I think NPCs spent far too much time at home. I think there was something like 200 or so NPCs in the Imperial City, but you'd only ever find about 20 in the whole place combined wandering around, which made it feel more empty. The Arcane university seemed to avoid this, but it used generic NPCs.

I'm not too worried about how massive these places are as long as I have fun.

We will have to wait until they give a wider birds-eye-view pic or video before we can really tell how massive the cities are. To me, Bruma felt moderate sized when playing, but when you look at it http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:OB-Bruma-01.jpg way it looks kind of puny. Maybe it's just me.

Multiquote is ****ing awesome.


Exactly. It doesn't matter if they are in cells or not, the 'fake city' in the exterior cells is the same size, just easier to render because there are no NPCs or anything to render.



True, I got lost a few times wandering around the smaller cities, much more than the Imperial City. When a city is compartmentalized (Wow that is an actual word? Cool) it makes it harder to get lost. You know where the shops are, where the Arena is, and all that stuff.

I think the cities will be similar to the scale of Orzimaar (Dragon Age Origins). I get the feeling we're going to see a lot more NPC's with names like "villager" or "commoner" along with a few buildings that are out of reach or are simply there for aesthetic looks.

I'd be completely amazed if I was wrong though.

Massive city = all the cantons in Vivec (TESIII) + Mournhold (Tribunal). That's a massive city. Vivec in Morrowind was just what I would expect a regular city to be like in a frontier land like Morrowind. The IC in TESIV was the size of a small village, as far as my measurements go.

Yes, in terms of area, Bruma is the smallest city in Cyrodiil, but it neither feels cramped, nor is there less houses than your average city, and nor are they of terribly inferior size.

Yes, but if we're thinking realistic terms, which you seem to be, the entire map is the size of a small city. There is a limit to Bethesda's resources.

You'd expect it to be life-less and boring? Man, you could walk around the exterior of that place forever and maybe see one guard and no other citizens at all. I remember the first time I ventured there in the game after listening to rumors and such that mentioned it. I was so excited along the way... and what a disappointment when I got there and the place was void of anything truly interesting or exciting for the major city it was supposed to be. It just felt sterile compared to so many uniqe and interesting locations in that game.

To me, it would be a major FAIL if the "massive" cities felt like Vivec.

...Fail is not a noun. I know fail as a concept originated on /b/ like so many other things but while fail can be many things, it is not a noun. There is your off topic post of the day.

Vivec is my least favourite city in Morrowind or Oblivion. It's incredibly boring, especially since you walk so slow around them, and it's hard to know where to find something in it, there's no signs or anything, and the cantons are filled with all these pointless catacombs... and the IC is probably my second least favourite. They need to improve on their big city making.

EDIT: They are also ugly and have no design variation.

Good points. Also, Bruma -- quite simply -- felt "real" to me. Smaller in size than the other cities, but justified by the sense of a small hub of activity in the middle of a cold and desolate portion of the landcape. It felt like the place had a purpose, like something was happening there; I didn't feel the sterility that TES's larger cities (Vivec and IC) can give you the impression of at times.

I'd guess their all at least as big as the Imperial city.

I no doubt deserved that after my earlier comments regarding double quotations!

(But in the context of an Internet forum, I'll stand by it's usage.) :biggrin:

Before I got ready to post this, I tried really hard to find the exact quote I read one day about cities. It might have just been a figment of my imagination because I have never heard anyone else mention it word for word on these forums. :blink:

Well I'll try to recite it best I can for you all. Note that this is not an actual quote: "Skyrim will contain five 'massive' cities, all larger than the capital of Cyrodiil in Oblivion. There will no longer be pesky loading screens seperating them from the rest of the world or doors between districts."

It was either a foreign magazine or game informer I read it from but all five metropolises being bigger than the Imperial City really stuck out in my mind.

I think I know exactly where that came from.

An unreliable IGN trailer anolysis that made several mistakes and got all it's info from previous articles.

EDIT: Although if it turns out they did get that from a reliable (but somehow unknown to almost the whole world) source, I will be very happy.

True, that was from IGN I remember that. They are known for making a lot of mistakes/ baseless rantings and passing it along as fact though.

And so ends the case of the missing quote.

I'm sorry maybe you think I am one of those guys who are crying about spears and mysticism and trying to say Bethesda will undercut more things out of TES for their dastardly scheme.



I'm not.


We're talking practicality here and those were examples of, they won't be around forever and Beth can and will change aspects of their game as they see fit, their is already mention of dummy NPC's with no dialoge trees akin to the ones in FO and NV right? so now do you think their are going to be buildings to house said unamed unimportant NPC's? now thik about how their are fewer npc's to talk to, now think about the term -Massive- cities. alrighty what would a handful of interactable NPC's do with a -Massive- city? as I stated before im not saying lulz you guys are so stupidz they are gonna do placeholderz just liek other gamez herr Im saying don't rule it out, its that kind of thinking that have people yelling this game svcks! and Bethesda is laughing at our stupidity etc etc comments from people who are making assumptions from the breeze.

shoot I'd Love for every building in a massive city to have an interior, and even better for seamless interior/exterior traveling in buildings just because of that windmill in the trailer that showed something similar.

until then we wait, until more information is provided :tes:


P.S - Why are you heathens not using the TES emote? I had to yell for this, and Gizmo saw the yelling and made one by which Gstaff -randomly- saw and said, lets see if I can get that in.



USE IT. :flame: :chaos:

Because, I want one that looks like the Dragonborn in the background.

Rule V of TES, no one individual is singled out for praise, you love them all or not at all bliviongate:

Umm... unlike the other cities in Morrowind and probably Oblivion Vivec had everything on the inside. There was quite a bit going on in there. There were no outside access to shops, offices, etc....they were all inside. Should there have been more people populating the outside. I guess, but when everything is inside it makes your point kind of moot. Kind of like in RL you find less people wandering around the outside of the mall than inside it where the shops are.

Oh, true, the interiors were better. I still thought it was very annoying moving between cantons though. Or finding places without specific instructions.

I was simply using the exterior as a representaive example of the feeling the place gave me. Anyways, there should have been foot traffic between cantons. Or people coming and going from the city. There just wasn't any "bustle" for what was supposed to be the busiest city in the land. True, inside offered more. Overall, though, inside/outside... which ever way you want to look at it, I found the place boring as heck and thought it was an uncreative design. I stand by my opinion: If "massive" cities feel like Vivec (inside or out), it will be a major disappointment for me. Maybe you liked Vivec and you'd like to see similar cities in Skyrim, too. Tha't's fine.

Seing as there's going to be A LOT more movement in the cities in Skyrim compared to Morrowind, I don't think you'll be disappointed. Hopefully you wont find any place in any city where there isnt atleast a few npcs faffing about during daylight hours.

I can agree with you on that. I think both MW and OB could have used more "bustle" in their cities.