). You can't expect to get everything for 100% free in real life when the ones creating all this great content also need to take care of their families.

@Aaralyna.3104 said:You can't expect to get everything for 100% free in real life when the ones creating all this great content also need to take care of their families.What I'm saying is sort of extending the trial to where the game really picks up. Remember the final cutscene in LS2 Episode 8? The pact charging into the jungle and all those vines wrecking everything? Now that is what will make people buy HoT.Leave the story at a cliffhanger, and it will entice more people to buy the game, and Anet earns more as a result.

@Aaralyna.3104 said:I find that it is fine as it is. The maps are accessible for players without and people still do Silverwastes and Dry Top for their meta's. F2P players will not play an expansion because LWs2 is free for them. They pay for expansions because they hear it unlocks their restrictions, they give a lot of maps extra, story extra, gliding or mounts, raids, .... And most of all because they are willing to support Anet for the work they do and the effort they put into this game. Once you have any expansion bought you can easily get LWs2 via ingame gem purchase. It doesn't even take that long (did it like that myself). Its also a 1 time purchase. And once you got an expansion you also get the living world seasons you missed out logging on which again is not that hard to get. Getting a Griffon in game costs more (you can currently get 1/3rd of living season 2 with same cash). You can't expect to get everything for 100% free in real life when the ones creating all this great content also need to take care of their families.

Yes, I did not do LS2 at first simply because I was still exploring Tyria. I was able to get into the zones and it did not keep me from much. I only weant back and did some of it later when I needed mastery points.

I think seeing Gliders and Mounts is probably more of an incentive than Living World Season Two would ever be.

Earn gold. Convert to gems. Don't expect to get everything in this game for free, especially when it's not subscription based.

@Frenzify.6832 said:Earn gold. Convert to gems. Don't expect to get everything in this game for free, especially when it's not subscription based.

Sigh, that's not the point. The point is to get more people interested in buying HoT, because the personal story just doesn't show what the true game is like now.

And playing the LS2 story magically will?

perhaps the expansions should come with the lw episodes before them - that way players getting the new expansions get the whole story. for instance HoT should get lw2, and PoF gets lw3

@xiiliea.9356 said:

@Frenzify.6832 said:Earn gold. Convert to gems. Don't expect to get everything in this game for free, especially when it's not subscription based.

neither does lw2

LS 2 is not a great advertisement for the game for a lot of reasons. First is that if you didn't do Living Story Season 1, it skips too much from the core story and people will be lost anyway. They'll have no idea what's going on. It was actually much better at launch when zones were revealed as part of it. It has less impact this way.

The story is also at times a lot more difficult and some people hate that, particularly the parts where they're forced to play as Caithe. I could see as many people turning away from the game because of it, than buying the game.

I much prefer LS 3 to LS 2 anyway.

@xiiliea.9356 said:

@Frenzify.6832 said:Earn gold. Convert to gems. Don't expect to get everything in this game for free, especially when it's not subscription based.

Giving an entire product in this case the LS2 chapters for free is not a smart move. To do what you are saying they should possibly give the first chapter for free but nothing else. this if anything might generate interest. Without money and believe me that is the point for ANET nothing new gets done and nothing existing gets maintained. Money may not be the focus of your argument but it is the focus of the content owner and creator here. If not then why even bother with a for profit business.

You never just give it all away. You entice people. 1 chapter could do that in the right way if offered in the right way but frankly that is ANET's issue to solve. I just logged in for 10 seconds even when I was not actively playing just to get the content that actually was offered free the first time if you already owned the game. Maybe one day giving it away will be the right call but not yet.

There is enough free things in the game. There is NO Buy 2 Play game gives you full content of journey to cap level. None but GW2.

@"xiiliea.9356" said:Sigh, that's not the point. The point is to get more people interested in buying HoT, because the personal story just doesn't show what the true game is like now.You think that "LS2 is a trailer to HoT"? You know what else is a trailer to HoT? The actual trailer to HoT, and it's already free. If people are confused about the story, then there are numerous video summaries of LWS2 on YouTube less than 10 minutes long, which are also free. If people can watch Let's Play streams while they eat dinner in antisocial silence, then they have time to watch a 10 minute video summary. But really LWS2 amounts to "we chase down a dragon egg and discover that sylvari are 'children' of the plant-themed elder dragon." And this ends with, "Mordremoth destroys the 'good guy' invasion force in the final cutscene."

If LWS2 was meant to get potential customers excited for HoT or "what the true game is like now," then it would have driven my flatmates away entirely from ever playing this game. LWS2 is a bore. I prepped most of my original characters for HoT by taking many through LWS2, and it becomes a poorly paced repetitive grind after a while. The episode completion rewards are not worth it. And for my flatmates who played LWS2 between their completion of both Core Tyria/HoT and the release of PoF, they likewise found LWS2 frustrating and a turn-off. My flatmates were prepared for how the game is now by watching me play how the game is now. And how the game is now also turns some people off: i.e., you can skip the dialogue cutscenes from the original game, but you can't skip the in-game waiting around as NPCs talk. And sometimes you miss dialogue because it gets drowned out in the fighting. Though they like the story, they also hate the mechanical gimmicks of the episodes: e.g., fire traps, invisible lasers, etc. What they mostly enjoy is open world content, mounts/gliders, WvW, and Fashion Wars. And they don't need LWS2 for that.

What they should rather, when (if) a new expansion gets released, is to offer the players a season of their choice with a small extra cost.

I think LS should be free for everybody and not just older player players who were here at the right time. I find that a strange criterion.

However, the main issue for me with LS2 is that it actually has a lot less value to it than LS3 and 4 chapters that actually give you new zones where you can earn ascended trinkets. Now that I played through LS2 (after begrudgingly paying for it), I found it wasn't worth it. LS3 at least gave me a fair value. It just irks me that some players get it for free and others don't.

I say no because I already paid for the whole LWS2 and would feel kinda robbed.

@Gehenna.3625 said:I think LS should be free for everybody and not just older player players who were here at the right time. I find that a strange criterion.

However, the main issue for me with LS2 is that it actually has a lot less value to it than LS3 and 4 chapters that actually give you new zones where you can earn ascended trinkets. Now that I played through LS2 (after begrudgingly paying for it), I found it wasn't worth it. LS3 at least gave me a fair value. It just irks me that some players get it for free and others don't.

This, I can't understand why everyone gets it for free, but latecomers don't.

Either everyone pays, or no one does.

@Lonami.2987 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:I think LS should be free for everybody and not just older player players who were here at the right time. I find that a strange criterion.

However, the main issue for me with LS2 is that it actually has a lot less value to it than LS3 and 4 chapters that actually give you new zones where you can earn ascended trinkets. Now that I played through LS2 (after begrudgingly paying for it), I found it wasn't worth it. LS3 at least gave me a fair value. It just irks me that some players get it for free and others don't.

I know reality likes to be romanticized, but the world isn't fair. Business model behind LW is to encourage regular players to log in more often and to milk latecomers.

@Gehenna.3625 said:I think LS should be free for everybody and not just older player players who were here at the right time. I find that a strange criterion.

However, the main issue for me with LS2 is that it actually has a lot less value to it than LS3 and 4 chapters that actually give you new zones where you can earn ascended trinkets. Now that I played through LS2 (after begrudgingly paying for it), I found it wasn't worth it. LS3 at least gave me a fair value. It just irks me that some players get it for free and others don't.

Everyone pays for access to LS chapters.

Anet accepts two forms of payment.1) Time. One can pay with time either by logging in during the release period for a given chapter or by converting gold earned in game into gems.

2) Real money. Self explanatory.

The choice of how to pay belongs to the player.

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:I think LS should be free for everybody and not just older player players who were here at the right time. I find that a strange criterion.

However, the main issue for me with LS2 is that it actually has a lot less value to it than LS3 and 4 chapters that actually give you new zones where you can earn ascended trinkets. Now that I played through LS2 (after begrudgingly paying for it), I found it wasn't worth it. LS3 at least gave me a fair value. It just irks me that some players get it for free and others don't.

No, there is a third and that's the issue...being there at the moment it's released. And that's the one that makes it a strange situation. If you happen to be there, whether you just log in and out again or actually play, you get it for free. If you weren't there because you're a newer player or you took a break for whatever reason, then you get penalized.

If there were only the two options you suggest and they would apply to everybody equally, then you will get no complaints from me about it. However, as I demonstrated, that is not the complete picture.

@segman.3560 said:

@Lonami.2987 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:I think LS should be free for everybody and not just older player players who were here at the right time. I find that a strange criterion.

However, the main issue for me with LS2 is that it actually has a lot less value to it than LS3 and 4 chapters that actually give you new zones where you can earn ascended trinkets. Now that I played through LS2 (after begrudgingly paying for it), I found it wasn't worth it. LS3 at least gave me a fair value. It just irks me that some players get it for free and others don't.

I agree that the world or life isn't fair. That doesn't make the complaint any less valid however. Personally I chose to pay for them after all but I still find it strange that buying the core game and both expansions do not give you all the zones...you know, like in GW1. And if everybody had to pay for them then I would find it strange but then it's just a dlc charge. However, splitting between players where some pay and some don't is a valid complaint.

Not that I'm going to stand on the barricades for it or expect ArenaNet to change their stance, but the complaint is valid afaic.

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:I think LS should be free for everybody and not just older player players who were here at the right time. I find that a strange criterion.

However, the main issue for me with LS2 is that it actually has a lot less value to it than LS3 and 4 chapters that actually give you new zones where you can earn ascended trinkets. Now that I played through LS2 (after begrudgingly paying for it), I found it wasn't worth it. LS3 at least gave me a fair value. It just irks me that some players get it for free and others don't.

That "third" option you mention is one of my two described options (number one in fact). Taking the time to log in during a chapter's initial release period. This is paying for it with time. Of course a given player may choose to forgo that option.