Blackwood map dimension

MaisonNaevius

According to the map that was presented to us during the Global Reveal Event, I have approximated the fronters of the new zone: Blackwood. This new area should be connected to the Nothern Elsweyr, Shadowfen and possibly Murkmire. It will nevertheless be necessary to build roads and borders for the connection with Elsweyr and Murkmire while the southwestern border road of Shadowfen initially planned for the abandoned version of the original Mukmire will do the trick in this area.

The size of the map seems large and this would be consistent given the size of the areas that remain to be explored. Such a size for the Blackwood would be enough to cover the remaining holds in Eastern Skyrim, the Colovian Estates or even the Nibenay Valley. This avoids splitting these areas into two or even three parts and remember that the developers have declared that they no longer want to divide the regions in two, like Elsweyr, during the same year, always during the Reveal.

It is also sufficient to cover a good part of Hammerfell, the Telvanni Peninsula or the Black Marsh. These areas on the other hand will probably be in two parts max: a large area like the Blackwood and a small area such as the forest of Tenmar between the northern and southern parts of Elsweyr and other micro-areas still inaccessible. .

asuitandtyb14_ESO

Ideally, this is the size. I'm far too jaded to expect that though. It's nearly double the size of recent chapters, and each year the zones they sell get smaller. ZoS has also shown that they have little interest in filling in gaps, even when they are extremely close and would require little effort to fill.

essi2

They'll probably leave some areas inaccessible for reasons. Like they did with Tenmar.

Wing

i personally find that outline to be a little too large, as its bigger than every other expansion zone save Summerset and summerset had large sections of it actually blocked off, all of red mountain in vvardenfell was too

i guess you could say maybe its bigger because if its swaths of cyrodill, a little bit of elsweyr, and black marsh, then they already have alot of terrain assets done. im personally REALLY hype for this expansion btw, i think those three biomes give them alot to work with and we will get a really cool and diverse expansion zone.

if i had to make adjustments, i dont think it will be as expansive into black marsh as whats shown here. connecting murkmire and shadowfen is asking alot, not even southern elsweyr and northern touch, same with over by skyrim and wrothgar.

ZOS has never felt obligated and seems to avoid actually connecting regions.

Starlock

Size is vacuous without substance. Put another way, design quality of an area has more to do with landscaping and the details than size of it. One of the problems with the Greymoor chapter is that although the size of the overworld portion was significant, it was also too empty. The little scattered details here and there to make a world feel alive and lived in? The design was just not up to their usual standards, especially compared to the underworld (Blackreach) portion of Greymoor. Not sure what happened with that other than the pandemic and upper management refusing to delay release of the product until it was truly polished and ready.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Maki2859 wrote: »

According to the map that was presented to us during the Global Reveal Event, I have approximated the fronters of the new zone: Blackwood. This new area should be connected to the Nothern Elsweyr, Shadowfen and possibly Murkmire. It will nevertheless be necessary to build roads and borders for the connection with Elsweyr and Murkmire while the southwestern border road of Shadowfen initially planned for the abandoned version of the original Mukmire will do the trick in this area.

The size of the map seems large and this would be consistent given the size of the areas that remain to be explored. Such a size for the Blackwood would be enough to cover the remaining holds in Eastern Skyrim, the Colovian Estates or even the Nibenay Valley. This avoids splitting these areas into two or even three parts and remember that the developers have declared that they no longer want to divide the regions in two, like Elsweyr, during the same year, always during the Reveal.

It is also sufficient to cover a good part of Martelfell, the Telvanni Peninsula or the Black Marsh. These areas on the other hand will probably be in two parts max: a large area like the Blackwood and a small area such as the forest of Tenmar between the northern and southern parts of Elsweyr and other micro-areas still inaccessible. .

What is martelfell?

Sju

They said it was about the size of Elsweyr, that's nearly double.

Darkstorne

Size on the map does not relate to playable size.

Plenty of zones in-game are either much larger or much smaller than their map size indicates. Bal Foyen is a tiny area on the map, but much larger than you'd expect. All the starter islands are also much larger than the map suggests.

ZOS have said this year's playable space will be roughly the same size as Northern Elsweyr. Whatever space it occupies on the map is irrelevant (your layout would suggest around 30% larger than that for example, but again, map sizes are misleading). They could even create central Elsweyr as a future Chapter and keep the playable size the same as Northern Elsweyr.

ThorianB

Your map is to large. They said it will roughly be the size of Elsweyr. I don't think its going to have a lot of unplayable space as its going to be more like Murkmire and less like Summerset in terms of land features. I don't recall it touching Murkmire either because i thought that was a little odd that they created another narrow gap area. If you moved the top of the zone about 15% or 20% of the way further south and the south end of the zone about 20% further north that would be more likely, imo

MaisonNaevius

I reproduce more or less the boundaries of this map.

Sylvermynx

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Maki2859 wrote: »

According to the map that was presented to us during the Global Reveal Event, I have approximated the fronters of the new zone: Blackwood. This new area should be connected to the Nothern Elsweyr, Shadowfen and possibly Murkmire. It will nevertheless be necessary to build roads and borders for the connection with Elsweyr and Murkmire while the southwestern border road of Shadowfen initially planned for the abandoned version of the original Mukmire will do the trick in this area.

The size of the map seems large and this would be consistent given the size of the areas that remain to be explored. Such a size for the Blackwood would be enough to cover the remaining holds in Eastern Skyrim, the Colovian Estates or even the Nibenay Valley. This avoids splitting these areas into two or even three parts and remember that the developers have declared that they no longer want to divide the regions in two, like Elsweyr, during the same year, always during the Reveal.

It is also sufficient to cover a good part of Martelfell, the Telvanni Peninsula or the Black Marsh. These areas on the other hand will probably be in two parts max: a large area like the Blackwood and a small area such as the forest of Tenmar between the northern and southern parts of Elsweyr and other micro-areas still inaccessible. .

What is martelfell?

Apparently a Portuguese translation of Hammerfell: https://pt.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Martelfell

MaisonNaevius

Yes I modified my message for Hammerfell. Martelfell is the name of the province in French before Enclume.

MaisonNaevius

Perhaps that should be a better match. It's pretty close to Nothern Elsweyr.

Ratzkifal

essi2 wrote: »

They'll probably leave some areas inaccessible for reasons. Like they did with Tenmar.

Isn't there a huge river in the middle of the zone? That is probably going to be our Red Mountain or Eton Nir of the chapter. With any luck we can at least swim through it, which would be technically accessible, but still empty.

Sylvermynx

Ratzkifal wrote: »

essi2 wrote: »

They'll probably leave some areas inaccessible for reasons. Like they did with Tenmar.

Isn't there a huge river in the middle of the zone? That is probably going to be our Red Mountain or Eton Nir of the chapter. With any luck we can at least swim through it, which would be technically accessible, but still empty.

Nope. Slaughterfish.... *shrug*

Chaos2088

Yes zos are deliberately leaving out little bits of the map (aka middle bit of elsweyr) for future content.

They have been doing chapters by race for a while now, once they done/updated the graphics, assets and got a complete list a base game update is going to happen.

Not 100% confirmed but I do think some devs mentioned it when talking about cosmetics being gender locked, said that will be sorted when base game update happens...spoiler.

I digress: so once that all happens they will go in a fill in bits of the map with story dlcs, or something so content is stretched out abit and hitting the buttons of people who love one race of being in this game etc. Like the middle bit of elsweyr full of the jungle part of the lore. Adding new models, motifs etc etc....

They probably got a map in the office (or shared file due to COVID) that has the next few years of chapters planned out and potential zones filling up the whole map.

Chaos2088

Also the map we have is going to have to change the shape of cryodiil is wrong and eastern Skyrim/ morrowind needs a re-shape.

barney2525

one inch equals 12 liters

tuxon

asuitandtyb14_ESO wrote: »

Ideally, this is the size. I'm far too jaded to expect that though. It's nearly double the size of recent chapters, and each year the zones they sell get smaller. ZoS has also shown that they have little interest in filling in gaps, even when they are extremely close and would require little effort to fill.

This is so tru and sad omg...

SeaGtGruff

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

essi2 wrote: »

They'll probably leave some areas inaccessible for reasons. Like they did with Tenmar.

Isn't there a huge river in the middle of the zone? That is probably going to be our Red Mountain or Eton Nir of the chapter. With any luck we can at least swim through it, which would be technically accessible, but still empty.

Nope. Slaughterfish.... *shrug*

Not all waterways or bodies of water in the game are teeming with slaughterfish. Some of them are swimmable. I always feel very fearful taking that initial risk to swim over to some island or bit of distant shore that looks like it might be intended to be accessible for some reason-- for an out-of-the-way lore book, a survey map, a treasure map, etc. You never know until you try.

Of course, the traversable area is often just a narrow corridor of safe water bordered on both sides by hungry slaughterfish.

So it could be done. I'm not saying I'm hoping it will be, just that it isn't outside the realm of what's been done elsewhere.

woufff

No update on the map so far I guess?

TwinLamps

dw, we will get few huge unpassable mountains

linuxlady

Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me

phantasmalD

MaisonNaevius wrote: »

I reproduce more or less the boundaries of this map.

Oh hey, something that i just noticed, the N.Elsweyr - Cyrodiil border looks fixed on this concept art compared to what we have in-game; Elsweyr and Cyrodiil borders fully connect and you can see Bravil and the Niben river properly marked.

I wonder/hope this means Cyrodiil will be redrawn for the next chapter, as it's currently quite bad and rough looking and very misrepresenting.
@ZOS_GinaBruno, can you let the map guys know that such a fix would be verrrry greatly appreciated.

I'm all for fixing early development map errors, looking forward to the day when the Skyrim/Morrowind border and Craglorn area finally gets fixed.

[quick list of map issues I can remember:
- Skyrim/Morrowind border error: Eastmarch and the Rift are pushed too far to the east, taking up area belonging to Morrowind (Blacklight)
- Craglorn: the actual Craglorn playable area is about 50% of the territory that's marked on the map, resulting to only the top portion being utilized and the wayshrines looking way too cramped and places like Cyrodiil Gate Garrison or Bangkorai Gate not making sense (since these don't actually touch the respective provinces)
- kinda the same goes for Cyrodiil, the overwold representation doesn't align properly with the regional map or the TES4 map and the borders are oddly drawn
- There's weird red line coming out from Deshaan's bottom-left corner
- Hew's Bane has two border markings, one thick line and one fainter further up north. The second one is superfluous
- Bleackrock's placement makes no sense, it's too close to Morrowind to be this completely frozen over
- Most of the borders in general are just weirdly undetailed and rough. Compare Vvardenfell to anything that came before or after. The overworld version of Vvardenfell shows so many of the tiny islands, why can't other regions have the same meticulous borders?
- Eyevea is an invisible island, at least the wayshrine should be added to the map post-quest.
]

If this is truly the year of fixing instead of new content, then tackling these issues would be very appreciated