How should The Black Shroud be redesigned?

[giftforce]

Yoshi wanted us to discuss it. I guess for further reference, there are already two threads with some random suggestions:

thread 1

thread 2


Anyways with that out of the way.

Although I have grown accustomed to the tone of the Black Shroud as it stands today, an atmosphere more befitting to the name is more what I envisioned when I first saw the concept art for Gridania and The Black Shroud.

If you've ever seen Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, the forest from that movie is more what I envisioned. Obviously I'm not suggesting a direct plagiarism or anything, just some adjustment to ambience. At least in some areas.

Another thing to address is the corridor-like nature of the layout. I think I speak for everyone when I say I groaned when I first saw the map for The Black Shroud. After Yuhtanga Jungle, I never wanted to see such a map again. And at least Yuhtanga Jungle had some maze-like qualities to it which alleviated the boredom.

The development team have also spoken alot about conducting players throughout the game, and maybe it's time they addressed the seemingly random positioning of certain features throughout the zones. There really doesn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason to the position of some of the items on the map, as far as I can tell. Even considering the camps, some of them seem oddly placed. In any case, I think it would have been more wise to position some of the townships and spectacles more close to the main thoroughfare to give a sense of more variation within the zone.

Placing them so far off the beaten-track, although compelling players to adventure more, makes the rest of the zone rather tedious.

In short: reduce tedium and copy paste, alter ambience and atmosphere, restruture the zone to be more open, position interesting outcrops and structures to be more central to the main passageways.

Feel free to weigh in.