Online Zelda (Don't Freak)

First off, I am not proposing an Online, MMORPG game, or anything of the sort, so don't assume that.

Secondly, don't just say "ZELDA IS L33T THE WAY IT IS. YOU ARE INSANE FOR WANTING IT TO BE ONLINE!!11!!!!" becasue that's just plain stupid and immature.

What I am wondering is that, seeing as though Online gaming is the way of the future (whether we like it or not), and Nintendo is stressing online features with both the DS and Revolution, what little things could nintendo do to a Zelda game in terms of online featurs to put it up from the competition.

I have a few ideas. Some of which I may have expressed within the forums at various times, but I'm going to reiterate those anyway, as I can't remember which ones I have and have not stated.

Throughout the game, there should be say 6 minigames, which are relatively in depth, and are fun. There should be an expansion on the Cannon firing game from tWW, an archery range like the forest in MM, A bomb minigame featuring mine carts, a quick, intense speed game I will dub 'Falldown', A horse-hurdles obstacle course, and an octorok race I will explain.

- Cannon Game:
Basic setting from tWW, except you are competing against 3 (multiplayer and standard CPU match) or 7(online) other people. You are ina little cannon ship, in a gigantic ocean setting. You travel around the arena, firing shots at one another. Hold down R to move (bette than tWW), otherwise, cannon controls as per normal. The aim is to hit your opponents 3 times to kill them, last man stnading wins. Wind, cannon angle, cannon strength, all therse things would have little displays and gauges so that you can keep track of what is going on. The Cstick alters you're firing strength, and the Joystick your angle and turning, with A to fire. There would also be barrels around the arena, and depending on the color of the flag sticking out the top of them, you will get one of 4 powerups (to be used with B). Speed boost x3, Power bomb x3 (big blast radius), torpedo x2 (fires straight until it hits something) or mine x2 (only you can see it).

- Archery range: Another game that can be played on or offline, this game can only ever have a max of 4, even for offline, and the standard 1 player game just has you trying to get the top score for a heart piece/quiver, with a side quest later on in the game where a cocky kid challenges you to a shoot-off.
Basically, imagine the Woodfall archery range in MM, except a lot more interactive. You shoot stuff that appears on screen, and get points depending on what it was. Sometimes, a Moblin will appear and move along the screen brandishing a sheild. For this, you need to hit it as much as you can, with a colelctive combo climbing for every shot hit without miss (1 poin, then 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32 etc.). You are fighitn agaisnt your friends, all tryign to steal each others target. The added interactivity comes with things liek a bird nest, which will spawn a sparrow every time it is hit, or a bush that will cause a deku to appear every time it is hit. Also, hitting an ice keese (which appear anywhere at random) will cause every other opponent to be frozen for 3 seconds. Very intense.

- Mine carts: You are strapped ina mine cart which is constantly moving, ina square room, with an isometric camera, constantly moving, with a boomerang, a sword, and bombs. There are tracks crossing over everywhere. You use the L and R buttons to rotate the camera around the central point in the room, which is a pillar no-one can penetrate (but the camera can see through, for ease of sight), you use X to throw the boomerang to pick up bombs, the sword is for activating the levers to switch the tracks, and bombs are to topple over other peoples carts. You cannot be hurt by your own bomb. Everyone has 5 hearts, and one heart is taken with each bomb. The room would be quite large, say the size of Lon lon ranch from OoT, with a max entrants of 8. The single player version for the main game would simply be link in the mine cart chasing down treasure carts, and the bombs are to stop the carts so he can grab the moola from inside them, with some enmy mine carts trying to steal from him. Bombs are located at the sides of the arena, and around the central pillar.



- Falldown: about the size of something you would see in Mario Party, this game features a simple, 2D approach. The character controls one of up to 16 balls as they roll down an ever rising screen. The goal is not to be squashed in the top of the screen. Each player has the ability to crumble the floor beneath them, making another hole to fall through, once. The winner is the one that lsts the longest, and timesa re recorded. The platforms rasie faster and faster as the game progresses. To be honest this is a slight modification of a game i play on my calculator. still fun though.



- The horse obstacle course and Octorok races are very similar in the way they are laid out. Both have players race to the finish, as well as gather points along the way. The winner gets say 500 points, and it goes down from there. In addition, there are targets which can give you between 2 and 10 points, jumps and tricks worth between 5 and 2o points, as well as the random rupee worth 1 or 5 points. They are set up so that you cannot win simply by coming first, but must score some bonus points along the way, but if you go for every point opportunity along the way, and put a lot of time into each, you will not be able to come first. It would be possible to come last and still win, providing the perosn who came first didnt get many bonus points.

To go with the minigames, there would be a community aspect. At the shooting gallery, you can go up to the guy at the counter and ask to play a) a standard game, b) bring your friends along for a game (multiplayer, as well as look for peopel on your friends list online), or c) find some people to play a game with (online, random people). On the back wall of the archery range lobby, would be a scoreboard, shwoing the top 20 peoples rank and statistics. When you selects this, apart from viewing it of course, you can contact the nintendo server and update it with the latest winners/people with the highest scores. This would translate into all of the online-enabled minigames.

My last, and favourite idea, is of a Zelda Arena type place. You go to a temple, there is an arena/ring. You go up to a counter, and you can choose from single and multiplayer like it is above. If you choose single player, you a themed arena (the arena morphs into themed arenas. water, grass, fire, rocky mountain etc, each with its own obstacles), pick from a preset list of tough battles (150 miniblins, 25 moblins), or make up your own out of a bunch of minions. Multiplayer has 2 modes, bounty and verses. Bounty is like a co-operative single player, trying to kill all of the enemies quickly (and get the most points), and verses is pitting you and up to 7 friends (online) ina 3D version of shadow battle in FSA. A big, round arena, where items with short amoutns of ammo and usage appear, and you beat the crap out of each other. good fun.

What I like most about this mode is that the custom battles and preset trials, offer a constant challenge for your ever gowing abilities (I hate colelcting all the powerups, items and hearts at the end of the game only to have no enemies to use them on). There would of course be a rnak sheet for the arena as well.

All of these minigames and such would be intertwined within the single player game. Imagine ooT. you go to kakariko. you pick up a chick and float around. you slash some bushes for some rupees. You go see the skulltulla kids for a new item. You get bored, walk into the archery range, and ask to be hooked up with 3 random people, so you can show them how good an archer you are, and haev some fun. Endless hours of gameplay.

Of course with each online feature, there are possibilities for new upgrades (new archery ranges, arenas, game options) for nintendo to put up for download.

Originally Posted by HarmanStalefish

Online Zelda (Don't Freak)

I'm Freaking out!!

...but after reading your ideas, i'm really liking the idea, :cool: to connect up with other online zelda players and play specially designed mini games with zelda elements does sound good. I think the single player mode 'the main quest' should stay single player, but to have the option to play others in mini games when you want a rest from the main adventure feature sounds great. An Archery contest with other Zelda players would be brill!

I think it's a great idea

But i think i heard another idea of a online Zelda game that i like a little better
it's exactly like a normal Zelda game but there are other people playing at the same
time and you can team up and help eachother or you could fight agianst eachother
about who wining first,..

I think that would be a bit more fun [IMO] anyway

I read an article about one way Nintendo could do an online Zelda. It talked about the shops in the game (like the Bazaar from OoT) would be connected to Nintendo's online server, and Nintendo would update the shops every day with different items.

Another idea I heard was that you could buy dungeons from Nintendo's server to do with your friends online, like in four swords. You buy the dungeons with rupees from the game. I'm not so sure about this idea, mainly because it would feel like the game never ends.

Hmmm. I like the idea, and I'm not freaking out on you. It's a good idea, although I don't really prefer anything at this point since I'm so freakin' excited about The Twilight Princess.

I like it I've always wanted to test my zelda skills with real players.

Originally Posted by LoZ_05

I think it's a great idea

But i think i heard another idea of a online Zelda game that i like a little better
it's exactly like a normal Zelda game but there are other people playing at the same
time and you can team up and help eachother or you could fight agianst eachother
about who wining first,..

I think that would be a bit more fun [IMO] anyway

Hell no. I respect your oppionon but I think that would suck and be imposible unless they do a four swords rip which they have done to many times (prays nintendo dosent do it)

I like the idea. Kinda like Mario Party, and the cart game is a bit like Mario Kart (Double Dash -> Battle - Bomb battle - knocking each other down with the use of ombs which you have to collect). Maybe that's the problem: It looks too much like other games. Nintendo is already making a lot of games that look like eachother (mario party, kart, tennis, bros., golf, football (soccer, if you want...), baseball and so on). That's a pity.

Bah! I've suggested similar idea before, but nobody seemed interested because I'm a n00b!

Anyways, I like these ideas because they'd be relatively simply to integrate in comparison to the longevity of the game they would add. It wouldn't be very difficult to modify a single player minigame into a multiplayer game (in fact multiplayer games are significantly easier to make than any single-player scenario that requires a competent AI). Depending on how complex these arena where and how closely they mimicked geometry already built for the main game these additions would also be add a lot to the game compared to the workload behind them.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I'd guess that a team the size and with the experience as the Zelda team could incorperate all the multi-player additions you suggested in less than two weeks easy assuming they were just modifications of already created material for the main game.

I also like the previously mentioned ideas from IGN that suggested downloadable dungeons. Or perhaps unlockable dungeons. Like maybe 3 or 4 of the dungeons where recreated with four player cooperative in mind, and can be unlocked after you beat the dungeon in single player. Or maybe there's a special dungeon to be unlocked when you connect with a theoretical DS Zelda that co-launched with the Revolution Zelda. Or, if you could suspend criticism on the cliché for a moment, imagine a game story that revolved around Ganon sneaking into the castle and stealing the triforce of Wisdom. When you beat the game you unlock a special dungeon where you can get together with 3 other friends and play as Ganon or one of his henchmen and actually steal the triforce of wisdom in from the castle (remixed to better suit a dungeon of course).

But of course additional dungeons, especially ones that involved brand new playable characters that required new gameplay mechanics, would take a lot more work to create. And while new dungeons is a lot of creative work that game designers would probably love to do, if the extra content isn't going to influence enough people to buy the game that otherwise wouldn't, the publishers wouldn't be very excited about providing additional funding.

great ideas but I think it needs a bit more. Single player (non online) mode would be just like TP or WW: a normal game, but whenyou go online you can team up with up to 4 or 6 or 8 people and go play a dungeon. Or there could be an arena where you are on teams and you battle to the death on both sides(16+ total players). The cool part about that is that you have so many different kinds of weapons that everything could be played to your preference.

for instance:

your in a level that is kinda like the Master Sword Castle place in WW but way bigger (with similar little nooks and crannies). You could go around and rush people with a hammer or you could sneak around and snipe them with arrows. There would also be places to grapple onto and climb up, so you could be way up in some raftors raining arrows down on people. But another guy could hookshot you and drag you off of of the raftor and you would come flying down and get stunned as you smash headlong into the ground and your assailant would then commence slicing you into ground turkey. Of course if your smart you would be with your friend up there and he would watch your back. Of course someone could launch a fire arrow up there and light the raftors on fire which would burn you out. You would also be vulnerable to boomerang assault which would knock up to 5 people out of their perches and send them dizzy to the floor below them where a small ambush team could be waiting to completely annihilate them all. It could get pretty intense!!

Online minigames sound great, but, see, most of the minigames designed for the 3D zelda's are for you vs CPU, so the single player minigames would have to change a bit if we were to see online minigames,

If Zelda were online I would like to have nintendo make some new dungeons for the zelda game, and/or add quests to links journy simply to give us, the players, something to do/

But would you go online..... just to play mini games.... I mean? Thats not really ALOT of fun, we need some action with online play Zelda, we could have mini games but we also need something eles

Yes, I agree but those ideas are still good.

I personally do not play Zelda games simply to be distracted by lame mini games, especially multiplayer ones. Maybe if you could choose to do it in-game, like Link stopping (and saving) to play some games with the town kids, which are other players, but to them they're Link and you and everone else are kids?

If they do make one(wich would be really cool!) they would have to make it so you can make it so you can design your own character(archer/tall/black/other).There would be no buying dunjons... you could unlock certain ones but no buying! As for the game there would be three modes:
battle mode:

Originally Posted by falchloin

your in a level that is kinda like the Master Sword Castle place in WW but way bigger (with similar little nooks and crannies). You could go around and rush people with a hammer or you could sneak around and snipe them with arrows. There would also be places to grapple onto and climb up, so you could be way up in some raftors raining arrows down on people. But another guy could hookshot you and drag you off of of the raftor and you would come flying down and get stunned as you smash headlong into the ground and your assailant would then commence slicing you into ground turkey. Of course if your smart you would be with your friend up there and he would watch your back. Of course someone could launch a fire arrow up there and light the raftors on fire which would burn you out. You would also be vulnerable to boomerang assault which would knock up to 5 people out of their perches and send them dizzy to the floor below them where a small ambush team could be waiting to completely annihilate them all. It could get pretty intense!!

and stuff like that. except only 8 can be in a team and only 2 teams can compet at a time.(challenge/competition)

Adventure Mode: This contains dunjons, bosses, (some) minigames, and the COLISEUM
In this you form parties of a max of 7 w/ 1 leader(kinda like bm) and dunjon maps are random. The coliseum is where you can play Tag team(1 or 2), team battle(everyone), single, time(how much damage), trap(spikes, pits, falling rock, etc.), and maze(self explanetory)

Minigame Mode: all mini games +whatever

Andthatsmyidea

Originally Posted by Lorien

I read an article about one way Nintendo could do an online Zelda. It talked about the shops in the game (like the Bazaar from OoT) would be connected to Nintendo's online server, and Nintendo would update the shops every day with different items.
Another idea I heard was that you could buy dungeons from Nintendo's server to do with your friends online, like in four swords. You buy the dungeons with rupees from the game. I'm not so sure about this idea, mainly because it would feel like the game never ends.

Yeah, that article was on IGN. I read it too, it was good. The whole connecting to a Nintendo server for items would be great, because you could buy pointless novelty items just for fun. Like buy a beach ball, and smack it around on lake hylia. Or a giant mega bomb to give kokiri forest a new swimming pool.

But would you go online..... just to play mini games.... I mean? Thats not really ALOT of fun, we need some action with online play Zelda, we could have mini games but we also need something eles

I agree, which is why I have this idea (which I am making up on the spot as I am typing, so it will need ironing out). A cafe, like the one in tWW, where you can go and join a table, have a chat to people and stuff of the sort. (I am aware this sounds like an animated chat room, but thus far it is). You can have "drinking games", which are just like warioware sized minigames, apart from trading items (the novelty, unnecessary ones), having a chat, and so on.

The next step up from that, is to take up to 3 friends (only three! i know, it's low, but you ahve to consider bandwidth and such) and warp to any multiplayer (yes, multiplayer) dungeon you unlocked. These multiplayer (yes, multiplayer dungeons) would just be gates and doors around the land. When you find one, the doorframe lights up, but will remain shut. You can only go in it once you have 3 friends with you to play it.

This progress only saves to your file, meaning that anyone that plays with you on your game, is helping your progress, and you must help them with their game. It sounds bad, but it is the easiest way to make the online and offline components seperate enough as to not make it a MMORPG.

I personally do not play Zelda games simply to be distracted by lame mini games, especially multiplayer ones. Maybe if you could choose to do it in-game, like Link stopping (and saving) to play some games with the town kids, which are other players, but to them they're Link and you and everone else are kids?

I think I know where you are coming from. You don't want to have to leave the game and access online features froma main menu? If it is, don't worry, because what I am suggesting are little things that only come into play as in game things. Just imagine going to play at the archery range in MM, except when you play, you are versing someone 2 timezones and a ahlf away. fully intergrated into the main game.

Another idea I have had is for a helper of some description go with link. Imagine being able to control the fairy. You could guide your Zelda noob friend throught the forest temple, and when battles take place, you can distract enemies before they attack your friend. You can talk to link via the headset, and the camera stays on him the whole time, but you are there to guide him, to get him to follw you. I would like the fairy to eb able to do more too. Like if the fairy traveleld over a suspicious spot ina dungeon, he would change colour, and the fairy player coudl sprinkel fairy dust over a location to reveal a chest. Beter than that, imagine Navi pick up and carry link from the back of his collar.

Not that I don't agree, but how exactly is wanting Zelda to be online immature? There's nothing immature about that. And, while I'm at it, I may as well point out that it might actually be possible to perserve the Zelda magic even while in MMORPG form. The Zelda magic appears to be strongly rooted to the desire to explore. In MMORPGs there's little else to do, except beating the living crap out of unsuspecting monsters and animals. I did some research on this once, and I found that it might actually possible, but it would be damn hard to do without losing that Zelda magic. There would have to be some overall interactive storyline the likes of which has never been introduced into an MMORPG before. It would require preselected teams of people working together, and would also require a very complicated level-up system. The reason for that last thought is due to the nature of people not to login at all hours of the day. If the teams were preselected from the start and the players stuck together at all times, certain team members would lose much opportunity for experience gaining.

Before you can make an accusation about something like this, you have to do a lot of research. I suggest you try and devise a Zelda MMORPG yourself--this tends to open your eyes to the scope required to do so in the first place.

One severe limitation that would be very difficult to overcome is the fact that Link is always the main character. I came up with an interesting way to overcome this, though--a team can only subsist of a certain number of players. They choose from a number of familiar Zelda characters at the start--no two team members can have the same character--and once you've selected, your stuck with that character for the rest of the playthrough. The most logical solution to the character problem, though, would be to have the numerous different races be available for full customization.

It's an interesting idea, albeit a farfetched one. I'm not saying Zelda should become an MMORPG. I'm just saying that maybe Nintendo might like to dip their hands into the experience pool. (Yea, 8-Bit Theater!)

Your Loyal Zelda Fan,
Wielder of the Sword

Originally Posted by Mad wolf

I like it I've always wanted to test my zelda skills with real players.



Hell no. I respect your oppionon but I think that would suck and be imposible unless they do a four swords rip which they have done to many times (prays nintendo dosent do it)

Yeah but they can make a 3D foure swords

i like Wielder of the Sword's idea, but with 1 little tweak: you can only team up with people your level. But mostly, he right

Maybe a little variation to it, there great idea's but maybe it will be put in a larger game? A sort of Mario Party but then with mini-games like you said and then from diffrent games like the cart thing is something for Donkey Kong and the platform thing for Mario, and the bow gallery for Zelda. You would have a sort of competition who's the overall 'best' gamer in diffrent game types. YOu would have diffrent options: A gameboard, choose the games you play, or a random game generator that generates say 10 games. You would have a Smash Brothers mini game, a four swords game where eich persion controls four links, a Sunshine minigame, a Resident Evil 4 shooting alley mini game etc.

Originally Posted by Wielder of the Sword

Before you can make an accusation about something like this, you have to do a lot of research. I suggest you try and devise a Zelda MMORPG yourself--this tends to open your eyes to the scope required to do so in the first place.

It's funny you say that, because I actually have thought of an online Zelda game, but it was received with negative feedback here on the forums.

Basically my idea was to have the game set during the imprisoning war. This does 2 things. First, it helps tell the story of what happened during the 7 year slumber of link in OoT (which is when the imprisoning war happened. I don't care what anyone elese says, this is when it happened, and its a discussion for another thread). Second, it would get a lot of people to buy buy it.

When you pick your character, you choose to either be a light world(good) or dark world (evil) character, and you are aligned with either side of the war.

Let's say I choose to be from the light world. I can choose to be either a Goron, Zora, Deku shrub, Sheikah, or Hylian, and all races have their ups, downs and special abilities. Dark worlders can be Moblins, Dragian(a new type of species to the Zelda series to help pad out the dark side. Pale, with lots of tattoos everywhere, skilled in magic), Gerudo, Mad scrubs (evil deku shrubs), or Darknuts. I know the Dark world species list seem a bit weak, but There's never really been much opportunity to explore these species, so bare(or is it bear?) with me.

Now I have chosen light world, and I've gone with Goron. His name is Bob. I can then choose my class, and each species has it's own type of classes. I have chosen Goron Bob to be a shaman. I customize my appearnace of course, and I begin the game. I begin by using my starting money to buy some weapons and kick ass tribal bling, and start by exploring the land, and talking to various other players.

For a light worlder, the light world is peaceful, it's your home. You can journey to anywhere from Hyrule lore you wish, from Zora fountain to kokiri forest, whatever. Little NPC kokiri, shopkeepers, and the like fill out the world you live in.
Everything is going good, but while having a chat to his friend nEmogUy_001 the Zora, Bob is Attacked by a pack of moblins and scrubs who have jumped through an interdimensional portal. This is where the challenge and action comes into the game. You must protect your land from constantly invading Dark worlders. You are in a war after all. The moblins have a look around, and see no-one. They begin torching and destroying the land, and killing off NPC's. Luckily for Bob and Nemoguy, they hadnt been spotted behind that tree (yeah, there's a tree now) and are devising a plan. While a moblin is anawaringly raiding some treasure from the lab, a random goron limb smacks him upside his head, and he is knocked over. Nemo guy then comes flyign out of the water, weilding a fishbone battleaxe, and a goron bowling ball sends the rest of the enemy back to the Dark.

This is whar the game is. There is a win/loss bar on the pause screen for all players to see, which shows which side is currently winnign the war. All white, the light world wins. The bar climbs and lowers depending on how many NPC's you kill from the other world, how much land you desimate, and how many key relics you capture (in each land, there are say 50, and you must protect them, for they will give the opponent the edge. These relics include the lens of truth, which can allow the weilder to see invisible enmies and other things of the sort, and the book of Modura, which houses powerful magic spells).

After seeing the war meter tip slightly in favour of the black, Bob get's pissed off, and calls his homies to start a turf war over in the dark world, fo shizzle. Bob's best in-game friend and one of the best players in the game, Harman, Is unavailable at the moment because he is currently helping some shrubs hold back Inhumans from stealing the gale boomerang from the forest temple. So Bob gets what comrades he can, and pays mage 50 rupees (capotilising bastards) to open a rift on death mountain, which will lead to that parallel location in the Dark world.

Another cross-dimensional coux(sp?) occurs, only this time, it's The light worlders settling the score at the dark world. Being a sporting man, Bob decides it's not fair to get them any worse than they got him, so he sets fire to an entire outpost, and makes his way down to the skull woods, where he quickly steals the ice rod. After being in the dark world this long, and fter stealing a relic, he has about 5000 really angry Dark worlders chasing it with torches, pitchforks, and gale seeds. So Bob get's his men together, and Hauls ass back home.

After that little fiasco, Bob is now famous in the light world, infamous in the dark world, has given his side a significant advantage, and given the other side a taste for his blood.

This is essentially the game I incision. It leaves the gameplay right up to the player. You can do aquatic assaults, you need to do a bit of troop organization, not leave any area to unguarded, you can prtect, you can stealth infiltrate, you can run a ludicrous monopoly on portal rifts and become a war profiteer, anything you want to do, and the best part is, it's set in the Zelda universe.
Add to this a very in depth upgrading system (which nitnendo could do like no other, as they ahev the money, resources, and creative/innovative talent) and you aheva good game.