The square mileage is actually smaller than the landmass of Oblivion.

And it's not the mountains, there aren't even that many mountains of significance.

To me, it actually feels like sectioned off areas, just like Morrowind. To this day, over 200 hours in, I haven't even been everywhere. That's amazing. This game feels like MW in that regard, it's an actual hand crafted world. You can just tell, through all the dense forest, all the trees, you can tell it was ALL hand crafted, all of it was placed there for a reason. Every plain, every shrub, every tree, pond, and waterfall. Simply amazing.

Unlike Cyrodill, where the entire landmass felt like a randomly generated mass of green trash.

For me, it feels very small. I can literally see a panorama-view of the place in my head, very small. But most of Skyrim is in dungeons, not the surface.

Indeed, you could easily trek around the whole of Skyrim on horse back in one play session. However, if you stop and investigate every location you come across... that's when the hours start pouring on.

125 hours and I feel like I haven't seen anything.

There cities like Markath, Dawnstar and Falkreath that I literally just passed through.

It feels disappointingly small to me after the size or "feeling" of size anyways was hyped up. However the place feels a hell of a lot bigger if you walk rather than run or gallop everywhere. If I've got the patience I'll do that, most of the time though I can't be arsed.

It feels bigger because you are forced to either trawl over mountains, or follow winding paths/roads around mountains. In Obliv, you could pretty much just go in a straight line.

Oblivion is a lot bigger when your athletics is 25, your speed is 40, and you don't fortify them loads. Part of what made the game fun, running at 70mph, not so good for the illusion of size.

To OP I think you just like the theme of Skyrim more so it feels more epic. I'll agree that Oblivion was a very generic bland land of plains and forests without many unique and cool landscapes like Morrowind and Skyrim have. However Oblivion wasn't small, it just didn't have too many memorable landmarks to break up the monotany on the surface world.

I think it seems bigger because in Oblivion, you had fewer templates for forts, caves, etc., so when you entered one, it felt like you had been there already. Skyrim offers many more fresh exploring experiences, and I think this makes it seem larger by comparison. And then there's Blackreach.

Set speed is the reason.

The locations are much more densely packed. It seems that around every corner is another cave, or bandit camp.

Also theres a lot more wild life to chase/hunt/get killed by. I find that in oblivion I would run to my destination to get there and do the quest but not much happend during the journey. In skyrim I end up on a mission to get somewhere, hunt some deer, find a bandit camp (kill/loot), run into some giants (kill/loot), find out I am way off course and now have to take a much longer route to my eventual location.

In oblivion I just wanted to get to where I was going. In skyrim its fun to wander, get lost, get in adventures.

The geography and height differences make a huge difference. You can't just run from one end of the world to the other like you could for most of Oblivion

I really just don't even see how you can say that. Skyrim is absurdly huge and detailed. I can roam for hours in the same area and never get bored or see the same thing twice.

I just don't know which cave i should visit and which not. Could be a Quest relevant cave....so i don't enter the most caves.

Quoted for truth, the lack of exploration in Oblivion really hurt the game for me. Skyrim, has fixed that problem quite nicely.

Yeah, It's similar to Morrowind in that regard. In MW you had to walk arround the Red Mountain, here you have to walk arround different mountains.

Oblivion was an endless sea of green sameness.

Oblivion was more realistic. In real life I can look out of my window in new york and see chicago on the other side of lake michigan.

Actually I was thinking just the opposite last night.

I was running from Whiterun to Solitude, which is about half way across the map. And was was thinking about how quick that was compared to something similar in Oblivion, like from Skingrad to Bruma. For me Oblivion seems much bigger.

That is not a criticism of Skyrim, just a general "feel" about the size of the map. It seems smaller to me, at least at the moment.

Where I live, near the mountains, It's pretty hard to walk arround in a straight line to almost anywhere if not for tunnels, and of course I'm unable to see what's on the other side of the mountains. There are different orographic profiles, you know.

I think it's this.

It's better than the Fallout series, at the very least. This was my primary concern when Skyrim was announced, a concern that's been laid to rest for the most part.

Was basically going to say this. In Morrowind just like in Skyrim it's alot of "zig-zagging" along. Never in a straight line, where in Oblivion it pretty was much a straight line where ever you went.

Really?

I don't find that to be "too quick" of a run at all.

Except for the fact that, you know, unless it is to fill some personal crusade to explore every square inch of the game, there is no purpose to explore considering for the past 20 some odd levels your skills have been capped and you have the best items in the game. Oh cool, Dwarven and Iron Weapons just dropped! Oh snap, robes with Fortify Illusion on them too!!! Squeeeeeel!!! My conquest in RPGs is loot driven. My characters are only motivated by riches and loot. That system is extremely shallow and scales poorly in Skyrim, but yeah the world is nice.

In oblivion I could run twice as fast as my dovah while he is sprinting, that could make a pretty big difference.