Notes for Charlie Shenton, Western Skyrim Overland Lead

Cireous

Hello Charles. I hope I haven't caught you off guard too much with this. Your name and title were dropped in the last ESO Live, so I thought I would direct these observations to the boss of things, directly. I am a huge fan of these Chapters. First and foremost, my favorite thing to do is explore. In cities and out in the wild, every time I turn a corner and find a cabin, tower, building, door or scene, I am looking to loot, steal, and generally become immersed in these environments. As you might guess, the dreaded locked doors are the most disappointing scenery someone like myself will come across, as I can not immerse myself in anything mentioned above. So, I thought I would note below a small compilation of some standout doors that are sadly still shut and locked on the Western Skyrim PTS. My hope is that you will ask some work-from-homers to take a little time and fill a few of these out, even if only scarcely so (I would be happy with an open door and a man standing in the corner of an empty room muttering to himself next to a single wardrobe I could loot), but if my memory serves me right, by the time Northern Elsweyr hit the PTS, everything that was locked, and there was a lot that was locked, made it to live, so I'm tempering my hopes here. With that said, I would like to start with what I believe are the absolute most important doors to unlock.

The First Impression doors:

These are the first doors we come across when we port into Western Skyrim via the Wayshrine above, or perhaps the boats nearby.

The first thing I saw was this windmill.

So, obviously, it's the first place I run to. Cool, a small village is here!

And the first place I saw, the windmill? Locked. That's my first impression, which colors the next few hours of gameplay. Oh great, "This is Elsweyr all over again".

I can't emphasize enough how jarring a locked door is to an explorer. You go from giddy curiosity to instant disappointment.

So, I explore the little village and see this.

There isn't much here, but half of it is locked. Again, bad first impressions. These are the doors developers should want to open the most because first impressions? Super important.

Instead of heading up to the windmill, let's go down to the docks instead. This is the next place I looked.

Not much here but a large boat you cannot explore, a warehouse you can explore, and a locked door into what looks like an interesting structure.

Solitude, HIGH traffic areas:
I find these areas to be just as important because I am constantly running past them. Seeing locked doors here just reinforces the heartbreak.

Locked door next to the dailies. Honestly, why have it there at all? If you can't open a door, just make it a building front without a door. There is no disappointment in that.

This one makes me the most sad. Talk about high traffic, Vundling's townhouse is directly across the stone walkway from Proudspire's door, the player house.

Here is Vundling, wondering why no one visits his home. I want to steal his stuff so bad, it feels like a punch to the gut. He is my next door neighbor after all, whats his should be mine.

I tried to Mesmerize this lady quite a few times. Seems she struggles with her hatred towards vampires, oh, and unsecured doors.

Solitude, LESS high traffic areas:

Now, credit where credit is due, Solitude is enormous and I am so grateful for all the open buildings to explore, but, nevertheless, there are outliers here and there.

Like this one.

And this one.

This one too.

This one here.

And this one there.

Now, onto Morthal:


So, I absolutely loved Morthal. I can tell someone did a justice pass here, because the buildings are brimming with stealy things and safeboxes. But... not this building.

Or this building.

Or this one. So, three buildings locked. If you want a 10/10, will recommend Greymoor to friends, I'd open these bad boys up. Please? Pretty please.

Now, these places are in the Northern most areas of Western Skyrim, out in the wild-like:


This is highly reminiscent of those bandit towers, you know which ones I'm talking about.

I cannot complain about locked doors here, in fact, everything is lovely and so f***ing nostalgic.

Only, no bandits. Who do I have to pay to have a few bandits and their leader chase me out of this thing? I honestly can't think of anything that would give me a bigger smile.

Now this place here.

Looks so inviting!

Only, there is just this one building. And it's locked. I'm sad again.

And... we are here now.

Yeh, it's locked.

That's the lock right there.

Thank god Tidi's Shack, nearby, was here to save the day.

There were a lot of open little cabins throughout Western Skyrim. A lot of happy moments.

Just like Tidi's shack. Thank you for all the Tidi-like shacks and fishing huts speckled throughout the map.

Eversnow Inn was a real treat.

So many tables and chairs. Although you may want to do a pass on the sit-ablity of most of these chairs.

So many floors.

So much furniture.

This guy! Ha!

So... you know what you did here.

Not a single building in Karthwatch can be entered into. I mean, you could just open the doors to ramshackled furniture or something at the very least.

Because it reminds me of Hakoshae, the most disappointing town in all of Tamriel.

So much effort to make it seem inviting only to not open a single door in the entire town. This is what turned me off to doing side quests in Northern Elsweyr, this town right here.

Alright! So in conclusion: I'm not mad. I just want to have a little more fun is all. The travesty of Northern Elsweyr's nearly fully locked state of existence, Western Skyrim is not. More buildings in this Chapter are filled out, and filled out really well I might add. But, as stated above, there are some places that if you were to work on, I think people would simply get a lot more enjoyment from exploring than they would have otherwise. Obviously, there are lot of places I missed, but these in particular stood out to me more than others. Although, there was a chair next to some fishing poles near a river in a Southern area, that you could not sit in. You should really be able to sit in that chair. I'd show you, but I couldn't find it again. And, I know, maybe a few of the places listed above might be closed due to quest involvement. But, I am thinking, probably not, since those doors are usually unlocked but unenterable, with a greyed out open prompt. So, it's probably safe to say, all the doors you see above are just buildings that need some love.

Anyways, Charles. Good luck! Let's see if you can do anything here with your extra week.

Davadin

Yes. Please.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Its also completly stupid to leave all dor unlock
I mean if i leame my home i lock my door
Heck even if im at home the door is lock
If i somehow let it unlock people arent welcome to enter

Why should you be able to enter all these home unwelcome

Yes a few home should be acceessible but not all of them, thats just unrealistic

Cireous

Found it.

Can you fix this chair so we can sit in it? Thanks!

Vevvev

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Its also completly stupid to leave all dor unlock
I mean if i leame my home i lock my door
Heck even if im at home the door is lock
If i somehow let it unlock people arent welcome to enter

Why should you be able to enter all these home unwelcome

Yes a few home should be acceessible but not all of them, thats just unrealistic

True, but usually that's what lockpicking is for. If a home is locked you have to pick the lock to get inside. ZOS got lazy and didn't give these houses interiors so they just put this massive lock on the door and called it a day. A lock you cannot lockpick either.

Cookiestealer

Yes, a good point. I mean, this is a huge part of "The Elder Scrolls" experience!

MartiniDaniels

I can pass on locked smaller and insignificant buildings... but when you go to some notable building, especially standing alone in the wilderness and may be even marked with PoE... and it is locked it feels like a backstab.

Kolzki

This khajiit master thief is now disappointed that his master theiving skills are useless against these locked doors.

Elsonso

Yes. I have said this before. The sad thing is that I suspect that one person could go around and finish this sort of stuff. It isn't like they need to have a team meeting and signoff by Firor for every space like this.

Cireous

Also.

Outside of the objectives, the whole Eastern side of Western Skyrim is mostly an invisible wall of rocks/mountains with not much to explore.

Yet there are 3 cabins in this frigid area over here.

And, as you can see...

Unfortunately, they are all locked

As there isn't much going on up here, it would be nice if these were at least open. There doesn't need to be a lot inside of them or anything, just a few pieces of furniture and something to loot, perhaps?

MashmalloMan

This is pretty dissapointing. They continue to drop the ball on one of the best aspects about this game in multiple ways. Exploration and the world building is fantastic, but I feel very little challenge or reason to explore when nothing is rewarding or challenging.

My biggest issue was overland being to easy and their refusal to offer anything to either increase difficulty or decrease our players potency so that enemies don't get constantly 1-2 shotted, I do not agree with removing cp and gear just so I can have a decent experience. Their should be an option that only effects our player and in no way hurts the gameplay of newer players that enjoy the current difficulty.

Things like this just make matters worse, even the people who don't care about the difficulty can't enjoy exploration because over half the buildings are locked up. Some of these buildings already have layouts in the game that can easily be replaced with newer assets. It really isn't difficult and shows a lack of care for their game. It's a very shallow experience, beyond a visually appealing landscape. I've lost all interest in exploration and questing when those should be the biggest selling features of this massive open world.

Elsonso

MashmalloMan wrote: »

This is pretty dissapointing. They continue to drop the ball on one of the best aspects about this game in multiple ways. Exploration and the world building is fantastic, but I feel very little challenge or reason to explore when nothing is rewarding or challenging.

This has been mentioned many times in the past, and I have to think they know well about this. That they are still doing this after all this time suggests that it is exactly what they want to do. Sad, but true.

Cireous

MashmalloMan wrote: »

This is pretty dissapointing. They continue to drop the ball on one of the best aspects about this game in multiple ways. Exploration and the world building is fantastic, but I feel very little challenge or reason to explore when nothing is rewarding or challenging.

My biggest issue was overland being to easy and their refusal to offer anything to either increase difficulty or decrease our players potency so that enemies don't get constantly 1-2 shotted, I do not agree with removing cp and gear just so I can have a decent experience. Their should be an option that only effects our player and in no way hurts the gameplay of newer players that enjoy the current difficulty.

I feel very much the same way. I guess I am still holding out hope that some day things will change, that they will, in fact, find a way to bring back some fight to the NPCs in the Overland. I also do not think we should have to remove CP and gear (and in my case, soul gems as well) to enjoy ourselves in these often over-locked-up and shallow environments (as of late), but I do it anyways because at least it's easy to do with addons. If I wasn't doing this, I don't think I would be able find the will to play any longer.

I am curious, though, when was it deemed that a small house out in the wild made for a good prop rather than an explorable experience? This seems really antithetical to everything Elder Scrolls is suppose to be. But it's almost like some one has been given the go ahead to use them in abundance for decorative purposes. Either that, or they mean to add assets at some point, but this becomes the very lowest priority once the time crunch hits. What ever it is, it's always disappointing, and I wish they would take this into greater consideration.

I want Western Skyrim to, at the very least, get the Wrothgar treatment. I want the environment itself to always be telling a story and to be completely open for us to engage with. What happened to that level of attention to detail? I know there is not a lot of time left before Greymoor's release, but surely, just a little more effort can be had here.

Irfind

It is the same in Elsweyr and Morrowind just dissapointing.

Orsinium is pretty good, its a thievs dream.

Kr3do

Elsonso wrote: »

Yes. I have said this before. The sad thing is that I suspect that one person could go around and finish this sort of stuff. It isn't like they need to have a team meeting and signoff by Firor for every space like this.

This is the most frustrating thing about it. A single person could just copy paste interiors for a lot of these houses and it would add so much more life and charm to the zones.

kojou

It would be nice to have the design team make a pass at all locked buildings and give them interiors. Even if they were somewhat generic it would be less jarring than locked doors you can't enter.

I am far more annoyed by invisible walls though.

MattVH

I agree with the statements about locked doors and overland. Especially vvardenfell makes me sad. So many places are locked and blocked. Especially the blockage is very unsubtle at times lol. There's like one tower in the south-eastern region that just has its door blocked by a large clipping carapace shell.

The wilderness is more and more like a backdrop and the difficulty of overland makes exploration a lot less interesting as well. Now that we have antiquities (which is awesome) we'll hang around in random spot more often. Wish those spots were more interesting.

MattVH

kojou wrote: »

It would be nice to have the design team make a pass at all locked buildings and give them interiors. Even if they were somewhat generic it would be less jarring than locked doors you can't enter.

I am far more annoyed by invisible walls though.

Agreed. Ever since they announced in 2019 that they would "do thing differently" I was hoping it would be about improving and adding to existing content like that, instead of the push for 'new' content every 3 months. The amount of stuff that could be done in the chapter zones to this day is immense. I still hope that one day they'll do an overhaul, instead of yet another zone. Some zones feel deserted. A locked-door overhaul would be very nice indeed.

Not saying the work they are currently doing isn't impressive and it all seems like a lot of work. But it's like they are spreading the content over an insane amount of zones too much.

Cireous

And...

I really wish this one was unlocked as well.

I keep happening by it every time I find myself at the World Boss nearby. I would consider this a high traffic spot.

All these single shacks out by themselves in the wilderness, why not open them up? This zone is so vast and open, it almost has a desolate feeling to it at times. When you do finally come across some thing like this, the last thing you want is for it to not be interactible.

Elsonso

Cireous wrote: »

All these single shacks out by themselves in the wilderness, why not open them up? This zone is so vast and open, it almost has a desolate feeling to it at times. When you do finally come across some thing like this, the last thing you want is for it to not be interactible.

They should open them up as player housing. All of them.

Cireous

Elsonso wrote: »

They should open them up as player housing. All of them.

I feel you.
Personal structural favorites for future housing, if not in Western Skyrim, then then the next DLC (also, loved finding these!):
Wiljar's House:







Pilgrims' Lodge:






If they could somehow make it work--ideally--one of these cabins would be in a forest, next to a river, with one of those whimsical worn fences surrounding it, giving us a view for miles. I wouldn't be mad at an invisible wall along the fence line so long as I could see forever.

xaraan

There really isn't a good reason for them to leave so many locked doors in these new expansions except to cover for how little content is being added in. We aren't asking for unique quests for every home, but basic homes that won't require a huge amount of effort. But it seems they just don't have the team size or time (or both) to do the work that's needed. If this game is doing as well as we are told, then give them some more people to work with.

wenchmore420b14_ESO

Thank you OP.
They have been taking this lazy approach since Morrowind!
I remember how hyped I was for that to launch, went straight to Balmora to check out the "old stomping grounds" and majority of city is locked! Tombs, shacks in woods, etc. SO disappointed!
In base game every ship has at least furniture in Capt quarters and stuff elsewhere. But with Southern Elsweyr the are 2 I found with nothing! Noda!!

I was watching some vids while home from work about "Secrets in Skyrim", and also ones about TES:3 & 4.
The detail, Easter eggs, etc was awesome!! SO sad that ESO has gotten so lazy about details. Sad...

Cireous

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

They have been taking this lazy approach since Morrowind!
I remember how hyped I was for that to launch, went straight to Balmora to check out the "old stomping grounds" and majority of city is locked! Tombs, shacks in woods, etc. SO disappointed!

I felt the same way. And we all complained about it too, then Summerset hit and it seemed like they had really listened. Making N. Elsweyr so much more disappointing as a result. I don't know how they let things get that bad without anyone in the art team speaking up and saying "Hey, people don't like this. It's a disappointing experience for our players, let's make sure what happened with Morrowind never happens again. Let's make it a priority to fill out these structures before release, and if we can't, let's remove them."

BlissfulDeluge

I agree with the locked doors being dumb.

But what the heck is wrong with an empty watchtower? I honestly like those open, spacious areas without a single mob in sight. Why should every inch of the map have to be laden with wild animals and bad guys wanting you dead?

So the watchtower is a good thing. I hope they add more mob-free places like that. It would encourage more open-world RP.

Cireous

BlissfulDelusions wrote: »

I agree with the locked doors being dumb.

But what the heck is wrong with an empty watchtower? I honestly like those open, spacious areas without a single mob in sight. Why should every inch of the map have to be laden with wild animals and bad guys wanting you dead?

So the watchtower is a good thing. I hope they add more mob-free places like that. It would encourage more open-world RP.

Nothing at all is wrong with that empty watchtower I am kind of in love with it to be honest. I was just missing some nostalgic bandit action for a minute there, and thought it kind of funny. What's really funny is, I am pretty sure I got exactly that--bandit action--next to another tower I visited, which completely made my night.

kind_hero

Wow, amazing post... Compare this to Alinor where you could enter far more houses than other expansions.

A lot of Skyrim fans will play this, so I think it is important the devs make Greymoor right from the start. These details are very important for fans.

I started playing Elder Scrolls with Arena and Daggerfall where things were generated. But the immersion was so real... you could enter all the houses and talk with any NPC (there were thousands of places).

Nord_Raseri

Cireous wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

They should open them up as player housing. All of them.

I feel you.
Personal structural favorites for future housing, if not in Western Skyrim, then then the next DLC (also, loved finding these!):
Wiljar's House:







Pilgrims' Lodge:






If they could somehow make it work--ideally--one of these cabins would be in a forest, next to a river, with one of those whimsical worn fences surrounding it, giving us a view for miles. I wouldn't be mad at an invisible wall along the fence line so long as I could see forever.

Dream homes for me.

lookstwice

Looks like BAU.

Cireous

My bad.

There is ONE (why not more?) building in Karthwatch that is not locked. A nicely ramshackled Jarley cabin.