I like the idea of endless forests with wolves and bears in them. Maybe you could just wander into the forest and have to fight them, whenever you wanted to.

At the risk of sounding revolutionary

based on this map

http://skyrim.wikia.com/wiki/Skyrim_Wiki

if you go west -> you enter high rock
if you go south west -> you enter hammerfell
if you go south -> you enter cyrodil
if you go east -> you enter morrowind
if you go north -> you enter the sea and beyond..

Why not just do that ?
the whole freaking continent
Ever since Arena and Daggerfall
I hoped they would do the whole thing, whith each province the size of daggerfall
and as much randomness as Diablo II + Diablo I + Daggerfall combined
and all the features of Total War and Mount and Blade (on-horse and on-dragon combat)

the technology is there, just do it
if they're greedy, then just sell each province or city a certain amount $
if they feel generous, sell the whole thing at once
and charge for updates, as if it's Microsoft Word

Elder Scrolls 2011
Elder Scrolls 2012
Elder Scrolls 2013
Elder Scrolls 2014
Elder Scrolls 2015
Elder Scrolls XP
Elder Scrolls Extreme Beach Volleyball
Elder Scrolls XXX (Rumble Roses XXX)
Elder Scrolls Diablo Limited edition (add on where Diablo rampage in the TES world)

That would be a lot more fun than buying separate games and playing one tiny province at a time
It breaks immersion

Oh, and yes, what was really annoying first time I opened the editor was realizing everything was a tileset, yet they didn't built a random engine using it. It would have been amazing to have maze like giant daedric dungeon

Myself I'm not a big fan of "handcrafted scenes" I think a good programmer can create a good decorator program
Diablo II sure prooved it, at least for dungeons (exteriors svcked)

I say if you got the tech, use it

I see that my use of exclamation marks was less subtle than I thought.

On a more serious note, they will probably use invisible walls. I like the idea of randomly generated terrain, though, so that gets my vote for Best Way to Do Borders. The only thing about random generation is that, if it goes on forever, the areas near the borders could be as big as the carefully built main area. Immersion, it seems, is made to be broken.

I for one will be to busy drooling over the (almost certain) glory of TES 5 to notice.

Make Skyrim so amazing, I don't want to leave.

I liked that.

This. If it's going to cause pointless problems with the game then I find no problem with "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" messages. I'd rather have a less flawed game with barriers than a flawed game but I could swim in the sea FOREVER.

if you stray to close to the border you will get swarmed by cliff racers!

This.

THIS!

I laughed hard at Elder Scrolls Beach Volleyball

Edit: I think the border, if not invisible, should have some reason. Why would a horde of cliffracers or wolves come and attack me? Why would the divines care if I wanted to go into another province? It should be intwined in the story somehow. I'll leave it up to gamesas's creativity.

It would only get old if you're for some reason in the habit of repeatedly running toward a border that you know you cannot pass.

Mountains as barriers would kill immersion. It wouldn't make any sense.

I don't mind the "you cannot go further" invisible wall at all. I'm a rational advlt who understand's that he is playing a Game and not actually running around in Skyrim in real life. I think we sometimes take immersion a little too far, to the point of being childish.

As a compromise I think the above mentioned idea of your surroundings suddenly getting foggy or having visibility eliminated due to "blizzard" might be reasonable. But I'd prefer invisible borders so that I can stand on the edge and look out on the beautiful "look but don't touch" landscapes of the other province. If anything, THAT is more immersive.

Nothing wrong about the oblivion method. Actually, it was awesome.

PS. All of the other ideas (except mountains as a barrier and sea) were [censored].

make a giant plane where your forced to listen to the adoring fan blabber on about this "great hero of the arena dude" for 5 mins. that'll discourage most people of doing it again :banghead:

I think they should just let us explore. What can we do out there? I mean, they build up the landscapes across tamriel, I want to see them, like i did in Oblivion

Keep the way Oblivion did it, can't believe I said that bu there it is.

Ha! Seconded!

Anything that stops all forward movement is bad, which includes invisible walls and impassable natural barriers.

Some kind of an infinite region, you can keep walking, and random stuff is made (no significant content, enemies, trees, rocks, etc though).
It would kind of be like the water in Morrowind or an everlasting forest that some have said.

Sure it might be ridiculous, but it never stops the character.
And it adds a possibility for an ever increasingly difficult region, the farther you walk the more enemies there are.
So its a chance to test your skill.

Maybe at some point you get hit with a swarm of dragons breathing fire down on you.

Place encampments of soldiers of varying races at the border of their respective province. They'll warn you twice to turn back as you have no clearance to pass into the next province. The third time you attempt to cross over they can kill you on sight. Orcs and Bretons for High Rock, Redguards for Hammerfell, Imperials for Cyrodiil, and Dunmers for Morrowind.

I wouldent mind a fog(or a snow storm to fit Skyrim better) to show up that gets thicker and thicker as you go, then the game turns your around 180 without you knowing and you mysteriously walk out where you came,

Haha, that would be brilliant.

People get turned around in bad weather and deserts all the time, they end up walking in circles for miles and dont even notice so I figured what i said is a realistic means of doing it.

Well, how about it the script in a witch doctor lady/wizard who lays a curse on you (the reason for us being in prison, this is our punishment) so you can't leave Skyrim. You are automatically teleported back within Skyrim boundaries. YOU ARE CURSED TO BE A HERO! And thus you must stay... forever... MUAHAHAHA!

At least thats an impassable barrier that makes sense, after all Skyrim is in for bad times, the other countries do NOT want refugees...

Mountains to the South, East and West. A sea of water to the North. When you try to overcome the obstacle, a picture of Ed Boon pops out from the side and says "WOOOPSIES!", reminiscent of Mortal Kombat 3.

This. This is the best idea yet! No joke.