I'd hope for something around twice the size of Cyrodiil. Not just for the fact that I don't want to be tripping over ruins every five feet (Which is partly solvable by other means, still, by making fewer of them with deeper depths to explore), but also because I want to be struck by the vastness of mountains, canyons, and fjords - even if that is just an illusory trick and I can cross them in a matter of 10 minutes.

You know what might be cool. Having a means of in-game travel like riding on the back of a griffin like in EQ2. It would essentially be fast-travel b/c they could fly you over mountain peaks quickly, but it would make more sense b/c it's within the context of the world and not just magical insta-fast travel. No idea if there are these types of birds in their game-world, but maybe there are. Just an idea.

Look at the map of Tamriel, Skyrim is probably overall around the same land size as Cyrodiil maybe smaller. But most of it is mountains.

I would much, much, much rather have a smaller map with better use (Morrowind) than a bigger map that's empty (Oblivion.)

Now obviously, the best choice would be a map the size of Oblivion's(or bigger, I can be greedy) with as much diverse content as Morrowind's(or even more). In reality, I really doubt this happens.

So for me, when it comes to map size and style, quality is better than quantity. I feel Oblivion could have been a thousand times better if they simply would have put in more settlements, and added a bit more weirdness and uniqueness to specific spots on the map and in dungeons.

It wasn't Morrowind's. Who knows, maybe we'll have a small world, with better designs, like Morrowind's, that makes traversing the land harder/longer.

I don't hope it's bigger, in fact I hope it's smaller or as big, but much more detailed. Oblivion's landscape was unbearable, until I discovered the unique landscape mods, which made the environment MUCH MUCH MUCH better, it wasn't even comparable, suddenly I stopped fast-travelling and took a walk in the forest, as it didn't look the same all the time.

What was so nice about Morrowind's landscape was that the different areas were so nicely distinguishable and therefore you didn't feel like having everything seen before.

It's due to the fact you run somewhere around 5X-10X times slower then in Oblivion

I'm getting the feeling that I have to disable region_border once again :shakehead:

This gave me the idea of like in pokemon silver after you beat the game the story was over but you were given the choice to go back to the areas of the old game, how cool would it be if they added another area after you beat the game?
Probably my favorite thing about taht old pokemon game

Skeer-Reem


Skai-Riem

Skyr-Reem

Pretty sure you know where im getting at.

Many games have shown that even with massive areas = to or > then Oblivion can be both unique and awe inspiring. We are trying to limit Bethesda's capabilities to the technology they used four to eight years ago. When Oblivion was made it was the best, and the computers at Bethesda at that time which were top of the line and far better then even the richest gamers cared to spend on a computer. Now we have multi-terabyte hard drives in grade schoolers computers. Most people won't even compare Crysis to Oblivion (well many still can't play Crysis) because of the differences in the release dates. Those who do say Oblivion was the Crysis of its time, and it was released three years later. I am of course talking about the graphics differences, but what I am trying to say is in three years people consider it a new generation of video games, and those who don't catch up have old and outdated styles. I am not trying to compare any games I am just trying to get the point that we need to stop comparing Skyrim to Oblivion capabilities. I really don't know if it will turn out well but I am hoping it will. And what is to say they can't make Skyrim Oblivion's size or greater without sacrificing the details. With 90 some odd people working on one game we can expect a lot of detail in every knock and cranny. Even if they release it and it is small, what is stopping modders from adding what we want? Also what makes you think that the expansion packs will just be like Knights of the Nine and not Shivering Isles. Even if we get tired with Skyrim's who says we will bore of it before a new expansion pack adds a totally new zone?

Morrowind Umbra Spoiler below, read at own risk

I'd rather have quality over quantity. Yes Oblivion had a huge world but man was it ever dull. Lots to explore, but never had much interest in exploring it. It's like they took one region of the map and copied it numerous times over... Every town and region felt the same. I'd rather see a smaller, more varied and exciting world to explore rather then the huge repeatetive snoozefest of a world in Oblivion. The Oblivion map may have been unique but it wasn't awe inspiring in anyway in the long run.

I truly want a map on the same scale as Daggerfall, but I'm sure that wont be happening.

Daggerfall took two weeks realtime to cross the map on foot, I'd be perfectly happy with a map that takes 24 hours to cross on foot.

I think Oblivion's map felt genuinely small, because of fast travel. Heading across Cyrodiil didn't take any time at all. I really want quality over quantity though. Each dungeon and city and area needs to be unique and different. And I feel like with the valleys, forests, mountains, and tundras of Skyrim, that will be delivered if done right. It doesn't need to be huge, I need to enjoy exploring it. But a little extra size is never bad though. :wink_smile:

Lots of things can be done to make a world 'feel' bigger, and I hope to see all of them implemented in Skyrim: Varied environments, use of geography to limit travel on foot, no fast-travel and rather Morrowindesque travel systems, weather effects that limit vision (blizzards in Skyrim, ash and fog in Morrowind).

edit: Changes in geographical/architectural features over time help the game feel immense in scale and significantly more varied. Seasons anyone?

you obviously havn't gone to the cave of goblin jim

I'm still holding out hope that they'll pull off some incredible procedural generation techniques that will give us the level of detail they got with Daggerfall. They tried it a bit with Oblivion but it was limited to terrain and obviously had some bugs that needed to be worked out. If they could expand it to include other game elements such as towns, landmarks and dungeons, there's theoretically no limit to the size the world could be. It would take a lot of work and testing to make sure the randomly generated content was on par with manually created content but it would be worth it.

Watch as that's exactly what they've done and because of this fact alone they need to release it on blu-ray to fit all the content on one disk (And it would even keep with their trend of supporting the newer bigger data storage methods)




I think I just turned myself on a little when I typed that out.

I love you for bringing that up :celebration: :icecream: :thumbsup: :mohawk: :goodjob: :touched: :cheat: :sweat: :hugs:

Sniff* I still have that old purple gameboy and cartridge in my Drawer *Sniff.

when I thought I *beat* the game, and found out after 2 weeks that I could go to the next region i flipped, and suddenly my lvl 61 Typholsion wasnt so badass anymore.

aww memories.

As big or bigger.