This game is pretty impressive. My controls are still a little jerky when I turn up the graphics, but other than that...good lord. Great game.

I'm 31 now and I don't see myself finishing this game for a good 2 or 3 years. If that.

Now if they can just remove the damn hired thugs that come to destroy your character at level 5 where you stand no chance, I'll be happy. I don't mind me getting into trouble without a bounty, but at least give me a fighting chance. I could take on 1 of these guys if I used every health potion and food available to me, but definitely not three. That's just not fun.

Besides that...loving this game.

Im constantly on the run from the hired thugs too! I managed to kill one of them once but thats all...

as a level 6 mage i managed to take down all 3 of them it was a tough fight with a lot of fighting but i killed them. when you kill them theres a note on one of them from someone saying they were hired because you stole something from someone.

I've put in about 20 hours and have barely scraqed the surface.
Only 280+ hours to go

Actually game map is smaller than oblivion's or fallout 3 or NV's one.

It's really not smaller not when you take into account what's in the world for you to explore, also I'm not sure that in sheer size it's not bigger but I don't have stats to prove it either way but I do know there are infiniately more locations to discover than any other game Bethesda have done. Now when I look for example at the distance I'll need to travel to get to Solitude from Riverworld I'm sure it's bigger than the other games

Source? All the articles i've read states the game world is roughly the same size as Oblivion, which is bigger than Fallout3 and NV.

^ This.

That's pretty cool. I have (or had?) the dark brotherhood after me. They even knew I was going to show up in Riften, and the assassins could use any means necessary, even showing their names and attacking in full day light.

Funny thing though, so I got attacked, but the guards didn't do anything...

Read the interviews. Todd said they will make world smaller from previous elder scrolls so you have less exploration etc.
I will link the interview as soon as i find it,

And you can actually compare the map in game to oblivions one. Bit harder to do though with ankward 3d camera on it though. Good thing is that they removed ton of the copy paste generic caves ala oblivion or fallout 3 that had no ingame work to do other than making you think there is soooooo many places to explore. Only to find out that it was exactly same cave layout than the 5 last you explored.

MW has occupied me on and off since 2002 (I was 29) and Oblivion since 2006. A year and a half off forty and I'm starting Skyrim. Despite living in three countries and visiting dozens more, TES pretty much ate my thirties.

Here are two articles where Todd Howard himself states the size of Skyrim and Oblivion is about the same:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35678/Interview_Todd_Howard_On_Scope_Vision_Of_Skyrim.php
http://www.hookedgamers.com/blogs/markbarley/2011/01/25/new_skyrim_details_touch_on_map_size_graphical_updates_more.html

The world map for Fallout 3 and NV are about maybe 75% the size of Oblivion.

And you can't compare Oblivion's and Skyrim's map since you don't know if distances are scaled equally.

quote name='Luewen' timestamp='1321127396' post='19189326']
Read the interviews. Todd said they will make world smaller from previous elder scrolls so you have less exploration etc.
I will link the interview as soon as i find it,

And you can actually compare the map in game to oblivions one. Bit harder to do though with ankward 3d camera on it though. Good thing is that they removed ton of the copy paste generic caves ala oblivion or fallout 3 that had no ingame work to do other than making you think there is soooooo many places to explore. Only to find out that it was exactly same cave layout than the 5 last you explored.
[/quote]

Whether or not the game map is smaller than Oblivion/FO's is irrelevant.

It's the same reason Morrowind > Oblivion... More content. I didn't even leave the general Whiterun area for the first 6 hours of my game.

Bethesda basically put an Entire Country complete with all its people, quests, everything in your computer, and it only takes about 5.7gb.

Truly an outstanding technical achievement.

It feels much bigger than oblivion. In oblivion you crossed the map in 15 minutes. I don't get that feeling in Skyrim

I beat the hired thugs at lvl 6. yeah I died a few times but it was satisfying when you do. Haven't felt that from a game for awhile. Im liking the challenge.

Im never going to be able to finish this game.

Yeah, the *map* is smaller. The land itself is not, is much bigger than Cyrodiil. Truth is, they made it bigger by completely ignoring the size difference between the two maps and upscaling the land in such a way that it actually takes *hours* to walk from one edge of the map to another. As the title says, this game is HUGE, by far the biggest in the TES series.

You wouldn't know it by walking anywhere.

Actually, using the world "actually" to start a sentence doesn't make it true.

hahaha, I managed to kill them with the help of some town guardsm or ele no way i could kill all 3

Ummm...no it's not. It's around Oblivion's size if not bigger.