The games, brother. If I had a problem with the lore, I'd be over on the lore forums complaining. I would not be on the Skyrim general forums explicitly discussing the in-game size of cities.

You go to imperial city in Oblivion to the market district and you have the shield shop, the book shop, spells, 1 hand weapons, 2 hand weapons, armor, staves and just so much choice you don't have to settle for a "general" goods store.

Before skyrim came out i read that Whiterun would be skyrim's version of the imperial city and quit frankly it's not you have a general goods store, a smith and an archery shop, no book store...

thoughts?

The links don't seem to support your claim.

Why can't I find a decent supply of high level arrows in any quantity, regardless of price?

The links and the lore fully support my claim, sorry if i don't remember in which book,but its clearly specified that the Skyrim cities are most "settlements" than "real cities" or something like that - smaller in size of what a "normal big city" should be; doin' some proper research on this and perhaps you'll find your answers; Imperial City,Vivec etc are part of other provinces = another story

The links and the lore fully support my claim, sorry if i don't remember in which book,but its clearly specified that the Skyrim cities are most "settlements" than "real cities" or something like that - smaller in size of what a "normal big city" should be; doin' some proper research on this and perhaps you'll find your answers; Imperial City,Vivec etc are part of other provinces = another story

Never really thought of the stalls... i guess they make up for that... but in the big cities like Whiterun, Solitude and Whindhelm you would think they would at least have book stores! and what not.

So every says "oh i miss spell crafting" or "I miss acrobatics" No you know what i miss? the dedicated shops that were easy to find. You go to imperial city in Oblivion to the market district and you have the shield shop, the book shop, spells, 1 hand weapons, 2 hand weapons, armor, staves and just so much choice you don't have to settle for a "general" goods store. If there is one thing i miss from Oblivion it's that, and that you can get a better deal selling 1 hand weapons to 1 hand store compared to a 2 hand store.

Before skyrim came out i read that Whiterun would be skyrim's version of the imperial city and quit frankly it's not you have a general goods store, a smith and an archery shop, no book store...

thoughts?

That would only be a valid argument if any of the last three TES games were actually to scale. They aren't. There's no reason to limit the size of your new cities because you don't want to overshadow one ostensibly huge city you created half a decade ago. Especially when you consider the size of Morrowind's cities.

This. Redundancy is important.

Take Balmora, where you have three general goods shops (an outfitter, a pawnbroker, and a trader), five bars/taverns (Lucky Lockup, the Razor Hole, Eight Plates, Council Club, Southwall Cornerclub), an armorer, a tailor, and an alchemy shop with guild equivalents of each located within the local branch of the fighters and mages guilds, a bookseller, and the local temple with various merchants and spell sellers inside. This isn't even getting into the large number of residences and manors that already tend to dwarf most Skyrim cities.

This idea that there should never be more than one instance of any given service in any given place is boring. Every town just feels like another extension of the game (instead of an extension of the world), giving the player only what they need. Instead, towns should be designed with believability and logic in mind. Skyrim lacks this philosophy.

THis is Skyrim, not Cyrodil. Books are for Milk-Drinkers.

Let's assume that you're right, even though you've not been able to back it up. Why would the lore description of Skyrim's settlement-cities matter? Unless they are 1:1 scale representations that we have in Skyrim, then they are still smaller than what is seen in the lore. That means these cities can still be expanded on without any lore discrepancies---they'd be scaled down whether they had twenty structures or fifty. In the later case, however, more content is provided for the actual player, and the towns begin to feel somewhat more substantial.

The only reason the lore size of the city would matter is if you're comparing them to the size of Oblivion's in-game cities, holding that as some sort of benchmark. and then making some judgement about the scale all future cities must be represented at. Of course, that makes no sense because world and city size have varied drastically over the course of this series.

Yep. I've been playing TES since Morrowind and the whole time Nords are presented as being as sharp as marbles... less learned than the Scamp dealer in Caldera. So, it doesn't surprise me that, if you want good books to read, you have to go to Winterhold... and they're all in the College. It fits with the stereotype. Yes, I miss the bookshops of Cyrodil but I also agree that they wouldn't make much sense in Skyrim (a land that makes it clear that it'd rather remain homogenous isn't going to welcome the things that migrant cultures appreciate).

Winterhold has like...1 Merchant, an Inn, the Jarl's House, and one random guys house lol. It's pathetic.

However I agree with the others that winterhold is rather pointless as an additional settlement. How can there even be a Jarl of there are no subjects and no commerce?

Yes, Winterhold has a merchant, she's in the house that isn't the Jarl's House, the Inn or the cottage. Not difficult to find.

I asked myself that question. I mean whats the jarls job exactly? Watching over 5 people in his "town" with his guard force which consists of 2-3 guards? I mean riverwood is probably bigger and is in the middle of the wilds and has no guard force at all.

I agree to a certain degree. I do believe the cities in the game are a little nerfed compared to the whole expanse of the wild. I mean, the the only decent ones are solitude and maybe riften. The rest seem to be a little small for my tastes. Let's not even take into account that sad excuse for a town called winterhold...

You have the wrong expectations for Skyrim- it's not the center of the empire like the Imperial City. That land is much more hospitable, so people can spread out more around their cities, giving you the impression that they're bigger even when they're about the same size. Book shops? Who is reading and buying those books? Skyrim is the harsh, unforgiving land of the Nords. Most children learn their skills from their parents, and the only truly educated people are in the Jarl's household. Plus, in case you've forgotten, there's been a war raging for a few years now. People have moved away or moved into town, behind strong walls. Over the years, even other races have fled Skyrim due to the conflict and xenophobia. This is not a welcoming climate for trade or business right now. Even among the Nords, people are suspicious of their own neighbors. You never know who is a Stormcloak and who secretly supports the Empire.

And for a magic fearing folk like this lot, who the heck thinks they'd rebuild the town that collapsed in front of a magic college? Are you serious? The few stubborn ones at what's left of town are probably the only ones brave enough to get that close to the cursed thing. You have to remember, they think it was the mages who destroyed their town. Who in their right mind would remain?

Of course you have to compare Skyrim with Oblivion and Morrowind in all aspects - cities included - -and you will discover that few buildings/shops more don't make a city; the world is all scaled down even in the others Tes games; you complain about the "cities" size and the lack of shops in the harsh nord ? nothing wrong for me,all is faithful to the lore