Transcend Time

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Crystal
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Transcend Time

Post by Crystal »

Transcend Time - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

So this has been a plan of mine for quite some time now. Ever since I was approved for the fanlisting at TFL the shrine has been in a permanent state of neglected with dated content and broken images. While I was able to make it a brand new layout that I like the entire shrine is just embarrassing and deserves better. As a result I would like to completely fix up the shrine. However I would like some input.

Here are some things I have in mind so far.

Current Plans.
  • I am going to merge the Story, Game, and Manga pages. I felt like I included a bunch of unnecessary information in these pages and feel they would best work together as one page with only the important details left intact. Also the shrine primarily focuses on the game so an entire section to the manga feels a bit out of place to me.
  • I plan on adding a new page called Inventory which talks about the items you can obtain and where/how to get them. I thought it would also be fun to talk about some items that are only available in certain versions of the game (ie: Stone of Agony/Shard of Agony).
  • Melody I would like to change this page up and have it focus more on the songs learned rather than about the music in general. I would also still like some place to talk about the in-game music and keep my playlist so I'm not entirely sure how I want to do things yet.
Undecided areas.
  • I know something everyone seems to love on my shrine is the Musings section. However I find it difficult to keep on top of plus some things end up being out of date (ie: Sheik's gender). I also have the one article which is still offline because I hated it. I'm considering dropping the section all together but because people like it I'm not sure what to do.
  • After messing around with it on my Rune Factory 4 shrine I have thought about adding a Review. I'm not really sure on this though and I'm not sure how I'd do it.
  • I've been tossing around the idea of adding a sort of Guides page to the shrine. Not really something of telling you how to beat that one dungeon that everyone hates but instead on how to "compete" the game like how to get all the heart containers or golden skulltula's. I'm not sure about this though because while I know where to get every single heart piece and skulltula without the need of a guide in the original version I know nothing when it comes to Master Quest. Plus there is the GameCube version too and I haven't gotten around to digging that out yet.
I think that's about all I had right now. I'm picking this from my brain after brainstorming it several months ago. If you can think of anything else you'd like to see or would like to comment on one of the points listed above please share!
There are shadows before us - but only because the light is at our back.
Robin
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Re: Transcend Time

Post by Robin »

I will try to help with brainstorming :D

#1: Story/Game/Manga

I think you're right about these pages needing to be combined somehow. Perhaps there is a way to do a paragraph-long summary of the story, and then do a "read more?" link to a separate page where you could still have a fuller summary, akin to what you have now. (Using headings in your full summary might help with readability on that page, too.)

And since you're focusing on the video game, you might only need just a tangential mention of the manga in the story paragraph--maybe just an external link to a site that is more about the manga?

#2 Inventory Page

Your plans for this page sound great!

#3 Melody/Music Page(s)

Could this be transformed into a section instead of a single page (like your Musings section)? If you did make it into a section, you could create a page each for songs learned in-game, the music of the game in general, and the actual playlist. Perhaps you could even add a page about why the music of the game is so important to you?

#4 Musings

I feel ya on this one--trying to keep something like this updated is HARD. But I like that you allow yourself this space to have opinions, and I think that's what many people are responding to as well. :)

I think perhaps adding some screenshots (if possible), especially on the Song of Storms paradox article and the Observations article, will help these articles feel stronger. Illustrating those observations with screenshots, in particular, would be really cool!

Your "fairy bashing" article is already quite strong, and the Sheik gender headcanon article is REALLY intriguing--perhaps all it needs is a section or a note explaining that you came to these conclusions before a reveal was made. (The bachelorette article sounds cool, btw, but I get why you might not want to include it in this section)

#5 Review article

I would say go ahead and do a game review! It's really cool to hear another player's opinion of a game :)

#6 Guides

Hmm. I get what you want to do, but I'd say hold off on doing this for a while, at least till you get the rest of the shrine revamped, and then see where you stand in terms of content. (This would also give you time to replay the game(s) and make more notes.) But don't feel pressured to add a game guide if you aren't feeling it!
~ a dream is a wish your heart makes ~
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Lethe
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Re: Transcend Time

Post by Lethe »

Wow, Crystal, looks like you really have been giving this a lot of thought! I like how you have pretty clear plans in mind already. <3 Knowing how much The Legend of Zelda means to you and seeing you work on this shrine again makes me happy!

1) Merging sounds great. There are... quite a bit of steps in the Story section that can be skipped/merged because they're... tiny steps along the journey, and don't necessarily mean much in the big scheme (to understand and be introduced to the story, I mean). Together, they add quite a lot to the length of the current page.

I also agree that a lot of facts on the development/creation history of the game and manga seem like too much detail and detract from an otherwise compact shrine! I like the trivia about stuntment though.

If I were you, I'd consider summing up things such as interesting details in development and version differences in a bullet point list; it makes it easier to follow (since it jumps around so much) and would allow you to only point out what you consider worth mentioning.

For the manga, I'd probably limit it to pointing out differences and added scenes... The other information doesn't strike me as that interesting (whereas I really enjoy reading about differences). =x

2) Love the inventory page idea! I'm by no means a Zelda expert, but I've read about how some items are used differently across the games, or cannot be obtained, and that's always nice to read about. I don't know how extensive you're planning on making this page, but I would at least consider making a selection rather than listing all kinds of items/tools. Reasons: spoilers/taking out the fun for other people (since opening treasure chests and being surprised is part of the game) + you're not a walkthrough/guide/FAQ, so completion isn't a must.

I'm not sure what exactly you have in mind buuuut for example, I really enjoy reading what other people's favourite tools in a Zelda game are, or what items they love having in their inventory. I'm super in love with empty bottles, and for those, I would consider listing how you can get them; I remember you get them through very different means haha.

3) The current Melody page doesn't look long to me. I feel like you could easily add the songs below, especially if you limit it to songs you love so as to introduce people, rather than be complete? If you want it to be complete though, Robin's suggestion sounds good.

4) NO YOUR MUSINGS SECTION IS GREAT LEAVE IT. ;_; I don't completely understand your concern though - why would you need to kep up to date for it? If the Sheik thing no longer applies, just add a note about the time when you wrote it, explain why it's out of date now, and link to whatever news has been added since. I think it's nice to see these pages because they indirectly show how long a person has been a fan, and what they thought about or what was being talked about back in the day. (For example, there are very old Naruto shrines up now, complete with theories that have now been solved. But I hope that those pages will stay up forever, because they are a snapshot in time and show you what popular theories there were back in the day, whether or not they turned out to be true, and what fans were talking or thinking about back then.)

And your Navi and Observations pages are so so so so so so lovely.

5) If you want to write a review on the game, go ahead. However, I think that a formal review is needed more for not as popular or not as well known or rather recent games. Ocarina of Time is a game everybody knows, so I think that your current "My Thoughts" page along with several other pages with personal touches (Musings, Melody, etc.) together form a kind of review already. If anything, I'd add to the "My Thoughts" page if you want to say more about the game!

6) To be honest, I don't think one such guide is needed, for reasons I've mentioned in some of the points above. Ocarina of Time is so popular, there already are plenty of FAQs for it (and this is just GameFaqs). I don't think another guide would add to what already exists, and it'd be purefly factual, so I feel like your time and efforts are better spent on something else... Of course, if it's something you enjoy doing, do it. XD

7) I'm the kind of person who loves personal touches in shrines. Here are some suggestions: Overworld -> add screenshots and comments on your favourite locations. Musings -> add pages on 1-2 favourite characters or relationships, favourite game features, favourite part of the story, etc.
Both despair and ecstasy are part of the elements that compose a person.
Crystal
Posts: 2320
Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:02 pm
Location: Alberta Canada
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Re: Transcend Time

Post by Crystal »

So much input! Thank you so much girls. I'm gonna try to reply to everything. <3

@Robin

#1) My problem is I'd like to keep everything on one page if possible. If it doesn't work though I suppose I could just do a sub page. I just want it mostly as an introduction and not a super detailed info dump about the game if that makes sense. I do like your suggestions though!

I don't really want to do an external link. It just takes the visitor away from my shrine. I'd like to talk a little bit about it but not have a full blown section like I have now.

#2) Yay!

#3) Again I'd like to keep everything on page page if possible. I do like the idea of adding something about how much the music means to me though. Awesome idea!

#4) Yeah that's why I'm so hesitant about dropping it. Everyone loves it. I didn't even think about screenshots! I can easily take some from in-game and I also have a couple on my computer that may be useful. I'll have to figure something out for the observations page. I don't know what images I'd use for it.

Yeah I think that would be a good thing to do. I love the article and finding out her true gender kinda caused some mixed feelings in me just because I felt so strongly about it.

#6) I shall think on it. I think Lethe provided a good point.

#7) I agree with you. I think I'll keep the focus more on information and opinions.

@Lethe

#1) Yeah I don't think the story needs to be quite so long. I want it more as an intro to the story rather than a complete telling. It is quite long haha.

#2) I kinda want to include spoilers plus I think everyone knows everything about the game now (okay maybe not EVERYONE) but I do understand where you're coming from. I was basically planning weapons/gear/item upgrades for the page. Maybe just talking about the item but not saying where or how to get it? I'm not sure how to make this work.

I like this opinions on favorite items. In the N64 version I would ALWAYS have the ocarina on the left C and never put anything else there. Only my ocarina was allowed to have that spot. The 3DS version has its own spot for it.

#3) Maybe instead of including all the ocarina songs maybe just keep it as is and include a list of my favorite songs, like how I did here? And then the songs I could just have on my playlist.

#4) Mostly it's just to keep it up to date with my current standards. Sometimes my style changes or my opinion changes as well. I've honestly never thought of it like that before. I always thought I had to keep things "current". I suppose that isn't true.

Aww thanks Lethe. I love my Navi page. <3

#5) That makes sense. Even if they have not played it everyone has at least head of Ocarina of Time. I think I'll do that instead. :D

#6) I agree with everything said. I won't do the section.

#7) I never thought about that. I think that would be a great thing to add. I do have areas I like more so than others. I love all the ideas! <3
There are shadows before us - but only because the light is at our back.
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