Morrowind's caves always had a story to tell. They were more than just hideouts. Lets not forget that even the vast amount of waters had hidden sunken ships that people would never know about without exploring the ocean.

I think the ability to mod shouldn't be considered. I mean, you buy the game first for the experience it brings and not a modder playground. Oblivion was a perfect modder playground but it ended up to suffer a great deal for it, why bother making huge spaces if you leave most of it empty for modders? I have nothing against modders, but the biggest issue should be about trying to optimize everything for vanilla gamers, the "canon" experience. If you need dozens of mods to make the place feel more alive and less empty, there's a problem, making a game isn't a cooperation between developers and modders. Plus, it didn't disable people from modding extensively Morrowind. Having said that, the moment I get a new PC, I get Oblivion and download loads of game fixing mods as well as the Hammerfell thing.

Speak for yourself. I'm not buying the game before the CS is available, same as I did with Oblivion and Fallout 3.

Hopefully it will be bigger. I mean, surely with the technology we have these days they can improve and expand on the landmass?

However, if they're focusing more on content, character development, gameplay mechanics and immersion, then I'd be happy with a map the same size of Cyrodill. Any smaller and it would be a step-backwards.

Well, if they're gonna spend time on making a construction set and making the game able to be modded, then I'm sure they are gonna put some attention to what modders will want and need.

Also, I'm sure they get A LOT of inspiration from user made mods :wink_smile:

I do think that Bethesda did rely to heavily on PC modders to fix certain problems in the game, the unofficial patch has a staggering list of fixes.

But however, in saying that, there will always be empty space in sandbox games anyway, because it adds to the feeling of a large world. You wouldn't want dungeons and cities to be shoulder to shoulder with each other. I don't think any empty space is left on purpose, I'm sure it would be the same with modders taken into account or not.

Yeah, Red Dead Redemption has got the scaling right. You *need* a horse to get anywhere relatively quickly (without fast travelling).

Also, the graphics in RDR are just superb, from the deserts to the pine forests. Hopefully Skyrim will be at least as impressive graphically.

If they can't match or beat Red Dead, then I imagine that will severely damage their sales and reputation.

I reckon they will match it at least, I can't see them releasing a game about 2 years after Red Dead and have it look worse, that would never do.

I wasn't really all that impressed by the world in RDR. It was mostly barren and not worthwhile exploring.

YES.

and please, cut down on invisible barriers, i dont like them

honestly it could be cool with the size of world of warcraft, a little big maybe but it has a lot of monters and lots of land and OF COURSE it wont be the wow landscape and it will have its own monsters, caves, Features just the size/monster spread out in wow was cool

I heard the reason Beth put the limits and subway things in Fallout 3 was because they knew people would get tired of tromping around a broken dark wasteland afterwhile. So they put the tunnels and stuff in to speed up travel.

Obsidian took this out in New Vegas and made it slightly more explorable with a large desert, but then I've heard complaints that it's a whole lot of empty space and a waste of disc space.

So I assume that Skyrim will be totally explorable, if only because it will be pretty and fun to look at. As opposed to a big grey and brown wasteland.

Hopefully they will include some parts from other surrounding provinces like Hammerfell and High Rock.


I dont care about the map size as much as I care that there are different environments and not just snow...

Honestly...size doesn't matter (no pun intended). Look at TES: IV. Landscape wise/square milage it was bigger than TES: III. The reason Morrowind seemed bigger was because of

A) How slow you walked (Oblivion you walked faster than you ran top speed in Morrowind...that's without working on your skills)
B) How complicated the land was. Mountains you could NOT climb/jump over.

Because of the greatness that was Vvardenvell, the landscapes were very realistic. Oblivion was pretty much just a flat plane full of trees.

Now onto Skyrim. I believe if they work on the landscapes to be more diverse, more realistic...and make sure your character doesn't run 100mph out of the gate...the landmass wouldn't need to cover 1000000square miles.

ye that way was f3 rly annoying

The problem with Oblivion was the lack of variety and the lack of smaller settlements (as well as the imperial city). There were enough major cities in Oblivion, but the settlements were two or three houses huddled together... Pathetic.

I hope Skyrim is the same map size as Oblivion, with more emphasis on variation in wilderness and more smaller settlements.

That's... comforting.

is so many caves in oblivion, is like if u put alll caves in oblivion togheter is it 2times or more bigger than the land

Most likely. I hope they don't do something like New Vegas where like one-third of the whole map was unscaleable cliffs or invisible walls.

Cyrodil felt way too small to be a province... not significantly larger or more populated than the backwater island of Vvardenfell. The Imperial City, center of Tamriel, was almost big enough for a small town, or maybe a shopping mall. the other cities would be dwarfed by CostCo or Sam's Club. At least half the population (not counting the enemy NPCs who probably outnumber the citizens) are guards, with very little worth guarding. When reading the Akaviri diary from the Pale Pass quest, when he writes about traveling from Dragonclaw Rock to the Sentinel and then the cave over the course of days (you can run between these places in about a minute), you realize how pathetic the scale really is... they could have set the game in a single county of Cyrodil like they did in Morrowind and it might have been more successful.

I still enjoy the game, I just pretend it's not part of the Elder Scrolls series...

"I wasn't really all that impressed by the world in RDR. It was mostly barren and not worthwhile exploring."

Welcome to the American Southwest!

I want quality > quantity, as in how Morrowind or New Vegas did it. Oblivion always felt boring and lacking character to me, but I'm sure Bethesda will fix that.

As others have pointed out, speed will be a defining factor in how large or small the world feels. Morrowind executed this flawlessly, I'm on my first play through with 100 speed and about 60 athletics. Still, getting from the starting area to Balmora can take ten or more minutes, depending on what obstacles I encounter on the way. Fallout 3 and its awful sequel really aren't comparable. Understanding that the area you occupy is only as big as a city really kills the vastness they wish you to perceive. Another complaint is something I hated in Oblivion, and that's bumping into a fort, cave and dungeon every five feet. Spread out the content. Let me get lost in the woods, the plains, etc..

I'd be totally satisfied if it were the same size as Oblivion. I love a huge map. Of course I want good detail too, but I hate for them to downsize on their map size.

Rather an image I wish to forget by the time I'm wandering skyrims snow white hills. Makes me wonder what the canon pronunciation of skyrim is.

If I've felt like any game had big areas that were boring and lacked depth worth exploring, it'd be New Vegas. Sure Oblivion had some areas that weren't as detailed as they could be, but I can't tell you how many times I've spotted a location in New Vegas after wandering forever, and it turned out to be just a house with a boarded up door, sometimes a building with no door at all, or a cave you can't even go inside of. What's the point of putting a building in the dessert if you can't even enter it? A lot of the marked locations in New Vegas were shacks with a couple containers with some healing powder at best. Why would that even be marked?