Guild Wars 2

If anet makes a living story 1 somehow that is buyable in the gem store I would buy that pls anet make this , you will make bank.

aandiarie.7195:

If anet makes a living story 1 somehow that is buyable in the gem store I would buy that pls anet make this , you will make bank.

It’s entirely possible that this would be a net loss for them. It certainly wouldn’t be easy money, because LS1 was designed as “Living World” — non-repeatable content that was intended to fit the ‘moment’ of the game and evolve Tyria as we played.

I don’t think people recognize just how much effort it is going to be to make a repeatable version of LS1. Of course it’s possible; it would just take an enormous amount of resources. And that seems like a huge mistake, given that people are already jealous of ANet diverting any resources to anything that doesn’t fit their idea of a better game.

Out-of-Game, Historical Context

LS1 was designed and implemented as temporary content. It was part of a (since-discarded) plan by ANet to constantly introduce new content and gradually evolve the game, so that many existing maps would be unrecognizable (in terms of challenges, foes, etc). The idea was: much better use of resources to re-use the same zones and so much more exciting to keep adding new life to the existing world. Hence: the term Living World.

It was a great, epic idea and I wish it would have worked. I think part of the issue was ANet’s implementation (they bit off more than they could chew and there were lots of scaling, technical, and reward issues to start with, leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths about the concept). Part of the issue is also what we’re used to: we like repeatable content. We like being able to be absent from a game, without feeling that we missed something important (reward and lore both). We like having the chance do ALL THE THINGS in the game.

LS1 disrupted all our expectations and its implementation was rough (whether flawed or just slow to get going no longer matters). And ANet, sensibly, dropped the idea and turned LS2 into repeatable content.

Background, In Game Experience

There are three aspects that made LS1 epic:

• It was not repeatable. You had to be there at the right time. (Notice this is exactly one of the primary issues that got ANet to drop the original concept: it was both a great idea and a fatal flaw.)
• The open-world battles were epic. Unlike Auric Basin (which has an achievement for defending the city one hundred times), getting in a single victory was a combination of great mapwide teamwork, individual skill, and a bit of luck. It felt amazing each time (compared to DS, which feels disappointing if it’s not over quickly enough).
• The instanced content was extremely challenging for nearly everyone. People scrambled like crazy to find ways to beat it. Depending on who you talk to (and how good their memories are), many would say it’s comparable to today’s fractals (perhaps T3-4 or less).

Final Background: To Make it Repeatable

To make it repeatable, we’d have to drop all three of the things that made it epic: it won’t be dynamic, it won’t include open world mega battles, and it won’t be super challenging for five people. So let’s presume that the only thing we can get is a facsimile of the story, told in chapters.

The original instances were designed for the mechanics of the day. They were designed to be temporary, so little thought was given to making them last. That means: they’d have to be redone, nearly from the ground up.

There were dialogues that took place in the open world, in areas that don’t exist anymore (or have different NPCs, foes now). Those would have to be turned into instanced content.

The open word battles would have to be included somehow, so that’s new cinematics or entirely new encounters meant to model the idea, with shorter cinematics to show the impact on Tyria.

To do all of the above requires rewriting parts of the story, rewriting the instances, redesigning encounters, adding new cinematics. All of that would need to be translated into French, Spanish, German, and Chinese. Some of the voice actors are no longer available, so ANet would have to hire substitutes (and decide whether to redo old dialogue or not — probably not).

In short, it’s an enormous amount of work to get us … another Living Story, which some people have already seen (and can’t possible meet expectations for epic-ness).
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So, sure, it’s possible. It’s just not practical given the pressures on ANet at this time.

As for the cost, I know I, and I know many other people, will not have an issue of paying 10-15 euros for a complete LS1 journal in the style of LS2. So if money’s the problem, it’s not a problem.

Plus they’ll have new (or repeats) of the achievements, so the reward for the people who got to play at the time is: They have all the bonus AP from that period

Amaimon.7823:

As for the cost, I know I, and I know many other people, will not have an issue of paying 10-15 euros for a complete LS1 journal in the style of LS2. So if money’s the problem, it’s not a problem.

Plus they’ll have new (or repeats) of the achievements, so the reward for the people who got to play at the time is: They have all the bonus AP from that period

Well we have no accurate data as to how many would pay. It’s possible a large number would object paying for content the previously played for free. They’d have to be confident of the millions of accounts, a significant enough would actually pay.

Having said that, it’s likely more an issue of time and resources than money. I appreciate LS3 and an expac are time consuming projects for all depts, with projects queued up no doubt behind artist, VA and many other schedules.

It does need to happen without question. It’s a major obstacle for new players and the recap they made isn’t anywhere near comprehensive enough to serve as a bridge and they have already stated a new video will not be made.

Hopefully expac 2 will substantial enough to give them enough of a break to be able to work on S1 and S4.

Randulf.7614:

Amaimon.7823:

As for the cost, I know I, and I know many other people, will not have an issue of paying 10-15 euros for a complete LS1 journal in the style of LS2. So if money’s the problem, it’s not a problem.

Plus they’ll have new (or repeats) of the achievements, so the reward for the people who got to play at the time is: They have all the bonus AP from that period

Well we have no accurate data as to how many would pay. It’s possible a large number would object paying for content the previously played for free. They’d have to be confident of the millions of accounts, a significant enough would actually pay.

Having said that, it’s likely more an issue of time and resources than money. I appreciate LS3 and an expac are time consuming projects for all depts, with projects queued up no doubt behind artist, VA and many other schedules.

It does need to happen without question. It’s a major obstacle for new players and the recap they made isn’t anywhere near comprehensive enough to serve as a bridge and they have already stated a new video will not be made.

Hopefully expac 2 will substantial enough to give them enough of a break to be able to work on S1 and S4.

Then how is this model?
Most people who were there at the time had the priledge of actually playing the game.
I was running an internship at the time so I have a few gaps in my story. Hence, I wouldn’t mind paying the full sum of 10-15 euros for the content since some parts will be new for me.

As for the people who did completely finish it, good for them. They got to experience all the lore and tidbits and events. They may not even find a need of getting LS1 again since there’d be nothing new for them. But maybe for those, the people who have had their acounts since the day before the first LS1 chapter, maybe they can get a 25% discount?

To be honest I don’t really care what pricing model – I just want a playable version of it. If I have to pay for it, so be it.

That doesn’t necs represent other people’s views – esp after the enormous backlash over HoT pricing (which I personally thought was a fuss over nothing considering most dlc or expac costs these days..)

The main sticking point is resources and time though. This we know from previous dev comments on it. We can only hope their schedule loosens for a long enough period for them to feel it as much of a priority as many of us do.

Season 1 is the only true “Living Story” as it happens on the live map, not instanced. Since it happened on the live map, it would be hard to relive that moment without forcing players to participate in the event on that map.