21st April 2005, 1:43 PM
Quote:I was referring to OoT's world.
And look at Oblivion. That world is even bigger than Morrowind's, and fifty times as pretty. Really, size will not ruin the uniqueness of a game world, or how much detail is put into it. Not if you tackle it practically. Imagine a Lost Woods that actually looks like real woods and not just a bunch of tiny rooms connected to each other. A huge world with seemingly endless possibilities to explore. That would be awesome.
"Hours"? Who said anything about hours? And that's great thinking there, "because it's always been limited it should be limited forever". Hey let's not innovate! Let's not take this franchise in bold new directions! Let's remain stagnate and dare not push the boundaries of what can be done! Woo!
Morrowind is about wandering randomly forever. It's not about actually achieving anything. Zelda is. That's a key difference... and as I said, a small but really well done world, like OoT, works well. Or how about MM -- that world isn't huge either but it feels large, and has variety... sure, larger would be nice. Just make sure to have some kind of warp magic (like MM or WW), so you don't have to actually run all the way across the world. I agree, a really-huge-world Zelda could be great... but I don't want it to be Morrowind. Zelda has something to say for a sense of intimacy that you can't get with five billion random villagers saying the same things.
So yes, larger is better. More open spaces, more places to explore... but some limits are reasonable. I guess the closest Zelda got to that was Zelda II, with its lots of different towns... and that game's very different from all of the others. Yes, the Zelda formula could be improved and a larger world is one way to do that. But not just a larger world for the sake of a larger world, like TES has... only do a larger world if it really helps the game and if it can all be done as well as (with the same amount of cohesion, making it fit in the world and the story and the gameplay, etc) a smaller one can be.
Morrowind is a good game, but it's no Zelda, that's for sure.