You buy the game once and get free access for life, COD-like When GW1 was still a popular game they made like 1 expansion per year, which you could buy if you wanted to. The game is free, however, you can buy some bonusses with real money, like extra bank space (not sure about bank space) and appearance-related stuff. It isn't pay to win.In GW1 the charr and the human race were at war. The charr destroyed Ascalon and stuff like that, but in GW2 it seems they have to work together. It has a unique event system, where events just happen randomly ( ''dynamic events'') and you can choose to help or not; for instance a horde of bears is attacking a village; if you don't help, I think the village will be massacred. For some real background information, I suggest you visit the wiki The game does have mazes, instances, bosses, quests, storyline, pvp (world versus world wtfbbq)