I think Skyrim is majorly lacking in the cities department. Skyrim's cities are the size of Morrowind's towns. Look at this list and really thin about it.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Cities_%26_Towns

I wish we could have gotten at least one or two big cities. I still love Skyrim, but I don't think it hurts to talk about the ways it could be better. If you look at Morrowind's "towns" category, it blows all Skyrims CITIES away, and then Morrowind had its own big cities, and also a lot of villages.

Thoughts?

i love morrowind but to say that vivec or aldruhn or balmora are somehow better than skyrim's cities is, imo, absurd.

My first thought, unfortunately, is "how many more bugs & broken quests would that bring?"

I'd love to see someone combine the best aspects of all 3 games. Hell, I'd love to see a Morrowind remake with the Skyrim engine & updates. But obviously that ain't happenin'.


Skyrim does have a ton of little settlements spread throughout though, beyond the big cities. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Settlements

I don't think "big" is necessarily the same thing as "good." Yes, Morrowind's cities had more buildings but I think, overall, Skyrim's cities are more creatively designed and more interesting places to visit. I personally feel there is no city in Morrowind or Oblivion that is quite as amazing as Markarth. And there is no city in the entire TES series that is as amazing to see from a distance as Solitude. That sight just makes my jaw drop every time I approach the place.

Yeah, one thing Skyrim feels much better than Oblivion about (and comparable to Morrowind) is that the world FEELS like it's lived in beyond the cities. There's mines, small villages, farmsteads, mills, etc. Oblivion, it was the 9 cities (one of which was a ruin), a handful of settlements, a mass of abandoned mines, forts, etc.

Skyrim feels much more like a WORLD to me than Oblivion.

I honestly respect your opinion, but I strongly disagree. Think of the size of Vivec for example. Think of many citizens lived there, and how much there was to do. Compare that to Skyrim's largest "city", say, Markarth or Solitude, and I don't think there is even a comparison.

I'm disappointed in the cities too. Winterhold sounded like a cool city, then you get there and the people tell you "Most of it was lost to the sea." While this is an interesting concept in a book it just doesn't work in a game. 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.

Then you have Helga, I thought perhaps the Devs would learn from Oblivion, players want to see a city rebuilt once the M.Q. is over. They did not learn and Helga stays a pile of burning rubble. I would have no issues going to the Jarl and say "Here, take my gold to help rebuild Helga." Not like you have a bunch of stuff to spend your gold on anyways later in the game.

Rebuilding Helgen would be a great idea for content after the main quest. It could be like Raven Rock from the Solstheim expansion for Morrowind. You get to build the layout of the town to your specifications, etc. Then people move in and quest content opens up. Would be super sweet!!

Skyrim's cities and towns are on par with Morrowind, but neither game has a distinct advantage IMO. For how amazing Markarth is, Vivec was just as amazing. And Balmora, and Ald'ruhn, and Sadrith Mora. Each game has their fair share of great cities and settlements. I was hoping the cities in Skyrim would have a bit more content, but I realize asking for more content in a game like Skyrim is like eating 10 pounds of cake and then still wanting more. I mean how much more could they possibly add? But yeah, the cities are great in Skyrim as well as Morrowind.

I think sombody is wearing Nostalgia goggles, looking back I am not sure if Vivec was actually bigger or whether it had more packed into tighter spaces however from a design point of view the cities in Skyrim are far more visually impressive whereas Vivec was just a couple of copy and pasted pyramid dome thingies.

I wasn't really impressed with Markarth, it wasn't....."enough" had it continued with what it was doing sure that think could have been more awesome than Vivec, tbh. but they didn't have personality to me as those in Morrowind, from the Pilgrim fortress of Molag Amur, the city of cities that is Vivec and the quaint fishing towns sitting over a massive cave network inhabited by criminal organizations I just think Morrowind wins out in persona.

The design of the 5 cities beat out anything of Oblivion and Morrowind SURE you know because Riften actually looks interesting, same for Whiterun, Markarth, Solitude. its just they stop short....don't know why. but in turn of Personality I think Morrowinds better, and yes I am talking from a MGE prespective where you can see into the distance.

I'll never forget Vivec. There were a ton of doors and stairways that made up Vivec and that kinda makes you think now when you look at it that it that's all it was lol.

Morrowind's cities was of different size, Vivec was gigantic around the size of the IC capital in Oblivion, Balmora was also huge with it's 42 locations, probably the limit on how large they could make open cities. Ebonheart was small,

Ald'ruhn and Sadrith Mora was medium with around 25 locations.
This is also the average number of location in Oblivion's cities and in Skyrim, Whiterun has 26 locations,

I don't think Bethesda is capable of creating larger, more detailed cities. That's something better left to the community to accomplish.

Vivec is still my favourite city and while I find that Morrowind's cities and towns and villages tended to be larger than Skyrim's, Skyrim's cities and settlements actually appear more functional and feel like cities.

Vivec is definitely bigger than Solitude, it has a lot more NPCs too.

Not really a fan of any of the cities in Skyrim but I'm not sure if it's just down to the lack of population or what. I just haven't found any of them except for Markarth to be particularly interesting and some are just dull and lifeless to me and seem to only serve as a quest hub and shove on your way. The cities being completely closed off adds to the claustrophobic feeling I get inside of the Skyrim cities, too.

I think they could have done a lot better considering most of the game's other locales are rich in detail.

I agree with this. Big is not necessarily better; Morrowind's cities were very monotonous in my opinion, whereas Skyrim's cities seem to be more varied (not just between one another but within as well, though there is still a LOT of room for improvement). The only good thing about having massive cities is that they feel more realistic (a lot of people, easy to get lost, etc).

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? I mean Vivec was never "massive" in any sense (neither was the IC for that matter), in truth we have yet to actually see a massive city in an Elder Scrolls game and odds are if they continue with the open world design of their games we probably never will, so really it wasnt the size that made Vivec (or any other city in Morrowind) so memorable. Looking at Vivec from the outside there really wasnt all that much going on apart from the odd Ordinator wandering around and telling you that he is watching you, scum, also looking back Vivec and the other cities in Morrowind werent all that detailed either but that is to be expected of an older game made to run on older hardware.

No.

Markarth > Every other city even in real life

Walking around vivec was about as fun and walking around in cleats with the spikes inverted
Plus, Vivec's cantons were all pretty similar on the inside. Sure, you had some variation between each one, but the layout was almost exactly the same

Sure the cities might be bigger but they were pretty lifeless, because barely anyone actually moved around in that game unless it was for a quest or something.

I don`t think so. I`ll never forget Vivec for how it kept me wandering about its several tiers from the top to underground. Then there was that big giant floating rock thing too. I remember my amazement looking at it.

Then you`ve got those dwemer dwellings. First time I went in one I was in it for hours- even got lost. They just never seemed to end. The dwemer ruins in Skyrim are no bigger; better looking, but no bigger.

To be honest Skyrim`s cities are only slightly bigger than Morrowind and populated about the same.

the size of morrowind or skyrim is irrelevant in my post. the number of citizens doesn't matter either. the redundancy and graphical inferiority of morrowind's cities makes calling them "better" or that it "blows all skyrim's cities away" completely false, imo.

That`s very shallow.

You`re basically saying Skyrim is better simply because of the graphics?

Sad.

Not been to every town yet, but so far, they all feel like hamlets to me, and these towns are supposed to be the centres of power for each region? riiight...