How does the map work in the older games? For example, Morrowind doesn't look that much bigger than Cyrodiil or the area from Daggerfall (High Rock and Hammerfall), yet Morrowind is said to be bigger than Oblivion in terms of game size, and everyone knows that Daggerfall is massive. What's more, Arenas is supposed to cover all of Tamriel, but it's not as big as Daggerfall.

Is the bottom line that there's little to no consistency in actual game worlds between the games?
Does the Imperial City in Daggerfall bear any resemblance to the one in Oblivion?

Play Arena, and go the Imperial City. Then play Oblivion, and go to the Imperial City. Do they look anything alike?

It seems to me like Daggerfall is the closest to the real scale that the area should be at, hardware limitations are what cause the shrinking size.

Oblivion have a larger game world than Morrowind. Arena is also larger than Daggerfall, cause it's infinite. The gameworld scales are very different between the game cause they used very different techniques to build the game worlds.

The cities aren't http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v236/Archeopterix/ElderScrolls/?action=view¤t=Mournhold.jpg and very different.

According to the distances in Arena, it's about 4520 km from Daggerfall to Necrom, making Tamriel roughly the size of the continental US. That seems about right to me, so that's the size I always imagine for the "real" Tamriel. Daggerfall doesn't quite reach that scale (as far as I know) but it comes closer than any of the other games by far. After Daggerfall, the devs gave up attempting to simulate the size of the gameworld, so current games should just be thought of as a massively scaled down version of the real thing. If Oblivion's or Morrowind's sizes were "real," all Tamriel would be about the size of a city.

Good luck reaching the IC in Daggerfall....

Arena is randomly genratored land.
Daggerfall is huge, massive etc etc
Morrowind is (i think) 16 square miles
Oblivion is something like 20 square miles


Dont quote me on the area vaulues though.

I think Oblivion is about 16 square miles to Morrowinds 9 or 10, but feels smaller - probably for the simple reason that you can see from one end to the other and can traverse the wilderness without many obstacles.

Both Oblivion and Morrowind feature condensed toy worlds which always feel pretty small, while Daggerfall creates a better illusion by generating realistic scale countries & settlements, but sacrifices pimped-up pretty graphics. Arena is infinite, so doesn't really have a scale, but is similar in premise to Daggerfall.

Nothing screams 'toy-world' more than seeing the amassed allied legions of the Imperial Empire number... 8... lonely... soldiers. 'Saving the World' loses its importance somewhat.

"square miles," or "miles squared?" I always find these kinds of discussions somewhat misguided in general, but I suppose the ultimate end is to explain to someone who doesn't have the game how much content is included in terms they can understand.. That does make it tough.

16 'Square miles' I think is correct. I thought the other way around would be 16x16.. square miles...

Anyway,

Daggerfall is biggest, but emptiest.
Oblivion is next biggest
Morrowind is smallest, but most saturated.

It's always going to be a compromise between quantity and quality unless someone masters a Daggerfall-type formula that weaves the illusion of a massive world with 'randomised' elements.

Well, that's precisely what I meant as the alternative. I said that from my point of view of still not really knowing how big the landmasses are in real-world proportions (even though I have all the games). To me, I haven't felt cramped particularly by any of the game worlds, so for what it's worth, it doesn't concern me too much..

(EDIT: typoes.. Fat d@mned fingers..)

Miles squared would be a difficult measurement to use for anything other than a square map, so it can be assumed that such a measurement is not likely to be used.

Gotcha :thumbsup:
Neither OB or MW are 'cramped', but they hardly feel like countries, especially after having played Daggerfall...

I swear I told this thread to email me upon replies. It didn't.

I thought Morrowind was bigger for some reason. Ah well.

Yeah, not about to go play Arena for days on end, just to compare cities. I tried it once and I kept dying :\

Square miles can be used for something that isn't a square map. You take a proper measurement, in whatever crazy units Americans use that are smaller than a mile, and then say "oh, that's 16.3 square miles" or whatever.

But thanks for clearing that up. So they're just scaled down, because too big is too hard to make...and too big.

Levethian, you're right, I'm up to that mission. Having a couple of guys to save the continent really drives home that it's not a full-sized world. Sadly, anything more than that many people (or even that many people) causes the PS3 to lag like a fat [censored].

Now I?d like to see a screenshot of the Imperial City in Arena. Anyone who knows where to find one?