I will not mention the landscape and enviroment since many have mentioned that before me, but I want you all to take into consideration the existing lore and culture in Skyrim. If I recall correctly Todd howard mentioned that one of the things he felt Oblivion lacked was culture and lore, then I believe that it would be safe to say that bethesda will put more emphasisis on this in TESV. Now to look at the province, it consists of several citystates(holds) that rivals each other for control of the surrounding areas and trade superioirity. In recent events Skyrim has expanded it's borders in the east during the war of Bend'r makh. The city of Whiterun is controlled by a witch who claims to be a Priestess of Lorkhan. All this makes plenty of room for political intrigue and quests revolving around this.

Also there is much historical material to delved into like the mystery of the Falmer, the arrival of men to Tamriel and the conflicts deriving from this.
Nords are renowned as fine warriors, craftsmen and sailors. This tofether with their religion provides much of the basis for Nord culture that we should be able to delve into if the developers choose to take this into consideration.

I hope these points show a little bit of why Skyrim might be a much more interesting province than you might think.

This is true. Of course, there's always been the Mesoamericans and Khmer. The original Imperial City sounded a lot like Tenochtitlan to me. Or Vivec. :shrug:

You know, I believe the PGE only described half of Cyrodiil being densely wooded anyway - and we still may never know just what sort of jungle (or lack thereof) the drier areas were supposed to be. I'm thinking it wasn't meant to be a genuine African jungle, but something more along the lines of the wet, coastal forests in Italy. Something like http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/112756/112756,1201230033,1/stock-photo-seaside-villas-near-portofino-italy-8842768.jpg (lolstockimage). After all, I'm pretty sure the Imperials were supposed to be based off the Romans. Retconned jungle aside, I'm actually more concerned as to why Bethesda took http://www.elderscrolls.com/images/characters/mw_06CB.jpg and turned them into http://guides.gamepressure.com/theelderscrolls4oblivion/gfx/word/164868265.jpg.


Quantitatively, yes, Oblivion wins. What's the point of that listing anyway? When you see Oblivion's regions implemented in the game, however, they seem to be primarily cartographical regions - whereas Morrowind's were the complete opposite, very heavy in contrast. You could tell when you were in another region. Even for the more universal terrain, such as grass and roads, there were completely different textures for them! Not to mention you had a good 1-in-3 chance that you just entered some place where it rains every other day. In Oblivion? I sure couldn't tell when I stepped from the Great Forest into the West Weald.


At the time, yes. Todd mentioned during QuakeCon's Building Blockbusters panel, however, that most of 2009 was spent overhauling the engine. After the http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-16-bethesdas-todd-howard-interview?page=1, I could imagine them specializing their tech to accommodate an expansive and open area - like the sprawling cities of Summerset, or even the mountain ranges of Skyrim. Or maybe it just means my FPS will no longer halve when there's >2 NPCs in combat. :celebration:

Well, I dont care if they make it in Skyrim or any other province or even the whole Tamriel or even Nirn. I dont care if they make it lore friendly or not, even if they remake morrowind as an ice covered place, or cyrodiil as a desert, but I do care how they make it, as an RPG experience, how deep the quests go and how lasting the game's draw is.

If they make a back story as deep and enticing as morrowind, the rpg elements good enough, and the game-play rewarding enough, and graphics are probably better than oblivion, then the setting is not a problem.

I think that if any aspects of the setting or gameworld are ignored or disfigured far beyond established lore, it will completely defeat the point of a deep back story. All parts of the lore and gameworld should come together flawlessly in a 'majestic whole' to give the game meaning beyond its face value.
Without this, the gameworld will feel like a meaningless mess, and will destroy the RPG experience IMO.
Bethesda should have focus on making everthing fit together- gameplay, lore, gameworld, ect, rather than focusing on one thing and abandoning others.

I think Bethesda have already proved that they have improved upon this formula with Fallout 3. You can walk into any tunnel, building cave or vault and find a completely different mini-story. Such as the building which is a reference to HP Lovecraft, and in the basemant you find a simple text-based mini game.

I personally love exploring, and I'm also a writer, so I look for little details. I'm a gamer who looks in every corner, and in Oblivion, you will find those stories hidden within the world. I like wandering into a cave and finding a bed with a skeleton and corpse lying over it. It makes you wonder what happened to him. I love the little and simple details that bethesda put into their games.

In any rate, I never understood this whole morrowind vs oblivion debate. I love both of the games, and I don't find it hard to accept them for what they are. I also think your view on Oblivion is very skin-deep, as you're taking a lot of the small details out of the equation that I personally find enticing. I never understood why some people are just out to hate something so much they look for flaws and forget to enjoy the experience. I still believe that any Bethesda game at its worst, is leagues better than most game companies at their best.


*EDIT*

I forgot to add my Skyrim two cents. I agree with the consensus that if it's anything like Operation Anchorage's visual flair, then count me in. That was one gorgeous looking expansion. I'm hoping for some tricky mountain passes and some nice coastal evergreen forests. That, and all this talk of vampires and werewolves gets me excited!

Breaking stereotypes is a good thing. In this case the stereotype goes beyond the game world and into the real world and highlights a flawed Eurocentric world view. I'm going to post https://docs.google.com/View?id=dc4swmp4_230ftw67nhc again:



That is precisely why the Nords now have Indian characteristics alongside Norse ones.

Why Skyrim? Because werebears would totally own epically if you could tare things apart as one. Imagine your first encounter with a werebear. Your at your camp fire late at night with the hunting party in the woods with your buddies and you hear the growl of a bear. Every one thinks its ok because your all fairly experienced hunters and could handle a bear. So one guy goes off to take care of the bear and instead of the glorious sound of your comrades victory over the animal you here the scream of him being torn down. Everyone rushes to find out the cause of the deathly scream and to their dismay its a werebear. It may be a bunch of pine trees in the snow out there but by far its not safe and great challenges await.

I find It funny that you are arguing about how Morrowind is better because it has more diverse landscapes. You see though, couldn't it be possible that Vvardenfell its self, and not just the way it was portrayed in the game, was supposed to be more alien and diverse? And do not go and say that Vvardelfell was supposed to just be some ashy wasteland because Bethesda obviously wanted to change that.

I think that its quite possible that BGS made Cyrodill exactly how they wanted it, earthly. BGS wants you to KNOW how different and diverse Tamriel is. One province is an ashy/green giant mushroom land and the province right next to it is Earth with with shiny white ruins and Imps. Above that province is a green valley/gleaming glacier region. Tamriel is supposed to be diverse. Vardenfell is supposed to be an alien world. Cyrodill is supposed to be like Earth, but not Middle Earth.

Vvardenfell WAS supposed to be just an ashy wasteland. It changed to be more unique and diverse. That was a good thing. I know I, personally, would have hated a game that was just one big Red Mountain Region. Changing Cyrodiil wasn't a good thing, as it completely ruined the great "alien" feel to the series. (Yes, even the older games, imo, portrayed a good alien feel, for thier times)

Also, I know that I would be severely disappointed if any major changes, like the one with Cyrodiil, where to happen again. I don't think any province, other than Morrowind, need an overhaul. Nowhere is just one big, eventually boring region. Elsweyr, maybe, but I'm pretty sure there's a few "jungle" areas.


Stereotypical Middle Earth is the same as stereotypical Earth. Apart form the Minotaurs and Ogres.

The first two were alien? :rofl: No, they were DnD on steroids. The series has never been alien. Only Morrowind and the Shivering Isles(a.k.a., a a part of Oblivion) have been. Of course, though, Oblivion ruined everything. It's the only game to ever do anything so horrific as not being alien, especially. Bethesda just forgot everything about the series with Oblivion. :rolleyes: Are you going to pretend that the first two games had more interesting gameworlds than Oblivion, as well? I know many people who love Morrowind never played the first two and think that the series must have always been alien, but arguing that the first two were alien after playing them(assuming you did play them) is not only a first, it's ridiculous.

If you like alien worlds, fine. I like them, too, but don't pretend Arena and Daggerfall were alien. That seems as if you said it just for the sake of bashing Oblivion and pretending it is separate from the series in yet another way.

They where alien FOR THIER TIME. How many games, from that time, had Daedric Princes, Wereboars etc.?

While yes, most things where havily inspired by something else, and they weren't as alien as Morrowind, they where still pretty alien for the time they where made.

No, they weren't. Werecreatures were nothing new and Daedra(or Daemons, as they are known in Arena) were demons, back then. "For their time" is an excuse. They aren't alien, and Bethesda pretty much said this about Arena, themselves:

We didn't do anything different, we just did it bigger.



If we're talking about ambition, then yes, Bethesda was ambitious, but they still are now and there was really nothing alien about the first two. For their time doesn't mean squat. They still were familiar DnD stereotype-following games back then as they are now. How many games now have Daedric princes(fleshed-out ones, especially) and vampire human-civilized orc hybrids is just as much a valid excuse. I don't believe Arena even had Daedric princes, itself. If we're still talking about ambition, Oblivion is still pretty unique in its open world design, comparable only to its most recent predecessor.

Oblivion embodies the spirit of Daggerfall fairly well (aside from how all the skills and factions were condensed). That's just it though - after Morrowind, it's quite odd to see Bethesda deciding to fall back to safer design choices. For the record, I don't imagine a jungled Cyrodiil as being anywhere near as exotic as Vvardenfell, nor would I want it to be. Jungle is jungle. But Imperial culture is what I think really suffered in the fourth game.