It does seem a bit odd that there's only one stall/shop for each thing. Isn't there competition for business in Skyrim? It would be pretty easy to fix with mods, though; just throw in some more stalls, the voices are all the same anyway.

Size wise? Roughly the same. (Not including the Imperial City) However, in Skyrim they have FAR more depth. In the Imperial city, there were plenty of shop owners sure, but they were just generic people who stood around at their shop all day and never did anything or talked to you about anything. In Skyrim every person has a story or quest or something to go along with them. There are also far more people in each town, and they actually all have houses instead of just a bed behind the counter.

I am not claiming that Lore wise Riften should be anywhere near the size of the IC. The Lore says that IC should be the size of New York. I am saying that Beth. should have made all of the cities in Skyrim a little more populated and larger area wise in order to preserve immersion and realism.

Riften is smaller than that in my opinion.

Did you read my other post it does not matter its supposed to be smaller.

Oblivions map is just as big as Skyrim and Cyrodiil is a lot bigger than Skyrim.

But more is more, but sadly are cities lack size and diversity. They are diverse right now, but they also could have been diverse even if they were bigger.

Why play video games at all? Why not just play paper games or even play with paper dolls? You can fill a city with filler but it won't add to the game in any meaningful way. I'd rather a game entertain me with more content then shower me with fluff.

In the real world, would you ever get to know the checkout boy at Wal Mart? Will you ever learn his backstory? No. Most are just generic people who stand around their shop all day and never do anything or talk to you about anything. Bethesda did well by including the NPC shop owners with quests. Now they should have just included 3-6 more in each city that are "generic" if only for realism's sake.

The immersion is in that they ARE smaller. It's an iceland. Hardly anyone but Nords live there! That's how I see it at least. If they're were a metropolis...immersion wouldn't even take place.

remember Vivec? now that was a city!

But adding these things DOES add to the game in a meaningful way. Immersion is part of the game as well, no? Take a look at Oblivion's Better Cities mod. It doesn't add anything with much depth, and none of the NPCs are very meaningful. But the game seems filled with so much more. Everything is much more real. This is why I loved Morrowind's cities as well.

Yes it was and Balmora.

It really doesn't bother me. Firstly, it is Skyrim, home to the Nords, where as Cyrodill was the heart of the empire, so grandeur was apropos to Oblivion. To be honest, I found it tedious after a few visits to 7 different shops for my needs in Oblivion. But what turned me off most about Oblivion's shops/vendors, is that you could spam as much coin as you wanted, they had unlimited cash to give in return for your goods. Being that I could find/loot better items from the world itself then I could buy from vendors, I typically only went to one store to unload most everything. If I needed it back, I could go back there and that vendor would still have it, even though most items I sold them weren't their specialty. At least in Skyrim, you cannot spam coin endlessly as the vendor only has so much coin to give in trade.

Honestly though, it is a matter of perspective. I won't say that anyone is right or wrong for liking the differences between the two games. I loved Oblivion, but some of it was total over-kill.

What I'm saying is that everything should be scaled up within the game's limitations. All of the cities should be the size of the average Oblivion city. The game can handle it.

This. They're actually holds, not cities.



You are aware Whiterun isn't the capital of the entire empire while Imperial city is, correct? Whiterun is a hold that controls the trade, business and protection of it's respective boundaries. Imperial City is the capital of the entire empire. It would make sense for Whiterun to be smaller in size than the capital of any area. Solitude is the capital of Skyrim it's rather large. Not the size of the Imperial City, but why would it be?

for me the cities are without a doubt the most disappointing part of skyrim so far. Skyrim's dungeons are unbelievable great. The exterior world is nice too. The cities however are soo small. Oblivion's cities are considerably better in my opinion.

The "cities" in Skyrim are supposed to be holds, not in essence full cities. In Oblivion the empire was still strong and Cyrodiil was the heart of that empire. It makes perfect sense for those cities to be larger and more upbeat. While there's of course things that could be change, I'm in no way saying that the game is 100% the best and you're a tard for not thinking that too, it just goes along with the times, and the area for me. It's not really a problem.

It would be good if cities were the only thing that got cut down over releases.. :shakehead:

No, you're misinformed. They are cities. They govern a hold which is like a province.



We all agree that none of the cities should be the size of IC. However, if everything was scaled up it would only serve to improve immersion and realism.

To paraphrase Jack Nicholson- "Xbox 360 can't handle bigger cities!"

I laughed out loud.

xbox360 and ps3 can't handle bigger cities. its simple as that.

Yeah because asking everyone about the same rumors is just as in-depth. The cities are FAR better. Though they could use better service at the shops.

Bet it could have.


It could have if they tried. But they chose not to take extra time to do it.

I thought this too but wasn't sure. It's funny how we overestimate the systems as if they were super powerful.

I believe, and this is just opinion, that some NPCs shouldn't have depth. Some should be like there were in Oblivion and Morrowind. I'm not disagreeing that we should also have some with depth, and I believe that Skyrim does a good job at this.

YES! I absolutely loved Vivec!