Suggestion: A plausible solution for re-visiting LS1 without breaking existing LS

[FelixWolf.2348]

**this isn't a "add LS1 back and break the story", this has a plausable solution in it to make it playable without breaking existing story**

 

LS1 was designed to be experienced as stuff happened, as such, it is impossible to replay these events now that the LS has progressed 4 seasons already. Clearly adding these events back into the game may break the continuity. I was discussing this with a friend since I never did get to play LS1, and I think I may have came up with a possible solution to allow for players to play LS1 without breaking continuity.

 

Asuras are quite clever little people aren't they? Moto even managed to make a Virtual Reality box! Perhaps maybe one of them might be able to make a time machine for players to use? For a fee some gold of course(See feeing), to prevent half the players in the past and half in the present.

This time machine would allow players to play previous LS events without breaking the current timeline.

 

Since it is a time machine and LS1 is the only story not accessible:

* All LS2, Heart of Thorns, LS3, Path of Fire, and LS4 maps would be inaccessible. While they did exist, the player character would have no interest being there.

* Lion's Arch would be the older Lion's Arch map.

 

As for fees, probably would be in gold for timed access and perhaps maybe a infinite time machine pass via gem store? EG:

* 5G for 24 hour pass

* 20G for a whole weeks worth of pass

* 2000 gems for infinite pass

 

(these are probably expensive prices idk, I'm just going with what I would price it)

 

This would benefit both players and ANet in the long run. DOSH for ANet, Achievement and other old things access to players.

[Haleydawn.3764]

You are aware it isn't about continuity that we cannot replay LS1 as it would have been played when it released?

It's a HUGE programming nightmare to navigate and would require an incredible amount of time to make it work (How long did it take Anet to find the 3 Revenant Beta weapons, Axe, Hammer and Mace, 3 years nearly? Yeah.). Putting it into a 'time machine' would be adding into this another level of complexity which should be reserved for creating new content for everyone to enjoy, that is built to be repeatable.

Your proposal covers how to ship it to the player, not how the devs can fashion their code to 'make it work' with the game in its current state.

Too much effort for very little gain, in my very honest opinion.

We get it, players didn't get to experience it, but the best we can hope for is a few more LS1 themed fractals which have been asked for (the Twisted Marionette, Battle on the Breachmaker, Battle for Lion's Arch)

 

 

is the LS1 fan made movie, it covers everything that happened, and is still enjoyable to listen to even now.

 

[Danikat.8537]

Like Hayleydawn said I don't think the potential for continuity errors is the problem. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to switch back to playing older storylines whenever we want or play the personal story (which happened before Season 1) on new characters.

 

I also don't think it's that they _can't_ add it back into the game. They could use the same technology and processes which are currently used for Season 2-onwards to make instanced 'copies' of the open world maps where the Season 1 events are running and give us access to them through the story journal. Just like we can go to the open-world version of the egg chamber in Tarir where Glint's egg is sitting there or the instanced version where baby Aurene is running around, and we can access both immediately after seeing 'teenage' Aurene in Season 4 stories.

 

The problem is that Anet have said that's not a quick change to make. They are capable of doing the work required, but they'd have to basically re-create each Season 1 release almost from scratch and that takes as much time as making new ones.

[FelixWolf.2348]

I am quite aware that it isn't easy to add this in. I am developer myself. I'm saying this is a possibility should Anet decide they might want to allow for this, not for Anet to add it within 1 month of work.

Yes it would be a big undertaking to convert specific parts of the story to a new system, but a lot of the map "code" already exists(Provided maps work the way I think they do, that being "nodes" the NPCs follow, maps being able to trigger specific events when specific things happen, dialog scripts and sounds, etc) and shouldn't technically be needed to be changed.

The continuity I was talking about is how specific things such as the broken/exploded pillars(I forget their name) are visible across Tyria. Re-enabling these in game would break continuity unless they are on their own "past" instance for players to play in.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

> @"FelixWolf.2348" said:

> I am quite aware that it isn't easy to add this in. I am developer myself. I'm saying this is a possibility should Anet decide they might want to allow for this, not for Anet to add it within 1 month of work.

 

Then you should also be aware that ideas are cheap, and the problem is implementing the thing, not working out ways you could implement it.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Except, as stated by the Devs, the old 'code' doesn't work anymore with the new 'code'. Thus, it would be pretty much re-doing everything from scratch.

[Cronospere.8143]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Except, as stated by the Devs, the old 'code' doesn't work anymore with the new 'code'. Thus, it would be pretty much re-doing everything from scratch.

 

This was the major problem as i understood it. Different codes as inculpatus says. Lots of stuff is still available. But everything needs to be checked. Reworked. Rebalanced. Etc. It will see thousands of bugs..

 

One day a dev has some energy and free time to add this. For now enjoy the new content..

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"FelixWolf.2348" said:

> I am quite aware that it isn't easy to add this in. I am developer myself. I'm saying this is a possibility should Anet decide they might want to allow for this, not for Anet to add it within 1 month of work.

> Yes it would be a big undertaking to convert specific parts of the story to a new system, *but a lot of the map "code" already exists(Provided maps work the way I think they do, that being "nodes" the NPCs follow, maps being able to trigger specific events when specific things happen, dialog scripts and sounds, etc) and shouldn't technically be needed to be changed*.

> The continuity I was talking about is how specific things such as the broken/exploded pillars(I forget their name) are visible across Tyria. Re-enabling these in game would break continuity unless they are on their own "past" instance for players to play in.

 

LS1 was NOT archived well, and a significant portion of the overworld event scripting is either gone, or has only a vestigial presence in the Live assets. The instanced content survived, because they were cloned and set aside as a branch of the core assets.... an asset handling inefficiency that somehow worked in our favor. So while most of the independent audio and visual assets are still buried in the game's monolith of a dat file, most of the event scripting is either damaged or incompatible (if we're lucky), but much more likely doens't exist anymore.

 

So they'd have to reconstruct whatevers missing as a new set of scripts...... an effort they are unwilling to do, and remain utterly cryptic about what may or may not be viable projects. Super Adventure Box ran into a similar problem, where Engine refactoring for Heart of Thorns and general physics improvements completely broke the "hacked" approach by which SAB's level design operated. Something that would logically take less time fixing then building a "new map" took two years for them to even "consider" bringing up to modern spec, yet they've popped out several, much larger, more complicated maps, most of which contains features that were utterly disposable, never to be used again.

 

I find that to be the biggest problem..... their content production team is not willing to go back and "fix" existing content, and considering it a big sink in resources for minimal gain. But the reason I find that a huge problem is how thats arguably true...... BS, but still true. How is LS1, if made repeatable, is going to get the kind of mileage other events get, seeing as their designed to play with a majority map queue. Its not just a problem of restoring the event, but how would you host them without a queue system? Whats ironic is that it demands the creation of a new concept for large scale instanced content...... something that is forward thinking enough, that you'd think project management would see value in investing in. But they don't...... and its nigh impossible to coax an answer from Anet that doesn't come off as a kid trying to weasel their way out of homework. Yet they've turned around and done exactly the thing they said would "not be worth the effort" at a later date, and put a spin on the reasoning..... and then abandon it again for undisclosed reasons. This enigmatic behavior is the reason the community has trust issues with the Development team; often metronoming between perceived laziness and perceived incompetence, only to do something amazing down the line, and then immediately drop the same ball shortly after. And I'm well aware that in light of everything said in paragraph 3, it could very well mean paragraphs 1 and 2 can be completely wrong. --- and thats what makes this whole situation frustrating.

[starhunter.6015]

For the scale and amount of players that where required for many of the LS1 events, they would need to be made into Raid wings or Fractals after toned down quite a bit. The Marionette Battle in Lornars Pass could be made into a World Boss much like TT and Dragon Stand Meta

[Healix.5819]

If they actually wanted to bring back season 1, they'd sacrifice one of the living world teams (or an entire season) and redo it in the current format, slowly releasing it on the side. Most people haven't even played it, but there's also no point in doing it now and chances are it'll never happen. The only real hope for season 1 would be to reference it in the current story, like how they went back in time with Caithe's memories, then they could go back while only having to show the important bits.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"FelixWolf.2348" said:

> As for fees, probably would be in gold for timed access and perhaps maybe a infinite time machine pass via gem store? EG:

> * 5G for 24 hour pass

> * 20G for a whole weeks worth of pass

> * 2000 gems for infinite pass

 

If ArenaNet thought they could generate positive revenue by bringing back LS1, it would have been done already.

 

[Sarrs.4831]

I think the only way to revisit LS1 would be to rewrite LS1 to such a degree that it's completely unrecognizable.

 

If you were to release LS1 as a modern living story season you'd need to completely cut the Battle for Lion's Arch. You'd probably need to cut or entirely reimagine the Tower of Nightmare as well. Many of the Molten Alliance and Aetherblade chapters are gutted by being Fractals, as well.

 

Why put so much work into reimagining LS1 when you could just make new story?

 

The only thing that I would actually like to see that's from LS1 would be Labyrinthine Cliffs, but again, I'd rather see a modern reimagining of Labyrinthine Cliffs. It'd even work really well as a map with mounts as well. Instead of using the crystals, you use your mounts to navigate the map.

[Drecien.4508]

Also I thought they said as far as lions arch is concerned they dropped the new city on top of the old, basically wiping it all away. So a total new rebuild. We have some cinematic cutscenes to fill the gaps and a player based movie. I think outside a new fractal we won't be seeing much of season 1 in any capacity.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"starlinvf.1358" said:

> LS1 was NOT archived well,

It was intentionally not archived at all, because it was never intended to be available ever again. Each event was designed to happen once and then the world would progress from there. It's an awesome idea and I wish it would have worked.

 

However, the end result is the same: LS1 requires recreating nearly everything from scratch, or validating & revalidating so much that it's almost as bad (if not worse) than starting from scratch. The only things that won't require much effort are the text of the dialogues and how to explain going back in time to present LS1. Oh and, the character names won't change. Everything else won't work in the current game: how the events are implemented in open and instance zones, how the dialogue is presented, mechanics, balance, rewards, ...

 

And that's all effort that can be equally applied to new content. It's unlikely that any studio manager is going to authorize that amount of effort given that (a) nearly wants new content, (b) not everyone wants nostalgia content, and © it's nearly impossible for LS1 to live up to the hype or match rose-colored 20-20 hindsight of what it was.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

I don't think it's possible for someone outside the company to fully understand the complexity of the request to, in some way or fashion, bring back / rebuild / rewrite Living World Season 1 so that it again can be played. I don't know what prompts some estimates we see, such as the bold estimate in this thread that it would take just one month. One month of... how many developers? Artist? Programmers? Writers? More? And really, at what cost would such an effort inflict on other projects?

 

What I understand is that certain elements present in LWS1 are not just inaccessble, they're not in the game at all any more. It may be a poor analogy, but perhaps look at the continued development after Season 1 as, in effect, overwriting the harddrive. It's not a situation where we can flip a switch and turn it on again... in the case of some elements, there's no "there, there" nothing to re-enable.

 

We do understand the heartfelt requests, and we acknowledge the positive impetus behind them. If I can catch someone next week, I will ask, again, about the possibility of re-implementing the content. But I'm explaining here what I understand, and I believe I understand things pretty thoroughly. In my memory, other members of the team -- both developers and narrative team members -- have answered such requests with similar information.

 

If there's more to share, I will reopen this thread.