Thoughts about exploration

[Helleri]

I think the game world is big and nice looking. But apart from having to travel through it to reach goals. The world itself is not as interesting as it could be. I think back to games like Legend of Zelda and Poke'mon. Where a player would occasionally find heavy objects they could move, or vegetation they could remove. Items like rafts or ladders that let them take shortcuts. even natural and constructed traps. I think the game world would benefit from a lot more of this kind of intractability.

Here is a for instance of where I have found such things lacking when it really feels like the game would benefit from having them:

I found this little island with a witch (who will not yet speak to me) south of Hurnscald. It took me a minute to find the water stones that let me cross over onto it. Trying to go directly to it I recalled "right...I can't swim". I tried walking around the west side of the lake but couldn't get through the trees. I thought "It would be great if I could chop this one tree down, which is in my way." Eventually I found the way across to the island. but in crossing the stones I ran into one water plant I had to walk around...Seemed needless to have to go around it. I thought "Would love to just be able to hop over this, maybe even skip another walk space in doing so). Once on the island I saw There was a small red bridge to cross and it had a busted out board. I thought "I'd best be careful going over this". But, then I quickly realized no harm would come to my character. After the witch would not speak to me I had a look around the island. I noticed a small cave below the lip of a ridge. Now, if I only had a rope I could have secured it to something and climbed down.

Just getting onto that island could have been a much more interesting experience. What if I wasn't able to get over those stones without slipping? Well maybe I could go pick some flax, have an NPC make it into a rope (although being able to spin it on a wheel myself would be more preferable) And, lasso it around branch on the other side for something to hold onto to help me cross. One I got to the bridge that is broken I couyld have chopped a tree and battoned out a rough plank to fix the bridge. Or that same rope and wood could have been used to make raft to float strait across to that interesting looking cave.

What if the things I did to benefit my own character remained in place for a while. Say I made a ladder to ascend a ridge cutting out a lot of walk time. of course a ladder is too big to take with me. But, I've established a temporary shortcut at that point which others can also use. And, maybe made a short term route for myself to go between a grind spot and selling in town, in the process (after so many uses by anyone the ladder would break).

Maybe I feel like I don't want to leave a grind yet but I am filling up on what i can carry and really need to go sell. If I have a shovel I could dig a cache. Being able to do that would mean i could even leave stuff for other players to find. We could have our own treasure hunts that way.

The over all sentiment here is that being able to interact with something shouldn't be restricted in it's usefulness (or ability to do it at all) to a one off quest use or item obtaining. It can be superfluous. And, just as being something that you can do which makes sense. Be something that makes quality of life in game better. And makes every thing a lot more interesting.

[Helleri]

I realized this isn't strictly a suggestion but more of a rambling. So, here is my attempt to turn it into a suggestion.

Make some trees in common areas able to be felled. Also, introduce an Ax for doing this (which could also be used as a weapon but with lower then normal weapon stats as it's main purpose is chopping). The trees (for the moment) need not give any sort of supply. Or it could give logs that will have their usage implemented at a later date. But, upon initially putting them in the game will be able to be sold to NPCs for a price that makes it worth chopping it if you happen to see one. Yet, not worth so much that they are worth grinding as a drop.

This will give players the ability to create their own temporary shortcuts. And, in-doing-so provide a play test for the idea of inserting more features like this.

[Virtual Reality]

The biggest issue I see with this is that TMW is a multiplayer game while Pokemon and the Legend of Zelda are not.
Modifying the world becomes difficult and potentially disruptive.

[Ledmitz]

I love it. It might be tough to do, but I bet if the movable items were stationary mobs, that could only be affected by certain items, then it would be possible. Can a Dev answer this one?
I too, have had the same thoughts when I first started.

[Crush]

When allowing players to interact with the world, always keep two things in mind:

1. there are multiple players in the world who all want to interact with it - in the worst case simultaneously
2. a small amount of these players are trolls who will abuse anything they can to annoy other players

For any proposal you make regarding world interactivity, keep these two points in mind and evaluate the consequences.

[Ledmitz]

2. a small amount of these players are trolls who will abuse anything they can to annoy other players

Then Troll proof it. It's all in the design and if that doesn't work, only use on PVP maps