Why should I pay for the story, when I already have bought both expansions?

Or am I missing something? Currently all Living Seasons chapters in my character sheet are locked and a price of 200 gems is displayed at each of them. But I have both expansions, haven't I already paid enough to have access to everything? I thought that was the main idea behind GW2's design - you buy the game + DLCs and have access to all it can offer, right?

Even more strange - why Living Season 4 is also locked? I've bought expansion before it went live, and I heard that if you are logged in when a new story arc is going live, and have needed expansions, you get it for free for sure.

What's going on?

The current model is Buy-to-Play. When you purchase expansions, you also buy the ability to play Living World Episodes that are associated with each expansion. You can unlock (purchase) previous Living World Episodes (Season 2 and Season 3) in bundles at a reduced cost.
You can wait until Season 4 is finished (if you purchased Path of Fire after it started), and then purchase that bundle, which will deduct the cost of (Season 4) Episodes already unlocked (such as the current Episode).

The expansions are offered at a very reasonable price, I feel. If you are active during the release of any Living World Season Episode, you unlock said Episode (not Arc) at no cost, whatsoever.

Welcome to Tyria, and good luck.

It's a little confusing, because the game doesn't explain why it's setup this way. The short of it is that ANet had to decide how best to fund some of their work on living world. They could

• Charge everyone per story, as they are released.
• Offer it for free to logged on players as a loyalty reward; charge everyone else.
• Bundle it with the expansions & charge more for those.

ANet went with the second option: all active players can share in the new story, without worrying about the cost, expansions are at a price point that more people are willing to afford, and veterans generally feel that ANet is doing something for them (however little).

It does surprise a lot of new players, so I wish ANet would set expectations for them better. (For example: offer the living world bundles at a discount when you buy the expansion and mention that it could/will cost more if bought later.)

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 , this is really strange situation. As if anything else it sort of punishes new players for being late to the fest, for no reason. That's when other games, like Eve Online, make wise decision to boost their newcomers instead, providing them extra tools so they would develop their characters at faster speed and would be able to join everybody else sooner. Doesn't seem like very well-thought decision.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:The expansions are offered at a very reasonable price, I feel. If you are active during the release of any Living World Season Episode, you unlock said Episode (not Arc) at no cost, whatsoever.

Then why LW season 4 does also look like I need to pay for it? I only see the 1st episode of LW4 unlocked, and the rest seem to require 200 gems per each. I've been active at least once per week since I bought the DLCs at the start of the January.

Ah, pardon me, I was wrong. Only LW4 episodes 4 and 5 are open.

Anyway, it simply of no use like this. I better won't play it at all, then play a gutted story. And I definitely won't pay another 50$ just for the story chapters, that's a price you can buy 2 very good games at Steam for, that's ridiculous. I also won't be grinding day and night just to buy it for gold. So my only option to get to the story (be it previous or future chapters) is when I'll reach a stage of development when getting a few hundreds of gold will be a breath - and I'm not sure it will even happen at all.

That's a horrible marketing which effectively locks a lot of people from story entirely.

Living story episodes get unlocked for free if you log in when each episode is the newest one (loggin in once in 2-3 months). This way they do get unlocked even if you don't own any expansions. You will of course need the expansion to actually play them, but they will be unlocked already once you have it.

If you have not logged in when each episode is released and is the newest one you have to purchase them with gems.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:It's a little confusing, because the game doesn't explain why it's setup this way. The short of it is that ANet had to decide how best to fund some of their work on living world. They could

• Charge everyone per story, as they are released.
• Offer it for free to logged on players as a loyalty reward; charge everyone else.
• Bundle it with the expansions & charge more for those.

ANet went with the second option: all active players can share in the new story, without worrying about the cost, expansions are at a price point that more people are willing to afford, and veterans generally feel that ANet is doing something for them (however little).

There is another option: timegate free access to latest chapters for newcomers (charging the full price for them if they want them now, but only 33-50% if they don't mind to wait and will buy it next year), but allow them to play previous chapters (from a year before, and older) either for free, or for a trifle amount of money/gold (currently it's a whopping 50$ to catch up with everybody, and I've already paid that much for the game itself!); provide some limited time unique items/outfits/bonuses to those who will be playing each episode at the time of release, to encourage loyalty, but still allow everybody who bought expansions to witness the story itself later for a few $, or for free ; charge less for older chapters than for newer ones, at last.

Because in current situation, if you are a new player and you are not willing to pay insane amount a money for a part of game for which you've already paid a significant price, you basically don't have access to story at all (as I won't be playing a gutted story, even if I'll get future chapters for free). What is the point in all this?

They could even strip all rewards and money from those story missions if you're accessing them for free, for example, but still, completely hiding it behind huge paywall, preventing many new players to catch up to the story is totally insane, whatever are their reasons.

I don't feel $50 is a substantial amount for Core Tyria, Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire. Many of us paid $60 (or more) for Core Tyria, $50 (or more) for Heart of Thorns, and $30 (or more) for Path of Fire. Newcomers get a substantial break in the cost of the 3 parts of the game, and also get a discount on Living World Season Episodes (if bought in a bundle).

ArenaNet must finance the studio; most of the players find this an acceptable model. You can always forego the Living World Season Stories until later, when you have either accumulated in-game Gold to acquire them at no cost, or until you decide the stories are worth a bit of cash (it's about $2.50 per Episode).

Very simply put:

Because 30-50 bucks for a MMO will not keep the lights on for over 6 years.

You nailed it in you first question:Have you not payed enough? No.

You haven't supported the game for 6 years. People who have, got free access to the Living World Content released during that time frame.

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" , I'm living in that lucky part of the world, where 50$ is 1/3 - 1/4 of monthly salary for a lot of people :) I can assure you, very few people living in such regions will buy story chapters for that money, when they even consider 10-15$ for a game on Steam at 66% discount "a lot". Anet won't finance anything with those people's money, they will just lock them from the story, that's all.

The said Eve Online offers special regional prices on their ingame goodies in such regions, which 2 times lower than for the rest of the world, at least, thus making it affordable - as an example. To pay 50$ (a money for which you can buy 2 AAA games at Steam, as Steam also offers regional discounts around there) for a story is something that will sound ridiculous for 90% of people around there. Thus Anet won't ever see their money. Yet, if they would be selling the older chapters at huge discounts, allowing people to get all older seasons for, say, 10$ - most of them would buy it, in the end.

Well, ArenaNet already offers the Core game at a substantial discount (from $60 to free), Heart of Thorns at a substantial discount (from $50 to $20) and Path of Fire at a discount often (on sale, like the recent 50% off [for both Pof and HoT).
Sometimes, Living World Seasons are offered at a discount, as well. You can always wait until the next discounted offering. Enjoy all the content you have access to for whatever discounted price you paid. :)

Free access to living story when it first comes out is, as others have suggested, a reward for players who have supported the game throughout its lifetime and also an incentive for people currently playing to continue to do so. The only requirement for the free access is to log in a single time while the release is still new and then bam, it's yours, no hassle.

This happens with other aspects of the game too. Take the rewards from season one: People who played that content when it was new got free access to the story and also to the loot and achievements that were part of it. People who came later now have to pay to receive those loot items (with laurels or with gold or gems depending on what you're after).

While coming late and not having free access to things may seem unfair, you should consider that 200 gems is a reasonable goal to set and a motivator for a person to either a.) play the game to get the gold to get the gems to get the story or b.) pay directly for the gems and support ArenaNet. Both are good for the health of the game.

It should also be noted that the story isn't gated. Even with things like living story chapters and raids and dialogue from meta events you might consider difficult to complete, the community has stepped in with detailed guides, transcripts, and videos that will give you more information than you ever asked for.

The story is easily accessible (and free!)

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:There is another option:There are probably 1000 other permutations for how to do it. The ones I listed are the basic ideas; they could mix & match.

timegate free access to latest chapters for newcomers (charging the full price for them if they want them now, but only 33-50% if they don't mind to wait and will buy it next year), but allow them to play previous chapters (from a year before, and older) either for free, or for a trifle amount of money/gold (currently it's a whopping 50$ to catch up with everybody, and I've already paid that much for the game itself!); provide some limited time unique items/outfits/bonuses to those who will be playing each episode at the time of release, to encourage loyalty, but still allow everybody who bought expansions to witness the story itself later for a few $, or for free ; charge less for older chapters than for newer ones, at last.

With any of the options, some people are going to benefit more, some less. ANet has to make a business decision that trades off convenience, income, and presentation. I certainly have my preferences, but the piece we are missing from their calculus is: what's the cost? what's the income? The current system's biggest advantage is simplicity. Once it's understood, it's easy for people to choose to logon for free access.

Because in current situation, if you are a new player and you are not willing to pay insane amount a money for a part of game for which you've already paid a significant price, you basically don't have access to story at all (as I won't be playing a gutted story, even if I'll get future chapters for free).Everyone playing has paid to have access; that's nothing special about new players over veterans. One way or another, ANet needs a certain income and we want to pay as little as possible.

So if new players pay less for Living World, who do you think should pay more?

Besides which, unlike expansions, people can buy the unlocks for Living World with gems, which in turn can be bought with gold. So one can choose to pay ~310 in gold instead of the extra ~US$12 for LS3, or for LS2 415 gold versus US$15.

What is the point in all this?As I wrote originally, it keeps the total price of the game low, is nice for those who play regularly (even as little as 1-2 weeks, 3-4x per year), and it mostly doesn't get in the way of that many people.

Still, like any compromise, it's not good for everyone.

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:I definitely won't pay another 50$ just for the story chapters,

Just to highlight this: you can pay with gold instead, if you want. It will take some time to earn that amount of gold (less if you intensely farm, more if you don't). And it's not US$50. The total cost is 2840, which costs US$35.50.

• LS2 pack is 1280 gems
• LS3 for 960
• LS4.1-.4.3 for 600 gems

Of course, that's still the price of a new GW2 account with one expansion, a year-old premium game, or maybe a couple of games on Steam or GOG. You have to decide whether the cost is worth the value you get.

For me, I've gotten countless hours of entertainment over 6 years for my investment, which, even if I paid for LS2, 3, & 4, would still end up being less than what I pay for Netflix.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:is nice for those who play regularly (even as little as 1-2 weeks, 3-4x per year)

Has little to do with how often you play, but only with when you started to play. Because, as already said, there is zero point into playing story starting LW4, omitting previous chapters, and at current price of 50$ very few will buy the previous chapters, at least in countries like mine. So, effectively, the only affordable way for people from around there to play it will be to somehow gather enough gold to buy 3400 gems - and, again, very few will be grinding day and night just to see the story. So, in the end, that policy only makes any sense if you start to play shortly after release, for quite a lot of people. Very questionable way to do business, at best.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Just to highlight this: you can pay with gold instead

It's more like 3400 gems for me, or ~45$ Now, how many years will I need to gather enough gold to buy 3400 gems, if I play, say, 4-8 hours per week? I'll pretty much get bored and drop the game much faster than that :) This option is almost non-existent, unless you wish to make the game a 2nd work. It's almost useless if you need to catch up for all the story for all those years, only makes sense if you have extra gold and want to buy 1-2 chapters for it.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:For me, I've gotten countless hours of entertainment over 6 years for my investment, which, even if I paid for LS2, 3, & 4, would still end up being less than what I pay for Netflix.

And for me 45$ is 2 excellent games I can buy at Steam right now. For example, I bought Witcher 3 for trifle 10$ (few years after release on huge discount at Steam, which offers low regional prices for 3rd-world countries like mine), and those 10$ not only provided me one of the best stories in video games for last 10 years, but also a full, complete actual game itself. Sorry, but with all due respect, story in GW2 is, at best, of just good quality, an ok story. And those chapters also are few years old, like Witcher was when I bought it. And I need to pay for it 5 times more for just an ok story (without a new, separate game coming with it, btw)? That just sounds absolutely insane. I can buy this year's AAA game for 25$ at steam (full price), normally (again, due to regional discounts as Steam understand that their customers here won't afford full price of it, and just simply won't buy it - a few dollars is better than nothing).

Anet just won't get even those few $ from people who live in countries like mine, simple as that - and that's a huge chunk of the world, you know. Doesn't seem like very reasonable policy.

You dont have to buy every lws at the same time. Just buy one episode with ingame gold and play it, after a while buy a second one and so on.

Guild wars 2 is the cheapest mmo I have ever played plus cosmetics, no offense but your kind of coming off as slightly entitled, and I am not saying you are but paying for living story is not that big of a deal, and you can always look them up on youtube, most mmorpgs have a vip status to actually be rewarding thats 15 a month plus expansions like eso for example charges for some of their big expansions plus the vip along with cosmetics, these expacs are on sale quite often. Compared to everything else on the market your spending about 50 bucks all together the dlcs are 2 dollars a piece, for many many many hours of gameplay, even with all the steam game sales for sp games gw2 is very worth the money.

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Just to highlight this: you can pay with gold instead

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:For me, I've gotten countless hours of entertainment over 6 years for my investment, which, even if I paid for LS2, 3, & 4, would still end up being less than what I pay for Netflix.

I hear ya if its more expensive in other countries and what not, but lets be honest here this is an mmo and the cheapest you will find unless you have no tons of free time and can play one of those grinders for free and earn some vip status.

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:You dont have to buy every lws at the same time. Just buy one episode with ingame gold and play it, after a while buy a second one and so on.

At that price point I'll never buy it personally, as it just feels like a total robbery. I can name a dozen games I can buy at Steam for 2-3 times less money, which can offer story experience times better than LW seasons of GW2, for example. And I can assure you most of other people from around here will think the same.

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:

@sokeenoppa.5384 said:You dont have to buy every lws at the same time. Just buy one episode with ingame gold and play it, after a while buy a second one and so on.

Arenanet employes work in countries where the cost is insignificant.

You are literally expecting a business model which either drops their revenue to your countries income level (not going to happen) or to shuffle the business implementation so that others now have to cover your cost.

Maybe be careful with terms like robbery, GW2 is by far one of the cheapest MMOs in the market which does not rely on in-game shop shenanigans or pay-to-win.

Yes, you can buy a ton of games on steam for less, most of those are discounted AFTER they made their sales numbers and/or are not in continued production. If your region of the world can not produce enough income or revenue required at the bare minimum for this game to sustain its self, then there is no point in supporting it (from a pure business perspective).

I'll repeat, the current system encourages people to stay with the game and loging in every 3 months is hardly to much to ask for. Players who were with the game, of which some have likely spent money on the gem store, have funded the continued development of the game. As alternative you can farm gold and exchange gems and get the content that way (which has some one else pay for the gems and the content in essence).

@MoriMoriMori.5349 said:

@"sokeenoppa.5384" said:You dont have to buy every lws at the same time. Just buy one episode with ingame gold and play it, after a while buy a second one and so on.

Comparing an MMO DLC (which is what the living story episodes are, just with the added perk that there are ways to get them for free if you play at the time of release) to story delivery of single player games is comparing apples to oranges at best. Yes, story delivery is easier and much more flexible in single player games, but they do miss the interaction with lots of other players and general "living" world that MMOs offer.

Try comparing the living world seasons to ESO's DLCs or WoW's expansions, and you'll find that the price is in fact pretty fair for what is offered with those packs. But the real beauty about it all is that you don't need them. You can play the expansions without needing anything from the preceeding living world episode, and you can even play the episodes and maps you have unlocked (s4 ep4+5) without owning the episodes before.

punish late adapter with les content is a bad idea Anet will maybe understand this one day

@Balsa.3951 said:punish late adapter with les content is a bad idea Anet will maybe understand this one day

Agree, I would personal love for them to adopt a subscription model or charge for content releases to fund development.

Not sure that is what you were getting at though was it?