Wonderful Things I Discovered Beyond Skuldafn

[LordSarcasm]

Shallow ocean and the lights of Dragonreach sounds like it was once part of the Skyrim LOD (to see what I mean, fly around Whiterun outside the wall. The entire province is out there, in miniature). They just plopped the same area, deleted most everything, ignored what they missed, and started working on Skuldafn.

 

How does that explain the tower though? You think it might be a creepy easter egg?

[Rooker75]

Probably a designer was working on that, had to switch to something else and didn't want to lose it, so he saved it in a cell out in the middle of nowhere intending to go back to it and just never got around to it. Or it might have been part of a test or a cut scene and was never cleaned up after.

 

I remember GTA 3 had a ghost town out in the middle of nowhere that was used in the opening cinematic when you start a new game. If you could figure out how to fly the little airplane at the airport, you could fly over the ghost town and look around.

[Liquidpinky]

Shallow ocean and the lights of Dragonreach sounds like it was once part of the Skyrim LOD (to see what I mean, fly around Whiterun outside the wall. The entire province is out there, in miniature). They just plopped the same area, deleted most everything, ignored what they missed, and started working on Skuldafn.

 

You don't even have to go that far to see the full LOD of Skyrim, just bring up the 3D map.

If you ever use a map mod that had the reach boundaries marked on it, you will actuall spot the lines off in the distance in game.

The lowest level world LOD and the 3D map are one and the same.

[BS375]

it could be the last easteregg´s in skyrim.

THX for the Pic´s.

[Thegreathakaman]

I found that too! Lol.

[KDake]

Super late but oh well, wanted to add a few observations since I just went out into the sea of nihil to the black tower for the first time and I just think it's interesting.

 

1) The game music completely stopped soon after walking out onto the sea of nihil. Only exception was when the dragon attacked me, when it played enemy/adventure music.

2) The dragon I came across over the sea wasn't dead or frozen, it attacked me like normal until I hit it with dragonrend, at which point it flew all the way to the island of skuldafn. Then it disappeared, ceased to be an enemy and I never saw it again, although I didn't go back to skuldafn.

3) I would have to say the lights are unmistakably those of dragonsreach not only because of appearance, but because when I stand under them and pull up the map, I'm literally standing in dragonsreach. Can be a little misleading because for me my pointer always faced south no matter which way I was actually facing, but it does still seem to correctly indicate where I'm standing.

4) Just noting that the black tower seems similar to the semi-2D structures floating off the back of skuldafn. As in, you can walk straight through it and the back side is "missing" so you can see right through it from the back/west side. Still, pretty ominous and fascinating

 

Kinda odd to think Odahviing flew me to skuldafn and I ran right back to dragonsreach again. And that skuldafn is just an island in the nihil, that trips me out.

 

[comment edits for factual accuracy]

Edited October 26, 2017 by KDake

[KDake]

*FYI a couple mild main quest line spoilers in this (just in case anybody is concerned like 6 years later).

 

Okayyyy so I thought I was done after my last comment on here, but then for some godforsaken reason I decided I was going to run all the way back to skuldafn because I felt like I wasn't done with this stuff. And then I found something that I'm sure has to have been found before but I have not yet seen it online anywhere at this point, so I wanted to document it.

 

For some reason haven't seen anyone comment on the possibility of re-entering skuldafn. Not only did I get back in, I ended up just above the portal to Sovngarde...if you exit like you're about to go to the black tower but instead continue around Sovngarde in either direction, you can just follow the valleys between the mountains until you find climbable places that lead back to the main skuldafn area, overlooking the north side. And so from there it was surprisingly not hard at all to end up right above the portal...ahh!

 

Like what?! And everything ended up functioning correctly, I think I just had to run away and come back to allow the dragon priest to spawn (though the portal was already open the first time I got down there).

 

[edits for accuracy and lengthiness]

Edited October 26, 2017 by KDake

[KDake]

Ok well, my level of research in this is getting ridiculous. But I've found 2 points of re-entry into Skuldafn, one right beside where I got out (immediately behind your first spawn) point by looping around to the left after getting out, and one to the north of the portal that can be accessed from 2 different points. Not sure if there's more than one way out.

 

Additionally, it's possible to do this, re-enter above the portal and avoid all fighting and puzzles and even go in the last door to get the word wall. I'm too much of a completionist though so I literally fought the whole thing backwards (with the exception of the diamond claw door) and sniped the draugr from above. I used to think skuldafn was a little dull and difficult way back when I did it normally so this added a new element to it.

 

There are some large squareish structures off the left side of the island, but I ran east for a while, until I was almost off the entire map, and I didn't see anything else out there in that direction. The clouds are beautiful above the water though.