Has ESO painted themselves into a corner?

GLP323b14_ESO

The world of Tamriel is ridiculously compressed. I discovered this early on when I first came to the city of Daggerfall and saw how tiny it was (the little town of Daggerfall more like it). A far cry from its size in Elder Scrolls 2. Not only is it tiny, but takes up most of the southwestern end of Highrock.

Perhaps this is on scale with previous Elder Scrolls games from Morrowind on, but it feels even more compressed.

I also play Lord of the Rings Online and just the TOWN of Bree-town is much bigger than the City of Daggerfall. And of course cities in LotRo are significantly bigger, like Dol Amroth or Minas Tirith. And those are still small compared to what they ought to be in the "reality" of Middle-earth.

In any case looking at the map of Tamriel so far, as realized in ESO, it seems half or even most of the continent is already used in the game. And your confined largely to this one continent. Meanwhile, a game like LotRo, 11 years old, is already crazy ginormous in landscape and yet they still have vast amounts of lands that they could still add to the game for years and years and years to come. Heck they could even go off beyond the edges of the Middle-earth map if they wanted, since the whole continent was never shown on those maps.

What happens to ESO when they run out of space to add new landscape content? I feel like they ought to have made the scale of Tamriel A LOT larger. Not Elder Scrolls 2 huge, but at least maybe 3 or 4 times larger. This would give them much more room for adding new landscape over the years.

Peekachu99

I think the micro-transactions and incessant, wide-sweeping balance changes have painted them into a much worse corner than “to scale” geometry.

Feric51

An, as yet, undiscovered Dwemer continent buried beneath Tamriel....

Or return to Oblivion....

Or use some type of Ayleid transportation crystal to create a portal to some far away land....

Drummerx04

They'll drive their entire player base away with endless money grabbing schemes, pitiful server performance, and combat "balancing" patches long before they run out of space on the map.

Alex_Lex

According to all last one bugs, issues, moneygrabbing schemes and server performance, ESO would be closed way before they run out of landscape.

Danikat

When they run out of space on Tamriel we can go to Akavir - rumoured to be at least the same size, or Atmora or any of the other islands/continents mentioned in the lore already, and potentially places beyond that which haven't been discovered/mentioned yet.

Then there's Oblivion - literally thousands of dimensions (admittedly some are tiny) which don't even have to obey the laws of physics or conform to reality on Tamriel so there could be anything there.

If there's anything limiting the amount of areas they can add to the game it's certainly not available space.

DanteYoda

As fantasy lore goes yes incredibly limited... Literally any new races are ruined because "they died out" this franchise did not design their lore in anyway for longevity... New parts of the world nope, that would mean new classes and races, that would mean more balancing and nerfs...

How to completely stifle a future for the game.. just wow..

Red_Feather

Elder Scrolls is great because it can go on fantasy adventures to lands we have never experienced before.

MasterSpatula

The scale from one zone to another is pretty clearly not consistent. Who knows? Perhaps they'll release Winterhold one day and make it as large as Vvardenfell. I'm already suspecting when they get around to Sheogorad (something I expected them to have done by now) it'll be as big as Hew's Bane or Gold Coast.

XxCaLxX

I think players will be long gone from eso before they run out of places to put content. Eso is almost unplayable for a lot of ppl in its current state. I haven’t played in over a week and I was always a daily player.

VaranisArano

Where the single player games focus on one areas, ESO glosses over large regions of Tamriel.

This is especially clear in Vvardenfell, where ESO manages to have nearly everything there was in TES III Morrowind, just much much smaller in less detail.

Its a difference in scale, scope, and the stories the game choose to tell.

MajBludd

I agree with previous posters, I don't think you'll have to worry about running out of places to go before eso is dead

GLP323b14_ESO

MajBludd wrote: »

I agree with previous posters, I don't think you'll have to worry about running out of places to go before eso is dead

Ha! Good to know. I guess..... ?

ItsMeToo

Run.... The Sky is Falling

Rain_Greyraven

We have only visited areas of the maps they can always go back into previously designed areas and increase the size,I think the way they are approaching it gives them an enormous amount to play with.

Cadbury

GLP323b14_ESO wrote: »

MajBludd wrote: »

I agree with previous posters, I don't think you'll have to worry about running out of places to go before eso is dead

Ha! Good to know. I guess..... ?

Well...everything ends eventually. Death is the one final boss no one wins against.

Running out of landmass is the least of their problems

GLP323b14_ESO

Cadbury wrote: »

Well...everything ends eventually. Death is the one final boss no one wins against.

Running out of landmass is the least of their problems

Thanks!

That makes us all feel better now.