well, the biggest city probaly is... 2.5 times the imperial city( speculation ), in this case, massive means, VERY BIG AND STUNNING...

Again, I'm going to mention my anolysis of the city sizes, assuming the cells are the same size, which tells that they are roughly the same size as Oblivion cities, but also that it could still be wrong or they could have expanded upon the cities later.

From the video, the city I think is Solitude (the one by the sea) looks pretty big, like it could be close to IC size, or at least width and height, even if it does not cover the same area due to not being round.

The cities in Skyrim are not supposed to be in separate cells, so you can't really use that for a basis of comparison.

Well... by definition, massive means "having much mass"...

So it's entirely possible that the cities are no bigger than the good 'ole imperial shack, yet are made out of uranium or lead...

Wouldn't that svck?


I'm going to hope that the devs or whoever meant "very large" or something akin to "holy-frickin biggest cities in the world".

The cities in Oblivion were a 1:1 ratio with the outside world.

EDIT: Proof - http://www.uesp.net/maps/obmap/obmap.shtml

That sort of seems like circular logic. The cities are described as "massive". I would consider 2.5 IC size massive. 2.5 IC size sounds VERY BIG AND STUNNING. Therefore, I am STUNNED by how AMAZINGLY MASSIVE these cities are.

And Massive cities doesn't mean, they aren't place holders or that every building is enterable....emphasis on wait and see when it comes out or told otherwise.

I very much doubt they would break with the tradition of making the world "real" and not just a set piece. In fact they've placed a lot of emphasis on making it believable from the sound of the interviews.

sorry but that is no longer reliable, Mystisicm was Tradition and its gone, Dunmer Voices were Tradition and they weren't in Oblivion, Spears were Tradition and they are gone, we went from open world cities even if they were of a different time and technology, to closed cells.

we'll see I guess...

I'm sorry, but how is having something Morrowind making it a tradition? Spears and those particular Dunmer voices were in Morrowind and that's it. Mysticism no longer has it's own skill but the spells are still there. If they were going to make buildings set pieces, it would be the dumbest decision in the world not to make the cities absolutely gigantic because they can with no work and it will make them more impressive. They've stressed repeatedly how they want to make the world more immersive and more real and having unenterable buildings is in direct opposition with that. The celled cities were because of the higher graphics and more complex AI and physics running on the same engine.

everything I listed stretched as far back as redguard. (except spears Cyrus didnt use Spears) which is why I didnt mention un interactable NPC's as I believe (foggy mem) that some NPC's were not interactable(Daggerfall). and yes Dunmer voices were in Redguard.

Redguard wasn't even one of the main Elder Scrolls games. It was a spinoff and an adventure game. Still, if they are going to have buildings in cities that are purely scenery, it looks like they're underdoing them a bit when you have games like Assassin's Creed which use the same sort of buildings and has gigantic cities. But to go that direction would be an awful choice for Bethesda IMO, and as I've said it seems to defy their current ethos.

I agree that it would be a down turn of course Im not looking forward to take such a Direction, but I feel it folly to believe they never would really.

Well then I misread your previous post. And I never meant to say that Oblivion had 5 major cities. Going off http://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/gallery_files/nenctamrmap01.gif map (which isn't official, btw) only 3 cities are indentified in Vvardenfell, I didn't play Morrowind extensively, but I believe there were more 'major' cities, no? And we haven't properly been to any of the other provinces (apart from Cyrodiil), so we have no idea if those other cities are deemed 'major'.
I didn't understand your second paragraph, but what I got from it is that you believe that High Hrothgar just popped out of nowhere? http://images.uesp.net//4/43/PGE1-map-Skyri.jpg shows that Hrothgar has been there forever.

Agreed, even if the names are just random-gen it'd be better.

That's nice, I never said they weren't. They were still in cells, while the ones in Skyrim will not be. The two cannot be compared.

There's a difference between tradition and just having things in the game.

These are all just minor deviation. Merging mysticism with other schools, big deal. Dunmer voices, ok they were nice but Im not crying myself to sleep here. Spears, I get it, they would be a nice addition, but lets just enjoy what we've got? Cities, it simply had to be done to get it all together and work well.

IF they were to make houses scenic only that would be a "violation" of what TES stands for, not just the way it presents itself. And it'd be waaaaay stupid, which Bethesda isnt.

I think the biggest problem with Oblivions cities wasn't their size, it was the inhabitants which felt dull and boring. I remember reading on Oblivion forum before the release of the game that their dialog system would be truely revolutionary etc etc. So I got really excited to see what that was about, and when I finally made it into the game and overheard a conversation it was something like "Hi.." "Hi.." "I hear *some store* has the best sweetrolls in aaaaaall of Cyrodil" "Okay.." "Byye" - my point is those conversations was just lame and boring and didn't at all contribute to making it feel more alive. I hope the same thing won't happen with Skyrim

I believe that the cities[major and minor] will be just the right size. I am forever the optimist.

Some one has probably mentioned this already; I didn't read the thread... but when you put a quotation inside quotation marks, you don't use a double quote again... you use a single quote.

Ex. " 'Massive cities' "

hellzyeeyah!

Actually... I think this is the ONE thing that hasn't been covered lol. I'm gonna say how it will go down. Believe me or not, it doesn't matter, but this is what I think will happen. There will be 5 massive cities. They will be roughly 1.5 times the size of one of the non capitol cities in Oblivion. There will not be houses that are purely cosmetic. In order to conserve space (with same size game world and mountains) They will build up, and at least one city will be partially underground, but not all of it will be. It will be exterior cities, except for the aforementioned underground part. I base this on absolutely nothing.

I keep hearing people talk about how massive IC was, but to me it didn't seem much bigger and sometimes smaller than the other cities in OB. If you are only looking in square footage, maybe. But the interior hub was devoid of everything except a few guards and a tower, which you really couldn't do much in. And the other districts didn't seem like they combined into a size like Skingrad. In the trailer sure you see some sprawl of buildings/towers over the rock arch. But the rest didn't seem so massive except maybe you have to zigzag your way thru town because of the rocky terrain it is built on. It still looked like a handful of buildings in the foreground maybe the size of Bruma, the terrain hiding much.

I guess what I'm saying is "Massive" just isn't how much land it takes up, but what's in it. You could put a 3-football field sized park in the middle of Chorrol and call it massive, but would it really be if it only took up space and gave you nothing to do?

I'm really not a grammar snob, but I couldn't help myself given the OP's glee regarding the use of double quotes.

I wouldn't be disappointed with cities the same size as OB... so long as they felt more alive. I'm all for "massive" cities, though, with more NPCs and more general activity.

Why not? Whether they have the same cells as the rest of the world or not does not change their size if they have a 1:1 ratio.

Kudos. Imperial City was the biggest city, but felt "dead" at times. In Morrowind, Vivec was the biggest city, but was boring too. If they're going to make a geographically "massive" city, let's hope they put enough life into it to make it worth while. Massive for massive's sake is a mistake.