What Will Make for an Explorative and Rich Field/Overworld in ZWii?

[Hylian Pants]

As we all know, exploration is pretty much the foundation of the LoZ games we all know and love. We have fans begging for a massive overworld with the coming of Zelda Wii, partly to remedy an issue that they found in TP; Many feel that the huge field space in TP was "empty", "boring", and "lacking". In essence, its impressive expanse didn't deliver. I don't personally share this viewpoint, but I could see why some fans would have this opinion...

To me, it seems like a slightly ambiguous complaint...With the realistic possibility of another TP-sized Hyrule field on our hands, I ask, what exactly do you think will make for a truly enriching overworld? People say "exploration", but what do you envision yourself exploring? After all, a field is just that...an open landscape between a few locations. Besides the all too common secret caves with rupees, what would you add to your field experience to keep it from being boring and/or unimpressive and to put its size to use?

 

[Raven]

I'm sure the gameworld will be much larger than TP's Hyrule due to the increased storage of the Wii game discs. This game could easily be 3x larger than the last console title. so when it comes to exploring it's just a matter of how condensed you want the game to be, if we packed that 3x larger world into the area that TP covers it would be become a truely "deep" overworld packed with exploration. or they could space it out a bit more but still have lots to do, that's kind of what I'm leaning towards, make the game larger than TP's but not enough that it feels empty and bare like TP, it should still be filled with countless caves, paths, buildings, rivers and other scenery. an overall better game. Not just an OoT to MM, Like OoT to TP kind of leap. that's what we can expect in terms of improvements. a huge leap.

and honestly who said we would have so many fields again? for all we know this game could feature a new land. Or if this one does take place in Hyrule some of those fields could now be filled by a village or small a town. Just an idea, bur maybe we will have fields... lots and lots of fields...

 

[Xinnamin]

I've been thinking about the idea of the size of the overworld, and it occurred to me maybe it's time to stop expanding in just two dimensions. Instead of expanding out with just some big ol' fields with the odd caves or whatnot, why not expand up? Make some mountains and canyons and cliffside crevices and maybe some more structures like the City in the Sky. Rather than placing a bunch of towns on opposite sides of a field why not have cliffside residences and floating cities dotting the sky? I was thinking of this kind of overworld while thinking about the possibility of flight, and couldn't help but feel that being able to roam both fields and sky would make quite the amazing exploration experience. Don't build outward, build upward, and let the sky be the limit! Maybe even tunnel downward too and have some underground locales. Not sure how likely such expansion is, but by goodness I'd love to see it come true.

 

[OrlovYan]

Like said before I think that a big and rich overworld that you can do many things in it will be nice, I also think that random encounters will be great instead of enemies that respawn at the same spot like in TP and other zelda games, and also more hidden stuff in the overworld.

 

[Fahxy]

I like what Xinnamin said about expanding up. It is a good idea, and I think that I can complement by saying that we should expand down, too. I like the place in TP that you need to have the clawshot for and is like the goron mines. Also, I have a good idea to make people explore it more: eliminate warp points, and only let us use Epona to travel. People will be forced to look around, because that iis the only way to get where we will need to go. Or, have much fewer warp points, maybe only 3 or 4. That's my opinion.

 

[Master Kokiri 9]

No fancy transportation. Plain and simple. No fancy transportation. Epona and the Spirit Train as well as the SS Linebeck were fun, but they didn't allow for an overworld like the one in LoZ and in AlttP.

Plainly speaking, anything more than warps as transportation will make the overworld very hard to make rich and jam packed full of stuff.

So, no fancy transportation like Epona and add a few warps and that'd make it so much easier to achieve a good overworld like what we see in the 2D games.

 

[Link-182]

By not just making the field bigger but making EVERYTHING BIGGER! Death mountain in TP was the same size as in OoT as well as Zora's Domain, and zoras river was just a mini game, no exploration.
SO, bigger everything, NOT just field.

A variety in areas, so instead of a giant area that represents a field and looks basically like a grassy area from one side to the next, have an area that represents a field that has rolling green hills on one side with a valley farmland in the middle, to a wooded cluster, and have secret caves and hidden areas, and a lot of interesting characters with good sidequests.

Its the characters, secrets, and sidequests that really fill up the overworld, so have an abundance of them!

And the secret areas should all look different than the last, i hate seeing a secret spot to find its the same as the last secret spot but with different enemies.

 

[February Eve]

I was actually quite happy with the caves in TP, I just wish there had been more of them. The labyrinth-like one by Lake Hylia was one of my favorite places to explore. It would have been pretty neat to have had some that relied on dungeon items (like the spinner) or that could only be found by turning into a wolf, like the dig caverns.

That being said, I'd like a little more activity en route to other towns/areas. For some really weird reason I keep thinking that the middle of Hyrule field in TP would have been a good place for a zoo. (Nope, don't know why a zoo. Maybe just wish-fulfillment.) But anyway, have some hermits, or small tourist attractions, or even moblins hidden in caves as a callback to the original legend of zelda. Basically give you something to do to cause you to want to actually walk through the field instead of warp from place to place.

And similar to what Xinammin wants but on a smaller scale, I'd like to be able to climb trees, and not just on vines. That would add a ton of new hiding places right there (and having to fight an enemy on a narrow branch could be annoying but interesting.)

 

[MOTLEYlink]

I would like the overworld to be vast, with more small villages, and the citys like Castle Town to be larger and more in depth with the charictars actually doing something other thatn walking around...and I wan't to be able to ride Epona in Castle town.

 

[blackice_cc]

It seems like most people are using TP's field as an example, so: I'd like it if the field was about the same size as in TP, but had a lot more variance. As others have said, adding a vertical aspect would be awesome. Perhaps, as well as large structures such as towers, old castles, etc. they could have areas with large, rolling hills, valleys, crevices, and so on. But we can't just have plain old landscape; there needs to be things to do. Personally, I liked all of the caves and hidden areas in TP, although they all did seem to look about the same. The way they could improve that would be to make the caves a bit bigger; imagine that you're running around Hyrule Field, and you come upon a mountainous, rocky area. Low and behold, there's a small cave leading into the mountain, and when you enter, you find a huge, cavernous mini-dungeon. I think that would be pretty cool: having optional mini-dungeons always adds to any Zelda game. Also, they should give you better items in those caves, as opposed to a bunch of rupees, or a heart-piece (as awesome as heart pieces are).

They should also definitely keep Epona. As fun as running around on foot in the field is, when it's that massive, sometimes you need to get around a little quicker. Also, I don't think including Epona will take away from the exploration as long as they encourage you to get off and travel on foot occasionally (such as by adding in mini-dungeons throughout the field, as I said above; also, perhaps, since some of these mini-dungeons would be in rocky areas, Epona couldn't access them). Besides, Epona herself is just plain awesome. Something would be wrong if there was a huge field to run around in, but no horse.

As for warp points, sure, keep them, but make them few and far between. I think one in each province would have been better for TP, perhaps in the "key" areas, such as Kakariko in the Eldin province, Hyrule Castle in Lanayru (spelling?), the Twilight Mirror at the top of the Arbiter's Grounds in the desert, etc. If there are too many warp points, it's too easy to miss things.

Other than that, add some life to the fields. In TP all we had were random enemies roaming around; add in some wildlife (other than stupid golden bugs), perhaps some merchant caravans, travelers moving between towns, and so on. Speaking of towns, more of those would be good as well. Make them full of side-quests (like MM's Clock Town) too.

Also, the other day my friend (username of Fahxy actually) had a pretty interesting idea: make the field a kind of wilderness area, where you need to keep track of your supplies and stop out towns more often to restock on things like arrows, bombs, and all of that. Perhaps make it so that you can't find any bombs or arrows in the grass; just rupees, so that you actually have to frequent shops once in a while. Perhaps some of the merchant caravans (that I mentioned above) could also be areas where you can restock on supplies.

If ZW has all of that, I will be really, really excited (as if I'm not already =P).

 

[Fahxy]

I thank you for your gracious tribute to what I have said, Blackice. I would also like to add anotherr thing that we discussed: there needs to be a huge, unforgiving, cruel, MASSIVE sidequest. That is a suurefire way to get people out there and exploring. Oh, and I have witnessed the game with the world's largest overworld map. Play Secret of Mana. It's ridiculous. Blackice can back me up here...
Oh, and among some other ideas I had was this: with having to return to towns for supplies, you might use your house more often. Maybe you could store money and supplies there, and rest when you were hurt. There would be a stable for Epona, as well. Maybe there would be a fatigue thing for her, similar to health: She gets ttired from running around and carrying you. She also gets more tired when she gets hurt, buut you can replenish her when you go to a stable or by feeding her carrots. You could also get better saddles and blankets that are more comfortable for her and make her fatigue slower.