» Sat May 28, 2011 12:45 pm
There are a lot of places to climb up steeply to reach peaks. In most situations, there aren't going to be 7,000 direct steps leading to a summit, but a cascading array of diagonally slashing "switchbacks" going up to the top. Since each switchback doubles back upon itself, the amount of distance is greatly exxagerated at the cost of a reduce in steepness. I'm sure many of the mountain ranges require following a path of switchbacks to reach the top, and those will greatly increase the distance one travels to reach them. It will feel larger just in this one way.
In Lord of the Rings, they tried to go over the mountain and it was too difficult due to snow (and Suraman, also, hahaha) and so they went back down and went THROUGH the mountains. Since they are apparently hinting (from the trailer) at bringing the Dwemer dungeons back, it's also possible there are some kind of elaborate "Moria-style" dungeon mines to traverse, which may be very a large underworld in which to get lost for weeks if it's a real underground city of lost Dwemer peoples. If each Mountain had its own cave system (quite possible with such mountains, especially since there needs to be a place for all of the these dragons to actually LIVE away from prying eyes -- horde treasure, sleep undisturbed, etc) then it seems quite likely to me.
There is a Sprint Feature now, so you will be able to run faster, but you could use a horse before to run faster, and it still seemed pretty big in Oblivion even by horse. This world has some mountains that are so large you could never climb them in the game ... they appear to be borders blotting out the sky, and they are so awesome!
Go back and take a long look at the Todd Howard Skyrim Wall Map in their office. Look at all the mountains. Look at all the places. Look at how they are seperated and walled off from each other. Look at how diverse it all appears. It's just not the same as Cyrodyl at ALL.
Look at the Concept Art for this game on their own website. It has some very interesting places that look like Lord of the Rings places like the Rohirim's castle on the hill, and Dwarven-style ruins, and places with huge columns a giant could walk under standing straight up.
I think you are all way overthinking this size thing. They've played the game at Bethesda, I'm sure. If they felt is was too small, they would add more until it felt geographically diverse and large enough to satisfy this game's requirements and possibly a bit more.
Here's to hoping, anyway!