So there is a city missing in Eastmarch, and a big one at that...

SerasWhip

We got the current map, but notice the place in the red circle.



That ain't part of Skyrim, that's where Blacklight is, a city Morrowind. Lore wise, it is the Redoran capital and the second biggest city of Morrowind after Mournhold.



Most importantly, it is a Dunmer city with snow and that's just beautiful.



And what do we see when we look at that portion of the map? Nothingness...



Now did the devs forget about this place? They don't intend to add it at all? Why tho? Too many questions yet to be answered but let me make a suggestion considering that the city will be added in the future. Please, please, please, make a new Dunmeri Notable home available in Blacklight. The Ebonheart Chateau is probably the most underwhelming house amongst the three alliance houses, not only that it is also the most expensive one for some reason. Make it available by both gold and crowns. Hyped for this region, hope it reappears soon.

Ye_Olde_Crowe

Well, perhaps it wasn‘t built yet.
In Daggerfall, my house was in Ephesus which is roughly where the Bangkorai garrison is in ESO. The city came into existence at a later date.

SerasWhip

Ye_Olde_Crowe wrote: »

Well, perhaps it wasn‘t built yet.
In Daggerfall, my house was in Ephesus which is roughly where the Bangkorai garrison is in ESO. The city came into existence at a later date.

I've considered this possibility as well. But the lore pages say that the House Redoran started from Blacklight, so the way I see it, if Redorans exist at that time, so does their capital city. I have not seen anything related to the destruction or occupation of the city after that.

etchedpixels

There are lots of places conveniently just off the playable area - the middle of Elsweyr for example. Winterhold and so on...

SeaGtGruff

My guess is, it's somewhere east of the area shown on the Eastmarch map, in that blank region. EDIT: Actually, from the map of Tamriel, it should be a bit north of Windhelm's latitude, as well as a good bit east, so it's probably a little ways outside of the general area shown on the Eastmarch map.

pelle412

I believe this to be a developer oversight. Hopefully addressed in a future expansion. Blacklight is clearly not in ESO and the Eastmarch map itself is conveniently mum on its eastern border, but the Tamriel map in the game I think incorrectly suggests ESO has something there.

tomofhyrule

The Tamriel overland map leaves quite a bit to be desired. That entire area of Morrowind in the Velothi mountains is missing, Winterhold is just gone, Craglorn is a completely different shape (can be seen from the wayshrines), etc.

I'd assume that if they were going to give us the Velothis as a zone that they'd remake the map more appropriately. They've done that before every time a new zone was added to fix the area that needed to be there.

Darkstorne

Yep, well known issue that I think the previous loremaster even commented on, saying it was a cartographical error or some such.

There was an amazing thread not too long ago where someone created a fixed version of ESO's map (lots more errors than just this one sadly) and was working on making it into an addon.

Danikat

I doubt it's a mistake or an oversight or not knowing the lore or however you want to phrase it. As other people have said there's a lot of places, including important cities, which aren't in ESO yet. Including a lot which I'm sure are favourites for various groups of fans. (Mine is Torval in southern Elsweyr.)

I think that was done intentionally for a few reasons, including:

• Scope & development time. Making the whole of Tamriel in one go before release would have taken a huge amount of time and effort, or it would have meant cutting it down to something equivalent to what was done in Daggerfall (the game) where a lot of places and NPCs are generic models reused with maybe 1 generic 'greeting' each. (Yes I know ESO already reuses some models, but imagine entire towns where everyone is 'citizen' and the layout is identical to the last town you went through.)
• Room for expansion. An MMO is the original 'live service game' it's expected that it will have new content added periodically after release, potentially for years, leaving out bits of the content gives them plenty of room to do that.
• Map 'balance' between Alliances. At launch each Alliance had the same number of maps, showing at least some of all their races homelands. They each had a starter city (Vulkhel Guard, Ebonheart/Davon's Watch and Daggerfall), a major city in their mid-level map (Elden Root, Mournhold and Wayrest) and one in the highest level map (Rawl'ka, Windhelm and Evermoor). I've not counted but I suspect they have the same number of cities/areas offering player services in total as well. I suspect the areas chosen for the base game were intentionally designed to ensure that balance.

Since we know they're consistently adding new areas to Tamriel each year I'm not worried about the bits which are missing because I'm confident we'll get them sooner or later as we have with Vvardenell, Summerset, Elseweyr and other areas. The only ones I'm not sure about are those which are in very small bits of missing map (like that strip through the middle of Elseweyr) where it might be difficult to have enough space for an expansion, or even a DLC. Although one solution there could be to write a story which takes us all over the continent and include several different maps. (As long as it's not hunting for the Staff of Chaos.)

NotaDaedraWorshipper

I'm just gonna leave this here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/584604/i-remade-the-map-this-time-everything-is-perfect/p1

Which shows there are a lot more issues with the map

Supreme_Atromancer

There's still hope.

People have been complaining about Blacklight missing and being eclipsed by Eastmarch since launch, and possibly before. The former Loremaster recognised the issue, saying during an in-character interview back in 2014 that Nords are stupid and don't know how to make maps (may be slightly paraphrased ). Besides that, there is a food named after the place, and an NPC in Bangkorai who says they are from there. At least by lore, the place is assumed to exist.

Its hard to say what they will do, though. When players complained about the absence of Jehanna before the release of Orsinium, the developer's response was to rename the "Horker Docks" to Jehanna Docks, leaving it utterly empty, with no story, no lore, and absolutely nothing to explore or learn. As it stands now, Jehanna Docks- which have a major road named after it in the zos-authored "Emperor's Guide to Tamriel"- service absolutely nothing. Its a "striking locale" which has absolutely nothing striking about it. That's not how you do exploration.

For some insight, though: the developers recently said that they were surprised how triggered everyone was about missing spots on the map like Central Elsweyr. Which to me is pretty alarming given that people have been complaining so loudly and so persistently about these issues since 2014!

We want ZOS to understand (and not find surprising) the fact that Tamriel is the reason that many of us are here. The details are important. There are places that have captured our imaginations and that we've dreamed about seeing for years. For many of us, I suspect, it would be the primary draw of this game. OP, I've always wanted to see Jehanna for the same reasons you want to see Blacklight- an awesome, remote Breton city in the snow. And I know that there are people just as passionate about Corinth, Alabaster, Torval and The Tenmar, as you are about Blacklight and the Velothi Highlands, or many others are for an hypothesised Jehanna/Western Reach/Forgotten Vale solution.

@ZOS_Kevin please if you are able to, bring attention to the developers for this issue. This is a very important thing to many of us, and we want them to know. If we were to just hear that zos recognises these places exist in this time, that they indeed have some sort of vision for them, and that they absolutely intend to get to them one day, I think people would be very happy to hear it, and it would stop all the doubt brought about by the crummy, misleading map!

Heartrage

Actually, when you take the time to look at the eastmarch map, You can see that it doesn't fit the part of the map of tamriel it's supposed to represent. The eastern part of eastmarch on the tamriel map isn't on the eastmarch map.

Vevvev

It was a mistake on someone's part and the map was never adjusted afterwards. If you noticed all of Eastmarch is too far East and should be pushed West a little. Someone thought it fit perfectly in that spot, and it kinda does, but they didn't compare it to the actual canon map and that's how we have this mess.

RisenEclipse

Blacklight is very much so supposed to be there now. It's also a pretty important city to leave out considering it's a major port for Morrowind and the seat of House Redoran. So that's a pretty big oversight.

FluffWit

At best I'd imagine you'd get Blacklight as a group dungeon in ESO.

I was seriously bummed out when Falkreath was added in that manner because I knew it meant we'd never get a zone dlc with my favorite part of Skyrim.

When it comes to the map I don't take it literally. I treat it like those old 16th century world maps that were wildly inaccurate and largely based on guess work.

WraithCaller88

So my head-cannon is, they'll do chapters for the two remaining races (bosmer & redguard) who haven't yet been spotlighted over the next two years.

Then, in 2025, they'll do a Return to Morrowind chapter. It will be set primarily in the Telvanni Isles/Penninsula, where we'll get to venture to major settlements like Port Telvannis, Firewatch, and Necrom. The storyline will seem to be focused on the internal squabbles of House Telvanni - their refusal to join the Pact, their slavery practices, etc - but in the background will actually be about the early stirrings of the Sixth House before Dagoth-Ur awakens, drawing on lore like the Poison Song books. Hermaeus-Mora will be featured as an antagonist, but instead of a conqueror (like Molag Bal, Nocturnal, and Mehrunes Dagon) he'll be more of a manipulator who provides forbidden knowledge to Sixth House cultists in exchange for dark pacts. As we discover more of their plans through research & investigation with various wizards of House Telvanni, we'll be able to thwart them for a time, causing them to flee west.

The DLC for this year will then be Blacklight & the Velothi Mountains. After our adventures in the east of Morrowind, where we first discovered the sinister dealings of the Sixth House cultists, we'll pursue them to the Redoran district to finally put an end to their plans, along with the help of the honorable and duty-bound warrior house. Expeditions into the remote mountain strongholds will reveal this threat as one that could disrupt the entire Ebonheart Pact, not just Morrowind, and if left unchecked will eventually threaten all of Tamriel. Though we will be able to defeat this particular cult in the end, the ending will be a bittersweet one, where the inevitable awakening of Dagoth-Ur and decline of the Tribunal is vaguely alluded to - probably by Azura.

As a part of this year-long adventure, we'll get all kinds of sweet Morrowind goodies like new mounts/pets/cosmetics, ancestral Redoran & Telvanni motifs, and events where we can gather fragments to 'grow' our own Telvanni tower in a new (less-fleshy) style.


...


Of course, that's all just me, and ZOS doesn't pay me to write their stories...

SerasWhip

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

There's still hope.

People have been complaining about Blacklight missing and being eclipsed by Eastmarch since launch, and possibly before. The former Loremaster recognised the issue, saying during an in-character interview back in 2014 that Nords are stupid and don't know how to make maps (may be slightly paraphrased ). Besides that, there is a food named after the place, and an NPC in Bangkorai who says they are from there. At least by lore, the place is assumed to exist.

Its hard to say what they will do, though. When players complained about the absence of Jehanna before the release of Orsinium, the developer's response was to rename the "Horker Docks" to Jehanna Docks, leaving it utterly empty, with no story, no lore, and absolutely nothing to explore or learn. As it stands now, Jehanna Docks- which have a major road named after it in the zos-authored "Emperor's Guide to Tamriel"- service absolutely nothing. Its a "striking locale" which has absolutely nothing striking about it. That's not how you do exploration.

For some insight, though: the developers recently said that they were surprised how triggered everyone was about missing spots on the map like Central Elsweyr. Which to me is pretty alarming given that people have been complaining so loudly and so persistently about these issues since 2014!

We want ZOS to understand (and not find surprising) the fact that Tamriel is the reason that many of us are here. The details are important. There are places that have captured our imaginations and that we've dreamed about seeing for years. For many of us, I suspect, it would be the primary draw of this game. OP, I've always wanted to see Jehanna for the same reasons you want to see Blacklight- an awesome, remote Breton city in the snow. And I know that there are people just as passionate about Corinth, Alabaster, Torval and The Tenmar, as you are about Blacklight and the Velothi Highlands, or many others are for an hypothesised Jehanna/Western Reach/Forgotten Vale solution.

@ZOS_Kevin please if you are able to, bring attention to the developers for this issue. This is a very important thing to many of us, and we want them to know. If we were to just hear that zos recognises these places exist in this time, that they indeed have some sort of vision for them, and that they absolutely intend to get to them one day, I think people would be very happy to hear it, and it would stop all the doubt brought about by the crummy, misleading map!

Thanks for writing down what I've been too lazy to tell. I agree with everything you say