Renault on 23/11/2011 at 17:04
Funny, I got to that gate and it didn't even occur to me to turn on noclip and go further.
Seems like a lot of work for a inaccessible area, so the gut reaction would be future DLC. But considering you'd actually be leaving Skyrim, that doesn't quite figure either. Maybe the devs were just having a little fun with their terrain generator.
Ulukai on 23/11/2011 at 17:07
I think it's not a surprise the developers are fans of the world they're helping to build upon.
Firefreak on 23/11/2011 at 17:38
Perhaps their highly advertised Creation Engine, filled with all the TES lore and books, went sentient and created more than they wanted :P
On a more simpler thought, I'm with the idea that it's there primarily as a goodie for modders and possibly for DLC.
What's my personal favorite of all of this: That's all in "just" these 6GB.
Dia on 24/11/2011 at 00:08
I'd love to think all that extra terrain is for future planned DLC's too, but as Brethren said, you'd then be leaving Skyrim. Are the devs maybe thinking about doing one big super-massive game in the future than incorporates all of the three territories into one big playable map? Lord! Wouldn't that be nice?! Doesn't hurt to dream a little, now does it? :p
Phatose on 24/11/2011 at 05:17
No DLC will ever include more content then the game it's attached to. We can rule out DLC intentions from the get go on scale alone - maybe they'd include a bit of Morrowind, or Cyrodil, or the Sommerset Isles in anticipation for DLC, but the entire world? No.
I would wager that it's there for a much more practical reason. In order to generate the terrain of Skyrim they created an algorithm based on height maps. By this point in the series they'll no doubt have rough topographic maps of the entire world, and including Cyrodil & Morrowind gave them something they could compare to - make sure the output made sense by comparing it to the worlds from the other 2 games.
Since it would be likely very low cost (1 large bmp, tops) and might add a bit of immersion for the exploratory types, they left it in.
PigLick on 24/11/2011 at 06:00
although there was Mournhold and Solsthiem for morrowind and Shivering Isles for Oblivion which were totally separate worlds or places from the original game, so you never know.
wirbel on 24/11/2011 at 19:26
I think it's too bad that the borders are always so empty; I think it would be nice if some mod would allow you to reach the next town across the border. See a bit of Morrowind in Skyrim, that would be awesome.
Koki on 25/11/2011 at 17:07
Quote Posted by Phatose
Since it would be likely very low cost (1 large bmp, tops) and might add a bit of immersion for the exploratory types, they left it in.
1 large bmp on what, sticks? Even if it's been done by a perl script or whatever Beth uses to simulate soil erosion, they still had to design all the mountains, water bodies, etc.
A DLC including entirety of [insert another TES province here] is extremely unlikely, but another full price TES game simply connected to Skyrim via a loading screen, why not?
Phatose on 25/11/2011 at 18:08
The bitmap itself would be the topographic map. Plenty of terrain generators run off a basic topographic map like that. With the Elder Scrolls being a long standing series that started off with that kind of generated terrain, I'd be surprised if they didn't already have such a thing from previous projects.
