With the new expansion Secrets of the Obscure, Guild Wars 2 gets a kind of season pass. For this you should regularly complete tasks and, conversely, get cool rewards. However, the developers do without something very important: money.
How does the season pass work? The Wizard’s Vault is content in the new expansion that gives you daily, weekly, and rotating quests to complete. Achievement points and the new currency Astral Glory beckon as a reward.
With this you can shop in a special shop. The rewards there should rotate seasonally and contain useful items such as mystical coins, laurels or revival orbs as well as some skins for equipment and mounts.
What makes the system so fair? The Wizard’s Vault only offers free rewards. So there is no premium pass. You also cannot purchase Astral Glory for real money. You have to earn everything.
In addition, Guild Wars 2 dispenses with FOMO, i.e. the fear of missing something. Because when the shop rotates, all old skins end up in a “legacy tab” where you can always buy them, albeit for a little more currency.
This video gives you a first insight into the new areas of the expansion:
Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure – Open World Insight
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“Works similar to a seasonal pass”
Is this even a season pass? The new Wizard’s Vault replaces previous login rewards and daily achievements. These just fall away. In addition, there is no clear reward pass that you have to work your way along. You can simply buy what you feel most like from the shop.
But the system still has a lot of typical season passes and the developers themselves make the comparison.
On the left you can see the interface, on the right the new Owl Griffon skin.
They emphasize that the system works “similar to a seasonal content pass in other games”, writing:
There is no premium tier of Wizard’s Dungeon that offers additional rewards, and players cannot purchase Astral Glory with gems or real money.
How is that received? Very good. Reddit called it the “best feature in the expansion” and the “world’s fairest battle pass.” The very fact that there is no FOMO is highly praised. Some convenience features are also highlighted.
For example, you can tick whether you want to have PvE, PvP or WvW missions. If you remove a tick, you will be shown more tasks from the other content. So you can get the rewards only via PvE or only via PvP tasks.
WoW went in a similar direction with the Trading Post that came out this year. There was recent criticism here because the associated currency was integrated into real money bundles. In addition, you can actually “miss” skins here, even if they could be brought back later.
What do you think of the Wizard’s Vault? Is that a useful addition or is there really no need for such daily incentives? And what are you most excited about in Secrets of the Obscure?
I myself was able to spend around 100 minutes in the new expansion and have written a first summary here: The new expansion Secrets of the Obscure has been played – 5 things are really strong, but one thing is annoying.