I demand Skyrim to have a desert world. Also a sky world. Why doesn't Skyrim have a sky world? It's "Sky"rim isn't it?

Also a super cool secret space level where we can gather stars for extra points.

I want a secret level where we fight giant, demonic, axe-wielding cows.

Oh my bad, I didn't realize that Earth had trolls, ice wraiths, draugr, dragons, falmer, and ancient ruins with sentient machinery.

Ah Diablo 2, so many good times had... Now you had to go and make me put on my nostalgia goggles. :sadvaultboy:

Really surprised Blackreach hasn't been mentioned yet. Easily one of the most alien and strange places in Skyrim, but overall I agree with the fact you're either in a grassy terrain, woods or snow. There is some variety here and there but none that are very memorable besides Blackreach.

All of which are in stereotypical fantasy, and have therefore been seen before. :rolleyes:

Consider the fact that the Chronicles of Narnia was meant to be a child friendly movie, I would assume it's environment to seem less intimidating.

Skyrim itself has variation within its environs. Furthermore, skyrim is itself an environment unto itself as part of a greater context, namely Cyrodil, that has been realized in increments throughout The Edler Scrolls games.

I think they did a good job with landscape variety in Skyrim. Most Ice Worlds wouldn't include a place like Riften or Markarth, or even Whiterun. The tradeoff with including a lot of environments is that there'd be less room to make each one unique and memorable. There'd be a cold world that's completely snowcovered and a desert world that's all sand dunes and probably a pyramid full of mummies.

The land of Tamriel has many different environments, you just don't get them all in the same game, hell, Morrowind was "alien" yes, but it was pretty much the same throughout.

I'm not going to get much into this since everyone has their opinion and isn't going to change it (or even hold a reasonable discussion), but I think it should be pretty clear that Morrowind was more fantastical than Skyrim. It also had more drastic environment changes. Skyrim has a cool environment, but some people would like it if there was a little more variety. I count myself in that group. What someone said about a volcano; that would be awesome. Why wouldn't you do that? You know, volcanoes are not the result of hot air on the surface of the earth. They do exist in northern latitudes. As for those saying you don't want too much fantasy in your rpg's, I think if you really went and anolyzed it, you would find that internal consistency is much more important than being as similar to reality as possible. Maybe not, I can't really know what you like better than you do, but it has been true for the vast majority of people I've talked to who like "realistic" fantasy.

Really? Morrowind was a gigantic island of rock, Oblivion was a gigantic bowl of grasslands, Skyrim is a gigantic valley of snow.

If you count each different environment you will see that Skyrim has as much diverse environments as Morrowind, the thing is that Morrowind had more variety between the types of envirovments themselves while Skyrim has a "Snow" feeling in most of them.

Morrowind was my first ES game and I thought that it was fantastic because it was, well full of fantasy. There was such a drastic tone change between MW and Ob it seems like there was a team shift or something. Skyrim follows that tone shift - more realism, less fantasy. They say several times throughout Skyrim that the Nords don't like magic and that's why there's so little of it in this game. I think that given the lore constraints (a thing that has never really hindered Beth's design team in the past) they did give Skyrim a lot of variety. When I found the hot springs I was impressed, and there's a cave where those little blue balls of light follow you around (I have yet to figure out why). All great features, but I would put myself in the 'more unique things' camp. There are no new Beth-unique creatures that I've found. A few have been redone from previous games, but basically, we have Bloodmoon 2. Not at all a bad thing but still, it's been done.
I have my list of Skyrim complaints, but only because I was hoping for something incredibly mind blowing, instead of somewhat mind blowing. Still great, but the game could have been really incredible. Perhaps the DLC will add in the variety and fantasy we're missing like SI did for Oblivion.

> there are hot springs in Skyrim. Why in the world would there NOT be a settlement there?

You probably won't find many people living there in the long term because the water would be undrinkable, and that's a major problem for any would-be inhabitants. Short-term visits to collect useful materials, sure.

Skyrim has a very distinct setting. I am more than happy for the entire game to take place within that distinct setting.

We already have elephants, ghosts, ice caves, robots, tombs, towns, tundra, an ancient stone city, vampires, and stuff I'm forgetting and more stuff I haven't even seen yet. We don't need a level where we shrink down and travel through a computer chip or a level where we jump on clouds of cotton candy. If your attention span is that short, go back and play a colorful Mario game for a while; that's what they're for. That's not what Skyrim is for.

I completely get what you are saying, but I think you are missing what others are saying. They are saying exactly what I quoted from you here. Some people are fine with different snowy regions while others would like greater differences (keep in mind that flora and fauna are part of the environments, too). I don't know about others, but my reason for preferring a little greater diversity in environments is because I tend to play these games for years, off and on. A homogenous-seeming environment is fine if you're going to go through and play all the quests then not play the game anymore, and I suppose it is fine for eternal sandbox-style play, too. It's just not my preference. On a final note, I don't consider this to be a big deal at all. It's a preference, but not one that influences my opinion of the game very much. Although, Elsweyr: The Deserts of Anequina added much more enjoyment to Oblivion than it should have...

Given the opinions of this thread, I wonder what the eventual Elseweyre game will be like - too much desert? Or will it have more oases and grassy areas? Black Marsh would be the best area to really have an 'alien' fell to it. I guess the fact that it will be inhabited by Argonians is a good start.

Actually...I wish Zelda Ocarina of Time would get a Bethesda Overhaul. I'm playing Zelda OoT for 3DS right now...and the graphics look a lot better now (Has a minor Twilight Princess Tweaking).
But....I think if Nintendo worked with Bethesda...We'd get a whole Overhaul of epic....our minds would explode.

Nintendo knows how to write up Lovable Characters that stick. Bethesda is good at the Mature content, Customization.

I'd kill for 3 Elderscrolls Remakes:

The Elder Scrolls: Hyrule, A Link to the Past from SNES Remade by Bethesda, with an Expansion Pack: Link's awakening,
The Elder Scrolls: Ivalice. Final Fantasy Tactics on PSone, remade by Bethesda to play like an Elder Scrolls game.
The Elder Scrolls: Han Dynasty, Pretty Much Romance of the Three Kingdoms + DW7, Empires like Mode (King/Ruler or Vagrant/Wanderer)...yesplz.

All of them, You MAKE YOUR OWN CHARACTER, and Play alongside the Main Heroes to help them on their Quest. I.E. Hyrule's main quest is helping Link save the princess/Stop Gannon, Ivalice is helping Ramzen Defeat the Holy Fraud Church/Find out who's causing the war. <-----I'd love to be traveling along the country side in Ivalice, only to find a war breaking out on a Battlefield, and than be able to actually FIGHT in the war how ever I want to. Then just think about All the Battles Dynasty Warriors Has...think Romance of the three Kingdoms, but in Free-Roam-3rd Person. Helping out Yellow Bandits or Nanman Tribes with their troubles. Being a bad guy joining Lubu's Faction. Think, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Empires Mode but done like Elder Scrolls...ugh...

These are the baseless complaints that make actual complaints look bad.

I'm not explaining why you should have known that they wouldn't have a "Electricity Boss/Realm" or a racoon suit that makes you fly.

The fact is if you didn't know what you were getting with a TES game having played them beofre (and you don't like it) then maybe you should play them.

Do I think theres more variety in Morrowind? Yes. Does the envirnment in Skyrim fit with the setting? Yes.

You don't go into Zelda saying "Wait......I want to pick stats and have no load times and I want it to look not like a Saturday morning cartoon."

Actually, Morrowind DID NOT have that much Variety, it was the Change in Guard with inhabitants of each section of the city that changed it.

Much like this has a lot of differences when it comes to each City not looking like the same city/differently built. The outside Landscape changes from Rainy Cold Forest to Barely any Snow/Rocky Caverns with grassland like areas, to Pretty much White/Snowy Mountain Sides/Forests caked in snow.

I thought each area had a Spring/Fall/Winter type situation...which fits perfectly.

Then draqes in a Marshland/Wasteland concept with minor snow.

You have to realize the entire land of Skyrim has to have a COLD Concept. Its the FROZEN [censored] NORDIC LANDS, there won't be That big of a change inbetween.

Please don't get my above post in thinking I agree whole heartedly with the OP...I just meant, I would like to see Nintendo and Beth do a collab, or Have a Bethesda Remake of all other games that were lovable/enjoyable to me.

Yeah it has to be frozen to fit skyrim but it could have been awesome frozen instead of pedestrian fantasy frozen. Like if on the coast there was a section where a 30 meter tall tsunami had frozen in place and people had made a cliff dwelling out of the frozen water. That would be frozen and alien/fantasy. A snowy pine forest is LOTR 2.0.

All I really remember of Morrowind is a sooty, sepia-toned wasteland. And some really weird architecture.

We did have Minotaurs in Oblivion
By the way, why are they not in Skyrim?




Umm, since when have the inhabitants of Skyrim started drinking water?




Oh my, as much as I would love to have an open-world first-person Zelda game, I don't think I have the faith in Bethesda as of right now. Zelda is one of the few sacred things I have left in this gaming world




That's more like it! There are plenty of "fantastic" things you can do in an ice-world. A Game of Thrones comes to mind. Hmm, I wonder if there will ever be such a total conversion of Skyrim???

Please don't compare these games to Skyrim. The environment is good in Skyrim.
:slap: