First off, if there has been a thread about this already, then I'm sorry. I tried to find one using the search function but couldn't...

Anyway, I, and most likely many others, thought that the landscapes in Oblivion were way too similar to each other. Every forest kind of looked almost the same. This most negative effect of this, was that, when I played Oblivion, I lost all the "excitement" and "incitement" to explore. With fast travel on top of this, it felt even worse (this should be left for another topic, however).

Do you want more unique landscapes in Skyrim than there were in Oblivion?

A good discussion in this thread would be what unique really means, and what is should include. It's subjective of course, but I think we can all agree it's something that's not always the same compared to other things (quite obviously). Now, this doesn't say very much about the landscapes though. Unique Landscapes for Oblivion is obviously a good mod to look at here. It doesn't include everything listen here, but it does include a lot.


Personally, I think of unique landscapes as... (some images are included)

1) high and very steep mountains, high and low hills (like in The Shire!), and big and small valleys http://www.interweb.in/attachments/pc-wallpapers/25682d1238665272-nature-wallpaper-mountain-photography.jpg
2) very deep forests, "un-deep" forests ( haha couldn't think of an antonym, English is not my first language )
3) open fields with very few trees standing on lines next to each other, avenues (I'm speaking of with trees of course), REAL farmlands, stone fences along some fields. http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/4395119/2/istockphoto_4395119-tree-and-stone-fence.jpg

4) fallen trees (that hasn't become a "log" yet), logs. Let them be on different places, not just on plain ground, but near steeps and water, over rivers, etc.
5) rocks! Huge, small, and strange rocks, and many of them! Some should be so big that they can almost count as mountains! http://lbradsphotos.com/AlbumNo2July09/Web1025/Strange%20rock%20formation%20and%20I%20don%27t%20know%20its%20name.jpg http://images.travelpod.com/users/will/eastern_europe.1175452200.36_-_strange_rock_formations.jpg http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jcrislip/photogallery/2007-06-17/DSC07836.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uNV-BS4Zdb4/TCaVuQiLNWI/AAAAAAAAFb8/q5P_tUoc-ks/s1600/summit+rock+formation.jpg

6) rivers, creeks, and streams... and lots of them! Very very small and very very big ones! Let some have waterfalls, let some lead to caves... where you can enter! Let them have lots of stone! And let them be on very different places, from forests, to farmlands, to high up in the mountains! Let some have bridges over them, etc! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Gradac_river_bridge.JPG http://www.getoutdoorsgeorgia.org/images/parks/mainImages/SweetwaterCreek.jpg http://www.ghulmil.com/wp-content/uploads/beautiful-water-streem-running-in-mountain-wallpaper.jpg
7) have some look-out points! Where you can climb to a "plateau" of some rocks, and have a great view.
8) Glaciers, avalanches. Try to make the snowy parts as unique as possibly by making the glaciers/ice have cool and unique formations. Don't let me feel like everything's the same just because it's all snow/ice. Icicles can make it more unique, so please add that... huge ones.


I've chosen not to focus on any... architecture, but of course, that would be great too. Ancient statues, ruins and dungeons should be placed at strategic places. UL for Oblivion had some statues and things like that on high points. That's really awesome and I think Skyrim should have that too. Windmills, watermills would be awesome to see a lot of too.

What do you think?

I loved UL in Cyrodiil and expect nothing but another great series of ULs in Skyrim! LONG LIVE UL!

Yes! But this time Bethesda should make it themselves! From the start!
Don't you think? Instead of a random landscape that looks almost the same everywhere you go? I see no reason why Bethesda shouldn't do this from the start... makes everyone happier

Believe me...it takes WAY TOO LONG for companies to waste time on making Unique Landscapes. Their profits would drop. I was the 2nd "manager" of the Unique Landscapes thread...so believe me...I know what I am talking about!

I agree!

I believe that when they are making the landscape from the start, they might as well make it more unique. That doesn't really take much more effort than it would otherwise.
Morrowind had some of it, but that was mostly due to different kinds of landscapes. The landscapes are a pretty big and important part of the game. Making this unique is vital, at least to me.

The way Oblivion "randomized" the landscape was not very good in my opinion. It could be improved a lot. One way to make really unique landscapes possible could be to ditch the CS and create an application that is faster and easier to use for Bethesda. Of course, this shouldn't be done for the for the sole purpose of making unique environments, but rather to make the whole work for Bethesda a lot easier and more effective.

UL in Oblivion was great and I really hope that they include some of those features in Skyrim. Nice list.

YES!
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Of course, I want inspiration from real-life mountains and norse arcitechture, etc., but I also really want to see something new and unique that fits in with Skyrim. I loved Morrowind's unique wildlife, and it really needs to return. It's a major part of Morrowind' appeal, imo.

Actually they already did the diversity thing in Morrowind - there is no way how one can mistake the sun filled plains around Vos for swamps one the coasts, or even thous swamps for the equally dump Sheogorath region that felt like the end of the world. And I'm not even talking about the ashlands or islands around Sadrith Morah - every region had it's distinct flora, fauna and coloring, and as for the architecture... It's simply impossible to mistake Vivec architecture for Mournhold, or Telvai tower for a Reodran stronghold.
My favorite part of Morrowind was that there was a surprise around every corner - something distinct and worth seeing, the regions had different feel, different mood and was much more distinct that Oblivion even with UL, Morrowind felt huge simply becouse if that diversity, and in my opinion it's the one thing they should bring back in Skyrim. The endless white plains with occasional bush and a Sprigan under it sound desperately painful, I really hope they'll make Skyrim more interesting than that. What's the point in having a an open world if there is nothing to see in it?

You got to admit...the mountains of Morrowind were pretty svcky. They reminded me of old bald men's heads.

Well you have to make allowances for the graphics of that time, I would like a diversity of Morrowind with the feel of Skyrim and graphic level of at last Oblivion, please

Good list, but we need giant frozen lakes too...
Where else will the vampires sleep?...

Yea in Oblivion everything was almost the same. And very crowded its cool to have a open field or anything, I think thats kinda cool.

Obvously said Yes, btw UL was awesome. I agreed with everything the OP stated. Also since it′s set in Skyrim I think it should be a mix of places like Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Finland (going there btw) so everything is diverse. Especially considering the Iceland part since there although it has huge regiions of ice it also has tons of volcanos (sorry if mispelled) somethign I think TES V needs.

Greenland...HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!

I am pretty sure Bethesda will look at mods like Nehrim and UL and make it very unique. Fallout 3 was pretty good IMO. It had a lot of hidden unmarked and cool places that made the world unique.

Yeah to be honest I really liked Fallout 3. It was pretty unique as I remember. I loved exploring and it was never the same (at least from what I remember).
Good example... thanks for bringing it up, brings me a little more hope haha.

That is really something...us at UL actually gave them an idea!

As long as the land is more diverse than Oblivion, I'll be content.

Yep UL is a great mod - I had all of them when I was playing Oblivion, but the thing is - it was an expansion and additional details to the original landscape, and the landscape was the same everywhere, well we had a somewhat warmer climate around Anvil, and snow around Bruma, but the rest was "rocks and trees and trees and rocks" Those two different spots was so small that a player did not spend any significant amount of time there, and therefore it did little to add verity. What I would like to see in Skyrim is big, distinctly different regions, not hours upon hours of ruining around on snow no matter how many ravers or lakes of trees it has. Even Solnhaim in Morrowind had two distinctly different zones (even 3 if you count the ice plains) and it was a small island, I think whole Skyrim should have a lot to offer in terms of verity. Both when it comes to nature, and inhabitants - I can foresee myself needing a brake form endless nords and meadhouses