Rescaling the map

[erickaqua]

Hey guys, since Skyrim's strongest point is the world itself, I find it very dissapointing to see that Throat of the World is 10-minute hike...

or Markath to Riften would take 1-2 days.

 

So I have this idea after seeing Daggerfall. Daggerfall's map has a realistic scale, in which a travel between point A and point B could take 10 hours real life time!

So I thought, hey, let's make Skyrim more epic by upscaling the map! Just like real Earth!

 

Ideally:

1. The map would be upscaled so Throat of the World will be 8800 m high (just like Everest), or...

2. Markath to Riften would take at least 10 real life days.

2. The clock progression would be those of real life. 1 second IRL is 1 second game time.

 

I know, the game would be boring if everything is too far away. So:

1. Fast travel will be available to any point in the map, not just places.

 

The purpose of this mod is not making the game fun to play because of the huge map.

It is just for immersion so the epic world would be much more believable.

 

And the question is, Is it possible? Feel free to destroy the ideal scenario :D

[ghosu]

OMG i already see those people, that never use quick travel quit their job and spend the rest of their life to finish a single quest-line. And then, close to their death their last words will be: Yes, i lived an exciting live...i delivered 10 pelts to Rudkar...and i would do it again! :D Edited December 18, 2011 by ghosu

[erickaqua]

OMG i already see those people, that never use quick travel quit their job and spend the rest of their life to finish a single quest-line. And then, close to their death their last words will be: Yes, i lived an exciting live...i delivered 10 pelts to Rudkar...and i would do it again! :D

 

Let's hope I'm still alive filling those huge maps before I saw them dying hahahahahahaha XD

Anyway, if the creation kit have random landscape generator, it might be more possible :D

[Nomad42]

I like the idea of making Skyrim bigger, but not to the degree of making everything 1:1 scale to real life. Mount Everest size mountain sounds great until you actually try to climb it. The whole idea sounds amazing, but in practice it would make everything exteremely boring and time-consuming in my opinion. If I wanted Skyrim to be like real life, I would stop playing and go outside :P

Plus even with fast travel you still have to discover the locations in the first place ;)

Edited December 18, 2011 by Nomad42

[Lachdonin]

TES games were, at one point, true scale. Then they started breaking computers.

 

Part of the issue with true scale is, to render it in the same quality you see in Skyrim is all but impossible. It would be great, sure, but back in the days of Arena and Daggerfall, if you ran from one town to another you would often experience, literally, hours of running through the woods with nothing to see.

[erickaqua]

I like the idea of making Skyrim bigger, but not to the degree of making everything 1:1 scale to real life. Mount Everest size mountain sounds great until you actually try to climb it. The whole idea sounds amazing, but in practice it would make everything exteremely boring and time-consuming in my opinion. If I wanted Skyrim to be like real life, I would stop playing and go outside :P

Plus even with fast travel you still have to discover the locations in the first place ;)

 

Thank you very much for your input :D

Yeah to be honest 1:1 scale would be too much :D, maybe I'll scale it down a bit to 1:50 or more

 

Oh and, the fast travel in this mod would be modded so you can go to any point in the map, discovered or not. It kills the fun of discovering, sure, but like I said, this mod is only for world immersion, since I can't take Skyrim seriously because it's only as large as Singapore hahahahaha XD

[erickaqua]

TES games were, at one point, true scale. Then they started breaking computers.

 

Part of the issue with true scale is, to render it in the same quality you see in Skyrim is all but impossible. It would be great, sure, but back in the days of Arena and Daggerfall, if you ran from one town to another you would often experience, literally, hours of running through the woods with nothing to see.

 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Skyrim engine renders the world in cells?

So theoretically, The size of the world would mattered little, since Skyrim only processes only small parts of it, so computers would be able to run it normally. Besides, we may be able to extend Skyrim script using SKSE.

 

True, part of the issues is filling the "in-between" areas, this could be accomplished by:

1. Getting help from hundred of modders :D

2. Randomly generating landscape.

 

"Nothing to see" is exactly one of the purpose of this mod. It's not so the game would be more fun, but it's for immersion only :D, the Earth is full of "nothing to see" areas. Plus the tedium is solved by free fast travel (you can fast travel to any point on the map, discovered or not)

[Omnimmotus]

Though I understand what you're going for, it's not as good as it might sound. True scale either requires an absurd amount of manpower (Hundreds of modders all working together, which is unfeasible in multiple ways.) or a way of randomly populating that space. (Which results in incredibly boring generic forestland. Basically, just hit autorun and read a book, occasionally fighting a wolf and then getting back to reading.)

 

While I agree that Skyrim's distances feel a bit short at times, (The landscape always seems smaller to me than it looks on the map) it DID allow Bethesda to hand craft every square meter of land, so the landscape is beautiful, detailed and varied. In Oblivion's landscapes always seemed bare to me, so I was rarely tempted to actually go running through them. Skyrim, however, has multiple times tempted me across its majestic landscapes and pleasantly surprised me with something I hadn't seen before. The only shame is that when it happened, I'd find I went twice as far on the map as I expected. (Sometimes halfway across Skyrim.)

 

Personally, I'd say stick to 2x or 4x the size of Skyrim as it is currently, to allow you to keep at least some definition, and even then it'd take a great deal of work. It's still your choice if you want to try much larger, though, and there's nothing wrong with that. :smile: Still, what's the point of giant landscapes when there's nothing special about them? Increasing the size of the landscape too much just encourages fast traveling all the time.

 

But yes, Skyrim does feel a bit cramped.

Edited December 18, 2011 by Omnimmotus

[Lessabos]

2. The clock progression would be those of real life. 1 second IRL is 1 second game time.

 

You can set real time clocks by console

[erickaqua]

Though I understand what you're going for, it's not as good as it might sound. True scale either requires an absurd amount of manpower (Hundreds of modders all working together, which is unfeasible in multiple ways.) or a way of randomly populating that space. (Which results in incredibly boring generic forestland. Basically, just hit autorun and read a book, occasionally fighting a wolf and then getting back to reading.)

 

While I agree that Skyrim's distances feel a bit short at times, (The landscape always seems smaller to me than it looks on the map) it DID allow Bethesda to hand craft every square meter of land, so the landscape is beautiful, detailed and varied. In Oblivion's landscapes always seemed bare to me, so I was rarely tempted to actually go running through them. Skyrim, however, has multiple times tempted me across its majestic landscapes and pleasantly surprised me with something I hadn't seen before. The only shame is that when it happened, I'd find I went twice as far on the map as I expected. (Sometimes halfway across Skyrim.)

 

Personally, I'd say stick to 2x or 4x the size of Skyrim as it is currently, to allow you to keep at least some definition, and even then it'd take a great deal of work. It's still your choice if you want to try much larger, though, and there's nothing wrong with that. :smile: Still, what's the point of giant landscapes when there's nothing special about them? Increasing the size of the landscape too much just encourages fast traveling all the time.

 

But yes, Skyrim does feel a bit cramped.

 

 

Thank you very much for your input :D

After replaying the game today (I haven't played for a week XD), I'm not sure if I can upscale the map to more than 3x

I'll try to upscale the map to 2x first :D