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Returning player, can't access 24 episodes


Mike Ditka.2531

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I was a player on day 1 and played daily for 18 months or so before i joined the reserves. I've been home now for 8 months and an old friend brought up GW2. So i decided to buy the PoF expansion, which gives HOT free and supposedly the Icebrood Saga. I've spent the last week or so going through the story and honestly I've been enjoying every minute of it. The problem is, Living world episodes and all but 1 Icebrood Saga episode is locked. It says i need to pay 200 gems each, so that's 4,800 gems, wtf? At the current gold prices i could exchange a little over 1,743 gold for those gems (i have 61), or pay another $60 cash. I've read that if you logged on during the release of those Living world seasons you get them for free, but am i the only one who thinks this is really bad for returning AND new players? Worst part about this is i found a really nice and helpful guild that do different things nightly and 3 times this week i was unable to join them because i don't have access to those zones. Am i the only one who thinks this absolutely sucks?

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It doesn't give you the Icebrood Saga, it only unlocks your access to it. In order to play it, you need the Episodes, which - like with all LW seasons - are only for free if you log into the game during the current release period of each ep. Otherwise, you will need to buy them.

@Mike Ditka.2531 said:am i the only one who thinks this is really bad for returning AND new players?

No, because new players are getting one expansion for free along with the core game, while oldtimers who received LW for free had to pay for each expansion and the core game.

Everything has its pros and cons.

Edit: P.S. Whole seasons are occasionally on sale, so no need to buy each episode separately. Keep an eye on the Gem Store.

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@Mike Ditka.2531 said:Am i the only one who thinks this absolutely sucks?

Let us say not the only one, but the amount of people who believe GW2 should be completely for free is rather small. We do not have monthly subscription fees, so the company only makes money with two ways:

  • selling the game
  • selling stuff on the Gemstore

The Gemstore items however follow a special rule, no P2Win items. The concept with the Living World is nice for players who stick with the game. As you have lost interest after barely 18 months, you have a basic idea how difficult it can be to stick with the game for 8 years straight. The release cadence of new expansions and Living World content was challenging to say the least.

When it comes to selling the game and expansions, they often rely on heavy discounts to attract new players. You are currently paying less than half what each expansion and the core-game costed, for all three.

Every returner and every new player runs into the exact same situation as you. Looking at the Living World content, the seasons can be seen as small expansions. They are still quite cheap, compared to similar content of our competitors. They are completely optional and you are not forced to pay them for real money. Farming takes a while, but a lot of players pick that path.

The Living World seasons are quite different:

  • Season 2 has no Mastery-System, the maps are part of the core-game. So except for the story and a couple of achievements, that one can be neglected at first.
  • Season 3 is full of easy methods to gear (ascended) your characters, most of the Masteries are only use-able in certain maps.
  • Season 4 features less gearing options, but offers Masteries that can be used in all Tyria and grants access to 2 additional mounts.
  • Icebrood Saga is a mix, it contains map-locked Masteries as well as some Masteries which work in all Tyria. Less gear options than LW3, but more skins.

So before you purchase a certain season, gather information. Do you really want/need it? I often run into players (new & returners) who do that. They only unlock what appears to be useful/worth it to them and leave the other stuff for 'later.' If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Regarding that guild, I ran into that same situation a few weeks ago. Found a nice guild, but the activity times did not meet my RL schedule. Happens. There are tons of guilds out there. A lot of them focus on introducing and helping new players. I can also recommend you the social-guilds which are helpful to new and returning players as well. Keep your eyes open, especially the map-chat in festival/daily-maps and you will find another one in no time. The active ones keep advertising and looking for new members.

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Thanks for the replies. I wouldn't say I lost interest after 18 months at all. I would've loved to keep playing everyday but i enlisted so, life happens, oh well,. The thing is, for new or returning players, nowhere does it say that after paying $30-$80 for the expansions you're still unable to play many parts of the story. As a matter of fact it says Icebrood Saga is included, which as you just stated is clearly not the case, it just gives you access. Anyways, it's a real bummer for me especially since i'm one of those people who is really into the story and achievements. Lastly, i'm not sure if this is true, but a guildmate said that the least amount of money ArenaNet made in a year was a tad under $50 million usd, it would just be nice to let their customers know that even after buying the expansions you still arent able to access 2 dozen episodes. Merry Christmas :)

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Even games like Civilization (for an example) have DLCs you have to pay to play, so I don't see it as much different. If you started Civ now you'd drop all the cash at once to get it all, but if you played and paid from the beginning, it'd be doled out incrementally.

Pretty standard practices I'd say -- except people that play GW2 continuously get rewarded for doing so. Or for logging in at least. I could play Civ every day and get nothing for free.

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That's their system. You log in once when the new content is active you get it for free. You don't log in it's 200 gems. You don't log in forever wait for a sale as the seasons usually 35-40 percent off. You don't need all at once so 200 gems or 70g per episode isn't tough to acquire. Check you bank maybe you got something valuable or dump what's in you mat storage and list on TP might get you a couple episodes and unlock the areas your guild goes to first. You just got a bl claim ticket for free too so buy an shimmering one and sell on tp like 45-50g right there.

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@Mike Ditka.2531 said:I was a player on day 1 and played daily for 18 months or so before i joined the reserves. I've been home now for 8 months and an old friend brought up GW2. So i decided to buy the PoF expansion, which gives HOT free and supposedly the Icebrood Saga. I've spent the last week or so going through the story and honestly I've been enjoying every minute of it. The problem is, Living world episodes and all but 1 Icebrood Saga episode is locked. It says i need to pay 200 gems each, so that's 4,800 gems, kitten? At the current gold prices i could exchange a little over 1,743 gold for those gems (i have 61), or pay another $60 cash. I've read that if you logged on during the release of those Living world seasons you get them for free, but am i the only one who thinks this is really bad for returning AND new players? Worst part about this is i found a really nice and helpful guild that do different things nightly and 3 times this week i was unable to join them because i don't have access to those zones. Am i the only one who thinks this absolutely sucks?

I think it's a pretty bad system, and I would even wager it's making them lose customers while barely making any money out of it. I know a lot of new players who felt cheated when they realized what was going on, and few of them quit or didn't buy the expansions at all.

The Living World should be free for everyone, or no one. Punishing new players is counterproductive for your game's finances.

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@Lonami.2987 said:

@Mike Ditka.2531 said:I was a player on day 1 and played daily for 18 months or so before i joined the reserves. I've been home now for 8 months and an old friend brought up GW2. So i decided to buy the PoF expansion, which gives HOT free and supposedly the Icebrood Saga. I've spent the last week or so going through the story and honestly I've been enjoying every minute of it. The problem is, Living world episodes and all but 1 Icebrood Saga episode is locked. It says i need to pay 200 gems each, so that's 4,800 gems, kitten? At the current gold prices i could exchange a little over 1,743 gold for those gems (i have 61), or pay another $60 cash. I've read that if you logged on during the release of those Living world seasons you get them for free, but am i the only one who thinks this is really bad for returning AND new players? Worst part about this is i found a really nice and helpful guild that do different things nightly and 3 times this week i was unable to join them because i don't have access to those zones. Am i the only one who thinks this absolutely sucks?

I think it's a pretty bad system, and I would even wager it's making them lose customers while barely making any money out of it. I know a lot of new players who felt cheated when they realized what was going on, and few of them quit or didn't buy the expansions at all.

The Living World should be free for everyone, or no one. Punishing new players is counterproductive for your game's finances.

This.My friends don't want to play the game because of this very thing. They find it unfair and especially poorly communicated ...If they didn't know me, they wouldn't even know about it.

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@Mike Ditka.2531 said:Thanks for the replies. I wouldn't say I lost interest after 18 months at all. I would've loved to keep playing everyday but i enlisted so, life happens, oh well,. The thing is, for new or returning players, nowhere does it say that after paying $30-$80 for the expansions you're still unable to play many parts of the story. As a matter of fact it says Icebrood Saga is included, which as you just stated is clearly not the case, it just gives you access. Anyways, it's a real bummer for me especially since i'm one of those people who is really into the story and achievements. Lastly, i'm not sure if this is true, but a guildmate said that the least amount of money ArenaNet made in a year was a tad under $50 million usd, it would just be nice to let their customers know that even after buying the expansions you still arent able to access 2 dozen episodes. Merry Christmas :)

I'm going to pull out one of your points here, which has been discussed a number of times. Having expansions advertised and then finding that the LS episodes are not included. I agree that Anet should be more clear about this when advertising the expansions. There are some players for whom the story is not interesting and they happily play along without it. There are others who see the story as a unique feature of GW2 and therefore experience huge narrative jumps because they don't have the LS episodes.

As well as having players purchase the missing LS episodes with gems, perhaps they could sell the LS episodes as a tack-on option for real life purchases? Then it would be obvious what the expansions do not contain, and players who wish to purchase the LS episodes can do so at the same time. And continue to have the LS episodes in the gem store so that players who later change their minds can still purchase them.

Anet???...

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Same thing happened with me.I think it is okay. I just paid the money to unlock all of them. I think I waited for a sale 35% off or something, I can't remember exactly. Completely worth it in terms of value.I like that as a dedicated player we can get some paid content for free, but it dues give a sucky feeling for those who come late or have returned after a long time.

However, I do think this is confusing for people who pay for the expansions (PoF) and then realize they have huge gaps of content between their expansions which then they have to pay for again. I understand this may give a bad taste in the mouth. Honestly, Anet should just bundle all released living worlds (or at least pre-PoF) into an expansion purchase option, like a "Complete Deluxe Package" that also gets discounted 35% during expansion sales, like when they do the 50% off sales. It would make it clear that when you buy the normal expansions those Living World episodes are not included, and people could see how much the complete game would cost them. I little more transparency would make people feel less "cheated" when they realize reality is different than their easily made assumption.

I hope when the release EoD they do something like this. Release (even if just limited time) a $120 bundle or whatever that includes EVERYTHING for new and long-ago players.

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@Mike Ditka.2531 said:Thanks for the replies. I wouldn't say I lost interest after 18 months at all. I would've loved to keep playing everyday but i enlisted so, life happens, oh well,. The thing is, for new or returning players, nowhere does it say that after paying $30-$80 for the expansions you're still unable to play many parts of the story. As a matter of fact it says Icebrood Saga is included, which as you just stated is clearly not the case, it just gives you access. Anyways, it's a real bummer for me especially since i'm one of those people who is really into the story and achievements. Lastly, i'm not sure if this is true, but a guildmate said that the least amount of money ArenaNet made in a year was a tad under $50 million usd, it would just be nice to let their customers know that even after buying the expansions you still arent able to access 2 dozen episodes. Merry Christmas :)

Very few people are unaware of how the episode acquisition works. They (anet)have been very straight foward. Also , this has been discussed here more than once as the search feature will show. And the games wiki also helps. I can understand the frustration of a new player joining the game for the 1st time, but that is the way always has been for the episodes.

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@Mike Ditka.2531 said:I was a player on day 1 and played daily for 18 months or so before i joined the reserves. I've been home now for 8 months and an old friend brought up GW2. So i decided to buy the PoF expansion, which gives HOT free and supposedly the Icebrood Saga. I've spent the last week or so going through the story and honestly I've been enjoying every minute of it. The problem is, Living world episodes and all but 1 Icebrood Saga episode is locked. It says i need to pay 200 gems each, so that's 4,800 gems, kitten? At the current gold prices i could exchange a little over 1,743 gold for those gems (i have 61), or pay another $60 cash. I've read that if you logged on during the release of those Living world seasons you get them for free, but am i the only one who thinks this is really bad for returning AND new players? Worst part about this is i found a really nice and helpful guild that do different things nightly and 3 times this week i was unable to join them because i don't have access to those zones. Am i the only one who thinks this absolutely sucks?

You could of logged in during that time and gotten those episodes for free. You chose not to, so now you have to pay for them. None of the people I know that have joined this game have been confused by this concept or felt duped. It is the same with any game that has DLC really, unless it is explicitly stated, you don't buy the game and just expect to get all the DLC for free.

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@Blude.6812 said:

@Mike Ditka.2531 said:Thanks for the replies. I wouldn't say I lost interest after 18 months at all. I would've loved to keep playing everyday but i enlisted so, life happens, oh well,. The thing is, for new or returning players, nowhere does it say that after paying $30-$80 for the expansions you're still unable to play many parts of the story. As a matter of fact it says Icebrood Saga is included, which as you just stated is clearly not the case, it just gives you access. Anyways, it's a real bummer for me especially since i'm one of those people who is really into the story and achievements. Lastly, i'm not sure if this is true, but a guildmate said that the least amount of money ArenaNet made in a year was a tad under $50 million usd, it would just be nice to let their customers know that even after buying the expansions you still arent able to access 2 dozen episodes. Merry Christmas :)

Very few people are unaware of how the episode acquisition works. They (anet)have been very straight foward. Also , this has been discussed here more than once as the search feature will show. And the games wiki also helps. I can understand the frustration of a new player joining the game for the 1st time, but that is the way always has been for the episodes.

Only people who have obtained an expansions and most of the seasons are aware of how episode acquisition works. But, it is not those people who need to be informed about how to buy the expansions now.Nearly all of the people now buying the expansions will be new players who are unaware of how the seasons have been given out. For new players the messaging is quite poor on what they get and what content they need to obtain with gems.

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  • 2 weeks later...

@PseudoNewb.5468 said:

@"Mike Ditka.2531" said:Thanks for the replies. I wouldn't say I lost interest after 18 months at all. I would've loved to keep playing everyday but i enlisted so, life happens, oh well,. The thing is, for new or returning players, nowhere does it say that after paying $30-$80 for the expansions you're still unable to play many parts of the story. As a matter of fact it says Icebrood Saga is included, which as you just stated is clearly not the case, it just gives you access. Anyways, it's a real bummer for me especially since i'm one of those people who is really into the story and achievements. Lastly, i'm not sure if this is true, but a guildmate said that the least amount of money ArenaNet made in a year was a tad under $50 million usd, it would just be nice to let their customers know that even after buying the expansions you still arent able to access 2 dozen episodes. Merry Christmas :)

Very few people are unaware of how the episode acquisition works. They (anet)have been very straight foward. Also , this has been discussed here more than once as the search feature will show. And the games wiki also helps. I can understand the frustration of a new player joining the game for the 1st time, but that is the way always has been for the episodes.

Only people who have obtained an expansions and most of the seasons are aware of how episode acquisition works. But, it is not those people who need to be informed about how to buy the expansions now.Nearly all of the people now buying the expansions will be new players who are unaware of how the seasons have been given out. For new players the messaging is quite poor on what they get and what content they need to obtain with gems.

I thought it was pretty clear on the Living story info page https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049722974-Living-World-Episode-Unlocks which says"There are two methods for unlocking episodes: acquiring it for free during its release window, or purchasing it at a later date. and

If a user misses the window for acquiring an episode for free, these episodes can also be purchased for 200 Gems.To purchase an episode, simply navigate to the Story Journal in your Hero Panel. Any episodes which have not been unlocked yet will be marked with a "lock" icon, as well as a "Buy Now" button which can be clicked to spend Gems to unlock the episode. and

Please note that purchasing an expansion does not automatically unlock the Living World episodes within its associated season(s). Users will still need to purchase these episodes if they did not login during the original release windows. Expansions simply grant the ability to play associated episodes which have already been unlocked, and will allow users to immediately start playing new episodes as they are released."

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@Blude.6812 said:

@"Mike Ditka.2531" said:Thanks for the replies. I wouldn't say I lost interest after 18 months at all. I would've loved to keep playing everyday but i enlisted so, life happens, oh well,. The thing is, for new or returning players, nowhere does it say that after paying $30-$80 for the expansions you're still unable to play many parts of the story. As a matter of fact it says Icebrood Saga is included, which as you just stated is clearly not the case, it just gives you access. Anyways, it's a real bummer for me especially since i'm one of those people who is really into the story and achievements. Lastly, i'm not sure if this is true, but a guildmate said that the least amount of money ArenaNet made in a year was a tad under $50 million usd, it would just be nice to let their customers know that even after buying the expansions you still arent able to access 2 dozen episodes. Merry Christmas :)

Very few people are unaware of how the episode acquisition works. They (anet)have been very straight foward. Also , this has been discussed here more than once as the search feature will show. And the games wiki also helps. I can understand the frustration of a new player joining the game for the 1st time, but that is the way always has been for the episodes.

Only people who have obtained an expansions and most of the seasons are aware of how episode acquisition works. But, it is not those people who need to be informed about how to buy the expansions now.Nearly all of the people now buying the expansions will be new players who are unaware of how the seasons have been given out. For new players the messaging is quite poor on what they get and what content they need to obtain with gems.

I thought it was pretty clear on the Living story info page
which says"There are two methods for unlocking episodes: acquiring it for free during its release window, or purchasing it at a later date. and

If a user misses the window for acquiring an episode for free, these episodes can also be purchased for 200 Gems.To purchase an episode, simply navigate to the Story Journal in your Hero Panel. Any episodes which have not been unlocked yet will be marked with a "lock" icon, as well as a "Buy Now" button which can be clicked to spend Gems to unlock the episode. and

Please note that purchasing an expansion does not automatically unlock the Living World episodes within its associated season(s). Users will still need to purchase these episodes if they did not login during the original release windows. Expansions simply grant the ability to play associated episodes which have already been unlocked, and will allow users to immediately start playing new episodes as they are released."

And what is the probability that a new player who does not know the model of GW2 will find it?When I google GW2 costs, in my language comes to 99% only pages that explain the FTP part, but not that the supposedly fine print to the LW in the expansions is also an extra cost point.While I know with most other MMO's, page 1 of Google usually clarifies all cost points because the games have summarized everything the same.

It would be absolutely not difficult for Anet to hang an * on "Living World: The Icebrood Saga" in the expansion purchase. Instead, they decided that you have to go over the text, which I personally would see absolutely no reason for.At least I don't remember ever going over it the two times I bought the Ultimate version. When Linken mentioned that, that was the first time I noticed that.And as I wrote, I find it very strange to hide the fine print even more. Does Anet really need that?

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