LS1 limitation question

What stops anet from creating some map instances with the ls1 content? Every map has their own instance, and if it gets full a new map opens, they could just create instances with ls1 in them -achievements included-. Any technical limitations which stops this?

@Verrier.5870 said:What stops anet from creating some map instances with the ls1 content? Every map has their own instance, and if it gets full a new map opens, they could just create instances with ls1 in them -achievements included-. Any technical limitations which stops this?

Time.

It is technically possible, but because Season 1 ran in the actual open-world maps instead of in instances like Season 2 onwards it would need to be converted to instances and that's not an automatic process, or even a quick manual process. Anet have said they'd need to essentially rebuild the entire thing and that would take nearly as long as making new content. So people would have to stop working on new content while they did this instead. And considering how many people complain about unacceptable 'content droughts' if a living story episode is a week late I can't imagine stopping or delaying everything new to bring back season 1 would be popular.

However I keep hoping it will be one of those things where some people at Anet are working on it when they have a few spare minutes in between other projects and eventually they'll get it to the point where the time needed to finish it is reasonable and they can persuade management to allow that (a bit like how SAB was created - a small team made most of it in their free time, then convinced the people in charge it could be an actual release). But that's a lot to ask and I have no reason to think it is happening, it's just the only way I can see us ever getting season 1 back.

@Verrier.5870 said:What stops anet from creating some map instances with the ls1 content? Every map has their own instance, and if it gets full a new map opens, they could just create instances with ls1 in them -achievements included-. Any technical limitations which stops this?

The problem is they used older tools to make S1 content, tools that no longer exist, and probably lots of those that knew how to use them aren't even with the company anymore, or moved to different parts of it. Even dialogue files (someone would assume those are easy) will need to be re-created because they store them in a different format now.

They can't even re-create the short/tiny instances where you first meet Braham and Rox (that only contain some pieces of dialogue) so it stands to reason that making something much bigger (S1-changed maps) would be even harder.

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Verrier.5870 said:What stops anet from creating some map instances with the ls1 content? Every map has their own instance, and if it gets full a new map opens, they could just create instances with ls1 in them -achievements included-. Any technical limitations which stops this?

This is pretty much the reason and one given by the devs themselves. Since they'd need to rebuild anyway, they might as well just re-do it as the story journal version.

Pretty certain that LS1 is now gone forever in either form though

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Verrier.5870 said:What stops anet from creating some map instances with the ls1 content? Every map has their own instance, and if it gets full a new map opens, they could just create instances with ls1 in them -achievements included-. Any technical limitations which stops this?

I don't mean instances like ls2, I meant instances as in the entire map. Like we have kessex hill now, there would be a kessex hill with the ls1 version.

Not really sensible. Many of the LS1 events (scarlet invasions, Marionette) were balanced around an assumption you would have a full or near full map to do them. Something that is just unrealistic nowadays.For example, it would be plain impossible to do Marionette with less than 25 players (5 paths, 5 platforms per path, one platform gets no players, phase fails), and even then you'd probably need more than one player per platform (for example, necessary for the first platform boss, that cannot be damaged from the front).

So, not only a new map instance, but also rebalancing of all the events to cover for the fact that it'd no longer be the 2-week long content gathering all players in one spot.