Walkthrough Suggestions?

[Caleb]

Hey guys! I came aboard the site a few months ago, and basically I'm in charge of designing all of the new content sections to make them easy to navigate and display the most amount of information.

Essentially, trying to turn these:
Minish Cap Walkthrough (http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda10Walkthrough02.php)
Ocarina of Time Walkthrough (http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda05Walkthrough08OLD.php)

Into this:
Phantom Hourglass Walkthrough (http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda12Walkthrough02.php)

I've been in the background organizing a lot of the pages you've been seeing now that are quite visually intensive and make a more in-depth guide experience. We're fairly set in stone for the Phantom Hourglass section for now, but I'll be moving onto Ocarina of Time to redo that entire section (just like I did for Majora's Mask).

Any suggestions to improve this new (Phantom Hourglass) guide style for the next section we tackle? Basically: "What would make these walkthroughs the easiest, most helpful and 'quick to find what you're really looking for'? The best!"

For example: one of the things I plan on implementing in this OoT Walkthrough is to make the images pop out with descriptions when you put your mouse over them, instead of clicking on them each individually to see the large version, as shown in the link below...

Temporary Link:
Image w/ Description Example (http://www.zeldadungeon.net/FloatTEST.php)

[mehzpants]

meh, I think they both work. I absolutely love that there are pictures.

[bobrocks95]

The image with pop-out description is a great idea. Makes it easier than reading the whole paragraph when you just need one small thing.

[linkman8]

I agree that the pop-out image idea was great. I'm afraid I don't have any ideas for any future designs.

[Caleb]

While we haven't "posted" (announced) it yet, the first two sections of the Ocarina of Time walkthrough are up that use this pop-up image script. I've also added some maps all kinds of scribbles on them. My goal with that is to make it so people need only glance up to get a better understanding of where they need to go as they read.

OoT Walkthrough - Chapter 1, Child's Play (http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda05Walkthrough01.php)
OoT Walkthrough - Chapter 2, Princess of Destiny (http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda05Walkthrough02.php)

[mehzpants]

I think I should mention that in the OoS walkthrough it constantly says rubies instead of rupees

[Caleb]

Haha, yea. I think Mases wrote that one a couple years ago, though I could be wrong about that. I plan on replacing the whole thing eventually (as I'm doing for OoT now).

[bobrocks95]

New walkthrough is great, but I noticed in the description of Gohma you use the word "Tatl". Don't you mean Navi? Or is it the name of the move (can't remember).

[Caleb]

Hmm, ya, I should change that. I used some of the same template I used for the Majora's Mask walkthrough. Thanks for noticing!

[bobrocks95]

I also notice (which just may have been a weird load) that with the first paragraph after Gohma's description (that starts with "When you begin the battle" or something like that) it will turn green whenever I put my mouse on it and show the picture that is to the right of it (the picture that shows Gohma's title underneath it). Again, may have just been a loading problem.

[Mases]

I really have no idea what you are talking about. The first image in Gohma's description on the right has her little title in it. When you put your mouse over, it will pop-up to show a larger version.

Does it do something else for you? Does it happen every single time, or just once or a few times? If it has only happened once or just a few times, than it is obviously a load issue on your behalf. If it is something that is consistantly wrong, let us know what kind of browser and version you use and we can look into it.

[bobrocks95]

Hm... it seems to now be consistently happening. The paragraph next to the picture, when I have my cursor on it, makes the picture pop-up, as well as putting my cursor on the picture doing the same thing. I'm using Mozilla Firefox version 2.0.0.11.

[Caleb]

Oh nice find dude! I forgot to add another </a> at the end of that image. *changes it* :D

[bobrocks95]

That's me, the master of random, small finds.

[bob]

when are you going to make a walkthrough for tp?

[Mases]

when are you going to make a walkthrough for tp?


That is quite a project, but I think I may take a shot at it over the summer. It's a huge game, and would be a huge walkthrough. We'll see.

[MiniMeMilo]

I haven't read through many of the walkthroughs yet. Although I'm going to begin pllaying the whole Zelda series over again eventually. Hopefully after mid-terms I'll find the time for it. I prefer completed the game without any guidance though, so I usually only look at heart piece guides, and stuff like that after I completed the main quest.

Actually I had looked at the Majora's Mask walkthrough, but simply because it was posted as an announcement. It looks great. I love how you made the maps and pictures with the text, not as boring to look at as many other walkthroughs are.

I was actually going to try to make my own walkthrough for some other games, like Banjo-Kazooie, which have nothing to do with Legend of Zelda at all. I'm getting a bit off-topic here, but, maybe you should add a sub-forum where users can submit their own walkthroughs and guides for any games they like. This would be pretty helpful for many of the users, and also give you guys ideas of how to improve yourv style if you see a well done one.
---------------------------
Ok, so I just looked through the LttP walkthrough a little bit, and noticed an error in the heart piece guide(http://www.zeldadungeon.net/Zelda03HeartContainers.php). Scroll down to number 22. It tells you to go to the north-west corner or the swamp, when actually it is the north-east corner. There are also several spelling mistakes such as "Life" where it should be "Lift," and "wit" should be spelled "with." Other than that, nothing else major.

[Caleb]

I was actually going to try to make my own walkthrough for some other games, like Banjo-Kazooie, which have nothing to do with Legend of Zelda at all. I'm getting a bit off-topic here, but, maybe you should add a sub-forum where users can submit their own walkthroughs and guides for any games they like. This would be pretty helpful for many of the users, and also give you guys ideas of how to improve yourv style if you see a well done one.

Zelda Dungeon is solely aimed at the Zelda series, same with these forums. Although it might be spiffy to do something like that, it would take effort to upkeep and create a system where fans could actually submit works into some sort of "album". Quite frankly, it would take TOO much time for us to do that when we could be making our own Official Guides, not to mention updating the site in general.

Even if we didn't go through the trouble of doing that, and fans just posted whole threads of their walkthroughs, it would end up being a jumble of incompletes and links to other sites. Lots of spam, and just random walkthroughs. The chances of someone looking in there and finding one that's actually better than something else they've seen is slim. While it's a nice idea, sites like GameFAQs.com are already well equipped to supply guide writers with a place to do just that.

This all may change if we get more staff members (in particular moderators and programmers in this case), but with Zelda Dungeon's current vision in mind and the amount of work involved for us here, it's not something we could do.

[Alder Dragon]

I absolutely love the pop-out images. You're doing a great job Caleb - this one is going to be a hit.

[firebunnies123]

yeah the pop up images makes a huge difference.


Yeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy for no loading!!!!!!!!