As long as the invisible walls aren't in the middle of the map i'm all for them

and yes i'm looking at you New Vegas :stare:

While that is a good idea, Fliggerty, it seems like an easy cop out because not every province is going to have mountains all around its border and right exactly on the border line. The water is great, yes, but having mountains encompassing the province... meh. I wouldn't think Skyrim to be completely surround by 90 degree cliffs all the way around. I'd just have to go with the invisible barriers. I mean, yeah they're annoying but what the hell you gonna do? The game world has to end somewhere. Even TESII Daggerfall had invisible walls, but it never bothered me. You just gotta accept it.

It's a game. There are boundries. Live with it.

Ya invisible walls are fine. And the snow storm/ fog idea is kinda err. I like looking into the ajoining provinces.

Short and to the point. I agree.

A chain between player and middle of the map, it's just long enough that you can reach the border.

Skyrim shares a border with four other provinces. It is also surrounded by mountains. The only logical conclusion, then, is to have steep mountains on all sides with periodic guarded gates leading between the provinces. The guards at each gate could be respawning by the doors would never, ever unlock.

Why does everyone assume the game will take place in the whole province? maybe it will just be a smaller region like in Morrowind.

You trip and you see your character fall down a mountain in a nice cutscene :biggrin:

How about no borders? I de-activated Oblivion's and there was still lots to find till hitting the actual end. However, I'm for some sort of message that would inform you that the actual, developed world, is coming to an end soon.

You should see the mods expanding Tamriel in Oblivion (That's Gamebryo though, not the new engine). The amount of space is insane.

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL if they stopped the running animation when going towards the edge, therefore making it appear you are stopping intentionally?

But that would defeat the whole point of having inaccessible land in the first place: so we don't see an empty void.


I'd like this, as it would provide a subtle clue that you're approaching a border, and you won't just stop dead in the middle of the wilderness (which is the main immersion killer people seem to dislike here). It would have to be very close to the border though, as it would get annoying if you're trying to flee from enemies and the game is forcing you to move slowly.

As for the "endless ocean in the north of Skyrim" ideas that have been thrown about; it wouldn't work as you would still need borders on the far left and far right sides of the map. Otherwise people could essentially swim around the borders and end up seeing empty voids and floating landmasses and whatnot.

A massive Baguette

No, what I mean is like in some games, but not Oblivion, when you reach a wall, your sprite will stop running so you don't just keep running into the wall. In the same way, when you run to the invisible wall, the sprite will just go to a standing position so it appears as if you are simply looking out at the world rather than trying to run through an invisible barrier.

I think that invisible walls, irritating as they are, are really the only way you can go. Morrowind had the distinct advantage of being an island, so you could just swim off into the sea and no artificial barriers were necessary. Skyrim does not have this.

I would think that we have two decent options here.

The first option is an invisible wall combined with some sort of visual obstacle and a warning. For instance, the mountain gets very steep and rocky and you get a message like "You feel like this mountain is unclimbable. Maybe you should stop." Then, if you ignore that and keep going, you hit an invisible barrier that says something like "You cannot go any further in this direction." Invisible walls svck if there's no reason for them, but if you can have a decent reason, like, there is a mountain in your way and it looks like you can't go that way anyway, then they fit in much better. It shouldn't be all mountains, though. Obviously, there would be gates and passes and you can put the invisible walls over the gatehouse or something like that.

Invisible walls are fine and dandy, but only if it already looks like you can't go that way. They are AWFUL if it looks like you ought to be able to go that way and then WHAM error message.

The second option is that snowstorm/fog/turns-you-back option. I think that would work really well out to sea and in any places where there is no decent visual barrier to put an invisible wall on. I would love to see it get all foggy and cold and then get messages like "You are feeling woozy. The fog seems to be affecting your sense of direction. Maybe you should turn back." and then the game turns you back. I think also that if you kept going, you should "fall unconscious" with some sort of health/fatigue penalty and be teleported back a bit.

Having an entire province behind locked doors makes about as much sense as every natural cave in Tamriel having a door on it.




Because the province of Skyrim is smaller than Cyrodiil and since a new game is likely to be bigger than the previous it's more than plausible that portions of the surrounding providences could be included in the game.


As for the topic at hand, impassable natural borders are for linear games, not for open world games of which the landscape has already been previously established.

Invisible borders are just fine.

There's a really easy way around the problem of having walled cities. Just change the law from "no levitation" to "no levitation within X yards of a city." This is even more justifiable in terms of lore.

Great Idea, it could lead to some sort of quest... I could imagine the journal entry now " As I tried to pass the borders of Skyrim I fell unconscious, the last ting I saw was a dense fog ( ) luckily someone found me a brought me to safety..." This could be a bit like the start of fallout new Vegas.

It should be "Way of the Samurai" style where you can just walk away from it all and leave the everyone to fine their own Destiny if you wish and end the game.

this because it will save space for usefull things nad make it easier on modders

This.

A window pops up informing you of the decision before you. Would make a cool way to say bon voyage to a character too. Walk out into a snowstorm to seek new adventures elsewhere.

Your head explodes while Uriel Septim's ghost hacks your headless corpse while (with patrick stewarts voice) says, "The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"

No.

Because then they'd have to blow half the voice over budget on Patrick Stewart.


Again.

I really don't care, the invisible walls were fine with me. And hopefully there will be enough map that i'll never need to touch a border :thumbsup:

"I want to see Mountains Gandalf! Mountains!" - Bilbo

High unpassable mountains would act as a great border, Well at least on the sides their on.

Mountains, broken up by the occasional road, manned by an (closed) Imperial Legion outpost.