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Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 6:50 pm
by Stratocaster
Hey
Will the Skyrim world be smaller than the Oblivion world? It looks slightly smaller on the map! Will they just scale it up?
I hope they do!
Thanks.

Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 8:00 pm
by IVA Jakel
im sure they will, anything else would not make sense:) and i heard something about them saying that they would put alot more locations in the map aswell caves, dungeons forts and such. its bound to be massive

Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:21 pm
by ace62394
Probably.
First you get all of Tamriel, then Morrowind (~21 mi²), then Cyrodiil (~16 mi²).
I'm worried

Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:39 pm
by Arch-Mage Matt
I heard Todd Howard say that it will be bigger than Oblivion... but not by normal means, or something like that.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:41 am
by Nortac
Stratocaster wrote:Hey
Will the Skyrim world be smaller than the Oblivion world? It looks slightly smaller on the map! Will they just scale it up?
I hope they do!
Thanks.

It's been a general trend in the elder scrolls games to shrink in terms of playable area, but increase in terms of detail. Arena featured all of Tamriel, but was largely randomly generated. Daggerfall featured Just the areas around Iliac Bay, but was still fairly large, had more detail, and was less randomly generated. Morrowind, which featured Vvardenfell, became smaller still, but had much more detail, and Oblivion was smaller and more detailed than Morrowind.
However, it's possible that they can pull off making the game map both larger and more detailed at the same time. After all, with a new engine and higher-capacity disc drives, it may be very possible.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:51 am
by Stendarr
What are you talking about guys? Oblivion was bigger than Morrowind. And you got it wrong Nortac, Oblivion was less detailed, bigger and less detailed. Less content at least.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:16 am
by Kestral
In the "Behind the Scenes" tour, the map seemed pretty big. I can imagine it being as big as Oblivion, or at least the size of Fallout 3. In either, I never complained about the size. I would complain if it had a dearth of locations and points of interesting, because that's where the game is, as well as outside them.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 3:11 am
by JockoBeans
I just hope the locations are not smashed together. You run from run cave to the next in 5 seconds.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 3:14 am
by bran
i dont care if it is a little smaller if they compact the game with more content yeah oblivion was bigger than morrowind but with less content a lot of the extra land was useless
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:01 pm
by Hadrianus
Stendarr wrote:What are you talking about guys? Oblivion was bigger than Morrowind. And you got it wrong Nortac, Oblivion was less detailed, bigger and less detailed. Less content at least.
Less detailed? Are you serious?

Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 3:19 pm
by Dunmerdude
Alucard wrote:Stendarr wrote:What are you talking about guys? Oblivion was bigger than Morrowind. And you got it wrong Nortac, Oblivion was less detailed, bigger and less detailed. Less content at least.
Less detailed? Are you serious?

Every square inch of Morrowind,Bloodmoon and Tribunal was hand crafted,much of Oblivion was made using repeated layouts with small changes.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 4:22 pm
by T PoPTartZz T
Dunmerdude wrote:Alucard wrote:Stendarr wrote:What are you talking about guys? Oblivion was bigger than Morrowind. And you got it wrong Nortac, Oblivion was less detailed, bigger and less detailed. Less content at least.
Less detailed? Are you serious?

Every square inch of Morrowind,Bloodmoon and Tribunal was hand crafted,much of Oblivion was made using repeated layouts with small changes.
Morrowind had plenty of copy/paste going on. It's impossible to make that much
game without using copy/paste all over the place. Especially in Vivec! Each of the
different sections (I forget what they're called) looked the same. 100% of the
structure, and about 80% of the decor was copy/paste.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 4:52 pm
by Stendarr
Alucard wrote:Stendarr wrote:What are you talking about guys? Oblivion was bigger than Morrowind. And you got it wrong Nortac, Oblivion was less detailed, bigger and less detailed. Less content at least.
Less detailed? Are you serious?

Each square km was packed with more stuff in Morrowind. 75% (around) of Oblivion's landmass was nothing but wilderness with forts, ruins and caves. Morrowind had more cities, more dungeon types, more and more different geographical areas, more types of small camps, etc... Morrowind was jam-packed with stuff in a quite smaller landmass. There was absolutely nothing to too much of Oblivion's landmass.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 5:26 pm
by The Tourist
( ...plus, re Morrowind's size and scale; add Solstheim and Mournhold)
I've not yet played an open-worlder which felt small, so I'm fairly sure Skyrim's scale won't noticiably disappoint. I'm more concerned with the map design itself; I thought Oblivion's 'hub' was infuriating, forcing you to trapse past that flippin' city again and again. Morrowind was more akin to ring, based around Red Mountain. Thus, if you walked, you traversed differing, distinct regions.
I hope Skyrim's map - however big it is - doesn't get as repetative as Ob's.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:01 pm
by Stendarr
@The Tourist, I think we can be sure of that. Dudes from Beth's forums analyzed and remade the
map seen in a Bethesda studio tour from the GI website, and there seems to be a couple of quite distinct areas. There's Thundra Marsh, Pine Forest, Fall Forest, Volcanic Thundra, Snow Thundra. Seems good if you ask me.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:30 pm
by the Savage Hippie
I just felt like I wanted to refer to this topic
http://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=19909
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:06 pm
by mptrj
Well, given that 3 cities didn't make the transition into Skyrim the game, maybe we'll see some unique ruins from them?
Please let that be the case.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:31 pm
by Stendarr
mptrj wrote:Well, given that 3 cities didn't make the transition into Skyrim the game, maybe we'll see some unique ruins from them?
Please let that be the case.
How so? 5 major cities =/= 5 cities. Morrowind had 4 major cities, yet it had more than two times more cities/towns/settlements than Oblivion which had 9 cities (major) period.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:34 pm
by Hadrianus
Stendarr wrote:Alucard wrote:Stendarr wrote:What are you talking about guys? Oblivion was bigger than Morrowind. And you got it wrong Nortac, Oblivion was less detailed, bigger and less detailed. Less content at least.
Less detailed? Are you serious?

Each square km was packed with more stuff in Morrowind. 75% (around) of Oblivion's landmass was nothing but wilderness with forts, ruins and caves. Morrowind had more cities, more dungeon types, more and more different geographical areas, more types of small camps, etc... Morrowind was jam-packed with stuff in a quite smaller landmass. There was absolutely nothing to too much of Oblivion's landmass.
I think I see what you meen now. I thought you were saying Morrowind is more graphically detailed than Oblivion

Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 8:46 pm
by mptrj
Stendarr wrote:mptrj wrote:Well, given that 3 cities didn't make the transition into Skyrim the game, maybe we'll see some unique ruins from them?
Please let that be the case.
How so? 5 major cities =/= 5 cities. Morrowind had 4 major cities, yet it had more than two times more cities/towns/settlements than Oblivion which had 9 cities (major) period.
I'm not saying that I didn't want, or that there will be less cities in the game, I actually welcome the change if it means the cities will be more detailed.
I'm just saying it would be cool if we saw some of the ruins of- Markarth Side, for example, which isn't on the map from the Behind the Scenes video. A lot can happen in 200 years.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 11:56 pm
by stst
City ruins would be really cool -- I've always been a fan of derelict stuff. I think it would also be refreshing to have some sort of above-ground dungeon.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:25 am
by ch00_bakka
stst wrote:City ruins would be really cool -- I've always been a fan of derelict stuff. I think it would also be refreshing to have some sort of above-ground dungeon.
Exactly! All of the "city" dungeons in Morrowind and Oblivion would have been impossible to live in!
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Fri Jan 14, 2011 3:40 am
by Hadrianus
Your conversation just brought dwemer to my mind, imagine discovering an abandoned dwemer city deep within the mountains. Of course it wont happen, but imagine

Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:04 pm
by The Chuckster
Alucard wrote:Your conversation just brought dwemer to my mind, imagine discovering an abandoned dwemer city deep within the mountains. Of course it wont happen, but imagine

That would be epicly epic.
Re: Will Skyrim be smaller?
Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:44 pm
by randomfrog
It had better be at least the same size as Tamriel was in Oblivion. Preferably larger.