How big is the map in comparison with Oblivion's? : V - Skyrim

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:46 pm

Chances are good that this will be ignored again, since people apparently like to speculate with as little information as possible. However, I did calculate and post these numbers in hopes of starting a discussion about that, so I'll just try again.
Assuming that the grid on the Skyrim map in Bethesda's hallway is the actual cell grid of the game, then this should be a pretty good estimation. And as far as I know, it is so far the only information on game world size that we can derive.

Cheers Fear, I was thinking that the only way we could use the screengrab map pic would be to compare the number of cells.

And I think someone else said a similar thing earlier in this thread, but hopefully the size of a cell, and the amount of data and info that a cell can hold, is larger in Skyrim than it was on Oblivion and MW.

I think that we all hope that the map is bigger, and I would be surprised if it is not.

» Tue Mar 15, 2011 3:21 am

I don't want the size of the map to be measured quantitatively, I just want to know how big the map is going to feel. Oblivion had a much larger map than Morrowind, but I felt Morrowind was bigger. The way things were designed, the mountains, the lack of fast travel, the silt striders, etc. I'm going for the feel, not the numbers.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 8:06 pm

The terrain will have a huge affect on the scale; much like Morrowind.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 8:14 pm

Okay, just did the same thing as with the other maps for Morrowind. These results are very exact because the map I found was very good (taken directly from the game), even though I was quite conservative when I decided what "playable area" is (i.e. left out many of the smaller isles).
Vvardenfell - 938 cells
Solstheim - 94 cells
Total - 1032 cells

However, I read that Morrowind's cells were 2^13=8192 units in each direction (apparently that's quoted from the CS help), while Oblivion's cells were 2^12=4096 cells in each direction. That means that each MW cell is 4 times larger than an OB cell. So for comparison, we multiply the MW values by 4 and get a cell count of 4128 OB cells for Vvardenfell+Solstheim, and 3752 OB cells for Vvardenfell alone.
That sounds about right to me.

Also, it seems that cells are always 2^x units, nothing in between. So Skyrim could either have 975 OB cells, 3900 OB cells, or 15600 OB cells (the latter being the number that would result if Skyrim had MW's cell size).
Personally, I doubt both the 975 and the 15600, they are too extreme.

ShampooLord: How big it feels is important, yes. But technically, this thread is about the quantitive size. Also I just don't worry about the feeling because we can already see from the map that Skyrim will have a better layout than Cyrodiil.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 9:00 pm

Based on the trend of Elder Scrolls games I believe it will be slightly smaller than Cyrodill. I hope I'm wrong though. Vvardenfell's size was perfect for a mountainous region.

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:56 pm

The engine is irrelevant. The characters are roughly the same size and it's still just an ordinary map mesh. What's the difference? Better graphics doesn't change the scale.

You do know the Skyrim map they showed us at the "behind the scenes" has less cells than Oblivion right?

» Mon Mar 14, 2011 10:16 pm

You do know the Skyrim map they showed us at the "behind the scenes" has less cells than Oblivion right?

That has nothing to do with that. We don't know what size the cells in Skyrim are. Or even if that grid will actually represent the size of them in the game. I was talking about Morrowind and Oblivion back then. It's irrelevant to what the size of Skyrim will be.