The MMORPG Guild Wars 2 offers its players an update system with the Living World that regularly brings new content, all completely free. This system is ideal for veterans, but it can be confusing and quite expensive for newcomers.
How does the Living World work? Every 2 to 4 months, Guild Wars 2 receives a new episode of the Living World. With this initially free update, new content is introduced into the game:
- The story continues.
- A new playable area is added.
- New masteries for vertical progression are released.
- New rewards and achievements come into the game.
Since the Icebrood Saga, which began in September 2019, each episode has also brought a new strike mission, a small raid for 10 players, along with it.
Each of these updates offers a lot to do, and for 2020, the third episode is already on the horizon.
However, the update system primarily rewards veterans and is terrible for newcomers. Because they have to pay and suffer from a story that is hard to follow.
Updates are only temporarily free and confuse new players
Problem 1 – The payment system: The Living World in its current form has several weaknesses. One of them lies in the payment system:
- An episode is only free until a new one is released.
- Afterwards, 200 gems (available for approximately 2.50 euros or in-game currency) must be paid.
Anyone starting with Guild Wars 2 right now would have to pay for 23 episodes of Living World seasons 2 to 5. That would be almost 60 euros (around 40 euros with bundles and offers), while both expansions can be had for 25 euros.
The absence of the episodes means that players cannot enter the respective areas, experience the story there, or obtain the achievements and rewards.
This even excludes some players from the two mounts, the Juniper Beetle and the Sky Scale. For the latter, you even need all 6 episodes of Living World season 4.
Problem 2 – Experiencing the story: To grasp the full story of Guild Wars 2, you logically need all episodes.
However, those who buy the expansions and log in now can immediately play the story of both expansions as well as the latest episode, but they do not understand how they got there or what happened in the story in between.
The flow of the story in GW2 is as follows:
- Base game – Personal story and dungeons (run in parallel).
- Living World Season 1 – No longer playable, as it included one-time events.
- Living World Season 2 – Purchasable
- Heart of Thorns – Expansion 1
- Living World Season 3 – Purchasable
- Path of Fire – Expansion 2
- Living World Season 4 – Purchasable
- Living World Season 5 – The current Icebrood Saga
Although this is represented in-game in a chronicle window, there is no explanation as to why some content must still be purchased while other story sections are playable.
Problem number 3 – Old areas fade away: The last problem is not as significant, but it still exists. New players who want to play Living World Seasons 2 or 3 sometimes have to complete tasks in the open world.
However, this area is rarely visited, especially at inconvenient times.
While the personal story almost exclusively took place in instances, the Living World tried to tell the story through the associated areas. And this is a disadvantage for new players and returnees, who suddenly find themselves alone in group events.
And since there is no item spiral and no level increase in Guild Wars 2, this content is sometimes simply difficult for a single player.
The simplest solution: Remove the payment barrier
How could the problems of the Living World be solved? An easy solution from the perspective of players and developers would probably be to eliminate the costs for episodes of the Living World.
In Guild Wars 2, many players are willing to pay up to 20 euros for a crazy mount skin. Every Tuesday, there is a shop update that brings something new for real money.
Why would you discourage new players and returnees by making them pay for old content that is not even regularly visited by veterans?
But even if ArenaNet wants to stick to the system, at least an in-game mail or a pop-up explaining the Living World system would be helpful. Because there are always inquiries about it or confused players.
Guild Wars 2 is still a really good MMORPG in 2020. With the many free updates and the announced third expansion, it is currently doing better than in 2019.
