If you buy Guild Wars 2 today, what do you get?

I am helping a friend find and purchase a digital copy of GW2, starting from scratch. We find Path of Fire in several value levels from minimal to ultimate. I understand the minor add ons each level brings but nowhere does it explicitly say if it comes with Heart of Thorns or the Living Worlds (2, 3, 4 as released), etc. I purchased at initial release and added as the were released, but want to make sure they get them, however necessary. Does anyone know for sure what a purchase today gets?

Living World Seasons need to be purchased separately from the expansion(s), but I believe there is the option for a discount if you buy them together (? might be wrong). I think full seasons come at 800 gems, individual episodes cost 200 gems each. The rest is exactly as it states under the purchase: 1 Level 80 boost + Shared inventory slot and the expansion itself are pretty much the important things. The Ultimate edition is worth considering if you plan to purchase any gems in the near future, as it comes at a discounted price for the gems, which is the reason that you cannot buy it later on after you have already purchased either expansion.

That being said, perhaps it is worth waiting for another sale. There might be a smaller discount on PoF with the upcoming halloween event, though we have had quite a lot of sales this year so no guarantee.

HoT doesn't come with Path of Fire, but if you're buying it from Anet, you can pick up HoT for $20, it's an option at the time of purchase. Other authorized dealers like DLGamer.com offer package deals as well. Only buy from an authorized dealer.

The living world comes with nothing. There is no package you can buy that includes the living world. The living world seasons are purchased through the gem store. That said if you buy the ultimate edition of HoT, you'll have gems you can use (at half price) toward the purchase of the living world.

Thanks Vayne. That was the explanation I was looking for. We were looking on the ANET website and I was suspicious when Path of Fire was the only option (and not Guild Wars 2). Hot was not mentioned anywhere, nor were any of the Living Worlds. When I'd played the major MMO's, whenever you purchased the game, you got everything released up to that point, and new expansions beyond that time cost more.

So you can't buy Living Worlds at time of the retail purchase and so you find out about them after you've downloaded? Wow...that is interesting but it does explain why they don't offer to sell Guild Wars 2. They'd be shut down in a heartbeat.

If buying from the webpage, you can add LS2 just like you can add HoT.

That leaves LS3 (there's a bundle) and LS4 episodes up to the point you started playing to purchase. (If that is now, they'll need episodes 1-3; if they've already played as F2P for more than 4 weeks, ep 3 is already unlocked.)

I'd go for that, informing your friend that there's some content that still needs purchasing, but if you play everything in order it's a fair bit off still.

Edit: an option of course is choosing the Ultimate edition of PoF, since it contains more than enough gems to purchase all of the living world.

The way it's displayed is a bit odd, but if you choose to buy Path of Fire (any version) you get the option to add HoT at a discount (in the UK it's £17), and Season 2 for £13.75. That just leaves Season 3 and the bit of Season 4 which has been released so far.

If you wanted to get everything for 1 payment the only way to do it would be to buy Path of Fire Ultimate, add Heart of Thorns and Season 2 and then use the gems to buy Season 3 and 4. (Personally I'd recommend waiting until Season 4 is finished and then getting the complete pack because it's cheaper that way and your friend will have more than enough content without it.)

Be aware it takes 72 hours for the gems to be delivered - because Anet wants to check that the payment goes through correctly and isn't charged back or flagged by the bank as fraud before they give you gems which could be converted to gold and transferred to another account (or used to gift items to another account), apparently that was a common problem.

Also you can buy just Heart of Thorns. From www.guildwars2.com click on Shop, rather than clicking 'buy GW2' and you get the option for either HoT or PoF. (There is no option for the base game because it's bundled with both expansions.)

@Danikat.8537 said:(Personally I'd recommend waiting until Season 4 is finished and then getting the complete pack because it's cheaper that way and your friend will have more than enough content without it.)

Why would waiting be cheaper? As soon as he starts playing, he will get all new Season 4 releases for free, so the price of the Season 4 bundle doesn't change. It only includes the missed releases.

@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:

Why would waiting be cheaper? As soon as he starts playing, he will get all new Season 4 releases for free, so the price of the Season 4 bundle doesn't change. It only includes the missed releases.

Because the bundles are discounted, even when reduced by the episodes you own.If you have 3 of the 6 LS3 episodes, the LS3 bundle cost 480 instead of the 600 of buying them piecemeal.

Hmm. I'm up to $116 for the entire game, assuming the ultimate version gem supply covers LW3 and 4, which I believe it will. However, that's a $50 premium over the base Path of Fire purchase, which is the approximate cost of 4000 gems. But wait, how many characters do I get with that package (without clicking "add another character"?). I seem to remember 5 characters coming with the original game, and one when I bought Path of Fire myself as an expansion. The ultimate version gets 2, so do I get 7 with this $116 combo, or 2, which is what it looks like? Inquiring minds want to know.

Since we're at it, how many gems does LW3 cost, full up from zero start, bought all at once, and what's the best gem price for 4 episodes of LW4? It's probably cheaper to buy the base game and ~1600 gems to purchase the LW's than the ultimate PoF game. Hmm...I don't see any of that on the ANET website, even after I start the purchase.

Somehow this is reminding me of a used car dealer. Nice price for the car, but then add tires, fan belt, and accelerator and brake pedals. Oh yeah, this car only comes with one seat too, even though the original could seat 5. Want to add a seat?

@"Michael.9403" said:Hmm. I'm up to $116 for the entire game, assuming the ultimate version gem supply covers LW3 and 4, which I believe it will. However, that's a $50 premium over the base Path of Fire purchase, which is the approximate cost of 4000 gems. But wait, how many characters do I get with that package (without clicking "add another character"?). I seem to remember 5 characters coming with the original game, and one when I bought Path of Fire myself as an expansion. The ultimate version gets 2, so do I get 7 with this $116 combo, or 2, which is what it looks like? Inquiring minds want to know.

Hm, I'm not perfectly sure about this, but payed accounts gets 5 slots, PoF ultimate gives another 1 for a total of 6.Also, if going Ultimate, skip adding Season 2, you can get that with the gems! See below!

Since we're at it, how many gems does LW3 cost, full up from zero start, bought all at once, and what's the best gem price for 4 episodes of LW4? It's probably cheaper to buy the base game and ~1600 gems to purchase the LW's than the ultimate PoF game. Hmm...I don't see any of that on the ANET website, even after I start the purchase.

Season 2 bundle in Gem Store: 1280 gems (this matches exactly the $/€16 price as addon)Season 3 bundle: 960 gemsSeason 4: 600 gems (see note)Total: 2840 gems. This leaves 1160 gems of the 4k from the Ultimate bundle.

Note on Season 4: 3 episodes á 200 gems each. Ep 4 is active now and will unlock for free as long as they log in before ep 5 launches in 1-2 months.

Note on bundles: All LW episodes are 200 gems each, but complete seasons have bundles at 20% off the á la carte price. This is calculated from your missing episodes if you already have some, so if you don't expect your friend to reach season 4 within 4-6 months of playing, they can wait until the season is complete to buy the bundle at (likely) 480 gems. Really not a big difference, though.

If you buy PoF Ultimate and use the code to create a new account you will get 6 character slots: 5 from the base game, 1 from the Ultimate Edition. (If you use it to upgrade an existing account you will only get 1 extra, because you've already got the 5 base game slots.)

I'm not sure where you're seeing that PoF Ultimate gives 2 character slots. If you pre-ordered Heart of Thorns you got 2, but that was because players kicked up a fuss over the cost and the fact that a new profession was added so they'd have to delete a character or buy a slot to make full use of the expansion. PoF had different pre-order bonuses, I know there was a mini pet but I don't remember what else.

@Danikat.8537 said:If you buy PoF Ultimate and use the code to create a new account you will get 6 character slots: 5 from the base game, 1 from the Ultimate Edition. (If you use it to upgrade an existing account you will only get 1 extra, because you've already got the 5 base game slots.)

To clarify: if you use it on an existing payed account, it gives one slot.If used on a free account it adds 4 slots, by first increasing base slots from 2 (free) to 5 (payed), then adding 1.

Ok get the ultimate which you pay $50 extra for the gems, but it gives you all the extras like a character slot, name change contract, some mini's, shared storage slot, level 80 boost, and some other nice things I don't remember. When you go to purchase Pof it also includes the core GW2 game. The total price for just PoF with the Core game is $79.99. Now for $20 more you can get HoT added to everything which brings it to $99.99. If you choose you can also add more to the game you get with other options as an added cost of course. This is from the GW2 site..