1) In short, it felt cramped up because of http://s2.n4g.com/media/11/newssi/15000/18861_0_org.jpg.
Almost everywhere was a dungeon or ruin.
This is not fun to me because of:
A) It's unrealistic. There shouldn't be big underground caverns every 100 feet. Even though this is a fantasy (even low-fantasy) based game, there should be some logic.
B] I think it spoils the "fun" of finding a dungeon. I'm not saying they should be rare. Just more spread out. And for 130 dungeons to be spread out, there really should be more than about 41 square kilometers of space.
C) I really hate the feeling of a world being cramped up. I hate when it feels as if the developers have tried to fit as much as possible in a small area as possible.

This is just me though. Some may like the feeling of it being cramped up and say "Wow! I just saw 4 dungeons in one minute! COOL!". I don't like it, for above reasons. In addition, a world being cramped up in size hurts (and makes it even impossible) the experience of great, massive landscapes as I wrote in my post in page 3. You'll never able to have great, majestic mountains or valleys.

SmkViper is viewing... Will we get an official release? :wink_smile:

What fascinates me is that many people complained about Morrowind being too spread out and not having enough content. People said, "Sure, Morrowind is huge, but most of that is just unused space. What good is that?" Oblivion was significantly larger, and more packed with content, and people were upset by this evidently.

So now with Skyrim, we're getting a game the same size of Oblivion (roughly,) with more verticality (another important measure of "room" beyond just how many sq miles the map is,) and roughly 90 fewer dungeons. 90. Look at a map of Oblivion and imagine it having 90 fewer dungeons, and being much more vertical so that those dungeons are all at different altitudes. That's still not large enough?

Oh well. Different strokes for different folks. Respect.

No reason for it to not be bigger. You don't get less content by making a game world larger, they have more people so it's not going to be less detailed or "unique" than Oblivion, mountains are just going to make it seem even smaller as the "mountains" in Oblivion felt tiny. There's no technical reason it couldn't be bigger, Red Dead Redemption and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood are both twice the size of Oblivion, Just Cause 2 a hundred times the size.

I re-iterate that Bethesda just seems to be doing what they're "comfortable" with rather than what could make the game better.

Indeed, what you are describing is really just different opinions and many of them spurious fleeting away the moment they are communicated.

I don't know why it felt like they were the same to some people because none of them were the same.



I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that Morrowind was bigger than Oblivion? Well seeing as how Oblivion was 60% larger than Morrowind, I think we can safely say it wasn't. Also, half of it being blocked off by invisible walls? What? The only parts blocked off by invisible walls were the other provinces. If you have ever opened the world sandbox, you would see that there is not much land past the invisible barriers before it drops off into nothingness. It is just supposed to look like there is much more land beyond the barrier to make it feel believable.

alright then, I'll let myself be convinced by your arguments...

OMG!! THIS IS SO [censored] UNNACCEPTABLE!!! I'M GONNA SUE BETHESDA FOR FORCING ME TO PLAY A GAME THAT HAS CONTENT IN IT!!! DAMN!!! I WANT ONLY ONE DUNGOEN IN THE WHOLE GAME!! GIVEN THE WORLD'S SIZE' I'M GONNA FIND IT SOON AND SEE IT OFTEN ANYWAYS!!!!!

seriously, calm the [censored] down! Oblivion felt cramped up because dungeons weren't that fun after a while. and every place looked same. Skyrim is supposed to have variety, which means that even if it's a bit cramped up, it'll feel a lot more fun.
I know they were really close in oblivion, but I don't want to walk 50 miles just to see a single one either.
and besides, there's NOTHING telling you that it'll be spread out evenly. maybe there'll be 3-4 on the same mountain, none on the other.
have a little faith people! are you fans of TES because you love the games, or because you like to whine?

Can someone tweet Pete about this? Maybe he can shed a little more light on it than a translated Dutch article.

But another thing that you guys have to think about is that they have said Skyrim has a bigger draw/view distance. In OB you could see the whole map from one spot. So if SKyrim is the same size/smaller, AND it has a bigger draw distance, it's going to feel very very small.

This is seriously going to be Oblivion 2.5 -- pretty much the same graphics (VERY slightly updated) and the same size game world, and it's on the same consoles as OB.

Every day more and more disappointing info comes out about Skyrim, and every day I want the game less and less.

People aren't mad about fast travel. They're mad that the dev's scrapped Morrowind's travel mechanics, and sort of mainstreamed the entire game, because you can just *click*, and *poof* you're there. They dumbed down the game/environment because of fast travel.

Bigger does not equal better. I'm fine with it being the same size as long as it isn't all the same, which it isn't.

You must not be reading about the same Skyrim I am, every time I hear something new about it I am more excited and hopeful! This installment of the Elder Scrolls could potentially be the best of the series, a title many here believe is held by Morrowind.

Really, that sounds neat, did it work seamlessly, as if the game was made that way to start?

also, one thing people seem to forget: with then es things you get to do (smithing, woodcutting, cooking, stuff like that) you'll probably be spending a lot more time at the same places. this adds a lot of depth, and makes small places seem bigger suddenly

People who think like you scare me. How can you say it's the same graphics? Not only can they easily update and improve the textures, but they have a completely new system, so all the models in the game look completely different. This game is going to have the highest-end graphics a game can.

The size might be the same, but there are mountains and valleys, instead of plains and hills, so it will definitely feel bigger. Not only that, but you have no idea at what speed your character will move and how he/she will interact with the environment. Morrowind was smaller than Oblivion, but felt much bigger.

They've completely overhauled the combat, magic, and stealth components of gameplay, as well as NPC interaction and dialogue, AND they've added Radiant Story and improved Radiant AI, yet you say it's the same game? They changed EVERYTHING about the game, but because the people don't look exactly like real-life, you say it's the same game...

Oblivion came out on the Xbox 360 when the devs only had SIX MONTHS to learn and work with the system's technology. To think they won't have learned out to utilize the system's full capabilities, ad that the game will be at the same level as Oblivion, is completely unintelligent embarrassing on your part.

Stop crying, wait until you've actually seen ANY glimpses of gameplay before you pass your almighty judgement on it.

/rant.

It worked just fantastic actually! The mod was a proof of concept and didn't reach its full potential, so it wasn't popular and didn't catch on with many of the modders. There were also limits of the Construction Set that made large mountains have some clipping issues and a few other graphical problems. I tried working with the four times scale and was planning on porting all of the vanilla elements properly over (like quests, also certain meshes needed to be re-sized back to normal scale to look proper).

In short, the mod was very doable on PC and had a lot of potential. If I had discovered it earlier in Oblivion's release history it would be a finished product today. But I think I am going to hold out until Skyrim is released and actually do work on porting vanilla to a larger world.

You are certainly free to be disappointed by the content announced so far (even though we haven't seen the game and are working off relatively vague descriptions thus far,) but I think saying that the graphics and gameplay are only very slightly updated is a fallacious statement in my opinion.

Graphics: It's an entirely new engine designed from the ground up. No remnants of Gamebryo remain. Speedtree isn't being used to generate the trees anymore. Water actually flows and trickles, now. Lighting and shadowing are different now (I can't link to scans, but the best example I've seen of this so far are the Game Informer print magazine screenshots; you see the player character's musculature painted with subtle shadows and varying lighting; it looks clearly advanced compared to Oblivion in my opinion.) Facial structures are more realistic and have bone structure now. We can clearly see this in the bar maiden screenshot. Havok behavior (not just physics) handles animations now.

Gameplay: Gameplay sounds completely reworked to me. Magic has different secondary (and even environmental) effects, such as temporarily persistent burning. Leveling works completely differently. Combat is more timing-based now. It sounds like magicka doesn't auto-regenerate anymore. There are dragons flying around the world attacking cities. Skills have been reorganized, as have perks. The menu interface has been completely redesigned. There are dynamic quest locations, now. Killing quest givers doesn't prevent you from receiving a quest as a relative can step in and take their place, but will have negative feelings toward you for killing them. NPCs react differently to you based on their past experiences with you (i.e. inviting you to lodge in their home at night rather than kicking you out just because it's after curfew.)

How is this Oblivion 2.5? If anything, some of those changes are brave, because a lot of people are angered by them. I'm not attacking you or trying to invalidate your opinion. You have the right to it and I respect it. But I just don't see it, personally.

On topic though: I still say that the increased veriticality of Skyrim combined with there being 90 (roughly) fewer dungeons should make an impact in terms of how spaced out content feels. And as I said earlier, a lot of people complained that Morrowind was too spread out. They have to find a balance.

I loved RDR but it had no where near the amount of content Oblivion did. When I first got RDR I went exploring and found the Old Bachus Place, you know what was there? Nothing, just like every other location in the game you could go there and look around, but that's about it. There was nothing at those loctions to interact with except maybe a chest with 20 bucks in it. It's a great game but it' not an RPG and I'd say it has about 25% of the quests oblivion did if it's lucky.

It's the amount of content that counts. Around 15 square miles (40 square kilometers) isn't bad at all. More than 130 dungeons, neither. If there are hundreds of side-quests and NPCs with many lines of dialogue, it certainly won't feel small.

Sounds neat, I will try it out if you make a working fairly polished version.

And its more like 160 fewer dungeons if the numbers are correct, why do people keep ignoring Ob gates in there totals.

Morrowind had smaller land size than Oblivion, so why did it feel bigger.

• Fog and mountains: You did not see from one end of the world to the other end in one glance.
  
• No fast travel: You had to plan the routes, and travel by following travel routes, instead of jumping instantly to the other end of the map.
  
• Hidden uncharted map: You started off with a blank map that did not show anything until you discovered it yourself.
  
• Slower game mechanism for events and encounters that let you look around and take in the scenery. In Oblivion you jumped from one hasty action to another.

Provide these parameters for Skyrim and the game will seem huge.

I wondered how long it would be before the PC snobs blamed consoles for this. Four posts. Well done. :brokencomputer:

Agreed. It would feel much, much too empty if the map was larger than Oblivion's unless they spent twice as much time on the game.

If its gonna be the size of Oblivion's world, then it should be vastly more detailed than Morrowind and Oblivion combined.

This. The perspective of the player can have more of an impact than the actual map size.

In addition, the few that are wondering how the numerous mountains in Skyrim will be handled might be surprised. Even though New Vegas was not developed by Bethesda, it did show that an excellent distant rendering system can really increase the size perspective. Even though the New Vegas map was smaller, the actual visuals of distant towns and objects were rendered much better than in Oblivion. I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar system implemented in Skyrim. Even though the mountain is only a 1,000 ft. high, it might feel like 7,000. Towns in the valleys might appear to be smaller than they would be in reality.

-RDST

I would say the main reason is none of these, its the way the world was designed, you could not walk in a straight line anywhere. Look at a game like Risen, very small for an open world game, but it feels larger because to get anywere you have to take a very circuitous route, same with Gothic 3.