Geographical 'Canon' versus Developer Intent Issues

I think things are getting a little too personal in this thread

Lex isn't even really a part of this debate at the moment, so I don't see why either party should be bringing up his ability/credibility as a theorist.

Impossible: Ease up on the talk about Lex, or take it to PM/visitor messages
Random ZU people: Keep an open mind, and make sure you're saying something because you believe it's the best possible solution, and not because you want to prove the "outsider" wrong

Impossible, I browsed your post about FSA's geography earlier, but I was in a hurry [and I've got other stuff to do right now] but I assure you I'll get to it in-depth sometime soon, if not today.

Originally Posted by Impossible

Erimgard at least attempts to post some of those new things.

Aw, you do love me

Geographical SIMILARITIES, that is, theories affirming a timeline connection based on things that are the same between two maps, are relevant evidence. After all, it can clearly be shown that it was done deliberately. OoT and ALttP is the ultimate example of this, just look at the attached image. If it's deliberate, then it means there's a story connection there and it can be seen as representative of intent.

However, the problem seems to come from overanalysing geographical DIFFERENCES. That is, a map that looks nothing like another one. A map that's almost exactly the same, but appears to have land beyond its borders in one iteration, and surrounded by water in another, i.e. FSA and ALttP. A map that's completely different despite canonically being in the same place, i.e. OoT and TP. These are not representative of intent, because there is no way to show that they exist for story-related reasons.

This is a very good point. From a theorising point of view, canonical connections between maps can only be made when there are similarities, nto differences. Once you enter the territory of geographical differences, you are entering an area of "fan-fic". But still, sometimes people feel that they need more eviednce and more similarities to back up their point, so they chose this path. Often, it can eb shot down pretty quickly, but there have been ideas relating to geographical differences that have been extremely valid.

One of the things that should be noted is simple common sense.
Games are played to be fun, but in a series of games, there needs to be additions and differences so the experience isn't repetitive. So creators will likely change the landscape of the games (especially of a series that has no confirmed timeline) to make it look different.
Since FSA was meant to be the seal war, the map looks very similar to LttP, but it is surrounded by water. This could be because they wanted to show that a large amount of time passed between the 2 games (before Miyamoto "up-ended the tea-table") or they made an ocean surround the land after the game was modified so people wouldn't think it was LttP Hyrule exactly (despite the fact that many Zelda fans picked up on the similarities extrmely quickly).

I admit that I'm guilty of looking way too far into geography at times. I've made some decent cases for the maps of TMC and TP being made to fit with other games. But ultimately, I just did it out of curiosity to explore the idea, I didn't rest a timeline on the similarities OR, especially, on the differences.

I am appreciating your open-mindedness in these topics. Personally, I think that the FSA map just looks really nice the way it is. The water suited the art style and colour scheme. Yeah, FSA may have been based on ALttP, but artistically, it also borrows heavily from the style of TWW. And they didn't want it to just look identical to ALttP, in the same way TP's map really shakes up Hyrule's design for gameplay variety. I don't see any evidence for it to be connected to the story, because the game fails to make that connection.

I am appreciating your open-mindedness in these topics. Personally, I think that the FSA map just looks really nice the way it is. The water suited the art style and colour scheme. Yeah, FSA may have been based on ALttP, but artistically, it also borrows heavily from the style of TWW. And they didn't want it to just look identical to ALttP, in the same way TP's map really shakes up Hyrule's design for gameplay variety. I don't see any evidence for it to be connected to the story, because the game fails to make that connection.

Being open-minded is one of my goals now that I don't believe in a single timeline.
The game failed to make that connection seeing as the master-mind behind the series didn't like what his padawan was doing.
Still, I can't help but feel that the ocean could have either been there as influence from WW or perhaps to try and make a bit of a change from LttP in terms of geography after they decided to can the Seal War scenario.

Originally Posted by Impossible

Oh, I can't believe I took so long to make this connection, considering I just went looking through old FSA info. FSA was actually scheduled to come out in the US and Japan in February 2004. We know from the fact that the text from the original story was already translated (sadly they only left a few chunks and not enough for us to learn from) that they must have had the story written and the translation finished well in advance, right? NoA had the original story to work with, so they were ready for the simultaneous release.

I don't think it's really safe to assume that they had the whole thing written/translated and then removed all of the unused stuff except for the few juicy bits we have. It's possible that only those few lines had been made in advance, and not the entire story.

But then FSA got delayed to March in Japan and June in the US. This didn't happen until the start of 2004, so we can make a rough guess that the upending of the tea table was a little while before that - certainly after an August 2003 build, which probably had to have been ready for approval and testing and transporting and whatnot by the end of July. And the water is visible in that screenshot. The US got a much bigger delay because they had a heavily modified story to translate.

Again, that's a little too much speculation into the inner workings of Nintendo's story-designing process than I'm comfortable with, although I'll admit it's a decent possibility. Do you have evidence of the screenshot you refered to, and does it depict Hyrule as an island, or merely as having a coastline?

I don't think it's really safe to assume that they had the whole thing written/translated and then removed all of the unused stuff except for the few juicy bits we have. It's possible that only those few lines had been made in advance, and not the entire story.

VERY unlikely, for two reasons. One is that the game was planned for a simultaneous release in the US and Japan. You can't do that without translating the story well in advance. How else do you explain the sudden huge delay for the US version? Secondly, it appears that the quotes were translated in context. We can tell this because it would make no sense for them to translate them if they weren't intended for use (particularly for a simultaneous release), and also because the US version contains at least one notable difference from the Japanese one that implies that the translators knew the context of the quote. They wouldn't JUST happen to translate those lines by sheer coincidence.

Again, that's a little too much speculation into the inner workings of Nintendo's story-designing process than I'm comfortable with, although I'll admit it's a decent possibility. Do you have evidence of the screenshot you refered to, and does it depict Hyrule as an island, or merely as having a coastline?

You seem to have missed one of my posts, I posted the screenshot earlier. It's not really an assumption, it's a logical deduction based on the dates and factual knowledge of the game's development - the story was changed at the END. The screenshot doesn't show an island because it doesn't show the whole map, but it's clearly exactly the same map as the one in the final game. We can infer from the design that the water would be surrounding the whole map.

The game failed to make that connection seeing as the master-mind behind the series didn't like what his padawan was doing.

This is a bit of a misunderstanding. Aonuma didn't make FSA's story and Miyamoto didn't disagree with Aonuma's direction for the story or the timeline. Miyamoto only disapproved of the overly complicated storyline which he felt would confuse the player, that's why I don't think the timeline placement changed.

You're applying evidence in completely the wrong way. What I'm saying is, in 2001, there was no flood, one Hyrule, no complications. LA's Japanese manual references an ocean, and implies that there would have to be one in any case. LoZ and AoL show an ocean. OoX implies one in the ending. There was explicitly only one Hyrule at this time, so this clearly applies to ALttP (given the LA connection) and OoT (given the ALttP and LoZ connection). You can't retroactively force fit these elements that ALWAYS existed in Hyrule to your timeline. Not a single one of these games has anything in the story to indicate that they were intended to be placed in a new Hyrule. Why the **** wouldn't the games ever even have a single line, anywhere, referencing this possibility? They've had enough chances.

Part of the problem is that you refuse to accept the assumptions and speculation that are inherent in the timeline you're arguing. You treat everything as a given already, and can only see things from that perspective, which of course is going to make that timeline seem better than anything else. If you assume things to be true that actually aren't even remotely hinted at a single time in any game released since TWW, yeah, sure it works - but I would seriously ****ing question if the developers have regularly functioning brains for this to be the case. If you take evidence from TWW out of context and pretend that's all the evidence that exists, of course it works. But that's not exactly convincing, just misleading.

This puts the argument in way that I've been trying to explain for years, because ZU linearists believed this muck back in the day as well. Thanks Impossible for that.

I don't have much else to say because the discussion hasn't been very productive other than that. Smertios and Impossible, play nice, I pratically invited Impossible onto this thread as a special guest because I wanted ZU theorists to be more open minded, so stop giving him a hard time.

I will say that I agree with Erimgard, FS and FSA were meant to be the big wifi four player games first, and neither had much in the way of valid storyline. I qualify that in saying that the FSA team did do a much better job with the port of AlttP and FSA together. Looking further into FSA has always surprised me, and the coulda shoulda woulda isn't really part of theorizing.

Maybe Impossible, FSA would have/could have answered all questions as to the timeline, and just maybe, we wouldn't have a hobby of being able to speculate anything by now, and that would suck for everyone.

So don't dwell on it too much.

Still, I foresee the fact that I've shown once and for all how meaningless FSA's map is being completely ignored in all future discussions, with FSA as an island after TWW still being assumed as unquestionable fact based on artistic evidence. Oh well.

I still don't get how this is supposed to work with TMC. TMC clearly has land as far as the eye can see, much bigger than FSA.

You know, there is at least a quote to support the idea of a Deku Tree creating a new land, that much may be acceptable, although this land is never connected to Hyrule in any way, shape or form. What pisses me off is the way people extrapolate on it, turning fan fiction like "the land is expanding" into factual proof in their eyes, or the way they see it as factual proof that this is in fact what happens and that the new land is named Hyrule, despite no evidence for that. In reality, there is not a single shred of evidence in the entire goddamn series to suggest that the land "grows" - this directly contradicts the Deku Tree, who intends to JOIN the islands. That doesn't mean expanding outwards, it means connecting trees together. And for it to be called Hyrule, of course, contradicts the king's wish.

Still, I foresee the fact that I've shown once and for all how meaningless FSA's map is being completely ignored in all future discussions, with FSA as an island after TWW still being assumed as unquestionable fact based on artistic evidence. Oh well.

It's not that we ignore you. We just simply disagree.

I still don't get how this is supposed to work with TMC. TMC clearly has land as far as the eye can see, much bigger than FSA.

Which is one of the reasons why I have tMC first.

In reality, there is not a single shred of evidence in the entire goddamn series to suggest that the land "grows" - this directly contradicts the Deku Tree, who intends to JOIN the islands.

I agree.

And for it to be called Hyrule, of course, contradicts the king's wish.

I disagree. The king is dead. His wish doesn't matter anymore.

You make a solid point Impossible [in terms of the map]. We don't have any hard proof of when the "upending of the tea table" took place, but your scenario is quite plausible.

I'm not sure if this means that FSA was going to be a child game and contradict the aLttP quote about Hyrule being surrounded by trees and mountains, or if FSA was planned to be an adult game all along. The thing that has me in doubt is the fact that Jancesolo's translations revealed that in the removed FSA text, it's not the "Hylian" language that's being forgotten, but the "Hyrulian" language.

^what's the difference? It's the same toung. No I believe that FSA was meant to be a CT game, and when the teatable got upended, they changed the map.

@Lord ins-holy crap sorry-Viral:What are you thinking about the timeline right now?

MAybe the Temple of Time WAS moved in TP.. The gods probably figured the hero wouldnt be back for a long time they moved it into the Deep faron woods that nobody can get to unless they know the secret passage way, and the only one who would know that is the HEro THough wait.. Hyrule wasnt destroyed in OOT because they go back to Link's childhood in the end....It still was moved., and thats the only person who needs to go there..

It's not that we ignore you. We just simply disagree.

Okay, so, disagree with reasons, otherwise, if you go on making the same claims in light of this, you're ignoring me.

I think it's obvious that despite the odd wording, that line would have been about Hylian. And it was removed not for timeline reasons, but because it was there to introduce a mini-game, and presumably, the mini-game wasn't working well. Looking at that in the text dump, it sounded stupid, especially for a four player game, so I can understand why they would remove it.

^what's the difference? It's the same toung. No I believe that FSA was meant to be a CT game, and when the teatable got upended, they changed the map.

But this is disproved by the fact that many months before the release, before the teatable upending and before the delay, there was already water around the map. It's an artistic thing. Also, this claim in its entirety strikes me as something born from a bias to keep the same timeline in light of the evidence showing FSA was intended to be elsewhere. The fact is, it doesn't make sense. We KNOW why and how FSA's story was changed. Why would a mere attempt to simplify the story completely change the timeline placements of half the games in the series? There's no objective sense to it, or evidence.

People blow this "surrounded by forests and mountains" line out of proportion. It's fluff text, not the key indicator for anything to take place. Hell, FSA's Hyrule is clearly exactly the same place as ALttP's Hyrule, so both are equally surrounded by forests and mountains. Otherwise the whole thing makes no sense. They just have different borders, which is art, not story.

And to the "land is growing" argument: as I've said, it doesn't fit with the idea of joining the islands, and it's never even hinted at in any way whatsoever in FSA or any other game, so it's pretty much baseless. Plus it contradicts TMC, for the people who put that there as well. And now that we know FSA was always going to have that border...

But this is disproved by the fact that many months before the release, before the teatable upending and before the delay, there was already water around the map. It's an artistic thing.

Is there any way to find a picture of the beta map? If you can find that I'll, of course, give in and agree with you.

...How many times do I have to say this? I already linked to the image. It stands until someone can find anything else that shows the map at that time.

I also find the misuse of the word "beta" funny. Let's say the game was in its beta stages, then Miyamoto came in and upended the tea table and the story changed and the game got delayed. This was MONTHS before then, there's no way the game wasn't meant to be in the Child Timeline.

And let's face it, if they really wanted to indicate that the game was on the Adult Timeline, they would have done so. The story could have referenced it any way they wanted to. Even the faintest bit of random NPC text. But no, there's nothing, just as nothing in any game refers to something like that. The map is NOT enough. Geography is an auxiliary argument. It supports other evidence when it is consistent with the intent, but it's not the ultimate proof of anything by itself. Especially because it's utterly baseless to claim based on a geographical detail and nothing else that the story was intended to be a certain way. It wasn't, it's not IN the story or part of it at all.

Well... that's... umm... wow...
*goes off to rethink current timeline*

I may as well put this here:

Originally Posted by Eiji Aonouma

With the WW, we started off—as I mentioned yesterday—with the idea that we wanted to introduce a new style of movement. And so what we ended up with was the player moving around in a boat on the ocean traveling between islands. And the idea was that Hyrule—the game’s out now so I can say this [laughter]—that Hyrule’s down below and basically been flooded over and the ocean is above it. And so that was the basic idea for this new element to the gameplay, and once we had come up with this, that the player is going to be sailing across the ocean, then it became a question of, “Okay, so we know Hyrule has been flooded and it’s at the bottom of the ocean, but then the question is how did it get there?” And so that becomes an example of how we start off with a gameplay idea, and then from there think about how that affects the storyline or how to build the storyline around that.

In an example with Four Swords Adventures, I was the producer on that game, so I didn’t actually put the story for that game together—that would be put together by the director of the game. And in the end on that game, as we got closer to finishing it, of course, Mr. Miyamoto then came in and upended the tea table, and we changed the story around quite a bit at the end with Four Swords Adventures. And what Mr. Miyamoto pointed out in the case of that game was that the storyline shouldn’t be something complicated that confuses the player. It should really be kind of a guideline that helps ease the player through the gameplay process and helps them understand what it is that they’re doing. So that was one example of how the gameplay was there first, and the storyline changed all the way up until the very end.

With the WW , we started off

That doesn't sound like Aonuma...
Sorry for going off topic...

Originally Posted by Som

That doesn't sound like Aonuma...
Sorry for going off topic...

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/s...cfm?artid=2180

Anyways, I also found a few other oblique references to the approach the developers take (as dictated by Miyamoto):

Tominaga:
Apart from what everyone else has said, I would say that it's the realism of the game world. In other words, whether or not the player will be able to enjoy the story without feeling that it is unnatural. This is something that Miyamoto-san mentions frequently, but I don't mean the kind of realism where each individual strand of hair is accurately depicted, but rather the fact that a shop owner is not likely to give a hearty welcome to a child that comes into their shop in the middle of the night.

Iwata:
Miyamoto-san is pretty strict about that sort of thing, isn't he?

Tominaga:
He is! (laughs)

Nishimori:
He once pointed out to me that Link shouldn't be standing upright when there is an enemy standing right next to him. And that was when the player wasn't even controlling Link!

Iwata:
Even though the player's not doing anything, he said "Link would be in a fighting pose if an enemy were standing next to him!" (laughs)

Nishimori:
He did! (laughs) But putting in that one little touch has a really big effect on the game.

Iwata:
I see. And what about you, Kyogoku-san?

Kyogoku:
I think you can say the same thing Tominaga-san just said about what the characters in the game say. For example, hearing something unexpected when you talk to a character you haven't talked to in a while, or being surprised when a character gets angry at you for something you casually did. If you overdo it, then it will be a nuisance to players, and there's also no point in putting something in that no one will ever notice. That's why I was always trying to think of subtle things that might or might not be noticed by players. These things are silly in a good way, and I tried to put in as many of them as possible.

Iwata:
Mention Zelda and people will often say that it's hard-core, a traditional gamer's game, but it's actually completely crammed with these silly things! (laughs)

Kyogoku
That's right! (laughs) But things can get out of hand if you overdo it. On the other hand, if we don't put enough of these things in the game, Miyamoto-san will always notice it and send an e-mail saying something like: "I went to all the trouble of trying this in the game and I was sad because I didn't get a new reaction from any of the characters in the game." I called these his "sob story e-mails".

Originally Posted by Som

Well... that's... umm... wow...
*goes off to rethink current timeline*

I'm all for people rethinking their timelines under any circumstances (just because it doesn't happen often enough and people have the same timeline for too long), but if the same mistakes keep happening again, we won't really get anywhere... It was never really good evidence in the first place.