I've seen a few cities in the trailer and screenshots and they all seem to look a lot like Bruma, except for Markarth, but that doesn't look like a city at all in my opinion. I think it looks more like the ruins of Moria or something. I have nothing against the Bruma style, I mean it is the most fitting to Skyrim, but if they all look the same I would quite miss the diversity of architecture that we had in Morrowind and Oblivion. What do you think?

huh.... bruma was supposed to be a nord like city. So I am guessing they are doing it right.

I think we have to wait till November to see what Skyrim is gonna be like. making speculation on a whole province by just a trailer is a bit short sighted.

I think we need to see better and more views of the cities before we can judge them.

were any of the 5 major cities shown?

Yeah, we haven't seen anything yet.

I'm not impressed with the look of the Dunmer so far.

Hard to be impressed by something you've seen barely anything - nothing of.

Wait, diverse architecture in Oblivion? That's some shonky business right there.

Also, what little we've seen of Skyrim architecture seems rather diverse, especially when compared to Oblivion's grey stone castles.

If all the buildings looked the same, even if they all looked incredible, I'd still be disappointed.

Give it some time, yeah? All signs point to this game having more diverse landscapes and equipment than Oblivion, I see no reason why architecture wouldn't be the same.

If you'd remember the trailer for Oblivion, it looked much different than the actual game. I think you are gonna have to take the skyrim trailer as the same

I actually felt like Oblivion's architecture was too diverse. There was little coherency in the architecture styles. I would have like to have seen more Imperial style construction, either the marble and stone of the IC, forts, and uh...the western port town...

Anyways. As people have said, we've only seen a little, and even of that I've seen good stuff. Compare that gold scaly shingled roof to Bruma's thatched straw.

The reason you had so many different architecture styles in Oblivion was because Cyrodiil was at the center of the Empire. It was meant to be a melting pot of all the cultures and styles of the Empire.

Skyrim on the other hand, is the northern-most province. It is only bordered by Hammerfell, Cyrodiil, and Morrowind. The game should have a dominantly Nord feel and design. There may be the "melting-pot" effect, but only near the borders of those other three provinces. This would be more realistic to real-life geographical influences on a regions culture and architectural styles, and thus would make it much more immersive.

To have Skyrim involve every cultural style of all of the other Provinces would make it seem like a re-skinned version of Cyrodiil/Oblivion. That just wouldn't be good at all IMO.

bliviongate:

Markarth is built on ruins, so yeah, that's why it looks like ruins. How can you say you aren't impressed with the cities? Look at the city on the natural rock formation, it looks gorgeous and so on. I think your thinking of the village that you walk through with the wooden shacks, that's not a city, that's a village.

It looks like Bruma because the houses are made of wood instead of stone. Wait, what? :banghead:

The cities look good to me and look pretty big, idk what vids or pics you have seen :mellow:

i'd say it's far too early to say if the cities look good or not

I'm not impressed with the look of the Skyrim squirrels. If you squint at that one trailer you can see one in a tree. Looked too mangy.

im not impressed with the NPC's from what I saw in the trailer they will always be far away, except for dovahkiin

I'm not impressed with the look of Esbern. I mean, you can't even see him.

They're not cities. If those things are cities then anthills are mountains that reach through the clouds. It just annoys me how Bethesda calls a settlement that barely deserve to be called villages 'cities'.

If you want to know what a medieval city should look like in terms of scale look at Rome in AC: Brotherhood. Or even Florence.

If you remember in AC, you can't talk to any of the people populating their cities. Also, there is hardly any variation in them with the exception of Rome. Florence was the same repeat of monument, small buildings, monument, buidlings, etc. As far as I'm concerned, Oblivion had much more in depth cities that I could get immersed it.

I digress though, i'm not here to hate on AC, which i actually liked quite a bit.

On topic, from what little we have seen of the cities, they look quite diverse in locations and I'm looking forward to seeing more

You even can't go inside all the buildings in AC. All the citizens do is walk in preset circles and don't have schedules.

Uhhh , dude, Skyrim's cities are perfectly lore-fitting. You can expect to see a lot of places similiar to Solstheim in Skyrim .

Yeah, the screenshot of the city of Markarth was touted as impressive by Peter Hines but I don't find anything striking about it. I'd hope cities would look more epic and novel than that depiction of Markarth in the image.

The trailer has a fly by of a few different cities/towns.