Guild Wars 2

I would rather have they put their resources in a good Ls season 3 with fresh new story and content.

Qugi.2653:

Living story season 1 was much open world content. Hard to make available to play like season 2. This was big complain from season 1 and probably why season 2 mostly instance. I think there is some NPC can visit to get some story of season 1 but I forget.

Actually, the main story of Season 1 was told largely in a span of 30-some instances. The only plot-related open world content was a few spots of idle dialogue for the biconics, The Lost Shores, Cutthroat Politics, Marionette, and Battle for LA.

So, in effect, only 5 storylines out of 10 had some open world content as the primary arc, and of that only two or three would be rather difficult to translate into solo instances (the election, Marionette’s five lanes, and Prime Hologram’s 3-split-3-split-3-split-again fight).

All the other stuff was more akin to the mordrem events in Dry Top – added with the content, relevant to the content, but ultimately not part of the main story. And just about all of it can be re-added without any story inconsistency – certainly no more story inconsistency than people still talking about Zhaitan being a threat in the open world, or talking about trade with LA while it was in rubble for a year.

The hardest work for Season 1, outside of those aforementioned 3-5 storylines (less than half the season) where you got to scale down the real zerg events or duplicate a community election without making it feel like you don’t have a choice (e.g., either disallowing voting for Evon or always resulting in Ellen’s win regardless of your vote – both result in a false choice), would be translating the content from one form of instance that relied upon achievements for marking progress, to a newer repeatable kind of instance tied to the story journal which Season 2 is structured around. The difficulty of this depends on how different the two formats are in programming and design.

Either way, last update we had was late october from Bobby Stein, where he basically said there was no change in progress regarding the reiteration of Season 1 content as Season 2’s format. Something Bobby Stein and Colin had both stated on numerous occasions to want to do. The question isn’t so much ‘if’ as it is ‘when’.

And the longer they wait, the worse things are for them, IMO, because let’s be honest – even if Season 1 included some of the game series’ worse writing, missing an important chunk of story (which introduces the entire purpose behind Season 2 and HoT, as well as prevents suddenly caring about this unknown Scarlet fella (for newer players and veterans who missed out on S1, she’s unknown)) is never a good idea.

If your curious, each storyline consisted of (temporary content only):

• The Lost Shores – no instances, several small scale events, and 2 large scale events
• Flame and Frost – 7 instances, 1 dungeon, several small scale events, no large scale events
• Secret of Southsun/Last Stand at Southsun – 2 instances (3 if you count the golem alt fight – I don’t), several small scale events, no large scale events
• DragonBash/Sky Pirates – 5 instances, 1 dungeon, several festival activities, a few small scale events, no large scale events
• Bazaar of the Four Winds/Cutthroat Politics – 3 instances, a few small scale events, no large scale events
• Queen’s Jubilee/Clockwork Chaos – 3 instances, several small scale festival events, 1 large scale event (the invasions I count as one because it was the same thing over multiple maps)
• Tequatl Rising – no instances, no small scale events, no large scale event
• Tower of Nightmares/The Nightmares Within/The Nightmare is Over – 4 instances (5 if you count Nightmare Chambers – I’m not for sake of argument), 1 special zone, several small scale events (wouldn’t translate), no large scale events
• The Origins of Madness/Edge of the Mists – 3 instances (4 counting Scarlet’s Lair visit), several small scale events, 1 large scale event
• Escape from LA/Battle for LA/Battle for LA: Aftermath – 2 instances, 2 special zones, several small scale events (wouldn’t translate), 1 large scale event (chain)

Total instances: 29 (+3 oddballs)
Total temporary large scale events: 5

Yet everyone constantly states Season 1 was “mostly zerg content”… the fact is that it wasn’t – it was content meant for few players that got zerged because it was a new and temporary thing.

Dawdler.8521:

The entire point of living world season 1 was to make a true living world. A world where timed moved on, instead of being in a perpetual frozen state. It achieved this gallantly. It made the PvE world come alive. You cannot redo it because… well, its in the past. Was it harsh that people missed it if they couldnt attend? Well yes. That’s how time works.

GW2 definetly lost something unique when they stopped doing this.

GW2 never achieved a “true living world” because of two reasons:

First, the personal story was always there. This was a storyline stuck in time, despite being before Season 1, it can be done after Season 1.

Secondly, Season 1 only focused on two storylines – Kiel and Scarlet. A true living world would be presenting small updates to every map few updates – in that let’s say every map would be different (either a little or a lot) than it was 5 game updates ago, but not necessarily the previous game update.

Every map was stuck in time. It only changed when Season 1 touched it, and even then it never removed things only added to it. Only exception was Southsun Cove, Kessex Hills and Lion’s Arch. Those are the only zones that were touched that had changed from their original state after the so-called “Living World” passed by out of all the maps that had been a focus for the Living World (such as Wayfarer Foothills, Diessa Plateau, every map the Scarlet’s Invasion was in, Bloodtide Coast, Sparkfly Fen).

Diessa and Wayfarers? They had new stuff during Flame and Frost, but outside a couple instances and some houses, they were the same both before and after Flame and Frost. And during Flame and Frost, none of the original content got taken out – either permanently or temporarily.

Sparkly Fen and Bloodtide Coast had stuff permanently changed – resulting in being stuck in time for both during and after the LW episode came and went. And nothing was taken out, either, unless you count the original Tequatl event ‘taken out’.

So I cannot agree with you that Season 1 “made the PvE world come alive” or that it had “something unique” while doing Season 1. What Season 1 did was result in fast paced temporary content that encouraged people to constantly play the game despite what their life may allow them, resulting in people being burned out from playing the game in an attempt to not miss anything. Even ArenaNet was burned out from the pace they did of producing content – and the quality of it really showed soon enough. That’s why Season 2 wasn’t a year and a half of updates every two weeks back to back. They tried it and realized they just couldn’t do it – nor could playersssssss.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Yet everyone constantly states Season 1 was “mostly zerg content”… the fact is that it wasn’t – it was content meant for few players that got zerged because it was a new and temporary thing.

You keep stating those numbers like they are fundamental in terms of adapting the content to become repeatable via the personal story mechanic. All it means is that the relevant cinematics are available. It doesn’t change the fact that ANet would still have shoehorn in various aspects of the story and figure out a way to include (or mention) the epic battles.

And it completely ignores the various triggers|flags and things that would have to be added to the current zones to progress the story. It ignores fitting the elements into the UI and setting up the switches that allow people to turn on|off each step, as we can do now with LS2 and HoT. And that’s before ANet even considers rewards, achievements, masteries, and challenges.

And of course, it ignores the “fact” that what has been most memorable for veterans were the epic open world conflicts, especially Battle for LA. Of course, ANet can turn that into a cutscene and include it as a spectator-only part of LS1 — there’s no question that people who didn’t get to do LS1 would like that opportunity. But there’s also no question that it wouldn’t be very interesting to those who were here at the time.

In other words, adding LS1 still requires an epic amount of work, even if it isn’t as much as adding LS3 would be. And for all that effort, only a fraction of the community would benefit a lot; the others would see less value.

As a business decision, would you choose to spend 80% of the effort to benefit 30% of the (potential) audience? Or 100% of the effort to benefit 100% of that same group?

I know my preference for new players is that they make available more of the cinematics, but otherwise focus more on HoT and beyond, rather than worrying about retrofitting LS1.

tl;dr the division between open-world zerg and personal instances is a red herring. It’s still a lot of work to make LS1 replayble and that same work could be devoted to LS3 or other new content.

I think I just copy slightly older reply:

so how about we turn this thread from love/hate s1 into idea thread of how s1 should be delivered without breaking things on lore level (at least not too much) if ever there is possibility.
For my proposal is simple idea of time: azurans are tech ppl, chronomancers already dabble on field of time. So its not far fetch that asuran could re-engineer asura gate into portal of time.
Exit would best be separate nexus with access to old lions arch before scarlets invasion (for those who liked old even better than new for one). Events of S1 could easily delivered as maps itself (this assumes arenanet has versions backed up since release)and instead of flat adding entire world map, map of rift in time could be similar to pvp map. Maybe only show areas on it where events happen.
most counter arguments would be work vice, but if backups exists, then majority of graphical and coding work already exists (also audio and writing), What would be needed is only some tweaking in code like disabling renown vendors of said areas and generalize normal vendors, save for event currency vendor. Events itself should be ran on correct order and maybe at 2x speed of original length vice but so that there is no caps in between.
Ofc this also could hold few of timegated seasonal events that are not there now such as fourwind bazaar, maybe also super adventure box

please note that this is fairly cost efficient to produce in case Anet has backups of server/client version dating to 2012 or has codes of events around

bumb, gotta keep upping in hopes this part is fixed … on constant basis at HoT story and s2, let alone by npcs in cities I keep reminded of single fact: I wasn’t there when said s1 event happened… so nice of each and every of imaginary friends keep referring how I was in where I wasnt

bumbie in hopes of hearing this happen

Uh, I like this. I’m not really a story person but I’m more concerned about the what, 2000 (?) achievement points that I’ve missed out on. Altho I think it might be a lot of work considering the zones has been remade so they’d probably have to make “phased”(instanced) areas for this to work. But to compensate they could just put it in the store for say 2k gems. I’d pay it 10 out of 10 times! =]

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

It doesn’t change the fact that ANet would still have shoehorn in various aspects of the story and figure out a way to include (or mention) the epic battles.

What epic battles?

There were only four zerg-based epic battles that were not kept, but you and those like you keep stating it like every release had an epic battle. Those three are: Ancient Karka, Scarlet’s Invasions, Twisted Marionette, and Prime Hologram.

Those are the only open world ‘epic battles’ that you/those sharing your stance so often claim was the entirety of Season 1. People keep saying ‘epic battle this’ and ‘epic zerg events that’ but honestly, the zerg content was a minority – a HUGE minority – in Season 1.

Four battles are the entirety and foundation of Season 1? No. They aren’t. They aren’t even the foundation of a third of Season 1.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

And it completely ignores the various triggers|flags and things that would have to be added to the current zones to progress the story. It ignores fitting the elements into the UI and setting up the switches that allow people to turn on|off each step, as we can do now with LS2 and HoT. And that’s before ANet even considers rewards, achievements, masteries, and challenges.

I haven’t ignored the UI issue at all. In fact, I have repeatedly stated that is where most of the work will be.

Rewards can be the same as before, achievements can be the same as before, masteries would just be added to the story chapter and meta achievements, there’d be no need for challenges, and zone progress? There was never any zone progress with the main story – that was all just ambient stuff and most of S1’s events can be re-added without any such hindrance to the chronology of the game (no more than Orr perpetually acting like Zhaitan’s still alive, or Magus Falls acting as if Mordremoth lives, etc. etc.).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

And of course, it ignores the “fact” that what has been most memorable for veterans were the epic open world conflicts, especially Battle for LA. Of course, ANet can turn that into a cutscene and include it as a spectator-only part of LS1 — there’s no question that people who didn’t get to do LS1 would like that opportunity. But there’s also no question that it wouldn’t be very interesting to those who were here at the time.

Or they can take the Escape map’s three sections and turn the main events there (the one-time escorts) into the main story step objectives with the other events as side-objective, turning the ‘help people of LA escape’ into three subsequent story steps (one from each entrance and Biconic duo), and turn the Battle for LA into similar but one instance (choose who you assist, get a main chain with side objectives (bonus achievements) that ends with one Assault Knight and one of the three platforms of Breachmaker).

It really isn’t that hard if you open your thought process. The hard part comes with having to test the new balance (and not even all events would need that, as most events were already balanced to be capable of being done solo).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

In other words, adding LS1 still requires an epic amount of work, even if it isn’t as much as adding LS3 would be.

It would definitely be less than a new season, as all the voice acting, models, animations, sound effects, and plot are all done. Only in cases of modifications which are more optional than not would be raising it to more work.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

And for all that effort, only a fraction of the community would benefit a lot; the others would see less value.

A fraction that grows every day. A fraction that is the majority of the community.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

tl;dr the division between open-world zerg and personal instances is a red herring. It’s still a lot of work to make LS1 replayble and that same work could be devoted to LS3 or other new content.

Why couldn’t the designers and programmers work on S1 while the writers plot out S3, get the musicians to begin drafts on the music, the artists to get models and animations ready from the writers’ plotting?

Not everything is done at once, some things are done much later than the rest. Proper management of tasks is key to running an effective company, and this is no different than any other company that would handle multiple tasks. Even Pixar has an establishment where while the majority of the company works on a movie, there are writers working on the plot of the next.

And the fact is that with some games – if not all – some people’s roles are left low on tasks while others are overflowed, and it’ll switch around as projects progress.

Let me try with fewer words, since I think I was misunderstood: I largely agree with proponents of adding LS1 as a repeatable story:

• Is it worth doing? Yes, absolutely.
• Is it feasible? Certainly, as has been outlined in various ways above & elsewhere.
• Is it easier than adding an entirely new story? Of course, since the ‘story’ part is written.

Here’s where I disagree:

• Is it something near the top of everyone’s wish list? No. Typically, people prefer new content to recycled, so typically, newbies are fine with brand new content and veterans prefer that.
• Is it easy to do poorly? Yeah, I think it’s easier to make mistakes in recycled content that disappoint more people, because the expectations are higher from both those who experienced it before and those who are hyped to see what they missed.
• Is it easy? No.
  • The various story triggers and internal ‘flags’ have to be entirely redone.
  • Some dialogue and story previously took place in open world; there’s audio, but no visual.
  • Some provision would have to be made for the epic battles — those were the most memorable bits for a lot of vets and there’s no easy or obvious way to convert them into 5-person instances. Bypassing them means leaving a lackluster series of challenges.
  • Some of the original instanced content is currently part of Fractals of the Mists. That’s good in the sense of easy to add the content in and it’s bad in the sense that people will feel like they aren’t getting anything new.

Thus of all the high-value, possible things that ANet can choose to work on, I believe that this is not one of the best choices, merely a good one.

edit: completely rephrased now

An easy way to make ls1 replayable is to turn them into fractals.

Maybe the personal story could be replaced with the then current living story? I know, people like to level in the PS and collect their key there, but it is not really necessary for level progression. If you can´t level in GW2 without grinding or the use of scrolls, you should not be playing at all, XP basically just stand around the next corner waiting to be farmed by you.

Now, this super old story holds GW2 in the chains of the Zhaitan arch on most maps, which is very disappointing for me. Turn the key elements into fractals and move on on the maps to have the resemblance of a living world.

when you create character, each of them opens with “I am… and this is my story” thus lacking section in that story middle of game is highly disturbing actually

Anet should bring back at least what is possible to bring back. Like soloable Tower of Nightmares, or soloable marionette fight….everything should be soloable with the help of NPCs, just to see the grandness of those things

I found this info on their wiki page a little while back: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Upcoming_changes_and_features

It says “Season 1 of the Living Story available in from the Story Journal.”

So Anet hasn’t forgotten it. Right now they are mainly focused on WvW and some other current content stuff. Don’t know when living story 1 will be available but at one point it will be available.

Wiki is written by players, not ArenaNet. It doesn’t really represent their plans (as those may change)

Dragon.8762:

I found this info on their wiki page a little while back: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Upcoming_changes_and_features

It says “Season 1 of the Living Story available in from the Story Journal.”

So Anet hasn’t forgotten it. Right now they are mainly focused on WvW and some other current content stuff. Don’t know when living story 1 will be available but at one point it will be available.

What’s available in the story journal is a short recap cutscene of the events of Season 1. It’s meant to help fill in the blanks for people who missed it. Also, no one ever seems to remember the whole “putting up signs for refugees for a month” part of Season 1

Arlee.7038:

Dragon.8762:

I found this info on their wiki page a little while back: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Upcoming_changes_and_features

It says “Season 1 of the Living Story available in from the Story Journal.”

So Anet hasn’t forgotten it. Right now they are mainly focused on WvW and some other current content stuff. Don’t know when living story 1 will be available but at one point it will be available.

What’s available in the story journal is a short recap cutscene of the events of Season 1. It’s meant to help fill in the blanks for people who missed it. Also, no one ever seems to remember the whole “putting up signs for refugees for a month” part of Season 1

Or sneaking around those sonar things with their wide angle ranged knock backs. Especially since they could turn around and target you if you tried to come in from the back.

I remember the refugee signs. I was new to the game then. I really didn’t understand any of it but I dutifully hammered in the signs.

I won’t forget those sonar things ever. They got nerfed, thankfully, because they were totally frustrating at first.

The Living World was a brave concept and we were so lucky to experience it at the time. It was tough though having a new event every two weeks and I was glad when they took a break so I could do the things I wanted to do – like puddle around exploring things. I will bet the developers were glad too. It must have been like a sweat shop churning out the new content so rapidly.

just gonna up and hope we can hear response from dev team. also still gonna try contribute my idea how to make it happen:

warped time area:
Area should be similar to pvp map type, aka be its separate world map out of normal realm. Center point would be triangular Asura style platform with single gate that leads back and guild teleportation device type of center piece where you can select event map to go to.
There should be few different types of areas,
First is old lions arch that should be permanently there, also maybe have destroyed version permanently available( or make it that played needs to have participated in scarlets invasion before can teleport to that map).
2nd should be Living story maps where each of area with event would activate and stay active for corresponding time to its original run.
also maybe add seasonal maps where while current years seasonal event is running outside, here older (removed/altered) seasonal events would be available. Say run some of older wintersdays that contained special achievements/objectives that’s not been repeated during newest wintersday event, same to halloween and others. This would be really great way to add four wind bazaar and super adventure box back into game without breaking anything lore vice.

On each case historical items /achievements should be available (not counting special store sales though) (ofc with events currency)

In order to make em more worthwhile vendors could be made sure to sell useful stuff for event currency.

And here be why I think it would be best way of making things:
1st: This fits lore extremely well, say asura chronomancer should have no problem to dabble deeper in time and create devices for it.
2nd: of all old events, they have existed, map has existed, code has existed, voice acting has been there, graphics and animations been done, even code itself has already been created and there is good changes that everything exists still in backups thus requiring quite minimal work apart from creating premises and on some point refitting areas for current games style, though please leave gliding out:S.
3rd: even though this type of content doesn’t fit all, same could be said for pvp, wvwvw and fractals too. namely this adds several hundreds hours of content to anyone who is interested (suppose two groups are top for this: ones who missed em originally aka are newer members, and ones who occasionally would like to go back for nostalgia).
4th: by creating premises for this it allows any future coming historical stuff be moved here.
5th: premises being here it could at some point spawn new story to be played.

I somehow hope this kinda approach would be considered by dev team

Though you’ve already talked about it, I’d like to know if you’re still considering putting the season 1 in the game? As far as I know, while you put that small summary, a dev has spoken you’d like to bring it to the game. Would you have permission to tell us if you’re, I dunno, working on it? At least slightly? We have fractals that takes slices of season 1 during two great events (Molten Alliance with Rox ‘n Braham joining forces, and the Aetherblades’ culminating in Mai Trin going to the jail). So it might be possible? There are open world story instances in personal story and living story already, so maybe the Marionette fight could be re-scaled to make it possible to solo? You could add NPCs that mimic the three lanes’ fight, and make the player participation one-lane-only, and make it easier during the platform’s phase…. solely for the purpose of story-telling.

I mean, I’m sure it will be plenty of work, but I’d pay for it even being there when it was first released. I love the ability to replay LS experiences, and a few friends of mine have always dreamed of knowing each step Scarlet made during her episode in the world of Tyria. The Tower of Nightmares is a grand ambient that particularly my guildies are very fans of!

I know that during the early years of GW2 folks complained about Scarlet arc, and that they were too anxious to know the mentor, and maybe at some points they outraged because the story didn’t feel like it progressed, but looking backwards it was (is!) a great story, and it holds much value for me as a player. I really hope you bring it back.

This has been said maybe hundreds of times. Yes, they want to, no, it’s not coming any time soon.

The end.

Andulias.9516:

This has been said maybe hundreds of times. Yes, they want to, no, it’s not coming any time soon.

The end.

It may be the end for you, but it’s not the end for the playerbase who still dream about playing the season 01. So, if it’s the end for you, just ignore the thread. Let it be a place for people who actually care about the question in line.

Yes, Anet, give us some update… ^^

it was too open-world, and required large amounts of people.

the events were spawns throughout whole zones, most of it cant be put into an instance

malus.5894:

Andulias.9516:

This has been said maybe hundreds of times. Yes, they want to, no, it’s not coming any time soon.

The end.

It may be the end for you, but it’s not the end for the playerbase who still dream about playing the season 01. So, if it’s the end for you, just ignore the thread. Let it be a place for people who actually care about the question in line.

Yes, Anet, give us some update… ^^

Considering I started playing after Season 1 and have actually watched what feels like hours of recaps on YT, I am pretty much in on this. However, Anet know this, the issue isn’t with them not knowing about this.

So how is making thread number 283719239 going to bring anything new to the discussion? They wanna do it, but due to budget/ technical limitations haven’t/can’t. That’s all there is to it. THat’s your update. They answered this question only a couple of guild chats ago.