OFFICIAL LEGEND OF ZELDA TIMELINE REVEALED

[dat shit cray]

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

So the gameplay makes it stick out. I think that was my point.

That's not what I said.

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

If creating an engaging single player experience is so hard, why is it that most important FPSes in history have done it on a single player campaign with minimal story?

Perhaps I mixed up the concepts of "good story" and "good writing" a little bit. However, most developers skimp out on the single player portions of FPS because it has become a mainly multiplayer genre. But even with that being the case there are some shining examples of games that manage to have both a great single player campaign as well as great multiplayer. Call of Duty 4 comes to mind. The single player campaign is very well developed, not as a great story, but by creating distinct personalities through which the SAS and the Marines operate. The multiplayer is fun because it's got some new twists that keep in interesting. But the main point is that most people buy FPSes for the multiplayer, and the single player campaign is something to keep you entertained on the side. Whereas on the other hand:

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

Or even a story based game, I can't think of a single person who actually used the multiplayer features in Final Fantasy 6.

Final Fantasy 6 had multiplayer features? Non-MMO RPGs are by and large a single-player genre, and any multiplayer features are to extend the replayability of the game, with exception of, say, Pokemon, where the multiplayer features have become increasingly incorporated into the game. Either way, it doesn't seem that flabbergasting to me that FPS developers skimp out on the single-player and RPG developers skimp out/don't include multiplayer.

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

I don't know. Half Life 2's level design is pretty good, but it's just like HL1 in some aspects. Oh look, incredibly slow moving elevator. I'll bet anything something's going to show up and try to chew my brains out while I wait for it. Oh look! another physics puzzle. You know what, I'll give you credit on Portal, at least it made Physics puzzles entertaining.

Physics puzzles weren't stale when HL2 was released. That's the point. When you come up with something great, people emulate it. HL2 was one of the first games to use a physics engine as gameplay.

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

Sometimes a lack of variation is what makes a game great. Tetris wouldn't be popular if it wasn't repetitive, same goes for, oh, every puzzle game ever. Panel de Pon wouldn't have fan circles, Nintendo wouldn't re-release Dr. Mario every year, and nobody would organize bricks of 4 squares in a 10x20 container if it wasn't for the fact that these games NEVER CHANGE.

These are all puzzle games. You just switched genres again. FPS thrives off of variation, puzzle games do not.

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

I'm arguing that good gameplay makes the game, I'm not arguing that story doesn't make it better. However, Given a game praised for its story (Like, Fallout 3) versus a game praised for rock solid gameplay (like, Doom) I'm going to look at the bigger picture here. Fallout 3 has a good story, And thankfully, it has good gameplay to fill in all the bits in between it. But what if it didn't? Good story doesn't mean shit if you don't have a solid gameplay experience to build it on.

I think maybe another thing that we're conflicted on here is the fact that you can like games based on either aspect, gameplay or story. It depends on whether or not it's a gameplay-driven game or story-driven game. However, to use your examples, if you're remembering Fallout 3 for its gameplay, then it has failed to accomplish its goal as a story-driven game. If you're remembering Doom for its story, well, frankly, you're retarded. What we disagree on is whether or not story-based games or gameplay-based games leave the longest lasting impact, and for that I have to say story-based games. The way games play has evolved so much over the years, and is trend-driven. While that happens to stories too, good stories linger. A good story in the past should still be entertaining in the present. The entertainment is derived by the story's own merits and not due to other factors, namely, nostalgia.
The only thing DOOM has going for it now is nostalgia. Much better games that have progressed the genre of First Person Shooters have come and gone, meaning the only reason to play DOOM at this point in time is to relive the days when it was the best FPS available. So if you didn't play DOOM at the peak of its popularity, you've missed out. Yet, games like Fallout 1 and 2 remain as entertaining as they were the day they came out. Despite intolerably slow gameplay and somewhat boring graphics, the atmosphere and story still make it a game worth playing.

[dieKatze88]

Originally Posted by Irob

That's not what I said.

Perhaps I mixed up the concepts of "good story" and "good writing" a little bit. However, most developers skimp out on the single player portions of FPS because it has become a mainly multiplayer genre. But even with that being the case there are some shining examples of games that manage to have both a great single player campaign as well as great multiplayer. Call of Duty 4 comes to mind. The single player campaign is very well developed, not as a great story, but by creating distinct personalities through which the SAS and the Marines operate. The multiplayer is fun because it's got some new twists that keep in interesting. But the main point is that most people buy FPSes for the multiplayer, and the single player campaign is something to keep you entertained on the side. Whereas on the other hand:

However, games with great writing with poor implementations still fail, Half Life 2 lets you walk away from anything that actually explains anything 95% of the time. It doesn't make the writing suck, but it does make the presentation bad. FPS's with good writing are hard to come by because tieing people down is annoying in the FPS genre.

Then why do we buy portal? Portal won how many awards and it is an FPS with no multiplayer. Although, Left 4 Dead proves your point. Its a horribly written game and it has multiplayer only.

Originally Posted by Irob

Final Fantasy 6 had multiplayer features? Non-MMO RPGs are by and large a single-player genre, and any multiplayer features are to extend the replayability of the game, with exception of, say, Pokemon, where the multiplayer features have become increasingly incorporated into the game. Either way, it doesn't seem that flabbergasting to me that FPS developers skimp out on the single-player and RPG developers skimp out/don't include multiplayer.

Sure does. You can play with a friend controlling certian characters. And yeah, and theres no good reason for it. My friend and I are pretty pissed that a games with writing that are actually good have no way of experiencing it together. Ever watch someone else play an RPG? Its like watching powerpoint - The movie.

Originally Posted by Irob

Physics puzzles weren't stale when HL2 was released. That's the point. When you come up with something great, people emulate it. HL2 was one of the first games to use a physics engine as gameplay.

So? Over use shows how bad the design is in retrospect. If you want a game to be truly remembered than you can't base it only on what it did when it came out. Its the number one reason I think Metacritic is flawed, If Half Life 2 is still the best game in 2010, then we've failed as an industry, and as consumers of the products that industry makes.

Originally Posted by Irob

These are all puzzle games. You just switched genres again. FPS thrives off of variation, puzzle games do not.

OK, A lack of variation in FPSes, see Half Life 2 now. Yeah, game was great then, now its played out. Team Fortress is driven mostly by its players for its innovation. Anyone remember placing a sentry gun on the intelligence table in 2fort? How many people still do that now? That game keeps its self fresh.

Better yet, Quake 3 is STILL the leading provider of deathmatch to people who want to compete on a higher level. So badly that they had to remake Quake 3 to run in a web browser.

Originally Posted by Irob

I think maybe another thing that we're conflicted on here is the fact that you can like games based on either aspect, gameplay or story. It depends on whether or not it's a gameplay-driven game or story-driven game. However, to use your examples, if you're remembering Fallout 3 for its gameplay, then it has failed to accomplish its goal as a story-driven game. If you're remembering Doom for its story, well, frankly, you're retarded. What we disagree on is whether or not story-based games or gameplay-based games leave the longest lasting impact, and for that I have to say story-based games. The way games play has evolved so much over the years, and is trend-driven. While that happens to stories too, good stories linger. A good story in the past should still be entertaining in the present. The entertainment is derived by the story's own merits and not due to other factors, namely, nostalgia.
The only thing DOOM has going for it now is nostalgia. Much better games that have progressed the genre of First Person Shooters have come and gone, meaning the only reason to play DOOM at this point in time is to relive the days when it was the best FPS available. So if you didn't play DOOM at the peak of its popularity, you've missed out. Yet, games like Fallout 1 and 2 remain as entertaining as they were the day they came out. Despite intolerably slow gameplay and somewhat boring graphics, the atmosphere and story still make it a game worth playing.

Fallout 3 will be remembered for its story mostly, which is a shame because the gameplay has more variation to it than any other game I've played in a long time. It has that Super Paper Mario feel of being able to press a button and have an entirely different Genre of game right there, appear, before you.

If Doom only has nostalgia going for it, then why are people still playing it as a sport? and honestly, if you think that's all doom has going for it, you need to actually play Wolf3d and Doom again, because you can't tell me that the level design of those games can be beaten out by yet another Call of Duty game. Or worse yet, most of the levels of Halo.

[dat shit cray]

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

So? Over use shows how bad the design is in retrospect. If you want a game to be truly remembered than you can't base it only on what it did when it came out. Its the number one reason I think Metacritic is flawed, If Half Life 2 is still the best game in 2010, then we've failed as an industry, and as consumers of the products that industry makes.

I think that Half-Life 2 getting included in this conversation is somewhat detrimental to my point. I don't laud it for its great story, I just happen to think that it's above TF2 in my rankings of Valve products. It came in as a part of a different argument and by circumstance it got included into the one we're having right now.

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

OK, A lack of variation in FPSes, see Half Life 2 now. Yeah, game was great then, now its played out.

Exactly. Gameplay innovations can only last for so long until something new and better comes out. It would be senseless to electively play Pong over, say, Wii Sports Tennis. The reason that this isn't always true is because of a) nostalgia and b) competition. Which you sum up nicely here:

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

If Doom only has nostalgia going for it, then why are people still playing it as a sport? and honestly, if you think that's all doom has going for it, you need to actually play Wolf3d and Doom again, because you can't tell me that the level design of those games can be beaten out by yet another Call of Duty game. Or worse yet, most of the levels of Halo.

The reason people play DOOM and other old games (such as Counter-Strike 1.6) competitively is because it's easier to get good and an old and established game rather than a new one. It's not even guaranteed that a game is going to get any competitive play unless it's branded as a competeitive game, and to do that, you have to rely on gameplay modes that started it all. Deathmatch, capture the flag, etc. There are many games that have done DOOM better than DOOM, but competitions don't necessarily rely on the quality of the game, just the established competitive community. It follows that people will continue to play older games competitively because you get better if you play it more, and the more attached you become to the said game.
On another note, neither Call of Duty nor Halo are considered the pinnacle of FPS level design so for Wolf3D and DOOM to have better level design than both isn't that much of a feat. Increasingly advanced physics and graphics engines permit for much better level design than was allowed in the days of DOOM and Wolfenstein, so really it is nostalgia and competition that keep you coming back.

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

Team Fortress is driven mostly by its players for its innovation. Anyone remember placing a sentry gun on the intelligence table in 2fort? How many people still do that now? That game keeps its self fresh.

So you're saying that Team Fortress is not good by its own merit, but rather due to the people who play it? If people were to use the same strategies constantly, it would be a dull and boring game? Is that why Valve has to constantly add new content to the game? So it stays fresh? The lasting appeal of Team Fortress 2 comes from its brilliant design and its community. Not its gameplay.

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

Better yet, Quake 3 is STILL the leading provider of deathmatch to people who want to compete on a higher level. So badly that they had to remake Quake 3 to run in a web browser.

I think I've driven the point home but I'm going to repeat it one more time. A competitive community does not equate to brilliant gameplay, it equates to an established fanbase who become attached to a single game and stick with it. Here's the thing: when I think Quake 3 I think "generic deathmatch game." DOOM is "generic first person shooter." Sure they were innovative when they came out but things have come out that have thrown interesting twists on the genre that advance it as a whole. And soon those games will seem generic. The only way for a game to stick out in this cycle is to provide something that cannot be replicated. A story. It's a lot easier to fault someone for copying a story than copying a gameplay mechanic.

Originally Posted by dieKatze88

Fallout 3 will be remembered for its story mostly, which is a shame because the gameplay has more variation to it than any other game I've played in a long time. It has that Super Paper Mario feel of being able to press a button and have an entirely different Genre of game right there, appear, before you.

I take it you've never played Oblivion or even the original Fallouts then because guess what? Fallout 3 is a mixture of the two that's heavier on the Oblivion side than the original Fallout side. And I'll remember it neither for its story nor its gameplay, I will simply remember it as an Oblivion mod that I happened to pay 50 dollars for. It was a good game, but hardly memorable. However, I happen to think the best way to tell a story is to have a mostly linear game. I think the games that have done this best to date are Bioshock and System Shock 2 (which are basically the same thing in different settings.) Fallout 3 is hurt by being so open-ended. By the time I did the Liberty Prime mission I had spent so much time doing side-quests that I hardly cared about Project Purity. That hurt the narrative a lot. The same thing happened with Oblivion.

[Aurora Borealis]

From Wikipedia The Legend of Zelda (series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The creators maintain that the series has a set timeline, however due to debates over the available information the timeline continues to be disputed. Miyamoto stated in a 2003 interview that there is a master document detailing the timeline.[54] Eiji Aonuma has also stated in a July 2007 video interview that there is such a document on his PC, and that this document is considered confidential.[55] According to this interview, development of a Zelda title can commence without the team knowing in advance where exactly the title will fit into the timeline; but by the time the title is finished, its placement in the timeline will be determined."

Whether or not this is actually true, one of the reasons I've found the Legend of Zelda series particularly interesting is because working out a timeline theory has made the series more enjoyable for me, plot holes and all.

[もも]

Originally Posted by MechaGai

The amount of games with good game play outnumber those driven by story, plain and simple.

I really beg to differ because, "good gameplay" is completely biased.

[TTRlovesMittens]

Well, you guys, remember that this game does have connections between the games, it's not a whole "each game is a separate universe" theory because there is gray area between all of the games.

i.e. the seven sages leading Ocarina of Time into Link to the past. This isn't really THAT obvious, since in english they use the word "Wise men" to describe the 7 sages, but in japanese they use 賢者 which I'm pretty sure is more gender neutral. In any case, the 7 sages from Ocarina and their descendants fuel the storyline of Link to the Past.

There are other ones like this too, how it's generally accepted that Majora is a direct sequal to Ocarina, etc.

It's not like it's all separate universes, a lot of the games blend in very different ways and refer to each other with some crazy interconnected cannon that Nintendo never really tells us.

I guess it's just something the designers and director of each game decide for themselves?

[Geschpooklichkeit]

[Beer Can]

Originally Posted by TTR_loves_Mittens

i.e. the seven sages leading Ocarina of Time into Link to the past. This isn't really THAT obvious, since in english they use the word "Wise men" to describe the 7 sages, but in japanese they use 賢者 which I'm pretty sure is more gender neutral. In any case, the 7 sages from Ocarina and their descendants fuel the storyline of Link to the Past.

There are other ones like this too, how it's generally accepted that Majora is a direct sequal to Ocarina, etc.

Your link (no pun intended) between OoT and LttP is based on characters that seem to be similar. Just pointing out that this is along the same lines as saying that because Princess Zelda is in many of the games, they must be connected.

Compare to the direct and obvious reference to OoT in the opening cutscene to Majora's Mask. After Link restores peace to Hyrule, he goes off to look for Navi, and bam, he winds up in Clock Town.

[MechaGai]

I've seen so many backpedals in this thread you might as just do the Ironman backpedaling and come out in first.

Tetris does, in fact, change its game play in very small changes, like fast dropping, ghost drops, the spin behavior, t-spin, wall kicks, etc.

But this is changes to game play, not story.

Monster Hunter has the thinnest story of any action RPG, but yet it's the best selling psp title to date at 3.5 million copies sold globally, and why? Good, engaging multiplayer, plain and simple. Game play sells itself.

[Beer Can]

Originally Posted by MechaGai

I've seen so many backpedals in this thread you might as just do the Ironman backpedaling and come out in first.

I hope this isn't directed at me, because I do not remember backpedaling anywhere.

Monster Hunter has the thinnest story of any action RPG, but yet it's the best selling psp title to date at 3.5 million copies sold globally, and why? Good, engaging multiplayer, plain and simple. Game play sells itself.

Reminds me of your avatar... the Pokemon games have sold how many games on the premise of the same story told how many times over? Of course, you could say that the games have a loosely connected story, but each game is only set a little ways after the previous to justify having the same technology (i.e. pokeballs don't become more advanced somehow) but allow for even more little critters to be discovered. The one thing that concerns me, though... in each game, the Big Bad Legendary pokemon has gotten more powerful in relation to their role in the story. Mewtwo was just the powerful result of some genetic experiment gone wrong, Lugia and Ho-Oh were powerful, mythical beasts of legends, but then Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza had the power to control the state of the world at will, and in the 4th generation, we got what equates to pokemon gods, creators of the universe. The question, then, is what's next?

But that's quite the digression. My point is that you can make awesome games that are essentially just different versions of each other and not need any such nonsense as a storyline connecting them. Why Zelda fans seem to think differently is beyond me.

[DELICIOUS HOT COCK]

majora's mask is a loser this is how you time travel

[helix eternal]

Originally Posted by Ribos

My point is that you can make awesome games that are essentially just different versions of each other and not need any such nonsense as a storyline connecting them.

Like Okami

[TTRlovesMittens]

Well Ribos, remember that there are specific interviews that ARE cited and are clear that there is a specific timeline. These (by which I mean the interviews and the statement from nintendo) are conflicting pieces of evidence :/

Nintendo might say that there is no "timeline" but interviews with core members like Miyamoto and Aonuma say otherwise. It might be hard to prove that there IS a clear timeline, however it is IMPOSSIBLE to prove that there isn't unless those interviews are taken back.

People are just trying to take a stab at it, and what better way to do that then to play with the puzzle pieces and stick together what seems right?

[DELICIOUS HOT COCK]

maybe it is more fun to play the games than to bother with that

[TTRlovesMittens]

Well, the main people that do these theories are those who have finished it for both it's first-run and replay-values. I mean, what would you do after you've sucked the game dry of content? It's not like these people don't enjoy the games, it's just, they enjoy it on a higher level then other gamers, on the level of border-line fanatic D: