Season 1 Comlete Story (--yes, all of it)
From what I have heard, the actual implementation of LWS1 was anything but fun. This movie is just a recap and doesn’t translate the long and boring waiting periods between events that players had to endure until the next tiny bit of content (like conversations between the story NPCs) was delivered to them.
Hence it would be nice if ANet put some resources into turning this content into a LW season like the ones we currently have and enjoy. Unfortunately, as been said already in dozens of threads, this is unlikely to happen, which truly saddens me.
From what I have heard, the actual implementation of LWS1 was anything but fun.
You heard wrong.
GW2, for me, was best during its LS1 days. The fights were epic, there was a constant surge of new content, new stories, and very, very little waiting around.
The actual implementation suffered from any number of issues that tarnished it for some. And ANet tried something that no one else does: temporary, story-driven, content. I loved it, but… if you were gone for two weeks, you might miss a release without any way to go back. Also bad was that the game probably wasn’t ready for the sheer number of players logging on; it was more popular than anyone expected. And of course, with any content comes bugs and balancing issues and with only 2-4 weeks to play through everything, that sort of thing hurts more.
In short, it was wonderfully fun for a lot of people, frustrating at times for lots (including the same people who otherwise loved it), and why you see such mixed reviews about it.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
The big disaster was the 1st release. Their servers weren’t prepared for literally everyone going to Southsun at the same time. After that, I thought the releases were reasonable considering the time pressure they put themselves under. I would have been happier if each release was more substantial but slower to release (like LS is now) cos there was a huge rush to finish before the next released. Some of the story telling was slow, but that was mainly in the beginning and the pace increased significantly as LS1 progressed.
From what I have heard, the actual implementation of LWS1 was anything but fun.
Partly, but not entirely accurate. It certainly started off that way and the implementation overall wasn’t a popular way forward or one which was a good model for the game’s future population either. To say it wasn’t fun though is where it is inaccurate. Not every episode was good, but I enjoyed (not including SAB, WIntersday and the superior Halloween);
- Queens Jubilee
- the Zephyrites and the Bazaar with the vote
- Southson (not the first time round though, that was a disaster)
- Marionette (a brilliant world boss similar to Vinewrath)
- Tequatl (I include it because back then it was challenging and had a story arc)
- Nightmare Tower
- The Invasions (limited scope, but was the original zergfest and was kinda fun)
and to top it off, the quite excellent Battle of Lions Arch and Battle on the Breachmaker, which remain some of my favourite content.
So as a whole it was a an utter disjointed mess which was elongated out for well over a year, with very little narrative to pull it along. Gameplay wise, it had some great individual moments, they just weren’t enough to repair the damage temporary content with a threadbare story was doing at the time.
S1 is and was the best of GW2 to date. Sorry to all who missed it for whatever reason. Content yourselves with the odd item you get from it and the story line. It was a very busy time during s1 cos every 2 weeks was a new event. LOVED it and am so glad I was there to experience it all.
Noble Dragons (NOBL) rocking GW’s since 2005 now rocking the Sorrow’s Furnace Server!
I have mixed feelings about Season 1. The pace was a bit much for me – even on a normal day I don’t have much time to play (and I had less time back then, I didn’t get home until 7pm) but I’ll also be away from home or just busy for days at a time. So I often felt under pressure to finish everything I wanted to do (which was never everything available).
Even now I’ll sometimes deliberately not play a release on the first day it’s out, just because I love that I have that option. (Although it’s not always an option, weirdly Tuesdays are often very busy for me.) Or I won’t look at the achievements until I’ve finished the story because I know I can always come back to them later, whereas during Season 1 I was always planning ahead to try and do as much as possible in one go so I could get it done in time. So the switch to permanent content is a massive plus point for me.
The actual content I don’t think is really that different. But the downside to it being permanent is there’s time for it to become boring. The Vinewrath fight in Silverwastes is almost identical to the Marionette fight, but people remember the Marionette as being much more exciting and I think that’s because no one had time to learn it well enough to make it easy. The first time I did the Vinewrath fight (about 2 weeks after it was out) was a perfect run – we killed all 5 breach bosses, lost no carriers and got all 3 bosses down on the first attempt – and everyone was talking about how amazing that was, how they thought we’d be lucky just to win it and they didn’t think it was possible for everything to succeed in one run. The atmosphere throughout was very positive, congratulating each other on each successful step and keeping tabs on how everyone else was doing.
Not long after that perfect runs became standard practice and no one bothered to comment on it, but they would complain if they thought a lane was taking too long to achieve their (guaranteed) victory.
And I think the same is true of other aspects. During Season 1 there was no end of complaining about the story – it’s boring, it makes no sense, all the NPCs are forgettable and the acting is terrible, Anet have forgotten the dragons or are trying to hide the fact that they’re incapable of creating another dragon battle, the player isn’t always the centre of attention but the NPCs don’t do enough, everything is a giant zerg fest which only organised ‘elite’ guilds/servers are able to complete….all the same stuff people say now. But over time that’s been forgotten and everyone seems to only remember the stuff they liked.
It happen with everything – when I think of the time I saw one of my favourite bands at a festival I think of being on the barrier – so close it wasn’t worth trying to see the screens, how it sounded, how it felt to be part of that crowd….I also know that I’d been on my feet for 11 hours and had barely eaten anything and that I was mashed up against that barrier so hard I had a bruise the size of my hand and couldn’t lie on my side for a week. But I only remember that in a vague way – I know that it happened but I don’t remember how it felt, I just remember the excitement.
I’d love for Season 1 to come back. Overall I enjoyed playing it (or I wouldn’t still be here) and I think for me it’d be much better if it was permanent. But I think some people would find themselves disappointed with it – it wouldn’t actually be any better than what we’ve got now and may well be worse than the first time because there wouldn’t be the same sense of excitement and rush to get it done and everyone trying to muddle through together before it’s snatched away again and they can’t complete it.
But on the plus side we’d know that it does (eventually) form a coherent narrative – that all the random groups of enemies do feed into an overarching storyline that does (sort-of) relate to the dragons, which no one knew the first time around.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
I have a lovehate relationship with S1,
I loved the fact that there was a constant stream, we were actually in a ‘living world’ which included politics influenced by players. But retroactively, it was during an internship period, I missed the entire session of Mai Trinn, and just came back in time to finish of Scarlet, with no chance to replay.
So its kind of like amnesia on a lore level
=) Oh hey. Thanks for promoting my video!
I’m glad people are enjoying it! To be honest trying to find all the footage and bring it together was a pain but it was worth all the hours of editing.
It would be nice too see S1 return as permanent content which we can all replay!
I enjoyed the story a lot.
From what I have heard, the actual implementation of LWS1 was anything but fun.
The content was fun, though people did complain about bugs that showed up in content after Flame and Frost (when Anet ramped things up), and there were major server issues in the first Halloween and The Lost Shores (due to ArenaNet not predicting the stress load properly) but those issues got fixed by the time Flame and Frost ended.
The only thing that wasn’t fun in Season 1 was the stress of “having to complete all the achievements ASAP” because the content was temporary. Had Season 1 content been permanent with the 30-some instances in the story journal rather than tied to achievements (or hell, tied to achievements but achievements not going bye-bye by the end of the month) then Season 1 would have been near perfect.
The temporary nature was the worst part of it from the get go. The content was good – even if buggy on the first week of release (the bugs were usually fixed before the following Tuesday) – and the only people who didn’t enjoy it were those who loved the story and lore more, but this was only as of Clockwork Chaos as Scarlet Briar was a Mary Sue character that was literally a British Harley Quinn in acting (Tara Strong – Scarlet’s voice actor – even said her direction was to do a British Harley Quinn).
Personally, I have – and had – complaints of the story, while I loved the content. But I feel that ignoring it does more harm than good. And the recap we have is inadequate at best. I would rather see Season 4 delayed than continue to lack Season 1. With how rushed Season 2, HoT, and Season 3 have felt, maybe the writers need time to brainstorm the next plot after all.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
If Season 1 were to return, I think I would be happy or prefer if it was just a compilation of all the instanced content that was released at time. Like the introductions of Braham and Rox and their fights through their added mini-dungeons, or the Dragon Bash mystery. Things that happened in the open world, such as the Tower of Nightmares or the Marionette fight would probably be impossible to bring back to the maps without much justification, and required too many people to be properly instanced. The story beats, though, could be compiled into a few chapters somehow.
Things that happened in the open world, such as the Tower of Nightmares or the Marionette fight would probably be impossible to bring back to the maps without much justification
First of all, the OP (as many others among us) suggested to make it all instanced, no need to “bring anything back into the world”.
Besides, there is quite a bit of illogical content in the current state of the world for those who have not played LWS1 and walk through those areas and just think, “What in the name of the Six is this???” (Like the ruins of the Nightmare Tower, many Fractals, the Toxic Events in Kryta…)
Things that happened in the open world, such as the Tower of Nightmares or the Marionette fight would probably be impossible to bring back to the maps without much justification
First of all, the OP (as many others among us) suggested to make it all instanced, no need to “bring anything back into the world”.
Besides, there is quite a bit of illogical content in the current state of the world for those who have not played LWS1 and walk through those areas and just think, “What in the name of the Six is this???” (Like the ruins of the Nightmare Tower, many Fractals, the Toxic Events in Kryta…)
Well, the structure of the Marionette fight is too big to be put into an instance, since it is like the Vinewrath fight and instances max out at 5. Even as a raid of 10, that’s too few to do the Marionette fight as it was originally designed. I suppose the platform fight could be instanced, but that might be ignoring the point of it and the instance would need to be created. That’s why I say focus on what was already instanced, so that the grand things don’t have to be reworked to fit into an instance.
As for the remnants of the Season, there is generally an NPC somewhere that will happily explain what happened. I know there’s one near the marionette wreckage that will talk about the fight, and I’m pretty sure there’s someone in Kessex Hills to talk about the Tower of Nightmares and the Toxic Alliance. If they encounter them elsewhere, I’m afraid that can’t be helped as an NPC can’t be posted everywhere just to explain that the player should’ve joined years ago.
Well, the structure of the Marionette fight is too big to be put into an instance […]
Hence the term “reworked”. No one is asking for a 1:1 implementation as it was. If done from scratch, they could make it all work in different ways. That’s what people have repeatedly been asking for in dozens of threads. There are plenty of story mission instances that sport a dozen or more NPCs in fight sequences. It’s doable.
People mostly care about being able to experience the story by themselves, it’s not about having fight sequences etc. implemented 1:1.
From what I have heard, the actual implementation of LWS1 was anything but fun.
You heard right. The actual story of LS1 is quite nice, but the implementation and delivery was awful and waaaay too spread out. It’s great to experience all at once in a 3 hour movie, not so great to experience in tiny slivers over the course of 2 years.
I still remember the profound feeling of disappointment I had with a lot of the chapters when I realised there wasn’t more story in them. Especially in the beginning many chapters had me go like “..That was it?”
Though I admit I am kinda biased against LS1 because it didn’t release the type of content that I wanted personally. I wanted more instanced story missions (like personal story) and I wanted new zones, not just keep hanging around in the areas that I already know. So when LS2/LS3 started delivering just that, I was over the moon. And just looked back at LS1 as “That really bad one”. Only in the last few releases it started to become good, but that was too late imo.
Dear A-net: Please nerf rock. Paper is fine
~Sincerely, Scissors
~Sincerely, Scissors
Hence the term “reworked”. No one is asking for a 1:1 implementation as it was. If done from scratch, they could make it all work in different ways. That’s what people have repeatedly been asking for in dozens of threads. There are plenty of story mission instances that sport a dozen or more NPCs in fight sequences. It’s doable.
But reworking the battle would be as much work if not more than doing it from scratch, and this is why ArenaNet has decided not to add this stuff back into the game, because it will take more work to return old content than to make new work which will satisfy more people. That’s the crux of the problem that people don’t seem to understand.
As I’ve been arguing, add back in the instances, since that will require very little reworking; just take them all and compile them into one pile. The only bit I really did fully by myself was the Dragon Bash mystery, and it’d be easy enough to add the few world NPCs back in for that story. Admittedly, it’s been 4 years, so I might be forgetting some stuff, but the large world stuff was the holographic dragon stuff to collect the Zhaitaffy, while the plot stuff was all instanced. Sadly, not all chapters were like that, but there were instances where the characters just stand around talking to each other.