I know the main attraction with the elder scrolls is the big open world to explore, but i just want to know how much that world has expanded. I'm sure that Oblivion is bigger than Arena, just because the technology has gotten better, but it is to my understanding that you can explore all of Tamriel, not just Cyrodil, so I was wondering how Oblivion and previous TES games macthed up according to size

I'm afraid you can't explore all of Tamriel in Oblivion, only Cyrodiil.

As far as size goes, Daggerfall was very large. Bethesda claims the game world was approximately twice the size of Great Britain. By comparison Vvardenfell was approximately 6 square miles in size and Cyrodiil was approximately 8 square miles in size.

Arena while way smaller than Daggerfall, is also huge in comparison with Oblivion. So size wise, the order is Daggerfall, Arena, Oblivion and Morrowind; The first two, uses a little detailed, real size random environment, while the second two draw huge provinces in some kind of scale, putting sites very near each other, but with a great detain and defined environment.

I'm pretty sure Cyrodiil in Oblivion was 16sq miles. I don't remember where I read that, though.

I remember not so long ago some people in the past games section finally put some real numbers to daggerfall and it came out to almost the size of great britain but not quite. Arena had no definite size because it generated content as you walked in the game so it's size is possibly infinite though the game crashes when you walk to far and sometime if you walk straight you walk back to the town you came from, thats because each town was more its own world so no walking from town to town. So the size comparison would be daggerfall > oblivion > morrowind > arena

http://www.hpix.nl/omaps/oblivioncyrodiil0bq.jpg

vs

http://tamrielchronicles.com/assets/map-morr-enormous.jpg

What I want to know is when they calculate the size of Oblivion do they simply take the map's sides into account? Because Oblivion's map is pretty cut in half at south.

The Construction Set tells us that each exterior cell is 4096 units by 4096 units or 192 feet by 192 feet or 58.5 meters by 58.5 meters. Now I count approximately 86 cells from Topal Bay, south of Leyawiin, up to the invisible border north of Cloud Ruler Temple. 192 x 86 = 16,512 feet. 5,280 feet = 1 mile and 3 miles = 15,840.

So, north to south, Cyrodiil is approximately three miles long.

I haven't yet counted cells east to west, but Cryodiil appears to be a bit wider than it is tall. It also narrows somewhat as it extends west. So my best guess at this point is that Cyrodiil is 8 square miles. We could be generous and say Cryrodiil is 9 square miles.

This is an excellent observation. I've never quite agreed that Oblivion is "bigger" than Morrowind because of the shape of the maps. Lets all go back to geometry class for a moment. Oblivion's map may have a wider diameter but it has a much less efficient shape. notice that Morrowind has a much more circular map which is capable of holding more area than whatever amorphous shape Cyrodiil is suposed to be. Cyrodiil's diameter would have to be considerably bigger than that of Morrowind to be able to hold the same area. In all honesty I lack the mathematical skills to determine such a thing accurately so until someone much smarter than me figures it out for sure I will steadfastly disagree that Obvlivion is the bigger game.

Damn you and your mathematics.

This http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/large-video-game-worlds2.jpg shows Oblivion to be 16miles².
Nothing compared to Daggerfall, which was 62,394miles²

I'm not sure how it compares to Arena or Morrowind though.
^_^

guys, stop posting rubbish. they didn't calculate the area just by just multiplying the length and width of cyrodiil. THAT WOULD BE [censored].

They did this:
Find out how many cells there are in oblivion.
Calculate the real world area of 1 cell.

Multiply.

Haha. That's exactly what I fear. Look at Pseron Wyrd's calculation, he almost multiplied length and width and still found it under 9 square miles. But off course one should add the slope of terrain into equation too. Morrowind is too narrow. The scale isn't that different from Morrowind's vertical length for Red Mountain/Imperial City comparison and Oblivion winning in width but losing some in southwest. For slope, Morrowind has the advantage because all land is packed with hills but Oblivion has an advantage in very high elevation. And let's add Solstheim to Morrowind. I think it is a tie. Unless someone comes with more assuring proof. Sorry for being skeptic. It is not that important but it is a good discussion. :wink_smile:

That was and still is my biggest complain in Oblivion.There's just not enough content for the player to keep him occupied for a long time.It had impressive graphics, improved gameplay and AI, but it was missing lot's of content and variety.That in my opinion backfired.Other than that, it was a fine game.

Even though Morrowind is much smaller than Oblivion, Morrowind seems so much more bigger because of the way it was made. Lots of turns and zig zags, more like a maze, makes you walk alot more than Oblvion did. Oblivion was basically a straight line to where ever you wanted to go, in Morrowind it was never a straight line, unless you had levitate.