Vvardenfell was undeniably cooler than cyrodil, but terms of actual object layout if was exactly the same as Cyrodil. All the rocks and trees were of similar distance, it still had a generated look, but the difference is that Vvardenfell was more alien and creative, and the terrain was more varied. Theres no reason that skyrim couldn't be huge, but also be interesting and creative world

For instance. good use of arctic tundra planes, jagged and surreal mountain formation. giant scottish-style castles, etc. When you climb a tall mountain, you should get howling blizzards blowing in your face as you traverse slowly through knee-deep snow, you should be greeted by chirping crickets and blacklfies as you trod through melted arctic tundra, there should be lots of dense, short forests, steep, terrifying canyon valleys, mirror-top alpine lakes.. theres no reason you cant take a normally conventional worldspace and make it amazing and atmospheric.

these are the sorts of things I hope to see

http://www.donpaulson.com/AlpineLake.jpg

http://users.snowcrest.net/wb6fzh/alpl5.jpg

http://thundafunda.com/393/images/wallpapers/animals/the-wild-sprit-andes-mountains-argentina-group-of-horses-pictures-wallpapers.jpg


For sense of realism, there will be a need for bare areas, but even with bare areas you can make them exiting to traverse. Imagine being on horseback, ripping across huge, barren glacial casm, with towering, knife edge mountains around you on all sides. Its all about atmosphere, to gain good atmosphere you need to combine both stunning visuals, and a freakishly real sound-scape, with those two things, even barren wastes can be fun to traverse.

I keep on seeing people say "Well since the map size of Skyrim is smaller then Cyrodiil, then that must mean that the actual place where you play has to be small".
No. Stop saying this because it makes NO sense at all. Look at Daggerfall, High Rock and Hammerfell are smaller than Cyrodiil map wise, yet in game it is 62 square miles, when in Oblivion, Cyrodiil is only 16 square miles of playable map while Cyrodiil is still bigger on the map, yet the in game part that you play in is only 16 square miles. Now, further on to my point. Excuse me if i repeat myself at all here, but the in game portion of Elder Scrolls 5 that you play in can be bigger than the in game portion of Oblivion's Cyrodiil that you play in. Do you get it yet?

When I played Fallout 3, I was very impressed with the lessons that Bethesda had learned. What had been a massive world with fairly redundant areas for the most part had been completely replaced in Fallout 3 with a smaller, but far more detailed and unique experience. If Bethesda repeats that lesson in this new world of Skyrim then I'll be more than satisfied. Better: I know that they'll IMPROVE on Fallout's details, which makes me even more excited.

But I'd always take a more detailed and unique map than a larger, more redundant one, absolutely.

To say "large but semi-detailed" is a little unfair. You're gonna get biased results. no one wants a "semi-detailed" world.

Oblivion was bigger than Morrowind, and really where are you getting small from, Oblivion and Morrowind were in the top 10 largest landmasses in a video game

I want the game world to be about 4 times larger than Oblivion. I also want it to be highly detailed

However, there has to be some kinda nordish hell where all those people get that dared to put words like wish and medium or small in the same sentence in threads like this.

Now for the fine arts of torture we all want to see in detail happening in that hell, I'd prefer...

I believe Quality > Quantity.

We cannot really decide it is based on Skyrim we will have to go with that. But I imagine many secret islands, etc will show up.

Just because it looks smaller on the overall map doesn't mean it will be in-game, They don't have to use the same scale they used for Cyrodiil

thank you so much for summing this up

I'd like it to actually be small and incredibly detailed. One city even, with lots to do, people to meet - like the op said, a lot of Oblivion was just the same thing over and over. Sure there was a lot to see, but you were doing the same thing over and over again. I want one large city-state where the king/duke etc rules one city.