I am a bit worried.

Since Skyrim is the land of the nords and the landscape will probably have many mountains I do feel slightly concerned about the amount of space they take.

In fallout new vegas for example, A mountain was not really a mountain or rock formation nor a hill but more of a huge wall between you and a location. If you managed to climb these hills then you would most of the time be prevented from climbing down on the other side by invisible walls. There was also nothing to be discovered on these hills or anything actually. They cluttered up somewhat around 30% of the entire map. I might be wrong about percentage but still. I like to explore by just wandering in a direction and explore whatever I come across and I frequently found myself walking the same routes and ending up walking past the same buildings and caves because the actual exploring was limited by the huge amount of useless 'mountains'.

I am not saying that Skyrim will have mountains that contain nothing and I think they will be more then just a beautiful sight or just an obstacle. Just worried that maybe they put to much big hills and mountains in skyrim that will maybe frustrate the player if they just want to walk from one location to another.

I don't know why everyone keeps bringing up NV - same engine, same publisher, different developer. But my guess is that the majority of mountains that are not located at the borders will have paths to get up to or near the peak.

Also if you look at the http://ui09.gamespot.com/2344/skyrim_2.jpg it looks like the biggest mountains are not near the border, meaning you'll be able to get over them or around them. But the borders are definitely surrounded by mountains. This would mean either having invisible walls up in the mountains or making the mountains too steep to get over. Not sure which I'd prefer, honestly.

Skyrim is all about big hills and mountains because... well.. SKYRIM IS IN THE MOUNTAINS. THere will be caves and ruins etc in the mountains kinda like Oblivion and Morrowind have

I dont think there is much reason to worry about mountainous terrain in TES. The reason it failed in FO NV is as mentioned, the developers are different, and Bethesda have always lived by the "go anywhere, do anything" code. Thats what makes them better than everyone else, and that is why mountains in Skyrim wont fail.

For me the mountains are not mountains without proper climbing implemented. Seems like Bethesda has done some topographical improvement so the mountains are not hills like in oblivion, but the decisive step will be when they add climbing so I could enjoy them the most.

I guess you didn't get him. He means that mountains were the walls that separated areas in the world, and if you don't cross them in the place devs decided, you don't cross them at all because of invisible walls. There was not much point to go to the border in NV.

But still, it's different developer, and though Beth had this stuff in FO3, it was only for making you walk underground, and actually not in very many places

Agreed - the Mountains/Invisible boundaries were terrible in NV, but, that was down to Obsidian.

As stated previously, Skyrim is a whole new engine and a completely different Dev team, so you can set your mind at ease in the knowledge that we shouldn`t have that kind of mess with Skyrim. Well, hopefully not... <_<

I'm absolutely not worried about this. Bethesda know how to do mountains and they're an integral part of the story. They've already talked about how we'll have to traverse the mountains and that there will be caves and ruins. There's also the 7,000 steps and I don't think that'll be a straight shot. I think we'll have places of all types along the way to the greybeards.

:tes:

Im sure the mountains will be more than just a nice view, Bethesda will probably include some unique caves/dungeons on the tops of some if you manage to traverse to the top of one.

Same engine? NV definitely didn't use the Creation Engine.

One reason why some prefered Fallout 3 to New Vegas. I hear you, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Obsidian just doesn't have the experience Beth has in that department.

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@Dragonborn1: He's talking about both Fallout 3 and New Vegas. They both used the same engine.

This is one of the reasons I was really hoping for a climbing skill (or levitation - some way to scale any and all slopes, no matter how steep).

Whenever a game funnels the player through a path from point A to point B, as natural barriers such as mountains are wont to do, it quickly gets old, no matter how pretty the scenery is. That's the type of thing that encourages people to just fast travel after they've walked a trail once or twice.

I do have faith that Bethesda will do a better job than Obsidian, but even Fallout 3 suffered from a glut of invisible walls (downtown DC was crammed with them, so as to force you through the metros). Todd aknowledged the problem in one of his interviews, noting that too many mountains made the game feel "claustrophobic", and so they had to balance the landscape with some plains & tundra, etc, I just hope the mountainous areas don't lose their magic due to forcing the player along too few designated paths for acsending them.

Yeah, New Vegas was really bad about that. But New Vegas was developed by Obsidian, and Bethesda has never been known to do that with the games that they actually develop. Honestly, New Vegas was kinda whipped up quickly (they had to make it fast because the graphics were already 2 years old... and they didn't improve them at all), so a lot of stuff they did was to fill up space. If you look at Oblivion or Morrowind, both developed by Bethesda, the mountains are fully explorable. Take Red mountain in Morrowind, or the entire northern region of Cyrodiil (Oblivion) for example. The only reason you won't be able to explore a mountain in Skyrim is if it's just too steep.

True, but that's different. Those invisible walls actually separated you from what would be a different exterior cell... in actuality, those downtown areas weren't really connected (I know you probably realize that). They didn't do that to "force you through the metros", they did it to connect their cells. It runs more easily that way, because it doesn't have to run as much at one time. It's not like if those invisible walls weren't there, you'd be able to get over to the next area without a loading screen. In New Vegas, they put an invisible wall over a mountain to stop you from taking a certain path, but not because it led to a separate cell... they literally did it to make you have to take a longer way. Why? Who knows, I'm guess to make their map feel larger?.

In Oblivion, most of the mountains were walk/climbable, so I do not think it is an issue. They even said the useable area on the map would be slightly bigger since it was so mountainous. What worries me is I really wanted the map to be 4x to 5x bigger with things more spread out. I accept that it is what they have made & planed, and it will be what it will be, but I hope for TES 6 they plan to make the map 5x larger with landmarks more spread out so they do not have to cheat the feeling of distance.

I think that there will be extensive cave networks that allow you to pass through mountains at certain points. Think Mines of Moria :thumbsup: .