For those of you just joining us, this topic originally began with a discussion of the future of Bethesda's open-world systems. As the games have progressed, the worlds have become ever more detailed and seamless, but their size and scope has shrunk.

Which would you prefer?

1.) A smaller but seamless world.

2.) A larger world that would require fast travel between different areas.

I like were there going

@glargg

(Sorry, couldn't figure out how to carry the quote over from the other post on my iPad. It's 11:29pm, work at 9:00am, and I can't fight with touchscreen technology at the moment.)

You would still be able to enter every door. (Hundreds and hundreds per settlement.) There would still be massive amounts of clutter everywhere. You could pick anything up and move it around, keep it, throw it at a cat, whatever. Again, the game would work exactly as it does now. Interior cells for the set-piece buildings could all be handled procedurally.

The developers could take their time and hand-craft the interiors of the important buildings within a settlement. Then, you develop, say, 40 "generic" interiors. You populate the furnishings of each interior through leveled lists. You don't place an actual table or a cabinet in the interior, you place an activator block where some random piece of furtiture will go. Then populate each activator with all different sorts of furniture. Fill all 40 generic interiors with activators. Then, run the procedural script and allow the computer to automatically "clutter" the cells. This way, just 1 of the 40 interior cells could be made to look like a slew of different homes. Repeat the process for the next 39 cells. It would create an enormous variety of distinct locations. The computer could then automatically link each uniquely populated interior with a single loaddoor in a settlement. Poof. 538 fully furnished and interactive interior locations. Save state. There's your sprawling city, all finished.

I personally made something similar to this with a Morrowind mod I was working on for a while. It worked, but I'm no expert with the scripting engine. Couldn't make the spawned furniture permanent. Basically, it would redecorate all of my cells every 3 days. And some of the placement and combinations of furniture were very...odd. It wasn't that important for the mod, so I evetually gave up on it. But someone who knew exactly what they're doing and could write the script would be able to make this work perfectly.

Agreed. 'Larger regional worlds' are a dime a dozen. And based on what i've seen and read about Witcher 3, it's going to fall into the same category. Even TES has touched down in it, truth be told, with things like Shivering Isles and Solsthiem.

Personally, i'd rather the current approach, a smaller, scaled world which exists seamlessly. I'd even like to see that seamlessness expanded to include dungeons, caves and cities, but it'd settle for what it is now.

That's not to say i like the status quo. Technology is progressing, and so is processing power, and the worlds should be getting bigger. Skyrim was what, 15 square miles? The next should be at least 20.

???

Expound.

A smaller, seamless world.

Fast travel fundamentally removes me from the game, not to mention the fact it leaves chunks of whatever province it's set in unexplorable for no good reason, to account for travel time.

In the last thread, I made a similar comment, but it's probably worth touching on again. I looove the seamless world thing. But I feel that TES requires something more in line with the scope and vision of their stories.

Daggerfall involved a plot that dealt with political intrigue and in-fighting, warmongering, and a threat of open rebellion developing. The cities were huge. The land was expansive. Travelling was a matter of weeks or even months. It felt like you were part of this huge empire.

Skyrim's lore is the same, as well as it's plot. Thalmor oppression, a civil war tearing a region apart, the return of dragons, an empire on the brink of collapse. It all falls a bit flat when each town is a 46 second sprint from the next. That's a region? And a battle for an entire hold involves 8-12 soldiers on each side. That's a civil war? And Whiterun's "Wind District" consists of 9 buildings. That's a capital city?

I prefer the scaled down, seamless world for the Fallout series. It's plot is far more intimate. Works great, there.

A bigger video game world than The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim combined with absolutely no loading screens . That's what I want to see from a open world sandbox RPG video game.