Why is Boston so small? ;)

[tomomi1922]

Where is College of Emerson? This is a 100 year old institution right at downtown Boston. Just a thought. Where do you think it would be on the map?

In fact, I think this Boston is quite nothing like the real Boston we have in RL. I wonder why they make it so small, not like there is not enough computer resources to handle a bigger map. Skyrim for a 3-4 year old game has a bigger map that even feels big riding on horse back. In fact I feel even FO NV has bigger map. I was whining to myself how annoying I had to run on foot all the time and activated this run speed cheat to make life easier for lazy me.

FO4 on the other hand I don't even occur to me to cheat the run speed. Is it that small?

[Boombro]

It seems fo4 doesn't have all of Baston, but it not that small.

 

The map feels small because the sprinting speed is really high this around, with the sea having a bigger area than past games. It bigger than past games expect Skyrim in fact.

 

While the pipe boy map is small, it doesn't count the glowing sea that is set outside the map and it a big area, multi level areas and subways. The map is also much denser in the center. The city ruins seems bigger than whiterun hold to me.

 

Past games felt bigger because there was better more interesting towns and other hubs as well. You could stop at a place, pick at lest one mid length side quest.

[JimboUK]

For the amount of meaningful content in the game it's about right, making it larger would just see people fast travel more. As for Skyrim, yeah the map is big but large areas are inaccessible.

[TheOriginalEvilD]

You told me it was a good size!!!!

 

 

LOL. I dunno. I've defended this game a lot, but lately I'm sort of realizing some let down. The map is a decent size when you consider how dense it is for the most part, but I do wish it were bigger. I feel like this game has probably been cut into sections and the rest of the game will be in DLC form, sort of like how the glowing sea is beyond the bottom map border, I bet you the DLC's will open up land that's beyond other areas of the border.

[Rachiou]

To be honest with OP, the scale of what FO4 has for Boston is actually indeed smaller than the actual city but Boston in it's own IRL is actually fairly small. It doesn't take people long to travel all around Boston unless you're moving during rush hour.

[CaptainPatch]

If you look at Skyrim as an example. the city of Whiterun has only <50 residents and consists of just about 20-30 buildings. The city of Solitude, the provincial capital, isn't much bigger. By comparison, metro Boston in FO4 is HUGE, with a population of hundreds/thousands. But still only a fraction of Real Life Boston.

 

How many buildings are there in RL Boston? Imagine having to do code for each and every one of the RL buildings, rendering the graphics to account for a nuke war and 200+ years of no building maintenance. A LOT of those buildings had to be trimmed out, just to make the project manageable. And if I am correct, the ONLY historical buildings in FO4 are explorable and usually have story content as well. Given the resources they had available, some things -- A LOT of some things -- needed to be left out.

[HandofBobb]

Objectively, it might seem small, but if you consider how fast you actually walk in game-time, it seems a decent size. Remember that a RL "ten minute walk" would be like 3 hours in game time.

[Raycheetah]

Same reason Washington, DC, is as small as it is in Fallout 3: Scaling. I would LOVE to have an accurately-scaled, detailed city to explore in; however, my computer wouldn't be able to handle it. Neither would anyone else's, at least, unless they worked at NASA. =^[.]^=

[tomomi1922]

If you look at Skyrim as an example. the city of Whiterun has only <50 residents and consists of just about 20-30 buildings. The city of Solitude, the provincial capital, isn't much bigger. By comparison, metro Boston in FO4 is HUGE, with a population of hundreds/thousands. But still only a fraction of Real Life Boston.

 

How many buildings are there in RL Boston? Imagine having to do code for each and every one of the RL buildings, rendering the graphics to account for a nuke war and 200+ years of no building maintenance. A LOT of those buildings had to be trimmed out, just to make the project manageable. And if I am correct, the ONLY historical buildings in FO4 are explorable and usually have story content as well. Given the resources they had available, some things -- A LOT of some things -- needed to be left out.

 

Skyrim is different in both game design and geography. Skyrim is a fictional world but it mimics old European city building concepts: small city behind a tall wall to be fortified against attackers. The cities do not mean to be massive. But modern day cities in US... they connect one after another. Like LA for example, people say LA is huge, but in reality it is a combination of a dozen cities all connected to each other. You can keep driving and driving and never get out to the suburb.

 

Game wise, Whiterun is a spot on the map for the game. Boston, on the other hand, IS the map of the game. So it is really apple and orange to compare one Skyrim's city to Boston.

 

Objectively, it might seem small, but if you consider how fast you actually walk in game-time, it seems a decent size. Remember that a RL "ten minute walk" would be like 3 hours in game time.

 

Game time is relative and quite non-consequential. Unless most of the quests are being timed, like "you HAVE to get there before 5pm today" ... then game time is more of a nuisance (like if you prefer things to be light/dark when doing certain things). Although we don't know how to measure the distance in game to the exact number, we can ... feel it. Also to mention that in game, our character has fantastic endurance: can auto run non-stop without getting tired .... even if you put the real Boston in, it will even feel smaller in game because of how fast your character can move. People are known to run marathon, but nobody commute by running, carrying all their stuff with them.

 

Same reason Washington, DC, is as small as it is in Fallout 3: Scaling. I would LOVE to have an accurately-scaled, detailed city to explore in; however, my computer wouldn't be able to handle it. Neither would anyone else's, at least, unless they worked at NASA. =^[.]^=

 

GTA 5 has something like that. It's not really accurate of any real city, but it does feel like a real city. I play a bit of it, switching between 3 characters feel really cool... camera zoom out to sattelite view and and home back down on the other person. GTA 5 has freeways that lets you drive at high speed, so that game does feel a lot bigger. How much bigger than FO4? No idea.

 

But yes, it would be nice to play in THE real city. Doing so, however, either Bethesda has to pay large money for Google or afford a team themselves to do map surveying and data collection (like how Google Map does streetview).

Edited January 18, 2016 by tomomi1922

[Boombro]

It true GTA v is bigger, but fallout 4 is more detailed.

It doesn't matter how big the map is, it what in it. Sadly, fallout 4 doesn't have that many quests.