Cities/towns so small

[doctor albania]

After playing this game for a while, I've come to realise just how small the cities/towns are in Skyrim. I was wondering if there's a particular reason why. I understand Skyrim isn't meant to be the most populated, sophisticated province, but the "big" cities such as Whiterun are absolute dwarfs compared to basically all the cities in Oblivion. Not only that, but the streets in Oblivion felt alive, there was always somebody to talk to, and the cities felt realistic.

This isn't a rant or anything...... just wondering.

[Ilja]

Well, those towns are not a lot smaller than medieval towns in Finland or Norway. Only cities with cathedrals were sort of large.

In that respect, Solitude and Windhelm could be a lot larger than they are.

More importantly, all towns have inadequate amount of farms around them. No town could live with that amount of small farms.

[Quevik]

I think it's just a performance issue tbh. Oblivion and Skyrim both came out for the same consoles as one another. Yet skyrim's resource usage is higher due to the nature of the graphics. (Just mean, better than oblivion's)

If the cities of skyrim were as big and populated as Oblivion, console players might not be able to run it. In the case of whiterun, everything above the steps to the cloud district would have to be it's own cell.

Look at a mod like Jk's whiterun. Even the lite and superlite versions can cause lag for people on decent CPUS. There are mods that add generic, wandering NPCS to cities. Many of them had to be scaled back from thier initial release due to engine limitations.

[Ilja]

Originally posted by Quevik:

Look at a mod like Jk's whiterun. Even the lite and superlite versions can cause lag for people on decent CPUS. There are mods that add generic, wandering NPCS to cities. Many of them had to be scaled back from thier initial release due to engine limitations.

Nazenn is working on JK's Skyrim mods. We might see some changes soon.

[Alucard †]

What also puzzles me is that Skyrim is sactualy not too big
yet it feels monumental / huge like its Northrend from WoW or something

idk how they did this but Skyrim outdoors feel 10x bigger than they really are

[Docsprock]

Originally posted by ⎝Winter Soldier⎠☭:

What also puzzles me is that Skyrim is sactualy not too big
yet it feels monumental / huge like its Northrend from WoW or something

idk how they did this but Skyrim outdoors feel 10x bigger than they really are

This is one of Bethesda's best points. They learned long ago how to fit a large amount of locations into a small map without it seeming crowded. Take a smallish map and make it seem huge.

[Null]

Unlike the previous games, Skyrim's landscape was designed rather than generated, and has actual detailed buildings rather than things just plopped down in the middle of nowhere. If you play the older games, you'll see that even towns were big, empty, and boring.

It's just a case of quality over quantity. If the towns were overly expansive, it would be needlessly frustrating to do just about anything as you go by a series of irrelevant buildings to find the one you're looking for.

That said, Expanded Towns and Cities makes a difference.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Fz Dynelight:

Unlike the previous games, Skyrim's landscape was designed rather than generated, and has actual detailed buildings rather than things just plopped down in the middle of nowhere. If you play the older games, you'll see that even towns were big, empty, and boring.

It's just a case of quality over quantity. If the towns were overly expansive, it would be needlessly frustrating to do just about anything as you go by a series of irrelevant buildings to find the one you're looking for.

That said, Expanded Towns and Cities makes a difference.

Most of the cities in Oblivion were too big, and under populated, I agree. But I think some people want womething between the Skyrim cities and the Oblivion Cities, say half again as big as the current cities.

[Ilja]

As a rouge player (sometimes mage) I would love to see big cities again. Crawling around Imperial City felt some what more roguish than crawling around Solitude.

[cocodojo]

Even adding in just more random npcs to roads, caves, forts, strongholds, taverns and things makes the place feel a bit less "empty" becuase you see some semblence of life everywhere.

Lively Inn and Taverns makes the taverns which usually look so empty, feel crowded near the evening when everyone should be going home from the fields or from work.

I do wish the "Capitals" felt a bit more... well more than just a slightly larger hamlet. Specifically places such as Windhelm, Solitude (escpecially Solitude since you know... the High King's place?), Whiterun and perhaps Morthal and Riften. They feel like they should be important places, yet... it feels like you're only getting a small fraction of these "Cities" or important locations.

Well, hopefully whenever they get around to TEV 6, they'll give us a nice compromise between Oblivion Cities and Skyrim's packed content locations. It is a shame when you're trying to hide from the guards and there's only like... 6 buildings to hide in...

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by cocodojo:

I do wish the "Capitals" felt a bit more... well more than just a slightly larger hamlet. Specifically places such as Windhelm, Solitude (escpecially Solitude since you know... the High King's place?),

If you look aroun Windhelm a bit, you'll notice a few engraved blocks with details of various Kings. In short, the High King's palace is in which ever city gets it's jarl elected to the rank of High King.

I Falkreath's Jarl somehow became the High King of Skyrim, the High King's Palace would be in Falkreath. Admittedly it would be a poor Palace, and would almost certainly get rebuilt straight away.

[Kazaanh]

Originally posted by Papanak:

After playing this game for a while, I've come to realise just how small the cities/towns are in Skyrim. I was wondering if there's a particular reason why. I understand Skyrim isn't meant to be the most populated, sophisticated province, but the "big" cities such as Whiterun are absolute dwarfs compared to basically all the cities in Oblivion. Not only that, but the streets in Oblivion felt alive, there was always somebody to talk to, and the cities felt realistic.

This isn't a rant or anything...... just wondering.

Its all because of Engine Limitations, current Skyrim engine can't handle plenty of NPCs/details. Hence why you see every major city with loading screen between wilderness/city.

Bethesda went that way to create smaller city but fully explorable, instead creating a huge city but with only 2-4 streets walkable through. Imo the second way would work better, it would add more immersion.

SE most likely will handle that stuff a bit better. Have you ever tried add Expanded-X-City/Village mods? They do hurt fps a bit and tend to crash.

[Ilja]

Originally posted by Kazaanh:

Have you ever tried add Expanded-X-City/Village mods? They do hurt fps a bit and tend to crash.

Arthmoors village addons are quite stable. If you want extended villages, then those would be good place to start.

Cities are a bit more problematic.

[doctor albania]

Originally posted by Kazaanh:

Originally posted by Papanak:

After playing this game for a while, I've come to realise just how small the cities/towns are in Skyrim. I was wondering if there's a particular reason why. I understand Skyrim isn't meant to be the most populated, sophisticated province, but the "big" cities such as Whiterun are absolute dwarfs compared to basically all the cities in Oblivion. Not only that, but the streets in Oblivion felt alive, there was always somebody to talk to, and the cities felt realistic.

This isn't a rant or anything...... just wondering.

Its all because of Engine Limitations, current Skyrim engine can't handle plenty of NPCs/details. Hence why you see every major city with loading screen between wilderness/city.

Bethesda went that way to create smaller city but fully explorable, instead creating a huge city but with only 2-4 streets walkable through. Imo the second way would work better, it would add more immersion.

SE most likely will handle that stuff a bit better. Have you ever tried add Expanded-X-City/Village mods? They do hurt fps a bit and tend to crash.

Yeah I have tried out a variety of mods but my current playthrough is vanilla-friendly. (Only a few graphics mods, Ui, bug fixes, etc.) This is cos I'm getting a new PC soon and it will be easier to transfer save files if it's not heavily modded.

[Kazaanh]

Originally posted by Ilja:

Originally posted by Kazaanh:

Have you ever tried add Expanded-X-City/Village mods? They do hurt fps a bit and tend to crash.

Arthmoors village addons are quite stable. If you want extended villages, then those would be good place to start.

Cities are a bit more problematic.

Yep if modders knows how to properly optimize his mods its not a problem.

Problem starts when X modders starts to place tons of foliage for no reason at all that clutter the village and eat fps like hell.

[Ilja]

Originally posted by Kazaanh:

Yep if modders knows how to properly optimize his mods its not a problem.

Problem starts when X modders starts to place tons of foliage for no reason at all that clutter the village and eat fps like hell.

Very true.