If you don't know what Guild Wars 2 is, I suppose I should start by explaining that is is an MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) game that is free to download and free to play. You don't have to upgrade to the upgrade areas because the free world is massive. However, like many games that have been around for years and years, there are not many other people in those areas.
There are at the moment 2 expansion packs that cost something like 20 to 40 dollars each, if you want them. You are never obligated to purchase these things. There are optional purchases in game that take place at the "Gem Store" and most of these items offer no real playing advantage and they are just convenience or aesthetic items.
Personally, i don't give a turd what my character looks like, i am not that kind of player. I do however enjoy a few of the convenience items in the game. The main one being an item named the Copper fed salvage-o-matic
Whenever you kill something in the game (which is a big part of the game) you will acquire a bunch of "drops" or "loot" from those kills. Many of these items are pieces of armor which while not terribly useful themselves (you are incredibly unlikely to ever want to wear them) they have value in salvage because you will break the item down into its raw materials such as wood, ore, leather, or linen parts that can be used for many other in-game items.
It is possible to buy salvage kits for in-game currency but they have limited uses and consume inventory space. The salvage-o-matic has unlimited charges / uses, it will NEVER run out. Someone did the math and found out that you would need to salvage over 600,000 items to get your money's worth from it, but well, it was never about saving money, it was about convenience. It really sucks when you are in the field and run out of salvage kits and then have to run back in order to buy more of them, potentially leaving your group.
They recently introduced a "salvage all" feature which also saves time. It used to be that you would have to physically click on each item, which put you in danger of salvaging things accidentally (this process is not reversible) and obviously that could be problematic.
not sure why the destroy option exists
I was going to include more items but well this is already too long. I know this doesn't apply to many people and for that I apologize. If you are not playing GW2, please remember that it is completely free to try / play. If you decide to join let me know and I'll help you out in-game as well.