It's very simple math man. Mountains add a Third Dimension to the landscape, especially (Or actually only-if) if they're full of content, which is the case in Skyrim as we've already seen in the footage. Oblivion's and Morrowind's Mounts acted as "Directors" of sorts, making "Laymans paths" through areas. Once you learn there's a "Jump Button" they're little more than a speed bump, creating a horrifically two-dimensional world (Though Morrowind is saved by it's very vertical dungeon design).

The best way to describe it would be the Red Mountain Region in Morrowind, the only true "Mountain" in the game. Outside of Levitation, scaling the mountain takes considerable time even though the distance from Ghostgate to Dagoth Ur is about the same as Balmora to Caldera, but thankfully there are plentiful amounts of content within that space as well.

TL:DR HxW < HxWxD

If something is higher its vertical, if you jump up to a place if you walk up say steps its vertical, so you walk up a mountain its vertical.

I just hope there is a lot of content on the mountains so they are not bare. I hope they accessible and it would not hurt to have some that would require you have some jumping would be nice as well.

I would hate to have any impassable mountain in this game this is the Elder Scrolls and impassable mountains would be just plain stupid to have in this game.

Im talking about impassable mountains. how many times do I have to say this?


You dont seem t get it. Ive only been talking about impassable mountains this whole time, which is in your OP and posts.

What part of that is hard to understand? I never once say that passable mountains dont add more area.

Who said the mountains were impassable anyway. You might have to get creative because of an impassable slope, but i'd be damned if not everyone of those peaks got something sweet of the top beside the view.

"You can climb to the top of that mountain there"-Todd

Doubled...

The main way mountains will add "vertical content" I would imagine is by having dungeons/stuff closer together on the 2d plane, but distanced by height. Obviously you can't have things directly above each other, but like, for example, it would feel weird to have dungeons 40m away from each other on flat ground, but it would seem a bit more natural to have them like that if they were also split by a height difference, so the mountains can be a little more packed than the ground.

That's the only way I can see them adding "vert cont" as well. If there really is no way to vary jump height, through natural ability, of magical intervention.

hey Xarnac not sure if you seen this (im sure you have) but you can see how the mountains kinda work with vertical content like some have been trying to explain

http://i51.tinypic.com/14j3jap.jpg

We have to define Vert content. To me vertical content requires you to jump/fall/climb/levitate to get to it. Something on top, or in a mountain that you just walk to isn't IMO actual vertical content. I understand that inclined and declined plains adds area. But Im talking vertical content and impassibility.

To add on to Dragonbones post, I could see actual vertical content being in Sky (assuming no jump variable), with falling. They could add lots of stuff on ledges etc. by requiring you to fall, since you cant vertically reach inaccessible areas, without the right mechanics.

I think there are 5 major cities aside from smaller towns/villages.

In Oblivion we only had the Imperial City, in Fallout 3..... erm moving along... in New Vegas, we only had well Vegas Strip/Freeside. So now's there're five!!! That certainly says alot.

1) What does that show, it doesn't seem to tell me anything and 2) That's not an official map and it's very innacurate. No. The cities are MUCH closer to Chorrol/Bruma/Anvil etc. than the Imperial city.

well you can see that paths not sure on those being right but you can see how they go through the mountains and hows it inaccurate http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110609232951/elderscrolls/images/thumb/0/02/Ertyui.jpg/650px-Ertyui.jpg

Great point. The flatland shouldn't feel so cramped because of more content on the mountains.

Slightly smaller... but packed with way more content then ever before, it will still be awesome and there will be tons more to do, it will have more play value and thats what counts. Also I saw this coming form a mile away, Skyrim is smaller on the world map, what could they do, tell High Rock, Hammerfell, Cyodill and Morrowind to go F themselves and stretch across their borders? No, it has to be realistic.

Holy Macaroni! Aw.. this stinks! Then what will towns/villages be like? That little camp outside Kvatch?

The thing with mountains is that they add interesting winding paths to get through and makes it take a bit longer to get through areas, but on the other hand, they severly limit the amount of area that you can move about in, because a LOT of it will be unable to get up, you are stuck following what paths are available at the time. "Vertical content" doesn't seem to have much meaning and I can only see a limited way in which it benefits the game. Also seem rather vaguely defined by those supporting it. When you say "content" what do you mean? Land area (this will increase)? Traversible area (this will decrease possibly eliminating the advantage of land area)? Locations and features? As you may be able to see I'm of 2 minds about it.

Yeah, I didnt know this either. I figure there has to be at least on city the size, or bigger than IC though. I hope.

Hopefully Solitude, or Markarth. Maybe even Windhelm.

You can see just at a glance that the arrangement of the mountains and terrain is COMPLETELY different between those 2 maps, and if you had a version of the official map that told you the environment types you would see even more obviously how completely unalike they are. The map you linked originally was made long before Skyrim, they had no idea what the devs would make it like. Even the settlements are partly wrong/in the wrong place.

I am at least hoping for this too. I am also skeptical about the size of the smaller towns/villages.

its something http://dorkshelf.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads//2011/01/skyrim20map.jpg

Here is a map of Skyrim (it's stretched slightly wrong, but it's close enough for comparison) showing the shapes of the cities (some are unable to be seen because of the way the original map was shown (on an angle)). The central one is Whiterun. The top-right one is Windhelm. Windhelm is said to be the biggest city. It appears slightly larger in surface area than Whiterun. Here are some pictures of Whiterun. http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/7861/vlcsnap2011091223h48m03.png http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/4449/vlcsnap2011091223h42m07.png http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/4016/vlcsnap2011091322h02m12.png The biggest city is a little larger than that.

Even if the map view looks quite a bit smaller, anyone who's ever shingled a steep roof knows that it takes 4x as many shingles to do a steep roof than a flat roof. Technically, I'd lay money that if you shingled Skyrim and Oblivion, Skyrim would use more shingles.In layman terms, Skyrim is bigger or has more topography.

That giant castle is fit only for a King. Could be the capital city of Syrim. There's a bigger city than this one, there you go.

It's not. Windhelm is the rebel capital, Solitude is the Empire Capital. Personally I think it looks more like a manor than a proper castle (I wouldm't call it "giant"), but fair enough if you think so. It's certainly rather unusually styled for a castle. Here are some more pictures of it. http://loudmouthedgamers.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/skyrim-redguard.jpg http://www.play-mag.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/1264Whiterun1.jpg http://oyster.ignimgs.com/franchises/images/04/36/43671_WhiterunExterior01_normal.jpg