Mmmh, this got me thinking, since the IC obviously has the shape of a wheel, and the tower is the hub of the wheel. Shouldn't the "wheel" shaped city be waaaaay larger for the wheel to be in proportions, since the tower could be seen as a hub I imagine the spike in the middle of a normal wheel. Now if we assume that the tower is actual size in Oblivion, the city would have to be waaaaay larger. Anyone who can tell me how literally this idea must be taken. Does it have to be a perfect wheel? do the islands form the wheel, is the wheel only the ancient centre of the old city and is the rest (on the islands) built around it in the time of the Cyrodiilic empire?

This belongs in the General Section if all everyone's gonna do is criticize OB.

Hah, that's a favored pastime here.

It's loving criticism. Really.



Ah, thanks Prow, I see now. But, still, I agree with paws:



See, I dunno, I like my mythic symbolism along with my sixy island canols. I suppose you can't have your cake and eat it at the same time, though.

(Then again, the cake is a lie, but I digress.)

Request to the OP: If you ever work on a second "draft", so to speak, could you add some Wheel-shaped wall or something around the whole complex? Preferably with eight spokes.

A pity you can't mod a city like this in...oh, well.

Like around the tower itself? I'd had a wheel-shaped tower and walled courtyard-type thing in one of the earlier versions. Probably ought to do something with the unfinished center island...

Somebody might be able to mod this kind of city, it'd just take over the whole map as it is now. ...That wouldn't be that great though, would it? Hm.

I always imagined the bridge from the mainland as a (very!) large viaduct, with houses built on it, like those bridges in Florence (the Ponte Vecchio to be precise). In the middle would also run, even higher, a large aquaduct, supplying the city with fresh water, as the water of the lake is most probably not really clean because of all the sewage. Besides, Rome had aquaducts, and it was built around a large river, so meh. The aquaduct would be decorated with large Imperial banners, which would be burned by the invading Daedra on the end of the Oblivion main quest... The water would be poisoned, and the banners would be replaced with Daedric signs and marks. The houses would be plundered, the men killed, the children tortured, the women [censored], and then, at the mainland end of the bridge, from a great siege gate, the siege crawler would come forth and consume everything in it's path...

Should I get some sleep?

(No...)

The main gate would be destroyed, and by the time you and Martin are warned, two islands have been taken, and the siege begins.

Major field battles on the plains of the Arboretum?
PC-consuming effects in the Temple district?
Ships, naval war and water effects in the docks?
A heroic battle defending White Gold Tower, eventually forcing the player to jump off the top, only to be rescued by a giant golden manifestation of Akatosh? Then fighting Dagon on dragonback?

Okay, I should get some sleep now.

So...many...lore-driven images....*drools*

Don't tempt us, Gil. When the popular contempt for the actions of a governing body grows too thick and reaches critical mass, the end result is a revolution. And the last thing the Bethesda forums need is a bloody civil war...

...http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showforum=33

that would pwn sooo hard. my brain is going all cinematic on me. alas, all that could have been!

The what now? What is a childran?


Doubtful. Even Lord Vivec is powerless against the Unremovable Undies. That's why he had to go for the mouth.

Which reminds me... Where are the rice fields?

Ooh. That would be very cool. I bet our computers, and the colsoles, would absolutely hate it though.
Well, now I want to go play the game again and imagine that happening.

You could place them outside of the city, as long as they're within walking distance for the farmers. I didn't know rice was mentioned in the PGE.

Having the entire game in the city would ideed be unfeasible. Whgat about mountains? Valleys? Rivers?

It would sacrifice so much natural beauty for a collosal metropolis. I don't think that is TES.

What about them? There weren't any visible in Daggerfall.


TES III : Tribunal, anyone?

Not that I'd like the idea (being confined to only 1 city). It's pretty feasible, though. Imagine it as a medieval GTA.

I would want the IC in proper scale, though. http://download.introversion.co.uk/mirror/introversion/blog/20080127/pic4.jpg could do wonders in helping make the IC (or any other city) to-scale in the next TES.

The size of the city is a minor concern. It is what is done with that space. Depicting the IC at its "actual" scale would, even in, say, twenty years, be impractical. Random generation would not make the whole better, just bigger.

There was plenty of wilderness in Daggerfall.



Expansion.

Thousands of workers ply the rice fields after the floodings, or clear the foliage of the surrounding jungle in the alternate seasons.

Thanks.

There are usually valleys, cliffs and rivers in most major cities. Where were the mountains, valleys and rivers in Oblivion. It would may be better to make a 1 to 1 scale instead of having weird valleys (looking at you Morrowind) weird mountains (looking at you Morrowind and Oblivion) and weird rivers (TES in general).



There is much beuty in a collosal metropolis. Look at the PGE description of the Imperial City and tell me that couldn't be as beautiful as 16 square miles of generic temperate forest.

There IS beauty in a metropolis, if it's done correctly.

How can you be sure that this collosal city will be 100% generic then? If 16 miles of forests is generic to you, then how will 16 square miles of buildings fare?

Personally, if ALL of Oblivion was that drab grey of the Imperial City, I would have poked my eyes out, or painted the screen some odd colour.

And think about not being able to summon anything, anywhere. No room to practise spells. Bandits, wild animals, caves with evil things in them? I don't feel like spending half my gaming life training and fighting in some dark sewer or in cellars and attics.

I wish the IC in Oblivion was much larger. It didn't fulfill the expectation of the Imperial Center, but I don't think an entire game could be contained in a single city.

What about contained on the city isles? By the world map, they are huge.

Containment in TES? ... I think I just died a little.

Did I write contained? I think that was the wrong word. Honestly. o.O

Like many people, to get Oblivion to run at a reasonable FPS, I have to turn the view distance down to the point that I rarely see mountains unless I'm actually climbing one. So I really wouldn't care. Besides, between the way the ground texture distorts horribly on steep surfaces and the silly pathfinding issues (e.g. wolves and mountain lions flinging themselves fatally down the mountainside when they try to attack you), I think we'd have been better off without mountains.

Anyway, having the IC the size of Oblivion's current map would allow for plenty of parkland and other open spaces and plenty of scope for natural beauty. For example, that wonderful view you get when you first emerge from the prison sewers, gazing across Lake Rumare to the Ayleid ruins? You'd still have that.


Well, we're talking about a lore-accurate IC. So it certainly wouldn't be drab grey at all. The IC is supposed to be very colourful, with distinct styles of architecture and dress in each district.


Pah. 'Containment' was your word. And do you not regard a total lack of any roads leading out of Cyrodiil a 'containment'? How about an obnoxious pop-up message saying "You can't go that way! Turn back!"? Every computer game is basically a gilded cage. The trick is to give the player enough to do inside the cage that he never notices the bars.

That's a real shame, but not a universal excuse to do away with nature. I run it on the box, and it's beautiful... so what?
And, gravity is a part of life. :shrug:



Yeah, but you can't actually get to go there to those ruins. Or beyond. Or beyond that. Let's try and fly above it, Oops, no we can't, levitation's also disabled.

Even if there are hundreds and hundreds of acres of parkland, you're still confined in a city. Beleive it or not, your mind will still be logging the fact that you're in a city and therefore in something. It isn't wilderness, it's just domesticated scenary.



Yes I know. But try and translate that into an entire world. I doubt it will work.



Definately. Furthering my point that many diverse and different locations are important.