As we all know, The Greybeards live on top of the highest mountain in Tamriel. I just got 2 questions.

1 - How is Bethesda gonna make a mountain this tall, with all the LOD and terrain detail, and with all the lagg from the game engine that comes when getteing in high altitude?

2 - How are Bethesda gonna make 7000 STEPS! We all know how high White Gold Tower was in Oblivion, and I can surely tell that it wouldnt need even 1000 steps to get to the top.

Just imaging the hight of the mountain.

I feel that they somehow will disappoint us with this location.

Linky to the info of the location - http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Throat_of_the_World

They could be little steps.

Or "you cannot proceed further" notice ;P

Why do you think the game has taken the game this long to make. There going to release on 11.11.11 cos they didn't realize how long one mountain would take. :sadvaultboy:

Who's to say their new engine can't handle and process draw distances much better than Gamebryo? Look at Crysis. To a certain extent look at the Source engine by Valve. I'm sure Bethesda has competent enough programmers to be able to create a much better engine than Gamebryo.

There will be huge clouds obscuring the mountain at some point, and once you go into the clouds the Greybeards blow you away.

Jokes aside they can always make it enterance by some cave/teleport/whatever - instanced area.

No! They must not do it this way.



Youre right about that, we havent been told what the engine is cabable of. But I just dont want a lame excuse like "There will be a loading screen to get you to another cell where it is located".

7000 steps (ignoring the fact that it might be just a figure of speech instead of the actual number) isn't even all that high. There's a staircase on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niesen in the Alps which has over 11000 steps, and that's for a nice little mountain of just over 2300m (7700 feet) above the mean sea level.

Really don't wanna be mean OP, but you need to work on your spelling, lol.

tell more about the engine! since you seem to know this happens. Or you are speculating. and badly i might add.


maybe with a height map editor...

[quote name='Ghogiel' timestamp='1292857641' post='16844652']
tell more about the engine! since you seem to know this happens. Or you are speculating. and badly i might add.

No one knows anything about the engine capabilities. We dont even know the name of the engine.

Maybe I'm taking too much of a liberty interpreting the lore, but if that's the only description of the Seven Thousand Steps, there are lots of interesting ways they could be created in a game without simply being... well, seven thousand steps carved into the side of a gigantic mountain. Maybe the steps are within a sort of carved ice tunnel, with seven mysterious gates separating every thousand steps? Maybe each actual step is composed of many differently-sized, offset "steps" on the same level, so the total number of steps up is far smaller?

In any case, I bet Bethesda will either interpret the structure in a creative and more feasible way, or their new engine's capabilities will blow us away. Or both.

I don't know how many "steps" white gold tower was. But I can tell you it took me two hours and a few thousand paint brushes to reach it on 360. All so I could make a save and jump off
Totally worth it.

I'm just going to hope that their new engine will be capable of such things. If not they can always have "clouds" blocking the view so the engine doesn't have to load all that much at once.

I am confident you will be able to do it.

It's arguably the most important location in the game and it has a way to get to it. Therefore, it is EXTREMELY unlikely they won't have3 it in.

Also, if it took several thousand paintbrushes, it would probably be at least twice as many steps, because you can put those paintbrushes reasonably far apart. and maybe the steps go around the mountain in a spiral or up slopes concertina style.

It will probably have been destroyed.

If Morrowind can manage Red Mountain, I'm sure Skyrim's engine will be able to handle a bigger one.

I only have one question...

Who is going to be counting the number of steps they used to scale mountain X in-game, especially if that count goes beyond, say, 10?





Didn't think so.

Actually ... Red Mountain is the bigger one.

Hum according to http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-skyrim#Throat_of_the_World its only the second highest mountain in Tamriel ... but 4 out of the top 5 isn′t bad.

If Red Mountain is taller than this mountain which is the Throat of the world, what does that make red mountain?

Steps could also be, like, strides. and not actual stair steps as well, i suppose.

Well see....

Eyes of the world?

The place where a hole race removed itself from existence or turned themself into gods? The place from witch Tiber Septim got his main tool for forging the Empire and end the second era?

I think First Edition is supposed to be made obsolete by Third Edition, which doesn't say anything about the heights of any mountains.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see on this one.



Seriously? I mean, have your read half the things that players have submitted to the Forum Scholars Guild at imperial-library.info? Have you not witnessed the madness some players exhibit? Hell, I myself once had a pillow fort on top of almost every structure on Vvardenfell.



Psst: You're supposed to wait for a lack of response before posting that part. But then again, if had waited, you would've lost your ability to insult everyone. Obviously, you couldn't have that now could you?