Living World Season 1 - Should it be back?

We've heard a lot about LW1, and how it could return, if it could ever return at all. The old thread is gone, and it's time to retake the discussion, this time with a more serious tone and with some data and analysis to back it up.

First of all, before beginning the thread, if you're new to LW1 I recommend reading the LW1 story summary in the wiki. There's also

Also, the thread is pretty long, so here's a selection of some of the best LW1 music to listen to while you read:

• Twisted Marionette Battle, Part 1
• Twisted Marionette Battle, Part 2
• Battle On The Breachmaker
• Lion's Arch Lament

So, let's begin.

Introduction

There's a lot of people who have never experience LW1, and not just new players, quite some old players missed part of it as well. For all those players, LW1 would be brand new content, and for those who already played it, a good return to the past, to content that we haven't experience since more than 5 years ago.

It's widely believed that LW1 was mostly about open world content, but the truth is that there was much more than that to it. It had a sizeable amount of instances, and many of the open world story progress was just dialogue, independent from the large world events.

Don't get me wrong, restoring and adapting LW1 would be a TON of work. Yes, most of it, the art, is already there, but it's still quite a feat anyway. I would go as far as to say restoring 3 episodes of this could take as long as making a new episode from scratch, so it could take a whole year or more, depending on the amount of new stuff and design changes they want to introduce to keep it fresh.

Still, I think it's an important piece of the game's story, and that it should be restored some day. Also, we might have killed Scarlet, but her minions are still out there, and we don't even know who the leaders of the Molten and Toxic alliances were. The aetherblades and their captain ran away, too. I would love to see more of them, now working towards their own goals without Scarlet's influence. They were pretty cool factions, and they have a lot of potential for both a redesign and future stories.

The old can be new

The first argument you'll see against LW1's return is that it's old content, and "most of the players" already experienced it.

Let's start with some data, courtesy of GW2 Efficiency, to show how many players got to experience LW1. Note that these numbers only reflect players registered there, and that web is mostly used by veterans, so the real numbers do probably look worse than what you see here. To get these numbers, I took the most completed achievement of each episode.

No numbers for The Lost Shores (2012-11-15) and Battle for Lion's Arch: Aftermath (2014-03-18), since those two don't have any achievements at all.

As you see, an estimate of more than 70% (almost 80% on some episodes) of the playerbase has never experienced LW1, making it "new content" for all of those players. Considering the hole in the story, and the fact that all the assets, from enemies to music, are already there, and only programming should be really necessary to restore LW1, I'd say it's worth the effort.

The biggest misconception

Another of the more frequent arguments you'll see about LW1 not being worth the return is that it was mostly open world content, that wouldn't work well anymore.

That is definitely not true.

Most of LW1 was narrated through story instances. There were some open world activities that were important for the plot, but they were designed with single player in mind, making them easy to adapt into new instances if necessary.

The truth is that LW1 is very similar to current seasons. In one hand, you had the story, and in the other, the new events, that were not mandatory to progress the story. Nowadays, you have the story in one hand, and a new zone with new events and achievements in the other. Pretty much the exact same model, except that now it's permanent content on new zones, instead of temporary events in classic zones.

For those who don't believe me, here's a complete list of soloable LW1 instances, divided by story arc:

• Braham: Help from the Legions, Braham - Eirsson, Braham - Retake Cragstead, Rox: Critical Mission, Rox - The Hatchery, Braham: Avenger of the Dispossesed, Rox: Avenger of the Dispossesed
• Canach's Lair, Contractually Obligated
• Ceremony and Acrimony, Hard Boiled, Every Piece Matters, No More Secrets
• Strangers from the Sky, Audience with the Master
• Opening Ceremony, Closing Ceremony, Scarlet's Playhouse
• The Nightmare Unveiled, Multiple Nightmare Chambers, The Nightmare Incarnate, The Nightmare Ends
• The Origins of Madness: A Moment's Peace, The Dead End: Advanced Warning, The Dead End: A Study in Scarlet
• Scarlet's End, The Dead End (Aftermath)
• Lion's Arch: Honored Guests

And I'm sure I'm still missing some. All of these instances had voiced dialogues, and some even had short cinematics. The open world had a lot of dialogue as well, which can be restored through NPCs that no one else can hear (this technology wasn't available back then), or just new instances.

Most of the remaining secondary events are what we would consider Current Events nowadays, and as such, they can return like that, or not return at all.

There are however some events that need to return in their original form. I'm talking about the big world events, that made LW1 famous in the first place. Some people would argue they can't return, because the zones they happened at already moved forward in time, and in some cases, we can even see the outcome or the ruins of those events.

Easy solution: New zones.

Kessex Hills is no longer toxic? Well, make a copy of it, a "shard of the past", and then put a portal to it in Lion's Arch. Now there's a duplicate of Kessex Hills in the Mists, where the Tower of Nightmares is still active. Same solution for the Ancient Karka, the Battle for Lion's Arch, and the Twisted Marionette.

Finally, what about the dungeons? They were part of the story, after all. Just bring them back as they were, and give them a soloable story mode too. And what about the fractals that recycled them? Just remake it into something better, like the Thaumanova Reactor or Nightmare fractals, and give them challenge motes and more.

Redesigning Scarlet's War

I felt like doing some archaeology and adding missing information about LW1 to the wiki, and while I was at that, I started building this, a proposal for a full redesign, using the solutions I described above, plus some new ideas:

Living World Season 1: Scarlet's War - Full redesign idea

Some quick links to the sections in the article:

• Release index
• 10 episodes
• 4 zones
• 3 dungeons
• 3 world events
• New masteries

I respected the original material as much as possible, but you'll see some new stuff here and there, some filler events and new map mechanics, intended to replace the temporary nature of the Living World. Note that the document is pretty "technical", detailing content and features without elaborating too much (Don't want a huge wall of text). The links across the article will lead you to either the original material they refer to or related information.

I think my redesign idea would work pretty well, but I'm sure they (or even you) can do better. For those saying it would be a waste of time and money, remember that lot of people has never seen this content (and some of it was really, really good), nostalgia can sell well to veterans, and it's a great opportunity to reintroduce some scrapped rewards (I'm looking at you, swimsuits).

So that's it. LW1 had its good and bad moments, and we can definitely recover the good ones. My solution above is just one among many, that respects the original open world nature of LW1, which is what made it be so special.

A return shouldn't affect LW4 and other future releases negatively. Ideally, it would be restored by a secondary team, at their own pace, almost like a secondary project, and used as filler for those moments where there's no new content being released.

Hope you enjoyed the thread, and hope we get to see Living World Season 1 return some day :D.

So, what's your opinion?

TL;DR: The goal of this thread is to show collective interest on a potential LW1 return, and make ArenaNet feel it's worth the development effort.

The potential return of LW1 should not affect future Living World episodes and expansions in any way, and should be a secondary project with a lower priority than new content.

I understand that it's unlikely due to development costs, but as one of those who missed it - it would be awesome and very welcome!

I would love to see it return, but realistically its not going to happen. The day to day, week to week, change of the maps and areas was what made the Living Season so amazing. Lions arch went through three or four different stages as it was attacked, destroyed, rebuilt etc. I just don't think there is a way to recapture that change based on how the LW2-4 have there setup.

My Sylvari Engineer, Ceara Scarletbloom thinking of renaming her to Ceara Scarlet Rose, wouldn't mind meeting the shard of herself lost to Mordremoth.

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.

Personally, I think we have the best shot at getting the LWS1 festivals to come back, and maybe some of the boss fights, and that's it.

@"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.

No. It invaded WvW (something that seems to have been forgotten). D:

Also it's where I stopped personally following the story line. The "romantic" kiss with Kas and Majory felt forced. Like I don't even remember the build up in their relationship for it to even happen...

Also, technical challenge is a technical challenge. No matter how much we'd like to fantasize about it coming back.

I just started playing the game a month and a half ago - I can already see there's going to be a pretty large gap in the story if I'm going, as I will, from the Zhaitan story to Living World season two with nothing in between. That's...really not appealing to me. Sure, there are all sorts of recaps and recordings I can see on youtube (and I will), but it's not the same as having my character go through it. I play this game primarily for the story and lore, and having a gaping hole where I'm told "oh, your character did so-and-so and met so-and-so and now you're good friends with them" but not actually experiencing it myself is rather jarring.

I'd love to see LW1 come back in the form you described. I especially love the idea of "shards to the past," "new" zones that are copies of those from LW1. As others have said, though...it's probably unrealistic to wish for...but one can dream, can't they? :)

Yes. HELL YES.

If it won’t effect arenanet with also releasing season 4 and the new expansion then he’ll yea go ahead.

So far everyone I met in gw2 has not done season 1. I have played almost 2 years and my guild leader who played a year before me has not even played the season. So with everyone almost 3 years ago who have been the game have no idea what happened. Well kinda not. We seen the movie so we know what happened. But to play it would have been nice and to get season 1 achievements and skins would have been nice. I think you can get the skins though but not that easy to obtain. Me speaking and for many members would like to have season 1 and play it.

If I came back in some way, I wouldn't object. However, its come and gone and I was there. So from my point of view, I want new content.

I'd also like to point out that there was some really bad stuff in S1 to go with some really stuff too. The worst offender was Scarlett - the less we have of that Mary Sue, the better.

I came in 2014 so count me among the 'newbies' who has not seen it. I would like to see it if possible but am hesitant about the fractal idea: fractals have a niche rep, you either love them or you want them eliminated with a bright burning flame. Even if these were not the normal fractals.

This is one of those things I'll count as a happy surprise if it happens, but I'm also aware that the logistics make it unlikely. If it did ever return in some fashion, I'd happily pay gems to unlock the episodes I missed.

Would like it if there was an other option. Me personally I would not mind LW1 coming back but not at the cost of delaying future content. I'd rather Anet focus on moving the story forward and not trying to go back and reiterate of something already made.

I would be ok with Z telling us the new LW episode is delayed due to last minute bugs. I would not be ok with the new episode being delayed because they are trying to reimplement LW1.

I would love the open world events to come back.

Maybe a 1 month time warp "festival" of LA to play it's LS1 events. It would be another yearly event to look forward to ^^.

And the the Marionette fight could definitely come back. The space is still there and all. And not like it matters for the story anymore as everything is happening at the same time now.

It's probably not at all feasible, but one can hope.

Oh dang I was just about to run a poll about this! Good on you, and those are some awesome stats. Thank you!

Seems odd there is only 1 Achievement listed for each release. I wonder why.

Methods aside....because im not sure there's a surefire way to get it right, season 1 needs to return in some fashion so that the story has its timeline continuity restored because after personal story there's just a huge gap and that doesnt help people who came in late when it comes to understanding the motives and reason for our motley crew.

To explain my vote. The official stance by Arenanet is that they investigated and that it is more or less the samen amount of work then releasing a fresh new living world season. They think we rather want new then recycled content. I fully agree with them. Non devs keep underestimating how much time and effort something cost to develop and that asking one thing means they cant do the other, So the lws1 re release will take the time of a full living world season, a period of time the rest of the game is abanded.

I wasn't active during lw1, but I remember keeping an eye on the story as I was hearing a lot of complaining about it in other mmos. Most of it revolved around Scarlet, but I just didn't find Scarlet compelling...at all. I am much more interested in the elder dragons. Given that resources put into reimplementing lw1 would likely come out of future lw or expansions, I am very much opposed to ever visiting lw1. Let Scarlet stay dead.

There's something special about not having unlimited replay access to that season - to experience the events of that storyline as they happened, once and never again. To see a character like Scarlet intersect with our story, cause massive chaos throughout the world, eventually get defeated, and to know she is now permanently gone, leaves behind an incredible immersive atmosphere that I've never experienced before in any other game.

As a newer player to GW2, I would so love for LW1 to be brought back. In playing the expansion content, I have been quite lost as to who the characters are or the history that is being referenced, and reading the wiki doesn't clarify much. I would love to know more of the GW2 story, and I would love to be more invested in the expansion story content. Right now, I find it hard to want to play the story content when I have no clue what is going on, particularly because there was so much foundational content introduced with LW1.

@Das Albatross.5062 said:As a newer player to GW2, I would so love for LW1 to be brought back. In playing the expansion content, I have been quite lost as to who the characters are or the history that is being referenced, and reading the wiki doesn't clarify much. I would love to know more of the GW2 story, and I would love to be more invested in the expansion story content. Right now, I find it hard to want to play the story content when I have no clue what is going on, particularly because there was so much foundational content introduced with LW1.

Look at my earlier post, there's an excellent video of S1 (cheers to Dreamy). Pop some corn, grab a drink and watch :) S1 was very hectic and a wild ride with new content every 2 weeks or so. Very busy but as earlier poster mentioned, leave Scarlet dead :) Dev time would be better spent on new content.

I voted no. I am sorry to say that the amount of things I disliked of LS1 win - by far - over the amount of things I liked. So of course, I do not hope for it to return. Beside, as said by several already, if Anet has budget to invest in development, I would prefer them to work on a new content (Like Cantha for example...).