Agree with this. They've been sensible so far when it comes to this type of thing. Even in Morrowind's alien type environment it made sense. Hardly a thing grew in the ash wastelands. Ancient, dead trees everywhere you looked. You endured lots of ash storms in the Ashlands. The terrein looked like a place that had been enduring ash storms for a long time. They can make non-earth type plants or places if they want to.. but they need to keep up the good work when it comes to making sense.

*Headache* I don't think you actually understand me and I really cba to take the time to fully explain why. In short though, I don't think our opinions are actually at odds... I'm not saying I want Beth to put a desert next to a snow bank. I'm not saying I want a lush jungle oasis on top of what should be a deserted arid mountaintop. I'm not saying I want a green sky, or new laws of physics, or life forms based on something other than carbon... Or for that matter any form of plant/animal life that doesn't make sense in the environment in which it is placed.

What I'm saying is that I want to see a more vivid, unique, and varied game world. You can see vivid/unique/varied terrain and life all over Earth, much more so than in Oblivion. So I don't see how my request is invalid even if the game has to restrict itself to earthly influences. And personally I don't think it should. Morrowind had many fantastic elements to its world that you would never see on Earth, such as certain architecture, silt striders, and various plant and animal life. Why is it unreasonable to ask for similarly original and fantastic environments in the next ES game? Why is it unreasonable to ask that in an entire province, roughly 15% of the landmass of an entire CONTINENT, that there be a wide variety of terrain/landscape types?

I live in California and in this single state we have a very wide variety of terrain, including desert, forest, mountains, hills, valleys, bays, beaches, lakes, volcanoes, mesas, etc. California's land mass should theoretically be roughly the same as any province in Nirn, if not significantly smaller (California takes up far less space on a map of North America than Skyrim does on a map of Tamriel, though I'm not sure how large Tamriel is supposed to be relative to North America)... We also have thousands of species of wildlife, including hundreds of types of birds, small game, large game, livestock, domesticated animal, predators, sea creatures, and more. And thousands of types of plant as well... In fact, of the almost 6,000 types of plants native to California (i.e. that grew before it was settled), about 40% are unique to the state. Technical limitations aside, why shouldn't a province of equal or greater landmass in a FANTASY GAME display at least as much variety in its flora, fauna, and geography? Why shouldn't we expect to see new plant/animal types or new forms of terrain?

People have already demonstrated that stereotypes regarding northern lands on Earth are not as sweeping as many would believe; northern European countries are not 100% ice/snow; parts of Canada may not see snow all year, and most of that country is usually not snowy... And even those lands that are mostly snow still feature a wide variety of terrain and wildlife; they're not just endless mountains, glaciers, and tundra... So again why is it wrong to ask for a landscape that contains vivid and varied geography, plant life, and animal life? Even if they make Skyrim a virtual clone of a northern European country -- which IMO would be a huge mistake and a big letdown -- they could still make the geography much more interesting than Oblivion's geography was.

You talk about immersion. To me, a large world is more immersive if its terrain and wildlife are diverse and vivid. Oblivion's landscapes were anything but. Anywhere in the world you could find the same rocks, same trees, same deer/bear/mountain lions... Each town had relatively unique architecture but otherwise there was hardly any variety in the game world, and that made it far less immersive to me.

Also, final note: again using California as a real life example... You say it makes no sense to put a desert next to snow plains, and while in principle I agree, I should point out a couple things: firstly, many deserts actually receive a lot of snow every year -- a few years ago (2004), deserts in Southern California (which often reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit in Summer) were covered in snow by storms... This is in some of the hottest and driest deserts in the US btw. And secondly, Death Valley, one of the lowest, driest, and hottest areas in the continental US, is situated within about 75 miles of the tallest peak in the continental US, Mount Whitney. So it's not impossible for a low, dry, arid desert to be situated next to a towering peak so tall that its peak rests decidedly above the tree line.

Hm, this post ended up being a lot longer than I originally intended. Ah well...


tl;dr: I don't disagree with you. I believe that the game world can be made far more diverse including a wide variety of flora, fauna, and terrain, while still maintaining reasonable "realism" with regard to ecosystems you could expect to see on Earth or an Earth-like planet.

I wonder what came first in Morrowind. Did they first think of the environment, then work the people and places to suit it? Or was it the other way round? (if there was an order at all)

Edit: I'm aware there was lore and references to Morrowind in previous games, but what i mean is what did they focus on first.

Skyrim is a cold climate, but not all of it as cold as people seem to believe. The Jerall Mountains portrayed in Oblivion, and the fact that the land north of the game border was unfortunately portrayed as snow, seem to have convinced a lot of people that Skyrim must therefore be very cold in even the most southern of its reaches. The current lore for Skyrim indicates a lot of variety in its environments, which a modder called Siegfried is working on creating for the Tamriel Worldspace project in http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1099571-tamriel-worldspace-modding-project-thread-3/. He has posted screenies in the thread if you want to check it out.

There will be a lot of green in Skyrim, and I will be very surprised if we don't see deciduous plants and trees to the south of the province as well.


Good reply, and I see where you're coming from now. The deserts you're quoting that have snow on them are all situated in central regions though, where desert is prevalent year-round, and snow can be seen occasionally during winter months (though likely very rarely). Skyrim is a northern region though, and it won't show the opposite: deserts appearing during the summer months. That just doesn't happen

I understand that you're just trying to make the point that more diversity than Oblivion would be a good thing, and that you were likely just exaggerating when you mentioned deserts, and that TES doesn't use Earth's flora. I mistook that for ignorance, so my bad there! I've seen a lot of people on this forum before that genuinely thought Tamriel's flora was unique, and argue in earnest for a crazy mix of environments and flora. Guess it's a pet hate of mine

But you're right, we're on the same page. More diversity would be a great thing so long as it's not at the expense of believability! More culture and general sense of epicness is also what the doctor ordered. Norse mythology should definitely be able to provide a lot of that.

One of my biggest issues with Oblivion was the completely generic setting. Going from Morrowind, with its mushroom trees, Nix-hound infested ash-lands, bone-armour wearing guards, to Oblivion with everything you'd ever see in a LotR's film/game makes you wonder if it is even the same people making the game!

So yeah, totally agree with the original poster; would love for TES V to return to the uniqueness we experienced in Morrowind, and to a lesser extent Shivering Isles expansion. I doubt we'll be that lucky though.

I would like to point out to everyone that we do not exactly know where Tamriel, and Skyrim for that matter, is situated on the globe of Nirn. It is very possible that the lower third of Skyrim and the upper sixth of Cyrodill are in fact the closest points in Tamriel to Nirn's north pole. This would make it so that the upper area of Skyrim on the map is actually farther south than what looks like the southern area of Skyrim. This leading us to believe that there is more green area that we previously thought. This is just an Idea though, and quite logical if you think it through.

I hope that Skyrim will have Nirn's equivalent to the northern lights. If you are traveling from lets say your traveling from Riften to Dawnstar. Your about half way there when you see something moving above you. Twisting and sliding across the dark sky, green, blue, purple and gold. That would make the game for me. Add this and it would seem alien even if it occurs on Earth.

I would also like to see some serious snowy areas apart from the greenery. I think it would just be so great if you could climb a mountain of glacier and find a treasure chest buried underneath a wall of ice. Then shoot a fire spell at it and have it slowly melt until the chest is accessible. Looking down the hill and seeing a kilometer high drop. Looking forward and seeing a vast plane of snow and dead trees. Looking up and seeing a blue and purple sky Nirn's moons just visible.

Basically when I think of Skyrim, I think of Canada. A large part where its snowy and Icy all year round. And an even bigger part where its snowy during winter and hot and sunny during the summer.

This is assuming the game takes place in Skyrim. Which it most likely does.

Tell me what you think of my ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48P5h2jgsEw

I don't quite understand your point?

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/GrungeHead1991/SkyrimMapv2-1.jpg

This is what I imagine the map of skyrim would look like.

Fool! That's like saying that the Great Underground Empire http://i32.tinypic.com/efqipe.png. What do I imagine could await us in Skyrim?

• Ancient cities built inside of hollowed mountains, hotter than the fires of hell and a welcome respite to one who has been out in the cold too long.
  
• Ornate, majestic ships that have been refitted to skate along frozen lakes and rivers.
  
• Misty chasms that meet with underground hot springs, dominated by lush vegetation.
  
• Large outcrops of ice, shaped into crystals, that resonate the howling sounds of the wind and reflect the lights of the borealis.
  
• Fortresses and labyrinths made of ice, like a hall of mirrors.
  
• Roaming, pastoral groups of Nords and other peoples that have constructed their homes - yurts, and the like, on top of the massive resilient beasts that they use for transport.
  
• Waterfalls and rapids cutting a swathe through the landscape, continuing through underground tunnels and caverns where people take residence.
  
• Lots and lots and lots of cliffs.

I'm not expecting another Morrowind or Oblivion. So far everything has sought of had its own creativity. I can understand the whole jungle vs temprate forest and grasslands complaint but what did people expect from Ayelid architecture? Or Cyrodiilian architecture? I certainly expected western european style medieval architecture given that it was the province of the civilized Imperials. As for the Ayelid ruins looking like Numenorean architecture, we've never seen Numenorean architecture except a few snippets in the movies.

Simply put Cyrodiil was different from Morrowind (very different) and I expect Skyrim to be different from both. Maybe its because I didn't pay attention to the pre realease hype but I enjoyed what I got with Oblivion, at the time of its release it was the most beautiful fantasy sandbox environment I'd ever seen. I expect Skyrim to be as fantastic if not more so in its own way.

Taking the sun's position in Cyrodiil into account, it's perfectly clear that the Jerall mountains aren't the north pole of Nirn.

• Vast mountain ranges with screaming blizzards acting as a trial of nature.
  
• Coniferous forests with crisp streams flowing from crystal clear springs.
  
• Frozen moss and vegetation cracking beneath your footsteps in the northern reaches.
  
• Majestic rivers and fjords, winding through valleys and mountainsides, navigated by fishermen and large Nordic ferries.
  
• Birds of prey nesting in cliffsides and soaring through the skies hunting prey.

Yeah I realized that after I posted it. Still, it might be something that the devs have only just come up with.

There'd damn better be levitation if it's Skyrim, too.

I don't really care if it's alien or "generic", I just want it.

Just throwing this out there, there are plenty of completely generic fantasies set in jungles already. Elf Queen of Shannara, anyone? It just wouldn't be Tolkienesque, and more like something else already made.

Like something out of the Conan world.

Scaling mountains with a really, really long-lasting Levitation spell would be awesome. :laugh:

I think generic forest fantasies outnumber these generic jungle fantasies by a little bit. Pretty much every rpg out there has the generic forest theme.

Are you even sure that TES V is going to be in Skyrim?? Maybe they just tricked us and now Bethesda is making new generic Oblivion like game in cyrodiil or Daggerfall area instead of "alien world" Skyrim

Oh no! Glacier Racers.......

.....and the next game will almost definitely be in Skyrim, and CALLED Skyrim, otherwise Bethesda wouldn't have renewed the copyright on the name.

Omg i hope they use different sound effects!

Anyways, this is the paragraph in the Imperial Library about what Skyrim looks like:

The land of Skyrim is the most rugged on the continent, containing four of the five highest peaks in Tamriel (see Places of Note: Throat of the World). Only in the west do the mountains abate to the canyons and mesas of the Reach, by far the most cosmopolitan of the Holds of Skyrim, Nords of the pure blood holding only the barest majority according to the recent Imperial Census. The rest of Skyrim is a vertical world: the high ridges of the northwest-to-southeast slanting mountain ranges, cleft by deep, narrow valleys where most of the population resides. Along the sides of the river valleys, sturdy Nord farmers raise a wide variety of crops; wheat flourishes in the relatively temperate river bottoms, while only the snowberry bushes can survive in the high orchards near the treeline. The original Nord settlements were generally established on rocky crags overlooking a river valley; many of these villages still survive in the more isolated Holds, especially along the Morrowind frontier. In most of Skyrim, however, this defensive posture was deemed unnecessary by the mid-first era, and most cities and towns today lie on the valley floors, in some cases still overlooked by the picturesque ruins of the earlier settlement.

Judging by this paragraph I would say Skyrim does not have nearly as much of an alien feel to it. I would also like to point out that it seems the land of Skyrim is more varied than lets say... Northern Canada. (i'm canadan)

Still the evidence supporting Skyrim being the location of the next TES game is not sufficient for us to be sure of its authenticity. If the game takes place in somewhere else im sure we will all feel slightly foolish.

I don't know why everyone seems to think that Skyrim is without-a-doubt going to be the next ES location. The only evidence was the copyright, which is now expired. When people first discovered this they thought Skyrim was a possibility. Then slowly, as time went on, everyone just convinced themselves that is was Skyrim even though there was no more evidence to back it up. From what I've heard, Bethesda has put up false copyrights before, so it's perfectly possible that Skyrim isn't the next game.



Paragraphs. Please.

But they don't have to fully abide to that description.

Yeah for real, they didn't in Oblivion after all.

Well that time was a mistake

I think they made the right decision with changing the environment in Oblivion. The technology at the time just wasn't good enough to make acceptable tropical flora. We have since seen games like Crysis that does the tropics perfectly but I think Beth made the right call. Because they have made that kind of decision before it is not that hard to think of them doing it again. I however do not see this happening. It is one thing to go from tropical to European and a completely other thing to go from the North Pole to southern Canada.