Smaller "Holds/Cities" : V

» Tue May 17, 2011 8:09 pm

One thing I always loved about Oblivion/Morrowind is the random small few buildings, or small hotel/farm building kinda out on it's own. Since Skyrim only has 5 large cities.....I wonder if there will be any of these smaller buildings spread about.
I know there are "holds" but I dunno what that means.

Also has the Skyrim Map size been confirmed as smaller? bigger? same size as oblivion/morrowind?

thanks

» Tue May 17, 2011 10:56 pm

You mean towns and villages?

» Wed May 18, 2011 1:46 am

One thing I always loved about Oblivion/Morrowind is the random small few buildings, or small hotel/farm building kinda out on it's own. Since Skyrim only has 5 large cities.....I wonder if there will be any of these smaller buildings spread about.
I know there are "holds" but I dunno what that means.

Also has the Skyrim Map size been confirmed as smaller? bigger? same size as oblivion/morrowind?

thanks

Confirmed the same amount of game space, but will feel bigger than Oblivion, because mountains will prevent you from walking direct to your goal all the time.

» Tue May 17, 2011 7:37 pm

But in reality its actually less since Mountains aren't things you can just walk over/on and wander.

» Tue May 17, 2011 8:38 pm

:thumbsup:

Yes, I like very much small settlements, I hope we could even buy a house in some of them.

In any case it would be good if they placed in each one a merchant or a caravan stop, in this way I think I'd be more boosted to stay for longer in that place and/or coming back sometimes.

» Tue May 17, 2011 8:11 pm

But in reality its actually less since Mountains aren't things you can just walk over/on and wander.

I may be wrong, but I remember (possibly from the podcast) Todd saying something to the effect that 'you really feel like you're climbing a mountain'. So maybe we will be able to wander around the mountains.

Especially since they've probably improved their mountain-building skills from OB, where it was pretty much just a long slide of shapeless land.

So that's promising, anyway.

» Wed May 18, 2011 10:09 am

the Holds are pretty much just clans. they function roughly like the Great Houses of Morrowind - each has its own ideology and cultural bits. obviously they're not nearly as DRAMATIC as the differences between the different Great Houses, but that's more or less how they work.

also yeah there's a ton of villages even outside the five major cities (i think i saw somebody throw out a count of 20 at some point?), and there will very likely be separate farms and inns and stuff outside of the villages.

» Tue May 17, 2011 8:29 pm

:thumbsup:

Yes, I like very much small settlements, I hope we could even buy a house in some of them.

In any case it would be good if they placed in each one a merchant or a caravan stop, in this way I think I'd be more boosted to stay for longer in that place and/or coming back sometimes.

Yea Im hoping we can buy houses/get butlers/servants and guards and such like we could in morrowind.

» Wed May 18, 2011 4:40 am

But in reality its actually less since Mountains aren't things you can just walk over/on and wander.

I'm hoping you'll be able to zig and zag up and over some of the mountains with lots of adventure along the way, which would be better than walking in a straight line like OB. I don't think mountains need to mean that you can't go that way at all, ever. I think some will be scalable and some not. I'd also like to see dungeon passes under the mountains to the other side in some cases, which again is more adventurous than sprinting to your goal.

» Wed May 18, 2011 9:19 am

Dragons live in caves in mountains in every other film/story...

» Wed May 18, 2011 9:55 am

But in reality its actually less since Mountains aren't things you can just walk over/on and wander.

It should be even bigger because according to Todd we can scale the mountains. In the new OXM interview Todd said..."So our focus becomes one of level-of-detail streaming. You can stare at a fork, or an apple, and then look up and see a mountain, and you can then run to the top of that mountain." That sounds really good.

» Tue May 17, 2011 9:11 pm

I am sure I saw somewhere mentioned that there would be the 5 main cities and 20 smaller locations, like towns or villages... The map will be roughly the same size as Oblivion but not as bland as Oblivion was, no more computer generated landscapes for example. Overall it would seem that Skyrim has far more map/level/dungeon designers then Oblivion had and so should mean much more varying and versatile environments then Oblivion had.

» Wed May 18, 2011 4:32 am

I think it was 5 huge cities, like size of Imperial City in Oblivion, and then 20 smaller cities and towns/villages.

» Wed May 18, 2011 5:58 am

I think it was 5 huge cities, like size of Imperial City in Oblivion, and then 20 smaller cities and towns/villages.

Based off a rough inspection of the wall-map seen in one of the interview videos, there are at least nineteen settlements total, five of which are the major cities.
They are as follows:
Solitude
Windhelm
Whiterun
Falkreath
Dawnstar
Dragon Bridge
Dunstad Grove
Stonehill
Markarth Side
North Keep
Oakwood
Riverwood
Lamtar Dale
Dragon Wood
Vermm Wood
Nimalten
Green Wood
Riften
(and potentially Saarthal)

» Wed May 18, 2011 1:06 am

I think it was 5 huge cities, like size of Imperial City in Oblivion, and then 20 smaller cities and towns/villages.

We don't know what size the cities are. "Massive" is an advertising word. Best not to assume. I did an anolysis of the map which suggested they were about the size of an average city in Oblivion, like Cheydinhal or Skingrad, but that could be wrong too.

» Tue May 17, 2011 9:52 pm

But in reality its actually less since Mountains aren't things you can just walk over/on and wander.

Not necessarily, you may be able to climb mountains, granted, you're not going to just walk up those sheer cliffs we've seen, but there might be paths leading to the top.

But back to the matter at hand, we've just been told that there are five major cities, we can probably expect to see many more towns and villages, I'd assume, and I'm hoping those will be somewhat larger than their equivalents in Oblivion, I hope in Skyrim, a town or village is more along the lines of Maar Gan or Seyda-Neen or at least Khuul or Ald Velothy in Morrowind, rather than the two houses and an inn setup we'd often see in Oblivion.

» Wed May 18, 2011 12:13 pm

We don't know what size the cities are. "Massive" is an advertising word. Best not to assume. I did an anolysis of the map which suggested they were about the size of an average city in Oblivion, like Cheydinhal or Skingrad, but that could be wrong too.

Your anolysis was the one comparing cell-size, if I recall correctly?

» Wed May 18, 2011 2:10 am

Your anolysis was the one comparing cell-size, if I recall correctly?

Yes. It assumes the cell size is the same, a theory that is congruent with the "Roughly the same size as Oblivion" map

EDIT: Even if they are roughly that size, though, they could have much more content. Oblivion's cities were very sparse and empty. I managed to make a city with the Leyawiin tileset that was 2/3 the size with 1.5x the buildings.

» Wed May 18, 2011 12:25 am

Yes. It assumes the cell size is the same, a theory that is congruent with the "Roughly the same size as Oblivion" map

EDIT: Even if they are roughly that size, though, they could have much more content. Oblivion's cities were very sparse and empty. I managed to make a city with the Leyawiin tileset that was 2/3 the size with 1.5x the buildings.

And there're enough uncertain variables that an optimist could assume the cities will be decently larger without being too far up in the night.

» Tue May 17, 2011 9:54 pm

We don't know what size the cities are. "Massive" is an advertising word. Best not to assume. I did an anolysis of the map which suggested they were about the size of an average city in Oblivion, like Cheydinhal or Skingrad, but that could be wrong too.

Ah, that's somewhat disappointing. I was hoping the cities would be a little larger. Hm, well, it can still be good as long as there's more detail added. My bad for that, I think I read it on one of the threads speculating about this a while ago. Guess I should check my facts before I post them next time.

» Wed May 18, 2011 11:17 am

Based off a rough inspection of the wall-map seen in one of the interview videos, there are at least nineteen settlements total, five of which are the major cities.
They are as follows:
Solitude
Windhelm
Whiterun
Falkreath
Dawnstar
Dragon Bridge
Dunstad Grove
Stonehill
Markarth Side
North Keep
Oakwood
Riverwood
Lamtar Dale
Dragon Wood
Vermm Wood
Nimalten
Green Wood
Riften
(and potentially Saarthal)

Good work! I'm going to look for this.

» Wed May 18, 2011 2:29 pm

Good work! I'm going to look for this.

I tried to find the thread that originally anolyzed the map, but searching for "map" brought 34 pages of results, which is a shame because someone made a great labeled version of it.
http://img10.imageshack.us/i/skyrimmap1.png/
It's an excellent piece of work, wish I knew who to credit it to.

» Wed May 18, 2011 7:25 am

I tried to find the thread that originally anolyzed the map, but searching for "map" brought 34 pages of results, which is a shame because someone made a great labeled version of it.
http://img10.imageshack.us/i/skyrimmap1.png/
It's an excellent piece of work, wish I knew who to credit it to.

Har, that's my map. It's also outdated. There's a newer one on my photobucket, but it's still a bit outdated, and I haven't bothered to make a new one.

» Wed May 18, 2011 2:21 pm

Har, that's my map. It's also outdated. There's a newer one on my photobucket, but it's still a bit outdated, and I haven't bothered to make a new one.

Well, thanks for making it! It's extremely helpful.

I've been thinking about making one that labels Saarthal and the discernible ruins and dungeons as well, but I've been too lazy.

» Wed May 18, 2011 1:12 am

Har, that's my map. It's also outdated. There's a newer one on my photobucket, but it's still a bit outdated, and I haven't bothered to make a new one.

Thanks to all. Cool map. I see it in the "Behind the Scenes Tour" video.