Guild Wars 2

Hi!
Since we will have a slight content drought again until next living world season 3 episode it would be great for new and old players to experience living world season 1 again. It would give everyone something to do and everyone who missed out on season 1 could experience this awesome season as well. I know you had a replay of season 1 before and we loved it. Queen’s Jubilee and Bazaar of the Four Winds being my favourite episode id love to see them again!

As Anet has said repeatedly, most of Season 1 can’t come back since it involved changing the maps out in the world, so stuff like the Molten Alliance fight or the Marionette fight will sadly not be coming back. Bazaar of the Four Winds would be awkward to revive since the Zephyrites are all scattered about in Dry Top. The Queen’s Coliseum (not Jubilee, since that was an entire festival) could probably be brought back, but it would more likely be tied to some festival. Perhaps a celebration for the queen’s birthday, or in commemoration of her coronation. But I really don’t think much from Season 1 can be salvaged that hasn’t already been added back in.

Last time it was a replay they didnt bring everything back for obvious reasons. No need to point out obvious things everyone knows.

So, I got this idea the other day, and please, hear me out.

Memoirs of the Hero:
A Priori advocate in LA, having tomes describing the events of the LS1 world.
In here, there are a few chapters describing the events for you to join. talk to one tome to get a summary of that chapter and teleport to a copy of the zone.

For example:
Compendium of Nightmare 1: A monument to fear
Teleport to Kessex Hills Redux.

Compendium of Nightmare 2: Politics Awry
Server copy of old LA and DR for the LA Noire chapter
etc

people can enter a map copy where the old events take place, allowing them to redo all the things. And since there were several biweekly updates per chapter, you can have that map instance cycle through them.

Its just an idea, discuss?

Rognik.2579:

As Anet has said repeatedly, most of Season 1 can’t come back since it involved changing the maps out in the world, so stuff like the Molten Alliance fight or the Marionette fight will sadly not be coming back. Bazaar of the Four Winds would be awkward to revive since the Zephyrites are all scattered about in Dry Top. The Queen’s Coliseum (not Jubilee, since that was an entire festival) could probably be brought back, but it would more likely be tied to some festival. Perhaps a celebration for the queen’s birthday, or in commemoration of her coronation. But I really don’t think much from Season 1 can be salvaged that hasn’t already been added back in.

But can’t you move all that to map copies?
Like, when you map travel to kessex hills, its the current version, but if you travel there using a dialogue of something, you get a copy of the old map (without all the POI’s etc)

This request pops up every month or two. The general consensus is:

• Nearly everyone wants this (including ANet devs)
• Unfortunately, LS1 was created as temporary content, meaning the code, context, rewards, challenges, and other elements of implementation would have to be redone. This turns out to be an enormous amount of work (how enormous? players disagree about how much; the ANet devs seem pretty clear it’s “a lot”)
• Whatever effort this might take is similar to the effort in creating new content, which would be more appealing to veterans.
• To add to the issues, not all the voice actors are still available.

As a result, the most likely scenario is for ANet to figure out some way of just showing the existing cinematics, with some way of linking them with text explanations for context. Currently, there’s a tiny version of this available in LA. (It’s not very appealing, although it’s a lot better than nothing.)

tl;dr often requested feature isn’t likely to happen soon — the effort it takes distracts from creating new content, which appeals to everyone.

They’ve never done a ‘replay’ of Season 1. We did have access to the Queen’s Pavilion again, once. But, it was different than the Queen’s Jubilee.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

They’ve never done a ‘replay’ of Season 1. We did have access to the Queen’s Pavilion again, once. But, it was different than the Queen’s Jubilee.

Dont know where you have been but before living story 2 came out they did a replay of quite many episodes from season 1. We have had queens pavilion 3 times thus far in game, Bazaar of the Four Winds has been in game two times. If you mean we havent had the exact same story from start to finish, youre right, but thats not what im asking for. Im asking for replays of some of the season 1 episodes, the ones we actually can have in game. Episodes like Lions Arch cant be implemented so no point you people point out obvious stuff that everyone else knows already. I wrote queens jubilee because thats what the name is for that episode, queens pavilion is a part of that episode. Now, further unessecary comments that are obvious to everyone besides you two is not welcome but stay on topic, which is replaying some episodes of season 1.

Actually, Queen’s Jubilee was a festival, rather than part of Living Story Season One. Festival of the Four Winds was a release that combined some parts of Bazaar of the Four Winds (aka Zephyr Sanctum) and Queen’s Jubilee (specifically the Crown Pavilion), both sans story. I believe we have visited both areas twice.

Replaying Living Story means replaying the story, which is what one can do in Seasons 2 and 3.

You may be asking for another Festival/release that incorporates some aspects of Living Story Season One.

Good luck.

There are dozens of threads about this and the discussion is always the same:

• Everyone, including ANet wants it.
• ANet (and many players) say it’s harder than it sounds and would reduce the resources for new content/stories/rewards.
• Some players insist that can’t be true.

If it were as easy as people make it out to be, ANet would just do it, if for no other reason than to reduce the number of threads like this and the frustration of those of us starting them.

I >personally< wouldn’t mind paying for it, I liked the story and all.
If they remade it like a mini-expansion for say.. 10 euros? you think it would be worth the effort?

I was wondering if anything is being done to make living world season 1 playable again in some way. I would like to play the game from start to current. But there is a huge chunk missing from my play through. If there are no plans or won’t be can some info be released so a novel can be written. info that would be useful include things that were said by specific characters.

Playable LS1 is impossible to do because ANet would need to change look of Lion’s Arch.
Rebuilding of ‘Tower of Nightmares’ in Kessex Hills and the replay of Queen’s Jubilee are
impossible to make.
LS1 is nothing if we cannot take part of the Twisted Marionette or the Battle for Lion’s Arch’ events.

ANet will continue next updates for LS3 and making LS1 again is a waste of time.

If you want to know something about LS1, ANet gave ‘Remembering Scarlet’s War’.

Arden.7480:

Playable LS1 is impossible to do because ANet would need to change look of Lion’s Arch.
Rebuilding of ‘Tower of Nightmares’ in Kessex Hills and the replay of Queen’s Jubilee are
impossible to make.
LS1 is nothing if we cannot take part of the Twisted Marionette or the Battle for Lion’s Arch’ events.

ANet will continue next updates for LS3 and making LS1 again is a waste of time.

If you want to know something about LS1, ANet gave ‘Remembering Scarlet’s War’.

I disagree slightly. It is possible but LS1 would have to be converted into instances, somehow, which is difficult since most of LS1 was open world and intended for large groups. The best one could hope for is getting certain parts of LS1 as fractals or raids.

Otherwise, the best thing there is is the wiki: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_season_1

Arden.7480:

Playable LS1 is impossible to do because ANet would need to change look of Lion’s Arch.
Rebuilding of ‘Tower of Nightmares’ in Kessex Hills and the replay of Queen’s Jubilee are
impossible to make.
LS1 is nothing if we cannot take part of the Twisted Marionette or the Battle for Lion’s Arch’ events.

ANet will continue next updates for LS3 and making LS1 again is a waste of time.

If you want to know something about LS1, ANet gave ‘Remembering Scarlet’s War’.

It’s not impossible, seeing as they change maps when you are doing your PS, so your in old LA, and Concordia is not smashed by Mordim vines.

ANet have also said they are looking at it, but not currently working on it. It seems to be one of those things that’s being looked at when they have time, which they are short of at the moment. If it ever comes back, it will probably be some time down the road, if ever.

Epic events in the LS1 were the most interesting.
I know that in the Personal Story we can get into old LA but it was easier than if ANet want make the Breachmaker, every details and ruins again.

ANet focuses on LS3 and for LS1 we will wait a lot of time…

Diovid.9506:

Arden.7480:

Playable LS1 is impossible to do because ANet would need to change look of Lion’s Arch.
Rebuilding of ‘Tower of Nightmares’ in Kessex Hills and the replay of Queen’s Jubilee are
impossible to make.
LS1 is nothing if we cannot take part of the Twisted Marionette or the Battle for Lion’s Arch’ events.

ANet will continue next updates for LS3 and making LS1 again is a waste of time.

If you want to know something about LS1, ANet gave ‘Remembering Scarlet’s War’.

I disagree slightly. It is possible but LS1 would have to be converted into instances, somehow, which is difficult since most of LS1 was open world and intended for large groups. The best one could hope for is getting certain parts of LS1 as fractals or raids.

Otherwise, the best thing there is is the wiki: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_season_1

Certain LS1 instances are already fractals. Anything with Rox and Braham or the Aetherblades were part of LS1.

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).
———————————————
So, sure, it’s possible. It’s just not practical given the pressures on ANet at this time.

Arden.7480:

Playable LS1 is impossible to do because ANet would need to change look of Lion’s Arch.
Rebuilding of ‘Tower of Nightmares’ in Kessex Hills and the replay of Queen’s Jubilee are
impossible to make.
LS1 is nothing if we cannot take part of the Twisted Marionette or the Battle for Lion’s Arch’ events.

ANet will continue next updates for LS3 and making LS1 again is a waste of time.

If you want to know something about LS1, ANet gave ‘Remembering Scarlet’s War’.

This is possible by making a secondary universe of maps thats accessible through a portal or something, but it’d still be tremendous effort

LS1 was not purely open world though. There were numerous single player story instances. Examples include instances where: Braham arguing with Eir and Knut over defenses at Craigstead, Braham begging Rytlock for assistance because the dredge and flame legion alliance, Rox protecting the devourer pit during a Molten Alliance attack, the death of Councilor Theo Ashford during Dragon’s Bash, the first meeting with Marjory, the meeting with the Master of Peace over a treaty between Lion’s Arch and the Zephyrites, the introduction of the watchwork knights at the start of the Queen’s Jubilee, the attack by Scarlet Briar during the Queen’s Jubilee, the final battle aboard Scarlet’s airship…

If ANet does nothing else, they should bring back at least these instanced story sequences for newer players, so that they aren’t forced to go to youtube or the wiki for information. I’ve said this before, but having an NPC, Ela Makkay, tell you what you did in LS1 is a terrible way to tell story in a video game. And she doesn’t even do it well, skipping over everything that had to do with Ellen Kiel, the Captain’s Election, etc.

Besides the two dungeons that have been remade into four fractals (Molten Facility and Aetherblade Retreat), which were amazing and very difficult, the truly epic open world events were (in no particular order): Scarlet Invasions, the Tower of Nightmares, the Marionette, the Escape from Lion’s Arch, and the Battle for Lion’s Arch, all of which required map-wide coordination.

Heh remember when we told ANet this was going to be a problem all those years ago, and Colin tried selling us that snake oil temp content vision,

Well then this is the part where we say we told you so.

To be fair though the disconnect is no where near as bad as WoWs convuluted FUBAR time line.

1 to 60
Post Cataclysm Azeroth

60 to 80
Lets do the time warp and go back in time a decade to Outland and Northrend even though lvl 1 to 60 focused on the aftermath of what transpired in those expansions.

but then

80 to 100
back to the present to kill Deathwing and then go to Pandyland.

only to pull a Flash and go back in time again but to an alternate time line in Outland/Draenor where we kill a bunch of Orcs in a nostalgia trip only to

100 to 110
Deal with Bizarro Guldan in our timeline/universe bringing on the apocalypse.

I suppose when you look at that FUBAR situation a short S1 Recap video isn’t so bad.

I don’t remember seeing Colin’s comment, but I do remember remarking with several of my friends about this problem of continuity and why ANet was creating so much content and then abruptly removing it from the game every two weeks.

The end result is that we now have a game where a number of very important characters were introduced in Season 1 (i.e. everyone in the Dragon’s Watch guild except Rytlock), that new players to the game have no idea who they are, no idea why they are following us, and no idea why they are calling us boss.

I’m all for temporary content, having huge open world events was awesome in LS1, but don’t make important bits of the story completely inaccessible. LS2 was a step in the right direction and I hope they bring back at least the story sequences from LS1.

If they have to do it with a recap video, they need to recap everything, not just what they think was important.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Heh remember when we told ANet this was going to be a problem all those years ago, and Colin tried selling us that snake oil temp content vision,

I remember people saying that, but I wasn’t one of them. I actually liked the idea and wish they had continued it. I want a true living world. I want players to realize that we don’t get to see everything or participate in everything. That’s how 20th century cRPGs worked. I was hoping GW2 could break that pattern.

I’m okay with ANet dropping the idea (I think they weren’t really prepared to deliver it, so it’s just as well). All the same, not everyone wanted repeatable content, especially since it seems to have also meant that it takes them longer to deliver it.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Heh remember when we told ANet this was going to be a problem all those years ago, and Colin tried selling us that snake oil temp content vision,

I remember people saying that, but I wasn’t one of them. I actually liked the idea and wish they had continued it. I want a true living world. I want players to realize that we don’t get to see everything or participate in everything. That’s how 20th century cRPGs worked. I was hoping GW2 could break that pattern.

I’m okay with ANet dropping the idea (I think they weren’t really prepared to deliver it, so it’s just as well). All the same, not everyone wanted repeatable content, especially since it seems to have also meant that it takes them longer to deliver it.

Agree with Illconceived, I personally much preferred the there and gone approach. The stress put on staff must have been huge and I am sure they do not miss it, still a selfish part of me wants it. That it is no longer here is ok but I really dislike the first maps (dry top and silverwastes) that they gave in its place. The HoT maps are much better but still contrived to offer a form of replay-ability, which is a needed thing to survive as a game.

Add me to the ‘would rather the Devs continued with the LS Season One approach’. I said it back in the day, and I’m still saying it. Season Two wasn’t my cup of tea, at all. Sadly, Season Three is a bit too much like Season Two, but it is a bit better.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Add me to the ‘would rather the Devs continued with the LS Season One approach’. I said it back in the day, and I’m still saying it. Season Two wasn’t my cup of tea, at all. Sadly, Season Three is a bit too much like Season Two, but it is a bit better.

I really hated the season’s one approach. If you weren’t there when it happened, you never will see it again. I still have no idea why Chanach was in jail. I completely missed the end of the Karka story line.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Add me to the ‘would rather the Devs continued with the LS Season One approach’. I said it back in the day, and I’m still saying it. Season Two wasn’t my cup of tea, at all. Sadly, Season Three is a bit too much like Season Two, but it is a bit better.

I really hated the season’s one approach. If you weren’t there when it happened, you never will see it again. I still have no idea why Chanach was in jail. I completely missed the end of the Karka story line.

When one isn’t there for events, in-game or out, one can use other means of information dissemination to gain knowledge.

For the Living Story, the Wiki is a good source.

Good luck.

A missing storyline will forever be detrimental to the game. I totally understand why it hasn’t been prioritised over newer content, but at the same time an acceptable bridge doesn’t exist for me, especially after our mass warnings that this would happen.

I don’t believe LS1 will ever reappear now – I think the longer time passes, the chance of it being reintroduced becomes more distant. I hope I am wrong though.

What at least I think should be added is a much better overview of LS1, that captures the essence of each main chapter. Now that could be a cutscene, or it could be a storyboard of stills which might be less exepnsive and resource intensive to build.
Either option then inserted into it’s own story journal chapter – either independently (and for free) or as a prologue chapter before starting LS2 once unlocked.

I don’t think having an NPC in LA play a cutscene is as organic, especially since it really doesn’t cover enough of LS1 to be worth watching anyway.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Add me to the ‘would rather the Devs continued with the LS Season One approach’. I said it back in the day, and I’m still saying it. Season Two wasn’t my cup of tea, at all. Sadly, Season Three is a bit too much like Season Two, but it is a bit better.

I really hated the season’s one approach. If you weren’t there when it happened, you never will see it again. I still have no idea why Chanach was in jail. I completely missed the end of the Karka story line.

If the game had consistently delivered “had to be there when it happened,” we’d be used to it and wouldn’t expect to be present for everything. As I mentioned before, that would entirely break the convention of MMOs and would take a lot of getting used to. The advantage is: there would always be something new, a lot of it.

That said, regardless of whether that’s a great idea (or completely boneheaded), whether it was a way of delivering more content more quickly (or a waste of resources on temp content)… they completely missed the boat on keeping people up to date.

Sure, you can read the wiki to find out why Canach got jailed (and why he’s not being punished for human rights violations), but there really should be some sort of in-game chapter-by-chapter review — not just for LS1, also for LS2 and LS3 (and perhaps even for HoT and the PS): not everyone is going to own LS2 or LS3 to start with; a “previously, in Tyria” video would go a long way towards bringing everyone up to speed.

tl;dr I agree: regardless of whether LS1 was done well, it should have a chapter-by-chapter review, covering all the key moments, not just a simplistic summary of the biggest ones.

The recap is incomplete, it saddens me that Bobby Stein confirmed on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4palmf/living_world_season_2/) that they have no plans to extend the recap even though its incomplete…….why? I know that they want to cover the Scarlet/Mordy arc, but didnt a certain Captain’s Council member and former Consortium golem helped us defeat Scarlet? How will new players know who they, the Consortium and Canach are? The voting of Ellen Kiel vs. Evon Gnashblade was (and still is) unique because we the players directly participated, isnt that important?
It just baffles me why Aet would not want to recap more of the important stories that happened in S1 and only focus on one.

I agree that if the entire game had been written with the idea that you had to be there when it happened, it would be much easier to swallow, except the devs could not keep up their own pace of development. Remember how LS1 started? We spent two weeks hammering down signs in Wayfarer Foothills. That was not engaging content and it was outright mocked on the forums for being filler after all the hype. We also had numerous weeks of content drought in both LS1 and LS2.

Reading something outside of the game is not ideal. This was the problem I had with Final Fantasy 13. Immediately after every cutscene, I had to go to the datalog to find out who these people were, what was going on, and what they were even talking about. I think I spent more time reading about the game in the datalog than playing the game.

I understand they can’t bring Season 1 back the way Season 2 was brought back…. BUT I was actually thinking about GW1 and some of the fun features and one of them was a sort of mini-expansion that was released where you could play as one of 5 characters from legend. They played similar to dungeons where at the end you got a reward you could trade in for weapon skins.

I was just wondering if something like this was possible for Season 1. I know I would GLADLY pay to be able to play through it for a chance to get some of the items (even if they are account bound). I missed SOOOOO much those few months and I am sure I’m not the only one and I would just like the chance to earn some of those rewards… plus I think it would be a pretty cool feature.

Maybe you talk to an aspiring Asura who has been combining Rata Novan tech with some of the Scarlet hologram tech to make a VR construct of the events that transpired…. so you could replay them, and either earn rewards directly in the instance or collect bits of data you can trade in later to scientist research assistant for rewards (the halo or horns potion… the power cores needed for the spinal blades… etc).

Just a thought.

Short story: no, that’s nearly identical to trying to bring back LS1 as instanced content. They still have to perform the rewrites, get the actors back (not all of whom are available), create the new instances to work with the current set of skills in the game, etc.

I’m not against them bringing new ways to earn some of the items from before. Since some of the current fractals use parts of instances from LS1, perhaps stuff could drop there… or be an option in a PvP/WvW reward track.

I do prefer that some things in the game are available only to people who happened to be there, at the right time, the right place. However, many of the LS1 items can be obtained by anyone willing to shell out enough coin; there’s no reason those can’t get a new source to increase the supply.

See I have no IDEA what LWS1 was like since unfortunately I didn’t get to really play ANY of it :/

I would even take a fractal where stuff dropped and gave me the flavor of those battles….

Quince.6037:

See I have no IDEA what LWS1 was like since unfortunately I didn’t get to really play ANY of it :/

I would even take a fractal where stuff dropped and gave me the flavor of those battles….

There are a couple of existing fractals with dialogue from LS1. It’s completely out of context, so I’m not sure it will address your interests.

• Molten Furnace — help Rox & Braham find out what the Molten Alliance is up to (sort of) and perform an ad hoc rescue. Taken from the main fights in the Molten Facility
• Molten Boss — stop the bosses (virtually no lore). Taken from the end of the same instanced part of the story.
• Aetherblade — accompany Ellen Kiel in tracking down the leaders of the Aetherblades in their not-so-secret location. Very little lore. Taken from the first battles in the Aetherblade Retreat story instance
• Mai Trin — capture the Captain responsible for some of the recent attacks. Taken from the same story instance. There’s somewhat more lore here, although again, it’s out of context.

You can do all the fractals mentioned above with any group of 5 people. Only the Mai Trin fractal requires Agony Resistance (and that you can purchase in the fractal lobby for just the one fractal). Most people consider fractals to be harder than dungeons. Many veterans think they are “easy”, but I think they can be a significant challenge for people newer to GW2. There are, fortunately, lots of guides out there, with a really good one linked from Dulfy.

Unfortunately, that looks to be the closest you’ll be able to get to LS1 for the foreseeable future. None of the loot, very little dialogue, and very little lore. (Of course you can read up on the wiki — I realize that doesn’t come close to experiencing it, even as a cinematic; it’s all we can offer.)

I appreciate it… I knew some of them linked to LWS1 I just didn’t know the others did too… so thanks!

Anyway aside from the voice actors dialog being unattainable I don’t really see any hard line deal breakers there (and since primarily the people who would be playing this would… I assume… never have played it the first time… having a different voice than the original wouldn’t really be a problem, as those who are like me never experienced the original in the first place to have a point of reference).

I mean it sounds like there were huge baddies that large amounts of players killed together…. ok I get how that might be a problem but in order to give us a taste of what it was like the experience doesn’t have to be 100% authentic. Again those of us who experienced 0% of it probably wouldn’t complain if we were even able to get it at all… just saying.
I mean a fractal where you get to fight the big dudes who drop the power cores would be cool, or something like that. I just feel that such a HUGE part of that season is lost to new players and players like me who just missed it and it seems like it was really cool.

I agree with you it would be cool to have anything like that in the game. My goal above was to point out that it’s an enormous amount of work. The number of things that ANet would have to do would boggle our minds.

One of the easiest ways to see it is to see how they applied LS1 to fractals. They took two of the battle instances, split them up into a non-boss and boss fight fractal, and left the NPCs in exactly as they were before. They didn’t add any context and only included enough to carry us into the fights.

The point is: they haven’t added any other fights since. My guess converting the original instances to be able to work with the game for years to come turned out to be a lot more work than they expected and that they haven’t been anxious to do that again.

Ah I get ya now

ANet have said many times they are looking at ways to bring back LW1, but have said that it will not be anytime soon as they are busy with other things. in other words, LW1 will come back when they have finished with there current road map for the game, and that’s if people still want/care about it. I have a feeling by that point people will not care about LW1 as it will be 4 Xpacs away minimum,

I absolutely abhor the thought of living story season 1 being brought back as a fractal, that would break continuity and imersion. Think about this as a new player, you just killed zhaitan, and now the story prompts you to enter a fractal to view a past event, that for your personal time line is actually a current event… that doesn’t make sense. Fractals are where you relive events from the past, whatever personal stroy/living story/expansion step you are on is the present for your character. It makes 0 sense to mix the two.

As for brining it back as it originally was, in open world form, that’s not possible either because the maps have changed. The only option that would make sense and flow smoothly is instances.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

I absolutely abhor the thought of living story season 1 being brought back as a fractal, that would break continuity and imersion. Think about this as a new player, you just killed zhaitan, and now the story prompts you to enter a fractal to view a past event, that for your personal time line is actually a current event… that doesn’t make sense. Fractals are where you relive events from the past, whatever personal stroy/living story/expansion step you are on is the present for your character. It makes 0 sense to mix the two.

As for brining it back as it originally was, in open world form, that’s not possible either because the maps have changed. The only option that would make sense and flow smoothly is instances.

Bad news for you, then, and doubly so:

• Four of the current fractals come from instances from LS1.
• Fractals take place in an alternate reality: they could be the past, the future, a Tyria that from a divergent timeline, or… all jumbled up by Chaos magic and combine all of the above.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Bad news for you, then, and doubly so:

• Four of the current fractals come from instances from LS1.
• Fractals take place in an alternate reality: they could be the past, the future, a Tyria that from a divergent timeline, or… all jumbled up by Chaos magic and combine all of the above.

Right, which is why I suggested (in a previous post) that when living story season 1 returns, that they remove the four fractals and return them to their original state as 2 dungeons, or rework them into instances.

As for your second point. Yes, fractals can take place in the past, present, or future. But storywise, it wouldn’t make sense to enter the mist to take part an a event that is occurring in the real world at the same time, when you could instead go to the real world location and actually do something real that affects the outcome of the battle. The original story has you actually physically going to these places and shaping the events with your own hands, rather than watching a replay that you can interact in, but can’t change the outcome of. In the original living story season one, we were the main character shaping the world. In a fractal, the event is already set in stone, and we can define how it happens to US, but can’t change how it ACTUALLY happened in history. A fractal is like playing a video game, you control how the character fights, and slightly alter the events, but in the end, the outcome and the cutscenes remain the same. Ie you cant make the humans win the siege of ascolon, and even if you did, that doesn’t change how the event actually happened. Personal Story on the other hand (from your characters perspective), what your character does is real and palpable what your character does actually shapes the world around him, because you’re actually there, really doing these things, not watching an interactive replay.

So for right now the four fractals you mention make sense, as we are REPLAYING/REWATCHING a past event. But if living story 1 were to return, it would not make sense to have it take place in a fractal, as the people playing living story season 1 would not be replaying events, but actually participating and shaping them in the real world.

That may be unfortunate, as the Devs stated if they were to bring back part, or all, of Living World Season One, it could/would be in Fractals, and/or other varieties of content.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

That may be unfortunate, as the Devs stated if they were to bring back part, or all, of Living World Season One, it could/would be in Fractals, and/or other varieties of content.

If they choose to use fractacles, that would be unfortunate indeed, as it is not the right medium through which to tell that story, as it would be imersion breaking. Let’s hope they go with story instances.

I don’t buy the excuse that it was meant to be experienced in open world. They can just put it in instances with the map changed, like they do in other LS seasons.

Biglulu.3928:

I don’t buy the excuse that it was meant to be experienced in open world. They can just put it in instances with the map changed, like they do in other LS seasons.

There is no way to “just put” content into an instance. Dialogue has to be adapted (or redone, in 40 language combinations), combat has to be adjusted, even NPCs and movement need to be tested, even if they could just be “put” in an instance.

The other LS content was designed to be instanced and permanent from the inception; LS1 was designed to be temporary and included a mix of instanced and open world.

I remember that Anet said they are trying to find a way to make Season 1 storyline instanced for players that miss the chance to experience it.

EdwinLi.1284:

I remember that Anet said they are trying to find a way to make Season 1 storyline instanced for players that miss the chance to experience it.

I think you’ll find that when you re-read their statement, they said they’d like to be able to do so — that’s very different from them actively trying to find a way.

I’m not saying they won’t; I’m just saying they haven’t yet said that they are or even have definite plans to do so. And with good reason: it’s a lot of effort that could instead go towards new content.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

EdwinLi.1284:

I remember that Anet said they are trying to find a way to make Season 1 storyline instanced for players that miss the chance to experience it.

I think you’ll find that when you re-read their statement, they said they’d like to be able to do so — that’s very different from them actively trying to find a way.

I’m not saying they won’t; I’m just saying they haven’t yet said that they are or even have definite plans to do so. And with good reason: it’s a lot of effort that could instead go towards new content.

I would love to see them release S1 as instanced content available through the gem store like they did with S2 if you missed it. But I’m not holding out hope waiting for that because I know that its better for them to not spend so much development time on content that has already been in the game

I was lucky enough to get to play some of the LW, but seeing as I had a new baby at the time it kept me from being able to experience all of the new content every two weeks (especially completing all of the achievements). I would LOVE to see this come back, and I definitely think it would be worth the devs’ time to do so.

Here are my thoughts on talk of previous ways to implement this. People have talked about instances, and I do not think that is a good way to go about it. One, it would take WAY too much time to do. Two, I think that removes SO much that was part of the LW, and that has been talked about in depth above in other replies (mainly the open map items). I also think just simply having a map copy to replay the content is also not a good idea, much for the same reason above.

Here is the way I can see going about this that would make it worth it:
Have separate servers that house the original maps that people can access in order to replay the content. This should be done via a portal in LA or through a button click like entering the PvP Lobby (perhaps a button you click within the Story Journal?). But instead of making it complicated by everybody replaying the content at different times, it would fantastic to simply take the content and release it on a steady two week schedule just as they did originally. This way everybody is on the same map at the same time, it will still have all of the open world greatness as it originally did, all the content and maps will change all at the same time, and it will be replayable on a set schedule. If you miss that two week slot, better luck next year! BUT at least it WILL BE replayable! By doing this, it will also knock out some of the “grind” of just working through a season quickly. You will also be limited in time that you can acquire the achievements related to each part of the story, so it will keep us in the game (as a whole) more often because we HAVE to be there for the content or risk not being able to replay for over a year.

Not only is this possible, but it will take a HUGE stress off of ANet in more than one way. They will finally have people off of their backs about making the LW replayable, and they will have a significantly less amount of work to do in order to get that up and running. All of the code still exists in an archive, even though it was meant to be “temporary,” so it would (more or less) just be a matter of making a way to access those servers with the old content and figuring out a release schedule that complies with that content.

Thoughts?