The Giants & The Five Major Cities : V

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:32 am

First a quick question for everyone. Who else sees the giants in the game being as big as the gatekeeper in the Shivering Isles?

But mostly, for some reason I am really interested to see what these 5 major cities will be like. What do you guys think? I just wanna know how big they'll actually be and how many stores, inns, taverns, places like that, that will be in there. And also I wanna know where and how you can cook. There are too many things I wanna know about this game and I don't even know where to start.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:19 pm

i hope the five cities are bigger than the imperial city. I thought the cities in oblivion were awesome, but nowhere near the size they should be.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:18 am

I dunno. From the cell size on the map, they don't appear to be significantly bigger than the average Oblivion city, which has me worried, considering how few of them there are.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:59 am

I dunno. From the cell size on the map, they don't appear to be significantly bigger than the average Oblivion city, which has me worried, considering how few of them there are.

They said the cities would be huge, so I'm guessing at least twice the size of Chorrol. But I'm not that worried about the SIZE, since Skyrim's not the most populated region. I' rather have more population density in the cities, ínstead of three people and ten guards in an Imperial City district.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:51 am

I dunno. From the cell size on the map, they don't appear to be significantly bigger than the average Oblivion city, which has me worried, considering how few of them there are.

This is true. But there is still hope that that they're not official size on the map as they are in the game...hopefully.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:02 am

First a quick question for everyone. Who else sees the giants in the game being as big as the gatekeeper in the Shivering Isles?

Hmmmm...

Maybe not quite as big, but close.

I for one am hoping for a 'command giant' perk in my illusion perk tree. :drool:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:01 am

They say huge, but I suspect they will be more like Skingrad--spread out cities that arent actually that big. I'm more interested in the number of people being increased, and the people actually doing things instead of standing around looking at walls.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:37 pm

Looking at the one screenshot depicting what seems to be a giant, I doubt they're as big as the Gatekeeper, I'd say they're closer to ogres or minotaurs in Oblivion, maybe slightly bigger, but that's just my guess. As for the cities, given that the map size is supposed to be about the same as Oblivion, I wouldn't count on them being significantly bigger than the ones in Oblivion in terms of how much landmass they take up, but they could certainly be more densely populated.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:19 am

I remember reading that minor cities/towns would have 10 buildings. 10 buildings is about how many buildings an Oblivion city had. I'd expect that even if the cities don't take up more space they'll be more densely packed and feel more realistic due to it.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:54 pm

I remember reading that minor cities/towns would have 10 buildings. 10 buildings is about how many buildings an Oblivion city had. I'd expect that even if the cities don't take up more space they'll be more densely packed and feel more realistic due to it.

No, they generally had about 18-20 buildings.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:33 am

I'm hoping for some huge open cities this time around.

I hope they get the villages right this time though. In Oblivion I would run across one every now and the and think how pathetic they looked. Three or four houses isn't much of a village.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:24 am

Same, Hopes these "Massive" cities make the IC (which wasnt much) look like a shack....and single shack. not equal to the IC, I mean Making IC look like a single Hovel.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:35 am

I'm hoping for some huge open cities this time around.

I hope they get the villages right this time though. In Oblivion I would run across one every now and the and think how pathetic they looked. Three or four houses isn't much of a village.

I'm making a plugin at the moment that is my own village that I'm adding to the world. Though I haven't made any NPCs yet, it feels like a proper village rather than some pathetic couple of shacks. It has 8 houses, 4 services, a well, a chapel, a farm and a huge rice paddy. It's looking pretty cool. I'd like to see villages around that size in Skyrim, and it sounds like I may do so.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:35 am

I'm making a plugin at the moment that is my own village that I'm adding to the world. Though I haven't made any NPCs yet, it feels like a proper village rather than some pathetic couple of shacks. It has 8 houses, 4 services, a well, a chapel, a farm and a huge rice paddy. It's looking pretty cool. I'd like to see villages around that size in Skyrim, and it sounds like I may do so.

Now that sounds alive.

That would be a fun little place to find in my travels.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:54 pm

The size doesnt matter so much as the feel of the cities. I really want every city to feel very unique from each other. So long as we dont have the cookie cutter villages we had in oblivion. However we have been told the cities are huge so we shall see what they mean by that. Hopfully we will get some good gameplay and screen shots before E3

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:59 am

Well, from the artwork of Riften in the Art of Skyrim video I have a good feeling that the cities will, at the very least, feel a lot more cluttered and have much more verticality than MW/OB's. I noticed things such as bridges between buildings and walkways beneath docks. Something perhaps twice the size of Balmora but less "flat" feeling, with more NPCs would be good enough for me. I'm also hoping that the approximations we've been given about settlement sizes exclude things such as mines and fisheries: if these are sprawled out on the outskirts of towns, it'll really help to make them feel more believable.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:40 pm

Similar size as Oblivion, but hopefully more things to do.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:25 am

Well, from the artwork of Riften in the Art of Skyrim video I have a good feeling that the cities will, at the very least, feel a lot more cluttered and have much more verticality than MW/OB's. I noticed things such as bridges between buildings and walkways beneath docks. Something perhaps twice the size of Balmora but less "flat" feeling, with more NPCs would be good enough for me. I'm also hoping that the approximations we've been given about settlement sizes exclude things such as mines and fisheries: if these are sprawled out on the outskirts of towns, it'll really help to make them feel more believable.

Uh... I don't think it'll be good enough for you. Balmora was bigger than any of the cities in Oblivion except IC (Nearly twice as big as any of them contentwise). I am highly doubting the cities will be twice as big.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:43 pm

I dunno. From the cell size on the map, they don't appear to be significantly bigger than the average Oblivion city, which has me worried, considering how few of them there are.

Maybe they represent quads (4x4 cells)?

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:03 pm

Maybe they represent quads (4x4 cells)?

That would be nice, but then, the map size would be nearly 4 times the size of the Oblivion map, and we know that's not true. My only hope for that is that that was just the current size of the cities, and they expanded them later on.

EDIT: Another thing that could make them bigger is not having them walled in. http://www.uesp.net/oblivion/map/obmap.shtml Just look at a city here and imagine if the walls and empty space just inside it was replaced with buildings and streets. You hardly gain any circumference, but you get much more content. Maybe 10 or so extra buildings.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:13 pm

Looking at the one screenshot depicting what seems to be a giant, I doubt they're as big as the Gatekeeper, I'd say they're closer to ogres or minotaurs in Oblivion, maybe slightly bigger, but that's just my guess.

You cannot be serious,....they are called "giants" for a reason,I would be extremely disappointed if they were the size of ogres and minotaurs.I think they will be as big as the gatekeeper and I am pretty confident in that statement.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:03 am

That would be nice, but then, the map size would be nearly 4 times the size of the Oblivion map, and we know that's not true. My only hope for that is that that was just the current size of the cities, and they expanded them later on.

Oblivion's cities were mostly wasted space though, they were the medieval version of suburbs. Maybe the new game is closer to the medieval version of a city.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:01 am

Did anyone else notice that the Giants appear to have a troll skull on their belt? (At least it looks like a troll skull to me, it has three eyes and the same basic shape.) If that's the case then we can assume that the Giants will be gigantic indeed.

As for the cities, I'd like to see at least one major city assassin creed size. I know that's probably not going to happen (that would be a ton of work), but it would be incredible. I'm betting the cities will be either about the same size as oblivion's cities or just slightly larger, but with more jammed into the same amount of space.

Unless of course they're not accurate to the map, in which case who knows.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:16 am

Oblivion's cities were mostly wasted space though, they were the medieval version of suburbs. Maybe the new game is closer to the medieval version of a city.

Some, like Chorrol, were definitely very sparse, but cities like Skingrad were very densely packed. Medieval cities wouldn't have been that dense all the time would they? We know from art that Riften will not be that dense in some parts.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:16 am

If every city was made as nicely as New Sheoth, I couldn't care less. I want good-looking densely packed cities with character.