And the Lucky Lockup is the Broken/Mended Drum, I guess. :lmao: Good catch, never thought of it really.

Lasers?

I still stand by what I said when the image came out in the magazine; I don't believe it is a ruin, it is a city. The devs have already said that the cities will look like they have been lived in for thousands of years. I saw nothing in the original image to suggest it was a ruin, and I see only one thing in the new image that would possibly make it a ruin. All of the buildings are still intact and livable. Just becuase you don't see any NPCs, or such, doesn't mean anything. The image could have been taken early in development or during a clip check build.

Looks like a hybrid of Nord and Imperial architecture to me. Don't see any Dwemer influence, personally.

He said that there are ancient cities made by Dwemer folk that now the Nords have moved in, and those cities ooze with culture, and style.

So there could be more than just one city like this picture.

Maybe Markath Side was Skyrim's Kvatch/Ald'ruhn. :shrug:

Regardless, it looks amazing.

Well, Solitude is one (used to be called Haafingar). One of the concept arts (city on a tall peninsula) shown in the interview with Todd right when he mentions that was probably Solitude.

Some of the lore says that most modern settlements are in valleys overlooked by nearby ruins of the old original Nordic settlements, which used to be defensive holds on cliffs or mountains.

But this looks like ruins that are not inhabited. It would look in better shape and be more full of life and people if it was. My guess: Makarth is an old Nordic settlement near a waterfall within a crevice in the canyon, but Makarth SIDE is the newer settlement built in a more accessible location by modern residents of Skyrim. It would explain the whole Makarth, not Makarth side thing.

Probably just ruins of some sort, as said. Can't really guess but it looks nice.

No this place is definitely lived in, just look at the domed roof on the bottom of the screen, or the big house/cathedral behind the rock where the tower is.

The whole place smells like it is lived in, maybe by an outlaw clan?

But they did not want to show a populated place yet, and took the shot when it was not populated by people.

Your sense of smell is very intuitive. I smell this weird, fragrant order, indicating that your speculation is ill founded. Or maybe I am just smelling bandits?

It reminds me of Rihad in the Hammerfell: The Eastern Grasslands mod.

I think it's a little closer to those two rivers you see coming in (since in the screenshot you see both rivers draining down into the valley)

like here =

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b245/blehymeh/markn.png

There's no city indicated there on the map. The big gray squares are cities.

Hm... Ithink it probably is Markath Side and they just CBF writig the whole thing, unless it's another city called Markarth, or alternatively they just shortened the name. I'd also say it's probably abandoned, or perhaps there are a few monks or bandits residing there.

Here is my adjusted map to fit this (and because I didn't notice those settlement shapes in the Reach before). http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx316/randomguyface/6thmap.png?t=1295324175

It's a little different from the normal map, but then again, Whiterun is in a different position to the normal map as well. There are no known settlements to the Northwest of Markarth so i figured it was most likely there. It fits geographically as well. Under this theory, the waterfalls we see are coming from the South and flowing North through the canyon. The city has been built mostly on the West side of the canyon as well as on the South at that cliff where the canyon drops off. I agree it resembles Anvil to some degree, which would make sense as Anvil was supposedly (though does anyone have a soure?) influenced by Hammerfell architecture, and Hammerfell is right next to the Reach. I would say these are almost definitely not Dwemer ruins.

On the note of Dwemer ruins, to the person who said the concept art seen in the TH interview were probably Solitude, I disagree. That city looks too small tobe Solitude, which was at least at one point one of the most wealthy cities in Skyrim. Also, although snow probably falls nearly everywhere in Skyrim at some point, it seems more likely that that art is set in the snowy region to the Northeast.

The ruins in the screenshot don't look very much like Dwemer ruins to me, granted, it's entirely possible that Skyrim's take on Dwemer ruins will look different from what we saw in Morrowind, because Bethesda might change the design between games. In fact, the Dwemer ruin in Tribunal looks pretty different from the ones on Vvardenfell, so if a ruin in the same province, just on the mainland, can look so different, it would hardly be a surprise if the ones in Skyrim look a little different from what we're used to as well, even so, when I look at the design of these ruins, the first thing I'd expect them to be is not Dwemer. I'd also agree that they look pretty abandoned, I'd think they'd be kept in better shape if people were living in them, I'd also expect to see some people around there, now, maybe most of the population is inside, but all of them? I'd think there'd at least be some guards, if it were a place like a town.

Whatever it is, though, the ruins look nice, I'll say that much, if other places in Skyrim can look as interesting as this, I'll be pleased.



So... how does that prove someone lives there? Sure, it presumably indicates that someone once lived there, but the inhabitants could all be gone now.

I'd say it looks non-ruined, but that's about it.

Although if you're correct, and Markarth is that four-cell marker, that means that many of the other supposed 'smaller settlements' could just be ruins too, rather than inhabited towns.

Yes, well that wouldn't surprise me. All they have to do is take up the space. It's all speculation that they're actually towns.

Who said Markarth is ruins? Just because you can't see anyone in a single screenshot, doesn't mean it's ruins.

Looks awesome, though I must say quite a lot like the Shivering Isles architecture.

I always thought that Markarth Side would be green and foresty, and far more central.
^_^