Guild Wars 2

EDIT as of 4/10/2015: After gathering together everything I have read throughout this discussion, here is what I think can be done:

IF the experiences from Living Story Season 1 cannot be re-lived in a visionary world like the ‘Pale Tree’ brings players to (I don’t see why not), then perhaps Anet can make it where the old, intact Lion’s Arch can be traveled to by players on a separate server, that way, players can complete Living Story Season 1 on that server, and upon completion, go back to the server with the ruined Lion’s Arch.

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Some of you who have seen me only recently in the forums may think after reading this, “Whoa. You are just now noticing this?” Yes, and let me explain…

When I first played Guild Wars 2 about 4 weeks ago, I came into it thinking I was actually going to get what I paid for to experience everything Storyline-wise (like other games); and in the beginning of my gameplay experience (because I was new to Guild Wars 2 at the time [former 10-year Guild Wars 1 player]), I saw upon opening my Story Journal where it says ‘My Story’ and ‘Living World Season 2’.

I thought to myself, “Oh, cool, a Living World Season 2” yet I never stopped to think, until recently, “Okay, whoa, wait a minute… Where did Living World Season 1 go?!”

I got to questioning where Living World Season 1 went after I discovered a well-hidden Jumping Puzzle in Lion’s Arch, whereupon a fellow player inside of it with me told me during a brief conversation, “Yea, this place used to be easier to get to before Lion’s Arch was destroyed a few months ago.”

My response to this other player with me in this Jumping Puzzle in Lion’ Arch was, “So wait… Are you telling me Lion’s Arch was once in an untouched state? When did Lion’s Arch get destroyed? Why was Lion’s Arch destroyed?”

And that is my question, Anet. Why did you take out a crucial huge chunk of game content I had absolutely no idea about as a new player, that is to say, Living World Season 1? Are there plans to bring Season 1 back? And if Season 1 is brought back, is there a way where you can make all the events instanced (like Season 2) where it does not affect other players who currently see Lion’s Arch in ruins? Is the same thing that happened to Season 1 going to happen to Season 2 and Season 3 (if there is one), too?

Better than all those questions is why are you guys (the community) not making a thing of this to this day? How can the removal of all of Season 1’s content go ignored by you guys (the community) so as to be swept under the carpet, thereby being swept under the carpet by the developers as a result of that?

Maybe the reason why you guys (the community) are no longer bringing this up is because, yea, Guild Wars 2 is two years old now and most of you veteran players have already experienced Season 1’s content, therefore, why bother bringing it up?

That kind of reasoning, though, to no longer bring this up is ignorant since we should all be pushing for an equal gameplay experience for everyone.

With that being said in mind, as for newer players like me, where is our moment in the game to experience that crucial Storyline content of what took place to understand why it took place?

This does not sit well with me at all thinking either 1. I will never be able to experience Season 1’s content like older players have or 2. If Season 1 is brought back for players to re-live, it is going to be cookie cut where only the lore is going to be explained, yet none of the big events or cinematic events will take place.

Conclusively, I really hope something is done about this and not in a ‘cookie cut’ way, either, because I never played an MMO where a huge amount of Storyline content is there for all players to experience one moment, and then completely ripped away the next.

It should not matter if players started playing Guild Wars 2 two years, six years, or even eight years later than everyone else. We paid for the game, and all players should have the right to experience what we paid for!

Thank you for looking into this.

Living World Season 1 was done on such a scale that it will be very difficult for them to bring it back to play again. Many of the events involved 50-100 players at a time.

Well, some of us did try to tell them it was a bad idea, but evidently once they set a course they can’t change it until they reach their destination or hit an iceberg, whichever comes first, and so most of S1 remains vanishware, except for bits and pieces stuck in the fractals dungeon thing.

They did, however, make S2 permanent, even if new players will have to pay extra to experience it.

Yep, as a new-ish player myself, I’m fairly disappointed by that.

Living story 1 took place in the open world and was advertised as “world changing events – miss them and you won’t see them again”. Many people were complaining about this, and that’s why Anet made Living Story Season 2 repeatable.

Things like Scarlets Invasions, The Tower of Nightmares, the Marionette fight, Escape from LA and Battle for LA were large scale events and it would be hard to fit them into 1-5 person instances.

Btw, Kessex Hills was also changed like LA. The ruins of the tower are a reminder of the “Tower of Nightmares” Chapter of Living Story 1.

Boysenberry.1869:

Living World Season 1 was done on such a scale that it will be very difficult for them to bring it back to play again. Many of the events involved 50-100 players at a time.

Perhaps, then, Living World Season 1 can be brought back in such way where the major events won’t require quite as many players by simply balancing the numbers out linked to the damage dealt by enemies in these events, etc.

Would it be hard to bring it back? Of course! Would it be impossible? Absolutely not.

Anet made a game of this scale already, so why can Anet not adjust Living Story Season 1 so as to only require the player and maybe 8-10 other players trying to complete the same content in Living Story Season 1?

Tachenon.5270:

Well, some of us did try to tell them it was a bad idea, but evidently once they set a course they can’t change it until they reach their destination or hit an iceberg, whichever comes first, and so most of S1 remains vanishware, except for bits and pieces stuck in the fractals dungeon thing.

They did, however, make S2 permanent, even if new players will have to pay extra to experience it.

For me it was not a bad idea. It was at least a living world .. now we have the same
static world like every other MMO.

S2 is just another Personal Story that plays in an instanced parallel universe but
doesn’t change the real world (yeah i know there are some Tendrils and destroyed
waypoints still in Timberline Falls in LA)

I personally at least spent much much more time in LS1 than in L2 content.

I kind of see it as an actual “living world” thing. When we’re born into our real life world, we don’t go back and replay history to experience it for ourselves (though one could argue we tend to get our own versions of it with history repeating). Instead, we learn about the past through writing, discussion, art, environmental features, etc and move forward from there. In a way, it helps to give the game world a persistent feel.

Aside from that, there’s the game system aspect where it’s probably just impractical to completely recreate S1. I missed out on it too, so I kind of just “aww shucks” it and try to glean what I can from NPC dialogue and the like. I’m content with that. MMOs tend to evolve over time, and experiencing these types of events are the reward for sticking with it. One of these days, I’d like to get into an MMO from the very beginning and just see it through ’til the end.

darkprecure.6129:

Living story 1 took place in the open world and was advertised as “world changing events – miss them and you won’t see them again”. Many people were complaining about this, and that’s why Anet made Living Story Season 2 repeatable.

Things like Scarlets Invasions, The Tower of Nightmares, the Marionette fight, Escape from LA and Battle for LA were large scale events and it would be hard to fit them into 1-5 person instances.

Btw, Kessex Hills was also changed like LA. The ruins of the tower are a reminder of the “Tower of Nightmares” Chapter of Living Story 1.

*Scratches head * It baffles me greatly how they thought it such a great idea to undo months or years of content (however long it took them to develop what they removed from Living World Season 1) knowing the community would get infuriated about it.

That is like me creating a masterpiece work of art that cannot be reproduced exactly the same, and then burning it and not looking back.

They did say before season 2 came out that they absolutely want to bring season 1 back. Of course plans change over time, but Colin sounded very confident that they would do it.

Edit: Now that the streaming client is in beta I think it became even more likely that this is going to happen. I mean they will put the old Lion’s Arch map back into the game, so why not restore Kessex Hills and all the other stuff as well at some point?

It is a much asked for feature, but the scale of work to downscale it to fit with the game now would be close to re-designing it from scratch – it just was a very different implementation.

It had a very mixed reception, but they were committed. It was too late to change the way it was produced once it was started and their only recourse was to ensure Season2 onwards took the feedback into account.

As a piece of content, it was perhaps much more epic than anything else since, but it’s lack of foresight for future players has left a gaping and confusing hole. Do I think it will be brought back? No. Do I hope it will? Yes

Torenn.2598:

I kind of see it as an actual “living world” thing. When we’re born into our real life world, we don’t go back and replay history to experience it for ourselves (though one could argue we tend to get our own versions of it with history repeating). Instead, we learn about the past through writing, discussion, art, environmental features, etc and move forward from there. In a way, it helps to give the game world a persistent feel.

Aside from that, there’s the game system aspect where it’s probably just impractical to completely recreate S1. I missed out on it too, so I kind of just “aww shucks” it and try to glean what I can from NPC dialogue and the like. I’m content with that. MMOs tend to evolve over time, and experiencing these types of events are the reward for sticking with it.

Yea, one could argue that, yet that is besides the point, even if that were Anet’s intent to fulfill the true definition of ‘history’ when it came to Living Story Season 1 to line up with their vision of a truly living, breathing world. You see, if Anet continues with their literal vision of a living, breathing world, then that means Living World Season 2 and every other Season after it should end in the same way Living World Season 1 did.

Sometimes too much a thing, in this case, a game being too realistic (or trying to be), is not always a good thing.

With that being said in mind, if I were to agree with what you’re saying that the way Living World Season 1 ended, never to be repeatable again, and should therefore remain that way… Going by that logic, shouldn’t the same thing technically apply to all Storylines that are completed, never to be repeatable again for the sake of fulfilling the true definition of ‘history’?

No. That would not make any sense and would not go over well with many players.

This is why I think Living World Season 1 should be brought back, perhaps coded in such way where it is only available to accounts that are very new (since older players already experienced it). Then again, or not… I still think Anet can bring Season 1 back where everyone can experience it again, and again, just like our Personal Stories.

Season 1 wasn’t “removed”, it started and then ended.

The events as they happened cannot be instanced or scaled down, you had to be there.

Anet has stated a few times that they’d love to be able to extract some new instanced content to cover some of the main story elements, but it’s low priority compared to working on the expansion.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Maybe the reason why you guys (the community) are no longer bringing this up is because, yea, Guild Wars 2 is two years old now and most of you veteran players have already experienced Season 1’s content, therefore, why bother bringing it up?

No. The reason is that it was brought up 2189541246 times before, pretty much since day 1 of the ‘living story’ concept with probably every single possible argument for/against made countless times.

Since then, Anet have decided to stick with the living story, yet to mitigate some of the temporary nature (purchaseable LS2 episodes for example). Replayable LS1, like replayable PS, is somewhere on their ‘things to do’. But another thread recycling the same arguments once more is unlikely to make it faster. Hence why ‘we guys’ are no longer bringing this up.

You know, what they could do is create a ‘new’ S1 for the newer (and older!) players, something that leads the new players through the aftermath of S1 and gives them an idea of what happened, while simultaneously offering some new but related threat for them to deal with.

Maybe a ‘murder mystery’ kind of thing. Perhaps our very own rock, Marjory, might have heard unsettling rumors concerning some of the S1 locations (and the foes we fought in them) that have just a little too much of a deja vu quality to be ignored, and so she sends some fledgling heroes on a series of quests that would lead them to search for clues in the ashes of past atrocities, ultimately leading to a confrontation with an entirely new threat which the ‘big guns’, being occupied elsewhere, can’t handle.

But no ‘play as someone else in the past’ missions, fer cryin’ out loud. That was bad, mm-kay.

If I recall correctly, they are trying to think of a way to make the season 1 living story more instance based then release it again to the public; like season 2.
As of now Season 1 isn’t able to be played because of that reason.

They said they want to do this, but there’s a technical problem: season 2 was, from the ground up, designed to be re-playable later. Season 1 just wasn’t. Retrofitting it to be re-playable is going to be a monumental task.

While I hope they will eventually add it, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. And personally, I don’t mind it tooooo much. Conceptually I really like the living world idea, even if it doesn’t work (too little content coming out too slow: if these mini-patches happened consistently 26 times a year without ever skipping a patch, it’d be awesome, but they don’t and then it’s boring).

I like the idea of the world evolving even if players don’t look at it, and once it changed, it changed.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Yea, one could argue that, yet that is besides the point, even if that were Anet’s intent to fulfill the true definition of ‘history’ when it came to Living Story Season 1 to line up with their vision of a truly living, breathing world. You see, if Anet continues with their literal vision of a living, breathing world, then that means Living World Season 2 and every other Season after it should end in the same way Living World Season 1 did.

I didn’t say Anet has a literal, complete vision of a living world. I do think they’re attempting to maintain something that at least resembles one, however. There are always limits to what you can do in a virtual world at any given time. Engineering a world includes trade-offs, just like engineering anything else.

With that being said in mind, if I were to agree with what you’re saying that the way Living World Season 1 ended, never to be repeatable again, and should therefore remain that way… Going by that logic, shouldn’t the same thing technically apply to all Storylines that are completed, never to be repeatable again for the sake of fulfilling the true definition of ‘history’?

Has any story that has affected the open world to the degree of S1 been completely repeatable? I don’t think so, though I could be wrong. I’m open for examples if they exist. I’m not against them recreating S1 for new players, even if it’s on a smaller scale. I just don’t see the full-blown experience happening again, and I’m okay with that. Like I said, it comes with the MMO territory of an evolving virtual world. That’s something that just makes sense in the paradigm, so it never rustled my jimmies much.

Alright, so I’m going to start buy saying that when you bought GW2 you got everything you paid for. You, like everyone before you, paid for the world of Tyria minus Southsun Cove, Drytop and Silverwastes, 8 character classes, 5 character races, something to the effect of 8 dungeons and the personal story.

What you got was all that, plus the three added zones, a handful of extra traits, skills, several added events and fractals.

You’re missing some of the lore and the events that happened between the personal story which you got for the purchase price, and season two which is extra. They didn’t design it that way, it’s a thing, it happened, and there is absolutely nothing anyone in the community can do about it. Bringing it up again and again, complaining, suggesting, none of these things can impact how Season 1 was handled, nor change anything about it.

You missed it. It’s too bad. Hopefully they’ll come up with some way to make it work so we can experience it again. If/when they do, though, we’ll probably still have to pay for it. Even those of us who actually did experience it the first time around. Feeling entitled to it for a box price is not going to change it, because they don’t actually owe it to you, you already got more than you paid for before that point.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Season 1 wasn’t “removed”, it started and then ended.

The events as they happened cannot be instanced or scaled down, you had to be there.

Anet has stated a few times that they’d love to be able to extract some new instanced content to cover some of the main story elements, but it’s low priority compared to working on the expansion.

It only makes sense that if the Living Story Season 1 is no longer repeatable by new and old players, Anet (I am sure) removed (not destroyed) the old game code linked to the events in Living World Season 1. In other words, Anet has the game code and content backed up, for (hopefully) future implementation after re-imagining how to make it repeatable.

However, if I am wrong, something that starts and ends forever is just as good as being removed from a player’s gameplay experience.

Furthermore, saying this is a low priority thing is a joke, because it is a big deal and sets the stage regarding how other Living Story Seasons will be coded in the game so as to be repeatable by players (especially new players) who missed out on those Storylines.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Alright, so I’m going to start buy saying that when you bought GW2 you got everything you paid for. You, like everyone before you, paid for the world of Tyria minus Southsun Cove, Drytop and Silverwastes, 8 character classes, 5 character races, something to the effect of 8 dungeons and the personal story.

What you got was all that, plus the three added zones, a handful of extra traits, skills, several added events and fractals.

You’re missing some of the lore and the events that happened between the personal story which you got for the purchase price, and season two which is extra. They didn’t design it that way, it’s a thing, it happened, and there is absolutely nothing anyone in the community can do about it. Bringing it up again and again, complaining, suggesting, none of these things can impact how Season 1 was handled, nor change anything about it.

You missed it. It’s too bad. Hopefully they’ll come up with some way to make it work so we can experience it again. If/when they do, though, we’ll probably still have to pay for it. Even those of us who actually did experience it the first time around. Feeling entitled to it for a box price is not going to change it, because they don’t actually owe it to you, you already got more than you paid for before that point.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if the Living Story Season 1 did not have to be paid for like Living Story Season 2 (with Gems), does that not mean that the Living Story Season 1 was not something ‘extra’ as you make it out to be in your argument? Because if the Living Story Season 1 content was included in the box price for the game itself (even though some of the points you made are true to an extent) then that is why me, and as you say, many other players have complained about its removal so as to not be repeatable.

It is not good business to give something to players that was included in the box price, and then take it away from them after they paid for that content. That is like you buying a new computer you anticipate to at least last 4 years, and then just 6 months later from the date you purchased it, I come in and remove your Processor that was included in your purchase price, leaving you with everything else in your computer except your Processor.

For lack of better argument, the point in the above stated is a computer cannot function without a Processor like a Storyline cannot make sense without remaining in the game, especially if Living World Season 2 is a continuation of Living World Season 1.

This is going to derail fast just like every one of the other hundred threads about this, the living world was never intended to be permanent content.
You missing it because you were not part of the “event” was intended.
Living world content was based on CURRENT events in the world, they are not current anymore.

Hope they add these events as smaller scale fractals.

Also as someone else put it :
“I am totally lost, I have no clue whats going on, I missed World War 2, I feel cheated and life owes me something!”

Eidolonemesis.5640:

And that is my question, Anet. Why did you take out a crucial huge chunk of game content I had absolutely no idea about as a new player, that is to say, Living World Season 1? Are there plans to bring Season 1 back? And if Season 1 is brought back, is there a way where you can make all the events instanced (like Season 2) where it does not affect other players who currently see Lion’s Arch in ruins? Is the same thing that happened to Season 1 going to happen to Season 2 and Season 3 (if there is one), too?

The temporary nature with permanent consequences of the living world was a concept that was advertised as a novel feature and one of the draws for Guildwars 2. A lot of players were aware this was going to happen so it’s as expected. It was to create experiences rather than just another piece of content to grind. (I.e the fun had defending LA would not be the same if instead of being a 2 week once in a lifetime adventure it was, “oh going to grind out some more LA defense for loot bags?”)

That said guildwars 2 is not the only MMO to do this, many MMO’s have story events or other events that you either played when they happened or you miss forever it’s fairly common in an MMO.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

That kind of reasoning, though, to no longer bring this up is ignorant since we should all be pushing for an equal gameplay experience for everyone.

I don’t believe an MMO’s experience should be the same for everyone, it should be wildly different depending on your actions, when you played and what you did.
If an MMO’s experience was equal for everyone it would just be as linear as reading a book.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

This does not sit well with me at all thinking either 1. I will never be able to experience Season 1’s content like older players have or 2. If Season 1 is brought back for players to re-live, it is going to be cookie cut where only the lore is going to be explained, yet none of the big events or cinematic events will take place.

By it’s very nature of completely effecting the zone it takes place in, if it was brought back it would have to be instanced which would change it anyway. So the quality would suffer somewhat.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

It should not matter if players started playing Guild Wars 2 two years, six years, or even eight years later than everyone else. We paid for the game, and all players should have the right to experience what we paid for!

It should and does matter when you play, MMO’s are an ever-changing (living) world, from release stuff happens whether you are playing or not. It is not a single player game that waits for you to be in the mood to play it. You paid to be part of the world, not to be the center of it.

If it helps think of season 1 as a reward to veteran players who were playing back then.

It’s not so much a low priority in itself but against other projects.

Expansion is their priority. That will not change. It’s much more important for a game to progress forward than look back – this is why Zhaitan hasn’t and probably never will be reworked.

People are demanding more LS chapters, LS1, NPE rework, trait reworks, SAB, festivals…the list goes on. Do they have the resources to do all this? No.

It doesn’t mean re-doing LS1 isn’t important, it’s just they get to see the bigger, wider picture of what will benefit the game and right now, unless it is being worked on in the background, it wont be a priority. We can all come on here and put forth what we think is the best for the game, but we have a narrower vision of things.

Seeing S1 re-worked is good for the game. But, not at the expense of progressing the game

As a person who missed out on Living Story Season 1, I actually would of preferred Anet to continue doing it that way.

I started at the beginning of Season 2, and thought to myself… “I thought GW2 was supposed to be a Dynamically changing world? This Season doesn’t feel like it’s really changing the world.”

Would I have loved to of taken apart in the battle to reclaim Lion’s Arch? In a heartbeat! Am I saddened that I couldn’t? Of course, but I’m not angry at Anet or the game because of it. It’s just how th game worked, and I bought the game accepting that style of gameplay.

As somebody else said, now GW2 is just trying to feel like every other MMO with it’s usual “static” instances.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Alright, so I’m going to start buy saying that when you bought GW2 you got everything you paid for. You, like everyone before you, paid for the world of Tyria minus Southsun Cove, Drytop and Silverwastes, 8 character classes, 5 character races, something to the effect of 8 dungeons and the personal story.

What you got was all that, plus the three added zones, a handful of extra traits, skills, several added events and fractals.

You’re missing some of the lore and the events that happened between the personal story which you got for the purchase price, and season two which is extra. They didn’t design it that way, it’s a thing, it happened, and there is absolutely nothing anyone in the community can do about it. Bringing it up again and again, complaining, suggesting, none of these things can impact how Season 1 was handled, nor change anything about it.

You missed it. It’s too bad. Hopefully they’ll come up with some way to make it work so we can experience it again. If/when they do, though, we’ll probably still have to pay for it. Even those of us who actually did experience it the first time around. Feeling entitled to it for a box price is not going to change it, because they don’t actually owe it to you, you already got more than you paid for before that point.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if Living Story Season 1 did not have to be paid for like Living Story Season 2 (with Gems), does that not mean that the Living Story Season 1 was not something ‘extra’ as you make it out to be in your argument? Because if the Living Story Season 1 content was included in the box price for the game itself (even though some of the points you made are true to an extent) then that is why me, and as you say, many other players are complaining about its removal so as to not be repeatable.

You are wrong, because Season 2 also didn’t have to be paid for if you experienced it when it happened. You are paying for the opportunity of experiencing it after the fact. It didn’t come with the game, it’s something extra they threw in for those of us that were playing the game. If anyone else wants to experience it, they have to pay.

It was unlocked by logging in while it was active. That is a feature they included with Season 2. It didn’t exist in Season 1 so if they figure out how to make zone wide events reduce to short personal missions they may not be unlocked for those of us who did them. Though there were achievements associated with them that they could probably use.

I should point out, I’m not condoning this, and if they had opted to just let anyone have everything for free, then I wouldn’t care. They did not, however, and it’s totally their right because they’re not part of the box price. The game that existed when the game was released is all that the was promised when you purchased it. You’ve already gotten significantly more than that at no extra cost. If some story is going to cost more, so be it.

Bristingr.5034:

Would I have loved to of taken apart in the battle to reclaim Lion’s Arch? In a heartbeat! Am I saddened that I couldn’t? Of course, but I’m not angry at Anet or the game because of it. It’s just how th game worked, and I bought the game accepting that style of gameplay.

As somebody else said, now GW2 is just trying to feel like every other MMO with it’s usual “static” instances.

Yes. That’s my major disappointment with season 2 and all of the recent GW2 development in general.
There was a lot of very vocal whining about how GW2 was different from other MMOs, and it seems the devs caved and now we’re getting World of Tyriacraft, basically. Or at least every change tries to make it more like that.

I had made this suggestion when megaservers first came out. (Actually, I was certain this was A-Net’s Plan) But since they either haven’t considered this or for some reason find it non feasible (I’m curious why), here is my suggestion.

Using your megaserver tech, divide some instances of each zone into previous states from Living World Season 1.

Example: Player A decides he wants to participate in the tower of nightmares. He activates that part of his living world story, and the game will tell him to head over to Kessex Hills to help uncover the mysteries of this giant tower unleashing toxic spores, killing the wildlife. When the player gets to Kessex Hills, he doesn’t enter the same instance as other players doing their personal story or simply visiting the zone. He is placed into a server with other players who have activated this step of the living world story.

That is the bulk of it. I’m sure A-Net could group some of the steps together to avoid too many servers per zone, but it seems the tech is in place for players to enter different versions of a zone. And now all players can play season 1 without the hassle of trying to crop the story into 5 man instances.

If this gets no response, I may try and make a separate thread to get the Dev’s attention.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

It only makes sense that if the Living Story Season 1 is no longer repeatable by new and old players, Anet (I am sure) removed (not destroyed) the old game code linked to the events in Living World Season 1. In other words, Anet has the game code and content backed up, for (hopefully) future implementation after re-imagining how to make it repeatable.

I’m assuming most of your attitude&opinion about this is based in you not really knowing what the content you missed actually consisted of..

MetaEvents like the Scarlet Invasions and the various versions of the LA siege required 50+ players(though most often with 100+), trying to coordinate across several simultaneous events scattered across a whole zone over the course of 1-2 hours.

how do you boil that down to something 5 players can do in an instance?

when we say the content was over rather than simply “removed”, we say that because the events weren’t just code, they weren’t just a mission or a quest… they were literal events that happened to the players. They worked because almost everyone in the game at the time was focused on those events. that is what made them special and that is what you can’t recapture just by restoring “the code”.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Furthermore, saying this is a low priority thing is a joke, because it is a big deal

It’s less of a big deal than the expansion is.

Carighan.6758:

Bristingr.5034:

Would I have loved to of taken apart in the battle to reclaim Lion’s Arch? In a heartbeat! Am I saddened that I couldn’t? Of course, but I’m not angry at Anet or the game because of it. It’s just how th game worked, and I bought the game accepting that style of gameplay.

As somebody else said, now GW2 is just trying to feel like every other MMO with it’s usual “static” instances.

Yes. That’s my major disappointment with season 2 and all of the recent GW2 development in general.
There was a lot of very vocal whining about how GW2 was different from other MMOs, and it seems the devs caved and now we’re getting World of Tyriacraft, basically. Or at least every change tries to make it more like that.

It’s pretty much why I’ve kinda just moved to World vs. World… crushing JQ and BG skulls give me more pleasure than Season 2’s Living Story. Granted, I’m still going to buy the Expansion Pack, because Guild Halls, Gliding, new Borderlands Maps, etc… I just hope that they go back to the style of the FIRST Living Story in making the world dynamic, etc.

You will never experience the first Halloween, nor the first Wintersday. In the first Halloween King Thorne blew up the lion statue and terrorized the land. When it was over he was stabilized and now he just shows up each year. That happened one time and will never happen again. If you weren’t actually standing in Lion’s Arch at that moment you missed it. I was at work, so I didn’t even get to see it.

On the first Wintersday Tixx went to each of the main cities introducing his toys one after the other such that each city got its own unique event for one day. We all got parts to make our own toys at the end of the event. I was able to make two toys, but there weren’t enough parts to make the other three. They have never brought those back so the parts are just wasting space in my bank. Each year since I’ve simply had the opportunity to acquire one of the toys I’m missing. You can play the “dungeon” on Tixx’s ship, but you’ll never experience those first five missions.

These are just the nature of the game when it started. You will never experience the first attack on Lion’s Arch when the Karka rampaged through it, nor the quest to learn about Southsun and the Consortium. They don’t have anything to do with Season 1, just like those other two things, and so they will not be seen again. The only thing you can do to have any semblance of the experience is to find the petrified Karka Queen on the edge of the lava pool in the Karka nest.

That belongs to veterans alone.

They can create a server with a pass gem buyable access and on this special server the saison 1 event are replay (and every two week the saison 1 chapter switch) :
- not expensive (they can use the actual overload system)
- they get money with the pass (probably a two week pass and a permanent pass buyable only temporary)
- all player can replay all event / get skin / complete achievement
- with the cyclic system, you easily reach 100-150 player at each chapter, so, scalling is not a problem

But i don’t think they create this system …

(sorry if this post is not clear, English it isn’t my native language)

Kal Spiro.9745:

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Alright, so I’m going to start buy saying that when you bought GW2 you got everything you paid for. You, like everyone before you, paid for the world of Tyria minus Southsun Cove, Drytop and Silverwastes, 8 character classes, 5 character races, something to the effect of 8 dungeons and the personal story.

What you got was all that, plus the three added zones, a handful of extra traits, skills, several added events and fractals.

You’re missing some of the lore and the events that happened between the personal story which you got for the purchase price, and season two which is extra. They didn’t design it that way, it’s a thing, it happened, and there is absolutely nothing anyone in the community can do about it. Bringing it up again and again, complaining, suggesting, none of these things can impact how Season 1 was handled, nor change anything about it.

You missed it. It’s too bad. Hopefully they’ll come up with some way to make it work so we can experience it again. If/when they do, though, we’ll probably still have to pay for it. Even those of us who actually did experience it the first time around. Feeling entitled to it for a box price is not going to change it, because they don’t actually owe it to you, you already got more than you paid for before that point.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if Living Story Season 1 did not have to be paid for like Living Story Season 2 (with Gems), does that not mean that the Living Story Season 1 was not something ‘extra’ as you make it out to be in your argument? Because if the Living Story Season 1 content was included in the box price for the game itself (even though some of the points you made are true to an extent) then that is why me, and as you say, many other players are complaining about its removal so as to not be repeatable.

You are wrong, because Season 2 also didn’t have to be paid for if you experienced it when it happened. You are paying for the opportunity of experiencing it after the fact. It didn’t come with the game, it’s something extra they threw in for those of us that were playing the game. If anyone else wants to experience it, they have to pay.

It was unlocked by logging in while it was active. That is a feature they included with Season 2. It didn’t exist in Season 1 so if they figure out how to make zone wide events reduce to short personal missions they may not be unlocked for those of us who did them. Though there were achievements associated with them that they could probably use.

I should point out, I’m not condoning this, and if they had opted to just let anyone have everything for free, then I wouldn’t care. They did not, however, and it’s totally their right because they’re not part of the box price. The game that existed when the game was released is all that the was promised when you purchased it. You’ve already gotten significantly more than that at no extra cost. If some story is going to cost more, so be it.

Well then I stand corrected since I have only been playing for 4 weeks now.

I was not aware of the background information you provided. The basis of my argument was simply built upon IF the Living Story Season 1 came with the box price, then…

Therefore, since I am in fact not expecting everything to be free as you wrong assume of me, I do not mind paying the money to experience Living Story Season 1 just so I can understand why Lion’s Arch is in ruins now, among other things.

What OP mentioned regarding lion’s arch is actually the very reason why it was all temporary. There is nothing baffling about it, it makes perfect sense.

Lion’s arch went through multiple stages.. First we had untouched lion’s arch then it was attacked, then we had to help survivors get out, then we had to take it back. You cant really have something like that and make it repeatable how would it work? each of those states had a different lion’s arch so to speak (different setup, different models, different npc positioning, different particle effects, even different events etc…)

There is no way you can make that work in a parmanent setting. it wouldnt make sense to play escape from LA in the current LA or the pristine LA. There would just be no one to save! It would even be crazy continuity wise… lets say you just started season 1.. that puts you 18 episodes from lion’s arch destruction yet if you travel to LA you see it destroyed? even if you can live with that the scope of season 1 releases just wouldnt have worked in an instanced enviroment. A party of 5 is able to free lion’s arch after it was taken? but if with so few fighter it is possible to repel the invasion how come the lion guard were not able to stop the invasion themselves? there are far more then 5 of them. (thats not to mention that it would be physically impossible for 5 to win the way the whole event was designed)

season 1 was temporary but that allowed for truely epic world progression. again.. nice perfect LA, bombed LA, LA with tons of people to save, Liberated LA. Its hard to have that level of world progression while leaving things replayable at the same time. biggest reason being you just have to have stuff instanced in order to make it repeatable and that already brings the scope down from something that 100s of players have to deal with with something less then 6 players can deal with.

Loboling.5293:

Using your megaserver tech, divide some instances of each zone into previous states from Living World Season 1.

Example: Player A decides he wants to participate in the tower of nightmares. He activates that part of his living world story, and the game will tell him to head over to Kessex Hills to help uncover the mysteries of this giant tower unleashing toxic spores, killing the wildlife. When the player gets to Kessex Hills, he doesn’t enter the same instance as other players doing their personal story or simply visiting the zone. He is placed into a server with other players who have activated this step of the living world story.

I agree completely but the problem that will occur has already been experienced when LS1 was active, and in the zone you reference.

Two weeks after the Tower of Nightmares went live, it was dead. It was massive content designed for the zerg and if you could not muster more than five players you likely couldn’t get to the top. Of course this was before mega servers so in all likelyhood, with proper scaling and rewards or maybe even new acheivements, I’m certain that an instanced version of the Tower or Scarlet’s Invasion of Lion’s Arch would have more than enough players willing to farm/replay the area for a long time to come.

As an old-ish player that ran into RL issues for the 2nd half of S1, I feel the pain. Anet was trying something very novel in making massive changes to their open world between expansions. All other MMOs have been relatively stagnant in the interim phases. I missed the fall of Lion’s Arch and would love to have a way of experiencing it but I also love the way GW2 feels alive for more than the two months post major release.

In the interim, the best solution I’ve seen proposed would be a series of cutscenes with “the story so far…” that new and old players alike could access from the character selection screen. Every major event or season could have it’s own 1-3 minute mini-movie that describes how Tyria has changed and what led to it. It’s simple but at least brings new and returning players up to speed.

Making all of these changes replayable/instanced defeats the purpose of a Living World. Because of this, Living Story Season 2 feels more like Personal Story Chapter 4. The idea was to see things change in game and have those changes mean something. The destruction of Lion’s Arch was traumatic and left a very visible scar on Tyria. Without it, Scarlet’s invasion would have been far less impactful on those who played and to the story as a whole.

Kal Spiro.9745:

You will never experience the first Halloween, nor the first Wintersday. In the first Halloween King Thorne blew up the lion statue and terrorized the land. When it was over he was stabilized and now he just shows up each year. That happened one time and will never happen again. If you weren’t actually standing in Lion’s Arch at that moment you missed it. I was at work, so I didn’t even get to see it.

On the first Wintersday Tixx went to each of the main cities introducing his toys one after the other such that each city got its own unique event for one day. We all got parts to make our own toys at the end of the event. I was able to make two toys, but there weren’t enough parts to make the other three. They have never brought those back so the parts are just wasting space in my bank. Each year since I’ve simply had the opportunity to acquire one of the toys I’m missing. You can play the “dungeon” on Tixx’s ship, but you’ll never experience those first five missions.

These are just the nature of the game when it started. You will never experience the first attack on Lion’s Arch when the Karka rampaged through it, nor the quest to learn about Southsun and the Consortium. They don’t have anything to do with Season 1, just like those other two things, and so they will not be seen again. The only thing you can do to have any semblance of the experience is to find the petrified Karka Queen on the edge of the lava pool in the Karka nest.

That belongs to veterans alone.

Like the old adage goes, “Never say ‘never’”. I believe (with money given by players, of course) that at least some things (not all things) can be re-lived, in this case, an event big as the demolishing of Lion’s Arch, and other big events.

With that being said in mind, I thought the living, breathing world Guild Wars 2 offered (as Anet’s sale’s pitch claimed) only went far as real-time events upon walking around in places where you see ‘Hearts’ on the map, not to the extent where major Storyline content is released, and then removed from everyone’s gameplay experience forever, never to be repeated again.

Therefore, since I understand the direction Anet is going with this living world concept to a seemingly ‘literal’ extent, that does not at all mean it sits well with players like me because I don’t agree with teasing players with content to finish soon as possible lest it be gone forever, even if Living Story Season 1 WAS a one-time thing.

Cherokeewill.7504:

Making all of these changes replayable/instanced defeats the purpose of a Living World. Because of this, Living Story Season 2 feels more like Personal Story Chapter 4. The idea was to see things change in game and have those changes mean something. The destruction of Lion’s Arch was traumatic and left a very visible scar on Tyria. Without it, Scarlet’s invasion would have been far less impactful on those who played and to the story as a whole.

But that is the catch-22… The events that took place in Living Story Season 1 were only ‘impactful’ to some players (not all players). What ever happened to having an impact on all players equally, regardless of the date they started playing the game? Anet does not seem to consider players like me who purposely wait(ed) at least 1-2 years before playing the game to give it time to be free of most (not all) bugs, among other things wrong with every newly released game.

This is why, at the very least, Living Story Season 1 should be made repeatable (at least the crucial bits) at the cost of money. Must it really be said in this discussion that money does talk and B.S. does walk at that point?

The real problem is how do you introduce the story. The beginning of Season 1 wasn’t that hard, not a lot happened. But should it include the molten facility, especially since that is two fractals now? Do you make it possible to complete solo? That would be pretty bad.

Dragon bash could easily be condensed into story instances, but then you are culminating with two fractals again. How do you deal with that?

They could probably make tower of nightmares work since it wasn’t so much an event as it was a maze. Make the maze an instance and make the events easier. I never completed the event, though, so I don’t know how it ends, but I was under the impression that could also be soloed.

The queens jubilee was already a solo mission, they could do that without even letting anyone into the gauntlet.

Scarlet’s rampage, though, that’s a tough one to deal with. And the marionette would be terrible to simplify for one person. I could totally see it as a fractal, it would make an awesome fractal. Rather than a coordinated effort it’s just one group. One lane at a time and one boss at a time. They just need to reduce the lane mobs to be handled by a fifth as many people, the bosses are already designed for five. But reducing that even further would be pretty terrible.

I could see a couple options for Escape from LA, but the Battle for LA doesn’t break down easily until the final part. Fighting the holograms solo would be rough. Fighting the giant scarlet bots would be rough too

OP:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-story-so-farheart-of-thorns-beats/

Read it. Absorb it. Most everything is Season #1 of the Living Story was open world and set up in such a way that it cannot be repeated. The developer want to -at some point- try to make certain story parts of it repeatable, but it would be such a difficult task that the priority is super low right now.

Fractals of the Mist also contains 3 sections related to the Living Story Season #1: -Aetherblade Hideout, -Molten Furnace, -Thaumanova Reactor. Each of these locations within the Fractals allows you to play one of the key parts to the early living story (it was a compromising solution to those being once temporary dungeons that disappeared after their story arcs ended).

P.S. MMOs are evolving worlds that change with or without the player being there. Your situation would be no different than someone coming into World of Warcraft for the first time and hearing about “this used to be a beautiful land before the Cataclysm”. There is no rolling back the world or changing it in such a way that you can see it pre-Cataclysm. A new player is joining the game NOW, in this present time of date, which means that all events categorized as “past” are left as such and won’t be set to being fresh and new for those just joining.

It should not matter if players started playing Guild Wars 2 two years, six years, or even eight years later than everyone else. We paid for the game, and all players should have the right to experience what we paid for!

P.P.S. The Living Story was never included in the box of the game or described as a part of the game’s initial purchase. In fact, it happened many months after the game’s initial launch (6 months, to be more accurate). The box purchase of the game includes the content of the game’s 1-80 pathing and the Personal Story plot to kill Zhiatan. The Living Story was content for EXISTING CUSTOMERS to provide extra content as enticement to log into the game as that content took place, as well as a plot device to drive a larger story arc.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Maybe the reason why you guys (the community) are no longer bringing this up is because, yea, Guild Wars 2 is two years old now and most of you veteran players have already experienced Season 1’s content, therefore, why bother bringing it up?

That kind of reasoning, though, to no longer bring this up is ignorant since we should all be pushing for an equal gameplay experience for everyone.

P.P.P.S. Try not to call people “ignorant”, especially when you’re trying to make an argument for them to agree with you.

They were experimenting, they made some mistakes, the lack of retro-access being one of them. Hence their new approach in Season Two, and their hints of yet more refinement for HoT.

That said … MMO’s change. You can’t start playing WoW today and run around in pre-Cataclysm Azeroth or experience the sharks that never lost and chased you no matter how far inland you went. You can’t join Horizons (now Istaria or some such) and partake in the land rush across the community-built bridge to the new housing plots. I’m pretty sure LotRO had unique festivals; I remember getting white wicker chairs for my house from one and never seeing them available again.

Even in RL, you join people in the middle of their stories. If you become friends with a married couple, are you miffed that they won’t re-enact their wedding so you can attend?

It’ll be cool if ANet can find a way to restore some bits of Season One, and has the resources to allocate to it. Meanwhile, I hope you can chalk it up to “nothing’s perfect” and enjoy what is there without feeling cheated because some older things are gone.

I’m with some of the other posters here. I much preferred Season 1 to Season 2. The world of Tyria is no longer dynamic and changing. Season 2 is static, and only somewhat fun the first time through the instances (which I usually play solo, or with 1 other). I would rather play the way we all did in Season 1, than have these repeatable instances.

I hope the expansion brings us something more fun and exciting than Season 2. I’m sorry the OP missed out on all the wonder of Season 1, but if the Devs do eventually bring it back, it won’t be anything like the original, but something watered down like Season 2….and that’s a shame.

Galen Grey.4709:

What OP mentioned regarding lion’s arch is actually the very reason why it was all temporary. There is nothing baffling about it, it makes perfect sense.

Lion’s arch went through multiple stages.. First we had untouched lion’s arch then it was attacked, then we had to help survivors get out, then we had to take it back. You cant really have something like that and make it repeatable how would it work? each of those states had a different lion’s arch so to speak (different setup, different models, different npc positioning, different particle effects, even different events etc…)

A good argument is a good argument even I find hard to dispute at this point.

After all this discussion, here is how I think Living Story Season 1 can be brought back:

The only ingenious way, then, to address this Storyline issue, for players who want to re-live Living Story Season 1, is for Anet to make the fall of Lion’s Arch (and other such big events linked to Living World Season 1) visible through the eyes of players as they move their characters around in a dream-like world, observing the fighting, cut scenes, etc. that took place in the past — much like the Dream of Dreams moment that the ‘Pale Tree’ takes players to in the Sylvari’s land.

So if Living Story Season 1 cannot be totally re-created, Anet can at least implement an NPC that appears (during a particular quest leading up to that moment, much like with the Pale Tree) where players can re-live the past through a dream-like vision, and actively walk through it.

You guys make it sound like this is impossible when it is not. All it takes is a little creative thinking on how to bring back Living Story Season 1 in some way, shape or form.

OP, I don’t think you quite grasp what the idea of Living Story originally was, and why ultimately they changed it.

The idea was that the content would be on a linear time line, in an attempt to give it a feeling that things took place in the past and the current state would reflect that. To accomplish this, events that took place and finished stayed in the past. They weren’t replayable. You couldn’t just join an instance to go through everything that happened all over again.

As someone who has played since early release, I felt it accomplished that goal. Even now I think back on when the Molten Alliance formed, when the refugees from the conflicts had to go to Southsun, when we found out about Scarlet, when she attacked Lion’s Arch etc., it actually feels like something that took place in the past. Not simply some dungeon or raid encounter that I can experience over and over again.

I honestly liked it. I mean. In real life, if you weren’t around while an event took place, you can’t just go back in time and relive it. You can only hear about it from others that were there.

Obviously there were a lot of complaints from people that didn’t play GW2 regularly, because they felt they missed out on content. My perspective is that if you didn’t care enough about the game to even play for the year+ that LS1 was going on, then really who cares if you missed out on content. You weren’t even playing the game. Now all of a sudden you care because you missed out on something when you were actively not playing? I dunno, it just seems kind of….whiny.

But, I do enjoy the new system as well and it seems that the majority of people do as well.

There have been talks on how they would be able to bring back LS1, but don’t hold your breath on that one.

Draknar.5748:

OP, I don’t think you quite grasp what the idea of Living Story originally was, and why ultimately they changed it.

The idea was that the content would be on a linear time line, in an attempt to give it a feeling that things took place in the past and the current state would reflect that. To accomplish this, events that took place and finished stayed in the past. They weren’t replayable. You couldn’t just join an instance to go through everything that happened all over again.

As someone who has played since early release, I felt it accomplished that goal. Even now I think back on when the Molten Alliance formed, when the refugees from the conflicts had to go to Southsun, when we found out about Scarlet, when she attacked Lion’s Arch etc., it actually feels like something that took place in the past. Not simply some dungeon or raid encounter that I can experience over and over again.

I honestly liked it. I mean. In real life, if you weren’t around while an event took place, you can’t just go back in time and relive it. You can only hear about it from others that were there.

Obviously there were a lot of complaints from people that didn’t play GW2 regularly, because they felt they missed out on content. My perspective is that if you didn’t care enough about the game to even play for the year+ that LS1 was going on, then really who cares if you missed out on content. You weren’t even playing the game. Now all of a sudden you care because you missed out on something when you were actively not playing? I dunno, it just seems kind of….whiny.

But, I do enjoy the new system as well and it seems that the majority of people do as well.

There have been talks on how they would be able to bring back LS1, but don’t hold your breath on that one.

Read my response just above the one you just posted, and tell me what you think of the idea I have in mind to bring back Living Story Season 1.

Think of it like a reenactment of the events that took place in Living Story Season 1 through a vision players can walk through (much like the ‘Pale Tree’ moment), except there is no fighting involved, and neither is 100+ players required to complete the events since the events are already being carried out before the player’s eyes.

Sure, the idea I have in mind may not necessarily bring Living Story Season 1 back to its most spectacular state, actively fighting and participating within it, yet at least new players like me will have a reference point to go on for years to come regarding what happened in previous Seasons like in Living Story Season 1.

If anyone else has a better idea, let’s hear it… This is what the Guild Wars 2 community is truly all about, to bring our ideas together to come up with a solution to things rather than carelessly throwing the term ‘impossible’ around.

P.S. If visions of past Seasons like Living Story Season 1 cost money/gems for players who weren’t there to experience them, then so be it. Better for Seasons to be re-lived through a vision players can walk through at the cost of money/gems than for Seasons to never be re-lived at all.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Think of it like a reenactment of the events that took place in Living Story Season 1 through a vision players can walk through (much like the ‘Pale Tree’ moment), except there is no fighting involved, and neither is 100+ players required to complete the events since the events are already being carried out before the player’s eyes.

You can already get that same experience today by watching the many videos out there for each season 1 chapter.

why would the devs spend considerable time and resources to duplicate that?

Kal Spiro.9745:

These are just the nature of the game when it started. You will never experience the first attack on Lion’s Arch when the Karka rampaged through it, nor the quest to learn about Southsun and the Consortium. They don’t have anything to do with Season 1, just like those other two things, and so they will not be seen again. The only thing you can do to have any semblance of the experience is to find the petrified Karka Queen on the edge of the lava pool in the Karka nest.

That belongs to veterans alone.

Ancient Karka. The Queen is what is the world boss spawning on a timer every now and then. The Ancient Karka is the big ol’ ugly beast that destroyed our precious lighthouse, got chased back to Southsun, chased across the southwest isle section, and finally dropped into lava after a very epic several-hour fight against the beasty and his friends.

It’s not just the statue that I recall there, either. We -players- built the bridges, opened the steam vents, and even caused the rock slide. Those things are landmarks that can be seen today on that island.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Maybe the reason why you guys (the community) are no longer bringing this up is because, yea, Guild Wars 2 is two years old now and most of you veteran players have already experienced Season 1’s content, therefore, why bother bringing it up?

That kind of reasoning, though, to no longer bring this up is ignorant since we should all be pushing for an equal gameplay experience for everyone.

Siphaed.9235:

P.P.P.S. Try not to call people “ignorant”, especially when you’re trying to make an argument for them to agree with you.

That is because going by how the majority often goes about their reasoning (as exampled in the above quoted from me) it is a valid reason for me to call such reasoning ignorant, that which was directed only to those it may concern, yet certainly not everybody as you seem to believe.

As for the rest of what you said, I have already addressed most of it in other comments.

Erased (duplicate post somehow, sorry).

It isn’t just the creativity, it’s the time and resources to basically re-design an entire season. It can’t just be condensed or down scaled – it wasn’t designed like that originally.

It’ll take many months for them to complete such a piece of work

Here’s your recap, if interested: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_season_1

There have been, in the past, NPCs that offered recaps of episodes, etc. I assume they were not too popular, or seemed out of place, as they have been removed. (You can read more about them, and what they offered, in the Wiki [Search: Recap].)

Good luck.