I'm not hugely surprised. I do think Nintendo is missing out on one heck of an opportunity by opting out of multiplayer functions, however. I've mentioned the possibilities before, but Zelda's formula and gameplay lends itself hugely to all kinds of multiplayer scenarios. I hope to see such scenarios in the future eventually; perhaps Zelda is "meant to be played alone," but that does not mean it's the only way to play Zelda.
I like the idea of Tingle Bottles and whatnot, and I've mentioned the idea of leaving marks or clues for other players to find, which is sort of similar to this. My concern so far is that you'll either get complete freedom to write what you want (expect lots of innuendo) or the infamous Pokemon approach of giving you a small handful of irrelevant words to choose from. Even then, what would I want to write and send to other players? Suppose the game really is filled with a ton of secrets and hidden items. Would I really rely on other people to tell me where those things are? Would I even want them to? In fact, it seems to me the best use of the Tingle Bottle would be in supplement to actual multiplayer: "I've left a surprise for you in the cave next to the big waterfall. Not telling what it is, but you might want to come heavily armed." Follow the directions, kill the baddies, and bam, find a treasure hoard left by a generous player (perhaps in exchange for some sort of accumulative point system). But this relies on actual multiplayer implications and not just random messages lying around. I look forward to where Nintendo goes with this from here, which hopefully includes genuine multiplayer at some point.
