» Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:39 pm Okay then buddy, I'll stop trying to lessen your fears by telling you silly things like facts. Yes, Bethesda approved everything Obsidian did, from every building placed to every Molerat spawned. Obsidian asked if a thousand invisible walls was enough and Bethesda said "Better make it 2000." When Obsidian tried to make the map as interesting and entertaining to explore as Fallout 3, Bethesda got angry and told them to scrap the whole thing because it wasn't boring enough. These are lies, but it seems like these are what you want to hear, so there you go. :thumbsup:
Why all the hate on Obsidian? I found New Vegas' map to be 10x better than that of FO3. The towns all had roads connecting them, there were visual markers indicating the danger of certain areas without breaking immersion, every town has some source of water and food. Most places had a economic function and role in the greater fabric of the game world and a historical origin explaining where they came from, with logical reasons for why they had the traits and mannerisms they showed. Pretty much none of that was true for FO3.
I'm certainly hope that Skyrim has communities more like NV than FO3. Oblivion had some character to various cities with obvious shiping locations, vineyards, a college of magic, etc... but they could no much more. Skyrim should have coastal cities bringing in large amounts of fish, with them being cheaper there and prevalent in most peoples homes. Other comminites should be near mines, where iron is actively being extraced and numerous blacksmiths and armorers in the area making items for export. Near forests there should be men cutting down trees and lumber and wooden crafts like bows, furniture, etc...be exported.
I'd happily take a logical functional game world, even at the expense of a bunch of map space. The whole, "Is the map bigger than last time?" thing really makes no sense to me anyway. I don't need or want a bigger map. I don't have 200 hours to play in a fantasy world. I want a world that is immersive, rich, imaginative, and fun. If its big, fine I can make my character walk a bit, but I don't see that as a plus/minus. I bought the Gothic pack (1/2/3) through Steam's sale this week. I've just started Gothic 1, and yeah it's way smaller than TES games, but the town works just fine, and the writing/vioce acting are fine, so I don't have any problem with it.
