finally i agree!oblivion was way to dense.during exploration i kept on running into cave after fort after mine after cave.it was insane.but i was more greatful for all the underground locations than i was dissapointed with the density.

People holding out hope for a 2x-4x increase in map size over Oblivion are likely to be let down.

I'd be delighted even for a 50% increase in size. But I am not counting on it. Even if the map is no larger, the experience will still surely be vastly superior, because we are surely going to see the dungeons, forts, mines etc be far more original and less derivative of each other.

i dont understand the people who want it the same size but more dense? more dense with what? you can throw rocks from one fort and hit 2 other forts and 3 shrines and a couple cave doors... some of you state specifically those things that you want to be more dense, and i say the only way it would be better to have more of those is a bigger world and have more space between them. in real life fortes were days apart at least... the only thing that i think should be more dense is the population in and around cities....

im realistically hoping for a game world that is twice the size of oblivion's in area so about 32mils square.... but would love something 64 miles square... also i think there should be more farm lands surronding the cities with little villages sprinkled around more than in oblivion.... keep the big cities walled (because its a must i hear) but have more small and medium sized villages that are open. and there should be more wildlife aka red dead redemption did a good job of that.

I don't know why some people want the to world to be more dense. Dense is having 10 caves next to eachother. What people really want is detail. What we want is LESS density, but MORE detail.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Torval

Of course no game can scale like that yet, and no TES besides Daggerfall was ever true to it's actual scale.

Not at all. If anyone here has ever played SWG (probably one of the largest, if not the largest MMORPG out there), you would know that bigger isn't better. Well of course, if you want nothing but repeated environments with no content whatsoever. Then everyone really would be using fast travel all the time because they would complain it's "too big" lol.

Bethesda is looking to make all environments as unique as possible (a lot of the environments in Oblivion were repeated and randomly generated). That kind of detail requires more work and time, considering it's hand crafted, and it also means the province as a whole will probably be smaller, which really isn't a bad thing. It all depends on how Bethesda crafts the game and what it consists of.

Although it should be noted that BGS added 30 new members since Fallout 3, so it's likely it may be the size of Cyrodill. Don't expect it to be any ridiculous size however. Lets be realistic.

First you said "the province as a whole will probably be smaller" then you said "its likely to be the same size as cyrodiil"?

Honestly, I'd like to see Skyrim in it's full scale actual size... Hundreds of miles across, and days of travel between cities. You'd have to use an http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1161696-skyrim-trail/page__p__17053610__fromsearch__1#entry17053610 to get from place to place. The thousands of square miles of wilderness would have to be randomly generated of course.

I don't see how you can draw a trend based on 1 game.

This Comment also applys to the post below.

Actually, the map scale keeps shrinking with each game. Oblivion was only bigger because Cyrodiil was a bigger province.

This, Just Cause would be way too large, how much of all that 400 sq miles is anything. There is no way Beth could fill that area up with dungeons,towns,etc, it would take 20 mins to get from one town to the next, hours to get across the map. No thanks.

I honestly think that the Skyrim map should be on the same size as the Just Cause 2 map. I reall think thats the size that would give the best level of immersion and detail. At 100 speed in oblivion, i could get from bruma to cheydynhal with in 3mins by going the long way around the mountains not to mention the fact that i was tripping over caves and ruins every 5secs. Sure at lvl 1 traversing Skyrim will be extremely long, but if we are still able to get to the same speed lvls of oblivion and morrowind, then the JC2 map size makes alot of sense. Fast travel with a map of that size could be great as well. Have an indiana jones type effect of following the red line from point to point with it taking upto 5mins to get from one place to another ( all depending on how far away you are going) and add in the chance of having a random encounter while onyour way to a destination.

The mountains in Skyrim offer both a challenge and an opportunity. On the one hand, it takes a lot of map area to place a "credible" mountain. On the other hand, the majority of the mountain doesn't need to be spectacularly detailed, since the character may not be able to access all but a few small portions of it: one or two access routes and the peak. Even if it is possible to Levitate or Climb, the amount of content beyond landscaping can be minimal, so you can go there, but there's little point. While the Skyrim "map" could be made considerably bigger as a result, with less time invested, the game doesn't necessarily have to have more "playable area" than Oblivion.

Oblivion already had a certain amount of "unplayable" area around the borders, and in a few spots to which the lack of levitation prevented you from getting. Compare that with Morrowind's map, which had a lot of additonal, but effectively "empty", areas of sea around the playable island of Vvardenfell. It was "seascaped" in case somebody Waterbreathed their way to it, but there was no other "content" for the developers to worry about.

They said you can go anywhere that is visible.

There could be dungeons preloaded into the game with no specified location... as you explore new areas of the wilderness they could be randomly placed nearby, and you could then add their location to your map when you discover them.

Once you found all the preloaded ones, the game could start placing randomly generated dungeons that get saved to the hard disk. You could write a certain amount on your map, but then you'd have to start erasing old ones as you find new ones.

Look at all the unused space in Oblivion's map.

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8366/40135698.jpg

Ever since playing Just Cause 2 i'd love to see a giant open world in a future game that contains every country in the world of TES and wraps around a globe so we could travel that world full circle if we wanted to.

Wow but could you imagine traversing a world that big on big, or even horseback?!?! and eventually you'd have to travel by boat, maybe fighting pirates, sea monsters, and finding uncharted islands to explore along the way.

That would make a great future game.