Game Area - How big it really is ? : V - Skyrim

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:50 am

If Skyrim has the same number of cells, it will still be larger because of the shape, it's basically a square so it uses the cells more effectively, at least that's what I heard. As Todd himself stated, it'll also feel larger because of the terrain.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:49 pm

Yeah, I mean we don't know for sure those were the actual in-game cell sizes, but it does fit in, and about what I expected. How many cells did a city in Oblivion take up in general? (Please be less than 9!)

6-8 with the Imperial City hitting 12.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/23939-1-1240453369.jpg

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:15 am

http://www.gamestar.de/_misc/images/original.cfm?pk=2198717

That pic is sixy and is now my ps3 wallpaper.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:39 pm

If Skyrim has the same number of cells, it will still be larger because of the shape, it's basically a square so it uses the cells more effectively, at least that's what I heard. As Todd himself stated, it'll also feel larger because of the terrain.

No, the number of cells is the playable cells, not the best rectangle of cells that fits it in.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:48 am

I asked Alice how big Skyrim will be, and she still insists it's bigger than a pin. If interested or too young to know, google it

Better time spent than feeding this...
"I rush through" with "don't have time to pickup gold" and "I love to explore" with "only a couple of hours" and and and... I mean, seriously? Go play Mario Bros. Jeez.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:31 am

"I rush through" with "don't have time to pickup gold" and "I love to explore" with "only a couple of hours" and and and... I mean, seriously? Go play Mario Bros. Jeez.

What?

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:37 am

6-8 with the Imperial City hitting 12.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/23939-1-1240453369.jpg

That's a bit dissapointing because it didn't look like any of the cities on the map were more than 9 squares (presumably cells) in size, even the biggest ones.

EDIT: Actually, nevermind, I was going from memory there. Going back and checking, they actually sem to take up more (I'm measuring this time).

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:15 am

Hey, when you say "Takes up a cell" do you mean the whole shape is toughly this many cells as an accurate measurement, or can that just mean "Passes into this many cells, even if only slightly"?

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:54 am

What?

Reread OPs posts. He complains about lack of endgame when he obviously have no intentions of *playing* these games at all. If he wants to ruin his gaming experience, I say let him, but he shouldn't complain about it afterwards...

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:42 am

Argh! I thought the ones in Skyrim were bigger, but then I looked up a cell grid map and the Oblivion ones easily take up about 10-12 ones each, though I was told they were 6-8 each. I'm confused!

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:48 am

Just like one doesn't play Modern Warfare 2 and complain about the lack of RPG elements, you can't just run through Bethesda's games in less than 10 hours and complain the worlds aren't big enough.

Ob is actually well suited to the play style of just run through and not bother. IMO there is much to be gained from taking the time to explore a bit, but nothing really sticks out in my head as being player rewarding, except for lore purposes. No swords of white woe tucked invisibly behind cupboards. I actually remember after many hours of exploring and not finding anything that interesting. All I really had was a massive stack of ingredients I picked while legging it around. All the good stuff is quest related or leveled crap.
The whole exploring this is well over rated in OB. One dungeon was much like the next, not much loot or even lore in 90% of them. They just seem like filler anyway, so I can totally believe you can just miss most of it out and still have played the core game under that.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:41 pm

The maps from fallout and oblivion seemed smaller because you didn't have enough obstacles that were in your path. In Oblivion for example you could simply walk in a straight line to your next quest objective. I'm hoping that in Skyrim the mountains will acctually force you to take a different non linear path.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:09 pm

Argh! I thought the ones in Skyrim were bigger, but then I looked up a cell grid map and the Oblivion ones easily take up about 10-12 ones each, though I was told they were 6-8 each. I'm confused!

No not every cell is fully occupied. I'm calculating used space.

Anvil = approx. 6 cells
Bravil = approx. 7 cells
Bruma = approx. 6 cells
Cheydinhal = approx. 8 cells
Chorrol = approx. 7 cells
Imperial City = approx. 15 cells(counting the waterfront, prison and the university)
Leyawiin = approx. 10 cells
Skingrad = approx. 6 cells

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:22 am

What a limited conception of RPG.
In a RPG you should be able to be anything, not just someone with a thin foil hat chasing windmills with a toy sword or farting imaginary fireballs.
Modders have been trying to expand it with mods like owning a shop, a mine, etc...Why keep timy mind on medieval fantasy RPG ?
Look at EVE !!! You can be a prospector, a smugler, a merc, a tech, and many other professions, you dont necessarily have to be a fighter pilot or a starship commader. You (almost)really do what you want. I have a friend that is a miner a sell minerals, on occasions he smuggles material into sectors, along his sells, ally to a faction for protection why his team prospect minerals etc...
Again why keep a tiny mindset on medieval fantasy RPG, why not be a great Alchemist and have people buy your stuff when you are in. And you pay people to get stuff to make potions or whatever, and when the ingredients are too rare you go yourself for example, because only you have the knowledge?

There is one Key difference you seem to be forgetting here. TES = Single player only. Eve = MMORPG, as in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. It has tens of thousands of players on at any given time. It is also(I don't actually know it's actual size) probably a much larger game world, both in actual size, and in Gigabytes. You aren't even comparing apples and oranges, you're trying to compare apples and potatoes!!!! MMORPGs are such a different breed of game it's literally impossible to try to compare one to a standard single player game of ANY variety. I should know, having playing FFXI since 3 months after it's NA release, and having played several MMORPGS before that, including Everquest, Asherons Call, and a few others. Of course there is going to be more of an end-game and more to do in a world like that, there has to be, it's a game meant to be played at the same time as thousands of other players.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:07 am

I really hope we can actually climb all the mountains in Skyrim. When first I played Fallout : New Vegas, I thought it was as large and open as Fallout 3, but then I realised that there were mountains (or rocky outcrops at the least) blocking large amounts of areas, and they took up around 1/3 of the game world, in addition to blocking paths so I had to travel in a linear way around the map.

I'm not sure what Todd was trying to say in the podcast when he talked about the mountains. I'm hoping he meant that the map feels larger because we can spend time exploring the mountains, and not the map feels larger because we have to make a detour whenever we see a mountain.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:15 am

I really hope we can actually climb all the mountains in Skyrim. When first I played Fallout : New Vegas, I thought it was as large and open as Fallout 3, but then I realised that there were mountains (or rocky outcrops at the least) blocking large amounts of areas, and they took up around 1/3 of the game world, in addition to blocking paths so I had to travel in a linear way around the map.

I'm not sure what Todd was trying to say in the podcast when he talked about the mountains. I'm hoping he meant that the map feels larger because we can spend time exploring the mountains, and not the map feels larger because we have to make a detour whenever we see a mountain.

I have a feeling there will be cave systems leading through un-traversable mountains.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:53 pm

No, the number of cells is the playable cells, not the best rectangle of cells that fits it in.

But what about those cells that aren't fully playable? I meant, with the awkward shape of Cyrodiil, many cells were wasted because along the borders, only like half of them were used. It's like the clusters in FAT32-system - if you have a file of 512 bytes (which is the cluster size), it'll use the entire cluster. If your file is like 10 bytes, it'll also use an entire cluster, thus wasting 502 bytes.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:30 am

Oblivion and Fallout3 "dungeons" inner areas were .. really small and not so many when compared to => . ( Comparison ie. a really old game => Daggerfall , it had huge gaming world and a really enjoyable amount of dungeons ).

Is the gaming world going to be how big ? when compared to Oblivion or Fallout3, and i mean the actual gaming area... do not calculate mountains and areas behind invisible walls.

The oldest elder scrolls game I've played is Morrowind, (XBOX) so I cant speak on the others, but when it comes to dungeons and such, Morrowind had lots of places to visit, mainly Dwemer Ruins. But it was fun. It did seem like Oblivion didn't have so much of that.

As for size, it seemed like Oblivion had a good map size, but with the mountains, it at some points did seem a bit small. So for Skyrim, I hope its a bit bigger!

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:15 pm

Roughly the size of Oblivion says Todd Howard. Thus I am hoping slghtly larger. It's also said you can go anywhere you can see, so no invisible walls (save probably the borders of the province).

Nowhere near the size of Daggerfall. Personally, I'd like it to be at least 1.5-2 times Oblivion size, but to have it the sze of Daggerfall would be stupid as you'd have to make so much stuff generic and lose all the individuality and have miles of endless monotony.

EDIT: Fun fact. Daggerfall had the biggest map of any game EVER, at least according to a comparison chart of all the largest game maps I found.

This.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:17 am

The guy is just trolling you. :banghead:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:05 am

EDIT: Fun fact. Daggerfall had the biggest map of any game EVER, at least according to a comparison chart of all the largest game maps I found.

Additional fun fact: 95% of Daggerfall's world is featureless, combat-less dead space.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:07 pm

Additional fun fact: 95% of Daggerfall's world is featureless, combat-less dead space.

Yes, I know. Just thought it was a fun fact.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:32 am

One of the saddest things about the world size is that Bethesda can no longer say "It's this really big, open world game where you can do basically anything", like they could for Oblivion.

TES has previously been (compared to the standard of their time) this really big, open world game where you can explore a vast area.

Now Skyrim won't be like that, and it saddens me quite a bit.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:09 pm

Funny. They say Oblivion was all special and handcrafted but it all seemed very repetitive to me. As in was smaller it didnt repeat as much as DF but... I did miss seeing an area that I would thought Oh this is really unique... All the ruined towers were alike all the elven ruins were alike. All the planes of Oblivion were alike And many outdoor areas were alike. Maybe the dungeons in daggerfall were randomly generated but they were made of bits that you could recognize from other quests, like "ok the important quest item should be there. "
The main differences were about the cities ( towns? ) and the areas around them. I wasnt feeling particularly inclined to explore. Like ok that cool item I dream of will probably show up randomly somewhere else. Well even all the caves and all the town buildings are all the same in World of warcraft but for some reason all the areas feel very unique anyway ...