I really hope you reconsider moving Shadowfen. Or at least make (or allow someone else to make) an alternate version.

I appreciate the effort you've done! It's fantastic, and I don't really have many major complaints other than that.

But pretty much every argument I've seen you use to defend the Shadowfen move only works if you assume that old games, old maps, and old descriptions are the authoritative, "correct" versions of the world; and that any future games or content need to be judged and scrutinized the fit this frame.

And that simply isn't how ZOS, BGS, or any game developer operates.

Every paper map of unreleased zones is a placeholder. Every description of unseen regions is a rough draft. Every lorebook is a source of inspiration.

This is a game first, and a story second. Lore is tertiary.

The real reason why ZOS put Shadowfen where it is... is because it fits the story. Shadowfen is a borderland. Caught in border disputes and legal uncertainty. The landscape is littered with the architecture of colonizers and oppressors, both new and old.

Being able to see Deshaan and Mournhold from Shadowfen, right over the wall, is thematically appropriate. ZOS made it that way to reinforce the ideas and themes. To juxtapose the ostentatious life of Dunmer rulers, and the squalor and struggle of the people they oppressed.

And this is what ZOS and BGS care about the most. The themes, the story, the message. Moving Shadowfen south undermines it

And this will continue. Any future DLC ZOS releases will adjust borders and coastlines as needed, as they are just placeholders. TES VI and any future mainline games will also do this. Just like TES III, IV, and V did. I think it's a bit foolish to resist it.

@Marto you raise some excellent points- and I do agree with some of them, on the grounds of the way the ESO *story* has become its own *lore*.

However, on one thing I must admantly disagree:

Marto wrote: »

This is a game first, and a story second. Lore is tertiary.

For *myself* the lore *is* the game. I get very little satisfaction from any other aspect.
The only reason I have faithfully played ESO since beta, has been that the worldbuilding of Tamriel has always seemed more comprehensive and compelling to me than that of any other game. I endure a lot of in-game nonsense just to get to the lore.

I know I am probably in a significant minority! Maybe less than 0.001% of players? I do not know.
But I can't let that point go unchallenged.

These are the rough political borders of Morrowind.

Though Vvardenfell changes between 2E and 3e, Balmora is currently under Redoan control, and Ald'Ruhn is Ashlander. Aside from this, these are the correct borders for ESO. Dagoth also hasn't woken up yet.

Marto wrote: »

The real reason why ZOS put Shadowfen where it is... is because it fits the story. Shadowfen is a borderland. Caught in border disputes and legal uncertainty. The landscape is littered with the architecture of colonizers and oppressors, both new and old.

Being able to see Deshaan and Mournhold from Shadowfen, right over the wall, is thematically appropriate. ZOS made it that way to reinforce the ideas and themes. To juxtapose the ostentatious life of Dunmer rulers, and the squalor and struggle of the people they oppressed.

You're correct about all of this, and that's why you're wrong about Shadowfen's location. Shadowfen is in the wrong place in the ESO map, because that border you're talking about is Dres and Hlaalu land, south of Stonefalls etc. not a border with Stonefalls and Deshaan.

The lore works for a reason, especially in terms of game ideas and expansions. The Dunmer rulers they're supposed to hate are Hlaalu and Dres, to begin with - Dres are barely touched on in the game and whose activities have been inexplicably foisted off onto the Telvanni (or Indoril? They don't care about slavery). If ZOS had put things where they're supposed to be, there would be a whole zone waiting to be explored in a future expansion - rife with the sort of conflict you're talking about, but which ZOS misplaced while at the same time closing off an avenue for future game expansions.

The same problem exists for the Velothi peninsula east of Vvardenfell and the city of Blacklight. They can't make an expansion now, and sell it to us, and make money, unless they change their own map. Tensions within the Pact, threatening to tear it apart, centered on Blacklight with the Nords, and Dres land with the Argonians? You'll never see it in future expansions, based on the map as it is.

Lore isn't just for lore nerds, it matters immensely for future game development.

Suedyin_Loreseeker wrote: »

But when we cross that zoneline, it elides at least some of that Hlaalu and Dres territory, correct?
Although I note that Narsis (Hlaalu territory) remains in the western part of Deshaan.

An immense amount of territory, to be truthful. Most of the story that takes place within Shadowfen doesn't even make sense where it is, with all that land left out. Slave raiders weren't coming out of Deshaan or Stonefalls, they were coming from Dunmer lands further south. Now, we'll never see any of that.

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

Suedyin_Loreseeker wrote: »

I know I am probably in a significant minority! Maybe less than 0.001% of players?

But then I'm biased, I had to play through Deshaan and Vvardenfell with gritted teeth... FALSE GODS!

Oh well, I will kill them

Heretic. Tholer Saryoni would like to have a word with you in his office, after you have found and read a copy of The Battle of Red Mountain by our Lord Vivec, which will explain things to you very clearly.

[/quote]

false gods are all too mortal [/quote]

Aedra can die, too, but few would say they are not divine. Have you talked to Tholer Saryoni yet? He seemed agitated over something.

Really love this addon. I hope Zos implements. On the other hand I heard somewhere that they were going to use the lore map and were told no

This is a great example of why MMOs should have addon support. Thank you.

Thanks again everyone for the kind words!

This map is amazing and as someone who's been deeply invested in TES for the world and its lore for forever, I'm really thankful for you and everyone else standing up for lore consistencies.

Some of the coolest parts of Tamriel are ruined because of the current vanilla map. If they don't adopt this map straight up then I hope ZOS just reworks the map in the future when adding zones instead of just pretends they don't exist and never works with them (the area east of Eastmarch for ex).

I like it!

I think it should be implemented!
ASAP

GOOD JOB!

Bug report for you.
When using a controller, you can zoom out on the map, but you cannot zoom back in.

I just think it's extremely unlikely that ZoS would accept a change that would disrupt the integrity of the base game's story and require base game zones to be reworked, at least not before Tamriel is filled in. So it might just sabotage ZOS willingness to redraw the map.

Thal_J wrote: »

If we're giving back Morrowind it's Velothis then it also made sense to give it back its Arnesia.

Isn't Arnesia an argonian city on the east coast, somewhere between Thorn and Archon? At least that's what the only book (Pocket Guide to the Empire - 3rd Edition) that I could find that ever references it claims. So how does Shadowfen compromise it at all?
Is Morrowind-Arnesia some kind of fanon that Tamriel Rebuilt came up? Because the only official references to it on UESP and Imperial Library are the upper mentioned Pocket Guide, the Arnesian War and the phrase 'Orphan of Arnesia'. Non of which call it a region of Morrowind.
I think you might be mixing fanon into your hardcore-canon add-on.

The only city I know of that the current placing may have erased is Sotha Sil, which arguably might not even be canon city anymore, as it only ever appeared on a concept art released on the 10th Anniversary of TES (maybe drawn for TES2 originally?).
And even if it still exists, it may still be outside of Shadowfen's borders, so might not be erased after all.
Otherwise I think the only thing we know of southern Morrowind is that it's swampy.

Vylaera wrote: »

These are the rough political borders of Morrowind.

Though Vvardenfell changes between 2E and 3e, Balmora is currently under Redoan control, and Ald'Ruhn is Ashlander. Aside from this, these are the correct borders for ESO. Dagoth also hasn't woken up yet.

Hmm, is there actually any lore/book in ESO supporting this political layout during the 2E?
The fact that half of Stonefalls (Kragenmoor, Ebonheart) is Dres territory in ESO definitely contradicts it. They also have a foothold in Deshaan, might have owned Silent Mire and likely owned Stormhold and Mud-tree village before the Ebonheart Pact was formed. Whether through deliberate writing or negligence (I'd guess the former in this case tbh), Dres owns a huge portion of the territory that Hlaalu would acquire by the end of the 3E (and thus is marked as yellow on the map).
The physical outline and features of Tamriel might be immutable (save for natural erosion and other catastrophes, magical reshapings and just plain old regular humanoid constructions), but political borders are not set in stone.

Vylaera wrote: »

This is a 25 year old franchise, almost 26, with a very defined and iconic map that has had little change over its history. There have been retcons when new mainline games have released, notably the shape of Vvardenfell changed but the rest of the map didn't, the Niben River was given a more defined shape when Oblivion released, and Skyrim got a new coastline that's actually detailed, but

the new changes never made any massive retcons

such as changing the entire shape of Morrowind as well as its borders, or making Skyrim stretch all the way to the Inner Sea. Or making Hammerfell impede on where Falkreath Hold should be. Or changing where the Imperial City is. Or any other examples of how wrong the map is. The map of Tamriel hasn't actually changed in any meaningful way since 2002, and the only large change in 2002 was Vvardenfell's new shape. The map hasn't changed at all in 20 years.

For reference, here's every official map of Tamriel, starting with Arena and ending with Anthology, which is the most accurate and authoritative map of Tamriel we have to date.


It is abundantly clear that ESO's map is wrong, not a retcon. It is wrong.

Pretty much every major city was moved around when Skyrim was released, that's a pretty massive retcon.
Like on the 2006 map Whiterun is on the east side of what is presumably the Throat of the World; on the Anthology map it was moved to the west side. Markarth was kickslammed into the mountains from all the way from the middle of Whiterun Hold. Morthal didn't even exist before but it's now an ancient city. Etc.

Also, there are actually minor retcons on the 2013 map, like the entire coast line was redrawn, not just Skyrim's. Hew's Bane was very visibly moved east. Many cities outside of Skyrim were moved, like Helstrom, Corinthe, Sunhold, Silvenar, Skingrad etc. Many islands were redrawn or added.

The important question when it comes to map redraws/retcons is if we lost anything important in the process. In the case of Shadowfen, I don't think we really did. There was no established identity to south Morrowind before, other than 'marshy Hlaalu/Dres zone'. And you could always just make new lore how, after the Ebonheart Pact dissolves, Stormhold gets 'relocated' to further south, aka a new city gets the name. Essentially re-retconning northern Shadowfen as 'rightful' Morrowind territory.

In the case of Eastmarch/Blacklight tho, 100% lost a lot, that's an indefensible mistake.

Vylaera wrote: »

or making Skyrim stretch all the way to the Inner Sea. Or making Hammerfell impede on where Falkreath Hold should be.

Tbh neither of those would be an issue IF they hadn't erased and moved actually established cities in the process.
Skyrim stretching to the Inner Sea could simply mean that nords conquered Blacklight, as they have done in the past (First Empire of the Nords, circa 1E 240). But they just plopped that useless oversized blob of Skuldafn there.

Craglorn impeding on Falkreath Hold is kind of rectified by the Falkreath dungeon DLC, although I do prefer your redrawn version.

Anyway, thank you for taking up the mantle of fixing the map. Despite my misgivings and nitpicks, I deeply appreciate the amount of effort that you two put into this add-on.