There are cities?

Maybe in size and number, but I feel the cities in Skyrim are some of the most distinctive and attractive in the series. Windhelm especially is a strong contender for my all-time favourite TES city.
Ironicly, Markarth is the only city in Skyrim I don't really like all that much personally

Vivec never really felt like a city to me just giant blocks.I mean that place was dead from the outside you barely had anybody roaming the streets except the ordinaters I'd go inside and it felt like a sufficating box.in fact I don't think bethesda can do a giant city because of the open world thing.

I wouldn′t call single houses, farms or cabins to be settlements. I agree with the OP. In Skyrim it′s quite strange to come to main cities which consists of 4-5 small houses. In my awareness a settlement is something like riverwood or dragonbridge. And main cities like morthal oder dawnstar are not that much bigger.

The people in skyrims city actually do stuff while vivic seemed empty (literally sometimes i wondered why some of these building were here with no one in them) and if you notice only vivic is mentioned because its the biggest and only one that might be comparable to skyrims many cities(which vary in size because of many in game reasons).

yes lets not forget about all those deep stand in one place encyclopedia npcs that inhabited every town and the copy/paste buildings
Skyrim's cities may be smaller but the quality of them is much better than that of Morrowind

Comparing Morrowind to Skyrim is pointless as they are completely different to each other.
The whole point of Skyrim is blood, gore and half naked people who don't shiver in ice cold weather.
Whereas the whole point of Morrowind was story, fantasy and adventure.

Morrowind was made for "oldstyle" adventurer minded player - " Oh look at the mushroom trees and strange looking towns" and Skyrim for the " newstyle - "I want to kill and see blood, gore and naked NPCs." - player.

Mods will soon re-shape Skyrim to the way players really want to play it.
Where is that CK?

Criminal scum.

Agreed.
"Were watching you scum!"

Skyrim's cities are better and we don't have to worry about some outside enemy (Excluding Dragons) killing NPC's.

I don't think we're going to see any more real "content" squeezed into cities, but I don't think it would be that difficult (or taxing on the hardware) to add a few more setpieces. Right now, every location in a city, every NPC, seems to have a function. I don't think it would be difficult to make Whiterun or Solitude double or 3 times the size it is now if you just added a few blank houses (even ones that you couldn't go in), and a few more NPCs with no dialogue that just wandered around pre-set paths. It would certainly make the cities "feel" more massive and alive, and the important people and places wouldn't feel so bunched together.

Of course, then you'd have people complaining about all the "wasted space" and "filler" material so you'll never please everyone.

My point is, I think there's more legit "content" in Skyrim's cities than Morrowind, and they're certainly more varied, but even if Bethesda made them bigger I don't think we'd get more actual content. That said, personally I wouldn't mind Bethesda "artificially" inflating city size to give a more awe-inspiring and memorable presentation.

I would wish for two things: bigger cities, and cities that don't rely on separate game cells. But, I know that's a very big ask. Particularly when you think that there are no real "random NPCs" who live in cities, they all need creating & tracking.

I guess that at a push I could accept ingame separate cells as a necessary evil, so why is there a limit on city size? Why not carve some cities up into discrete zones, each with their own cell & thus their own NPC tracking? Would be better than piffling small cities.

My biggest complaint with the cities in Skyrim are the invisible walls that prevent access to many of the rooftops (Grey Quarter of Windhelm is the first area that comes to mind). Whirlwind Sprint had so much potential before running face first into an invisible wall.

If you want large cities in elder scroll play Daggerfall, that was huge cities, any of the larger ones was larger than IC.

Yes, Yes. Much better to have NPC's who wander endlessly and aimlessly around town (not city) but can't tell you anything about their homeland or the local sights.

I agree. It's not like real people have knowledge of anything outside of what you're currently doing at that time

People seem to be forgetting that hardware has gone through quite a few generations since Morrowind. Back in 2002, the city of Vivec was probably the largest RPG city shown in 3D. It wasn't perfect by a long shot but then it was just about all computers at the time could handle. So many people had lag issues in Vivec back then. Even so, Vivec did feel big. There were so many people there and there was enough land used that getting a bit lost between the different cantons that each had 3-4 levels was quite possible. Sure, there should've been a lot more NPCs wandering around but that would've killed most PCs at the time.

The important thing is that Vivec felt like a proper city. It had the size and the NPCs to be convincing, even if NPCs were a bit flat and nobody moved around much. Contrast this with any "city" in Skyrim. A couple of them are almost as small as bloody Seyda Neen, at hole in the ground that just barely qualified as a settlement in Morrowind. As visually pretty as the cities of Skyrim are, they don't feel like actual cities for exactly the same reason Mournhold in the Tribunal expansion for Morrowind wasn't convincing. If you have 20-30 houses in the same general area, it isn't a city and it wasn't ever a city. "Settlement" or "village" would seem more appropriate terms.

Obviously, if all you want from the game is a solid amount of blood, gore, and assorted eye candy, then you're probably not going to give two [censored] whether anything seems plausible. Heck, you might even be annoyed that the game doesn't have WoW-style bikini armor. Of course, if that's the kind of gamer you are then RPGs are not for you and you should stop trying to pollute one of the last RPG franchises.

Large cities are great ideas, however there isn't much you can do to add purpose to the cities. Most locations are pointless houses or structures. As far as gameplay is concerned, I much prefer a town that is easy to navigate and does not take me 20 minutes to get from say the Alchemist to the Blacksmith. The one thing I do miss from Daggerfall with the large cities however was that it gave you a new dimension to the game - rooftops. With climbing and how jumping worked, you could escape guards or access building undetected. It reminded me of Assassin's Creed before the game was even an idea. I would imagine Skyrim with that sort of town structure would be fantastic, but in order for it to be appealing, the town needs to have purpose and be populated. I don't think that is possible without shrinking the game world - eliminating cities. Personally, I would rather have a few huge cities that were heavily populated and a lot of smaller villages than how Skyrim is structured now. The cities are decently sized, but there are too many for me to really care about.

I preferred Morrowind's style, but I absolutely hated Vivec, was a total nightmare to get around in and no sane architect would build something so impractical to navigate.

I don't recall any other cities in Morrowind being very big, other than Mournhold which was an expansion on its own.

Skyrim is kind of missing any kind of big hub like the Imperial City though, and in general both previous game's cities felt larger on average.

Whiterun is a 'major trading hub', but, has very few vendors? Granted, there are basically four smiths, but only ONE general vendor?? And one of the smallest cities at that....

Solitude is the capitol of the province..... and has one apothecary.... No clue how many weapons dealers, as I have yet to find ONE there..... (I don't spend a lot of time there though.)

Winterhold, a once 'great' seaport town, reduced to a few houses by some cataclysm? If that isn't a cop out, I am not sure what is.

Of course, none of this really comes as a surprise, after all Imperial city, the capitol of the EMPIRE, was pretty much the same.

I love the cities/towns of Morrowind. For me they're far more memorable that anything in Oblivion or Skyrim. Each settlement had it's own unique style and atmosphere. Sure the towns in Skyrim are prettier, but they just lack that certain charm to me.

I wouldn't call Whiterun a hub exactly, just happens to be conveniently located in Skyrim. The Imperial City had an entire section dedicated to vendors. Whiterun is not really a superior trading location over any over the other cities in Skyrim and it's also kind of small - Solitude, Windhelm, Markarth all seem considerably bigger.

you are misinformed. I played morrowind a lot.

1. most houses in morrowind are single room shacks with barely space for a bed.
seriously it s almost the size of the closet in haelga bunkhouse in riften.
her closet , behind the dibela statue. seriously.

those that are not shack are small mushroom (sadrith mora and telvani towers)
redoran huts (ald ruhn) and small one-floor houses (balmora, etc)
but still with that sort of vast closet-zize space where you can t even walk

2. those that were large were not as lively or get wiped out quick
for example the cornerclub in balmora get wiped out early on
the tavern like the big one in sadrith mora, doesnt have the liveliness of the ones in skyrim
(which remind me the sadrith mora in was the only good tavern there, except the one in caldera)

3. morrowind towns totally lacked central buildings like skyrim castles
or - in the case of telvani - only had that (a central tower and nothing else)

4. only balmora had a half decent amount of related quests.
most were dead husks out of nowhere, like gnaar mok or hlaa oad.

5. the average tiny settlement in skyrim is much larger than the average morrowind small town,
because the building are larger and have more peoples and quests in it.
for example pavo house near some mine near markath....
could give a run to some mage guilds like the one in caldera...

that s right, only guild buildings were two levels in morrowind
so the average poor guy house in skyrim is the size of a guild hq

ok it doesnt apply to the verry big ones like ald ruhn and balmora.
but it certainly beat the like of caldera and sadrith mora

6. mournhold and solstheim were sort of test run.
mournhold had 2-floor building, vast sewers with dungeons
and was possibly the best morrowind city, and a precursor to oblivion and skyrim
but it was spread accross many interior cells and had no real landscape
(contrary to balmora)

I don t think you need to be a genius to figure out
ANY skyrim city beat the crap out of mournhold

7. the list of morrowind settlements give the impression there was a lot, while in fact it is inacurate.
it s all there was !!! there is nothing outside that list.

In skyrim places like kynesgrove, darkwater crossing, and other much more obsure places
are totally unlisted as settlements, yet they dwarf places like gnaar mok,
not just in scope, but also in quests stuff and things like mining and crafting and merchant
and peoples who help you with free food

as for things like vivec... the cantons mostly had large corridor and much less content
than lets say castle dour in solitude... it was interesting, but not as extensive as it
should have been. original artwork had plans for functional gondolas.

in any case, I had more fun in mournhold.

the sewers and underworks were sort of dead. you could go there and steal everything,
even make your home down there.

as an *interior city* ald rihn was more interesting

I am curious if they could all be reborn in a morrowind provincial expansion.
maybe ald ruhn crab shells survived the volcanic eruption
maybe they rebuilt vivec from scratch
(but without vivec the god, the tribunal temples, it would be odd ....)
(I wonder how the dark elves fares, other than telvani, without the almisivi)


CITIES

yes, they should have been bigger, like I said elsewhere. but if there was a cut to be made between darkreach and the cities, maybe they made the right decision.

larger cities would need to be justified. have multiple mages vying from arcane supremacy, thieves guilds at each other throats, mercenary fighter guild hating each other, dozens of taverns catering to different groups. peoples welcome in the ragged flagon would be target paractice if the enter the ugly horker. vast sewers and underground system. vast sprawling suburbs and farmland. vast poor quarters. isolated military and rich merchant and noble districts. complex politics

you could spend months in real life playing in a single city

but then, maybe that s beyond today technology

daggerfall had vast cities but they were just hollywood decor, not real building. you could enter, but it was empty. peoples in the steets were paid actor and really didnt sleep anywhere and all had the same dialogue.

(Players need all the cities they can get to sell/buy during their adventures. If your going to make up something like that for a city, I don't see the need to add it in the game.)
player need a mage colllege .... lets face it, that s what winterhold is, a glorified telvani tower ...
I find it rather cool, and it explain the ascendency of solitude and whiterun

the one I found disapointing was windhelm, because of the lack of nord population and the not-so-stormcloack ambience

(They did not learn and Helga stays a pile of burning rubble)
you mean helgen ...
helga is a divine dibella prosttute who run a bunkhouse when she s not trying to seduce me

(Rebuilding Helgen would be a great idea for content after the main quest)
what about rebuilding winterhold

(For how amazing Markarth is, Vivec was just as amazing)
IMO Markath beat them all. the only bad thing in markath is that it s smeared by the namira quest. and a bit too many peoples die there through quests. also it seems to have less merchants than other cities. Finally there is the daedric quest that gets in the way, with no *good side* to close down the quest. same for namira.

I guess that sets markath as an heavy daedric area, perhaps makes sense because forsworn worship daedra

(Vivec was just as amazing. And Balmora, and Ald'ruhn, and Sadrith)
would love to see them *rebuilt* after the red year in some morrowind province expansion for skyrim

(quaint fishing towns sitting over a massive cave network inhabited by criminal organizations)
lol ! did I miss something ! what town was that

( its just they stop short....don't know why)
because of exactly that
IMO they should have been 4x larger each, about the size of oblivion imperial city
use multiple cells if you need to, but I think blackreach proves they could have done it.

even now, they could retrofit it in a patch. put a door here and there that link to another area. fix the LOD for the main game so the city look as they should with the new stuff. it s doable

and give them all sewers and cave networks. dungeons within the city. some action.

(Balmora was also huge with it's 42 locations)

keep in mind it was all one-floor small buildings, versus solitude 3-floor large buildings


with no voice acting, shedules or much merchant gold or quests ....
I m not even sure they all had beds to sleep in

Vivec had potential, but unfortunately it was not tapped. mostly long corridors.

(yeah you are right however I am still struggling to see what was so impressive about Vivec, what exactly was it about Morrowind that had this awe and wonder about it that Skyrim and Oblivion just couldnt capture?)

that depend. are you hungry, thirsty, both ...

seriously, factoring blackreach in, skyrim win.

but vivec looked like giant monastery. I think it s inspired for real structures in asia. or perhaps from babylonian hanging gardens. the outside of vivec, along with the flying moon, is what was really amazing. the sewers were fun too. but the regular city levels were a bit boring. and of course there was vivec, the god, and the tribunal guards, which remind me of the thalmor - they were scary - and in the end vivec was the real bad guy

personaly I was more impressed with telvani architecture, more than anything else, and those mysterious velothi towers. Redoran architecture would come next in originality, but I found living inside crab shell a bit strange. they re similar to spiders and I hate spiders. well, I love fighting them. still scrared of them.

(The dwemer ruins in Skyrim are no bigger; better looking, but no bigger.)

I think you need to do some exploring. Arnghtand was the biggest dwemer dungeon in morrowind (apart from red mountain itself beyond the ghostfence). the dwemer dungeon in mounhold was much bigger than anything in morrowind, including red mountain. SKYRIM average dwemer dungeon is larger than the one in mournhold. much larger. the dwemer dungeon in markath is proff of that.

but now here is the scoop, the dwemer dungeon in markath is SMALL by skyrim style. Wait until you see blackreach, then it will all become clear how massive dwemer dungeons are in skyrim.

ANYWAY

my end conclusion, while skyrim is better, there is still a house number problem, and they should rework the cities in a patch using multiple interior cells and LOD to add more content and make them bigger and more lively, and actually look like the massive cities they promised

dungeons and all and well, but when you want immersion you need big cities !!!
They should go for 4x exterior space, and then add some underground stuff, sewers, caves, ruins ....

Oh please what was it about Vivec that made it feel like a "proper city" in comparison to the cities in Skyrim? At least Skyrim's cities have more life to them with the NPC schedules and such Vivec was just a bunch of copy pasted domes where NPCs just stand around waiting for you to talk to them, the only reason you would get lost in Vivec would be because you have poor navigation skills all the domes look the same.

But that being said I do agree with you, the "cities" in Skyrim dont feel like believable cities but then neither did Vivec, this would have to be my biggest gripe with the Elder Scrolls games, sure Bethesda offer a large gameworld for the player to do as he pleases but they never actually offer a believable one with believable cities and locations, however considering the open world nature of the game world this is an unavoidable flaw.


I am not sure where you are going with this, are you trying to say that anyone who doesnt agree with your opinion that Morrowind's bland cities are better than Skyrim's is a shallow putz who only cares about gore and eye candy? Personally I would love to see Bethesda take steps towards creating a more plausable gameworld however if you are trying to imply that Vivec was a plausable city then you just shot your own argument in the foot.

Morrowind's towns give off a more comforting vibe for me. Places like Balmora for example. That's just me. Places like Falkreath and Morthal are just sad.