In the Future #3: Forests

Iccotak

The next time you want to make a zone that has a forest - please actually make a Forest instead of a sparse landscape with some trees dotting it.
PvP I can understand - but the major PvE zone of the year?

Fairly disappointing when compared to Oblivion single player title which had good forests
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9O_AQbyUEo&t=68s

Compare ESO to Oblvion or Skyrim and the difference in tree population is staggering. The Rift zone being the biggest offender in my opinion.

EDIT: Skyrim Comparison Video added
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO5dvCnwqh0

Blackwood Forests: from all around the map

Even in southern Blackwood that went into Black Marsh felt sparse. The only locations that felt like Forests in Blackwood were select delves and public dungeons.
If you have the Technology - then please make your "Forest zones" more like your dungeons & delves

If 1/2 - 3/4 of the Blackwood zone looked like those, then I would have loved the new place. They have great sense of life & atmosphere to them that felt like an Elder Scrolls game.

Blackwood Public Dungeons: Silent Halls & Zenithar's Abbey

So far one of the only places that actually felt like an ancient forest was the Selene's Web Dungeon
Selene's Web

EDIT: As well as the Falkreath Dungeon

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Previous "in the Future" Posts

#1 - Old Places & Villains:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/576751/in-the-future-old-places-villains/p1

#2 - Year Long Story Packages:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/577082/in-the-future-2-year-long-story-packages/p1

RABIDxWOLVERINE

I have to agree. I never really noticed this until right now. I would love to have an area where the tree population is so dense you can’t even see the sky in some areas. I never knew I wanted this until today but I think that would be an amazing addition to the game.

kargen27

Not sure a true forest is a good idea. All those trees are going to take time to load and riding a mount will mean riding past trees that are still trying to render.

I could be wrong?

Elsonso

My guess is that ESO cannot display lots of trees and maintain performance across all supported platforms, so they changed the "forest" that appears in Oblivion with rolling hills and a few trees.

Iccotak

kargen27 wrote: »

Not sure a true forest is a good idea. All those trees are going to take time to load and riding a mount will mean riding past trees that are still trying to render.

I could be wrong?

"If you have the Technology" - So whether that is now or at some later point - that said, it would be preferable if they pushed for the technology because our current "Forests" are lifeless, boring, and just far too Empty.

Especially the Rift - dear god that is one of the top two zones of the base game that desperately needs to be visually fixed.

1. There are other MMOs that are able to make forests FEEL like forests given their limitations. So I think like those other studios, ZOS need to be more clever & creative when going about making forests with their limitations. Also the Hardware & Software that ESO runs on is improving.

2. The other thing is that they kept advertising and making an impression that Blackwood was a dense forest. In trailers and promotional images

Red_Feather

Maybe it is a performance thing. It breaks the immersion to get technical but there is probably a lot of pathing issues that happens with creatures too.

deleted221106-002999

Isn't eso set before the time of Oblivion?

If so, unless nature in Tamriel goes even more weirdly than I thought, you'd maybe expect less trees (or younger/saplings) in eso in the same landscape compared with Oblivion?

Grahtwood has lots of huge trees; they often take the place of mountains/cliffs in other zones to block access and limit routes. I recall being really impressed with Grahtwood when I first saw those trees then really depressed when I tried to move through them - that place needs termites or squirrels or some other tree-munchers to hack tunnels through the roots in places.

Thanks for posting the comparitive video, though - got me all misty-eyed and nostalgic for Oblivion.

Supreme_Atromancer

Souterain wrote: »

Isn't eso set before the time of Oblivion?

If so, unless nature in Tamriel goes even more weirdly than I thought, you'd maybe expect less trees (or younger/saplings) in eso in the same landscape compared with Oblivion?

That's definitely not how stuff works. A forest might regenerate after some disturbance, but that's on the year or decade scale, not thousand years. The characteristics of a landscape are largely stable over really long periods of time unless there is significant change in the abiotic environment in which it occurs.

danno8

kargen27 wrote: »

Not sure a true forest is a good idea. All those trees are going to take time to load and riding a mount will mean riding past trees that are still trying to render.

I could be wrong?

I don't think so.

Many super old games like LotRO have really dense forests that look great. And that game is old as **** with an even older less capable engine than ESO.

I think the game designers have made a conscious decision to not have them for their own reasons, like visual clutter or trees getting between the player and the camera or something.

Dense forests add a lot to games and ESO is missing that. Thanks OP for pointing it out.

kargen27

danno8 wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Not sure a true forest is a good idea. All those trees are going to take time to load and riding a mount will mean riding past trees that are still trying to render.

I could be wrong?

I don't think so.

Many super old games like LotRO have really dense forests that look great. And that game is old as **** with an even older less capable engine than ESO.

I think the game designers have made a conscious decision to not have them for their own reasons, like visual clutter or trees getting between the player and the camera or something.

Dense forests add a lot to games and ESO is missing that. Thanks OP for pointing it out.

LotRO has a much different way their servers run the game. The populations are divided among several servers.

bmnoble

I just rationalize it as there is a big three faction war going on with no end in sight, war in that kinda setting requires a lot of wood, for siege weapons, transport, fuel for forges for making weapons/tools, campfires for cooking in the army camps/for warmth for all those troops sleeping in tents, for ships for navies/supply/troop transport vessels and clearing land to plant more crops to feed the vast armies that are only ever seen in cinematic trailers.

Thus trees were cleared and sold for profit during the war.

in Oblivion the Empire has been at peace for a long time forests had a chance to grow big.

But its probably just performance that limits the number of trees in the zones.

That and I would hate to navigate a landscape so heavily forested that I could barely see into the distance.

alanmatillab16_ESO

kargen27 wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Not sure a true forest is a good idea. All those trees are going to take time to load and riding a mount will mean riding past trees that are still trying to render.

I could be wrong?

I don't think so.

Many super old games like LotRO have really dense forests that look great. And that game is old as **** with an even older less capable engine than ESO.

I think the game designers have made a conscious decision to not have them for their own reasons, like visual clutter or trees getting between the player and the camera or something.

Dense forests add a lot to games and ESO is missing that. Thanks OP for pointing it out.

LotRO has a much different way their servers run the game. The populations are divided among several servers.

Not to mention their "forests" are just corridors of invisible walls painted to look like trees. The illusion works unless you look too closely.

Elsonso

.

Souterain wrote: »

Isn't eso set before the time of Oblivion?

If so, unless nature in Tamriel goes even more weirdly than I thought, you'd maybe expect less trees (or younger/saplings) in eso in the same landscape compared with Oblivion?

That presumes that ESO is near the "start", but I would not expect that. I would expect that, in terms of forests in and around the lower Niben, that ESO is closer to the "end" than it is to the "start".

Remember that the entire Ayleid civilization, not to mention the Dwemer, rose and fell long before ESO came by.

I would actually expect the "forest" in ESO to be not much different from the one seen in TES 4.

deleted221106-002999

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Souterain wrote: »

Isn't eso set before the time of Oblivion?

If so, unless nature in Tamriel goes even more weirdly than I thought, you'd maybe expect less trees (or younger/saplings) in eso in the same landscape compared with Oblivion?

That's definitely not how stuff works. A forest might regenerate after some disturbance, but that's on the year or decade scale, not thousand years. The characteristics of a landscape are largely stable over really long periods of time unless there is significant change in the abiotic environment in which it occurs.

So, young trees don't grow older and bigger over time?

That's what I meant: if blackwood has sparse/younger trees (occuring timewise before Oblivion) I'd expect by the time that Oblivion is set in for a more dense forest to establish itself, assuming woodland/forest is the stable landscape over the whole time period. Sorry if I was unclear in my earlier, whimsical post - as you probably guessed biology is not my science.

Thanks, though.

/digression

Iccotak

Also the Falkreath dungeon was great - that really felt like a Forest

Iccotak

Souterain wrote: »

Isn't eso set before the time of Oblivion?

If so, unless nature in Tamriel goes even more weirdly than I thought, you'd maybe expect less trees (or younger/saplings) in eso in the same landscape compared with Oblivion?

Grahtwood has lots of huge trees; they often take the place of mountains/cliffs in other zones to block access and limit routes. I recall being really impressed with Grahtwood when I first saw those trees then really depressed when I tried to move through them - that place needs termites or squirrels or some other tree-munchers to hack tunnels through the roots in places.

Thanks for posting the comparative video, though - got me all misty-eyed and nostalgic for Oblivion.

Here's the thing -

1. like someone else pointed out, it does not take One-Thousand Years for a forest like the one we saw in Oblivion to grow. Forests can grow fairly relatively quickly
EDIT: Also this is not just Cyrodil from Oblivion but the edges of Black Marsh - where one would definitely expect there to be areas of dense forest.

2. Grahtwood still had few trees but made them big to make up for the difference, like WoW did. That's fine, I don't have an issue with that - But if you take the same number of trees and make them 5 times smaller then the forest is not going to feel like a forest anymore.

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There is no Lore reasons behind it, despite how some choose to rationalize it, it's a question of technology and performance

danno8

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Not sure a true forest is a good idea. All those trees are going to take time to load and riding a mount will mean riding past trees that are still trying to render.

I could be wrong?

I don't think so.

Many super old games like LotRO have really dense forests that look great. And that game is old as **** with an even older less capable engine than ESO.

I think the game designers have made a conscious decision to not have them for their own reasons, like visual clutter or trees getting between the player and the camera or something.

Dense forests add a lot to games and ESO is missing that. Thanks OP for pointing it out.

LotRO has a much different way their servers run the game. The populations are divided among several servers.

Not to mention their "forests" are just corridors of invisible walls painted to look like trees. The illusion works unless you look too closely.

Who cares if they trick you well enough to create atmosphere and good environments.

That's like saying ambient occlusion isn't "real" ray-traced global illumination and it only works if you don't look too closely. Well, yah that's game design 101.

kargen27 wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Not sure a true forest is a good idea. All those trees are going to take time to load and riding a mount will mean riding past trees that are still trying to render.

I could be wrong?

I don't think so.

Many super old games like LotRO have really dense forests that look great. And that game is old as **** with an even older less capable engine than ESO.

I think the game designers have made a conscious decision to not have them for their own reasons, like visual clutter or trees getting between the player and the camera or something.

Dense forests add a lot to games and ESO is missing that. Thanks OP for pointing it out.

LotRO has a much different way their servers run the game. The populations are divided among several servers.

What does that have to do with the client drawing trees? The servers don't render the trees, your game client and hardware do. The server just tells your PC where other people/npc's are and what they are doing.

Iccotak wrote: »

Also the Falkreath dungeon was great - that really felt like a Forest

Agreed. Clearly they can draw lots of trees if they want to.

deleted221106-002999

Sometimes you just can't see the forest for the trees.

Supreme_Atromancer

Souterain wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Souterain wrote: »

Isn't eso set before the time of Oblivion?

If so, unless nature in Tamriel goes even more weirdly than I thought, you'd maybe expect less trees (or younger/saplings) in eso in the same landscape compared with Oblivion?

That's definitely not how stuff works. A forest might regenerate after some disturbance, but that's on the year or decade scale, not thousand years. The characteristics of a landscape are largely stable over really long periods of time unless there is significant change in the abiotic environment in which it occurs.

So, young trees don't grow older and bigger over time?

Young trees? Sure. But the problem with your argument is that in reality, they tend to grow, reach maturity and sensesce all in the context of a bunch of other plants doing the same, but at different stages. In that way, the forest is an entity which is relatively stable for very long periods of time. So its not accurate to look at a forest and think that a thousand years ago it was probably just all younger, more sparse trees. The community structure (ie lush, leafy forest) is largely a function of the abiotic components (geology and soil type, disturbance regime, climate etc), so if those change, it might shift in time to another structure (ie sparse open woodland). But if there's no good reason to believe those things have changed for the Blackwood region, then its not a good explanation.

What you're thinking of is closer to what's known as Primary Succession - which occurs after some dramatic reset of the landscape - volcanoes, retreating glaciers. Then you will get stages of plants representing different characteristics. But even then, if the climate and geology tend to support forest, then it will be forest.

Either way, this is an exercise in rationalising either game engine limitations or hinky development whims. While on occasion this is cool, too much of it and it starts to become unsatisfying, or feel forced. While the developers have a (sometimes tough) mandate to combine familiarity along with something new - they have license to go as creative as they want with Gloommire because we've never seen it before, but they've got to get those familiar aspects largely right if they want it to be familiar. Original blackwood has a distinct colour and feel largely due to the vegetation, so maybe they had this amazing, creative impetus to make it drastically different for cool lore reasons or versimilitude reasons but given the same windmill still spins above Solitude a thousand years before the events of ES5, I think its just limitations.

I'm not here to bash zos either - while I agree that the blackwood region could have matched better, they've largely done an amazing job. Leyawiin is fantastic and evocative to me, and there's probably a lot of limitations they have to wrangle with.

Edited to finish my thought.

Orion_89

In the Future #4 thread could be about big cities. Why not to try create such at least as an experiment? ZOS are imroving texture quality and detailing, that's great, but what about quantity?

Iccotak

Souterain wrote: »

Sometimes you just can't see the forest for the trees.

"An expression used of someone who is too involved in the details of a problem to look at the situation as a whole"

What I am saying is that - as a whole - the "Forest" looks like a barren landscape. That's not being too concerned with details - that's pointing out what I think is a legitimate criticism in the design of that landscape - that the area would need 30%-50% more trees to actually simulate something that FEELS like a forest - and that their empty zone is mostly an empty landscape which doesn't really feel like Elder Scrolls but more so like an incomplete product.

Its fine to not have so many points of interests with mobs everywhere, but don't make your "Forest" a barren landscape that doesn't do an effective job of looking like a forest -- Because Presentation matters, delivering on what to expect matters.

So that expression doesn't really work here

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ArchMikem

I won't deny, some of the more pretty bits of Summerset made my One X turn into a space heater. I do wonder if that's either due to hardware limitation, or an old, unoptimized game engine.

colossalvoids

It's okay to dislike for anything but what's the proposal? To make more illusions like fh or selene's making open world just narrow roads with dense forest feel, scaling like wow-esque grathwood as an example or just simply zones more populated with tall trees without caring about navigation nor performance if that's even an issue? I'm not really seeing a lot of ways to make actually good Oblivion-esque forests in ESO. They felt great at times but weren't really that much navigateable, plus as far as I remember them they would not be as good and dense looking if playing from same 3rd person view eso have but anyway.

mocap

Didn't roll around in Blackwood that much, but at first look this location reminds be Cyrodiil - ton of flat landscapes. Nice amount of greenis in Malabal Tor, imo.

CoronHR

their skyrim forest was awful too. i don't mind blackwood though. my guess is it's for fps reasons

deleted221106-002999

Iccotak wrote: »

Souterain wrote: »

Sometimes you just can't see the forest for the trees.

"An expression used of someone who is too involved in the details of a problem to look at the situation as a whole"

What I am saying is that - as a whole - the "Forest" looks like a barren landscape. That's not being too concerned with details - that's pointing out what I think is a legitimate criticism in the design of that landscape - that the area would need 30%-50% more trees to actually simulate something that FEELS like a forest - and that their empty zone is mostly an empty landscape which doesn't really feel like Elder Scrolls but more so like an incomplete product.

Its fine to not have so many points of interests with mobs everywhere, but don't make your "Forest" a barren landscape that doesn't do an effective job of looking like a forest -- Because Presentation matters, delivering on what to expect matters.

So that expression doesn't really work here

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er...it was a throwaway, standalone comment posted as a non-directed, generalised and non-personalised satirical quip - hence not quoting anyone/anything in particular.

But thanks for the laugh, though; the exposition and attempted deconstruction leant the quip far more irony than I ever intended.

edit: @Iccotak, Sorry, don't intend to come across as mean with my humour; very much respect your passion for the subject and do appreciate the points you have made.

ssewallb14_ESO

They did one at Ebon Stadmont in Summerset and it's FPS hell. I don't think the engine can handle overland with a lot of trees.

Snowstrider

ssewallb14_ESO wrote: »

They did one at Ebon Stadmont in Summerset and it's FPS hell. I don't think the engine can handle overland with a lot of trees.

Why not? What makes ESOs engine so bad? Way older MMOs can do it with no problems

Radiance

Also have to take the thousand year difference into consideration. They already have the same buildings in the exact same places which is already highly unlikely. Entire Civilizations rise and fall over the course of centuries let alone MILLENIA!!

God forbid the forest look any different. Of all the things I have to complain about ESO, this is the least among them.

This thread is a bit ridiculous.

Elsonso

Radiance wrote: »

Also have to take the thousand year difference into consideration. They already have the same buildings in the exact same places which is already highly unlikely. Entire Civilizations rise and fall over the course of centuries let alone MILLENIA!!

God forbid the forest look any different. Of all the things I have to complain about ESO, this is the least among them.

This thread is a bit ridiculous.

It isn't like ZOS is going to run Jurgen Appleseed out to plant a bunch of trees. These people are off doing the spaces for upcoming DLC content. They aren't going to run them back to Blackwood to fill it with trees.

That said, this is important to me. I have concerns over how ZOS is cutting corners in zone design, so I bring it up. I am sure they can justify cutting these corners, but if the corner comes into question again, I want them to at least stop and think rather than just cutting it again.

There are places in Blackwood that simply look unfinished. I mean that literally. It is like the dev was going to put something there next, but left for the day and never got back to it. I come across these places and I just stop and shake my head. This is not something that I am used to doing with ESO.

I will probably get around to getting pictures and posting them on social media somewhere. I hesitate to do this because I have come to realize that ZOS collects data and opinions, but they are also very firm in what they did. Data and opinion only really counts for stuff that they have not yet done. If they have already decided, it is just pounding sand.

Iccotak

@Elsonso "Unfinished" is the exact word I would use to describe what much of the zone feels like.