Ohh yes for sure, like how a lot of the stuff made for Skyrim's gamejam made its way into the Dawnguard, Hearthfre, and Dragonborn DLCs.

I was only implying that didn't have, as a company, set plotlines and VA work being done for the DLC at this time.

Speaking of Martha's Vineyard, a quest there where you have to hunt down a giant mutant shark could be a pretty funny JAWS tribute.

I'm pretty sure you're right, but it makes me wonder what the designers and artists are up to after the game gets finalized and sent for distribution. They'd naturally still have some programmers and whatnot working on patches (hence why day-one patches are a thing), but does everyone else start basic concept work on the DLC, or even the next game?

Plus, Fallout 3 did have characters talking about the Pitt, and lots of references to Anchorage. They might have known early on that they wanted to involve those in DLC. Although for the most part, I'm pretty sure they try to wait until people experience the game before they really dive into DLC. A lot of their DLC seems to try and address (or avoid) issues people have with the base game.

I can guarantee you that the concept artists are at work on TES VI

I'd love to see how their development timeline goes between games. What happens when, and how much they talk about/experiment with different ideas. Just from interviews and those "making of" documentaries they put out, any misgivings people have on these forums seems to have been already brought up in development.

I also love their repeated comments about how you could roll in with a design document the size of Moby dike, and 99% of it will get thrown out or change drastically when you actually start playing with it.

I recall Todd saying once they try not to get too "script heavy" in terms of pre-planning stuff on paper just for that reason.

They just have general ideas like "dragons" and just roll with stuff they make until they find something they like.