Living World Season 1 - Should it be back?

[Lonami.2987]

Since the poll got sabotaged (again, sigh), here's a new poll, this time outside the forums where it can't be manipulated:

 

#[>> LINK TO THE NEW POLL HERE <<](https://www.strawpoll.me/15134021)

 

Original reddit thread:

 

---

 

I would like to see some numbers regarding interest on a potential Living World Season 1 return, so here we go:

 

**[> > > Link to the poll here < < <](https://www.strawpoll.me/15134021)**

 

[> > > Link to results so far here < < <](https://www.strawpoll.me/15134021/r)

 

Poll options explained:

 

* **Complete return:** Adapt LW1 into a full new season, respecting the original experience, including its gameplay. This means returns of Battle for Lion's Arch, Ancient Karka, Twisted Marionette, and more, all in their original forms, as much as it's possible.

* **Partial return:** Adapt LW1 into something simpler, enough to get the job done. Fractals of the Mist, a shorter season covering the most important points, etc. In some cases, like the world bosses, the original groupal gameplay would be lost.

* **Something else:** Instead of an adaptation, a different type of return, like a better recap video, a series of ingame flashbacks, an expanded written summary, etc.

* **No return:** You don't want LW1 back in any way whatsoever.

 

Some data you might be interested in knowing:

 

* [GW2 Efficiency estimation](https://i.imgur.com/QyYqXSk.png) on how much people has actually experienced LW1. [source of the data here.](https://gw2efficiency.com/account/unlock-statistics)

* [Complete redesign idea](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Lon-ami/Living_World_Season_1), using 10 episodes, 4 zones, and more, plus its [corresponding reddit thread](

) from some weeks ago. Feel free to discuss about other redesign ideas as well.

 

Personally, I really want LW1 back, if that wasn't obvious. It had some pretty good content that would be very fun to replay, specially the stuff designed for large groups, and the hole in the story is really punishing for new players, affecting their motivation to play the game and their interest in the overall story and lore of the franchise.

 

The poll does not cover things like willingness to pay for it, or if the voters already played LW1 or not, so feel free to post about those in the comments. I could make a better poll using google forms, but then lot of people wouldn't vote out of laziness. If there's real interest on a better study, I'll go for it.

 

We can talk about how ArenaNet does or doesn't want to bring LW1 back, but the simplest fact is:

 

**Money has the final decision.**

 

If the community shows enough interest to make it worth the development effort, then it's going to happen. Unfortunately, we don't know *how much* interest we need to show, so we have to keep trying until there's enough of us, or until ArenaNet really confirms it's definitely never going to happen.

 

Remember that we needed [months and months of insistence](

) to get Super Adventure Box back, which was an engine mess due to the original version pretty much using hacks to work. But yet, after 3 years, it returned.

 

This poll is a good start, and the more people it votes, the better :D.

 

---

 

As of the writing of this post, the [poll numbers](https://www.strawpoll.me/15134021/r) are as follows:

 

* Complete adaptation, but new content development should be the priority. - 191 votes - 29%

* Partial adaptation, but new content development should be the priority. - 163 votes - 25%

* Complete adaptation, alternated with new content. - 107 votes - 16%

* No adaptation, I don't want it to return. - 84 votes - 13%

* Complete adaptation, stopping new content development if necessary. - 44 votes - 7%

* Partial adaptation, alternated with new content. - 41 votes - 6%

* An adaptation is not the solution. - 24 votes - 4%

* Partial adaptation, stopping new content development if necessary. - 7 votes - 1%

 

The numbers show 52% want a complete adaptation, 32% partial, 4% something else, and 13% no adaptation.

 

Of those who want LW1 back, 54% believe new content should be the priority, 22% want LW1 alternated with new content, and 8% believe new content development should be stopped to get LW1 back.

 

Let's see if this poll survives.

[astrand.5419]

Coming from someone who started playing GW2 right when HoT was released, I would personally LOVE to have the opportunity to play through LWS1. There's so much character development that I want to see with our character and how we're introduced and build relationships with members of Dragon's Watch. One of the big reasons that drew me to GW2 was the story - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Missing LWS1 is definitely a huge gap that I feel takes away experience from current and future players. However, I do understand with so many major changes that came with LWS1, that it would be extremely difficult to reenact this season. But if there's anyway that we were given the chance to play LWS1, no joke, I would lunge at the opportunity and put LWS4 on hold :) Arenanet, you guys are just awesome! Keep up the good work, and if you're able to bring back LWS1, I'll be there!

[Rodrick.1942]

> @"Lonami.2987" said:

> > @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > The devs have said, multiple times now, that even though many of them _also_ want to see LWS1 make a return, the amount of work involved is non trivial. And as a company, Anet doesn't want to spend so much effort on content that is "old", they would rather develop new content.

> >

> > And I think you are misleading people as to how much of LWS1 was in instances. Twisted Marionette, Battle for lions arch, the breachmaker nonsense, saving people from lions arch and way more events were open world events, and they were a huge part of LWS1. Beyond that though, Anet can't just take the existing LWS1 instances and plop them back in the game. They won't work. If you remember, Anet had to redesign SAB after HoT was released because of how much the game's engine had changed, and SAB was no longer compatible with the current game. The same would have to be done for LWS1, every instance would have to be redone to work with the ucrrent game engine, not to mention rebalancing it all for the absolutely insane powercreep we have had since then.

>

> All of that is addressed in the post. The story itself would be put into instances, while the big events would get new maps to house them. I'm not misleading anyone, it's all there, explained very clearly, just scroll up and read instead of rushing to post. I also put myself in the worse case all the time, meaning they would need to program everything from scratch again. That's still less work than a new episode, since there's no new art (models, music, animation, voice, etc) needed, it's all there, in the game files, forgotten and unused.

>

> Also, it would be new content for a lot of people (Again, read above to see the numbers). Not to say there's a huge hole in the story, ruining the characterization of the whole main cast for new players. How is that not a problem?

>

> Realistically, you only need a small team of programmers to restore it slowly, at their own pace. Come on, you said it yourself, they fixed SAB, which had dozens of engine problems due to the custom physics. LW1 had nothing affecting the engine, they can update and restore it if they want.

>

> However, it is my belief they just don't want to bother because they believe there isn't a demand for it to be back. ArenaNet loves to overreact, and LW1 got a lot of "hate" due to various reasons, which can lead to make them believe no one liked it. That's the purpose of this thread, to prove that people do want it back, and that it's worth the development time, even if it takes many months to complete it.

 

Worth the development time ? Let me tell u some of us are waiting for them to rework the entire WvW system, your idea will make them interrupt this project and pull the resources they have to ... rebuild LS1. A small group of ppl expect to see it return , no doubt. But a larger group want some change of WvW.

 

I just use WvW as examples to tell u why they don't want to rebuild ls1.

[lethlora.1320]

I think it's crazy for them to suggest GW2 is a story focused game, then have a massive hole in said story that players can't experience. LS2 and HoT expect me to care about characters I have never met because it is not possible to actually meet them in-game, and their solution for it is worse than a Wiki article. What GW2 was doing in 2012 may have been novel at the time, but there are so many other games in modern times that handle stories just as well--if not better--and they didn't involve a system in which that story could not actually be experienced outside of its associated story patches. This was a serious lack of foresight on their part.

 

It's simply difficult for me to care about this game's story when I have to bend over backwards to stay current with what it expects me to know. That's not good gameplay, and not a good on-boarding experience for new players.

 

I don't fault them for it being difficult. Reducing the stress recreating LS1 invovles would necessitate the system having been set up correctly from the get go, and that can't be changed retroactively. That doesn't mean it's acceptable to leave a giant hole in the story, no matter how "bad" it was, and have the rest of the story continue to make references to it that are meaningless to a large portion of the people trying to parse it.

[battledrone.8315]

> @"Taygus.4571" said:

>

> I take content at a snail pace. > @"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:

> > > @"Taygus.4571" said:

> > > And the the Marionette fight could definitely come back.

> > As a fractal, yes, but the actual fight was an unbalanced janky mess. Maybe recycle the retaking of LA/fight against Scarlet into a fractal too.

> >

> > Everything else about LS1 that hasn't already been salvaged is god-awful and should stay in the dustbin of history where it belongs, including the story instances. _Especially_ the story instances, good lord those were terrible.

>

> I don't enjoy fractals.

>

> People managed to readily successfully complete the marionette easily enough,

> once they worked it out. I don't think it was that much of a mess.

>

> It's only the major open world events Id like back. They were the most memorable parts of LS1.. ..the rest of the story can be left as a video.

 

no they didnt, i died many times because of that event

options are good, but that includes the option to say NO

many normal players would simply leave the zone, when that event popped

[Ashen.2907]

I really hope that LS1 does not come back.

[Ayakaru.6583]

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> I really hope that LS1 does not come back.

 

Without any kind of reasoning?

[Pifil.5193]

> @"Ayakaru.6583" said:

> > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > I really hope that LS1 does not come back.

>

> Without any kind of reasoning?

 

From a little further up the previous page:

 

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> I stopped playing the game due to season one and hope it doesnt come back. I guess fractals for a couple of the segments wouldnt be too bad though.

 

I'd guess it was the pace?

 

Anyway I'd personally prefer to see new seasons and new stories.

[Ashantara.8731]

It would be wonderful to have the content return. Great post, OP! <3 Can't believe I had missed it until now. :)

[Ayakaru.6583]

> @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > @"Ayakaru.6583" said:

> > > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > > I really hope that LS1 does not come back.

> >

> > Without any kind of reasoning?

>

> From a little further up the previous page:

>

> > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > I stopped playing the game due to season one and hope it doesnt come back. I guess fractals for a couple of the segments wouldnt be too bad though.

>

> I'd guess it was the pace?

>

> Anyway I'd personally prefer to see new seasons and new stories.

 

Agreed, i don't want it at the cost of season 4 and on quality.

That said, there's something about the hole in the story now, that's only had a poor bandaid animation to cover it up.

And even the people active at the time missed some parts, i missed almost a third of the whole thing myself. So it wouldn't be considered wasted resources if they put them in, considering for how many it would be *new* content

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

It would be nice to have a playable Season One in some form, that said have you played WoW lately there's a game with major timeline issues.

 

Lvl 1 to 60 takes place during Cataclysm, then 60 to 80 you have a choice of doing either Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King which takes you back in time and you lose further narrative coherence by choosing to skip an expansion, then from 80 to 90 it's back to the present or slightly future where you choose either Cataclysm or Panda Land, then you travel to a parallel universe yet slightly to the past to take on Orc Warchiefs that have been dead since Warcraft 1 and 2 in Warlords of Draenor, then you do Legion.

 

Just look up that 3 hour Season 1 movie on YouTube and count your lucky stars you don't have to watch a bunch of Noebbel87 videos to piece together WoWs busted up story.

[Tasida.4085]

No to it coming back.......People that missed it, ah well sorry but thems the breaks (Dreamy has a gr8 vid recap). Many of us shouldn't have to do w/o new content just to satisfy those who missed it. New content via stories and xpacs please!!!

[Ashen.2907]

> @"Ayakaru.6583" said:

> > @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > > @"Ayakaru.6583" said:

> > > > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > > > I really hope that LS1 does not come back.

> > >

> > > Without any kind of reasoning?

> >

> > From a little further up the previous page:

> >

> > > @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > > I stopped playing the game due to season one and hope it doesnt come back. I guess fractals for a couple of the segments wouldnt be too bad though.

> >

> > I'd guess it was the pace?

> >

> > Anyway I'd personally prefer to see new seasons and new stories.

>

> Agreed, i don't want it at the cost of season 4 and on quality.

> That said, there's something about the hole in the story now, that's only had a poor bandaid animation to cover it up.

> And even the people active at the time missed some parts, i missed almost a third of the whole thing myself. So it wouldn't be considered wasted resources if they put them in, considering for how many it would be *new* content

 

For some unknown, but less than 100%, percentage of the player base LS1 would be new content. For 100% of the player base newly developed content would be new content.

 

Do you spend limited resources to produce new content for 100% of players or for less than 100% of players?

 

I am not opposed to spending resources on niche content for fractions of the player base. Every bit of content in the game fits that description to one extent or another...but remember that every hour spent redesigning and revamping old content is not being spent on new.

 

[Orpheal.8263]

Want back LS1 as well too, that it stil lisnt back in the game is also a big thorn in my eyes for years...

 

ANet should give this game finally PHASING basicalyl via Chronomancy with the help of asura technology, using Asura Gates practically as Time Portals to travel between the present and the past forth and back as we wish to reexperience this way old content, that slowly gets phased out, as tiem in this game progresses and the living world concept keeps on changing constantly the existing content to create unique event moments for a certain time, which then become somewhen later replayable by traveling back in time to a Time Phase of a Map, where the events were still running and the canon of this game didn't progress further.

 

Phasing is in essence already adding to the game just the old versions of a map as own parallel Sub Indstances, to make it possible for the player to change between the primary Main Instance of a map, which represents the present and x amounts of various secondary Sub instances for as much as different Time Phases anet wants to have for a specific map zone of this game, to which players can then jump travel between, like switchign districts felt for playing GW1, where easch map also hads basically douzends of sub instances based on the total amount of players that were on the same map, because that was back then Anets way to make sure, that everyone could be on the same map, despite not needign to be together also in the same district version of the map, which was of this system at the same time its curse, as like it was its blessing, based on it, if you wanted to stay together with specific other players, or not...

 

The content is still there, its not just suddendly all erased and needs to be worked on fresh from scratch, its content that needs to get only overworked here n there a bit, to fit again into the game in a way, that the player gets in the end the feeling and impression, as if this content would have never been missed in the game, which is why certain parts of that content require only to be reworked into instances, instead of open world content, unless anet is willing to give this game true Phasing, to simulate like mentioned this way time traveling in the game...

With Chronomancerts being in this game, tehre exists no argument anymor,e for why we shouldnt be able by now to use time Portals with the help of Asura Technology and their gates, which do look already like perfect Stargate Copies to travels through time and space, just without protective irises to block off incoming harm from one side traveling to your side of the wormhole.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

Here's your Season 1, good as it's going to get. Personally if I were ANet I'd take this production and put some of their own polishing and editing into it.

 

[Avalon Leodegrance.1073]

Adapt Season 1 into a novel. That way, it wouldn't impact the development of new in-game content.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

> @"Avalon Leodegrance.1073" said:

> Adapt Season 1 into a novel. That way, it wouldn't impact the development of new in-game content.

 

Another project for Woodenpotatoes since he's currently recording two audiobooks on YouTube.

[perilisk.1874]

I think I'd settle for them just doing a series of little instances you could jump into straight from the story journal (one for each LS1 "episode"), that would more fully introduce characters and plot points, and show cutscenes, along with the typical story journal writeup. The movie is just not quite enough to get everything across.

 

That said, it would also be pretty sweet to have a Marionette guild mission or a Battle for LA/Breachmaker fractal.

[Carocat.3672]

Yes PLEASE! I wqanna work amongside Tybalt again:( I wanna play with him again! I wanna play LW s1 with my other characters as well :open_mouth:

[Dante.1763]

Well since the thread got necroed i may as well through up a response as well: I want it to come back because of how much of LW1 i missed, but, new content will should be a priority.

[Clyan.1593]

LS1 definitely should return, there's too much content and story lost. I'd even pay for it.

I didn't play for achievements back then, but now I'm willing to go for it. So bring it back pls.

 

Just make everything an instance, change boss and event encounters so you can play them solo and so on...

Yes it's a ton of work, but Anet could gain quite some money from that with all the new players that came after the expansions.

[Tasida.4085]

> @"Clyan.1593" said:

> LS1 definitely should return, there's too much content and story lost. I'd even pay for it.

> I didn't play for achievements back then, but now I'm willing to go for it. So bring it back pls.

>

> Just make everything an instance, change boss and event encounters so you can play them solo and so on...

> Yes it's a ton of work, but Anet could gain quite some money from that with all the new players that came after the expansions.

 

And those of us who have been here since the start should have to do w/o new content just to please those that came too late to experience S1 (excuse why doesn't matter). Anet needs to keep doing what they're doing....make new content FOR ALL. Watch the brilliant vid to catch up, it's quite good. Many agree leave S1 in the past and keep moving forward.

 

 

[Clyan.1593]

> @"Tasida.4085" said:

> > @"Clyan.1593" said:

> > LS1 definitely should return, there's too much content and story lost. I'd even pay for it.

> > I didn't play for achievements back then, but now I'm willing to go for it. So bring it back pls.

> >

> > Just make everything an instance, change boss and event encounters so you can play them solo and so on...

> > Yes it's a ton of work, but Anet could gain quite some money from that with all the new players that came after the expansions.

>

> And those of us who have been here since the start should have to do w/o new content just to please those that came too late to experience S1 (excuse why doesn't matter). Anet needs to keep doing what they're doing....make new content FOR ALL. Watch the brilliant vid to catch up, it's quite good. Many agree leave S1 in the past and keep moving forward.

>

>

 

Huh? You can play the new content as well of course. What are you talking? I cannot follow, maybe you didnt unterstand. I want the old content to come back, maybe in a new fashion, so it fits the game in its current state. You dont have to repeat it if you got the achievements already, but if you want to, you can of course.

[Dante.1763]

> @"Tasida.4085" said:

> > @"Clyan.1593" said:

> > LS1 definitely should return, there's too much content and story lost. I'd even pay for it.

> > I didn't play for achievements back then, but now I'm willing to go for it. So bring it back pls.

> >

> > Just make everything an instance, change boss and event encounters so you can play them solo and so on...

> > Yes it's a ton of work, but Anet could gain quite some money from that with all the new players that came after the expansions.

>

> And those of us who have been here since the start should have to do w/o new content just to please those that came too late to experience S1 (excuse why doesn't matter). Anet needs to keep doing what they're doing....make new content FOR ALL. Watch the brilliant vid to catch up, it's quite good. Many agree leave S1 in the past and keep moving forward.

>

>

 

Going off the poll, roughly 70% of players want it back leaving 30% in the i dont care if it comes back, or i dont want it back. The *majority* wants it back.

 

*HOWEVER* It shouldnt come back at the expense of new content, if they can bring it back while still delivering LW episodes on time with their schedule i dont see the issue, and fyi, ive been here since the start, since pre release, i wasnt able to enjoy LW1 because of the release cadence it had.

[foozlesprite.8051]

> @"Lonami.2987" said:

> So, what's your opinion?

 

I would DIE to see this return, I was just able to be there for everything pre-Scarlet, and to see Canach (praise be to the gaming gods that I was able to see his backstory myself). RL events really hit me hard that year. I've watched the videos, read the wiki, etc. but none of that is stuff that a new player knows (or should have to) do to understand why they're catapulted into a whole new group of people.

 

At the very least they need to add a more extensive summary video. Canach isn't even mentioned in there at all, and he's a regular part of our crew with a backstory that deepens his character. I'd also love to see them put the Twisted Marionette fight back into Lornar's as a world boss, since everybody seemed to love it. It would probably be reduced to 3 lanes instead of 5, so it could be something more like the Silverwastes, Auric Basin, or Dragon's Stand metas. (And of course, the whole zone wouldn't be killed if it failed.)