Not really, it had the benefit of freeing up more RAM, but it wasn't reduced BECAUSE of ram.

It was reduced because the armor system didn't work with that many pieces

Matter of opinion. Mine greatly differs. Witcher had a very acceptable open world with very limited gameplay features. Bethesda makes very acceptable worlds with more interactivity and more gameplay features. I give the edge to Bethesda. DC was excellent by representation in F3 (aside from the vaults and cave structures) and was designed very well considering tech limitations. Far better world building than what Obsidian offered in NV.

I think the map will extend to the Quabbin Reservoir. When this reservoir was finally completed in the 1940s, it flooded a few towns. One of these towns is called Greenwich. Many Lovecraft fans claim Greenwich is actually the fictional town of Dunwich. Thus, Dunwich is underwater. There is one pic in the concept art were the PC looks to be underwater. In Lovecraft's story, there were 2 books, 2 Krivbeknih. We find one in FO3. I'm guessing the other is near Boston(Dunwich, underwater) Also, remember Marcella went to Boston, then to Point Lookout. I believe she learned of the Blackhall family from locals around Boston and that is the reason she travels to Point Lookout.

Let me explain what I mean a different way. Imagine if you took the map from Skyrim and stretched it out so that the mountains were all pretty much flat. You then mould the landscape back the other way a little, so you have verticality you can actually use rather than impassable mountains. Next you take all of your content and push the scale slightly so that built up areas are a lot denser, and wasteland is empty enough to feel believable (and 'empty space', as has been suggested, could include things like swamps and 'dead forests') You then increase the vertical scale a little more in buildings and other structures. Finally, you add in other environmental details, and you increase the population in some of your larger settlements. This would result in something perhaps 15-20% bigger than Skyrim's map if viewed from overhead, but in reality you could literally have double the content.

I was hoping for a bigger wasteland, but the ruins of greater Boston are going to be a lot more dense than the Mojave Desert or the forests and mountains of Skyrim.

If it is slightly bigger than the Skyrim map with no mountains then we are going to have a lot to explore.

What often makes the world feel small to me is fast travel.

It's really convenient and I totally use it sometimes but it does make the game world feel small if you use it a lot.

i agree, however todd didn't say its exactly the same map size, he seems to want to avoid really being specific, prob cause it would be a spoiler, i do think its prob twice the size at least, he mentioned the mountains in skyrim taking up a lot of unplayable area, if you flaten out all the mountain in skyrim or flaten them down significantly it would prob be 2 or 3 times more area, so when he said its about the same size as skyrim, i think thats if you count the space the mountains take up plus they're tall so its a lot of unplayable are so i think the area will be 2 or 3 times the map size and most of it will be playable area an the city areas much more dense and also vertical, no way if you ran from one corner of the map to the other its gonna take the same time as in skyrim or fallout 3, its got to be way bigger, i can't see them keeping the same map size but just putting more in it.

But this doesn't account for scale. If you took the land-mass from Skyrim and moved the scale down enough then the actual map size would be enormous. Do you really think that you could walk from one side of the province to another in around an hour if it were on a 1:1 scale? Of course not, it would take you longer than that to get a quarter way up one of the mountains. And so this is the point that I think many people are missing. It's not just about cramming everything closer together, it's about shifting the relative distances from one location to another. And you achieve this by adjusting the scale.

I'll give Witcher 3 and Morrowind high marks for fast travel.

Having to go some place before you can use fast travel helps keep the world from feeling so small.

Wasn't Fallout like that too? I can't remember. If it wasn't I had a mod that made it that way since that's what I prefer.

The worst perk in the game, for me, was the one that lit up all possible locations on the Pipboy. I took that once and later quit playing that character because the perk ruined the feeling of exploration for me. I'm sure other people loved it - especially completionists.

I think they mentioned that they might be using 1/2 or even 1/3 scale,

I was a little disappointed the map size wasn't at least doubled.

They have been talking about verticality but how much is that going to add?

Then I remember we can get power armor with a jetpack!

We will have access to a vertibird!

The jetpack looks like it can at least let us leap a story or two up.

That means there is going to be so many places open to us that we could never had reached in FO3 and FONV.

And if we can't reach it with the jetpack, like say the top of a skyscraqer or a tower, we can just call the vertibird, get over the target, and jump out.

Getting down without a jetpack may be difficult.

Can't wait!

I've just had a thought. I wonder how containers will work this time round. Say you just found a really cool isolated spot at the top of a building as per your example. And you find a couple of ammo crates and other containers. I wonder if the game will allow you to securely leave items in remote locations like this. It would be a really good way of storing 'junk' until later so you can then collect it and bring it back to your main settlement. Especially with the new crafting system.

I confess myself disappointed...

So like..... you take out the mountains in Skyrim..... then you smush all the lands together to fill in the empty space..... which means flat Skyrim would be smaller than original Skyrim..... which means Fallout 4 is smaller than.

It's Todd's Twister Tactics, not mine.

Considering the size of the Witcher map, Me too but it will still be large enough to get immersed in.

Finally, the first thread I've seen that actually has correct information on the map size!

Personally, I don't mind that Fallout 4's map is roughly the same size of Skyrim since Skyrim was vast. And yes, there are no mountains in Boston so think of it this way, all the mountains in Skyrim would become flat forests or suburban areas. That's a lot more space to be added since Skyrim was very mountainous. There is also hardly any loading area so you can go somewhere freely without having to sit for a few seconds to load into a building. Speaking of which, you can go into just about every building you can find and the buildings do have interior instead of it being filled with rubble like in Fallout 3.

Hm does anyone know how much bigger Skyrims map is compared to New Vegas or F3?

I frequently read that Skyrim is approx. 15sq. miles big and Fallout 3&NV 16.

I think they implied that it was the same size as Skyrim and there were no mountains in Fallout 4.

So even bigger than the actual playable area in Skyrim.

Plus with a jumppack and a vertibird that you can jump out of, there are going to be so many places that we could never had reached in F3 and FONV.

All the roof tops for one, tops of water towers, and skyscraqers.

The list goes on and that doesn't even include multi level areas.

Finally the Greater Boston Wasteland is not a desert like the Mojave.

It is not mostly wilderness like Skyrim and Witcher 3.

It is the former home to 7.6 million people and was the sixth largest metroplex in the USA.

It is going to be very dense.

Should be all-right, in terms of size. Skyrim was fine in that regard. If Fallout 4 is a similar size, I can live with that.

Especially with less mountains in your way! (Missed the anti-gravity horses though...)

It would be more good to have more npc's and a system to replace them as well so you have more to kill like in skyrim once you wiped out a citey no one would return except the unkillable ones and to have more scavengers wondering the wasteland instead of little camps with one or two in it.

It will be the best world they've created for sure. I know there will be tons to see, but it'd be nice if the map was a little bigger. It will feel bigger than Skyrim, I'm sure of it, but by how much? Skyrim felt pretty small.

They did say they would be using 1/2 or 1/3 scale so the map will certainly feed very big.

Will you explain to me what this means. Thanks.