Cyrodiil a bit small? Options

[Olav]

I can't help but think that Cyrodiil seems quite small compared to Morrowind. Am I getting this impression only because it's possible to see that tall tower in the Imperial City from all over Cyrodiil, or is the game world smaller than it was in Morrowind?

In Morrowind I felt like I could travel in one direction for a long time, and my marker didn't move too much on the main map. In Oblivion however, I look on the map before doing a quest and think 'wow, it's going to take a long time to get there!'. But a few minutes or even seconds later I'm there.

Of course another thing that may give me this impression is that in Morrowind you never saw further than a short distance in any direction, while in Oblivion you can practically see 'as far as the eye can see'.

I'm not complaining or anything. After all we have the Oblivion realm to roam in too, as well as all the caves. And I truly love standing on a mountain somewhere in nice weather and see the tower and other cities and landmarks in the distance.

But I'm just wondering if anyone else have gotten the same impression as me?

[HyPN0]

Yes,and i can exactly tell you why.
Fast travel.
In Morrowind when you have to go to let's say, Gnisis from Balmora you say:''Curses,there are no Silt Stiders to that place,what the hell should i do now?Well,guess i'll just have to walk.Or fly if i have Levitation potions''.That will make you explore the background,clean some caves,tombs and such.

In Oblivion instead of walking you can always use fast travel.Instead if exploring the way to Anvil,you will just hit the fast travel,because you need to go there because of certain quest.

Next thing:Oblivion is a lot faster.
Do you know how slow a character is in Morrowind when he\she has 5 Athletics?Woah.........That's slow.
While in Oblivion,you won't notice such a thing.

Morrowind also had more how should i say.......a lot of stuff in a small area.While in Oblivion there is a lot of free space in the woods.....
Also Oblivion has a lot more ''boring'' loacations.Every cave is the same,every ruin is the same,the same loot everywhere,the same enemyes everywhere,and more importantly the same GOD-DAMN texture everywhere.Ugh,it's quantity over quality.....In Morrowind you could find an interesting Vampire lair,in Oblivion it's a cave like any other.......
Daedric Shrines and Dwemer Shrines are a lot more intresting too.Man i simply love Daedric shrines.

I could probably come for a few more reasons,but i will need some time.

[Olav]

Yeah I do tend to notice that we're moving quite much quicker in Oblivion. And regarding fast travel, when I first heard that this would be a possibility I swore I'd never use it, as getting around in Morrowind was half the fun and 75% of the excitement. But I must admit I've been using it quite a lot.

And I also agree about the caves/ruins, come to think of it. Although I do tend to stay away from them if I can (they give me the creeps ) I have to visit them during quests of course, and I notice that they're quite similar indeed. In Morrowind there seemed to be more variety. Dwemer strongholds were fascinating with all their mechanical gadgets, and Daedric towers were fascinating with their architecture. Caves had hidden underwater areas and secret spots you could only find if you could levitate.

But all in all I love Oblivion so far. The graphics are amazing, and I've downloaded a lot of mods to improve textures. They've also made some changes to compensate for the fast-travel feature, like no levitation for example. In Morrowind I had enchanted items that gave me constant levitation and invisibility. Made it quite safe and 'boring' to explore...

Anyway, the fast travel feature isn't the reason I think the gameworld is small, it just seems smaller. You mention large areas of 'nothingness' in Oblivion, while I so far have experienced the opposite. When going somewhere I tend to bump into forts, caves, altars, shrines, Oblivion gates etc. every 50 meters it seems. I have the impression that there are far too many points of interest in Oblivion. Then again I haven't really explored the wilderness yet, only areas close to roads.

And in Morrowind I never reached an area where I could move no further, while in Oblivion I hit 'invisible walls' quite often.

[Aki]

I think it only feels small becuase of fast travel and horses, and you can litterally run everywhere. Running no longer drains fatigue...

So you can move pretty fast and it makes things feel smaller....

Though I disagree on the dungeons. They feel far more different than MW's ones. I mean, go in one tomb in MW and you've been in 'em all. In the aylied Ruins I have to keep my wits about as the freaking things have amultitude of ways of murdering me most brutually.

Example, I HAVE actually run into this, BTW.

There is in this one ruin, a long hallway. The middle is obviously a ceiling crusher, as it has the characteristic blood stains and spikes in the ceiling. So I decide to set it off and jump off.

Bad idea.

The Ceiling crushers mounted in the ceilings behind and in front of the trap in the middle come down as that one goes up.



Needless to say, that hurt...

Another ruin had note written by a bandit leader of what was going on inside the ruin. It wasn't linked to any quest mind you, just...there. It was neat. I encountered a similar situation in another ruin with a necromancer who had written (but not delivered) a letter to a friend in Daggerfall.

etc.

I never reached an area where I could move no further, while in Oblivion I hit 'invisible walls' quite often.

Morrowind had endlesses expanses of Water. Oblivion couldn't have that, as Cyrodiil almost entirely landlocked.

[Olav]

Thanks Aki,

You're correct about the borders. Morrowind was basically an island in the game, while it should actually also be bordered by other provinces like Cyrodiil, Skyrim and the Black Marsh. The perfect TES game would be one where you could explore entire Tamriel!

And thanks for reminding me of the exciting Aylied dungeons. They do indeed have some exciting and innovative traps. Like I said in the previous post the caves and dungeons freak me out. That can only mean Bethesda have done a good job with these. They're much more scary and exciting than in Morrowind. And the area they've created for the caves etc. must be just as large as the surface world. Very impressive.

But another thing that struck me is how large the city of Vivec was in Morrowind. I think it will be a long time before this will be matched in a TES game again. Again, it would take a game that involved the entire Tamriel. I sure hope that will be done some day!

[ThanadoS]

Thanks Aki,

You're correct about the borders. Morrowind was basically an island in the game, while it should actually also be bordered by other provinces like Cyrodiil, Skyrim and the Black Marsh. The perfect TES game would be one where you could explore entire Tamriel! 

i bet it's comming up for one of the next releases.

[Pisces]

Slightly offtopic but keeping with the topic of the thread, I want to make summerset isle. No quests, just land, cities and dungeons. The dungeons themselves will be quests in themselves and I would overuse secret doorways to an extreme but I'd try to make a different secret doorway in every dungeon. The entire game will be completely alien and exploring new and interesting things like MW.

I don't think it would take too long to mod (maybe a year or 2) but it would take a great deal high quality 3d models which I don't have the time for. If I ever get some spare time I will start off making it and perhaps give what I end up with to tamriel rebuilt if anyone wants to continue, I wouldn't join they're mod to begin with because I think they would try to control it and I'd never get anything done.

If only I could have the finished product without any work or waiting

This post has been edited by Pisces: Apr 29 2006, 10:13 AM

[Rane]

Morrowind was basically an island in the game, while it should actually also be bordered by other provinces like Cyrodiil, Skyrim and the Black Marsh.

Morrowind wasn't just an island in the game, since what we got in TESIII was just the island of Vvardenfell and not the entire province. So Morrowind was/is bordered by other provinces while our TESIII island isn't and shouldn't be.

[Olav]

Morrowind wasn't just an island in the game, since what we got in TESIII was just the island of Vvardenfell and not the entire province. So Morrowind was/is bordered by other provinces while our TESIII island isn't and shouldn't be.

Ah, I see. I didn't know that. Thanks. Looking at the map of Tamriel that comes in the game booklet I can see that you are indeed correct. Vardenfell looks very familiar!

But then Cyrodiil should be much bigger than the area we had in Morrowind (the game), but somehow I feel it is smaller...

[Aki]

The perfect TES game would be one where you could explore entire Tamriel! 

Then the Devs must've got it right the first time 'round.

TES I: Arena had all of Tamriel.

Now, try that and I dare you to say that Oblivion all 'feels the same'.

I got lost in Arena's endless expanses of clone-forest.

[Olav]

Wow, that sounds great! Never tried any TES games before Morrowind though. I thought each game was about their own province. Was Arena also a FPS-style game? Meaning you walked around like you do in Morrowind/Oblivion?

And I've never claimed that Oblivion feels the same as anything, I think.

[RobRendell]

Yes, Arena was FPS-style. Much more flat, though

http://www.bethsoft.com/games/games_arena.html

You can download Arena for free from Bethesda's website and check it out, if you like. They've released it for free, since it's not going to make them any more money... a example that other game studios could learn from, IMHO.

Looks like the Arena download might be for a limited time only, but it seems to still be there:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/tenth_anniv/te...anniv-arena.htm

[DarkHunter]

lol... I'm going to get it! Anybody know where to get mods for it?



This post has been edited by DarkHunter: Apr 30 2006, 02:03 AM

[Ibis]

Wow Pisces, fellow stalkers think alike I see. I too have been wanting to mod Somerset Isle. Altmers being my favorite race as far as asthetics and attitude go. I would at least like to make a mod that takes place in parts of Sommerset and gives the overall feel of it.

To my knowledge there are no mods for Arena but there were some for Daggerfall, which took place in the province of Hammerfell. Isn't that right? Arena did cover the whole of Tamriel and yes, you could walk everywhere and I too used to get lost in the forest land ... but it was out there that I learned the rich lessons of looting dungeons.

Weren't the dungeons funny looking in Arena, Aki? There would be endless flat grasslands or forest and suddenly this mound would be sticking out of the earth with an opening in it and you'd be like "Alright! I'm gonna get rich now!"

[City Swimmer]

Hay has any one been to http://www.silgrad.com/wbb2/index.php?sid= their modding in other areas of tamriel

[Foster]

To my knowledge there are no mods for Arena but there were some for Daggerfall, which took place in the province of Hammerfell. Isn't that right? Arena did cover the whole of Tamriel and yes, you could walk everywhere and I too used to get lost in the forest land ... but it was out there that I learned the rich lessons of looting dungeons.

Nope - Daggerfall is a city in High Rock. And whilst you could go walkies in Arena, fast travel between cities and the various nasty spots was a better bet - even if all the dungeons save the specials were based on exactly the same design.

Also note that in Arena, the only city in Imperial province is the Imperial City - much like any other city, really. Only you couldn't go visit the King/Queen/Count/Whatever.

[Agent Griff]

Daggerfall took place in parts of Hammerfell and parts of High Rock. You should try playing the game if you haven't already since Daggerfall is much more better than Arena. Arena didn't even have guilds or books! Not to mention that the random quests can keep ocupied for whole years since they never end! I agree with all that's been said here about Cyrodiil being too small. You know why? Because all places of interest are practically next to eachother! Not to mention that you never do feel that you're out in the middle of nowhere because a city is always a few hundred meters ahead.

[Khaan]

Slightly offtopic but keeping with the topic of the thread, I want to make summerset isle. No quests, just land, cities and dungeons. The dungeons themselves will be quests in themselves and I would overuse secret doorways to an extreme but I'd try to make a different secret doorway in every dungeon. The entire game will be completely alien and exploring new and interesting things like MW.

I don't think it would take too long to mod (maybe a year or 2) but it would take a great deal high quality 3d models which I don't have the time for. If I ever get some spare time I will start off making it and perhaps give what I end up with to tamriel rebuilt if anyone wants to continue, I wouldn't join they're mod to begin with because I think they would try to control it and I'd never get anything done.

If only I could have the finished product without any work or waiting

I'm pretty sure that this is going to be one of the expansion packs already, (or the next game) because of all the rumours you hear about it all the time,

[Agent Griff]

I hope it won't be the horibly generic world that Oblivion was. I want to see something more original! I don't want to see Lothlorien from LOTR when I look at the capital of the Summerset Isles (Alinor or whatever its name is).

[Ibis]

I agree that Cyrodiil is too small and Khaan, I have given up on Sommerset Isle being the location of a game or expansion ... because I got really excited about all the rumors concerning it prior to Oblivion and so didn't bother to try a mod there.

Maybe me & Pisces should just get together and recreate Sommerset together. And you know what? You all will have to sleep UNDER beds to get rested up.

hahahaha!!


{but you'll get lots of stalker points - which will be a primary class in our mod}