Source
r/Guildwars2•
UselessData

Let's talk about unlocking living world episodes

[Question]

I've been a bit out of the loop recently for GW2, but I've heard that LS3 is going to start soon so I took a look at their blog and saw this: "Just as in Season 2, you can unlock each episode for free by logging in to Guild Wars 2 any time between the episode’s initial release and the release of the next episode"

Do you guys think that's OK? It's not about how much time we're going to have, or how easy it is to unlock, but in my personal opinion I feel like after everything that HoT is and isn't, this isn't ok. "Here, you bought this, but you're only going to get it if you do what we say!". It doesn't matter that it's trivial to do, it just feels inherently disrespectful to me.

What do you guys think? I'd like to have a perspective on why this is ok.

Posted Jul 17, 2016, 4:07 PM UTC

015
XiahouMaoTrue Hero of the Three Kingdoms•

What do you guys think? I'd like to have a perspective on why this is ok.

It's okay because it rewards the people who actually play the game, and it incentivizes other people who might not be playing to log in and play. That's their end goal, after all, they want people to play the game.

If it offends you that they want people to play their game, then you're more than able to state your displeasure by not playing. Of course, you won't unlock the episode that way...

14
Sliekery•

Stop beating a dead horse. It's a free update, we aren't paying a sub. It's not hard to log in once every month or 2. People who don't own HoT can still unlock it. No downsides aside for people that don't play the game, but they won't care anyway.

13
thefinalturnip•

This. Seriously. It's like people look for any reason to bring up a problem with something that isn't a problem. We get free content updates. We don't pay a monthly sub. And you can bank your living world if you don't have the expansion and this is a bad thing?

So yeah, you missed it. Big deal. Shell out the 200 gems for it which isn't even a lot if you play the game periodically and do metas. Unless you're "bed ridden" lazy it's not that hard to take two minutes from your daily schedule to open the game and log in.

8
Akunii•

Except that it's not a free update but part of what was advertised with HoT. So it's kinda within the space of you bought it already. As a player who owns HoT but who can't - because god forbid they'd have a life or were i.e. forced to stay at the hospital - unlock it, it sounds strange that those do need to spend additional money... Basically it was fine with S2, but S3 is... shady, imo.

-7
lurking_strawberry•

When they advertised LS3 as a part of HoT, they also mentioned the having to login part. Look at the HoT part of the website and scroll down to Living World. As far as I can tell they haven't changed the site since release, there are still references to features that didn't make the cut.

In case you can't find it, this is what it says:

Of course, the story of Tyria will continue beyond the launch of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.

If you own the expansion, you'll be able to simply log in to the game to gain free access to upcoming Living World releases!

3
Akunii•

They changed quite some things since release. I can't remember if that login sentence was there but that doesn't mean it was. Guess only someone with an archived version from launch could tell. Nevertheless it doesn't make that move any better. There are people who can't spare "2 minutes" (people seem to blissfully ignore patch loading times btw). If you're stuck on the north pole for months because that's where your job is then oh bummer - blame yourself for having a fancy job. At least if you give anything on those hateful reddit comments (which i don't).

0
lurking_strawberry•

People in jail/working on the north pole/otherwise without internet access for 2 months are probably a tiny, tiny minority. If you want to argue about people being unable to unlock the episodes, I'd go with those that only start playing after a LS season ends, because there's a lot more of them.

1
Hatdrop•

Having a mandatory hospital stay is bad, or mandatory jail stay. But anything else really has no excuse for not logging in. I work 60-70 hour weeks. I can at the very least take 2 minutes to log in once a day, let alone once every two weeks. and I believe it's every two months this time.

2
Sxi139i love asura•

how hard is it to login for 5 minutes just to unlock the episode?

are you serious? is this a joke??

5
OnlyOryskrandomguy.1283•

You have two entire months to just log into the game, how is that an issue for anyone that regularly plays this game enough to care about ls3?

2
lurking_strawberry•

The fact that you'll need to log in was announced back when they announced HoT. So it's not like they changed their mind or something.

Also, if you're unable to login during the active period, you just need to pay to unlock access to the rewards. To experience the story, you just need to find another person to run the instance with you. As far as rewards go, I think it's much more enjoyable to spend a few hundred gold unlocking a bunch of story instances to play than to pay a few hundred gold to buy a backpack skin off someone who just happened to start playing a few months before I did.

2
Lovaa•

This already been talked about and explained and no i don't think very many players feel bothered about getting LS for free by logging in ONE time during a 2 months period. If you can not possibly do it, then you are not really contributing to the game nor play it frequently enough to have a opinion that feel much valid.

2
PlagaDeRockVulgar Knight•

They still have to pay the people who work on the game some how. If there was nothing of any value for anyone to buy then everyone would complain about the lack of content because they would have to cut staff. At the end of the day they have to make money somehow and offering these chunks of story up for anyone who missed them is not a bad idea.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
GodTierRaiderRaid Warrior Trainer•

I don't care, I play every day and won't even notice the difference in my daily habits because of this. You make problem out of nothing.

1
NeokOnline•

I don't think it's really ideal because often you'd see things like "HoT may be small but living story is part of it too". Yet after the initial free period the living story becomes paid DLC instead so then the HoT purchase isn't worth the price.

But for myself I don't really care because I'll just get the chapters for free instead. I don't count them as part of HoT though. Ideally LS3 would just be a part of the HoT purchase.

1