If you look at the official map of Tamriel then it shows Skyrim as being about two thirds of the land mass of Cyrodil if they were both flat, however as Skyrim is mountainous it has alot of land area that is going to consist of steep hills and slopes. These slopes are going to take up less area in a two dimensional map but more land area three dimensionally. Even counting that to make it roughly the same size I think they're having more large settlements than Oblivion had.

I think what is going to happen is that the area is going to be less landmass but with the mountains containing things on their slopes and acting as natural barriers to force travel around them rather than enabling more or less direct paths everywhere, it will be made to feel roughly the same size as Oblivion. They might also have more extensive internal areas than Oblivion that are instanced from outside world, at least I'm lead to believe they are instanced as they were in Oblivion and Morrowind. Roughly the same size could also mean, less area but more stuff within that area.

Oblivion's size didn't bother me. It was the fact that the first time you've stepped outside you've basically seen everything. The overworld in Cyrodiil was very dull. Even the deadlands felt repetitive after a while. I'm excited for Skyrim's variety. If there are less dungeons, then I'm hoping they will be more creative. It's not like I've explored every last cave and fortress in Cyrodiil anyways.

EDIT- Let me rephrase that. Cyrodil wasn't dull at all. I liked the wide open field with several trees here and there. It's just a shame that there wasn't much variety.

What?

Instanced essentially means isolated from. In Oblivion and Morrowind when you enter a building you are in a confined area, you can't see or interact with the world outside, you are infact on a seperate map. Unlike games where the inside of a building occupies an area of space in the main game world.

Mountains.

Remember, it takes longer to go from one side of the Morrowind map to the other than it does in Oblivion, because mountains mean you need to find ways under, around or through the mountains. Therefore a map of the same size as Oblivion's, with mountains instead of mostly flatlands, would mean that it will take much longer to find everything.

Maybe they build in the height? :tongue:

I found Oblivion to be nicely varied and more importantly, nicely blended and natural feeling. Only problem I had was the snowy regions up north which happened way too abruptly. Similar to FONVs "Red Rock Canyon starts at this rock".

I'm not sure I agree on this "illusion of size" thesis being anything good. Morrowind channelized you into specific ways of moving, which became tedious and boring. Oblivion had a lot less of this and allowed much more freely how you choose to get to a point, which allowed you to discover new locations. I have mixed feelings about FONV. On one hand, I *hate* the idea of invisible blocks to force/channel you into a certain approach of getting there. On the other hand, I think it's amazing what they achieved with such a boring concept as desert mountains and barred wasteland.

Oblivion had "you can see one landmark from any location", whereas FONV had "you can see several landmarks from most locations". Pretty neat, but I don't think this will make it into Skyrim.

They say roughly that may be meant as a slight joke as in mountainous, I was trained in topography (map reading/making) and I can tell you if you take skyrim and flattened it, it would dwarf oblivions size to at least half, so dont worry about size too much as it is really quite relative.

They're talking about dungeons, so add forts and mines to that and you should get about 200

ok, but i think that smaller is better:

80 caves less than oblivion and 4 more devs than oblivion working on them just can mean one thing: the best cave exploration of your whole lifes

i prefeer that rather than 1000 caves that looks all equal

also they said that you can travel over or under the mountains so that add one basemant level to the map increasing the map size.

Morrowind was just as cluttered, but without the magical all knowing compass you wound up missing most of the locations. Then when you found one it felt like actual exploration, not following an arrow like a drone.

TBH in oblivion I felt like I was playing in a bowl. I don't mind if they slam a lot of nodes on the map, I'd rather have places to go.

Oblivion was cramped? What?!

If anything it was the entire opposite, it was too big and empty. I played it for a long time but haven't explored all of it because there's just nothing to explore.
Fallout 3, and Morrowind was smaller but felt bigger, because it was more varied.

I'd have to agree. I didn't like Oblivion’s 'illusion of distance' because it was a very poor illusion. You could see all the roads twisted and turned to add the illusion of walking more distance. You could see that the capital city was smack dab in the middle for many vantage points and that you were not very far from it even on the edges of the map.

To be honest I would have like a bigger map with stuff far more spread out even if that means the game isn't tossing tons of content at me every two minutes. Heck it isn’t even the size that annoys me; it the poor illusion of trying to make the map ‘seem’ bigger that annoys me. If they figure a map this size is what they can do in a certain amount of time for a certain budget then do that and make the story conform to a location that is a small island instead of faking an entire country in 4 sq miles of virtual space.

Gamers are more sophisticated about map configurations and as other have said there are games out there that do have bigger maps, so I think the possibility that people will be disappointed in the size isn't too far off.

Too late now, but at least they know that for TES 6

This

Whenever I got near the edge of the map, all I saw was mountains (besides a small part at Anvil where it was water instead) Having non- mountainous natural barriers would be sweet. An example would be the new trailer. If that sheer cliff (where the player faced off against the dragon) was one of the natural barriers that stopped you from "escaping" that would be sick. Having a huge rapidly flowing river could be another barrier. As long as it's different than climbing a mountain until it says you can't anymore, I'll be happy

you remember in oblivion ho you actually had to explore to find the places...well tihkn that the distances between places are smaller...there you have skyrim

Many areas in Oblivion was cramped with dungeons, mostly around the cities, quite possible to back away from one location and run into another location.
Other far away locations areas could need more dungeons as they felt a bit empty.

With the mountains though who knows what kind of special locations they have cooked up. Exploring every nook and cranny could be very special in this game. Anyone else agree?

I liked the Oblivion world; however I loved the Morrowind one. The variation made Morrowind's world feel larger and more enjoyable to explore than Oblivion's. From what we have seen in the new trailer and screenshots, the landscape looks better than both Oblivion and Morrowind, in my opinion.

Yes Skyrims world is looking very, very nice thus far. It's oozing with personality from just the trailer bits. Can't wait to have the whole thing open to all of us to explore on 11.11.11!

That's what I'm really excited about. You know there's going to be tons of hidden caves / ruins hidden away far up the mountains, or at least I hope!

I wouldn't worry too much. I have total faith in them when it comes to the design of the world.

A thought occurs...what if you have a barrier before actually reaching the physical barrier? A rapidly flowing river is a great example. Make it so that it feels like you can't go any farther (the rapids are very strong after a certain point), but don't physically limit the player until after they go way out of bounds.

I can't believe what I'm reading.
I mean... Do people really want less dungeons in Skyrim compared to Oblivion ?
WTF people,one of Oblivion's main featers was that it had some of the most dense worlds in video games.
I mean,more dungeons gives us more things to do,and that's something good right ?
Why some of you want the number of dungeons to be reduced ?
I don't get it.
Don't you afraid that with fewer dungeons and stuff the world is going to feel empty ?

I had the feel of an empty world before when I played TLOZ:Twilight Princess which featured a huge landmass but with less than half the quests and secrets of past games like OOT,and it felt bad,kind of dissapointing.
I don't want to have the same feeling of emptyness in Skyrim.
How can some people ask for LESS content in their games ?
:shakehead: :whistling:

Somewhere between Morrowind, which didn't have enough dungeons, and New Vegas, which had way too many.

Would you really prefer 200 dungeons, some very small, and many of them very similar, all made by one guy in a hurry, to 130 larger, more individual dungeons, made by 8 guys who are not hurrying to meet a console launch?