How will the game do borders between provinces? I'm fairly confident nobody liked the Oblivion approach. Todd has said multiple times though that you can go everywhere you can see, so no more invisible walls.

What I'd like is for them to do the borders Morrowind style, and no, I'm not just saying that because I'm a Morrowind fanatic, they had a great idea back then. For those of you who don't know, when you came close to the border of the map in Morrowind, the game would enter an endless loop. You would continue moving forwards, but never actually go anywhere on the map. This was easier in Morrownd, because the game was surrounded by water, but I think it would still work very well. All of the grass and terrain has been generated semi-randomly since Oblivion, so just have the landscape endlessly loop, randomly generating new terrain, as you get close to the border.

Thoughts?

Perhaps huge mountains will block your way?

But then this begs the question; how does one enter Skyrim?

I think when you reach a certain point guards will warn you about Dragons in the area, and if you go to far, 7 dragons start breathing fire, frost, and whatever other elements are, then they kill you. But if you have mods for infinte health then I don't know...then maybe an endless loop?

maybe they'll go with a ravine or canyon, which if implemented properly could be freaking epic :liplick:

I'm 99.9% sure you reached invisible walls in Morrowind, they were just in water so it seemed like you were still swimming, and the only reason that worked was because of the water.

It would be impossibly hard to implement what you're talking about using anything but water, because what's going to be visible? Just some incredibly boring flat plane of grass? If you could see stuff off in the distance and just kept walking in an infinite line forward but weren't actually going forward towards the stuff in the distance that would be incredibly annoying.

I'd prefer invisible walls or just mountains too steep to climb.

A blizzard that ramps up in intesity the farther out you go. Eventually goes to instant kill, and then beyond that an invisible wall. You'd have to mod to go that far out though.

That was not possible even in Oblivion, it was not generated in real time, it was once generated and saved, and according to Todd everything in Skyrim is handcrafted. And your way the land outside the border would have to be a neverending plain, when having invisible walls would allow the devs to make something beautiful at least to look at. So I don't mind invisible walls at all. Btw, the only time when I got to the border was when I decided to see what would happen if I do. Never tried to do it in Morrowind.

Actually I just realized that since Skyrim is the northernmost province of Tamriel a good portion of it will be able to have water be the thing that stops you from going further... The rest could be invisible walls, tall mountains, or deep canyons.

I think if you go too far out, that with out warning an undead collosial black dragon should swoop down and 1 shot you.




This would be cool. Except it should be done like morrowind style. Instead of just getting pwnt it should just have you do an infinate loop. Like you get lost in the blizzard (perhaps even end up pointing back in tword the map, like you got turned around)

What this guy said. Never had any problems with the invisible wall borders in Oblivion or FO3 - it was nice to have interesting terrain continuing off into the distance, rather than some really fake physical barrier (like convenient impassable cliffs around the entire place) or improbably placed guards in the wilderness saying "Go away, dude".

Invisble barriers I think are a good way to surround the game world, although I also like the getting lost in the blizzard idea.
That would be more like Morrowinds endless ocean.
But, as has been said, an invisible barrier would allow the developers to paint a stunning vista to admire.

What I absolutely do not wish to see are invisible barriers inside the game world.

The invisible wall at Oblivion's borders didn't bother me, the ones that did bother me were the ones in New Vegas. Where they were placed and why, still makes absolutely no sense to me.

Ugh, this again.

Invisible walls are fine. They're easily disabled, and allow modders to expand the game into other regions. For instance, if someone wanted to mod Cyrodiil or Morrowind into the game, all they'd need to do is disable the invisible wall and cross the border.

Impassable mountains / natural features are a complete pain in the ass. They make modding more difficult, as the modder has to remove part of the map from the game which can create conflicts with other mods. Then there's the whole 3D map to worry about,

Took the words outta my mouth

To visible walls or to invisible walls? That may be the question. Buts walls is always the answer.

How about yellow tape that says "Developer Line- Do not Cross"?

I would like something... well, more immersive (and I hate the word "immersion")... you know, like maybe you are trying to go though the frontier but the Greybeards don't allow you, and the wind blows not letting you advance...

Invisible walls and a pop up on screen

"Aludin has already eaten the rest of the world, turn back"

or

Todd howard will appear and shout "Stop right there criminal scum"

Dynamic boarders and natural land barriers even messages that say you cannot continue would be better than solid invisible Walls hell I'd prefer if my character turns around and moves back un added that just stopping dead, I hate that. I was hopping fallout would be land barriers and uncrossable radiation feilds, as that would have been fitting and could go anywhere with ez, but we still had invisible wall central which I hate. Why Beth why!! Plz make the edges of skyrims sheer cliffs, blizzard wrecked tundra and icywaters that actuly make sence not to be crossable not just you cannot exit due to unknown magical Walls of invicableness... if they want the world to blend in with the world around they can even have roads out of the area some that just tell you to return because of "insert quest logical reason" and guide you back others blocked by rock fall or a collapsed bridge. Any edge that makes sence to have an invisible wall can have another wise think about more intuitive ways to blend the world edges plz!! X

Someone just said how do you enter Skyrim, well the only place from a screenshot with a Windmill was by Sea and then obviously with a Ship.

Invisible walls are just plain better than the alternatives.

Natural barriers are far more jarringly unrealistic, as Skyrim does not exist in an inescapable bowl. There should be plenty roads and open land connecting the provinces to its neighbors, just as with any land-locked real world nation. Fenced-in natural borders scream "contrived video game world!"

And don't get me started on some of the other ridiculously horrible ideas. No, we don' want endless spawns of monsters/bandits/Todd Howards with positron cannons...

Randomly generated terrain would misrepresent the surrounding lands, and while the Far Cry 2-style "dense mist rolls in, you wake up back in the borders" solution sounds the least offensive to me, it's effectively no different from invisible walls.

So yeah, invisible walls for the win.

I like the blizzard idea a lot...

I think it could be a mix depending on the area

If the border is in a forest, eventually the trees become too thick to pass

If the border is in a snowy plain, then the damaging blizzard/invisible wall way out past it would be good.

At the ends of roads into other provinces then a barrier guarded by whatever the main police force of the game would be good, and they would never open the door for you.

Some places could have mountains that are too steep to climb, along with a deadly blizzard

It could be like Discworld: get past the country's borders and you will fall forever... until you hit Alduin and die I presume.

Or maybe make the frontiers closed with barbed wire fences and mines, so that you can't hope to get past them unless you learn to levitate.

Natural borders (mountains) and an endless sea.

It could work, seeing how Skyrim is pretty much completely surrounded by mountains: http://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/gallery_files/obcodex_skyrim.jpg
One might say then: "Oh... well if there is and endless sea, I can keep swim to west or east and then go ashore around the mountains!". I say: the cold should kill you if you swim way too far in the cold, cold ocean up north.

I too think invisible walls are better than some of the alternatives here. Indeed Skyrim is not an inescapable bowl. That would be way more jarring than "you can go no further."