Scaling Tamriel's Map: Issues and Fixes

Sentinel

Taking an initial look at the in game map for Tamriel, there are some glaring issues. For one, just taking a look at the placement of Pact zones with the Rift connecting to Stonefalls, the mountains that are meant to separate Skyrim and Morrowind are all but gone. The swath of land known as the Velothi mountains, which also contain the city of Blacklight do not have room to exist on our current map. In fact, the size of this land is about the same as Glenumbra.

Now, I get that there are creative directions that ZOS can take with the game. But eliminating pieces of land should not be one of them. While I'd not be surprised to hear the lore excuse that "Maps are not always drawn correctly," the extent to which some areas of the Map of Tamriel are incorrect go so far as to eliminate entire locations from Tamriel. So, I thought I'd prepare an (amateur's) map of Tamriel, annotated with the issues that are most obvious. (Note, the original outline was traced off of:This map of Tamriel, which has remained consistent for a very long time)



The map shows the majority of the issues with the map, and to some extent how to fix them, but some things are better explained here.

Click on a zone and look at its internal map. This is the map that has the most accurate borders, as it contains the extent of the playable area. Some zones, like Craglorn, also contain a large portion of unplayable areas upon their maps, such as mountains. Let's look at Craglorn further. If you click within the zone, you'd notice that it looks a bit like an oval- fatter towards the middle and tapering off towards the Cyrodiil border. If you click out of the zone and look at it from the Tamriel Map side, it is no longer shown to taper into cyrodiil, but share a substantial border as well.

A main feature used by ZOS to make zones flow together a bit better is to adjust the scaling of the borders. In many cases, this helps the aesthetic appeal of the map's boundaries. Here, take a look at a map of our in game zones if the borders did not meld together: at Tamriel Foundry's Interactive Map. There, it's a bit easier to tell that things are off.

Overall, you can likely tell that the borders of provinces are all a bit muddled:

• Craglorn extends north of the northern border of Cyrodiil, where the Jerall mountains are. Lorewise, Craglorn should be southwest a ways from its current placement.
• Black Marsh and Morrowind are smaller than they should be, and should be a scaled slightly larger in proportion to the other provinces.
• The Rift and Eastmarch infringe upon the Velothi Mountains lore placement, and prevent any future expansion into that part of Morrowind due to incorrect map placement.
• Eastmarch, on ESO's Tamriel map, has a peninsula, but if you look at its internal map, the location held there is high in the mountains. Based upon information from Skyrim (the game) there is meant to be a mountain range surrounding this "peninsula" and on the other side of it should be the land of Morrowind, with the city of Blacklight.

Now, what is a good way to fix most of these issues? Of course, it is a good place to start by referencing the original Tamriel maps, myself recommending this one from the Imperial Library. Next, I would take a look at the zones internal borders created so far- as I said, these are generally the most accurate. Piece them into their correct placement on the original Tamriel map, and try to find where borders don't meet.
You'll likely find:

• Hammerfell's border is far too wide; Craglorn infringes into both Skyrim and Cyrodiil.
• Skyrim does not have enough land to hold all of it's potential zones.
• Pact zones in general do not flow well with the land's borders- More space would be needed for the Skyrim zones.

A simple fix would be to scale up the size of Tamriel by a marginal amount; Craglorn, even with its placement fixed, still needs to respect the Skyrim & Cyrodiil borders. Once Hammerfell's borders are fixed, proceed to check the newly scaled sizes of Skyrim, Morrowind, and Black Marsh. If needed, extend Skyrim's northern border further, and scale Morrowind and Black Marsh to be marginally larger.

Why is any of this needed?

In the end, we'd simply have more space on the Tamriel map. By having more space, we can have both more zones, or larger zones- a greater area in which content can be created. If the current map stays how it is, there would be quite a few problems for the creation of new zones in Skyrim and Morrowind especially; they physically would have no space to exist. In any case, it would be appreciated if ZOS could acknowledge this- even if they do not have the time or resources to address it any time soon.

Farmerr

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/f/f3/Tamrielcomposite.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/2000?cb=20120706152110

The map literally changes with each game made because of differences in the time period and the developers move locations and geography around to fit specific games. The map you are using is a 3rd Era map geo-referenced onto the 2nd Era map. Even the one I put up is not the most updated for the 3rd era - but it's not an official map either

You could also argue the geography and geology (Erosion, sedimentation, earthquakes, Mountain building, etc.) has changed over time and would have been different for the ESO map.

You are right; however, that the in-game map shows areas connecting that really don't or should have more space, and it shows areas that connect together that seem farther apart in-game. The scaling for Skyrim does kind of scream out too.

Again, ZOS has their hands full with everything else, and this is already one of the largest Elder scrolls maps made.

If their goal is to one day open the entire continent, I would love to see them identify what you have and do it right. As for the developers, I'd hope they will adjust accordingly instead of eliminating potential locations should that ever occur.

DRXHarbinger

Farmerr wrote: »

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/f/f3/Tamrielcomposite.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/2000?cb=20120706152110

The map literally changes with each game made because of differences in the time period and the developers move locations and geography around to fit specific games. The map you are using is a 3rd Era map geo-referenced onto the 2nd Era map. Even the one I put up is not the most updated for the 3rd era - but it's not an official map either

You could also argue the geography and geology (Erosion, sedimentation, earthquakes, Mountain building, etc.) has changed over time and would have been different for the ESO map.

You are right; however, that the in-game map shows areas connecting that really don't or should have more space, and it shows areas that connect together that seem farther apart in-game. The scaling for Skyrim does kind of scream out too.

Again, ZOS has their hands full with everything else, and this is already one of the largest Elder scrolls maps made.

If their goal is to one day open the entire continent, I would love to see them identify what you have and do it right. As for the developers, I'd hope they will adjust accordingly instead of eliminating potential locations should that ever occur.

You could also argue that without an Alduin to ride on cartography wouldn't ever be accurate. Looks at maps from the 1400s (largely circumnavigated ones)- satellite technology, they were never accurate and never the same...cyrodill by scale should be 20x the size on that map too.

Sentinel

@Farmerr
Of course, I expect that there are aspects of the world that ZOS would adjust to their needs in TESO. I think of the Tamriel Map as many pieces of a puzzle, with individual regions representing a piece. All these individual pieces should be present, but it's up to the developmental process as to what scale they take.

Indeed, the purpose of this was to show that there are many pieces of Tamriel that simply do not exist, or under a similar framework, have no space to exist. If further expansion is wanted in the future, this would have to be addressed one way or another.

@DRXHarbinger

The inaccuracies of a map can make them interesting. You can even take a look at the map used for TES 2:Daggerfall. According to lore, it's just as correct a representation of the Illiac Bay as TESO's map is. It is just when regions of a map completely vanish (such as the Velothi Mountains and Blacklight) or are known to not connect in lore (such as the Rift and Stonefalls) that the artistic value of a map's inaccuracies is overwhelmed by the lack of functionality in future content development.

AzraelKrieg

I have one comment to make regarding Black Marsh. At the moment the only zone we have is Shadowfen so Black Marsh is far from complete in this game as it is. The future Murkmire update is also part of Black Marsh and should extend the province a bit further. If the map at one of the Orsinium traders is accurate, it will extend along the eastern coast.

Sentinel

I would like to note that in the in game map, there is no space whatsoever in Skyrim for Winterhold, and if either Falkreath or the Pale were introduced as zones, there would be no space for Whiterun.