Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-96.252.245.207-20130116060134/@comment-24696651-20140419135834

While it wouldn't take eight times longer to do all of Tamriel (they don't use the entire development time to create the game world), assuming that Zenimax let them use all the maps from ESO, they would have to tweak a lot. The graphics would be outdated, they would have to remove all the ESO things (the forts would need removing or replacing), the cities would need to be changed a lot, and they would need new NPCs (and Ma'iq the liar). Obviously they could take cities from Oblivion or Skyrim (the landscape of Morrowind was changed drastically by the eruption of the Red Mountain), but they would need substantial updates to Cyrodiil to reflect what happened over the last 200 years. It wouldn't take eight times longer, but it would be way longer than a few months. If Zenimax let them use ESO maps. And if not, you more or less multiply the world building time by six or something (Skyrim is a relatively big province, and they can still use Skyrim's and Oblivion's maps with many updates). I'm not sure how long they spend creating the game world (probably two or three years), but they definitely spend at least eighteen months. Eighteen times six equals 108 months, or nine years. Nine years equals to long.