[Going through some old screenshots and...]

Hunh. I just now noticed it was gone. Now I'm not going to able to un-see it.

I remember at launch wondering why the moon was in different phases when I went from one map to another. Then I started thinking about the painterly boarders and was like "I get it, each map is a different artistic interpretation".

Oh, well. Don't suppose a 'bring muh boarders back' campaign would amount to much.

[Going through some old screenshots and...]

No, neither of those. In game, the sides of the screen used to look like black brush-strokes.Edit: Look at the sides of the screen here: http://assets1.ignimgs.com/2012/09/08/guild-wars-2-20120908002456419-3658005.jpg

[Going through some old screenshots and...]

When did we lose the painterly screen boarders?

[I swear every time I build a new PC...]

Character Model Limit: Did you do it?Me: Yes.Character Model Limit: What did it cost?Me: My CPU :.-(

[So I've been playing regularly since release]

@Donari.5237 said:Dry Top and Silverwastes you can access right now without any story. Just get to the portal in.

For the LS3 and LS4 maps, and the new LS5 prologue, you do have to do the initial story step once on one character. Which, since you only have one, means this next part isn't as useful to you: you can then farm up some map currency and buy a portal scroll from a vendor. Also a tome, into which you can jam all the scrolls for that season. With that, you can hop to the map for free any time, with any character, no need to scroll the map around to find the wp and pay wp fees.

You do not have to do the whole story. Only enough to access the map once.

That's all for LS, but does slightly apply to both HoT and PoF. You can get into both if you join guilds that have halls in them. Travel to the guild hall, exit into the map, you unlock a wp that you can then use (hint: in Lost Precipice, you are in the nw corner of the Verdant Brink map so the entry wp is waaaaay over to the east). You must own the expansions to be able to get into the LS3 and 4 maps. But you can get to all the expansion maps once you get to the first one. If you want gliders or mounts, you will have to do the first step of HoT and PoF. Again, you needn't do any more story than that (except if you want griffon, you have to finish PoF before you can collect that, and Skyscale I'm not sure if there's a story bar to it other than having to do enough of LS4Ch6 to unlock it, be that to the skyscale hatchlings part or the end, I don't know).

Cool, thanks. Didn't know I could get to Silver Wastes and such yet. Spend most of my time harvesting the plat and hard wood. I've made a few small fortunes. I'm mostly a market player, I like economics.

[So I've been playing regularly since release]

I only have one character and I've never finished the personal story. Had world completion years ago, just have no interest in the personal story. I hate being 'locked in' to something like that. Yeah that means I've never been to Dry Top, Silver Wastes, etc.If I purchase the expansions, do I have to play through the story to unlock the map areas?