Skyrim - Map Revealed

@ Menigal, water-levels, which RPG's has those? That's pretty rare i'd say..

Snow is better than desert at least, but it's not my favorite setting. The map looks ok, quite organic, a lot better than Oblivion.. Looking forward to plant new flora there

Originally Posted by vurt
@ Menigal, water-levels, which RPG's has those? That's pretty rare i'd say..

Yes, thankfully! I meant water levels in games in general.

Originally Posted by KapitanUnterhosen
Isn't Riverwood that tiny little village with half a dozen wooden cots we've seen in the previews?

There's 7 of those and then just 5 "cities"? That's it? Sounds like it's going to be even emptier than oblivion.

Five major cities and four smaller towns (capitals of each of the nine holds), plus seven smaller villages:

Major Cities:
Solitude - Haafingar
Falkreath - Falkreath
Whiterun - White Hold
Windhelm - Eastmarch
Riften - The Rift

Towns:
Morthal - Hjaalmarch
Markarth - The Reach
Dawnstar - The Pale
Winterhold - Winter Hold

Smaller Villages:
Riverwood
Shor's Stone
Ivarstead
Karthwasten
Helgen
Rorickstead
Dragon Bridge

Originally Posted by ikbenrichard
I Agree with yu kalniel, nevertheless, it gets me all excited !

This! How about a useful map, too, rather than wasting space on a bookshelf!

Originally Posted by Menigal
Yes, thankfully! I meant water levels in games in general.

I enjoyed the underwater levels of Morrowind just about the most. More underwater exploration please, and not the dull foggy underwater areas of Oblivion, which I TOTALLY passed on.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
I enjoyed the underwater levels of Morrowind just about the most. More underwater exploration please, and not the dull foggy underwater areas of Oblivion, which I TOTALLY passed on.

Morrowind did have some good underwater areas, even if moving through them could get annoying. I think there were a grand total of two interested things to be found underwater in Oblivion.

There was always a sense of tension, and disorientation, and yes they could be annoying but that added somewhat to the vibe. Nothing in Oblivion came close…

Originally Posted by kalniel
Pretty bad map, not much better than Oblivion. Bring back Morrowind's map style please!

I get what you are saying, but I actually like the map. All I need is a cool looking map that gives me a general idea of where things are located. Morrowind was nice, but also shows everything to you. This map of Skyrim works for me. Too much information kills the fun of adventure and discovery.

One of the major reasons why I never buy game guides is that they spell everything out for you. The game then becomes a check list of things to do, rather than finding and working things out on your own.

Originally Posted by spiraling69
One of the major reasons why I never buy game guides is that they spell everything out for you. The game then becomes a check list of things to do, rather than finding and working things out on your own.

So very true and why I avoid guides and online sites my first play through of any game.

Like the map but would prefer to have the game

Originally Posted by KapitanUnterhosen
Isn't Riverwood that tiny little village with half a dozen wooden cots we've seen in the previews?

There's 7 of those and then just 5 "cities"? That's it? Sounds like it's going to be even emptier than oblivion.

Did you play Risen? How many towns in that?

Risen isn't TES though But i get what you mean, cities isnt all..

Morrowind has 18 towns, 4 cities and there's also legion forts and i'm sure like 15-20 camps, some of them big camps. But still, i'm staying positive, i think it'll be better than Oblivion but maybe not as good as MW (exploring wise at least).

Originally Posted by rune_74
Did you play Risen? How many towns in that?

Risen certainly wasn't empty and the over land world was 1000s times more alive than Oblivion any day..

However I agree that, the number of towns or villages has nothing to do with how alive the game world is

I've never tried Risen, because I didn't care for any of the Gothics. I'll have to get this when it hits a 50% off sale.

Originally Posted by lostforever
Risen certainly wasn't empty and the over land world was 1000s times more alive than Oblivion any day..

Yeah, alive with creatures standing there waiting to attack you so you can slaughter them. Of course all the Gothic-related games have been that way.

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
Yeah, alive with creatures standing there waiting to attack you so you can slaughter them. Of course all the Gothic-related games have been that way.

They have both passive creatures, creatures that hunts other creatures/people and creatures that will run away from you. At least in Gothic3 which was the most recent Gothic i played. Can't remember if G1-G2 had animals that fled..

Not many other games has this, in most of them they are just passive and wont even attack each other. Some pretty interesting scenarios can be created by this, for example lure a pack of wolfs to attack a whole orc camp, while the wolfs are attacking you attack the orc/orcs from behind, very effective.

Originally Posted by vurt
…, some pretty interesting scenarios can be made by this, by luring creatures to attack people or other animals.

This didn't work in Gothic 3. I lured one of those boar things to attack some orcs that I was supposed to kill. The boar charged in and killed two of the orcs and I finished off the others. But wait, the quest was still not complete! Crap.

Never tried that, but it's kind of natural that it wouldnt work for quests. The game checks when _you_ make the kills, not when the animals do them, they might also have restricted it like that because it would make some quests too easy. The Gothics (and TES) is a lot more than just the quests fortunately, so imo its no big deal.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I've never tried Risen, because I didn't care for any of the Gothics. I'll have to get this when it hits a 50% off sale.

It's basically a Gothic game with updated visuals so be warned.

I grabbed it when it went 50% off on the Steam summer sale, so I imagine it may go on sale again for their winter sale.

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
Yeah, alive with creatures standing there waiting to attack you so you can slaughter them. Of course all the Gothic-related games have been that way.

Thats better than nothing waiting for miles to slaughter you!

I don't know about you guys but I always felt a certain danger in the overland world of Gothic and related games. It kept me on the "edge" and awake. For some reason that made the world more alive with danger.

I usually hate respawning monsters. But Risen and the Gothics did an acceptable job with them, they were spread out enough to be avoidable most of the time.