Five races
Must Play - Charr, Asura, HumanWould Like To Play - Norn
Might Play - Sylvari
Eight Professions
Must Play - Ranger, Engineer, Elementalist, NecromancerWould Like To Play - Guardian, Warrior, Thief, Mesmer
Two Genders
Must Play - Both
At the very least I want to have both a male and female of each of the "Must Play" races and one of each profession (hmm, I suppose that makes all the professions "Must Play"...). Eight slots covers that. I could buy three more character slots for 800 gems each. If I buy those for real money, that's £25.50.Or I could buy another standard copy of GW2 from Amazon for £34.00. For the equivalent additional price of just one further character slot, a second account would give me not four but five new characters, a second bank vault (worth 600 Gems, the cost of doubling bank space on an existing account) and the ability to mail items from anywhere in the world to characters that I own (otherwise unavailable at any cost).
Since storage space is a serious and pressing issue in GW2 (this blog isn't called Inventory Full for nothing) and since Mrs Bhagpuss and I are already mailing each other items to hold in mail-storage for each other because we can't mail to our own characters, the advantages of buying a second account rather than expanding the existing one seem overwhelming.
GW2 doesn't have an auto-follow command, so multi-boxing EQ2-style is out. It's also apparently not possible to log in two iterations of the client on the same PC. Technical issues aside, I'm nervous that doing either of those might constitute "botting" under ArenaNet's stringent interpretation of the concept so I wouldn't risk it even if there's a workaround. Logging in two accounts that I have bought and paid for, one on a laptop and the other on the desktop, however, seems to be entirely acceptable under the EULA, should I want to do so.
Are there any reasons in favor of expanding a single account that outweigh those benefits? I can't think of any. Chances are I will buy a second account, and sooner rather than later.
*** Edit *** Decision taken. Two more boxes on the way from Amazon
Posts
Damn, you got a point there. I already expanded to 8-slots and didn't thought of just buying another copy (doh).
ReplyDeleteI suppose the advantages of it all is all the "account wide" things that i notice, especially in the Gem Store.
Example: Buying an Armor "style" , it can be applied to ALL characters on the account (assuming they can wear said armor type). So with multiple accounts you might end up having to split your gem related purchases and even buy certain things twice....
In TSW, Funcom did the exact opposite where all those clothing is character specific, so there it probably makes no diff whether you play 1 account or not.
Also, my details on achievements and hall of monuments and rewards and all those things are a little sketchy, but i suspect some of those things are also "account wide" as opposed to "character only" .
So worth taking into consideration.
Looking at the store, just about everything in it is Account bound, which does bear some thinking about, but then there's precious little there that I could imagine buying in the first place. Can't predict what wonderful things they might add later, of course.
ReplyDeleteAs for the HoM, I do have two GW1 accounts so I could link to each and have two!
There was a Reddit thread that talked about the math related to character slots and bag space, and it is indeed cheaper to buy a 2nd account - especially if you can buy a box for cheaper than MSRP. The only real concern was future expansions. And, well, your ability to buy gems from other players to cover your slots.
ReplyDeleteAs far as expansions go, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it. Gems bought for gold would be an good option if I had any gold. Can't wait for the Trading Post to open.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I went ahead and bought another copy each for myself and Mrs Bhagpuss. It's only the rough equivalent of a couple of months' subs after all and unlike a sub, the second account will be there as long as the game lasts. I also doubt I'll spend any more real money on GW2 this year, unless they put something in the Gem shop I actually want. Character slots and inventory space were the only two things I wanted.