So I've read a lot of stuff about Skyrim, and almost everything says that the cities are going to be "Massive"

Does anyone actually know how big "Massive" is?

Also, I personally think it would be really cool if the cities had bazaars and markets outside their (main) walls. Kind of like that circus type thing outside of Epic Citadel (On iPhone/iPod Touch, if anyone has seen it)

Also, from the pictures I've seen of Morrowind, there aren't many (if any) gates that go into a city, like in Oblivion. (I didn't play Morrowind) Will Skyrim be like this?

When it comes to massive cities I keep getting reminded of the size of Rome in AC Brotherhood. But I highly doubt any of Skyrim's cities would be /that/ massive.

So I am honestly not sure what the devs actually mean with the word.

The cities are slightly bigger than Oblivion's. You have 5 that are that big, and you have 20+ small and medium-sized cities.

I'm thinking slightly smaller than IC in Oblivion but higher population density.

Take a look at the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjqsYzBrP-M

At around 1:20 in, you can estimate that the city (presumably Haarfingar) extends from the mill, all the way over the rocky bridge and down to what seems like a large ship and dock (look under the rock bridge in the distance).
This is all speculation and guessing, but I would definately say that the 5 larger cities will definately be -at least- as big as the Imperial City and with more people living there/walking/talking in the streets.

:tes:

The Game world is the size of Oblivion.


Skyrim is more mountainous by far than Cyrodill


Cities are supposed to be massive.


Moutains take more space


but space is no larger than Oblivion.


I'll wait to see what they are talking about when they say massive cities.

small and medium-sized cities as in kind of like those little villages we could run into in Oblivion? Or are they going to be a little bigger?

I am loving the sound of this game every time I hear more about it...

I think it means not so massive but more people and shops

They're big and probably open like in Morrowind.

... if not they can hide it really well, so that works too.

probably bigger than that. what we've seen of Riverwood seems about as big as somewhere like Hackdirt or Aleswell or something.

Morrowind had Balmora, Ald'ruhn, Sadrith Mora, and Vivec as its big cities, with places like Maar Gan and Khuul and Hla Oad being a bit smaller and somewhat less important but still pretty populated. i'm assuming Skyrim's cities/towns will be more comparable to that (but with bigger cities).

i'm expecting a lot of URBAN SPRAWL this time around too, to add to that feeling of "wow this is a pretty big city". think somewhere between the farms outside of Skingrad and the outskirts of DC (though obviously not post-apocalyptic).

If I had to guess I would say each city is roughly 1.5 times bigger than any of the major cities in Oblivion besides the Imperial City. Big enough where we might see more NPCs and a few unique specialty shops, but not too big where it has to be separated by area.

I personally would like to see a city or two with multiple levels, similar to how some ancient mountain dwelling tribes lived. It would bring a nice feeling of massiveness without taking up additional X and Y space. Would be awesome for thieves and assassins.

There's definately something not right here.

Also, if city interiors are treated as entirely different cells they could be larger then their initial appearance suggests.

The same way when you go into a house it can easily be much larger inside the house then it is on the outside.

I'm hoping they take the Morrowind approach and let you just walk/jump in at any point.....but I suspect they'll go again with big doors to get in, whether or not it makes any sense at all.

I seem to recall someone quoting Todd as to how everything was built to scale,which would mean a exterior/interior direct correlation,which is always a good thing in my book.

Perhaps. Or maybe some places have the bulk of their city inside the mountain. Take Rivet City from Fallout 3. They could easily put some things that make sense to be outside like farms and maybe a guard building and some lower class housing and shops on the outside of a mountain and then have a big door to the rest of the city like the Dwarven city in LotR. Or do stacking buldings like I said in an above post.

My guess is smaller then we'd all hope, less dense then is desirable, and more disappointing then we'd like to admit. That is not cycnasim that is logic. They have never promised to make functional realistic cities, which that is sad in my opinion, because I would like that a lot. However, when you assume they have to ‘budget out’ represent an entire nation with discrete principalities, farms, wilderness then it is understandable that the scope of each part will be curtailed with cities taking the biggest hit because of the density of data required.

If I had my druthers, I rather enjoy an Elder Scrolls game where the entire game was played out in a massive realistic 1:1 sized city. Or I’d rather have just ONE city where all the effort they would have placed into making nine ‘puny cities’ could be placed into making one somewhat believable city of proper density and majesty.

You missed a very important part, there is only 5 massive cities compared to the total of 9 cities there were in OB. Mountains actually adds more feeling of hugeness into Skyrim. Massive also means that they can blend into their environment around, meaning that there won't be epicly massive stone walls all over Skyrim, but rather like MW style, which will be great.

actually it was just 8 and some change, we're talking about Game mechanics not lore, since that went out the window the maps pre TESV show that Skyrim also had 8-9 cities. Central and easter Skyrim are dominated by mountains, Im not sure we should expect any massive cities over there, then again only time will tell. Morrowind felt as large as it was because much of it was unnavigble, walking speed was less than that in Oblivion, and we couldnt see into the distance.

now we have Skyrim, with more Mountains than Vvardenfell could shake a stick at all we can resonably infer serve as obstacles just as they do in NV (yes I know beth didnt make NV) and the only time that aspect doesnt apply is the occasional dungeon, path along the mountain, and Markarth. otherwise these mountains aren't something we'll have a large amount of interaction with more so that they are guidelines in the region at a first glance anyway, who knows what Beth did with the mountains.

Also we can see into the distance and I doub't or rather hope they dont slow down walking speed, since we can't walk in a straight line border to border as in Oblivion, it will seem bigger, but the point is we will have less to navigate then Oblivion and we're missing 3 cities. I honestly don't know what to say.


So we wait, untilt he game actually comes out to truely know instead of speculations

Well, the size of Skyrim's map is going to be pretty equal to Oblivion's, and there are going to be five main cities "comparatively larger than those in Oblivion... along with a wider variety of caves and subterranean areas" (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skyrim "World" section), so we know their going to be larger and that there will be more to explore. I think thats what massive refers to.

I'll be happy if one of the cities is a massive mountain-home..

In Morrowind, all the cities except for Mournhold, the city added in the Tribunal expansion, were in the same world space as the rest of the game, meaning you could just walk into them without a loading screen. Mournhold was located entirely in interiors disguised as exteriors (By which I mean to say they were considered interior cells by the engine, but they had a sky and weather like exteriors.) and could only be reached by speaking to a certain NPC. Some cities in Morrowind had walls but most of the time these walls were pretty unimpressive and never actually seperpated the city from the surrounding areas.

As to whether it will be like this in Skyrim, I'm not sure, there are some who believe it will, but I don't think there's actually been official confirmation.



And thus, Grand Theft Equine: Tamriel was born.



That's really not a good thing. This isn't the Tardis we're talking about here. Unless the lore actually says a building, city, or any other location only accessable via a loading screen is larger on the inside than it appears on the outside due to some trick of magic, I want the interiors to be fully consistent with the exteriors, saying that having outside areas and inside ones in seperate world-spaces allows the scale of things on the outside and inside to be different is not an endorsemant for such a design, if anything, it's an argument against it.

Anyway, saying that the five major cities are "massive" is pretty vague, though when I hear Bethesda say "massive" I'd expect something on the scale of Vivec or the Imperial City, but I highly doubt that's the case. Considering that the map is said to be about the same size as Oblivion's, I can't see the game having five cities all on the scale "massive" would lead one to expect. More likely, the cities will be similar in size to the average city in Oblivion, give or take a bit. Myself, though, I'm not so much concerned with the area a city takes up, because let's face it, if the game world is scaled down, it's only logical for the same to be true for cities too, rather, I want each city to feel more unique. I want cities to be able to make me WANT to explore them because they're so unique and so interesting, not be places I visit only because I get a quest to go there or I need a place to sell or buy items as they often tended to be in Oblivion, despite the unique archetecture each city had. Making the cities larger would just be a waste of space if you can't make them worth exploring.

Gathering from what we have seen, the Tearailer, they look quite distinct. This is one gameplay area that's neglected and it might be the case the reason involves not fully letting go of the old D&D/card game paradigm, that still lingers like a neolitic cloud in the form of shopping mall sized inventories. I think the next big step in Open World RPGaming should be city complexity. By this i fundamentally mean understanding and implementing the core social functions any medium sized city performs.

The new economy systems goes right up that road and i'm all the more gald for it.

I would like as big as Los Santos in San Andreas, I don't know in square miles but I remember it took some time to wander around the city on foot.

Where did you get that information? Because from what we have seen of Markarth and (solitude?), the cities are incredibly large, IC size at least.

Well now its no longer a ruin every three seconds so we'll have over duble space...