I've had enough of Cyrodil. I'd be playing Skyrim and still unable to get away from it, not what I want.

But if other people want it, it wouldn't bother me too much. Especially if it was only visible in certian areas.

White Gold Tower is supposed to be enormous. Why shouldn't you be able to see it from Chorrol?

I remember my first time seeing Chicago (the city). The giant buildings on the horizon were spectacular. I had never seen anything like it before in my life. They were visible from quite some distance. White Gold Tower is supposed to be like that.

Why would you see it? You can't see forever in real life, why would you in a game?

Go outside a major city a good ways out and you won't be able to see those buildings either.

Continuing your example, seeing the White Gold from Skyrim would be like seeing Chicago from Bethesda's offices.

I agree. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:OB-ICandChey.jpg :shrug:

I agree it's not likely. I highly suspect the pathways to Cyrodiil will be blocked at the bottom of mountains.

Not really. The Appalachians are in the way there... that, and the smog.

Though I never really thought about the land size of Oblivion. I mean, I played Daggerfall, and I've come to accept I'll never again see a game world that is technically the size of Great Britain or Turkey. I don't know how large Cyrodil is technically... but thinking on it, the view from the Jeralls makes me feel like Cyrodil, in-game, was about the size of my home county of Fresno. That's actually not too shabby, for a video game. And I loved how the distant view showed how the city of Cyrodil was taller than it was wide... which is how I imagine white-gold being... only on a much larger scale. It really gives me the impression that White Gold is a needle piercing the heavens.

Cant the Jerall Mtns are the problem. However could we see the great and mighty city of Arenthia from Cyrodiil....Nope....

Problem wasn't the draw distance, but actual size of the province
Real eyesight distance is ~4km (2.5miles) in good weather
So if world size is few square miles there is nothing strange that you can see all province from high spot
Actual distance from Anvil to Cheydinhal should be ~800km (500miles), in this case realistic eyesight could work

Off-topic, but I cannot fight urge to rant :banghead:
I hate pocket worlds recent TES games have
Why, oh why developers overvalue manual work?
They could manually create cities, crucial locations and stuff like that, but most territory could be randomly generated (caves, forests and other locations that actually shifts and changes time after time)
Developers are proud that whole territory is hand-made, but is this something to be proud of?
Sad result is that you can see one side of province standing on the opposite one, and this is biggest immersion breaker.
Ok, we have 200 caves, multiply it by 5 and make slight changes in those 800 new ones.
We have cities, villages and other points of interest (like scenic views). Good, now take them and scatter on the much bigger map.
And fill gaps with randomly generated forests, mountains and other landscapes.
Why this can't be done?

Ok, my rant is over, sorry for this.

i rather not to be honest. it would bug me to be able to see a city far in the distance and not be able to go there.

Used to stand on the Jeralls, looking wistfully over at Skyrim.

Wish granted :celebration:

Voted both as "other" because I don't expect Cyrodiil in any form to be visible at all. I'd expect the southern border of the game to be on the north side of the Jerall mountains with no way to get far enough up there to see past them to the south. I'd prefer it this way too, since we don't NEED to see Cyrodiil. The White Gold Tower therefore will not be visible as it will be hidden behind the mountains to the south.

from my understanding the regions that we're given are just representations of how they're supposed to look and the actual land mass would (realistically) be much much larger. so even with the downsized versions of the region we're given it would still be realistic (to me at least) not to be able to see the tower in the distance.

How big is enormous? I know it's a big, magic tower, but I doubt it's big enough to see, through the mountain fog. Maybe a clear day, if the sun hits it right. White Gold's still far out of proportion.


No, it's 250 miles, from Red Mountain's crater, to Almalexia/Mournhold. It's roughly 120, from the Skyrim border to White Gold.

Chances are, tall mountains will serve as a border to the south, so you probably won't even be able to see Cyrodiil that much.

Well, depending on where you stand on the debate about the size of Tamriel, White Gold is probably about 200 miles from High Hrothgar, and about one hundred from the southern border of Skryim.

So does anyone know tall White Gold is supposed to be?

A 1000 foot free-standing tower is clearly visible from 50 miles away, and could probably be discerned from 150 in clear air by someone with good vision.
So if White Gold is massive enough, I think it could be made visible from the border without making the game world feel smaller. In fact, giving such a sense of scale and distance by showing an enormous tower barely visible in the vast distance would make the world feel bigger to me.

What in the world do you mean by this?
sorry for double-post

I meant real world eyesight if nothing stands in the way and weather is good
Tested last summer
From 15m height I could see objects that were located ~3km away
Taking in consideration that I wear glasses (tested without), average eyesight could be ~4km

The only limit to human vision is the size and brightness of the object being looked at.
I'm not sure what you mean.
You can see the Andromeda Galaxy with your own two eyes, and it's 2,500,000 light years away; or 14,696,563,432,959,020,000 miles.

What size of object are you saying one can see from 4km?

You can see other galaxies only because that light travels through space (relatively empty)
If our solar system would be located in the middle of dense nebula, you couldn't see anything

There are 2 limits on planets
planets curve and density of atmosphere (since air absorbs and dissolves light)
Nirn and Earth more or less share both these characteristics

Regarding size - it was small farmhouse on one side and on the other a medium sized warehouse, so nothing even close to White Gold tower

I'm thinking that since we'll be going up 7,000 steps to the top of a very high mountain, we should be able to see the White Gold Tower at least. It might be like seeing a misty outline off in the distance but it would be great to see even that.

:tes:

No it doesn't.
Atmosphere does block light to some degree, but that's not really relevant to this discussion.
As I said, the only real limit on the distance at which an object can be seen is its size and brightness.


Well, the Jerall mountains block the view from High Hrothgar, if you're suggesting we could see it from there.

Ok, lets call it "blocking" :shocking: (tomato, tomato )
Of course it is true, ever tried to use various lasers on huge distance?
I combined binoculars with two lasers one was weak/cheap, other was more powerful
I pointed it to distant wall in the evening and observed dots that appeared on the wall.
Only dot from strong laser appeared. Why? Most probably because cheap laser couldn't get through air (matter btw) between me and wall.
So we are both right.

But we are talking about ordinary circumstances, relatively small objects (farmhouse), and ordinary human eyes.

P.S. Now that I think about I had a LOT of free time to do various bull[censored] in high school :rolleyes: ah, good days :touched:

Well yeah; the result is the same, but you misspoke about the manner that result is achieved. Light isn't something that can be dissolved.

Anyways, your assertion that 2.5 miles is the limit for human vision is still a bit nonsensical. If the farmhouse you were looking at was four times as large, you could see it just as clearly from twice as far away.
(I'm going to drop this discussion now, because it's honestly pointless; I'm just a pedant.)

we aren't talking about how far can our eyes see at all, but how far we should be able to see on earth-like planet
I doubt that there will be so big object in TES5 to see those from even greater distance
White Gold tower maybe could be visible from greater distance, but only because it reflects more light than most buildings or natural formations