Ok, lets remove all hand placed creatures and NPC′s. And eliminate every dungeon and fill cities with random peds with no names nor dialogue and all with the same behavior. Let′s also remove quests and let′s have "mission givers" who are not to be found on the gameworld and wich you can′t interact to. Lets remove all wilderness encounters, we can replace them with a few types of randomly generated quests. BUT, at the expense of all that we can have a big map, a boring, lifeless big map.

BTW, i don′t want you to think that i don′t like RDR or JC2, its just that they are sandbox action games...not RPG′s. They don′t require the same kind of depth that an RPG does.
And its not just that, its also the amount of work that each company has to put to fill the gameworld. With the way Bethesda makes games, they just can′t create a huge map.

The size of maps does not determine a games quality single-handedly.

There are two problems I have with the new information:

1) Same size as Oblivion:

A) Oblivion felt really cramped up. Dungeons everywhere, and you could run through the entire map within 10-15 minutes.
B] You could also almost see the whole map from a single spot. With Skyrim having even bigger draw distance, you'd most likely see everywhere from a single spot.
C) Furthermore, there could be no real, massive landscape. No huge mountains would fit within that area of about 41 square kilometers. "Thanks" to this, we won't be able to experience landscapes like http://www.cpawsbc.org/files/athead_Valley_from_Global_TV_helicopter_ride.jpg or http://www.ozoneeleven.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Mountain_Valley_1600-x-1200.jpg

2) 130 dungeons in the game:

A) Oblivion felt really cramped up. Dungeons everywhere. You would stumble upon a dungeon almost every 30 seconds (or even less) if you ran. This made the game feel unrealistic.
B] Combined with the same size of Oblivion, though with about 70 less dungeons (Oblivion had about 200), the rarity of finding dungeons will almost be gone. Some people think having lots of dungeons is good; and so do I, but not so it feels cramped up and like a chore that you face every 30 second.".
C) That being said; I want dungeons to be more spread out, and with 130 dungeons within about 41 square kilometers, I don't see that happening. And that makes me sad.

To avoid confusion:

Oblivion felt REALLY cramped up due to its size of 41 square kilometers and it having about 200 dungeons.
I think Skyrim will also feel cramped up due to its size of about 41 square kilometers (like Oblivion), and have about 130 dungeons. It will just feel LESS cramped up, but STILL categorized as cramped up - in my opinion.
And that's what I don't like, plus with not being able to see great, huge landscapes like I linked to. And I also believe that Oblivion's feeling of dungeons becoming a chore might risk happening in Skyrim as well.

you are just trolling, as I didn't say anything about the details in the game. I'm more into realistic world where there aren't a dungeon each 10 meters, thanks.

Wait, you're complaining about a claustrophobic environment, when the game world is as large as OB, AND it has 40% less dungeons...

I'm confused.

Where did I say such a thing ? but, FOR ME, large realistic gameworld greatly enhances immersion.

Oblivion has more square miles than Morrowind and Fallout3....how can your "heart sink" after hearing this news?...its great news.

If Skyrim = Oblivion then you could look at Skyrim as being Cyrodill's map with the Niben sliced off and tacked on top of Colovia to make a rectangle shaped landmass. I'm hoping for something a bit bigger and if Skyrim North-to-South could equal Cyrodilll East-to-West, then I think that would be perfect.

I'm absolutely not trolling. I was just commenting on the very heavy implication in your previous post that a large gameplay world is the defining characteristic of a game such as Skyrim, and at the same time, you batted away the issue that an ES game has far more detailed characters, quests, locations, and lore, just to mention a few topics.

There are a few points people who are okay with Skyrim's size are not thinking about.

-Can you put >130 dungeons in a world that size without it feeling cramped? Will the dungeons feel too close together?

-Will each different terrain feel small, reducing perceived size of the entire game world?

-How can you make mountains that feel epic with a world the size of Cyrodiil, without making lower lying areas seem small (And it looks Skyrim has A LOT of mountains)?

It may be too soon to tell, but I think it might be a mistake to judge Skyrim's size due to the judgement of one author (I have heard that Game Informer has made mistakes before). To me, it just doesn't seem logical. To me, realistically, you would need a game world 50% bigger than Cyrodiil to account for all of the different terrain (mountains, canyon, forest, ice/snow, etc.)

I will wait until we have word from more journalists before I make a judgement on Skyrim's size.

Not a claustrophobic environment... that's exaggerating.
Just cramped up. LESS cramped up than the REALLY cramped up Oblivion. But, nonetheless, still cramped up.

I edited my post to avoid confusion.

And these two games don't even have a quarter of what Oblivion or skyrim will offer in term of interaction with npc.
You just roam around and shoot everything in these two games. Quests are given by like 5 npc, the rest are just here to make the world pretty. Stop screwing around, the map may be huge but it's as alive as [censored].

SKyrim's world being the same size as Oblivion (if it is), is not a problem for me. I thought the world size in Oblivion was fine. I do not want to spend a lot of time walking around not seeing anything. Empty space just for the sake of empty space is not appealing to me. I prefer to spend my time in games enjoying content.

Don't get me wrong, I'd enjoy a larger setting, if it was filled with good content. But I am not disappointed and do not feel like Bethesda is "selling out" just because the map size is the same. As others have said, the issue with Oblivion was not the size of the world, it was the blandness of it. It didn't really have the character that Morrowind did. Just looking at the screenshots, seeing the more naturalistic color pallet, the character models, I think Skyrim is going to have more character, at least from a visual stand point. The music, with the chorus, definitely has a strong perspective. So I am optimistic, as far as the character and the style of the game are concerned. Those were my biggest complaints about Oblivion (which I did truly enjoy).

You did actually, read your own posts.

Red Dead Redemption (RDR) is almost as big as Oblivion when it comes to being an RPG-alike game. Lots of quests. Lots of places. Lots and lots of stuff to do. Awesome graphics and a huge world. Almost 2x the size of Oblivion.
RDR is fully comparable with TES in this situation.

Just Cause 2 can't be fully compared. It doesn't really have any RPG features.

What this guy says.

The problem with oblivions world was that it was too boring and uninteresting, Skyrim will look awesome and if it is the same size as oblivion, it will be a beautiful gaming experience.

TES cannot be compared to Just Cause 2. I have played both series avidly and like them both however they are two different games. It is like saying that Just Cause 2's combat isn't as immersive as a dedicated shooter like call of duty.

RDR is 28 square miles compared to Oblivion which is 16 square miles. But RDR is all desert, not much detail to have to work on so they could make a large world without cutting that much into development time not to mention the lack of unique NPCs and what not. It's really not fair to try to compare them. However, it has not been said that Oblivion and Skyrim are the same size, it was said in a Dutch magazine that it looks like they are about the same size, which could mean that Skyrim is still bigger. The only way to really tell is if someone tweets a dev or Pete Hines and asks what the game world size is.

I really don't understand why y'all feel like Oblivion was cramped up?

Was it like: "Oh, a cave...but I don't feel like I've been running far enough since I saw the last one. I would have liked to run a little further without seeing anything." Something like that? How far between caves is acceptable? 1 minute of running? 2 minutes of running?

When I left one cave and ran for a while without seeing anything, and I then found another one, I was like "SWEET, another cave!" I wasn't really concerned with the amount of time that had elapsed transporting myself between those two caves.

There are more than two dimensions. Skyrim is much more vertical than Cyrodiil was. There's plenty of room for content to me "multiplexed" in nooks and crannies all over the place. Plus, there are fewer dungeons in Skyrim (roughly 130 to Oblivion's 223, not counting Oblivion gates.) So things will be at least slightly more spread out. Lastly, "about the same size as Oblivion" could mean slightly larger for all we know. I'm not worried about this, personally. (YET. I need to see some gameplay.)

This. The people that complain about Oblivion having too many dungeons are the same people that claim that Oblivion was a terrible game because it was lacking content....Please get your stories straight people.

Oh yes, its much bigger, with half of it blocked off by invisible borders.

I won't be surprised if they say something like "we only have about 400 npcs in Skyrim, but we made them more realistic!" (read: they get an extra dialogue slot; enjoy your Solitude; Population: 20)

it lacked content because a lot the dungeons felt the same

There was a mod for Oblivion that made the world twice as large, and the same author made a four times larger version which he shared with me. It really made the game feel much more realistic and actually gave Oblivion that 'Morrowind Magic' feeling. I would be interested in doing a mod like this for Skyrim right off, I may make a thread about this, but until then let me know if you are interested.