I know this has been discussed already, but I thought I'd share a quick couple of pictures of the Pre-order Map, showing the quality of the map.

I can confirm it is not cloth (I know this common knowledge already, but just wanted to clear it up). It is very coarse, and has a texture very similar to that of rigid wallpaper.

Pics:

http://s996.photobucket.com/albums/af82/hellphox/?action=view¤t=photo.jpg#!oZZ2QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs996.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf82%2Fhellphox%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3Dphoto1.jpg

http://s996.photobucket.com/albums/af82/hellphox/?action=view¤t=photo.jpg#!oZZ1QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs996.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf82%2Fhellphox%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3Dphoto.jpg

looks like its made out of paper towel

The material is nice actually, it really feels like a genuine map. Not like the plastic Oblivion map.

It does have that same pitted texture, but is much more rigid than paper towel.

Question - are the folds quite easy to flatten?

It seems to be fairly susceptible to flattening when just pressing down on the fold with my thumb. I think you'd be fine if you use some sort of press, perhaps 2 sheets of cardboard with some weight applied on top.

its also a lot better than the ingame map

Looks better than I expected it to.

Same here, but it feels and looks a bit 'new' for my liking. I may have to treat it somewhat before framing it

QUESTION:

How absorbent is the map? Should I look into buying a competitor's RPG map for those large hard-to-clean-up spills?

It's in colour!? Why is this news to me?? Who cares, it's in colour!!

Do you get this in the CE edition, I really don't know.

Its like a novelty Xmas card or something. Make no mistake, its paper. But I fookin love it.

Skyrim will use. Back in the day they had actual cloth maps. I remember my brother's copy of Ultima VIII had one. Man, could that thing clean.

Hey hey lets not get carried away now...its not like its made out of shamwow

Aye, you get it with any first run (pre-ordered) edition of the game

You get that golden calf out of this house of Mays right now or I swear to Ysmir I will cut you so badly that not even the Zorbeez will be able to clean it up, in spite of its incredible cleaning power that is far better than Shamwow's.