did anyone see this??

It wont let me post a link but article originated from Kotakus website
Cheers
James

(the one that sent the pic with the big red arrow in it)



An intrepid Elder Scrolls player, curious as to why the game stopped him at the border between Skyrim and Morrowind (the playable landmass of the third game in the series), engaged noclip mode and decided to look beyond. What he claims he found was...the entire continent of Tamriel.

The whole damn thing.

He took snaps along the way, recording landmarks such as the volcano Vvardenfell and the Imperial City in Cyrodiil (centre of the fourth Elder Scrolls game), and while they're of reduced scale and greatly reduced texture quality (they're basically just lightly-textured blobs of landscape), he says they're there in the game, every time you load it up.

Begging the question...why?

Could be to make your in-game maps and aerial sightseeing more realistic. They could have been used as reference when building Skyrim. Or they could be there as a modder's playground. Who knows!

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I heard about this but had no idea whether or not it was true. If it improved my load times, I would have no problem if they removed all that.

I agree actually, especially as im on a Ps3, i spend more time looking at artifacts that ganeplay

People are speculating that it's a placeholder for future DLC content, but there's really no need for a "placeholder" -- if they wanted to do that they could just add the terrain with a patch.

I think this is just another one of Bethesda's painstaking attention to detail for the sake of immersion, and as a sort of easter-egg nod to players of Oblivion (who likely comprise the majority of new Skyrim players).

One is able to see the White-Gold Tower in Cyrodiil from Skyrim without using console commands. If you can manage to climb one of the higher peaks south of Helgen, along the southern border of the province, you can see it off in the distance to the south on a clear day.

Another reason why I love this game

Minus2Degrees wrote:People are speculating that it's a placeholder for future DLC content, but there's really no need for a "placeholder" -- if they wanted to do that they could just add the terrain with a patch.

I think this is just another one of Bethesda's painstaking attention to detail for the sake of immersion, and as a sort of easter-egg nod to players of Oblivion (who likely comprise the majority of new Skyrim players).

One is able to see the White-Gold Tower in Cyrodiil from Skyrim without using console commands. If you can manage to climb one of the higher peaks south of Helgen, along the southern border of the province, you can see it off in the distance to the south on a clear day.

I think it makes a lot of sense that they would do it just to fill out the environment. If you look to the south and see nothing in the distance it would hurt the integrity of the world when they have worked so hard to make it feel real.

There is a YouTube video of guy who has managed to travel all the way to the tower and the only part of the model that is complete is the portion facing Skyrim, it hollow on the back. To me this would imply that it is purely to enhance the sense of immersion if you happen to travel that far south.

Seems like no one maintained the Imperial City in the ensuing 200 years...

It would be very interested to see whether or not Bethesda did indeed decide to expand upon Skyrim further by introducing DLC in the form of "mini-excursions" or "mini-missions" to other parts of Tamreil. So, an NPC from another land enters into the world of Skyrim asking for assistance in his land, you "fast-travel" to that part of the Tamreil, and then experience the land in a limited way, such as distinct boundaries and restrictions on areas of travel. The reason for this would be due to hardware and development restrictions for a majority of the player base.

If you actually listen to the Bethesda podcast for the Making of Skyrim, they mention that they rendered the world of Skyrim, initially as a test, in HD. As it mentions directly aft wards, the textures and much of the models for the game broke, but the silhouette from the surrounding landscape was breath taking. You can only imagine the strain this would bring towards the normal PC player with a limited amount of funds, let alone a Bethesda World Developer.

Overall, the reason for the world being in existence could be few and far between. As mentioned in a previous comment, it could be just to find the orientation of where Skyrim is in the world of Tamreil. Or, Bethesda may have something else up their sleeve. We could only hope for the later.

Mystery solved -- Bethesda explained that the reason was purely for background detail, as I suspected. Link is below (crippled, as I'm not yet allowed to post external links): AITCH TEE TEE PEE COLON SLASH SLASH DOUBLE-U DOUBLE-U DOUBLE-U DOT geek.com/ articles/ games/ bethesda-explains-why-morrowind-and-cyrodiil-are-in-skyrim-20120215/

Minus2Degrees wrote: AITCH TEE TEE PEE COLON SLASH SLASH DOUBLE-U DOUBLE-U DOUBLE-U DOT

Brilliant!

jay_mz wrote:Brilliant!

Desperate. C'mon, moderators! Let me post links! I ain't gonna spam nuthin'!

its just a 7 day spam filter to avoid robots
give it a week and we are all good!