Gap between Wrothgar and Western Skyrim

Adzer2

After seeing where the new Reach zone is being placed, it sort of bothers my OCD that there will be a tiny zoneless area north of it where the 2 Battlegrounds and Earthforge Wayshrine are. I hope they will eventually fill this area or tighten the adjacent maps around it.

Jim_Pipp

I'd also love this, seeing the world map fill up is part of what keeps me playing.

I assume there was a design change after the base game came out, as then the zones fit together, since then there is weird dead space, even when there are mini-zones with their own maps that fit perfectly.

I hope zos one day commits to making the map fit, maybe even opening up some mini-zones locked behind quest stages, the island of stirk, jerrall mountain lumber camp, and fulstrom homestead to name just a few that already a space on the map.

alterfenixeb17_ESO

I would also like to see some better connections between zones. Sadly Greymoor is exposing that problem really well (no path from Solitude to Eastmarch). Also vanilla content borderlines. Would be great to see some day no loading screens there (like for instance when travelling from Glenumbra to Stormhaven - loading screen in the middle of nowhere). Those are small changes but they would greatly improve actual immersion really.

Joosef_Kivikilpi

alterfenixeb17_ESO wrote: »

I would also like to see some better connections between zones. Sadly Greymoor is exposing that problem really well (no path from Solitude to Eastmarch). Also vanilla content borderlines. Would be great to see some day no loading screens there (like for instance when travelling from Glenumbra to Stormhaven - loading screen in the middle of nowhere). Those are small changes but they would greatly improve actual immersion really.

You are able to reach Eastmarch from Western Skyrim via Black Reach eastern caves. It's pretty dope, but the size projection of how much land is covered is pretty off haha

jle30303

I wonder what is happening in the *central* holds of Skyrim - Whiterun, Winterhold, The Pale.

(Falkreath, as we know, is under attack by Reachmen and minotaurs.)

The only thing we know about Whiterun is that its Jarl, Morryn, is regarded as one of the greatest diplomats in Skyrim, and despite officially having allegiance to Western Skyrim, remains on good terms with the Eastern holds. She has various books of advice on how to manage diplomatic relations, but her favourite technique appears to be the tried-and-tested "get everybody drunk enough that they'll agree to anything" - which apparently works very well in Nordic culture, along with the corollary of "if they won't agree, start drinking on your own anyway, and they'll join in just to make sure they're not missing out on the good stuff".

This is probably WHY she is regarded as the greatest diplomat in Skyrim...

Athan1

I don't understand why they are leaving these annoying gaps on the map, they're just gimping themselves. The gaps are too small for a future dlc, so they are just taking space away from the next dlc in another area of the map, as less space will be overall available. Just tightly organise areas on the map, at the end you'll have more space to break into multiple dlc. It's a simple tetris game.

jle30303

The small gaps (eg. between the two parts of Elsweyr, or between the Reach and Wrothgar) are too small, but can be explained in various ways - such as "largely uninhabitable mountains, nothing to see here".

However, the central holds of Skyrim (Whiterun, The Pale, Winterhold) are definitely large enough to be future DLC - Winterhold itself could be the focus, with its mages' college?

There's still a big central area in Black Marsh.

A fair amount of Hammerfell is as yet unaccounted for - including the mostly uninhabitable centre of the desert, but also including a number of southern-coast cities such as Taneth, Gilane, Hegathe and Rihad.

And if the eastern side of Cyrodiil province has the Blackwood with its Black Marsh border, the western side has the Colovian Highlands and Skingrad, plus the southeastern parts of Hammerfell. In fact there is a gate from the existing Gold Coast, just east of Kvatch, to "the Colovian Highlands", but there is no actual Colovian Highlands... YET. And of course, Colovia was where Varen Aquilarios actually came from, so if there has been a secret history to the Longhouse Emperors, there could likewise be a secret history behind Varen's resistance.

We also have not seen the far eastern edge of Morrowind, the mainland peninsula of Telvannis, which has not only stayed out of the Pact but largely ignores and is ignored by the Tribunal. (Nor the western mainland coast of Redoranis, ruled from Blacklight, but that is a much smaller area.)

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Some thoughts I had:

The central Skyrim holds, possibly with a focus on wizardly shenanigans of Winterhold, could be the focus of a large DLC. And maybe its epilogue could be found on Solstheim.

Telvannis and Redoranis have the whole island of Vvardenfell between them, but Telvannis is big enough for a major DLC, while Redoranis is about big enough for a minor DLC. Maybe there is a way to link the two, possibly in the context of a Dunmeri house war.

There isn't really any evidence linking the Colovian Highlands to Hammerfell, so any Hammerfell-based expansion would be more likely to split, east and west of the Abah's Landing peninsula. Taneth and Rihad on one side, Hegathe and Gilane on the other. One side could be the major, one the minor. Might still leave some desert in the middle of Hammerfell, but hey, that's just desert.

Colovia's a big enough area to possibly have a related major DLC of its own, but there isn't really a useful area nearby that could function as a companion minor DLC. Maybe, like Blackwood, it'll be linked to something not in the plane of Tamriel (Blackwood's minor-DLC looks to be Deadlands-related.)

There is not really much potential for further Breton content. There is, however, potential for further Bosmer content: the city of Falinesti, finding where it's actually gone and potentially bringing it back.

And there's still a whacking big hole in the centre of Black Marsh.

So there's a good few years of potential content left in the game yet.

However, the narrow strip between the two halves of Elsweyr, and the narrow strip between the western border of Haafingar and the Reach on one side, and Wrothgar on the other, are almost certainly going to be left as "uninhabitable mountains".