I really hate the small villages in this game.I also loved being able too buy a great sheild at stone wall sheilds right off the start.I feel like the stores for weapons etc weren't intriguing at all.I hate just selling my loot and moving on.I relize thats the point,but wouldn't it be nice if they had a awsome sword to purchase right off the start.Say 40,000 coins.Stores should be intriguing new and have new rare weapons or armor for purchase.

I agree.

There should also be some variety or differences between stores. Maybe that merchant has more gold but common items, that merchant has less gold but rare items. Things like that.

the only games that had "big" cities were Daggerfall and Morrowind. so I must ask, what game were you referring to?

I've always loved the variety of merchants in the older ES games. They all just feel so generic now. I would of loved for the cities to have been bigger but at the same time I spend so little time in cities in these kinds of games that it doesn't bother me that much. I just like to shop when I happen to be in a city I guess. Weird because I hate shopping in real life.

I too hate shopping in real life. I started ordering my battle axes and magical potions online now.

Anyone else get a city feel in Solitude?

Even worse is that there is no point in buying anything at all in stores besides materials or potions. Everything you need is probably on some bandit in bandit camp #33.

Give them some credit bro. They're not all generic.

I prefer Skyrim's style of city: a little smaller, but far more intricately detailed. Almost every NPC has some little story going on.

But yes, I agree - more shops would be very welcome, with unique items in each. I do miss that from Oblivion, even if I hardly ever bought the unique items. It was a nice touch.

You've clearly forgotten the Imperial City ...

Yep, the only places i consider full cities are Solitude (I'm with you Jack), Windhelm, and Riften (cities within cities). Whiterun and Falkenrath feel like Glorified villages to me.

And the shops are more generic, the Oblivion shops were better and Morrowind was the best, almost every shop had a special item, and something worth looking at. It probably has to do with the greater amount of items on all levels.

I miss certain shops havin unique items too. Like how Three Brothers Trade Goods had the Akaviri Sunderblade.

Ha...I need that website. Nothing worse than the low quality battle axes and potions you find at the mall. Damn made in china crap.

And Skingrad, that city was pretty big IMO.

Apologies I should have made my emphasis on the term -Cities- clearer. even more so when I made the statement "big" in my original post, the only true city as far as Morrowind to now goes in my glorious opinion is vivec, which isn't much since that was just enclosed Canton spaces which were pretty compact in their own right.

Skingrad? I disagree, two main streets and a large swath in the middle of the "city" that did nothing doesn't feel city-ish to me. yes I omit Mournhold and Imperial city because they were both sectioned off worldspaces.

if Beth and co are going to continue with these separate worldspace city design decisions I hope they make them on a GRAND scale in the next TES iteration

Why isn't Whiterun bigger? Isn't that the main city?

Or the best defense or whatever it was called that one guy that sold light armor and the other guy that sold heavy. I know its silly but it just added more life to it . Ehh well I guess its a good thing I can load up the old games anytime I feel nostalgic.

I'm of the opinion that shops should always have a slightly higher quality of generic goods available than the player can obtain by looting, simply to give them a valid gameplay role.

The only thing in Solitude that gave me a city feel were the noisy manholes.

And Leyawiin. I get the impression you're not an Oblivion fan, OmegaX

It was suppose to be the "Imperial City" of Skyrim. But as you can see, that didn't go according to plan.

Anyone who's seen me for more than 5 seconds can sermise I'm no Oblivion fan, doesn't mean I can't appreciate it. its right there with my Morrowind and Skyrim Box + Case, best gaming purchases I've ever made.

look I'm trying to be balanced here I brought up Mournhold suffering the same problem (imo) and threw Vivec under the bus as well, I mean come on I didn't say anyone did it better, I said from Morrowind till now its hard to call them "cities"

No it did not. At all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ne1fVhvL00

I wonder what would an Elder Scrolls game be like if the cities were built and populated in similar fashion to games like GTA - that is, genuine-scale cities with a mixture of nameless NPCs sandboxing around the city AND ALSO the hand-crafted NPCs with proper stories and questlines thrown into the mix.

I'm not sure if I miss big cities persay, but I do want some bigger cities than we got in Skyrim and more villages in general (but not necessarily bigger).

Balmora's probably my favourite city in Morrowind. But it's not really that big all things considered, because it is a near perfectly symmetrical design. Only Riften really comes close to that sort of vibe, I feel.

Vivec was a nightmare. Even after thousands of hours of Morrowind gameplay, I still loathe going there.

Mournhold and the Imperial City are definitely the biggest cities we've gotten post-Daggerfall, but their implementations don't necessarily instill a sense of want. Mournhold was given the expansion treatment, meaning the city was the whole focus (well, new and old) in terms of landmass. It could afford to be bigger. And both cities are partitioned off, meaning several loading screens just to navigate the city.

1 of Bethesda's most recently developed flaws is choosing quantity over quality...

More isn't always better, which is why the TES series has been suffering as of late.

In my case I'm not asking for cities on the scale of Assassins Creed, just large sprawls with options, not Psuedo-Hubs with scarce history or a snippet and little else. I'd like reasons beyond functionality to visit/stay in cities. I envy the players who get a sense of home in their favorite towns where they've bought their houses, in my case they are just places I stop to farm quests and sell loot, I've rarely played MMO's in the time i've played games but I'm treating the towns in Skyrim much in the same way I would in an MMO. this is not good imo