They finally got it right!

fred4 · June 22

The West Weald looks great! The landscape feels subtly more real than others. I am not a game designer, but I've always surmised that the impression of scale in games is achieved by a combination of a wide-angle view and distance haze. Elder Scrolls games have always been good at this. There must be more to it, though. A Bioware game I once played, Dragon: Age Inquisition, looked comparatively small and pokey. Like a children's book illustration. I always felt that might have to do with the art style. Possibly due to biomes and landscape features too close together, resulting in an abruptness you don't see in real life.

The first time I noticed ZOS experimenting with scale was Blackwood. Blackwood is (or seems) larger than other maps. Landscape features are more widely spaced out, so are monsters (what a relief), and you have to ride further. That said, Blackwood somehow ended up a bit "meh". West Weald, however, is great.

Pelanora · June 23

Blackwood- It's the trees blending into the grass, and the frequent gloomy grey days.

SeaGtGruff · June 23

I actually feel like they got it right from the beginning, namely as exemplified by Cyrodiil. It's a huge zone, and it feels huge!

Edit: Not that I disagree about West Weald; I'm just saying they knew how to get it right all along. And I don't agree with those who've said that Gold Road is a "small" chapter, because it totally isn't. I feel like the game just keeps getting better and better, and Gold Road is turning out to be an awesome chapter!

fred4 · June 23

@SeaGtGruff, the title is meant as a reflection on the fact that ZOS have been playing around with landscape "item spacing" and mob density. As for Cyrodiil, it's just quite bare in general. In that sense it doesn't count for me. West Weald shares some of the jungle elements from Galen and is just generally more varied. Also, have you been to the lumberyard in the south? That could almost be from another game. It's goood. I don't think we've ever had something "industrial" at that scale. I'm thinking of all the crafting stations, which are tiny for what they do. So it could be ZOS actually just put a lot of work into West Weald, or it could be that it's an expansion versus a DLC. I just haven't felt that most expansions are as ... expansive as Blackwood or West Weald in terms of open world feel. Like previously stuff was a little too tightly packed on the one hand, even places like Summerset, or just auto-generated without much variety, like Cyrodiil.