I am really not convinced that an open world is the best way represent what is supposed to be such a large area like an entire province or state in games like Skyrim, it is really better for smaller areas such as a castle and its surrounding areas or at max a city but when you try to represent an entire province in an open world game like Skyrim due to the limited amount of resources and only being able to make a game so big a lot of the locations in the game, whether they be cities, forests, mountains or even major battles need to be scaled down so much that they lack that epic scale that such a game needs to have.

I mean people always tell me how "Epic" Skyrim is however I just dont see it, I cant see it because everything has been scaled down so much that any conflict or location within the game just feels like a joke compared to what it should have been. When Oblivion came out they told me that it was epic too, the told also me all about how epic the battle before closing the great Oblivion gate was as well, but seriously take a look at this and tell me honestly does this really look "epic" to you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC4cl1Bvssk

Honestly it is [censored] pathetic, seriously this is supposed to be the major battle of the game yet there is barely enough men for a game of football let alone what is supposed to be a massive army made up of men from all the major holds of Cyrodiil, this battle is supposed to be the turning point in a battle for the fate or Nirn not some schoolyard brawl or small skirmish between a group of forest bandits.

I get the advantages of creating a world that is open but considering how damaging it is to the scale of what is supposed to be a very large area and everything connected to it I just feel that the approach does the series more harm than good. There has to be better way to retain the open ended feel that the games are known for yet preserve the epic scale that the games really need.

Absolutely. If TES was anything other than open-world, I wouldn't play it. How would you portray the threat of dragons if you were confined to a castle? How would you portray the threat of Oblivion if you're confined to a small area?

Also, that video doesnt show the major battle in Oblivion. It shows a battle, but the major one doesn't occur until two quests later. And when you see the battlefield full of your fallen comrades, you'll feel like you have been a part of a huge battle.

I think the openness far makes up for the few 'epic' battles where you only have a few people. Yes the epicness is missing in those few battles, but I would much rather have the free flowing open game in exchange.

And doing that big battle in oblivion at level 35 I can tell you that you wouldn't want it any more epic. The deadra slaughter the guards with ease then kill martin because you can't be in that many places at once. I eventually won that battle by freezing time... Martin, not the deadra and then fighting the deadra by myself.

Can't tell if trolling or just stupid. -_____-

Ah but did you honestly think that Oblivion did just justice to the major threat which was the Oblivion crisis? Did you honestly feel as you were trying to find some mouldy journal at the end of an undead filled cave for some Fighters Guild quest that these Oblivion gates popping up over Cyrodiil were a huge threat? How about the towns folk, do you think they were worried?

Civilian 1 "Did you hear? Kvatch was destroyed by Daedra"

Civilian 2 "I saw a mudcrab the other day, horrible creatures"

How about in Skyrim, do you really think that they accurately portrayed the threat of dragons or the effect that the civil war is having on the land? Other than Esbern nobody really seems to give a damn about the dragons and unless you are doing quests for either the Stormcloaks or the Empire you wouldnt even notice that there was a bloody civil war.

It is not about the difficulty of the fight but the scale, I mean compare it to something like Helms Deep or something.

Ever read the Emperor's new clothes? I reckon it should be rewriten so that when the kid shouts the truth that the Emperor is wearing no clothes the Emperor just turns to the kid and says "Can't tell if trolling or just stupid" and then walks away with his wang hanging out, put things in pespective for today's audiences.

@OP

There are limitations to what you can portray in any game world to represent what it is your game is about. No game is perfect, even MMO's with several major updates still suffer from issues like NPC conversation looping, or lack of a true "to scale" representation for the world its in, or character limitations or engine limitations on the way the world is displayed, hardware limitations on the amount of data crunching, the list is endless.

Basically what you want does not exist, in any shape or form. What Skyrim is all about IS the open world, and you choosing how you go about exploring it and "playing" the game. Its not about cheesy npc love scenes, or 10 billion fetch quests, or "grinding" levels like most rpg's. Its about exploring the open world and playing it YOUR way without anyone else interfering with your choices.

So what your infact slating it for is its greatest strength in marketplace dominated by titles with rigid character progression, in a cartoony or excessively stylised world. Its a sandbox, go play in it and enjoy it for what it is instead bemoaning what its not.

This is one of, if not the, worst opinion(s) I've seen on these forums in my four and a half years here (new account), and this includes people who want multiplayer. Honestly, I wouldn't even possibly consider playing an Elder Scrolls game that didn't encompass one or more provinces.

If Skyrim wasn't an open-world game, I'd have passed if off as one of those 1.5/10 games that I won't even read the entire outside of the game case before tossing it back on the rack.

You're tying together all sorts of topics that don't connect. Like, "this battle isn't epic"..... ok, even if the area in Oblivion had just been a major city and it's surroundings, they still would have had the same limits on NPCs, so any "major" battle would have been the same size as the one you're referring to. So, no difference.

And the quote above - that has nothing to do with the scale of the game world. It's an example of a bad conversation generator.... which would still be a bad conversation generator whether the game world was just the area around the Imperial City or if it was the entirety of Tamriel.

To do a truely epic battle and have an open world like this just isn't going to happen with today's hardware. To have epic battles requires the dumbing down of every other aspect of gameplay. You'd lose a huge amount of quality from physics, lighting, graphics. ect. These systems just can't handle dozens of people running around fighting without making sacrifices. So you can either have a great looking game where 2% of the time you miss out on epic battles. Or you can have 98% of the game look like crap so you can have your epic battles the other 2%. Or you can just go play something like Mount & Blade Warband to get your epic battle fix and ask yourself if you would really want the world of Skyrim to look and play that way just so you could have more dudes in the battle. Personally I'd rather have it the way it is for now. Eventually, when hardware develops enough, we'll be able to have it all. But maybe coming from the days when there were no video games and experiencing the progression of it all through the years has given me a bit of patience when it comes to these things.

Bethesda's games center around a huge open world style of play. If that isn't your thing then maybe you should play something else. Just saying, because I don't think most of Bethesda's fans want them to stray too far from what they've been doing to this point.

@OP

Open World is what defines a TES game and separates them from the other pretenders.

So yes....an Open World Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, Daggefall, Arena....is the only way to do it.
Otherwise it's just another Bioware clone.
No thanks.

I beg to differ, well perhaps 10 billion is a bit of an exaggeration but I have lost count of the amount of times someone has asked me to fetch some random item from the back of some random dungeon in Skyrim.


And what is it you think I want? I think you have missed my point, but perhaps you are right and what I want doesnt currently exist but that does not mean that it isnt possible, your veiw is rather limited to what currently is and you fail to see what could be possible.


The quote you are refering to was a response to another quote in which I was disproving his notion that Oblivion somehow accurately portrayed the magnitude of a threat where the world was about to be invaded by an angry demon god in which in case you diddnt notice I was making fun of the fact that the Citizens of Cyrodiil considered that a town getting destroyed by daedra was about as important as seeing some random mundane creature that they dispise.


Yes that is true, increasing the number of characters running around and fighting on screen with the level detail a game like Skyrim has would take a toll on the performance, however there are ways to give the player the impression that the battle they are participating in is much larger without doing this, think outside the square.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both designs. If it was on a smaller scale, it might be more 'realistic' but you would lose out on things like the different architectural styles of the holds, the conflict between the different Jarls, etc. You could have the same sort of variety in a smaller setting (eg. different architectural styles in different neighborhoods of a single city, conflict between powerful families instead of Jarls, etc.) but it would be a different game. I'd probably enjoy it just as much, but I'd rather have the option of playing a game like Skyrim as well as a more realistically scaled game. Fact is, there aren't any other games like the ES games, which is why we keep playing them. There are already plenty of games done on a more 'realistic' scale.

Lolololololololololol.

As far as I'm concerned, the only satisfying way to represent any region, in any game, is to make it open world. "Zones" and "maps" and Dungeon Seige-esque narrow corridors simply do not cut it for me in any game. I am with Solitudian: if TES was anything other than open-world, I wouldn't play it

I have literally no idea what the OP is talking about. This is incomprehensible to me. The open world is the major draw of the Elder Scrolls series. There are games with better written stories and arguably better (read more traditional) RPG mechanics, but nothing I have ever played even comes close to the feeling of freedom I get from a TES game - it's a totally unique experience, and it's why they are my favourite games. Of course there are limitations to what this style of design allows, but that is true of any other style of design you could care to mention.

I would be very interested to hear what the OP has in mind to replace the open world design of Skyrim or any of the Elder Scrolls games...

If TES was portrayed like a Mass Effect game, I'd dump the series. I cannot stand RPG's with small closed areas. It definitely doesn't lead to a rise in level design quality. Mass Effect and Dragon Age had some of the most pathetic, undetailed, and non-interactive world designs I've ever seen.

I felt the same way about KotoR. As much as I liked the story and characters and writing in that game, the world was just so small and un-interactive I felt like I was walking past painted backdrops that resembled a game world. It kind of killed the game for me.

Open World is the best solution for Skyrim, alternative is to have each hold be a hub area but even then it's still better to have it be open world.

I agree with the majority: most of the appeal of Skyrim is the big, open world. This, and the FPS-like combat has always been one of the biggest draws of TES games.

The only games I've played that did anything "epic" with battle sizes were RTS games like Total Annihilation.

Skyrim and Oblivion don't have the best direction in terms of setpiece design and writing. They could perhaps take a lesson from Red Faction: Guerrilla on tense setpieces and one from Fallout: New Vegas on writing. That said, Skyrim does things better than either of those games, like having a properly open world.

Dragon Age thought that too, OP. And look how succesful that franchise is.

^ This.

Skyrim is an Open-World game first, not second.
Everything else flows from that initial premise, not the other way around.

If you'd rather have a linear mission-based grey shooter with some rpg elements thrown in , JUST AS LONG AS IT HAS EPIC BATTLES AND SET PIECES then you'd be better off playing Mass Effect 3.

And just look at how that turned out *Cough* Ending *cough* Skyrim is what it is because its open ended and does not compromise.