Now, considering the fact that they've made a basic outline for Morrowind's landscape, I have a theory about what one of the DLC's might be.
Remember how with Fallout 3 they made some regions that were considerably smaller than the main map, but were still "roamable"? I think this is what they will do with one of their DLC's for Skyrim. And I think it will be part of the mainland of Morrowind. I say part because even considering that they would make an entire province is damn near insane. And I say mainland because I don't think they will redoo Vvardenfell, atleast not as DLC. Now then, look at this map:
Look at Blacklight, then lower your sight towards the border that separates Skyrim, Morrowind and Cyrodiil. I think that small stretch of shore, filled with mountains in the west, will be a good DLC candidate, possibly with a revisit to Solstheim. Solstheim is pretty close to Blacklight and Skyrim so it's not really very far. And the have already made an outline for the rest of the Morrowind landscape (Vvardenfell in particular), so if you were standing on those western shores of Morrowind, you could look towards Vvardenfell in the distance and still see the Red Mountain.
I think the current situation in Morrowind is perfect for Skyrim. The story could be about helping the Dunmer take back Morrowind, or secure a foothold in it atleast. It could start in Windhelm, where you get contacted by a dunmer in the Grey Quarter (I think that's what the slums are called), and are sent to take over Blacklight or something. This is a perfect opportunity to explore the Dunmer/Argonian conflict.
If you look at the map you will also see that the bit of land isn't overly big, and could certainly be made into DLC. And I like the idea of seeing new land but at the same time revisit something we've seen before (Solstheim).
So what do you guys think? Plausable?
A very plausible concept I must say
That relatively small tract of land would make sense both from a lore point of view, and be 'do-able' within the time constraints and resource constraints of DLC.
I also think they'll make a DLC that explores the Thalmor, but that's a different subject.
lol, i feel like a complete retard right now..
i have played over 400+ hours in morrowind, and have only just now realized, that morrowind, was only "vvardenfell" lol, we never really got to go on the mainland of morrowind, (well, maybe in the expansions, but idk, i never played the expansions..) lol..
i think a cool thing bethesda could do for TES 6 is the full morrowind lol, and have it based on the dunmer taking back morrowind.
as for DLC for skyrim, i think it would more likely be about the thalmor and the great war to be honest.
They did make Morrowind some guy used the no-clip console command and went to Morrowind and they had Vvardenfell, he also went to Cyrodili and the Imperial city was there, so they made a lot of Tamriel in this game it wouldn't be surprising if cyrodill and Morrowind were included in DLC cuz they did say that the DLC's were going to be substantial.
I honestly don't think they'll go back to Morrowind. Considering they already made a big game purely on Morrowind it wouldn't make sense for them to do that. I think someone is suffering from a bit of nostalgia.
No, I believe it will investigate a more prominent theme, A.K.A Thalmor (As Paul said). They're a major part of the story and if you've completed the rebel storyline (don't worry, no spoilers here) you'll know that Ulfric started preparing for war against the Thalmor right after he took over Skyrim.
I've been saying this on multiple forums for the last two or three months ever since the paper-map was leaked. The minute I saw that they labeled Dunmeth Pass in writing on the map, I knew Blacklight was the most probably candidate for DLC because of the city's proximity to Windhelm. I also speculate that Bruma is also another possible candidate because of the labeling of the Pale Pass south of Falkreath which is the main pass between Skyrim and Cyrodiil.
As for Solstheim.. I hope not. Been there..done that in Morrowind and it was fun, but we already have enough Tundra, Snow, etc. etc. Like Fallout 3, I believe Skyrim's DLC is going to include locations with different colors and geographical features/archetypes than the vanilla game.
First DLC will be about the Thalmor war/battle over Skyrim, taking place after the civil war questline. Sucks, but I'm sure that is what it is going to be. Only real thing they hinted at (told you) was going to happen. So yeah, DLC = Skyrim vs Thalmor. Whoopidy doo.. But I'm sure they'll give us a lot of new land to explore and I think it will be in the ballpark of what this blog describes.
Okay, as I've already said, this is just for A dlc. There could be multiple dlcs. But yes, I think they'll make a dlc about the Thalmor, it would make a lot of sense.
And they did a game about Vvardenfell, which is a big part of Morrowind, but it's not ALL of Morrowind. Check the map.
As for nostalgia, I have the goty of Morrwind, but I haven't really gotten into it. I hope to play it through someday, but I haven't had the chance yet. So no, I don't suffer from nostalgia, at all. ;)
The first DLC will probably be about the Thalmor trying to take over Skyrim and even though I hate them i wonder if you could side with them.... anyway I hope one of the later DLCs has something to replace the arena not being in the game, or maybe we will actually find some REAL living dwemer hidden somewhere (highly unlikley.) Either way I'm sure it won't be a let down :).
I have my own theory regarding DLC.
The addition of a whole province for each, these wont be just a "mere" DLC or addon, they will be expansions. Allow me to elaborate, in all likelyhood they will start work on Fallout 4 now. Given the current rate of development over the years, it is likely we dont see Fallout 4 (or whatever next game they are making) for another 3 years. So two years in between Skyrim and lets call it "the next big thing" are empty. But, lo and behold, we see two provinces having their altitudes already build in? That cant be a coincidense.
Bethesda has had other studio's develop games for them before, for example Fallout New vegas. I forgot the name of the studio, but they did a pretty good job. So i predict that another third-party or affiliated studio will make these Skyrim expansions (or maybe even stand alones?).
Because lets be honest, all big names now a days seem to pump out a new game pretty much (bi)annually. And the consumers have, for beter or worst, come to expect this from the "giants". A year is enough time for a studio to take all the groundwork that has been done for Skyrim (engines, meshes, soundfiles, elevations etcetc) and add a whole new playable province. So that Bethesda can release a new installment of their core franchise every year.
Oh god, I hope the people who made NV don't work on Skyrim. Clearly you didn't play it when it first came out, when it was so buggy it was completely unplayable. And putting Bethesda on the same level as the Call of Duty people is ridiculous, nobody expects Bethesda to make a new Fallout/Elder Scrolls game in a year. Frankly I wouldn't want them to, people complain that their games are buggy after over two years of work, just imagine if they had a single year deadline.
They've already said they aren't planning on giving the Elder Scrolls to another studio. It's like their baby.
Besides, it wouldn't make any sense to make a whole new province as an expansion pack. A portion of something we haven't already seen, maybe. but not an actual, complete province. Why do that when you can just make a new game out of it?
The buggy release is sadly something of today. Have you seen for example Rage? Also published by Bethesda, i think its still not fixed. THAT was buggy, compared to this NV purred as a kitten.
So NV wasnt the only one that suffered and luckily got fixed pretty fast, yes i did play it. Intensively. Luckily the communty came to the rescue early on and on launch day i already got a little file that pretty much fixed 90% of the problems. And shortly after, the bugs were hammered out. I still blame the rather poor engine. And when you got the problems fixed the game was very good, i atleast enjoyed it very much.
First, i dont want to compare Bethesda with the current people behind CoD, that would be an insult to Bethesda Also, a single year doesnt have to be a deadline. They could still develop it and when its done its done, but adding a new province will not take as much time as it took to make Skyrim from, well.. scratch. I think a year is doable, maybe a little more to iron it out. It wouldnt really be a "new" Elders Scroll game. Its not a leap like Morrowing->Oblivion->Skyrim. Its just, more of Skyrim.
Maybe its just wishfull thinking, but at this time its not something we can just dismiss because we know NOTHING. Not even if Cyrodiil or Morrowind are playing a part in the upcomming content. These are just assumptions. All we know is that they want to make something far more substantial then what they've previously made. Thats a stretchable statement.
I'm all for going back to cryodil, I'm just not a huge fan of the whole civil war and faction vs. faction quest-lines. They are probably the most bland to me. I ran through the civil war quest-line in 2 hours. All you do is run into a space and kill everyone. That's not very exciting. I'm all about going back to cryodil and everything that goes along with it; I just kinda don't want a "war" to be a focus. They'll probably bring back the involvement of The Blades in it though.
I think they'll start working on the base for the next Fallout game, such as planning, design, story, what they want to do with it, etc. But Todd says they usually like to wait until they get their hands on the new platform technology (next-gen consoles) before releasing the game. I'm thinking it could be quite a while before we see the next Fallout game depending on when the next-gen consoles are scheduled to be released. I'm not in the know-how about consoles, but if it's going to be quite a while, we should expect to see the next Fallout game in a good 3 years. We should expect the next Elder Scrolls game when the next-gen consoles arrive for sure.
Fallout NV being developed by a 3rd party (Obsidian), but using Bethesda's engine, etc. was the result of an unusual situation that we're not likely to see repeated with the Elder Scrolls series.
The reason is that the Fallout series/universe wasn't created by Bethesda. They bought the franchise. It was originally created by, I think, an outfit called Black Isle Studios, who eventually went belly up. But Bethesda was intrigued by the Fallout universe, and thought it would be a great vehicle for what they do best (open world, be who you want, go at your own pace RPG). So they bought it and made Fallout 3, revitalizing, if not resurrecting, the franchise.
Fallout 3 was a great commercial and critical hit, yet there were still die-hard fans out there who thought that Bethesda took too many liberties with the lore. (E.g., the Brotherhood of Steel being like retro-future paladins, Super Mutants all being "bad", etc.). Bethesda was careful to set Fallout 3 in the East Coast - Fallout 1 & 2 took place out west - thereby loosening up some of the constraints that the old lore put on the game they envisioned. (As in, hey! It's DIFFERENT back east! Super-Mutants are green here, not blue!)
Anyway, it turns out that many of the folks who created the orginal Fallout ended up working for Obsidian. Given the success of Fallout 3, and given the fact that these Black Isle / Obsidian dudes knew the lore really well, Bethesda figured "why not let them have a go?" It was a total win-win. Bethesda still made alot of $ since they were the publisher and it was their engine, etc Obsidian made $ because the phenomenal success of Fallout 3 made gamers salivate at the thought of more, more, more. Old-school fans of the series got a game that was more "pure" Fallout and truer to the lore, and newbies (like me) got waaay more content, which was awesome. It was really the perfect collaboration. Bethesda didn't have to work very hard to produce the game, and Obsidian didn't have to work very hard to market or sell it.
All that being said, I doubt Bethesda would allow another studio to make an Elder Scolls game. They created it, built it, and nutured it from the ground up. It's their flagship series. It's their baby (as someone above puts it). There will be some awsome expansions for sure - fighting the Thalmor occupation is a near certainty, and I'm very intriguied by this slice of NorthWestern Morrowind idea - but no way does Bethesda let Obsidian or anyone else near their ES brand.
PS - I could see Obsidian making another follow up game to the inevitable Fallout 4. Sort of like side-by-side East Coast, West Coast narratives.