On randomly generated terrain, a good way thins could be done is "Islanding".

Using this method only parts of the game world are preset like towns and major roads, zones between them however can be randomly generated.
A forest for example, the edge of the forest running along the preset main road is set already and doesn't change, however a few cells into the forest the terrain is randomly generated.

Within those randomly generated zones there can also be set zones like a old ruin for example.
The game could even create paths automatically by connecting point A and point B and then just create a road between them, if it meets a big obstacle it placed in the way (like a large boulder) it curves the road to go around it.

That way you could focus creative energy on detailing out a relatively small area and leave the "wild" zones open to be randomly generated from set seeds.


Also note I don't mean "it gets randomly generated every time you walk through it" but more it gets generated as you start up the game, it could save that as a BSA file you can simply use later on again to load your game from if you liked the area it generated. Or let the game calculate a new layout in which it could even be possible that some locations have changed position.

Exactly. Daggerfall itself was literally the size of britain. Even that was unessecccary. If Daggerfall hadn't had the system where it showed us all the locations in each region, no one would bother going anywhere they didn't need to. The world is far too big for walking exploration. It could take a real life day to get to somewhere. Now imagine if it was even bigger? Like the size of Alaska...

I would definatly say slightly bigger than the oblivion map.but ot as big as daggerfell.if you do it that big the maps seams to lose its originality and its just not made correctly. i want unique cities but i dont want 2 of them i want about 10.

too big= :facepalm: (havent i seen you before)
too small= :banghead: (im sure the other edge of the map was just 5 minutes away)

perfect= :thumbsup:

I need a more realistic size. Oblivion tried to be a whole continent, but was really just the size of a medium sized island. I found the twisty roads and strategicly placed hills in Oblivion patronizing and annoying. If they only want make s small island of content, then be honest and say "This is a small island." But if they want to make a whole country then they need to make the map 10x bigger. I honestly loved walking every inch of Oblivion and I rather would have preferred everything even more spread out with straighter roads on a 10x scale map. I want it to take an 90 min, not just 20 minutes to walk a straight line from one side of the map to another.

I have to say.. I am face palming at the poll right now. I bet 90% of those votes for "Even Bigger" come from those who haven't properly played Daggerfall.

Have you properly played Daggerfall? No one needs to play much of Daggerfall to know it is extremely bland, so I'm not quite sure why anyone who has ever touched Daggerfall would want a map larger than Daggerfall's, unless they aren't considering blandness. If Bethesda could somehow make a game with Morrowind/Oblivion's quality and large amount of locations in a small area and Daggerfall's size, every Elder Scrolls fan would probably want it, but due to current technological limits, that isn't possible.

Hmm? I have, and that's why I vote Morrowind/Oblivion scale.

The reason I ask is because you implied that you didn't in previous posts.

In my previous posts, I was stating that consoles couldn't handle larger games, and a smaller game would be needed. (Not getting back into the argument <_<)

Meh. :shrug:

Big enough to make a horse useful.

It's not the size of the game that makes horses useful, it's the speed of the player. In Oblivion I ran far too fast to need a horse, and it was more of an inconvenience to get on the horse than anything. I also hated the way the horse worked. It was too much of a hassle. Not sure how to explain it, or how to fix it. But that's why I'm not a game developer.

I definitely think Morrowind and Cyrodiil were of a good size. Too big and the depth and detail will start to suffer, not to mention it will take longer to do and take up more disc space. The key to making the world feel bigger is GETTING RID OF OBLIVION STYLE FAST TRAVEL!!! It really shrinks the world, much better to have to hop on a silt strider or similar to get as close as you can to your location and walking the rest of the way, than to click twice and you're there.

No, I was referring to you saying you can't play Daggerfall because its graphics are too old, or something like that.

I think people might not read the poll correctly, and when they actually say "even bigger than Daggerfall" they mean "Even bigger than Morrowind/Oblivion", I don't even know why you would include "bigger than Daggerfall" as a possibility, except as a joke.

I vote for slightly bigger than Oblivion. Here's why. Morrowind felt bigger. But you also had less view distance, which is bad, and slower move speed, which is bad. What I didn't like about Oblivion was that I could see the mountains across the map...but then the trees would "pop" into place. So, you either set the "fog" just before the "popping distance" or you use the trick where you can see everything from a distance, but its generated at a much lower resolution...like, each tree is 3 pixels high when you look at the edge of the map...then as you get closer, more and more pixels are added, until you are nose-in-the-bark and each flake of cellulose on the tree is several pixels large.

Also...Oblivion was lousy with ruins. Two steps outside of a Bravil, whoop, ancient elven city. Riiiiiiiiiiight. It should be buried in the overgrown forest, or down a hidden valley, on on the edge of a hill in the distance, the battlements simply looking like the stony outcroppings of a cliff.

The number was fine...although I would be happy to chop it in half for more detail...but a larger map would space them out, make them more of an interesting find. Obviously, bandit caves, mines, and old Imperial forts or abandoned villages are more likely to be found at the edge of a road, whether its a main highway or a forgotten path.

Also, bigger is better. Duh.

I actually thought people who would vote that would have actually played Daggerfall, I doubt many have. And I think I'll change it, thanks.


I seriously see nothing wrong with the Morrowind move speed, if horses are involved. What's the point in being able to run stupidly fast, AND have horses at the same time? If horses where to go any faster than they where in Oblivion, they'd just look dumb.

Also, I play Morrownd frequently, and I've NEVER EVER EVER had problems with going too slow. If I have a full set of Ebony armour at level 3, of course I'm going to move slow, it's how life works. If I have a set of chitin armour, however, I move fine. Light armour makes you move faster, whereas heavy armour makes you move slower. Also, if you actually want to go faster, TRAIN YOUR ATHLETCS AND SPEED! Seriously, does no one get that? It's common sense, if you want to go faster - make yourself speedier. Athletics and Speed where useless in Oblivion, just like many skills, because I had no desire to train them because I moved so fast anyway.


Don't get me started on Oblivion ruins...

IMO: They should make the land size sooo huge that It would take a day to get from city to city then add spells and services to "fast travel" to places. Then the game would be somewhat more of a challenge, and more space to put future mods (like UL) in so they wont conflict.

You don't mean a real life day, do you?

Anyways, the game shouldn't be so big as it takes a day to get to another city. Perhaps if it took a day to walk around the landscape, but not just huge, unfilled plains. An average world is sufficient, imo. As long as it's filled out well.

i voted somewhere in between daggerfall and oblivion. unlike the OP i dont want to be able to see a ruin right next to a cave since it makes the game world seem very small. MMOs seem to have the right scale although they tend to lack detail. they are big enough that it actually feels like a gameworld but not so big as to be super tedious. my playtime with daggerfall was very limited cause of technical issues but that was almost too big. however if heard the tales of taking days to walk across the whole map in realtime.

where is the sense of proportion or mystery when you can see everything right in front of you. it also has the added problem of too many spawn points. wilderness loses all meaning when you come across monsters every five steps. makes the game world smaller yet. one of the reasons morrowind seemed bigger to people when oblivion first came out was becuase of the limited view. i use streamline which has a function that essentially fogs out distant objects and makes a huge difference in the feeling of the size of the gameworld but its only a band aid. what would be cooler is if the gameworld was ACTUALLY bigger.

i can also put up with larger maps and less detail cause i use most of the UL landscapes mods. its easier to pretty something up thats already there than to try and expand the size of the actualy geography. whichever is easier to mod shoudl take priority in my view.

Cities and towns were - with exceptions, of course - spaced such that it took a day's travel (which means about 8 hours of walking time, to account for most of the possible delays on the way) to reach one from the other. Farming villages were spread in between, most of them on a "rope of pearls" along trade routes, special-purpose settlements (mining villages, border outposts and so on) excluded. Oftentimes, one village's fields and meadows would end where the next one's started. This is the "realistic" option for the civilised part of the landscape, and one I would prefer there - of course, compressed by the same amount as the time compression (in Oblivion: eight) used, and coupled with the inability to run everywhere to not let those places appear too near each other.

Outside of the civilisation, I don't mind if it takes me a month of travel to walk across the whole country (which with time compression still means about 100 real-time hours). This would only mean the country is the size of about Poland or New Mexico.

About twice the size of Oblivion's Cyrodiil- around 32 square miles.

Hmm.. Good points, though you shouldn't rely on mods to create the game for you.

Hmm..

with bethesda games i pretty much assume moddability. as far as im concerned they can make the crappiest leveling or balancing system ever devised by mankind in all of past and future history. as long as they make the core engine and more difficult to mod gameplay mechanics like animations correctly i will be happy. even most of my non bethesda games are modded to some degree or another. the only game i havent modded yet is mass effect 2. fallout 3 was a very good game at release and initilaly the only mod i HAD to have was to disable auto aim. but as time went on i ended up adding lots of mods to that game as well....not nearly as many as oblivion but still around 50 or so.

I think this poll clearly by average shows that most people want something bigger than morrowind and oblivion, but not as large as daggerfall (continent of australia i read)....

And on this i agree. In both games, i found myself savoring the areas I hadn't explored rather quickly. And would not for instance take the new road until which time I felt I would get the most satisfaction about exploring that new area.

I also enjoy a feeling of vastness, vulnerableness and wilderness. Knowing that the wild is a dangerous place, and that you should prepare appropriately before making a journey. And if the town is literally 2 minutes run from the graveyard infested with undead, it breaks the immersion a bit.

Most Bethesda gamers are console players(for Morrowind, Fallout 3, and Oblivion), and some people just don't like playing with unofficial content, so mods really can't make the game and Bethesda will never assume they will.