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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage Bear in mind that players will hate that forest. If it's your goal to make a place they don't like, and you succeed, your players will be miffed. Even after participating in this conversation, I'd play your game, jump on the community discussion forum, and type, "Hey, what's with the lousy dark forest? I've been running in there and dying for the last three days. I know there has to be some kind of easter egg or treasure, or secret in there. SOmeone tell me how to do it." It would be like that god-awful Megg in Halo. I never even saw it. Lousy invincible Marines.

I agree... I can't see why you'd want to put something like this into a game. I know if I was playing a game with any of the suggestions above (constant health drain, maze-like screen repetitions), I would assume it was just like every other game, that eventually I'd get an item to protect from the health drain or a hint for the maze and I'd go back at a later time. And if I got through the whole rest of the game and there was still no way to get through the forest, I would assume that it was unfinished content that the devs sort of cut in order to get the game out by Christmas, and that would just make me think it was low quality. And of course I'd check the boards and gamefaqs, and see that everybody else has found out that the forest is "bugged" (that's what everyone would assume) and there's no way through it, and there's no way I would ever believe it was just there to increase the mystery of the world. Even if you as the dev posted it on your forum, I would think "Yeah, nice excuse, next time try to finish your level design before December, and get a better publisher." ;)

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Original post by makeshiftwings and there's no way I would ever believe it was just there to increase the mystery of the world. Even if you as the dev posted it on your forum, I would think "Yeah, nice excuse, next time try to finish your level design before December, and get a better publisher." ;)

Totally true! even if the woods were the border round the edge of the world, it wouldn't work. It would be much better to do something like in the Discworld books, where the world is a disk and the edges are big drops into the depths of the universe and the water from the sea pours over it like a waterfall.


EDIT new idea

Okay so to add mystery to the world, how about if instead of saying the woods are dark, we *say that the woods are light? Ie. You can enter the woods and walk anywhere in the woods, and each time you do you can find something new and unexpected*, whether that be bee-hives hidden in trees that you can eat, or well-hidden druid ruins that are home to the souls of ancient Kings, if you are able to find later in the game that the whole forest is one living sentient thing, or that there is hidden treasure in the lake.
(Basically that is, we steal the brilliant use of secret areas from the Legend of Zelda games, combined with the way that each time you get new equipment it allows you access to new areas --- except in this design the equipment could be knowledge "say alakazam to open the secret entrance to the Tomb of Zaleekadswetsdf? OR ).

The Woods are light oh and this doesn't just apply to the woods but all areas of the game.

[Edited by - Ketchaval on June 1, 2005 5:15:08 PM]

I don't think the RPG-playing community, as a whole, is ready to handle a dark forest.

Remember that episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, where the Plutonian Oglethorpe is trying to convince Frylock to go into the Room where they melt things into fluid? He called it Melt Disney World and kept bringing it up, and frylock kept trying to dodge the situation?

That'd be a good way of doing it. Cutscene with an NPC
"Hey, isn't that the haunted forest?"
"Yeah, it probably is, so tell me more about this corrupt duke."
"He sends all of the knights in the land over there, to that haunted forest."
"Good, we're not going there."
"But its where the phantoms are, haunting it with their intangibility!"

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Original post by Ketchaval What I'd like to see is a way of implementing this idea of magic and mystery in a way that doesn't frustrate the player in a irritating way. So maybe the question has nothing to do with -geographical boundaries in games. But a way of implementing the the "known unknown".

Maybe something along the lines of the magic forest that guards the one mage tower (to lazy to look up the name) in DragonLance (aka, you can enter the woods but if it doesn't want you there the path you follow just mazes around until you come back out where you started). You could have a NPC at the opening that warns the woods do not want/like visitors.

(typo)

Yeah, and what's-his-name Majere lived there at one point. Those were fun books. Actually, only the Weis/Hickman ones were good. The other ones all felt like weak fan fiction.

Back on topic, is that what Ketcheval is after? I thought the point was to NEVER figure it out. Making it possible (even mapping the tower in there) implies that the player will eventually get in. It would just be like the desert in Ocarina of Time. Sure, it's a dead end, and you just keep teleporting back to the start, but eventually you get the lense of truth and can get through it.

That's just a gate. You may as well put a Red Door(tm) there and leave the Red Key(c) at the top of the tower right before it.