What could've been the Commonwealth

[ABlueHairedFox]

Call me crazy, but I kinda wish that Fallout 4's map was bigger. I find the distance between each of these locations are a bit short and that everything's pretty jammed together. For example I wish the road between Sanctuary and Red Rocket was a bit longer and further away from each other. A minute's walk at the very least.
There's a certain piece of concept art from the book "The Art of Fallout 4" that I keep looking at and absolutely love because of how vast their initial idea of the Commonwealth was. Long roads winding between mountains. Greatly expanded towns and locations (Concord had a lake!). More varied biomes and terrain between different locations. A world like this would have been amazing to walk through and explore.
There's a mod that I've been keeping an eye on for a while called Massachusetts Project that focuses on expanding the Commonwealth further up north with locations like Rockport and Newbury. While I've been a bit hesitant to try the mod myself, coverage on it looks very promising!

Anyway, those were my very disconnected thoughts on this topic.

[Skarmo]

I may be one of a few, but I liked the emptiness of the Mojave desert in Fallout New Vegas. I would expect a postapocalyptic world to be somewhat empty. So I agree with you. A bigger map would have been nice in Fallout 4. Not necessarily more content - just more space.

[ABlueHairedFox]

Originally posted by Skarmo:

I may be one of a few, but I liked the emptiness of the Mojave desert in Fallout New Vegas. I would expect a postapocalyptic world to be somewhat empty. So I agree with you. A bigger map would have been nice in Fallout 4. Not necessarily more content - just more space.

Plus then they could've emphasized on ways to get around the commonwealth. Like hitching a ride with caravans like how you can in Skyrim with wagons.

[Xenon The Noble]

Real world concepts hit the windshield of game engine very hard and went splat.

[sdack]

Originally posted by Mr. Thiccums:

Call me crazy, but I kinda wish that Fallout 4's map was bigger. I find the distance between each of these locations are a bit short and that everything's pretty jammed together. ...

You could try Starfield. I hear it is quite big and empty?! Just kidding. Space is empty, it is a fact, and there is not much more to say about it than this.

I think Fallout 4 works, because why would you want to spend time walking from place to place for more than a minute? Why would you need that? Those who play on survival are happy that they can find a place to sleep not too far away. And everyone else is fast-travelling anyway. It also plays in and around a city and cities are packed. You could also ask why many buildings in Boston are barred and not open ... If you have not yet done it then explore the edge of the map. Walk around there for a while until you get bored. There is plenty of space with very little in it (but one can still find a few unmarked locations).

If you want to play a Fallout game that is a bit less populated then maybe try Fallout New Vegas. I found it somewhat empty and lonely tbh.

[Lucus]

the map size is fine. the problem IMHO is so many buildings are boarded up with no interiors you can look into and enter without a loading screen. it makes the city area look more empty then it should.

in the end lack of details like that are down to performance concerns just like how settlements are limited by static build areas that vary by settlement.

[ABlueHairedFox]

Originally posted by sdack:

Originally posted by Mr. Thiccums:

Call me crazy, but I kinda wish that Fallout 4's map was bigger. I find the distance between each of these locations are a bit short and that everything's pretty jammed together. ...

You could try Starfield. I hear it is quite big and empty?! Just kidding. Space is empty, it is a fact, and there is not much more to say about it than this.

I think Fallout 4 works, because why would you want to spend time walking from place to place for more than a minute? Why would you need that? Those who play on survival are happy that they can find a place to sleep not too far away. And everyone else is fast-travelling anyway. It also plays in and around a city and cities are packed. You could also ask why many buildings in Boston are barred and not open ... If you have not yet done it then explore the edge of the map. Walk around there for a while until you get bored. There is plenty of space with very little in it (but one can still find a few unmarked locations).

If you want to play a Fallout game that is a bit less populated then maybe try Fallout New Vegas. I found it somewhat empty and lonely tbh.

I play Starfield, but I like bouncing between that and Fallout from time to time.

For me I like traveling and it kinda bugs me that things are so close together. Like it probably takes you maybe 10-20 minutes to walk across the entire map. Spacing these locations further apart can give some proper downtime while walking rather than accidentally stumbling into the 3rd raider camp in a row. Plus if they were to space things out more it would probably have pushed them to add more ways to get around the commonwealth other than fast traveling. Like c'mon, how come we can't hitch a ride with our supply caravans between settlements?

I have explored the upper half of the map, but have yet to venture into the southern half because I get too sucked into settlement building with the northern settlements. Not a complaint of course, I like the settlement building and turning these old ruins into populated towns.

[sdack]

Originally posted by Mr. Thiccums:

Like c'mon, how come we can't hitch a ride with our supply caravans between settlements?

You want to ride a brahmin, really?

Why not get the mod Driveable Motorcycle:
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/21899

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS3yUInxhic

[ABlueHairedFox]

Who wouldn't wanna ride a brahmin?

On another note, I think there's a mod that lets you ride with your provisioner caravans. Just wish it was a vanilla thing for survival players 'cause it just makes sense.

[miakisfan]

Any farther south and it would have shown my hometown of New Bedford.

They wouldn't have had to change much seeing as when I left it looked like a 3rd world city ... except where the politicians are of course.

[Fear2288]

FO4’s world size is perfect IMO. It’s big enough that you can still find places you’ve never been before after 1,000+ hours, but not so large that it feels overwhelming and a waste of time to walk anywhere.

I do agree though that it was an odd choice to put the Sanctuary and RR settlements so close together. Like, it’s fine that there’s a gas station right outside the neighborhood, but I’m not sure why it needed to be a settlement. My only guess is that they wanted to give you an unpopulated area all to yourself early on in case you choose not to save Preston and the others, or to give you a place where you can safely store all your stuff without having to worry about settlers stealing your weapons/ammo/PA or using up your food/water items.

[Zekiran]

Originally posted by Skarmo:

I may be one of a few, but I liked the emptiness of the Mojave desert in Fallout New Vegas. I would expect a postapocalyptic world to be somewhat empty. So I agree with you. A bigger map would have been nice in Fallout 4. Not necessarily more content - just more space.

Living here in southern california and having driven up 15 to reach vegas, the map is exactly as compressed in NV as it is in Fo4, there's just nothing IN the desert in reality. The distances between things in games like this are curtailed for compelling reasons. While I liked looking at the bleak desertscape... it's boring as hell for any other purpose including playing the game. endless samey yellow. At least in Boston's area, there are things to actually explore and see.

[ABlueHairedFox]

Originally posted by Fear2288:

FO4’s world size is perfect IMO. It’s big enough that you can still find places you’ve never been before after 1,000+ hours, but not so large that it feels overwhelming and a waste of time to walk anywhere.

I do agree though that it was an odd choice to put the Sanctuary and RR settlements so close together. Like, it’s fine that there’s a gas station right outside the neighborhood, but I’m not sure why it needed to be a settlement. My only guess is that they wanted to give you an unpopulated area all to yourself early on in case you choose not to save Preston and the others, or to give you a place where you can safely store all your stuff without having to worry about settlers stealing your weapons/ammo/PA or using up your food/water items.

True, true. What the map currently is definitely works and is plenty of space to play around in. There's plenty of things that are in your path as you explore meant to slow you down and to make the world feel even bigger. I just wish there was a bit more distance between these locations so the world would feel a bit more believable, if that makes sense.
In terms of map expansions, I mentioned a mod that I'm pretty excited about called Massachusetts Project that adds two whole new towns up north past the northern border. Hell, they even added the Red Rocket location that's seen in the game's promotional material (The one with the billboard nearby and Boston in the distance, not the one near Sanctuary).

[vaughanphillips.nz]

Blame banjo land 76 for that.

[Candesco]

Distance is fine though. It's the damn fast travel and map marker that ruins it. Now luckily you can turn off that map marker for the current quest. Still, i wished it was in that case more towards Morrowind and that we got unique transport instead and no taking by the hand at all.

[Zekiran]

There are plenty of mods for that, though. That's not how the game has ever worked, whether it's 4, 3, or before. "like morrowind" well... some of us didn't like it, and prefer a more modern game.