Elder Scrolls games too small?

[Linkuya]

Now, hear me out.
Let's take Skyrim for example. In the center of Skyrim lies Whiterun, however Whiterun isn't all that big and only 50-ish people are there. Not very vast. Or Solitude, the center of the empire in Skyrim only has 50 or 60 people there? Or in the battle of Whiterun, where less than 100 soldiers combined are fighting.
I thought about this the other day and it seemed strange such a big land had small cities and not a lot of NPCs.

[Witchery]

It is understood that, lore-wise, the games do not reflect the size of the Elder Scrolls world. So Skyrim is only a fraction of its actual size, with only a fraction of the people. It is probably impossible to reflect the actual size of the universe, though the games do an excellent job of simulating the experience.

[Musicman247]

I think the smallish size of cities and population is so that you can easily find side quests. There are a few dozen people in Whiterun and almost every one of them has a side quest or dialogue that enhances the understanding the player has on the world. Now imagine a city as large as the sections of GTA 4 or city in an Assassins Creed game. How many side quests would you never discover because of the sheer size of the city?

Cities that size work for linear action games because they tell a singular story in order and they can direct you to specific people to continue. For an open world game you need a smaller population to be able to find things.

[Denina]

I always imagine the games are "scaled" to a fraction of what they would be if they could put everything in, which would be nearly impossible in a game just due to development time alone. You just have to use your imagination.

[dzio]

There's a discussion about scaling in TES games in the Lore subforum: http://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=17769

[cybrxkhan]

One thing I'm hoping they do in the next TES is introduce unnamed, respawning NPCs in major settlements, sort of like what some mods do right now (i.e. have unnamed farmers, mages, merchants, whatever wander around a city). You'll know they're not a quest-giver because they're not named, but they'll add in quite a bit of immersion.

[ZeRoc]

I agree completely with the games feeling too small, atleast the cities do at any rate. I mean, take for example the small cities of Morthal, Dawnstar, Winterhold and Falkreath. Most don't have general traders, Winterhold and Morthal don't even have armorers. Meanwhile you have towns like Helgen which seemed like a pretty big place, seems bigger and better defended than the neighboring Falkreath. Riverwood seems about the size of Morthal if we don't count all the water that makes a good portion of the "city." If the games had more cities the size of Markarth or Riften, then it would be fine, but when there are almost as many merchants in Vivec than there are in all of Skyrim... heh. I know it would be unreasonable size wise (they are working with the 360 and PS3's disk size limitation) for them to make all the cities that big, but still. I also agree with the idea of that mod mentioned above, since back in Oblivion there were a lot of extras, especially in the Imperial City, that just did nothing but talk about mudcrabs and how terrible they are. (And even then I got a mod that added more...)

[POMC S117]

One thing I'm hoping they do in the next TES is introduce unnamed, respawning NPCs in major settlements, sort of like what some mods do right now (i.e. have unnamed farmers, mages, merchants, whatever wander around a city). You'll know they're not a quest-giver because they're not named, but they'll add in quite a bit of immersion.

They wouldn't necessarily have to be unnamed. I'm sure Bethesda could come up with a race-specific, gender-specific name generator.

[Br3admax]

The problem is the AI for each character. I'm sure that next gen, there will be tons more npcs.

[POMC S117]

I hope they bring back the NPC AI features from Oblivion, and perhaps expand on them. But that's for another thread.

[Linkuya]

It is understood that, lore-wise, the games do not reflect the size of the Elder Scrolls world. So Skyrim is only a fraction of its actual size, with only a fraction of the people.

I actually didn't know this.

[cybrxkhan]

One thing I'm hoping they do in the next TES is introduce unnamed, respawning NPCs in major settlements, sort of like what some mods do right now (i.e. have unnamed farmers, mages, merchants, whatever wander around a city). You'll know they're not a quest-giver because they're not named, but they'll add in quite a bit of immersion.

They wouldn't necessarily have to be unnamed. I'm sure Bethesda could come up with a race-specific, gender-specific name generator.

I'd actually prefer they're unnamed - it adds to the immersion, to give the feel as if the city really is big, as you won't know everybody no matter how much you stick around the site (even towns of several thousands can be pretty overwhelming), and people just past by you and you might never see them again in your life.

[Dark Spark]

When I saw a lone Imperial Soldier in Oblivion take down a big-time Goblin Warlord, I came to realize that certain individuals in the game actually represent entire units of people. The game mechanics couldn't properly deploy a platoon of men, so the game simply buffed a single soldier up to the point where they could represent such power.

[DikaSmausha]

Like it was said, scaling is used. There is a reason why Civil War battles consist of 12 people.

[The SheoDovah]

Bethesda did do very large games. TES:Arena and Daggerfall were very large but i think they were generic looking. I prefer having the games be small and very detailed but i would like for the cities t be larger and the towns to be bigger then a few buildings. I know it's due to hardware restrictions at the moment but I suspect TES6 will be a lot bigger and more immersive. AI features need to be improved greatly and I would like for there to be at least one Imperial City sized city as they lied about Skyrim having a city that size.

[POMC S117]

One thing I'm hoping they do in the next TES is introduce unnamed, respawning NPCs in major settlements, sort of like what some mods do right now (i.e. have unnamed farmers, mages, merchants, whatever wander around a city). You'll know they're not a quest-giver because they're not named, but they'll add in quite a bit of immersion.

They wouldn't necessarily have to be unnamed. I'm sure Bethesda could come up with a race-specific, gender-specific name generator.

I'd actually prefer they're unnamed - it adds to the immersion, to give the feel as if the city really is big, as you won't know everybody no matter how much you stick around the site (even towns of several thousands can be pretty overwhelming), and people just past by you and you might never see them again in your life.

They could do it that people's names are only revealed once you speak to them.

[DikaSmausha]

Bethesda did do very large games. TES:Arena and Daggerfall were very large but i think they were generic looking. I prefer having the games be small and very detailed but i would like for the cities t be larger and the towns to be bigger then a few buildings. I know it's due to hardware restrictions at the moment but I suspect TES6 will be a lot bigger and more immersive. AI features need to be improved greatly and I would like for there to be at least one Imperial City sized city as they lied about Skyrim having a city that size.

There is still the population issue.

[Linkuya]

I like the idea of a set number of random NPCs randomly generating in towns but never to a level that would overload the hardware.

[OblivionDuruza]

The later games in the series were scaled down in size to allow for greater precision and detail in the creation of the world. The problem with Arena and Daggerfall's massive size was that although realistic, it didn't really add to the game. Being so large could actually be annoying for players, and it meant that Bethesda had to randomly generate basically everything, meaning that you got a lot of the same NPCs with slightly different, yet equally generic, names and 'personalities'. Even if a game of a similar scale was hand-crafted, it'd take days to travel it all, and no single player would probably ever finish every quest or meet every NPC. I think Morrowind to Skyrim could benefit from a size increase, but not a dramatic one. Maybe a x1.5 or x2 at max?

Some filler NPCs, 'Imperial Man', 'Nordic Woman', etc. might be handy to flesh out the world in the cases of NPCs the character doesn't interact with, but in games like The Witcher or Dragon Age, they don't really add all that much to the player's experience, other than making the world feel a little fuller. If these sort of NPCs were coupled with Radiant Questing though, it might be pretty nifty.

Edit: misc typo fixes

[CBR JGWRR]

To add to that, Arena crashes if you don't fast travel...

2x the size might be a bit hard to get the detail in, but should be doable with TES 6, since that's going to be at least a few years away with all the development that entails.

[ZeRoc]

While playing Oblivion yesterday it occurred to me, you can run really fast but the in-game hours seem to fly by faster, so I just thought, what if the scaled down land and the scaled up time are somehow related? Makes sense to me.

[cybrxkhan]

While playing Oblivion yesterday it occurred to me, you can run really fast but the in-game hours seem to fly by faster, so I just thought, what if the scaled down land and the scaled up time are somehow related? Makes sense to me.

When I went back to Oblivion after playing Skyrim for a while, I was utterly shocked at the fact I could literally travel across Tamriel in a day particularly by fast travel (or a day and a half without a horse, I think). In Skyrim it takes a wee bit longer.

[Kelle]

I believe you can calculate the average populace of cities in Tamriel by multiplying the in-game population by 200. E.g: In-game Windhelm [50 people], actual population [10000 people]

[Snail's Pace]

I agree that the world depicted in the games are scaled down versions of the world described in lore, but occasionally there are details in the games that aren't consistent with a scaled-down world. For example, I was struck by something Sorex in Solitude says the first time you meet him. He says that The Winking Skeever is the only inn in Solitude - which it is, if we are supposed to take the city's depiction at face value. But I find it hard to believe that a city of Solitude's supposed size and importance would have only one inn. It was probably a slip-up to include that line of dialog, as if not everybody on the writing team got the memo to remember that the game-world is a scaled-down version of the lore-world. I just find it amusing.

[AbiwonKenabi]

Could you imagine hundreds of people being holed up in that one inn? I'm picturing a rather hilarious scene XD