Wilderness

I'll tell ya, when your out there exploring the wilderness it's just so amazing! I mean it's so overwhelming and awesome and I think Bethesda did a superb job. When you're cruising through the snow covered forest and stalking wolves with a bow one a sunny days it's down right awesome! The trees look so realistic. My favorite place for the awesome wilderness feeling has got to be in the rift around riften and the lake(btw what's the name of riftens lake?) or around whiterun and near ivarstead. What do you think? Where's your favorite place in skyrim's wilderness?

Weather

Amazing job and in variation of the weather. The weather in riverwood has got to be the best. 70 and sunny baby! Love it. I also like walking in a snowy area on a sunny day. I really dont like the weather around winterhold and the college. I don't like it that snowy. What about you? Favorite weather?

Lastly, my favorite spot in the whole map has got to be on top the falkreath watchtower looking out. Amazing. Wbu?


Cheers

The environmental effects are epic. When you're climbing up a mountain, it's damn cold, and you know it's cold.

My only criticism of the weather is how quickly it can change. When you're within an environment it's totally immersive, but there are brief periods where it's SNOWING LIKE A SNOWY THING SO MUCH SNOW SO MU- *sunshine and blue skies* and that gets me occasionally.

The Rift is definitely my favourite wilderness area in Skyrim, and Riften may just be my favourite city, too.

The wilderness is really well done, and so are the weather effects. The only disappointment I have with them is that they're not broad enough- there isn't enough space to accurately simulate real-time climate/weather and geographical change.

Over in the mod section, plans are afoot to maybe enlarge distances in the game ... I really, really hope they pull it off. I might just lose it if they do.

Don't you think that's going to be damn hard to achieve? Did they do that for oblivion.

Cheers

I think Beth did an amazing job with the wilderness. I've about 40 hours played so far, and I quite literally believe that about 20-30 of that has been frolicking and arsing around the outside world, exploring caves, clearing out forts, going hunting, seeing if I can climb mountains, going to the edges of the map, doing mini quests in villages, etc. It's amazing!

My favourite area is definitely the Reach. That place is so epic. So mysterious, wild, even creepy. I love stalking through the fog covered rocky hills and stumbling into some Forsworn camp, or falling off a plateau only to be swamped by 2-3 sabre cats! The Reach and the general northern wilderness around Solitude and such I just love. I love the eastern tundras too. [censored] I just love everywhere in this game.

The Rift is an area I definitely need to explore. I think I've only been to Riften twice, and I don't remember much of it. I guess I know where I'm gonna be spending the next 10 hours of my gaming time!

It will be really hard to do, yeah, but I think it's achievable ... And AFAIK, they did do something similar for Oblivion.

Love, love loooove climbing snowy mountains and sensing the sun is setting behind me. I get this sense of urgency, like I have to find shelter! The world feels expansive, dangerous, real. So amazing.

I really enjoy when the weather is clear ... but you can still see some brief clouds uplifting up the steep mountainsides. For the areas that I have been critical of this game, the wilderness landscapes and weather do make up for it. As other forum-goers have noticed, sometimes you just have to stop, look around, and take a screenshot with your character.

~spoilers~

That being said, to be selfish a little bit, it would have been nice to use the "Clear Skies" shout in any weather type at any place on the map. I tried it in Winterhold once and the snowstorm raged on. A guard noticed and ran up to me saying to stop ... it makes the townspeople nervous.

I live near the mountains and rapid weather changes are quite common and happen quickly.

The wilderness is spectacular, I could spend hours exploring the tundra near Whiterun or exploring the cold plains and mountains near Winterhold.

Me too, love the rift with its poplar trees. Reminds me of fall where I live.

Has anyone experienced drizzle yet? I ran into it for the first time today- in the Rift, coincidentally- and it looks ... funny. I'm not complaining- it's really not something to get worked up over- it was just oddly charming to see something so graphically out-of-place with the rest of the game's aesthetics.

I agree, the wilderness is very well done. I think people need to cut down on the fast traveling a bit and give riding or walking to their next destination a shot.

My favorite place weather wise in Skyrim would have to be East of Ivarstead, so much wild life to hunt and the the atumun trees look amazing.

Yeah Bethesda really did a great job with both the wilderness and the weather in this game. Also the lake near Riften is called Lake Honrich.

Though you get good properly "fractal" trees in some games like AC, Skyrim has way more of them onscreen. Most games have cardboardy trees if they have to render a lot of them.

I've made it a rule to NEVER fast travel... I literally walk everywhere I need to. Makes the game soooo much more fun and epic, adds so many more hours!

same here I admit, Ionly fast travel when its absolutely necessary, like when I'm moving out of a house and carrying way to much stuff.

but yeah I hope some one reads this and tries it out, it will definitely add to their gaming experience for sure.

I love Falkreath hold.

I do this, too, except for really vast distances, which I reserve for caravans. I do absolutely no fast map travel, though, and my current character doesn't even use horses. He travels light, and alone.

You should give this a shot dude I've walked, in 1 go, from Winterhold to Markarth to Riften. Yes, it took me a LONG time, but holy hell was it 1 amazing walk!

The problem with Skyrim's wilderness and weather is that it's all incredibly familiar. It's just like Banff, Alberta with bits of British Columbia and Quebec.

The scenery is amazing, the beast/enemy variety.... Not so much

I concur, incredible environments are amazing! Favourite is definitely the Reach, I love the forsworn camps. I haven't played the MQ after 80 hours or so, are the Forsworn included?

The only environment I dislike are the marshes. Just...ewww.

Best part of Skyrim to me HAS to be the awesome environments they've got in, and yes the Rift? hands down best location in Skyrim