Am I the only one that could not care less about the Living World? I wished they spent more time adding actual content (new armor, weapons, features [like the LFG], dungeons, etc.)
I guess it's not for me anymore and that's why I got bored.
I'm not understanding your complaint; the Living World is literally their method of adding those kind of things you mentioned into the game, every two weeks. The problem is that large chunks of that content were temporary (for example, they added two new dungeons in Season One, but they were removed, though later added in as Fractals), and this solves that issue.
Also, LFG has been in since September of last year. There was a huge feature update in April too that added a lot of stuff as well (account-wide dyes, wardrobe, mega-servers, etc.).
I haven't played the game in a while...(haven't played it since a few months after launch)
Am I already to late to get season 1 for free?
(if not, how/where can I get it?)
Because of the way Season One was done, it won't be available via the Journal at first. No ETA on when they'll fix it, or if it's one of those things that will fall through the cracks as often happens with MMOs.
If and when they do get around to adding it, I imagine tracking every account's login during that first year would probably be more trouble than it's worth. If they don't give it away free as part of a Feature Update, I imagine they'll sell it at a discounted rate. At least I should hope so.
The way they introduce this feels just like 'hey, you're in a videogame, click there !'
I don't disagree. Some of the best little touches in this game are the ones that 'explain' things in non-game terms. You could just get mail anywhere at any time, but they went and added the little messenger pigeons.
It sounds to me like you won't directly access the Living Story chapters straight from the Journal. In the fourth example image, at the top it says "Currently: Demo Season", which makes it sound like you'll just pick one storyline to be 'active' and the game will then direct you towards the relevant location (just like the Personal Story is now). It'd be cool of they added some kind of special portal at those locations, to kind of give you the impression a rift has opened in time or whatever... but I wouldn't hold my breath. We'll know more soon, I imagine.
Expansion style content, delivered in small slices over a set period, instead of having years of nothing and then a big dump of it that people get through in a week.
Yep, I know some people are driven off by the steady drip of content, but I'd much rather have a regular supply and healthy variety of things to do rather than be starved for months or even a year and then have a huge gluttonous orgy of content that's completed far too soon.
200 gems is not that. And 20 gold (which I assume would be the current exchange rate?) isn't a "small" amount by my experience.
200 gems is exactly $2.50 (the cash-to-gem rate is always the same, 80 gems / $1). That's certainly much less than most of the cosmetic or convenience items (the permanent harvesting tools were 800 gems each), so yes, it is "a small amount of in-game currency." The conversion rate of gold to gems fluctuates all the time too. It's ~8.25g for 100 gems now, but it's dipped as low as 6.54g/100 this week.
I'm not sure I'd consider 20g to be especially difficult to obtain either. A weekend or two of dungeons, some world bosses, maybe a decent drop here and there. From personal experience, I can usually get 2-4g from a couple of the faster dungeon paths and a world boss or two. I certainly wouldn't sneeze at 20g, but it's not like it takes
forever.
One thing about the Journal thing. Is it retroactive? Meaning I can pay 200 gems for a bit of Living Story season 1 and fill myself in/get old rewards?
Since they're not adding Season One in when the Journal goes live, it doesn't really matter. We're not sure how the rewards will work either, but in theory yeah, you would be able to do that. Still a lot up in the air, it's just something we'll have to see working in-game.
