They are tiny, little hamlets. A couple of them could be villages, maybe. There isn't a single city. I noticed now I just wander around the world and dungeon dive, and almost never go into one of the "cities" because they bother me so much.

I really hope TES VI has bigger cities.

In each of the TES games, has there ever really been a "city"? Rome was a city, but the setting of Tamriel seems to predate the Roman empire. Should the next game have a city, it would mean it would take us at least an entire day just to get through it. I can imagine the hate posts now: "Dang, Beth! Why'd you have to make the city so large, it takes a whole day to get through?? Arg!"

I love the small towns and villages of Skyrim. I don't have to spend time in them to get things done. I take great satisfaction galloping Shadowmere through these small towns as the people can only wonder where I'm going in such a hurry.

I wasn't a big fan of the city in Cyrodiil. I spent so much time just trying to get from one end to the other for the simple mundane task of delivering a message. If the TES future does bring us a city, by the nine it had best not give us a handful of mundane quests to do just to "explore" it.

We'll have more than enough time to do that, if Skyrim's any indication.

I find them good, the IC svcked ass.

Oh my yes it did, hard, And it wasn't really all that bigger than, say, Markarth, just more useless doors and windows pencilled in, and every cell clearly hampered by artificial boundaries. No thanks. For me, Skyrim's cities are, BY FAR, the best of the TES series. Oh, they could be better... more populated, more "outskirts", that kind of thing, But they're clearly the most ALIVE of any TES.

Agreed. Also, Vivec in my opinion was a far better city than the IC. A little confusing, but it really feels cool.

I can not describe the sense of dissapointment I felt when seeing Winterhold and Dawnstar for the first time.
With Winterhold I was seriously looking around corners, convinced Id missed a section of the 'city' and it there would be more of it further on.

The way the 'cities' were described pe-release does not match what we got in the game.
Riverwood is a decent hamlet, and Whiterun is nice.
Vilverin syndrome, where the first thing people encounter in the game turns out to be the very best example of its kind.
Solitude is pitiful for the capital of Skyrim, it is basically just one big street.
Markath is tiny, the interiors often copy-paste.
Riften has a certain charm but is ruined by how the whole city is just one big thieves guild plot point.
Yeah, I get it Mjoll, you only told me a thousand times.

This was one of my initial dissapointments with Skyrim.
Compared to Morrowind, a Skyrim city would be a Morrowind hamlet like Hla Oad.

Skyrim does not have cities!

I also like the towns and Cities of Skyrim, having market traders and less shops shops feels right to me, as does the smallness of some of the settlements like Morthal (Though I think this is to small to be a capital city). Cities in Oblivion felt a bit to modern to me, like visiting some sort of Medevial theme park, whereas Skyrim's towns feel more workaday someone lives here places.

That said I do think that every settlement should have it's own blacksmith, and some of them could use a few more houses and ordinary people.

Rorikstead springs to mind, perhaps in places like this there should be a smaller inn (or no inn at all the local lordling would offer hospitality to travellers) 1 or 2 farms nearby , a blacksmith, a few more homes for the farm workers, a manor house for the local lordling and a small temple to one of the 8 (or 9), oh and a wall, or a fence even, there's giant spiders and things running around out there trying to eat folk after all.

So I guess I'm trying to say Skyrim could beneift from having fewer capital cities (and Jarls) and more villiages (and Minor lords) if the capitals were a bit bigger and the villages almost Morthal size I would have liked it more but I think they have the feel about right.

Markarth is...confusing...multilevels, everything looks the same, mountain goat steep steeps all over...scary!

I agree about Morthal and Dawnstar and Winterhold. If they don't AT LEAST have a blacksmith and a general store what good are they? Only a place to pay to spend the night. Kind of like a modern city without a police dept or a post office but with a motel.

Riverwood is efficient. Inn, blacksmith, mill, general store and a camp site where you can eat and sleep without having to rent a room. No Jarl. Falkreach is similiar but has a Jarl and no campsite. I'll take a campsite over a Jarl anytime.

Riften is not bad, but I am always afraid someone is going to "steal me blind."

Solitude is my favorite with Whiterun a second.

you want a game with enterable buildings not too repetitive and good npcs characterization adapted for 6 years old consoles on only 1 dvd ?

you got it

the "cities" are tiny,but markhart and windhelm are great in terms of level design; solitude and whiterun are missed opportunities in that sense - even if with a good scenic appeal - riften is almost ok and winterhold deserve to be seen in his former glory

I think the trouble is that we are living in a time where there are more people on the planet than ever and we assume cities have always been this size.
Years ago cities of Europe we much smaller.

The main cities on the Mediterranean and into Asia such as Rome and Jerusalem were more populated as they built up around trade but many cities of northern Europe were very small.

Cities have never been comprised of 15 npcs and 20 guards in real life. Your argument is completely invalid. Roman forts had more people in them than Skyrim's 'cities'.

I've been looking at Markath interiors in some detail because I wanted to re-use one for a mod, and you are wrong. In fact, as best I can see, no two even have the same layout. If they did it would be a lot easy to make extra houses. Please note I'm talking about the dwellings IN Markarth, not the ones outside: the latter are mostly one of two different inside and outside designs, with clutter added. Plus the stables, which is unique as well. But even with the same inside designs for those dwellings in the countryside, the interiors are all different. And therein lies the reason why the towns are so small (apart from the lack of land space to put bigger ones - London in about 1200AD would cover a quarter of the map for example): the sheer time required to make all the interiors. I've made about eight dwellings now for mods, from single room Dwemer houses (like Salvius Farm) via bigger houses to a huge Dwemer multi-room job, and I can tell you now: putting all the stuff into these boxes takes freaking hours. Then you have to path them, light them, and maybe add noises. And the options to copy'n'paste from dwelling to dwelling are actually limited. And if you did produce a cookie-cutter houses the complaints would be deafening.

It seems to me that the problem has always been (from Morrowind on, anyway) not the fact that the "cities" are small, but that they are called cities. And that we call the land the whole province, not just a county within it. If you really wanted a city the size of (say) Medieval York, it would take a team of twenty devs years to make it. And they would have just built the town: no quests, no NPCs, etc etc.