you can definitly still start
What HEAVENSHAKINGSWORD said is jsut complete bullshit
the AP are something that you can pretty much ignore in GW2 ... you only need AP for 2 specific armor sets but 99% of GW2 population isnt able to get them yet and there will probably never be more than 5% -10 % of population who farm that many AP to ever get it ... its a thing for pure veteran players that are truly commiting on it
Guild Wars 2 has 1 expansion (Heart of Thorns) which you can buy and you get the base game for free with it
In EU it costs around 35-45 Euros in local stores
you can also just get yourself a FREE TO PLAY account first to test out gameplay and then upgrade that account to a full account later
I would recommend getting a full account as early as possible once you notice weather or not you like the gameplay because it does improve the gaming quality (you cant mail or trade items in the Trading post ... you cant use map chat on free to play accs..) and gives you some more rewards too
The gameplay gets a lot more fluid and exciting once you are lvl 80 and you have full access to traits and elitespecs in my opinion ... as lowlvl you often just have to mindlessly use your few weaponskills without making real use of any specific class mechanics yet ... so dont let that get your bored after few hours at lowlvl already if you feel like you could like the gameplay in general
There are quite a few helpful / informative sites for GW2:
dulfy.net --> filled with guides about many parts of the game (guild missions, almost every Achievement, ...) and always giving preview for new stuff that comes to the game from gemshop or living world
metabattle.com --> a site with ALL the builds for every class for every gamemode (Pve, PvP, WvW) that are currently in the meta (and also showing builds that are not the top in the meta but still useful) very helpful to find a useful build for your class
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page --> the official wiki page for GW2 ... it contains information about almost anything ingame and you can even access it from ingame by typing "/wiki XXXX" in chat and just replace the XXXX by the thing you need information about ... you can also type /wiki and then use SHIFT+click on an item to link that item in chat and open the wiki page about that item if you need information about it
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum --> the official GW2 forums ... you can ask questions or discuss about any thing ingame in the subforums that fit to it, you will also find patchnotes and announcements there
There are a few skins that were rewarded for players who link their GW1 account with their GW2 account and depending on how much they achieved in GW1 but no gameplay advantage or anything that you get from it
I suggest you search for a nice active guild with players willing to guide you as a beginner ... then you can have an epic experience in GW2
This post was edited by Kartoffelgratin on Jul 8 2016 09:01am