I was watching the trilogy the other day and got me thinking if we'll get look-alike landscapes in skyrim.

From the Skyrim map you can tell its a mountainous region, most of us know Middle Earth is the same, big ass mountains everywhere.

Skyrim
http://www.thedragonborn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/poss_loc.jpg

Middle Earth
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7XJP7ru-Gjs/TLttlXf6aqI/AAAAAAAAAK0/cHsJAqHUFf0/s1600/middleearthMap.jpg

they kinda look alike, with cities surrounded by mountains, what looks like tundras, rivers, woods, etc..

my point is, do you think we'll get landscapes that look alike in skyrim?

Cities like Minas Tirith? http://www.tuckborough.net/images/minastirith.jpg (that would be awesome)

or caves below mountains that go from one side of the map to the other? like the Mines of Moria?

what about rivers that have statues like the pillars of the kings? http://www.alicia-logic.com/capsimages/LOTR_Fell079_PillarsoftheKi.jpg (the guy from the GI wallpaper looking down with the sword pointing down comes to mind)

but the real winner is if we get tundras that look like this http://www.scifimovies.com/images/lotrttt-01.jpg , the mountains look like the ones in the GI mag...

I think Skyrim is the perfect setting to get different landscapes like the ones shown in LOTR. What do you think?

Lotr + Tes = end of the world due to insane amount of awesomeness.

I hope not!

Well... it could well have been, but I doubt it. Skyrim and its general landscape has been plotted since the first Elder Scrolls game, Arena. Since they didn't really stylistically make it look like anything more than a generic fantasy at that time, I don't think they were really trying to make it look like any particular part of Middle Earth.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "vistas" mentioned did take inspirations from the movies of course, but thats really a far cry from making the whole map look like it.

not that they took the middle earth map as a reference for skyrim .. all im saying is they look to have the same features.

I like LOTR
but I also like the things I saw in morrowind.
my point yea maybe take some stuff but I want the game to be its own.

Todd Howard said he was inspired by lord of the rings when they were making Oblivion's atmosphere.

I hope it's less like LOTR this time

My bad, you are right. I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see vistas that are similar. In general though, the LotR movies were famous for the large vistas, and that is exactly what they just said they are going to be doing. They want you to come around the corner of a pass and see all of Skyrim in front of you, and things like that, which is exactly the type of thing they focused on with the movies as well. There will probably be more snow than what we saw in LotR though, since I don't really recall much from the movies other than when they are up in the mountains.

http://www.bootsnall.com/internationalairfare/nz/

While I understand the tone of *inspired*

please no Lotr, please. just be Elderscrolls, Was there Lotr influences from Arena to Morrowind?.

Seems more lord of the rings like to be, Middle Earth was inspired by Norse Mythology and Skyrim in inspired by the same. If anything Skyrim is more traditional high fantasy(literary) than Oblivion.

@Mk-OmegaX- yes there was, but almost all modern medieval fantasy has some roots in LoTR.

Haha I always kinda have this in the back of my mind: If/When the TES series is done, I would absolutely LOVE IT if Bethesda made some LOTR RPG's...

That would be awesome, and if there is one company that would pull that off it would be Bethesda. Imagen all the unique weapons, characters and landscapes :drool:

Arena was just D&D dressed up. Daggerfall had a strong setting but wasn't far removed for the Tolkien-Gygax mold.

Morrowind was a harmonic convergence of true creativity that is rarely seen and probably won't be seen again.

Well Earth must've been inspired by LotR because it has mountains on it... Oh and don't forget how Mars ripped of LotR also, Olympus Mons is just a giant rip off of Mount Doom. This thread saddens me.

Haha, me too. I was once so in love with the idea that I wrote down like 6-7 pages in word outlining some of the gameplay mechanics, storylines, world information, etc. that I would want them to include. My gaming wet dream is for Bethesda, Bioware, and R* to somehow converge and spend like eight years working on a super epic LotR RPG with roots in games like KotOR, Morrowind, Oblivion, Baldur's Gate, etc. I know it may be weird to include R* in the mix but I feel they are at the forefront of modern developers in several major areas, including animations, characterization, expressions, and world atmosphere. Plus RDR's horseriding mechanics alone were enough for me to want them to have a part in my dream game's development process...

But I'll stop myself before I go off on a huge tangent. I'm pretty sure Todd has said that LotR has always been one of TES's major influences and inspirations, and even if I'm tripping, I think it goes without saying... As another poster has said, Tolkein has influenced pretty much every notable fantasy story to come after his works... It's not so much a problem of taking inspiration from his stuff, as it is doing it properly, and being able to create your own material that stands above the competition.

Every fantasy game, except those that are very, very high fantasy (or extremely low fantasy), is inspired by Tolkien's works.

Amen.

Morrowind to me seemed to draw strong elements from Star Wars. Some of the cloths and armour specifically. The Chitin helmet reminded me a lot of the Tusken Raiders. The Guar reminded me very much of one of the creatures from the digitally remastered Star Wars stuff, heh.

But I agree, Morrowind definitely saw a boost in creativity that is seldom seen in Fantasy these days. Oblivion to me was refreshing though, because I do like that middle Europe temperate environment as well. From the little glimpses we've seen of Skyrim, it seems to be shaping up to be a beast of it's own I think. They seem to be drawing from reality for much of it, and getting very inventive. Some of that concept art is incredible! And to me, at the moment anyways, it doesn't seem to echo LOTR too much.

I love LOTR, the books more so than the movies, but I don't want to see a LOTR game set in Tamriel again.

lol

Well,certainly some things do set milestones and LOTR was undoubtly one of them.Inspiration is okay but Oblivion was too much.I hope this one gets less "inspiration".

More likely to become Elder Scrolls Conan:Skyrim? No good either

http://www.moddb.com/mods/merp-middle-earth-roleplaying-mod

Low and behold RAGNAR?K HAS COME.

I think Skryim will be much more "Norse" lets just say. As long as im on a viking longboat about to pillage a village during an epic storm....

I imagined that scene as i was reading it, epic stuff.

A Minas Tirith style city in Skyrim? :drool:

Haha, this!