Hello Guest, please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
Login with username, password and session length.

Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down

Author Topic: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter  (Read 12890 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #20 on: October 26, 2013, 04:59:25 am »
  • *
  • Reputation: +12/-2
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 4849
Now, if you really wanted to integrate the entire thief Link aspect of the game:

During the battle between the Shiekah and Gerudo, Link shouldn't be spotted.  The player could receive a rating or something from the Hero or it could affect the battlefield.

Actually, the idea of a time limit because of the battle going on would probably be the best way to handle something like that.  Battles do not go on for an infinite time frame.  Perhaps, the player should be encouraged to sneak around(this can be done with well placed boulders, trees, etc) so as to be able to reach and complete the shrine within the time limit.  Otherwise, leaving the shrine/temple could be difficult depending on which side won the battle.

I think it adds an interesting aspect to the story which provides three different endings to the scenario and in-effect could open up multiple endings depending on which side won, regardless if you get the cog or not.

Just letting my brain work, I guess.  :/ 
Logged
  • Super Fan Gamers!
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #21 on: October 26, 2013, 01:36:51 pm »
  • It's just Max.
  • *
  • Reputation: +18/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 1355
Steve, I just want you to know that since you've had such a consistent avatar for so long,  I imagine you as Sephiroth sitting behind a desk programming all day. It's kinda a strange mind picture, but anyway...


A couple things I was thinking about for this bit of plot:

Maybe changing "Link meets the Gerudo" to "Link is captured by the Gerudo". This way, their hostile and defensive personality is initially shown, but we quickly sympathize with them when they explain their situation and we visit their settlement.

After Link brings the arrows, I don't know why they'd let him keep them. So I was thinking something like this: after Link gets the arrows, the Gerudo take them and start preparing to go. Link has a few tasks to assist in the preparations, the last of which is to collect n number of things, maybe the keys to the storehouses where the catapults or some other weapons are stored, or telescopes or something else- however, only n-1 are readily available. The last one can only be found by picking the lock of high-ranking Gerudo's personal treasure chest. Inside, Link finds the last item, but also the note. It just seemed a bit weird and difficult to communicate that Link "decided to test himself". Maybe if there were some other way of getting Link to decide this, but with outside influence, since Link can't talk, we need somebody to tell him to get a hold of this letter, or for it to happen by accident.

Anyway, either way, I feel like having Link help prepare for the attack might be good, because it could introduce some plot stuff as he explores the Gerudo settlement.

Then when Link chases the Gerudo to the Shiekah fortress, all the Gerudo would have fire and ice arrows, because the Gerudo reverse engineered them somehow. Maybe this isn't an important plot bit, but I was thinking that Link was kind of like Prometheus here, bringing fire down to men. Then men, or in this case women because they're Gerudo, would have the fire and ice arrows to do as they pleased.

So then when Link arrives at the scene, he would have to grab some fire and ice arrows off a Gerudo supply cart or something. I guess gameplay wise, it might be better if Link kept them the whole time, though. Plus, the player would get comfortable with using them while helping prepare the Gerudo attack.

So then also, I was thinking that when he got to the Shiekah fortress, he would have to battle Abigail. Link first has to chase Abigail through the battle, which would be a cool way to keep the time the player is going through the conflict to a minimum, add even more urgency to the situation, and keep link's route linear. Link would be timed in his to make sure he followed her before a wall collapses, or to get up a ladder before it catches fire, etc.. Then when he catches up, it would be a cool battle above the conflict, perhaps with parts of the battle interrupting Link and Abigail's.

I think this would kind of be an alternative to having a timed stealth component. It'd still be timed, but more like the race against Dampè in ocarina of time, but instead of doors randomly closing, there'd be a big battle evolving around you and affecting the landscape.

Anyway, I think this bit of the game is coming together really nicely, it's exciting.
Logged
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #22 on: October 26, 2013, 02:25:03 pm »
  • Doesn't afraid of anything
  • *
  • Reputation: +42/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 7001
I like both of your ideas here!  I think the addition of sneaking around the battle will be great and Max's modifications are spot on.  I'd be more than ok with using these!

So with that, I think we can move on to what happens after the temple is finished.

Link defeats the boss, releasing the curse/seal/whatevs on the temple.  In the depths of the temple, 5 shiekah warriors are awakened (they were sealed due to the curse).  They all exit the temple to find the battle outside still going on.  The 5 warriors step forward to enter the battle (cue power rangers theme? LOL).  They quickly defeat the Gerudo and send them running back to the desert.  In a bit of a twist for the Gerudo, a seal is placed on the desert by the Shiekah warriors, keeping them from escaping again.

The Shiekah now aware that something is wrong in Hyrule, they now trust Link for helping them and reward him with the final cog.

Thoughts, opinions, changes?  If we're good here, we can move onto Chapter 6.
Logged



i love big weenies and i cannot lie
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #23 on: October 27, 2013, 10:17:52 pm »
  • It's just Max.
  • *
  • Reputation: +18/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 1355
Cool, but how do these ideas work with each other? There's a timed deadline thing either way, that's for sure. But theforeshadower was thinking of sneaking around, avoiding the battle, while I was thinking mad dash right through the thick of the battle, with the carnage affecting your path as you're hot on Abigail's heels (then if you didn't catch her, it'd do that like doddlydoodlydo black start over screen like when racing Dampe in OOT). I think both could work well, although my personal preference is for a mad dash, because the frantic pacing fits better with a battle in my opinion than a careful, avoid people stealth. I don't think many people would particularly notice some kid sneaking around when there's a huge battle going on anyway, their attention is probably on "woah this Gerudo is trying to kill me hold on a second!"

I think having a different outcome could be awesome, though, based on decisions you could make while chasing Abigail. Like, she'd run across a bridge, which might collapse, so you could either push a Gerudo out of the way to get through, or shoot a fire arrow at a shiekah blockade to burn it out of your way. At the end of the chase sequence, the game would tally up which side you've assisted more, and add something either way. That's a really sweet idea, and it'd take a lot of careful design, but would pay off to be probably one of the most epic moments in the game, dynamically sprinting through a battle evolving around you.


Anyway, about the ending of the dungeon, I feel like that's a little discontinuitous. I mean, where did these 5 warriors come from? Why haven't we heard of them before? It just seems a little deus-ex-machina to me. And then the part about the seal seems a little off too- I mean, the Gerudo obviously aren't good, but we've also shown that they're the ones being oppressed by the shiekah. I think the ending needs to, in typical happy ending style, give them a peaceful resolution instead of "this side wins."

I remember one idea we had before was that Link completes the dungeon, slays the beast, and finds the cog. He then leaves the Shiekah dungeon, but it pursued by Shiekah warriors. He seems to lose them, and heads back to Hyrule castle to meet Ganon. Unfortunately, shiekah warriors tracked him, and a showdown between the warriors vs. Link and Ganon takes place. At the end of this conflict, Zelda and Faron arrive on the scene, the truth about Ganon comes out. Link sides with Faron, but Ganon takes the cogs and flees.

We might have had other ideas, but I just remember this one :p

I'd prefer it to Link siding with the shiekah because it's less deus ex machina esque, and allows the ambiguous ending of the Shiekah vs Gerudo conflict to carry into the next part of the game, which is really just a continuation of it. Who IS right, Ganon or the Hylians? I mean, everybody's somewhat in the wrong, and I think that shade of grey kind of defines this game, rather than good guys vs. bad guys. I also thought Link battling on a team with Ganon would be kinda bad-ass.

Any other ending ideas, though?
Logged
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #24 on: October 28, 2013, 09:42:06 pm »
  • Doesn't afraid of anything
  • *
  • Reputation: +42/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 7001
Yea, I kinda pulled the end sequence out of my ass xD

It was my attempt at tying up the battle that the player runs through before hand.  It has to end somehow but having the player come out to see it has concluded seems a little anti climactic.  It should somehow connect with the player finishing the dungeon.

The Shiekah pursuing Link is totally fine as it's unrelated to the battle ending.
Logged



i love big weenies and i cannot lie
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #25 on: October 30, 2013, 06:18:03 am »
  • It's just Max.
  • *
  • Reputation: +18/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 1355
Hmm, I'd actually kinda thought that the important part of the battle wasn't the battle itself, but the fact that both sides were kinda wrong, kinda right, and the resulting ambiguous carnage was kinda Link's fault for facilitating. And the player would be going into the dungeon with a battle starting up, both sides fighting. Then they'd come out to see the Shiekah city is suddenly now destroyed, both sides have taken heavy losses.

I kinda thought that the lapse in entering the dungeon vs exiting allows us to show the extremes of the battle, and it's more of a shock when the player is like, holy crap, this was a beautiful temple before I went in, now it's half destroyed and the people who lived here are all missing. Seemed more shocking to me than watching the progress unfold.

We could probably get the best of both worlds, though. Link enters the temple in the heat of the battle as it's starting. If the player wants to leave the temple partway through, the only exit doesn't go back into the battlefield, and seeing what happened will be impossible until the player completes the dungeon. Then once the player beats the boss and gets the cog, they'll be taken back out into he Shiekah city and see the aftermath of the battle- a smoky ruin of a once grand landscape, everything's destroyed and everyone has lost in some way or another, and Link is one of the responsible parties. And what's more, he didn't even try to stop the fighting, he just used it to his advantage to steal a cog.

However, the battle isn't quite over. Depending on which side Link helped out more before the dungeon, there will be a quick scene of that side "winning". If it's the Shiekah, they have Abigail tied up and they throw her in a cell, and the remaining Gerudo are gathered up to be marched back to the desert. If the Gerudo "won", then you'll see the Shiekah elders surrendering to Abigail, and being marched into their own cells by the Gerudo. Link views this from a height at the temple's entrance and can't interact with this, though. When the scene is over, however, a small squad of surviving Shiekah see Link, and start chasing him. Link has to escape from Death Valley, at which point it appears he's lost the Shiekah.

He goes back to Hyrule castle and climbs to the balcony of Ganon's quarters, where he is going to hand over the cogs, but those Shiekah catch up to him. They demand the cog back, and of course Ganon refuses, and a fight happens, where Link and Ganon work together to incapacitate the Shiekah.


What about this way of combining them? I don't really think the scenes of either side "winning" are as good as they could fully get to, but I'm a lil' tired right now to even proofread myself, so we can always alter everything.
Logged
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #26 on: October 30, 2013, 02:05:05 pm »
  • Doesn't afraid of anything
  • *
  • Reputation: +42/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 7001
Alrighty, I can agree that neither side should win.  As for one side "winning", how will we determine that?  If Link is going to chase Abigail, then what is the condition for one side being "victorious?"  Maybe we can take a count of everyone Link knocks out on the way and whichever side has more casualties will be the loser.  We can shove npcs in Link's path while he's chasing and can have the option of knocking them out or bypassing them.

As for leaving the temple, like you said, we'll need another exit.  Additionally, we'll need to make sure the player can't enter the Valley of Death again.  They need to enter the temple again from the alternative exit.  Maybe we can put a few Gerudo or Shiekah guards at the entrance to the Valley and they'll tell Link he can't enter at this time.
Logged



i love big weenies and i cannot lie
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #27 on: October 30, 2013, 05:29:52 pm »
  • It's just Max.
  • *
  • Reputation: +18/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 1355
One think I just realized is- why is Link even chasing Abigail? One idea is perhaps Link knows from the letter he stole that Abigail is going to kill the Shiekah elder, the wisest of their leaders. Link, feeling guilty that he got the Gerudo the arrows to get to this point, goes to stop her. When he arrives on the scene, she is just about to depart from her troops to find him herself, and Link chases her.

Then, for victory, this is what I was thinking:

As you're chasing Abigail, for example, she'd run across a bridge, which might collapse, so you have two paths to continue after her, you could knock out a Gerudo who's firing arrows at some Shiekah and cross the bridge she was guarding, or shoot a fire arrow at a shiekah blockade to burn it out of your way. At the end of the chase sequence, the game would tally up which side you've assisted more.

Then, the end of the chase would be altered either way. You catch up to Abigail as she finds the Shiekah elder? If you helped more Gerudo, then the elder will call upon his body guards, and Abigail will say, ha, it seems they've busy losing the battle. Or in the other case, the elder will say, oh so you came alone? Or did all your reinforcements lose to my warriors? Either way, they'll start to fight, and Abigail will shoot a fire arrow Link's way, burning down the path to get to them to interfere.

Link will have only one other path to take, and down it lies the entrance to the temple, and Seere guarding it. He says his line about "you could bring salvation or Hyrule- or damnation, and pushes Link into the temple and seals the entrance. More on how the entering will work in a minute.

Then when Link beats the boss and comes back out of the temple, Seere is standing at the temple's entrance, looking down on the battlefield. Whoever's side you helped more, that leader (Abigail or the elder) has just defeated the other in battle. Their second-in-command is talking to them. Seere explains the situation to Link:

[Whichever] has been defeated, but both sides suffered so much loss that the Shiekah can't hold the desert pass, but the Gerudo can't advance anymore and are retreating. The Shiekah city/fortress is in ruins. Seere says something like "I don't blame you for this, you just added a spark into years and years of kindling. In fact, I'm still not sure whether you're destroying Hyrule or bringing about the healing we've been needing for ages. But that's just me- these guys, they definitely think you're to blame." And several Shiekah warriors jump into the scene. Link has to escape the ruined Shiekah fortress to lose them.


So that's my opinion that the choices you make should only alter the plot slightly. Anyway, about the temple's entrances, I think we need even more background.

The Shiekah's job is to keep the Gerudo out. I imagine they do this by occupying the only pass in/out of the desert. Perhaps there are secret ways only Link can take, but the Gerudo people can't leave unless they go through this Shiekah fort. I watched Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood recently, and if you're familiar, it's a concept like Briggs fortress in my imagination.

Link isn't even thinking about going past this fortress into the desert when he goes to the Sheikah fortress to find the cog, but due to interference from the Hero's Ghost, link finds his way into the desert. As he comes back with the Gerudo's attack force with assistance from the fire and ice arrows, he comes into the fortress, which also guards the entrance to the Shiekah temple.

So, he's sealed into the Shiekah temple, along with the monster that's been creeping around in there forever. The monster attacks Link shortly after Link enters the dungeon, and in trying to escape, Link finds a secret exit out of the dungeon, which leads to the Hyrule side of the fortress. The only way back into the fortress is through this secret passage, and you can't even get back into the fortress, because the main entrance to the dungeon is sealed.

Does that make sense?
Logged
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #28 on: November 03, 2013, 08:51:54 pm »
  • Doesn't afraid of anything
  • *
  • Reputation: +42/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 7001
Yea, the letter would state what Abigail is up to.

So, we'll have various "Events" at points throughout the chase which the player will be given an option to help one side or the other (such as the bridge example).

The escape from the fortress after the temple could be interesting too.  I see this as being the most difficult challenge to Link's thief abilities.  The twist on it will be the fact that the Shiekah are chasing you.

Now one other issue:  If the temple has a secret exit, why is it that the boss who has been sealed inside hasn't been able to use this exit?  Maybe the seal besides physically keeping the doors shut, also barriers magically around the outside of the temple (kind of like the seal around Hyrule Castle that Ganon placed in Wind Waker).  Link exits the physical boundaries of the temple through the secret exit, but needs to break the magic part temporarily by maybe using a fire or ice arrow on it?  It could just create a hole in it that Link can pass through and then it repairs itself.
Logged



i love big weenies and i cannot lie
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #29 on: November 04, 2013, 04:19:05 pm »
  • It's just Max.
  • *
  • Reputation: +18/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 1355
Yeah, good catch, I forgot about the fact that obviously the boss could just leave if there were another exit >.<
Shooting the arrows is a good plan, you'd have to hit something (or maybe two statues or whatever) with both arrows to open up a secret door, which only stays open for a short time. There's a similar mechanism on the other side of the door for when Link wants to go back in, 'cause he obviously can't go around to go in the main entrance.

So I guess we should put the escape from the Shiekah warriors and then confrontation with them and Ganon in the next chapter, which would be the last one before the epilogue?
Logged
Re: Story Pass: Fifth Chapter
« Reply #30 on: November 04, 2013, 07:20:22 pm »
  • Doesn't afraid of anything
  • *
  • Reputation: +42/-0
  • Offline Offline
  • Gender: Male
  • Posts: 7001
Yup!  So, I guess that means this chapter is finished!

Quote
I imagine you as Sephiroth sitting behind a desk programming all day.

Dammit, my secrets out! :P
Logged



i love big weenies and i cannot lie
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up

 


Contact Us | Legal | Advertise Here
2013 © ZFGC, All Rights Reserved



Page created in 0.067 seconds with 56 queries.

anything