Breath of the Wild Warping and Environmental Presence

[Locke]

First, read this: Look Before you Warp
My article on WW's and SS's overworlds is also relevant: Journeys Through Sea and Sky: Environmental Presence

So, Zelda Wii U promises an "open world", whatever they mean by that. Aonuma specifically emphasized the ability to enter an area from several different directions. So what if one of those directions is--not a direction of space but a direction of flow--warping? Wilson concedes that warping in WW might be an appropriate balance between environmental presence and goal-oriented gameplay. But with the design philosophy of Zelda Wii U centered so much on its exploration-rich overworld, would that vision be compromised too much by the inclusion of warping? Or is the space of flow still important enough to not allow it to be broken up by such a vast space of place? What's the right balance here? If there should be some form of warping, how should it be done?

I can't answer this yet, as I don't know what kind of flow the game will have. Daily tasks were mentioned, which suggests that travelling around every day to complete these tasks might become tedious, in which case warping would be welcome. On the other hand, I think I'd rather have anything that makes travelling tedious removed so such a compromise doesn't have to be made.

Ideally, I'd be forced to travel everywhere, but I could choose to take different routes, and the environments would change (or something about me will change how I see them - such as when I obtain a new item that opens up new opportunities for interaction) as the game progresses.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

Hmm... this is an interesting thread Locke, although like you've said its hard to answer since we currently don't know much about the game. Putting emphasis on warping definitily could make the game linear in ways, the whole point of the overworld is to travel in the case of Zelda Wii U, the thing is execluding warping of some sort can become annoying, sometimes getting to a place fast is a good thing. The way I see it is they need to make traveling the overworld appealing, this way people will go travel it instead of always warping around. They could do this by implementing that a lot of sidequests be accessed in the overworld which promotes travel, they can also set up a sort of bird statue system like from Skyward Sword were you must travel on foot, or horse, find a statue, activate it, and then once its activated you can warp to it. The game can start out with a few statues already preset to warp to right from the start, but in order to use others statues you must travel out and activate them. Good idea, or bad? I realise it could become tedious to travel around constantley looking for statues or something to activate to warp to in the future, but its all I can think of... I'm having trouble thinking today for some reason, if I come up with anything else I'll be sure to share it, but right now this is all I got.

 

[Locke]

Actually thinking about warp mechanics in previous games, I think the Lost Woods in OoT was a good way to introduce expedited travel without sacrificing the sense of place like choosing warp points on a map does. The conduits are built into the environment and have presence of their own. It's like, as I suggested in the OP, choosing a different route - one which happens to be (impossibly) shorter than the alternatives. The transitions are nearly (as much as the technology would allow) seamless. If, as Aonuma explained, the "puzzle" element of the game is pronounced in planning your routes, then the existence of such "shortcuts" which are actually part of a continuous environment would add interesting complexity to those decisions.

The Deku Scrubs from FSA come to mind......

[W]e're trying to build an underground road that will let us go anywhere...
Soon, Lord Ganon's power will change all of Hyrule's forests into Lost Woods! Once that happens, we'll be able to travel freely!

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

Actually thinking about warp mechanics in previous games, I think the Lost Woods in OoT was a good way to introduce expedited travel without sacrificing the sense of place like choosing warp points on a map does. The conduits are built into the environment and have presence of their own. It's like, as I suggested in the OP, choosing a different route - one which happens to be (impossibly) shorter than the alternatives. The transitions are nearly (as much as the technology would allow) seamless. If, as Aonuma explained, the "puzzle" element of the game is pronounced in planning your routes, then the existence of such "shortcuts" which are actually part of a continuous environment would add interesting complexity to those decisions.

The Deku Scrubs from FSA come to mind......

[W]e're trying to build an underground road that will let us go anywhere...
Soon, Lord Ganon's power will change all of Hyrule's forests into Lost Woods! Once that happens, we'll be able to travel freely!

So a more modern version would be like you two paths, one leads up into a mountain, the other leads you around the mountain, the shorter path could be maybe going over the mountain, the longer path would be going around. You must choose which route to take so in a way its a puzzle because your planning routes. Of course this isn't continuous, one thing that comes to my mind is the mountain area from the AoL were you have to find different routes through those caves some paths lead to dead ends, others are faster than other routes, some are shorter, its a puzzle in a continuous enviroment in a sense, right?

 

[Justac00lguy]

Warping has always been convenient in my opinion, mainly due to the fact that after I've seen a place and done all there is to do and see, it offers little to me. Any motivation I would have to treck through this area again is lost because it's now too familiar with no sense of discovery - this is where warping becomes an essential mechanic.

Although I see where you're coming from and the sample piece you linked. "It's more about the journey than the destination" - this quote should be considered when creating an open world game based around exploration. I'd like to reference one of my all time favourite games (which happens to be giant open world) and that's Fallout 4. This game has hundreds of locations scattered in the world and each location becomes a warp point when you discover it. Warping is also available at any time (except for when in combat or when you're carrying too many items). So in a way, warping gets taken for granted; however I find myself, as do many others fans too, taking the long route as it's much more rewarding. Random encounters with strangers, different routes leading to new locations/discoveries, earning XP from defeating enemies and the ever changing atmosphere.

The reason why I'm referencing that game is that it shows just how to make an open world exciting even when you have the option to fast travel, possibly saving multiple minutes. In previous Zelda games, worlds are linear and the journey is the same everytime around making things boring and receptive to a lot of people. You should add more depth to the world, make it nonlinear (hopefully Anoumas quite quote about "accessing from different directions" relates to this), and make the journey filled with things to keep you going: tons of side quests, locations, lots of hidden items, enemies etc.

There's so many ways for Nintendo to go with this open world concept, which is an exciting prospect. Whether teleporting will be a main feature or not, if they do concentrate on making the overworld filled with content and things to do then I know which route I'll be taking.