Cities in Oblivion were bigger

[sedeslav]

I agree with the OP. Cities and towns are not even big enough to support a proper gene pool, especially if you consider that lack of half-breeds mean there are few interracial marriages. In Elder Scrolls X, cities will be just 1 long row of houses and shops with a guy at the end who says, "I am Error".

 

LOL!!! :)

 

yes that is sound very likely...hahaha now Skyrim have 72 habitants and 36 guardsmen without faces. But New mods after january will fix all that problems.

[sedeslav]

My favorite was , and still is Choroll! Towns in Skyrim are small, but it will be OK if it is more villages, settlements, camps, hamlets...that sort of thing. Farms with 20 cows or horses, chicken farms, (do you remember Borderwatch near Bravil? it have 6 complete house and that is bigger place then half of Skyrim's so called towns!

 

and Why Bethesda trow out the arena? It can't be big and rich like in Imperial town, of course , but pit-fighting! that is very easy to make ( In construction Kit...) and arena will add more atmosphere in game. Nords love to fight, why they can't fight for money or honor, or just for practice.

[Arcadiast]

Actually, when we consider Oblivion, it would make no sense when the Towns in Skyrim would be bigger. Cyrodil is the main Landmass in Tamriel. It is not only a bigger landmass than Skyrim but due to its climate, population, demographics etc. it also incorporates more People and more People need bigger cities. So its logical that towns and cities in Skyrim are actually smaller than in Oblivions Cyrodil.

 

What is interesting though, is that it seems that the World gets smaller with every new ES Game. For example, In Daggerfall the Game World was claimed to be twice the size of Great Britain. In Skyrim any claim above the size of a small City (in real life) would be a wild boast. So if this keeps going on, Elder Scroll Part 20 will have a Game World the size of a Garden :).

 

I would love to see a ES game like Skyrim incorporating the whole Continent of Tamriel in "original" size (which some claim to be appr. 6,5 times Great Britain) but one can imagine that such a game would need a 100 Years developing time with todays standards and staff (with the same detail and quests and so on everywhere). Normally in that case, a city ingame would be as big as Skyrims game World. How to populate such a huge City? we would need Millions and Millions of NPCs to at least be able to see someone while going around in Tamriel.

 

We all know now that some of Bethesdas "claims" are not to be taken to seriously (Radiant boredom anyone?). I dont really consider this to be an issue worth "ranting" about.

[wesside0yes]

Actually, when we consider Oblivion, it would make no sense when the Towns in Skyrim would be bigger. Cyrodil is the main Landmass in Tamriel. It is not only a bigger landmass than Skyrim but due to its climate, population, demographics etc. it also incorporates more People and more People need bigger cities. So its logical that towns and cities in Skyrim are actually smaller than in Oblivions Cyrodil.

 

What is interesting though, is that it seems that the World gets smaller with every new ES Game. For example, In Daggerfall the Game World was claimed to be twice the size of Great Britain. In Skyrim any claim above the size of a small City (in real life) would be a wild boast. So if this keeps going on, Elder Scroll Part 20 will have a Game World the size of a Garden :).

 

I would love to see a ES game like Skyrim incorporating the whole Continent of Tamriel in "original" size (which some claim to be appr. 6,5 times Great Britain) but one can imagine that such a game would need a 100 Years developing time with todays standards and staff (with the same detail and quests and so on everywhere). Normally in that case, a city ingame would be as big as Skyrims game World. How to populate such a huge City? we would need Millions and Millions of NPCs to at least be able to see someone while going around in Tamriel.

 

We all know now that some of Bethesdas "claims" are not to be taken to seriously (Radiant boredom anyone?). I dont really consider this to be an issue worth "ranting" about.

 

Regarding the downscaling of landmass, this seems to be a reoccuring trend in the gaming industry. Due to high demands of greater realistic physics and graphics for each new installment by the public but not enough resources, time and raw computer power (on the public's end) to deliver, they have seemingly choosen to sacrifice quantity for quality. Although it is disputable what one's definition of quality may envelope.

[runicNomad]

mod them to be bigger

[Deleted2627243User]

I do prefer the cities in Skyrim to Oblivion. I can't really say why, but the cities in Oblivion seem much more... robotic and synthetic. I will admit I got lost very easily in the major cities like Skingrad and don't really have that problem with Skyrim. So maybe they are smaller and I have noticed this being a trend with the Elder Scrolls, each game getting a smaller world/province. However I prefer the areas Skyrim has to offer, I guess less is more XD.

[Balakirev]

mod them to be bigger

 

Very time consuming. It's been done repeatedly in Morrowind, but usually takes upwards of a year. It doesn't help that there are simply fewer things in Skyrim, at this points--fewer guild halls, fewer shop types, less goods, less weapons, less armor, etc. When all that gets improved and increased by modders, presumably folks will start building onto the villages.

[Pineapplerum]

They are all very, very small towns. There's nothing cityish about them. At least Imperial City felt a little like a place where people gathered to do business and it felt like it was made for bustling crowds shopping and congregating.

I agree, they have 3 or 4 residential houses, a blacksmith, a church of some kind,a trader, an inn, and maybe one or two other shops but that's it.

 

It wouldn't bother me if most of them were like that but all of them are like that in Skyrim. It really needs one big place like Oblivion had with Imperial City and Morrowind had with Vivec...I forget what it was called but it was HUGE. So huge I'd often get lost while walking around in it. It felt like a place of business for the masses.

 

I'm sure some modder will fix this though. They always do.

[The Bluejay]

What is interesting though, is that it seems that the World gets smaller with every new ES Game. For example, In Daggerfall the Game World was claimed to be twice the size of Great Britain. In Skyrim any claim above the size of a small City (in real life) would be a wild boast. So if this keeps going on, Elder Scroll Part 20 will have a Game World the size of a Garden :).

 

 

I hate to be picky, but actually Oblivion was bigger than Morrowind, increasing the size from 24 to 57 square km. As for Skyrim, I've seen claims ranging from 16 square miles to 91,125 miles.

Which is over three times larger than Earth. Some people aren't very good as maths.

 

Comparing the heightmaps of the three games shows that Skyrim is somewhere inbetween the two, at a respectable 37.6 square km.

This all pales in comparison to Fallout 3 - 130 square km.

Edited December 30, 2011 by The Bluejay

[modder3434]

the cities in oblivion may have been bigger, however they always felt like ghost towns to me. I'm aware of the year it was made, and the fact that consoles can hold games back.

 

with that being said i only ever saw at anytime 4 npcs in any of the cities, of which:

- 2 were guards

-1 was a beggar

-1 was a random citizen

 

you can have big cities but if you can't make them feel alive then size doesn't matter at all. In fact the only time i felt a city was alive was at the endgame when you were fighting the daedra in the Imperial City.

( and don't say x mod made it better, this is a comparison of vanilla oblivion to vanilla Skyrim)

 

When i walk into town in skyrim i get a feeling of people are living here. they might be drinking at the inn, bartering with the stall merchants, chopping firewood, or blacksmithing and the list goes on.

 

Bigger is not always better, and its only better if it can be pulled off, which oblivion failed to do in this regard.

 

in regards to people posting about " well i could get lost in these cities" How is that a good thing? Unless it was planned that way? Also even if that was planned who is going to be around for you to interact with? Nobody, and its going to feel like someone just put city here and said " have fun running around in this sterile and boring environment with only 2 guards, 1 beggar, and 1 citizen at a time."

 

just me 2 cents on this topic.