I'd like to add this section at the top of the post as of 7/4/22 as a foreword and disclaimer that I have begun redrawing the map to make it more accurate than it was. Spoilered right under this paragraph is relevant information.
Everything from here forward is the original post from a month earlier, 6/4/22 and information for the current version available to download. it is still worth reading through if this is the first time you've stumbled upon this post as I detailed many of the problems with ESO's map with explanations and solutions, however, details on the map itself will be outdated when we release version 2.


We've been generating a bit of a buzz for a while about Accurate World Map, our project to fix the map. The main forum thread, "I remade the map - this time, everything is perfect", (at the time of this post's writing) got 11.8k views, 215 replies, 8 pages of discussion, and 106 awesomes. Thal and I are very happy that you guys have been following and supporting us along the way, and we are very happy that we were able to get this addon out to you guys. It is out on ESO UI, Nexus, and Minion now!

Now that the addon is out and "finished" the old thread is being depreciated as its purpose was to initially announce, then later to document the progress and development of the addon. This thread is a post-release thread to continue the discussion about Accurate World Map, and for us to collectively beg ZOS to fix their map in-game with ours acting as an example, demonstrating the desire within the community for it. More details, Images, and stuff below.

In the event ZOS sees this thread, both myself (Vylaera, artist) and Thal-J (coder) are open to contact if anyone at ZOS has questions or concerns about our fixed map, why we made certain changes, and what our reasoning was. We both care deeply about the Lore of The Elder Scrolls, and much of that lore hinges on the map being correct to make sense, as every event and every story takes place somewhere and is often shaped by that somewhere's geography, such as Morrowind's Borders and its strenuous relationship the the Argonians to the South and Nords to the West, which are not properly represented on the in-game ESO map, as one example.



Why did we make this?
To be very frank - ESO's map sucks. The map is not lore accurate, this was even admitted to by the then-loremaster, Lawrence Schick, in an interview. The map's inaccuracies have been a huge point of contention within the community since the launch of the game, and ZOS has never fixed it. We decided that, since ZOS has been taking inspiration from community addons lately (such as skyshards on the map, adding ability timers, and a buff tracker), now would be the best time to create an addon that addresses the biggest elephant in the room. Bulleted below are a few things the map got wrong, for a full list of changes, see the changelog section on the mod pages.

• Eastmarch and The Rift are too far east and impede on the Velothis arm of Morrowind and where the city of Blacklight is supposed to be.
• Because of the above inaccuracy, Vvardenfell is too small and too far east, and the Telvanni peninsula is awkwardly shoved to the side to make room.
• Shadowfen is supposed to be in Black Marsh, but for whatever reason has been moved north into Morrowind, totally ignoring the territory House Hlaalu and House Dres are supposed to own.
• Cyrodiil is improperly placed, not the right size, and not the right shape.
• Because of the above inaccuracy, Cyrodiil's Niben Bay and Niben River are not visible on the map.
• Craglorn is improperly placed, not the right size, and not the right shape.
• High Rock sticks out too far northwest.
• Hew's Bane is too far west.
• The Summerset Isles are spread too far apart, and are supposed to hug each other tightly.
• Many more issues have been fixed and changes made, see the full changelog in the changelog section on the mod pages.

Onto the map itself
This addon adds many new features and changes to the world map, the most notable of which are mentioned below and fully customizable in the addon settings.

• Our map has been fully recreated by Vylaera (me), and coded by an absolute genius, Thal-J, using no pre-existing vanilla map assets. The map is 8k(!) in resolution, as opposed to the low resolution and blurry 2k resolution vanilla map.
• All zones are on the map and functional just like in vanilla. Wayshrines have been moved to their proper locations for zones which got moved around, and new blob textures (the texture that makes zones glow when the cursor is over them) have been created to match the new resolution of the map and the outlines of the zones.
• Descriptive lore text has been implemented underneath the names of the zones for those of you who enjoy TES's robust lore.
• And finally, a few zones and wayshrines have been renamed to be lore-accurate, such as Northern Elsweyr, which was renamed to Ne-Quin-Al Desert, since that's the region where the zone actually resides. Southern Elsweyr was renamed to match, now called Quin-Rawl, as the Quin-Rawl Peninsula is where the zones is set. Additionally, a few wayshrines have been renamed, one of them was to fix a spelling error missed in vanilla, and both of the Daggerfall Covenant Cyrodiil Wayshrines have been renamed, since Cyrodiil definitely doesn't border High Rock, and it makes absolutely no sense those wayshrines would be called "__ High Rock Gate"

Now that I've described the vanilla map's problems, and documented a few features and fixes we made in our addon, I would like to dedicate a sizeable chunk of the rest of this post to beg ZOS to fix the vanilla map, as an addon is simply a bandaid on the festering wound that is the current in-game map.

Why is the map being wrong an issue?
Not only does it appear that ZOS don't care about the lore of the game series they've been entrusted with, it also impacts future content releases. As I mentioned above, ZOS has been well aware the map is wrong for a very long time, but have done nothing about it. The lead writer, Bill Slaviseck, said in regards to why High Isle was chosen for this year's chapter, that ZOS is running out of space on the map to add new zones. This is a tell that they all know the map is wrong. They haven't run out of space, they simply don't have any space left on the map that wouldn't lock-in improperly placed lore inaccurate zones so that they can't be moved later. This comes to me, actually, as a sigh of relief. This demonstrates that the people at ZOS do not want to make the map inaccurate, and have intentionally gone other places so that the mistakes on the map aren't locked-in. And I honestly thank him for saying that.

But ESO is an MMO, and it sees regular content releases on a bi-annual basis. There's only so many islands to go to on Nirn. ZOS has to fix the map in order to ensure ESO's future is secure, lore accurate, and respectful of the series' integrity. The map needs to be fixed as soon as possible, so that Next Year's content isn't hindered by a wrong map, and to avoid locking in bad mistakes present on the current map. All of us within the ES community would love and thank ZOS for this, as the map of Tamriel is something very fundamental to the series. Everyone has seen the iconic and recognizable silhouette of Tamriel, and ESO didn't get it right.

I would be ecstatic if ZOS announced the map was being fixed, even moreso if they used my addon as a basis for the design changes. Absolutely go wild, feel free to use my addon as inspiration, as I've carefully and meticulously ensured everything is correct.

Moving on from there, I have a few extra in-game screenshots to show off to conclude this post.


A cropped in-game screenshot (taken by thal since EU is up) showing off the map in-game and the option to show only major settlements wayshrines on the map to clean it up.


A cropped in-game screenshot (also taken by thal, all of these in this section of the post are) that shows off the repositioning of Eastmarch as well as a preview of the optional lore text added to all of the zones.


A cropped in-game screenshot showing the Eltheric Ocean button, which takes you to a second map of the Eltheric Ocean.


An in-game screenshot showing a section of the Eltheric with High Isle, Amenos, Galen, and Dreadsail Reef, as well as the Tamriel button to get back to the main map.

Thank you all for reading, thank you to ZOS and the forums for letting me post my stuff here, and thanks again to everyone who's supported us with suggestions, kind words, and downloads.