Ideally I`d like there to be no borders and that the terrain went on forever in a pseudo-random way and have a continual warning that you were entering unknown territory.
-This territory would understandably lack a lot of detail but there`d be the illusion of an infinite world to explore
-An infinitely sized detailed world would be a good idea for VI (I don`t want much!!)

A mixture, I suppose. Of natural and man made. I suppose it's convenient in that the top end opens up to the Ocean and the East could be sealed off by impassable mountain ranges.
Maybe a few gate houses or a massive wall of ice? (all GRRM )

Well I never tried swimming but I did jump between Morrowind and Solstheim. I think invisible barriers will do fine as long as they are not within the game map and don′t go anywhere between point A and point B on the map. That is you should be able to pick a starting point and a destination on the map and walk a straight line there without a invisible wall being in the way.

giant sea creatures to eat you, mountains that you can see cyrodiil from the top but will fall to your death if you try to pass, at least on political road block into highrock or morrowind and as varied natural bariers ranging from canions to carnivorous plants, rock slides to avalanches and maibe the ruins of a large oblivion gate that block the way with an evil curse.

Endless sea and Bowser stair mountains.

The entire map can't be completely walled off by mountains and cliffs. There should be at least a few locations where there is a pass through, at least one for each of the provinces Skyrim borders.

There could be a wall with a gate with killable guards of the appropriate race for the province. Even if you kill the guards the gate remains locked. They will claim that because of the war no one is permitted to leave.

Apart from that I am happy for there to be thick forests and impassible mountians.

having natural barriers I feel looks unrealistic. The invisible barriers like they did in Oblivion & Morrowind were good enough. I think we all understand why they are there. natural barriers could work for a few places but in all realism what country has a complete border of natural barriers? Even with water there has to be an invisible barrier where the character has to turn back.

natural borders would svck ,it would destroy the feeling that Skyrim is part of a continent.

You mean that mountains, rivers and lakes can't exist on continents? :facepalm:

Natural boundaries are the best solution really. A lot of rivers simply can't be crossed, a lot of mountains simply can't be climbed. Many of countries have their borders following rivers or mountain ranges. France and Spain are an example, their border is marked by the Pyrenees Mountains. The Rio Grande partially marks the border of the USA and Mexico, the Rhine partially marks the Franco-German border. The point is that natural boundaries is the least immersion breaking choice. Certainly less so than an invisible wall that says "You cannot go that way, turn back" when you get close.

this reminds me of the lost forest in the original legend of zelda... and thats not a bad thing....

in FFVII when exploring that snowy northern area, if you took to much time you would pass out and wake up in some guys house that found you.... i don't like this idea as much as natural barriers, but there could be a certain distance you could make it to before you black out and wake up at the local boarder crossing station...

Just auto quit the game, that'll teach those who go to near the borders

Naturally impassable landscape would be best, but it would also be pretty hard to do and it wouldn't make much sense for a province as large as Skyrim (only way out of the province is by ship?). Maybe a mix with border forts you couldn't pass through, like the gate in the northern part of New Vegas. But I'd be fine with invisible barriers, as long as they're at the borders of the map only I don't mind them.

Add visible walls that are high enough so you can't climb over.

Invisible Borders, Natural borders would be mean messing around with whole geography of Skyrim, and it will look blatantly obvious alongside the explorable landscape. Invisible Borders if placed in better places then Oblivion, where you would see a nice forest spot and then get told "You cannot go that way turn back." Perhaps like Fallout 3 where it looks desolate and pretty uninteresting and placed better (It can be placed better in my opinion). It can be a hybrid as well, invisible borders, natural borders and political borders together, so a player may get to a mountain and the mountain to be impassable with conjunction with invisible borders to keep the landscape to keep more with the geography shape of the area, and political borders to keep in the game's setting and perhaps make it so you get stopped by guards and told to turn around, and they will carry on doing this until the player gets bored and goes back and of-course players can attack the guards but they are invincible but if you run past perhaps get stopped by invisible walls. Also players can always get a person attacking them to stop by blocking and talking if they re-include this feature.

Have people here actually looked at the map of Skyrim? Skyrim is COMPLETELY surrounded by mountains, and a sea to the north.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060313090207/oblivion/images/9/9f/Skyrim.jpg

I'd say natural borders to prevent you from passing... dense forest, un-passable mountain, ocean etc.

Combine everything in that list except for invisible borders, and it would be varied enough to make it seem realistic.


Mountains, rivers, lakes, thick forest, fog that makes you turn back, damaging cold, npc gaurds, and man-made walls/fences.

Something similar to ATV Offroad Fury where if you hit the barrier you flew hundreds of feet back and crash landed. Lol no but in all seriousness something like a forest where when you enter a blizzard comes in and then if you continue you just reappear from where you started... That with a mix of natural barriers

I like the idea of natural impassable landscapes. I'll be playing on console to start but once I eventually upgrade my PC, I'll get it for PC so I can try out mods. I'd think the modders who add new territories can create underground passageways through the mountains. Could be a quest where you have to find the underground passageway and then clear it of spiders or goblins and traps (or whatever) then you get to use it to travel between territories. Can even fast-travel if you like, once you've cleared it out. Or if it's ocean, they can maybe mod in a ship that transports you to the other territory across the sea. Maybe with mods, you'll be able to fly a dragon over to the new territories if you so chose.

Anyway, just a thought...

Maybe have the natural borders that open at certain points, like mountain passes or ports, and at those locations are soldiers from the regions faction keeping anyone from leaving (maybe even have an NPC demonstrate when you first arrive?). Then if you decide to try and fight your way through you find that the guards are set to a challenging level even for high level players, and if you beat them a captain/general appears who is leveled 50+ levels over you and has -very- high health; all the while every guard you kill is replaced by another. Basically making it impossible to win, but seems like you could if you do better. Then the natural borders keep you from passing elsewhere.

Then if you do win you meet the invisible wall

I like this idea.

I like the closed boarder idea, but without unkillable guards. Have killable guards who are either just way too highly leveled to kill or make it so you can't climb past the gate even if you do (like 50 foot wall or something).

The only problem with natural landscapes preventing leaving is how would anyone get to Skyrim or leave? I don't mean the PC, I mean anyone? It wouldn't make sense.

Dragons kill you

I suggested snowstorms in the other thread, and I still like that idea. Any sort of a "soft" border that simply sends you back to the world space is preferable to bonking into some hard barricade that you can't see.

I hated running into the walls in Oblivion, especially since the message was actually a UI message that I had to click to get rid of. Annoying.

That's a good question and very relevant as well, as in the story in Skyrim, we are taken when crossing the border into Skyrim, and thus becoming a prisoner. I googled it and it says we were crossing the borders illegally (not sure if this is true, but the other part of crossing the border is true; it was been mentioned before by either Todd or magazines).

So how did we cross the border? It could be through a dungeon. It could be that we climbed mountains which were easier to climb from the other side of the border. It could be that there was a guard garrison.

In Skyrim though... does this really matter when we actually play the game? What matters is that we want a border that is as immersive as possible. It should make sense and still hinder us from leaving.
Seeing how Skyrim is actually completely surrounded by mountains, I therefore think that unclimbable (steep) mountains would be a good idea. If there is an opening through the mountains, then perhaps a big guard garrison (like a guard-wall, which can't be passed through either... like a huge locked gate).
In the cold ocean up north, swimming way too far out should kill us (because of the cold). Not even a Nord should survive freezing cold water for a long time (they're cold resistant, but definitely not cold immune )
I think that makes sense, and effectively hinder us as well.