Online talk:Subzones

Restructure into Regions

ZOS have been moving away from the concept of subzones since the original beta. Individual subzone maps were removed, subzones in the group finder were removed, subzones in Craglorn and Wrothgar were unnamed, and now Vvardenfell has no subzones at all. However, all of these subzones still exhibit distinct geographic features, and have (mostly) contained questlines within them, and so could easily be restructured into the more generic distinction of "regions". We know that Vvardenfell has nine regions, from MW:Regions, and seven of these are clearly accessible in ESO. While they do not exist as subzones in the original sense, these regions still exhibit distinct geographic features, and have (mostly) contained questlines, so could be handled in the same way.

What I would like to propose, therefore, is restructuring all the existing Subzones into Regions, and then the Vvardenfell regions have a category that they can clearly fit into. --Enodoc (talk) 10:50, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Seven "subzones" would be bit too much IMO. Original subzones were more isolated and, what's more important, contained the Dolmens named after them. But my point is is it really necessarily to divide Vvardenfell into small regions? Phoenix Neko (talk) 11:00, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) For those interested, this discussion should serve as some context for this discussion.

The problem with this proposal, as far as I can see it, is duplicity. ESO has enough overused terms without drawing our own distinction between Subzone and "Region". Subzones remain technical (albeit deprecated) information about a place, while regions are largely a matter of lore and have zero in-game presence. I find it prudent to point out this discussion where we decided to delete ESO province pages because "there is nothing in the game data representing the provinces". A place's geographic region is a curiosity, nothing more.

Regarding Vvardenfell, I don't have a problem with creating region places for the purposes of trivia. To be honest, I wouldn't even mind province pages in Online space for the same reason. However, there's simply no need for that in old zones, particularly since: (1) disregarding dolmens, the old subzone names appear almost nowhere, and (2) it would create a serious headache to have two ON:Varanis pages, etc. If the proposal is deciding between deleting old Subzone articles and replacing them with our own brand of "Regions", I'd prefer to stick to the Subzones; if the proposal involves having two sets of pages for the exact same thing, I believe it's far too duplicitous.

This region proposal also ignores the fact that we will probably not have region names going forward. We only know Vvardenfell's because of TESIII; Wrothgar's biomes have no names(!); the Lower Craglorn subzones are named on the wiki only by the grace of Lawrence Schick. Going forward, I don't think a formal Region setup would solve our problems. This geographic stuff should be treated as secondary information to hard game data and gameplay divisions, which should always be our focus. —Legoless (talk) 11:12, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Well this previous discussion is pretty helpful. I would argue that we have regions in MMOrrowind: [1] and apparently it differs from TES3 because of 750-years difference. Phoenix Neko (talk) 11:25, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

The proposal, for the existing pages, is to replace all uses of the word "Subzone" with the word "Region", nothing more. I have increasingly disliked the word "subzone" anyway, as it implies more of a gameplay division than what really exists; without the separate map, which was removed in beta, and the group finder division, which was removed in Update 9, there's not really any gameplay aspects of subzones left. All they are is geographic regions, and we should be presenting that. --Enodoc (talk) 11:52, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I would counter that the removed gameplay divisions are exactly why we should still display that data: purely for posterity. Conflating biomes and subzones seems like a bad idea when one had a clear gameplay meaning in the past and the other is a rather fuzzy and lore-heavy descriptor. If Wrothgar had launched with 7 unnamed biomes, what would we do? —Legoless (talk) 12:03, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

We would probably have ignored them if they were completely unnamed. But if their names had turned up in quest dialogue or lorebooks, then we would probably have tried to do something with them. And that's exactly the case for a number of the base game subzones, and at least six of the regions of Vvardenfell. When we've kept things purely for posterity, we've either outright marked the thing as deprecated and not updated it any further (like Adventure Zones and Group Events), or if it still exists in some form, we've repurposed it to its current state and noted its previous function in the notes (like Veteran content and Daggerfall Southern Docks). The subzones are an example of the second case. They're still named areas that are relevant for certain things, so can't be considered completely deprecated, but the subzone classification for them is outdated, and there is a more accurate categorisation that we can use for them instead. --Enodoc (talk) 16:40, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Incidentally, there's nothing on the individual region pages that actually has any functional relevance to subzones anyway. The term only appears in the infobox; even the page text refers to them as regions. It's only this page which details the gameplay function of subzones. So we could change all those pages to type=Region to reflect the current state, and add a note at the bottom of each one saying that this region originally functioned as a subzone:

Before the One Tamriel update, this region functioned as a subzone in terms of gameplay, with its content specifically designed for players of Level x–y. Before Update 9, it also had its own entry in the "World" section of the Group Finder, which was removed in the Group Finder overhaul.

Then this page can be updated to explain the whole thing, expanding on the fact that subzones are no longer really a factor in gameplay but that there are still functional remnants of them in place, such as the related achievement and the self-contained questlines, and we can slap a {{Deprecated}} banner on it. --Enodoc (talk) 09:06, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Since it was an unopposed suggestion, and we all agree that subzones are technically deprecated, I've added the full details of Subzone construction and their eventual deprecation to this article. Now that they are fully detailed, it would be more of a trivial alteration to add that note that I mentioned above to each region page. --Enodoc (talk) 10:46, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Is it really true that "each subzone is contained entirely within the borders of a traditional province"? Jodewood seems to be an exception, as it contains Falinesti Autumn, which is definitely Valenwood, and also Thormar and Moonmont, which are within the traditional 3E borders of Valenwood (as seen in Arena). Even without considering Thormar and Moonmont, it would be really hard to explain why Falinesti Autumn and Rawl'kha are in the same subzone if it was to be entirely in a single province --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 10:55, 15 June 2017 (UTC).

Falinesti Autumn should be in Northern Woods. It's listed on the Northern Woods page, not the Jodewood page. Moonmont is clearly a Khajiiti ruin, so putting the border wars aside, must originally have been in Elsweyr. --Enodoc (talk) 11:16, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

The alternative, which would make sense given Willowgrove is Bosmeri, would be that the entirety of Jodewood is in Valenwood. But that then screws up Rawl'kha. --Enodoc (talk) 11:24, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Why should Falinesti be in Northern Woods? It's clearly in Jodewood on the map. The rest makes sense, I guess. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 12:01, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, I can't remember actually. Maybe I just agreed with Lurlock and didn't look into it further on the map, or maybe I forgot that the river isn't the border line. Alternatively, possibly it was based on the island in the river. Falinesti's map marker is directly west of that island, and the border goes along the bottom of that island, and therefore below the Falinesti marker. But that ignores the fact that, while the research camp (where the marker is) may be in Northern Woods, the site itself, with the pool of water, is in Jodewood. --Enodoc (talk) 13:35, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Subzones again?

With the launch of Morrowind, featuring the Vvardenfell zone, the subzone concept appears to be completely abandoned

This fragment seems to be debunked with the release of Northern Elsweyr. Unless... Where exactly it says in the game the name of Northern Elsweyr subzones? Phoenix Neko (talk) 21:39, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Rim of the Sky says he got the names of the regions from Crown Store items and incidental dialogue. --Enodoc (talk) 21:43, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Alright, but are these names legible for being interpreted as subzones names rather than just random geographic regions? In any case, the wording on the page should be changed. Phoenix Neko (talk) 06:46, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

No, they're regions, not subzones. Subzones don't exist any more, as stated in the fragment you quoted; is there something specific about the Northern Elsweyr regions that you think falls under the subzones format, rather than just being region names? --Enodoc (talk) 18:03, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I was confused by the navbox. But now I see it says "and Regions" which I didn't notice before. I guess this concludes my question. Phoenix Neko (talk) 01:33, 30 May 2019 (UTC)