After reviewing the map, I see a number of small settlements to the south and southeast (Helgen, Riverwood, Aivarstead, Shor's Stone) and a few to the west and northwest (Rorickstead, Cartrvasten, Dragon Bridge).

Now, this leaves the entire center of the map, the north, east, and northeast seem at first glance lacking in small settlements. Will this be filler space with mountains or will the game take a greater focus on the larger areas like major cities and key locations? I was kinda hoping for a nicely placed entirety of small villages throughout the map but it doesn't appear that there will be.

Not every location, small settlements and otherwise, is on that map.

I like it the way it is. Really, it just seems like less fun if every mile you wander in the wild, you'd find civilization.

I think it could really do with one town in the volcanic tundra and one in the snowy region. I'll mod some in I guess.

I like how it is, as long as those 'settlements' are actual little communities with a decent number of services and a variety of different characters. I just want a few normal ones, where the townsfolk go about their business and give you the odd quest or two.
The horrible thing in Oblivion was that almost every settlement was either some lame, deserted cabin in the middle of nowhere (or a random farmhouse with one inhabitant), or a small village that was either wacky or corrupt.

Lack? Looks like theres way more then oblivion, which only had 1 besides the main cities, Skyrim looks like it has dozens plus dozens of cities too, way more settlements then Oblivion.

It's more realistic to have clusters of settlements and large wilderness areas. I like it.

Uh, no. You can complain about the fact that they were tiny, but Oblivion had 8 cities and 10 towns, Skyrim has 9 cities and 7 towns.

What towns where there besides hackdirt? Are you talking about those single tents scattered around with bandits in them? Thats hardly a settlement at all...

They were tiny, but Aleswell, Weye, Pells Gate, Bleaker's Way, Border Watch, Harluns Watch, Water's Edge, Blankenmarch, Brindle Home. Border Watch, Bleaker's Way and Hackdirt are the only somewhat substantial ones.

But nothing like Riverwood, right? I don't care about the 3 home settlements, I want actual villages.

Well depends on your perspective. Some had as many houses as Riverwood (the 3 I mentioned as substantial), but none of them had a mill, obviously, and Riverwood looks better designed and with more quests. Only Hackdirt had a shop that wasn't an inn, it had the same services Riverwood does, plus a chapel. Hopefully there won't be another Blankenmarch. That town had NOTHING. 3 houses, no quests relating to it, and no services. The people only spoke rumours.

Yeah, I try not to compare anything to Oblivion. If anything, I'm comparing it to Daggerfall, which was littered with small towns everywhere.

Anyway, I'm excited about small settlements because I really like that 'small town charm' with good histories. It's just that there seems to be much emptiness, at first glance of course, where I think a few more small towns would be appropriate.

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w96/Stalagmite86/skyrim-map-hd.jpg

Maybe it's not practical to build a small village in that area because that's where most of the dragons / giant creatures are? Maybe there's a reason.

From what I've seen, Riverwood destroys all of Oblivion's little settlements combined... and your saying there is another 6 places like Riverwood? That seems pretty nice to me. Oblivion's cities weren't as alive as Riverwood IMO. I love the idea of riding in on my horse, seeing chickens, kids, dogs, people chatting to each other about non generic stuff, people working, etc.

how did you ever play oblivion? it must have been like being lost in an empty space for you if you think skyrim missed a spot in the middle...

i think it is totally normal that some regions are densely populated and some lack settlements. this isnt a planned metropolitan area.

I'm sure that map only has a fraction of the stuff on I'm looking forward to it no matter what!

Weye was two [censored] buildings. If that's a village then we already know there's tons of villages in the starting area based on what we've heard of hands-on demos.

I very much prefer a smaller number of fleshed-out, believable settlements to a peppering of three-house settlements in the middle of nowhere, with no industry or paths or anything.

Todd was saying that he wanted to make less- but bigger and better- DLC's.

Perhaps he also applied the same logic towards Cities and Settlements.

In this case I think I would prefer Quality over Quantity, though it seems as though the Quantity will be satisfactory even if the superficial number of cities and settlements may be a bit lower.

Agreed. Even the larger villages in Oblivion felt like they had just been placed there to fill a gap. Felt like a setting from a stage production or from a film. All front, and no back.

I think that between them, the above two cover my views on the topic. There will be more towns and settlements than on the map, but hopefully not too many, as it wouldn't make sense. In any case there's plenty of dungeons, caves and other points of interest all over the world, so it's not like you'll be wandering for miles at a time with nothing to do.