Since its release in August of 2012 playing the subscription-free PC MMORPG Guild Wars 2 has been a simple matter of purchasing the initial game. Starting today you don’t even have to do that.
“Revealed exclusively” by IGN a couple of days back, ArenaNet has dropped the purchase requirement for Guild Wars 2. Just hit up the website, sign up for a free account and download away. The announcement was officially made during today’s Guild Wars 2 panel at PAX Prime, where the developer also revealed the 23 October release date for the game’s first major expansion, Heart of Thorns and the inclusion of raid content in said expansion.
The new free accounts come with certain restrictions that do not apply to existing players. Free players will have fewer character and bag slots than paid players, for instance, and will be restricted to certain zones until level goals are released (level 10 to exit starter zones, level 60 for World Vs. World player versus player content). Free players will also be limited in how they can communicate to keep them from bothering paying customers. A full comparison of account types can be seen here.
Earlier this year players were up-in-arms over the $US50 pricing of the expansion pack — now it makes a lot more sense. In order to upgrade from a free account to a paid account, new players will have to purchase the expansion pack at $US50, which is much more than they’d have paid for the original base game.
Existing players will also be receiving a Royal Guard outfit today, letting new free player know they were playing Guild Wars 2 before free-to-play was cool.
Comments
20 responses to “Guild Wars 2 Is Free To Play Starting Today”
Guild Wars 2 is a fantastic game. The lack of subscription fees means that it’s quite okay for you to have a break. It also removes a lot of rubbish that other MMOs lean on, like fetch quests, bad interfaces, a lack of positioning in combat or personal responsibility.
I took a break for 9 months, and have now been playing it solidly again for 2 months. It’s still a great game, and I encourage people to check it out, especially considering as the base client is now free to try. 🙂
fetch quests very much still exist in gw2
I want Aussie servers!!
We have to give devs a good reason to have Aus servers. Just about every time a game offers them, nobody ends up using them.
I’m guessing a big reason for that is that people have built up communities and friends on US servers for years before AU servers are introduced, especially in the case of MMO games. By the time WoW servers came around I was in the same raiding guild for years, and I wasn’t about to cut and run just to shave 250 off my ping.
For sure.
Titanfall announced AU servers and the same thing happened, everyone complained they were empty and ended up using the US ones.
Is there an unofficial Australian server, when I used to play it was always a wasteland of bots on Yak’s Bend.
That’s pretty cool actually. I’ve had it for a couple of months now as i picked it for $20 on sale a while back, Aussie servers would be nice but to be honest i never really had any lag problems, same with SW TOR playing US East.
Is US East better than West? I always assumed West as it is closer (to our east coast at least).
Definitely not, US East has roughly 250ms from Victoria and West has 180-210ms.
Whoops! My bad i meant US West, it has been a while since i played it haha
Cheers for the nice correction birdy =)
this is the best way to make an educated guess:
http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
as you can see we have direct dubmarine cable links to the US West coast but not the East. To reach the east, we go through the links to the US West, then through the mainland network to reach the East.
Thats what my geographical knowledge assumed….
Still, presenting that same $50 fee to existing players doesn’t solve the uproar.
Older accounts that pre-order the expansion are granted an extra player slot for free. Admittedly, that is not the fanciest of rewards, as you can buy the same pretty easily through the gem store for I guess $10-15 AUS.
As this article points out, the older accounts are also getting a free outfit as well.
The way they are trying to explain things, and the way it makes sense, is that the game as a whole is $50, the same as it always has been, barring sales. If you buy the game now, you get the expansion as well. If you have an existing account and want a new one, then just get a new, free and gated accounted.
Yes, it does cost $50 to get the expansion. But really, the game has had no compulsory fees apart from the initial cost for over 3 years. Consider any MMO with a subscription model. The client plus monthly fees would be well over $100 by now. GW2 is an absolute bargain for a fantastic game. Outside of MMOs, you have the FIFAs and CODs that give minor updates for a $50 annual fee. It’s still a bargain. >_>;
You don’t have to buy the expansion if you are that up in arms about it. Me, I still see it as fantastic for the sheer amount of content they have released consistently over a 3 year period. :-S
This game would be so much better if the developers had actually thought about community feedback and not just acted like they are gods gift to video games. It’s basically the same attitude as wildstar and the reason why wildstar is failing/failed.
wrong again.Welp looks like im never playing GW2 again.
Why is that?
I really dislike F2P games it allows alot more people to play for the worst and it means there is a cash shop added.
Guild wars 2 had a cash shop yes but now as its f2p to get the money there going to be making there cash shop bigger and more impacting.
P2P > F2P imo.