LE Skyrim "Enlargement"

[Arcadiast]

One of the things I like most about Skyrim and similar games is the "Open" Worldspace. Once the initial quest is complete you have a more or less large area to explore and can pretty much go wherever you want to go. This adds so much more feeling of "freedom" to the game that I consider this the heart and soul of TES Games.

 

So naturally my mind wanders around this particular part a lot. One of the things that I regulary think about is the size of the "Land" we are currently playing in. In this case its Skyrim. It maybe my reception but I think that the bordered space is a lot smaller in Skyrim than it was in Oblivion. Its gorgeous and beautiful but I think its just to small for something that should represent a whole Land.

 

So I thought about how it could be made larger. Most "obvious" solution is adding Land but this does not really solve the problem because the added Land is "outside" of Skyrim and not Skyrim itself which means that Skyrim is still small (if that makes any sense).

 

What I really like to see is the actual World made bigger. My idea is to "duplicate" worldcells except those where cities or other structures are. That means if there is a patch of grass we copy and paste it identically just beside it and so on. Theoretically if we do this with every cell than the Worldspace would effectively double in size without fundamentaly changing Skyrim as we know it. Just a (vague) example, if running from Whiterun to Winterhold takes say 5 minutes now than it would take 10 minutes with the changes implemented.

 

Just for clarity, everything would look and stay the same. The Worldmap would not need to be changed, every place would still be where it was before just with larger spaces of Land, Forest, Grass, Snow etc. in between them.

 

However I am not a modder and dont have that much experience with modding therefore my questions to the more seasoned modders here:

 

Is this even slightly possible?

If yes how much work are we talking about?

Is the game engine up to the task?

Would a twice the size gameworld have a big impact on performance?

 

Its not a mod request mind you, just a wild idea of which I hope someone might pick up.

[screendrop]

Hmmm, logic involved here is quite difficult. When you boil this issue down, this is infact a mathematical issue, rather than a technical one.

For example. 4 squares besides each other. Lets call them X1, X2, X3 and X4.

X1 X2

X3 X4

If you add a single square to square 1, like so

 

X1 X2

X3 X4

You begin to see the problem already. The image begins to warp, become stretched. This mostly occous because the ground we are dealing with is both a plane and exists in a 3 dimensional system. Adding one square for one isn't really feasibly. In reality, the actual number of squares in more likely to take on a exponential growth shape because of the nature of the concept.

 

Hope this helps

 

~sd

[Grimoa]

Is this even slightly possible?

Theoretically, yes, I think so.

(Instead of asking wether the game can handle it, you should ask if the CK can handle it. I mean all that landmass in the render window...)

 

If yes how much work are we talking about?

A lot. Tons. Ages. Too much for anywone to want to do it.

 

Is the game engine up to the task?

No idea. How's this question diffrent from the next?

 

Would a twice the size gameworld have a big impact on performance?

Don't think so as only the cells sorrounding the player get loaded anyways.

 

Its not a mod request mind you, just a wild idea of which I hope someone might pick up.

o.0 If you still hope that someone picks it up it's still a request isn't it? (Sorry splitting hairs here...)

Granted, most requests nowadays come with that "want it now why hasn't anyone done it yet" attitude. So there's a difference. :thumbsup:

 

I think what screendrop is saying is that to preserve the aspect ratio of skyrim you have to add three squares to each square.

X1 X2

x3 X4

 

X1 X1 X2 X2

X1 X1 X2 X2

X3 X3 X4 X4

X3 X3 X4 X4

 

So if you can reuse the land thats already there, you would have to recreate the entire skyrim landmass three times over. if you can't reuse it (because you cant cut them apart and move to make space for the new cells) you would have to start from scratch and recreate skyrim four times over.

Not sure if copy and paste of cells work (like you hope to) never tried anything like that. (In fact haven't edited any cells for Skyrim. Only did that for Oblivion and Morrowind a long time ago.)

 

I suggest you start the CK find some tutorial and see how much work editing exterior cells really is. :thumbsup:

[acidzebra]

I think Skyrim's map is at least as large as Oblivion, and the playable area larger. Not sure though.

 

How about you turn off running? If you want to talk game oddities, a man in full armor running everywhere all the time is as odd as it gets. Press caps/lock and you'll suddenly appreciate just how vast Skyrim is.

 

Walking from the Whiterun stables to Riverwood takes about 4 hours ingame time (at the default timescale 20). It's a nice walk and you can enjoy a lot of beautiful landscape on the way.

Edited December 11, 2012 by acidzebra

[Arcadiast]

Thanks for the quick answers guys and I must admit I am not very surprised that they are not so optimistic I more or less expected that.

 

But let me try and take on some of your questions:

 

@screendrop & Grimoa

 

you are absolutely right, my concept was at best very vague and not thought through. However I just wanted to hint at the general direction and see what happens. I am really bad at mathematics so I used a great feature of Internets harnessing the power of better minds and you guys are the proof that it worked :).

 

To the matter at hand, yes it would actually quadrupple the world area but thats not really that bad a thing (apart from the tremendous work that is behind it of course).

 

@Grimoa

 

No idea. How's this question diffrent from the next?

 

Well thats a little tricky, there may be no performance impact at all but the engine might have a built in limiter of some sorts or the engine may have no problems with it but the performance impact would be so huge that one would need say 10x faster machines than the current supercomputer (just exaggereting for effect a little). Makes sense?....no it does not but you know....

 

o.0 If you still hope that someone picks it up it's still a request isn't it? (Sorry splitting hairs here...)

 

Okay gotta admit thats a little "hypocrisy" (can I call it hypocrisy...english is not my first language...not that I am any better in my first language mind you :) ). The reason behind this is, I kinda hesitate requesting something (especially something that large) from people who already giving me so much and asking so little in return and in addition I am not asking for a simple recolor or similar little thing but as you guys have stated its a huge thing. So I dont want it to sound like "I want somebody do".

 

Which brings me to the general idea. We reckon its a s***load of work and not the easy type also, so the chances that somebody will pick this up as his first modding project are indeed quite "slim" but I know there are some enthusiasts out there and maybe thats what they were looking for. Maybe it will start something if not quite in that proportion maybe something smaller more managable.

 

I wont be heartbroken if this leads nowhere but no harm can come from tossing this in can it?

[Grimoa]

I wish more people would think about their requests like that. :)

 

And I really like acidzebras suggestion. :biggrin:

[Paulja]

The map IS smaller - there was a discussion in the General section if I'm not mistaken, something along the lines of Skyrim actually being a 1:100 scale or something. Hence why lore says there are hundreds of people living in, say, Windhelm, but in the game you only see like a dozen.

[Dudeman325]

I love this thread. There is so much chaos on the Nexus that I'm glad people just talk about how to do (or not do) something.