I was checking my stats last night and noticed that only 1 year has passed in game time. In that 1 year I have become the master of the theives guild, arch-mage of the mage's college, and the listener of the dark brotherhood. I am a master of sneak, lock picking, destruction magic, and smithing. I've killed countless dragons, and got a tonne of hides, ore, dragon bones and scales. In fact, I'm sure I've destroyed the foundation of breezehome just from the sheer weight materials sitting there. I got 7 dragon masks....just looking for that last one. I have travelled the width of the realm at least 100 times. I am thane of all the major holds. And while yes, it's been an incredible year, I got to ask is the passage of time just whacked or is skyrim much smaller than the map would suggest?

It's most likely the map size. Years go by relatively quickly ingame, as long as you don't pay attention to it.

The most productive year of anyone ever.

Hahah. Compared to one year in real life... maybe HALF of what his first task was.

Skyrim, pixel wise, may not be as big as Oblivion but it has more content in it.

In terms of size?


Arena > Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim > Daggerfall


I don't know if Daggerfall is in the correct order. Only played it twice, and that was 3 years ago. XD

No. Daggerfall was ridiculously huge.

I heard Daggerfall was as big as Arena. Maybe bigger.

Well.. my bad then.


Daggerfall > Arena > Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim


So that makes skyrim the smallest. :l

Well, it is a small map compared to a real country and the towns are small compared to real towns, but the main reason you managed to do much within a year is simply because it is a game which gives you a sense of progress much faster than in real life.

You can graduade and become the leader of the College of Winterhold in a matter of few days, while it's very much impossible to do the same in the real world. To become the principal of a College in the real world would take plenty of years. A couple of years to graduade, and plenty of more years to climb the ladder until you're a principal. It would not be fun to play Skyrim and sit by the school bench at the College of Winterhold for years, would it?

In terms of map size, Morrowind is the smallest, by far.

You know, if Daggerfall was in real life on a real life scale, it would have about 49,000 square kilometers, double the size of Great Britain. That's simply rediculous for a gameworld.
Arena covered the whole of Tamriel, but wasn't as wide in scale.
Oblivion covered Cyrodiil, which is slightly bigger than Skyrim I think.
And Morrowind only had the island of Vvarderfell, not counting expansions.

So I think it is Daggerfall > Arena > Oblivion > Skyrim > Morrowind.

I forgot to list that I am also the harbringer of the companions.

I guess my main point is not the size of the realm, but the passage of time. It ties into how fast or slow things take to respawn, particularly the ingridrents. Also it onlyb takes a day to travel from whiterun up the mountain to the greybeards. Its almost sureal sometimes.