Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing since release, and have played every patch, so this isn’t a problem for me, but…

The story is going to be incredibly difficult for new players to get into, and with an expansion coming this needs to be addressed in time for release.
If interested in the story, a new or returning player will complete the living story and defeat Zhaitan. Thereafter, they’ll experience a time skip of over a year (in-story time) with absolutely no explanation. For seemingly no reason, they’ll be sent to dry top and greeted by overly familiar people who run around calling them “boss”, despite having never met them. These NPCs will then occasionally reference doing events with you that you’ve never even heard of.

If replayable LS1 isn’t coming out with the xpac, then this really needs to be addressed if you want new and returning players to have any interest in GW2’s story. It doesn’t have to be perfect, there just has to be something, ANYTHING, to explain what happened and bridge the gap.

My suggestion: a cinematic similar to the character creation cinematic, wherein your character has a monologue about the events of season1 and the main characters they met. The cinematic could be triggered upon activation of the first episode of LS2.
“In the past year, I’ve been following my own adventures away from the Pact while they secure Ore after Zhaitan’s defeat. In that time, I met a young norn named Braham who -insert Braham info here-, alongside a Charr named Rox -insert Rox info here-…Marjory…Kasmere…Taimi. Together, we faced the threat of a crazed Sylvari named Scarlet Briar, who ravaged the world and eventually attacked Lion’s Arch. We put an end to her there, but not before she was able to tap into a major Ley-line and wake what we believe to be a 6th elder dragon, mordramoth, from its slumber. Now we head forth to investigate.”

It is by no means perfect, it still leaves holes, but it’s a relatively quick and simple solution and is orders of magnitude better then the current gap in the story.
This way, new players will at least have some context.
“Oh yea, that’s the person from the cinematic. Oh, that’s the thing they mentioned happening earlier”.

Admittedly, we don’t know how the transition into HoT is going to work. Will there be an introductory cut scene when activating that story for the first time? Will we need to know anything besides Mordremoth is awake to enjoy it? How are we going to get to the new maps? It’s possible Marjory and company won’t have a big role to play (we really need an official name for this group…) or they may be part of the driving force. It’s still way too early to tell.

I agree that something should be done about Season 1, though. I don’t care so much about the open world content that was cut, but maybe all the instanced stuff could be gathered together. For instance, a note about how a norn from Cragstead came to Hoelbrak, demanding action transitions into meeting Braham. A mention about Dragon Bash can transition into Marjory’s quest. I’m certain something simple could be cobbled together to bridge the major events missed, like a modified Marionette fight, or a simplified Tower of Nightmare. Just… something to introduce the characters, some of their background, and other stuff that might be mentioned later.

Maybe they’ll release one of the novels.

ANet should re-format, re-structure and re-release Season 1. However since I believe they’ve been working on the expansion for some time now, I don’t think working on old content was a priority.
Still it’s something players want, we keep getting threads asking for it. Maybe after HoT they’ll have some extra capacity to redirect to S1.

@Rognik I’m not really concerned about HoT, it’s the missing link players experience when they go from killing Zhaitan in the personal story, straight to living story season 2 that I think needs addressing. Just re-releasing the LS1 instanced stuff and adding a few transitional bits to fill in the open world gaps is a good idea. But since the dev team is likely wrapped up in HoT stuff atm, and since this is something that’s really needed by the time HoT launches (when a mass of new and returning players will come and do the story), I think a cinematic might be more feasible. At least as a stop-gap measure.

@CureForLiving I agree, which is why I suggest the cheaper/quicker/easier solution of a cinematic at the start of LS2 that explains what happened in LS1.

Most of season 1 was open world. I’d rather they develop new content than rework old content.

What I think they should do is give Season 1’s most vital bits attention including Southsun while dividing them into smaller segments thus giving us a more fixed idea of who the chars are that were so relevant.

Example:

Southsun Arc

Episode 1: The Consortium

The Consortium needed my help to fix a mess that one of their individuals by the name of Canach started, I have been asked by Lionguard Ellen Kiel to help her investigate the matter.

From here, they reformat it into a personal story/living story season 2 style personal instance where you journey with Kiel to find and interrogate Canach, after that, you go to Southsun to relive a solo-able (With the option of group mode) version of the Karka Boss with a slightly altered storyline.

They can do this through subtle phasing without loosing the momentum of what they’ve already done, adding the stories piece by piece rather than adding the entire of Season 1 even as HoT launches.

So, again.

Southsun Arc

Episode 2: Canach

The Sylvari named Canach was sited in Lions Arch after he was removed from the Consortium, he seems to be up to no good, me and Kiel are investigating the matter once again in an effort to track him down.

This episode involves the second part of the Southsun story, which included our introduction of Kasmeer Meade and Lord Faren in a swimsuit. This could be used in a personal story instance to retell the plot with more dialogue and depth with Kasmeer and Kiel helping us find and track down Canach.

They can also use this to tell us a bit more about Kasmeers ability to “detect liars” and, have Kiels Norn Deputy help us defeat some rogue Consortium (since there’s the whole refugee/consortium thing).

By the end of it, we deal with the Consortium contracts while learning about where all these people they hired came from. This allows the plot to move into the flame and frost arc more naturally since it can be both a prequel and a sequel to this one.

In essence, you retcon the order of events and re-align it to make it more natural, while introducing pieces of Season 1 rather than the whole thing at once.

Ayrilana.1396:

Most of season 1 was open world. I’d rather they develop new content than rework old content.

There was a number of story instances though, at the very least making those available in game shouldn’t take too much time. Granted these wouldn’t have achievements or fancy boss fights, but they would at least provide some narrative.
But I doubt ANet would be willing to release half-finished content.

As new player I agree with Arewn. I killed Zaithan and suddenly some NPCs that I saw first time in my life start calling me boss, and “long time no see” conversations occured. I was confused like when did I miss those NPCs in quest line?
Then they all speak of some Scarlet and what she did to cause troubles in new LS, and then I saw it was LS2. So I wanted to play LS1 first, to see what is going on, but that is impossible. I also had million questions about Lions Arch, why is it destroyed, and nothing, I mean nothing was explained ingame. I almost stopped playing because I like lore. So I had to watch videos on You Tube, but that is just not the same as playing it. Why did they sell me game that feels unfinished, that was my first impression.
I am still playing it, but something is missing and it drives me nuts. I would like to ask if there is some chance or way to replay LS1 at this point, or I just have to forget about it?

CureForLiving.5360:

ANet should re-format, re-structure and re-release Season 1. However since I believe they’ve been working on the expansion for some time now, I don’t think working on old content was a priority.
Still it’s something players want, we keep getting threads asking for it. Maybe after HoT they’ll have some extra capacity to redirect to S1.

I agree with everything. However, I’m a tad bit hopeful that S1 is one of the projects that they will “fix/improve” before releasing HoT. We already got told that they’re reworking the trait system to go more in line with HoT so maybe S1 will be included in this.

Ayrilana.1396:

Most of season 1 was open world. I’d rather they develop new content than rework old content.

This is the opinion of a number – but not all – of old players who experienced most of Season 1. New players – which Anet seems to focus more on catering to (see NPE) – however typically want to experience Season 1.

And if Anet wants to keep priding themselves on a good story then they can’t have a complete empty space of the plot. It would be like watching all six Star Wars movies in a role, except for A New Hope.

Arenatnet has to make S1 playable in some way.

They had the chance to do a fresh start with season 2 with new NPCs, they decided not to.

Not bringing back S1 is not just a kick in the face of people that missed it for whatever reason, it also bad for NPE.

This is actually the single most annoying problem with the game right now.

GW2 is a story heavy game.
But as it stands right now: about half of the story is not available and everybody has to put up with a story that comes out of nowhere and NPCs they have never seen.

The least they could do is allowing people to completely disable the story if they wont fix it. I hate that green crap cluttering up my screen.

Ayrilana.1396:

Most of season 1 was open world. I’d rather they develop new content than rework old content.

Because you’ve had the luxury of playing S1. Look beyond your selfishness and see things through our eyes.

When I logged on after a one-year hiatus, I saw LA basically nuked. Nothing explained why, I had to piece it together from strange conversations with people I’d never met who claimed to be my best buddy ever.

He played S1. Pretty much all of it isn’t adaptable.

They shouldn’t even try. Unless you think that flavor text explaining that you forged an alliance with new players to investigate the murder of a lion arch council member. The investigation lead you to Scarlet, an insane sylvari who you defeated, but not before she awoke a dragon.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Ayrilana.1396:

Most of season 1 was open world. I’d rather they develop new content than rework old content.

Because you’ve had the luxury of playing S1. Look beyond your selfishness and see things through our eyes.

When I logged on after a one-year hiatus, I saw LA basically nuked. Nothing explained why, I had to piece it together from strange conversations with people I’d never met who claimed to be my best buddy ever.

Please think about what I was saying rather than immediately starting with an insult. Thanks.

This definitely needs to be addressed. I was finally able to get my husband back into the game, but he missed a large chunk of season 1. We plan on playing through new characters together through the personal story and into the new content – but there will be this awkward gap between the story and Season 2.

I came back to GW2 after many months, first thing I logged into was what I think was nearing the end of Scarlet’s raid on LA. (Everything on fire, monsters everywhere etc). No idea what was going on and I was turned off because those 3 massive watch knight things were all bugged (no loot drops and even ppl stating it couldn’t transition to the final boss.. Scarlet?) but yeah.. Anything prior to that I have zero idea about. I was around when the south sun thing happened though. Would be great to have a cinematic thing to explain stuff from LSS1 I guess.

nekretaal.6485:

He played S1. Pretty much all of it isn’t adaptable.

They shouldn’t even try. Unless you think that flavor text explaining that you forged an alliance with new players to investigate the murder of a lion arch council member. The investigation lead you to Scarlet, an insane sylvari who you defeated, but not before she awoke a dragon.

I really don’t think they shouldn’t try. I’d much rather they try and fail and then come to the forums and tell us they can’t do it or alternative try and succeed then rather them not try at all.