With the upcoming Frost DPS love in the upcoming updates...

Vylaera

What a perfect time to add some more snowy zones and more snow/frost themed things, like maybe Solsthiem and central Skyrim.

I'd like to see The unfilled part of Skyrim knocked off the to-do list in a single chapter, with Solsthiem as the Q4 zone DLC. Plus, we could finally get the map fixed so that Morrowind doesn't get the entire west half cut off because of a 10 year old cartography mistake (yes, it was messed up even in the alpha map from 2009). Whiterun is everyone's favorite city from TES V, and Solsthiem is my personal favorite place on Tamriel, particularly its appearance in TES III Bloodmoon when it wasn't a fetcher-hole covered in ash and impassable glaciers. I'd love to see the pine forest and snowy tundra in its full beauty again with modern graphics. But most importantly, some frosty houses. Like maybe a Castle Karstaag player home. That would be incredibly cool.

And to tie back in with this post's title, add some more frosty motifs like a Skyrim-style Stalhrim (since the frostcaster motif is just cloth with ice bits and the Frostguard style is Morrowind stalhrim), some more frost damage sets, and some new Monster Sets and weapon styles similar to Iceheart. Perhaps the group dungeons on Solsthiem could be Bloodskaal Barrow and Miraak's temple, or maybe Castle Karstaag (so we can have him die, canonically, three times instead of two lol). Would be neat to have Karstaag be the result of some naïve bio-magician's experiments on frost giants and you have to work with him through the dungeon to put and end to his abominations. And the final boss of Bloodskaal Barrow be the draugr that wields the Bloodskaal Blade. In order for these dungeons to happen, the Zone and Dungeon DLC would have to either switch places in the year schedule or release simultaneously. But it would be really cool, and this formulaic year-long adventure thing is starting to get old anyway. Old to the point where I was ready to scratch my eyes out if I heard the phrase "year long adventure" on more time earlier this year watching the blackwood twitch streams. I think it would be cool if the schedule was reversed, actually. Q1 smaller zone DLC, Q2 Dungeon, Q3 Chapter zone, Q4 dungeons. That way we can have the dungeons located in the new zones rather than crowding up existing ones.

So to recap my semi-unorganized word-salad,
1. Next Chapter zone to be "Central Skyrim" with the main cities of Whiterun, Dawnstar, and Winterhold, with Riverwood (Gerdur's family must be ancient) and the other small settlements, of course. As well as fixing the map problem along Morrowind's border.
2. The DLC zone to be Solsthiem with the Skaal village or Fort Frostmoth as the main town, perhaps with more lore expansion on the Reiklings.
3. More frost themed items and sets to really expand upon the frost DPS changes next patch and solidify its position as a viable alternative to flame damage.

Thanks for reading and feel free to share your thoughts in the replies

Greasytengu

im kinda sick of nord things tbh

Vylaera

Greasytengu wrote: »

im kinda sick of nord things tbh

Definitely, me too. That's why I used the words "knocked off the to-do list". Nords aren't my favorite, I'm a Khajiit, Dunmer, and Breton fan. But I like snowy biomes, and currently, there's only 2 and a half zones with any snow at all. Those being Western Skyrim (didn't like Greymoor and the spooky music ruins the atmosphere for me) Eastmarch (I don't usually spend time in base game zones), and Orsinium (I hate orcs). So I'd like some snowy zones that I don't hate simply being in.

Supreme_Atromancer

Jehanna/Forgotten Vale would make for good snowy content, and a focus on Bretons would be a nice contrast to the Nords.

My guess for revisits to Skyrim involve two releases: Whiterun Hold (including lake Ilinalta and Falkreath Hold); and Dawnstar - Winterhold. I can't see them doing either any time soon, though.

Vylaera

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Jehanna/Forgotten Vale would make for good snowy content, and a focus on Bretons would be a nice contrast to the Nords.

My guess for revisits to Skyrim involve two releases: Whiterun Hold (including lake Ilinalta and Falkreath Hold); and Dawnstar - Winterhold. I can't see them doing either any time soon, though.

Big agree on the first half, I'd like more breton stuff too, and maybe some more non-betrayed Falmer besides the two we see in Skyrim.

Have to disagree on the second half though. Once they fix the map, there simply wont be room to fit two zones in that space.

(not my image)
Eastmarch and the Rift have to shift over quite a bit to the left, leaving very little space for finishing Skyrim. Plus Falkreath is already in the game as a dungeon. I Imagine bits of the pine forest around Ilinalta would be accessible but the majority of Falkreath hold wouldn't make it in. Leaving Whiterun Hold, The Pale, and Winterhold Hold. The latter two are tiny, and the former is medium sized. All together they'd be about the size of blackwood or even smaller due to the mountains and the janky border it would have.

Alucardo

Currently playing through Bloodmoon now, so I'm totally down for Solstheim, though I'm not entirely sure how much fun it would be as a zone. Apart from a Fort Frostmoth, a few small villages and tombs there wasn't a whole lot there. It'd be fine as a little bonus zone or something though, perhaps one for people to go to find Werewolves at night to get turned from the gibbering lunatics. Could also introduce a Stahlrim armor/weapon motif and something to do with Hircine.

Vylaera

this is another great map that puts things where they're supposed to be

from reddit

Supreme_Atromancer

I don't know man, its just purely speculation on my part. Looking at the Skyrim map feels like there's space for two chapter-sized zones, and I have given up trying to guess what they might do with their utterly borked map - we've been asking for them to fix it since 2014 and the closest we ever got to anything resembling acknowledgement was a "lol Nords, amirite?" 7 years ago and nothing since. Two chapters would give them space to flesh out the cities, so that fan favourites like Winterhold might be fully realised, whereas if its all in just one chapter, given the formula they've adopted for size and scale, we'll get only one or two, and the rest are public dungeons or retconned out of existence.

As for Falkreath, we got the city, but despite the name of the dungeon, we haven't really seen the hold proper. I think they could put the territory in with something like Whiterun Hold- given their formula of having 3 biomes per chapter, this would give Boreal forest, Whiterun Tundra and perhaps montaine (Helgen, Southfringe Sanctum/Arcwind, Pale Pass etc). The city itself could be locked off as they did with Cyrodiil's version of Imperial City before the content of that name was released; you can see it, but its not accessible.

Or, you know, they haven't shied away from retconning even the stuff they themselves create - viz. you can have Blackwood Borderlands from Dark Brotherhood DLC that neither fits anywhere on the map nor even looks anything like what we saw with this year's version. Its just completely different because reasons. Or Mor Kazgur which is variously a arena for gladiators high in the mountains or the same settlement we saw in TES5. They may just make Falkreath a different instance altogether.

But again, all I can do is spitball. I honestly have no idea how they might break it all up.