Actual World Map with all the fluff removed

[RoguelikeMike]

https://imgur.com/a/Yr7aHiz

I'm not an artist, and I clipped a tiny portion of road on the top and left but this is mainly everything playable. In my opinion, its not larger than the first games.

[Damien Scott]

Originally posted by 1CMF:

His clipping, minus unmoored, and tunnel short cuts/dungeons, is mostly accurate and fine.

The problem is, scale. Any map may look big or small but what is the scale of measurement vs the map you are comparing.

For inch or centimeter you have a mile or kilometer of ground truth?

Without that scale you can't compare. Best bet is timing yourself as mentioned, but not everything is a straight line path, so running in a spiral vs straight line is deceptive.

Does dd2 take me longer to travel than dd1? Yes. Are there more "points of interest" in dd2? Yes.

Thus to me, more content than dd1.

exactly. i played some of DD:DA prior to DD2's release and it takes less than a minute to run from the starting village to the first encampment. that's 1.5 stamina bars at around level 10.

[Howl]

Yeah I was pretty let down with the map size, so much useless un-used map space pretty much just filler / water. 4 times larger my butt. Good game but its kind of a let down, esp Warfarer.

[Despiser]

Originally posted by Damien Scott:

Originally posted by Despiser:

I have to wonder how elden ring would fare with 4 mounted characters.

i completely understand and agree with your point. that being said, it fares quite well actually. the seamless co op mod is pretty amazing and having 2-(6?) players is good fun.

Players being the keyword as opposed to ai controlled npcs. You could have thousands of player controlled mounts, as in MMOs

[Drakzen]

Also if you go for the true ending there is still more to the map that gets added. Not to mention more dungeons/caves instead of the 2-3 medium sized ones DD1 had.

Overall it seems larger with more in it.

[RedCrownedCrane]

Eh? I'm fairly sure the walk from Melve to Vernworth is by itself twice as long as the walk from Cassardis to Gran Soren, or at least, feels like it. With that in mind, I'd say that yes, 3x as big as DD1 is inaccurate but 2.5x is right on the money, imo. But then if you consider the postgame and caves... maybe 3x as big as marketed is correct. So I gotta disagree OP, but thank you for taking the time to highlight the actual explorable map.

Hell, Vernworth itself feels bigger than Gran Soren. Which... is not a compliment, in this case, lol. It's too big and mazelike. Bakhbattahl has a much better layout. But, that's besides the point.

[1CMF]

Mounts are a hot topic for game developers.

Most games have them to appease the player base that has become accustomed to them as a trope. Any open world "MUST" have mounts (or fast travel).

Why is that? So the player can skip the exploration.

Is skipping the game the right way to play? It's the most efficient, but are we all supposed to speed run the game?

Years ago I saw or read some sort of discussion piece that pretty much said mounts in games shrink the world size, resulting in extremely spaced out content and a lot of dead space on the map....or a ton of missed content that players never explore.

Again all debatable, but specifically stating that mounts "have" to exist, is a fallacy. The game developer thought he had a better exploration game, so people wouldn't need to have mounts to enjoy it, but not everyone thinks like him, thus the negative feedback.

Personally, I am ok without mounts, as there are other functions in the game to allow me to be efficient when I want.

The one thing I would request is that oxcarts more FASTER when not skipping time, or an option to speed up. This way I can determine WHEN I want to get off the oxcart to explore somewhere in the middle, instead of skipping time and either ending up at the next town, or randomly getting a fight, maybe not where I want to be.

[RoguelikeMike]

Originally posted by RedCrownedCrane:

Eh? I'm fairly sure the walk from Melve to Vernworth is by itself twice as long as the walk from Cassardis to Gran Soren, or at least, feels like it. With that in mind, I'd say that yes, 3x as big as DD1 is inaccurate but 2.5x is right on the money, imo. But then if you consider the postgame and caves... maybe 3x as big as marketed is correct. So I gotta disagree OP, but thank you for taking the time to highlight the actual explorable map.

Hell, Vernworth itself feels bigger than Gran Soren. Which... is not a compliment, in this case, lol. It's too big and mazelike. Bakhbattahl has a much better layout. But, that's besides the point.

I think its hard to contextualize but these things are factors:

DD2s gameplay paths are all narrow roads and tunnels. In DD1 there are 3 areas with huge wide open fields, and even a lot of the 'narrow' areas have much more space to move around in than the sequel. Its not as simple as running distance.

Also, people keep mentioning post game. DD1 has a post game that changes the world too. I didn't factor this or BBI into it, most people are mainly only concerned with the regular world map, but if anyone out there wants to, it would be fine to try to logically compare both games actual world maps, although at the end of the day I'm not overly focused on size but on honesty and gamefeel. If we're being honest I don't feel the post game counts really, in both games it just shares the same map but changes how it looks.

DD1 has a very honest map with clearly defined borders. You see them, and you know how big the world is. DD2's map is obscure intentionally, so the player cannot tell the worlds size. Its also to hide how narrow every area in the game actually is. DD1 isn't ashamed of its map, the sequel is. That's the only logical reasoning I can find to have such an inferior map in a sequel. But, it could just be due to some other factor I suppose.

In any case, I am glad this post sparked conversation.

[Fractured]

Originally posted by Naewyng:

Originally posted by Fractured:

I prefer DDDA over DD2, this isn't news. But to think that DD2 has a similar map size is kinda ludicrous to me lol. Even if you add BBI, I'm pretty sure DD2 map trumps it.

Now if we are talking about interest points, I feel like DD2 has the same exact amount of points of interest as DDDA, and DDDA has a significantly smaller map. So that's telling all on its own.

What do you mean? dd2 has about 5x more points of interest than dd1.

Name em. And I'm not including the same looking cavern over and over. I'm talking ACTUALLY interesting spots.

DD2
1. Capital
2. Batahl Capital
3. Elf Town
4. Checkpoint is an interesting enough city
5. Bluemoon
6. Dragon tower
7. Ancient Battlefield
8. Bandit den
9. Dragonforge
9 1/2. Undead area was kinda neat, but besides the fog kinda meh

DD1

1. Capital
2. Cassardis
3. Shadowfort
4. Witch hut area
5. Bluemoon
6. Castle ruins run by the bandits
7. Female bandit wall
8. The great wall
9. Blighted Manse
10. Dragonforge
11. Bandits Den
12. Everfall
13. The Abbey (Which is also in my favorite area for both DD1 and 2

I'm sure DD2 has more that I just forgot about, but I don't think its much more than that.

[Go0lden_Archer]

Originally posted by Fractured:

Originally posted by Naewyng:

What do you mean? dd2 has about 5x more points of interest than dd1.

Name em. And I'm not including the same looking cavern over and over. I'm talking ACTUALLY interesting spots.

DD2
snip

DD1

1. Capital
2. Cassardis
3. Shadowfort
4. Witch hut area
5. Bluemoon
6. Castle ruins run by the bandits
7. Female bandit wall
8. The great wall
9. Blighted Manse
10. Dragonforge
11. Bandits Den
12. Everfall
13. The Abbey (Which is also in my favorite area for both DD1 and 2

I'm sure DD2 has more that I just forgot about, but I don't think its much more than that.

DD2
1. Capital
2. Batahl Capital
3. Elf Town
4. Checkpoint is an interesting enough city
5. Bluemoon
6. Dragon tower
7. Ancient Battlefield
8. Bandit den
9. Dragonforge
10. Sphinx area, should count two times considering surroundings, but whatever
11. Oracle
12. Seafloor castle
13. Seafloor shrine - postgame
13. Dried water areas/ theyre interesting to explore once available
14.Nameless village
15. Melve
16. Harve
17. Eini's Home
18. Windwalkers Home
19. Volcanic Island Camp
20. Excavation Site
21. Bridge of Theodracus the Second (I just find it funny that it gets built as story progresses lol)
22. Medusa's area (The entire area before you start the approach to dragon's tower)

[Fractured]

Originally posted by Go0lden_Archer:

Originally posted by Fractured:

Name em. And I'm not including the same looking cavern over and over. I'm talking ACTUALLY interesting spots.

DD2
snip

DD1

1. Capital
2. Cassardis
3. Shadowfort
4. Witch hut area
5. Bluemoon
6. Castle ruins run by the bandits
7. Female bandit wall
8. The great wall
9. Blighted Manse
10. Dragonforge
11. Bandits Den
12. Everfall
13. The Abbey (Which is also in my favorite area for both DD1 and 2

I'm sure DD2 has more that I just forgot about, but I don't think its much more than that.

DD2
1. Capital
2. Batahl Capital
3. Elf Town
4. Checkpoint is an interesting enough city
5. Bluemoon
6. Dragon tower
7. Ancient Battlefield
8. Bandit den
9. Dragonforge
10. Sphinx area, should count two times considering surroundings, but whatever
11. Oracle
12. Seafloor castle
13. Seafloor shrine - postgame
13. Dried water areas/ theyre interesting to explore once available
14.Nameless village
15. Melve
16. Harve
17. Eini's Home
18. Windwalkers Home
19. Volcanic Island Camp
20. Excavation Site
21. Bridge of Theodracus the Second (I just find it funny that it gets built as story progresses lol)
22. Medusa's area (The entire area before you start the approach to dragon's tower)

I'll give you some of those, but definitely not all, you duplicated several. Excavation site is just bluemoon. Eini's home is literally just a hut. And Sphinx is the ancient battlegrounds.

I'd argue some others, but not the energy.

None the less, 5x the map, and less than double the points of interest. And the ones that are listed in DD1 were already fairly spread out.

[Go0lden_Archer]

Originally posted by Fractured:

Originally posted by Go0lden_Archer:

snip

I'll give you some of those, but definitely not all, you duplicated several. Excavation site is just bluemoon. Eini's home is literally just a hut. And Sphinx is the ancient battlegrounds.

I'd argue some others, but not the energy.

None the less, 5x the map, and less than double the points of interest. And the ones that are listed in DD1 were already fairly spread out.

Same as witch hut is just a hut. And Sphinx area is NOT ancient battlegrounds. They're very distinct areas by themselves, and again, there are TWO sphinx areas. As for bluemoon and excavation site, be more specific next time, also there IS excavation site, and then there's tower we get into, but whatever's :p
as for how many poi's there are, i really don't care, i wrote addition to your list out of curiousity, not for argument's sake. IMO If someone doesn't like DD2, they just shouldn't play nor stalk forum's. But that's not how trolls and bored people operate, same for any forum in existance ever.

[Naewyng]

Originally posted by Fractured:

Originally posted by Naewyng:

What do you mean? dd2 has about 5x more points of interest than dd1.

Name em. And I'm not including the same looking cavern over and over. I'm talking ACTUALLY interesting spots.

DD2
1. Capital
2. Batahl Capital
3. Elf Town
4. Checkpoint is an interesting enough city
5. Bluemoon
6. Dragon tower
7. Ancient Battlefield
8. Bandit den
9. Dragonforge
9 1/2. Undead area was kinda neat, but besides the fog kinda meh

DD1

1. Capital
2. Cassardis
3. Shadowfort
4. Witch hut area
5. Bluemoon
6. Castle ruins run by the bandits
7. Female bandit wall
8. The great wall
9. Blighted Manse
10. Dragonforge
11. Bandits Den
12. Everfall
13. The Abbey (Which is also in my favorite area for both DD1 and 2

I'm sure DD2 has more that I just forgot about, but I don't think its much more than that.

K, so in order of finding them (and keep in mind that I'm also forgetting some):
1 - Borderwatch outpost
2 - Melve
3 - Waterfall cave (since you seem to only care about unique-ish dungeons)
4 - Nameless village
5 - That golem place next to the nameless village (forgot it's name)
6 - Vernworth
7 - Lakeside village (the one overrun with goblins, there's another one overrun with undead and bandits, but idr where it is)
8 - Elven ruins
9 - Elf village
10 - Elf dungeon (where you save the dude's sister)
11 - Harve (and let's put the saurian dungeon underneath it in the same entry)
12 - Mist place
13 - Griffin nest (next to mist area, but distinct enough, also there's like 3 griffin nests)
14 - Ancient battleground
15 - Vermund Sphinx location (north east of ancient battleground)
16 - Checkpoint town
17 - Guacamole cave (or whatever the cave that leads to Batthal is called)
18 - Dragonforged place
19 - Bakbatthal
20 - Coral bandits place
21 - Trickster meister place
22 - Battahl's Sphinx place
23 - Big azz waterfall north west of battahl
24 - Battahl ruins
25 - The other battahl ruins
26 - Medusa's place
27 - Shadowbreath Tower
28 - The ghetto cave that leads to the volcanic island
29 - Volcanic island camp
30 - Moonglint tower and the camp next to it
31 - Underwater ruins
32-40? - All the areas uncovered in the unmoored world.

Again, I forgot a bunch of them.

Also we need to clarify something here: you're not talking about "points of interest" (otherwise, every dungeon and every settlement and every flag on the map would be one, by definition), you're talking about "points YOU found interesting".
Which is a big difference.

Objectively speaking (again, every dungeon and every settlement and every flag on the map), dd2 does indeed have about 5x more PoI's than dd1.

Why does being objective matter? Because otherwise you end up with lists like yours (and mine) which are our specific points of view. I don't think the dragonforged is a point of interest (especially in dd1 where it's just a cave on a hill xD), but you do. I put it on the list just to have a sort of parity with your list.