OB Scale vs Our Mod Scale

[kapuhy]

I'd rather have it done in Oblivion's original scale. Even if this means ditching lots of Concept Art and deleting some major cities (I hope lightning rod is well, for the Nine won't let me get away with saying such a heresy). We agreed to recreate Tamriel according to Beth's lore and consistent with their work. Look at this that way:

If TR project was started on Daggerfall, after relasing Morrowind would we be be arguing over making Morrowind landmass 100 times larger, in order to include all 1000 cities we planned to have in old engine?

What I'm gaining at, is that on TES3 we had scale right for TES3, and after switching to TESIV, we really should make the provinces being done for Oblivion matching Oblivion scale, for consistency's sake.

I don't think that Oblivion is last game in TES series. And I don't think we'll finish more than two or three provinces before they relase the next one. So there will be another game, in another scale, and TR project will be still going on. So maybe just have one simple rule: we are always sticking to the scale of the game we're modding. That way we'll reach maximum consistency and the players won't be wondering why they've landed on little Stirk, started to walk to the other end of the island reaching it by the time when, according to what they know, they should be on continent XXXX already.

[Sload]

What I'm gaining at, is that on TES3 we had scale right for TES3, and after switching to TESIV, we really should make the provinces being done for Oblivion matching Oblivion scale, for consistency's sake.

The freak(ier) side of me wants you to make up your mind about Arabic or Roman numeral systems, for constistency's sake.

That said, I completely agree.

[kapuhy]

<spam> (0.0.1.0) + 2 = IV </spam>

[sirwootalot123]

of course not Dex, the CS wont even support a scale that huge (Its limit is something like 1:1000, for a landmass the size of Hammerfell at least). What I'm suggesting is 1:2000 or maybe 1:3000. Oblivion's scale is roughly 1:4000.

My main concern is just as much the tiny distances between locations as it is seeing half the province from any given spot (killing the sense of scale described in lore). Even if we manage to invent a bunch of mountain ranges, it'll still take only 10 minutes to walk between entire kingdoms if we stick with Bethesda's scale.

[Sload]

If that bothers you, you can turn the LOD bullshit off!

I can't see across the province, or even across town, so there is simply no way that this problem is unavoidable on your part.

[Stalker]

If that bothers you, you can turn the LOD bullshit off!

I can't see across the province, or even across town, so there is simply no way that this problem is unavoidable on your part.

Well the fact that you have a crappy PC doesn't mean that everybody does. So it's your problem of not being able to see across the whole damn thing, not ours.

[Sload]

No it isn't. If you are complaining about something you chose to have, its your own fault. That's like ordering a chicken burger and then complaining that it isn't beef, only you can turn this chicken into beef at any time!

[sirwootalot123]

Turning off LOD won't change the fact that half of the province's population lives in the same tiny 3 square mile area. Changing the scale will change that sad fact, by making that area more like 7 square miles. Still tiny by RL standards, but just big enough to not be ridiculous.
Seriously, if we use bethesda's scale, the entire north coast of hammerfell will essentially be one city, with "vast desert expanses" becoming the size of a track field.

[kapuhy]

Guys, please, don't argue like that, it's silly... it's clear that most players will have this distant view turned on and we have to take it into account while designing the map. But that doesn't mean we have to make 50 yard distance between one city and another. Just choose which cities are most important and concentrate on them. Leave the others.

[sirwootalot123]

Hate to double post, but I fear an edit would have made you all miss this. Here's a map I drew of the rough sizes of all the cities in Hammerfell. The blue line is a very rough estimate; looking at it again, Oblivion's mile is probably a good deal longer (the area of the entire map there, ocean and all; is about 20 square miles, based on the size of cyrodiil).


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y28/Sirwootalot/Random%20TR/TR%20Oblivion/HammerfellCities.jpg


Now, look at the north coast, specifically near sentinel. If we keep that scale, the distance between those three towns will be... roughly 300 yards, or the distance of three city blocks. If you're still not concerned, I'll just start foaming at the mouth and cursing pieces of furniture.

*edited for formatting* Thumbnail please, its standard for concepts.

[Sload]

I suggest you start foaming, because that doesn't concern me personally. I also fail to see how 450 yards (1:3000 if this is 1:4000) is better than 300 yards.

[kapuhy]

Remove the central of these three cities... (the one beginning with Ch..whatever)

And the little one beginning with D (I can't see this map clearly)

[Stalker]

And ditch the whole "Redguards live in Hammerfell" thing too while you're at it please.

[Eraser]

It doesn't have to be a massive daggerfall scale, it just needs to be big enough to actually be believable. As is, it just won't be believable or functional, We'll wind up having to redo it larger after the fact because it will suck. Prominant geological features will simply be too small to earn the slightest recognition. A desert the size of my college campus will look horrible, and it will make us look horrible.

[Stalker]

It doesn't have to be a massive daggerfall scale, it just needs to be big enough to actually be believable. As is, it just won't be believable or functional, We'll wind up having to redo it larger after the fact because it will suck. Prominant geological features will simply be too small to earn the slightest recognition. A desert the size of my college campus will look horrible, and it will make us look horrible.

Lemme just quote it so you can read it twice.

[Gez]

Cheat.

This is Oblivion, the game without levitation.

Make the Alik'r an interior cell. Or even a different world. Surround it by teleporting passageways. Same for a lot of things.

About all of Hammerfell should be pseudo-exteriors set in a different world, that way another scale can be used.

And before you ask, yes, it is consistant with BethSoft's games to have the insides be larger than the outsides. It's true of everything in Arena, it's true of dungeons in Daggerfall, true of buildings in Morrowind (the Ministry of Truth exterior static can nearly hold within its interior counterpart's largest cave), it's true of cities in Oblivion...

I know this won't allow to make one single uncut world map encompassing all of Tamriel. But neither the Morrowind engine nor the Oblivion engine supports this kind of things, regardless of the scale used...

[Lady Nerevar]

we have to follow lore when creating our mod, otherwise it wouldnt be our mod. and the only way we can realisticly do that is by increasing the scale.

[Lutemoth]

what I'm wondering is (and this is from a standpoint that's modless and oblivion-oblivious) Why are we worrying about making the rest of tamriel scaled up, when it would dwarf the province we're beginning with: Cyrodil? If anyone is up to resizing each 300 yard an extra 150 yards, how will this cope alongside a city the size of, say, Chorrol?

So what if you can see across the abecian, and yell across to someone on Stirk's coast? We're not recreating Oblivion, we're rebuilding Tamriel. Oblivion is a concept of Tamriel, not a fatally flawed look on Nirn itself. These games never run at the imagination we hold for them, and on that note, each daedra that pops up into Tamriel will eventually look the same, despite that not being true.

Perhaps in the next game, there will be graphics capable by all to run a 1:1 scale comparable to Earth. Perhaps in Morrowind, they ran a more reasonable size, but ran lower graphics and memory capable of not keeping track of thousands of NPC's every movement.

What ran in Morrowind, runs in Morrowind. What runs in Oblivion, runs in Oblivion. And I hope what runs in the next game will keep it's consistency.

[The Old Ye Bard]

Lutemoth is right, also if we change the scale of another province to make it bigger it makes cryodil smaller, there for changing it also TR isn't about making things realistic its about making tamriel the way Bethesda would of made it, the size of cryodil is crap yes, but it is lore.

[Sload]

we have to follow lore when creating our mod, otherwise it wouldnt be our mod. and the only way we can realisticly do that is by increasing the scale.

This only holds water if you mean the exact scale, which everyone knows is ridiculous.

Frankly, all arguements relating anything in the mod to something in the real world are idiotic. No games have things real world size, because in a game it already feels much bigger. The size of Eraser's college campus would feel enormous in a game. May I remind you that we are building a game, not a world.

Further, a 100% size increase would mean that Alik'r was two of Eraser's colleges, still not endless seas of sand, and in all of your opinions really super tiny. A 50% size increase is even less of a difference, obviously. However, such an increase would mean it would be impossible to seamlessly move between worldspaces (something that is not impossible on a regular scale, though somewhat tricky). It would also mean that we would no longer be doing it the way Bethesda would.

The most reasonable arguement in this thread has been the one that said to do things on the scale of the game that's being modded. Actually, its the only arguement I can agree with.

[Lutemoth]

The most reasonable arguement in this thread has been the one that said to do things on the scale of the game that's being modded. Actually, its the only arguement I can agree with.

Why are we arguing this to begin with? There is an infinite of possibilities of improving content in our mod besides mathematical proportions. If it's desired so badly, why doesn't someone wait to create a rescale bolt-on? Then Cyrodil can be wonderously diluted along with the rest of Nirn, and we can all be happy

[Sload]

I will admit that a mod that makes things 10 times bigger would be interesting, but I don't think that that is this mod.

However, I would support making it walrus scale!

[img]http://www.dorkinglabs.com/toons/5.gif[/img]

[sirwootalot123]

Because to redo the scale would make you have to COMPLETELY redo EVERYTHING.

That's my concern... I don't want to have to see a craptacular looking mod, and everyone scratching their heads saying "damn, shouldve listened to those ranting adolescents two years ago".

Yes Sload, it is a game, not a world. 2X the scale of Cyrodiil is still horrendously unreasonable for a world, but as a game world it would work swimmingly. Cyrodiil's scale would ONLY be advantageous in that people wih 100 acrobatics could jump over the mountains, and noobish "what's lore" players would enjoy the mod more due to the themepark-like unreasonable distance between things. Cyrodiil was simply built too small, in order to appeal to twitch console gamers who like finding a cool phatloot-hole every 100 feet... and that's what they made out of what's supposed to be the least densely populated civilized province.

Simply put, my argument is unless we totally rehaul what TR stands for and change around a bunch of lore (eradicating whole cities because they'd be too cramped), I can never stand for using a smaller scale.

[Morden]

Simply put, my argument is unless we totally rehaul what TR stands for and change around a bunch of lore (eradicating whole cities because they'd be too cramped), I can never stand for using a smaller scale.

I've been under the impression that this project's intentions were to recreate Tamriel according to Bethesda's vision.

From the main page:

Then enter Tamriel Rebuilt, the enormous effort in recreating the world of Tamriel, piece by piece. Our goal is to recreate Tamriel in a way truthful to the vision of Bethesda Softworks, through the study of TES lore.


While this rides at the top of our mainpage, I'm really flexible when it comes to lore issues. I'm not a strict lore follower on every issue, because I often give gameplay issues the majority of my concern. I like to adapt and evolve, as I've seen Bethesda adapt and evolve their game series, including making major changes in lore.

We built Morrowind at the same scale as Vvardenfel because that's what bethesda had done. It seemed to work for them, even though many complained that the scale was too far reduced from Arena and Daggerfall. Eventually previous fans of the TES games adapted and came to enjoy it.

Then Bethesda released Oblivion on a new engine, and the scale was even smaller. The developers have adapted to a new scale, and a new gameplay experience, however, not everyone in the community has adapted along with them, and remain thinking in terms of TES:III, much like the fans of Daggerfall and Arena, upon Morrowind's release. You remain with expectations of a previous gameplay experience. As opposed to highlighting and expressing the benefits of the Oblivion engine, the main focus has been on its shortfalls, most notably, how it's not like the Morrowind engine at all. While its ok to expect what you know and enjoyed, modding requires everyone adapt to not only a new engine, but to new gameplay experiences.

This is also not in any way about console gamer's or about people who have no history with the Elderscrolls, and appealing to broader audience. It's about adjusting from years worth of work on the Morrowind engine, to the new platform that sits before us.


PS. A small reminder to keep away from the flamey comments. Thankyou to everyone who has kept themselves thoughtfully restrained.

[Haplo]

Cheat.

This is Oblivion, the game without levitation.

Make the Alik'r an interior cell. Or even a different world. Surround it by teleporting passageways. Same for a lot of things.

About all of Hammerfell should be pseudo-exteriors set in a different world, that way another scale can be used.

And before you ask, yes, it is consistant with BethSoft's games to have the insides be larger than the outsides. It's true of everything in Arena, it's true of dungeons in Daggerfall, true of buildings in Morrowind (the Ministry of Truth exterior static can nearly hold within its interior counterpart's largest cave), it's true of cities in Oblivion...

I know this won't allow to make one single uncut world map encompassing all of Tamriel. But neither the Morrowind engine nor the Oblivion engine supports this kind of things, regardless of the scale used...

I think this is a good idea.

[Morden]

It's got my attention. I'd certainly like to hear more.

[Sload]

How would you pass through? Unless the Redguards decided that they needed to wall in the Alik'r, its not possible.

[Annon]

i dont see whats the problem is seeing 2 cities at the same time. and as far i can see on the hammerfall map there seems to be a forest or a mountain between every major city. and since we can make weather and climates we could maybe shorten the view distance

[sirwootalot123]

Annon, you're brilliant. simply brilliant.

What's to suggest that the air quality is always crystal-clear in Hammerfell? well wait, it's a desert... Perhaps, though, we can add all sortf of effects - pixel shader based "heat waves" on the horizon of the Ak'lir (face it, when we finally release TR all the comps out there will handle it), sandstorms, hell even hurricane-like severe storms around Hnes Rax and the islands.

This still doesn't fix the issue of tiny distances between cities, but it helps make it less maddening.

[Eraser]

We're rebuilding tamriel to Bethesda's vision not what they could fit on a single DVD, which is what oblivion is. And honestly, microsoft is slowly perverting that vision, slowly blurring it and turning it into a green x.

According to lore, the continent of tamriel is quite large. Tamriel in the scale of the gameworld in Oblivion would be smaller than the county I live in. The idea that 10 races could form numerous kingdoms and an empire, with geology spanning from artic mountains to arid desert, thick swamp, volcanic waste and tropical forests is simply ludicrous.

And sload, The vision, the whole point of this project is to build the world of tamriel. That's what we're striving for, not merely a game.

Plain and simple, even without the sense of epic hugeness factored in at all, if we use such a miniscule scale, the end result will be laughable.

[Sload]

And 150% of that is not laughable. I wonder how life is with only two tones of color. Not even gonna start on your Microsoft conspiracy theories.

EDIT: I made an image to put it in perspective. Note that if I hadn't broken it down with the little spikeys it would be more than 800,000 (or 625 of my computer screens at 1280x1024) long.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/stanley/ScaleLaughability.png[/img]

[Eraser]

Never did I say anything about a conspiracy. Its sadly how things naturally tend to be. Its not a malicious conspiracy by some corporate secret society to destroy PC gaming or anything so rediculous. Its just short sighted, simple minded economics, which pretty much sums up business(and everything else) in america.

When money gets involved, everything gets distorted for the sake of money. Aside from the software to make our art assets, money isn't an issue, leaving us free to follow our vision, pure creativity without the mighty dollar getting in the way of anything.

[Sload]

You posted before I could edit. Please look at it, in the tiny margin that makes up one 8000 thousandth of the entire difference between Wooty's estimated Real Scale and Oblivion's scale, it suddenly becomes laughable.

EDIT: More math. That white space is about 9/10ths of an inch. My computer monitor (17 inches, I believe) is 8 and a half inches wide. Even if they were touching, those computer screens that house the image would stretch for over a mile.

[Eraser]

It doesn't have to be a massive daggerfall scale, it just needs to be big enough to actually be believable. As is, it just won't be believable or functional, We'll wind up having to redo it larger after the fact because it will suck. Prominant geological features will simply be too small to earn the slightest recognition. A desert the size of my college campus will look horrible, and it will make us look horrible.

Look, if we don't do an epic grand scale I understand and I'm fine with it. It just HAS to be a functional scale, because of Hammerfell's shape, OB scale simply is not plausable to use at all. If we were doing Skyrim, Valenwood, Elseweyr or Black Marsh, we wouldn't be having this arguement because they'd all look well in OB's scale. But provinces like Hammerfell and High Rock just won't work because of their shape.

[Sload]

I was refuting the opinion you and Wooty and everyone that twice Oblivion's scale is not laughable, but Oblivion's scale is. The difference is so monumentally tiny! I was going to have a bunch of cups in a line with 1 cup equally increasing Oblivion's scale by half, but then I did the math and realized it would take more than one and a half thousand cells to do so.

[Haplo]

According to lore, the continent of tamriel is quite large.

Um...

I don't want to be mean or anything, but...

Is this hilarious to anyone else?

[sirwootalot123]

Compared to real life scale, you're damn right sload.

However, for the game itself, such a marginally tiny increase makes a world of difference. Distances are twice as much, what was once a 2 minute stroll becomes a 5 minute journey, so on and so forth. Sure 5 minutes is still fairly tiny, but hey, for a Game (not made for twitch gamers) it's just big enough.
I totally agree with Eraser here on provinces. Hammerfell is a tricky one to do with the small scale, as it lacks the obstacles - trees, mountains, elevation shifts - that make oblivion's scale actually work for Cyrodiil.
Hate to nag on you personally, but how can you argue against all this when you dont even know what the LOD looks like for yourself? Walk out to the southwest coast near anvil, and look around you - better yet, the imperial city isle. Now put that sense of scale into Hammerfell. Even in my lore-stretching version of the area of hammerfell's desert, it would feel too tiny to adhere to bethesda's vision, which is sort of the #1 point of our mod.

I'd love for the in-game scale to work with Hammerfell's geography, but it just doesn't.

[Morden]

in my lore-stretching version of the area of hammerfell's desert, it would feel too tiny to adhere to bethesda's vision, which is sort of the #1 point of our mod.

This reason keeps getting dropped, but it should be made clear that Oblivion is Bethesda's vision. It's a changing and evolving series. What you wish to create is a gameplay experience of previous games. It would seem my well considered post, above, went unnoticed.

Hammerfell is a tricky one to do with the small scale, as it lacks the obstacles - trees, mountains, elevation shifts - that make oblivion's scale actually work for Cyrodiil.

Zephyr's map looks quite mountainous, and there are no rules stating we can't add terrain features to deal with vision issues where they may occur. I believe we can rely on our ingenuity to solve any issue which may arise, instead of completely altering the gameplay experience.

This discussion is going in circles.

[Eraser]

Yeah it sounds a little weird on its own but with the rest of the post it makes sense. I mean, its one thing to have a place thats small in lore, like say, solstheim, as there was absolutely nothing previous to bloodmoon refering to its size(or existence) when there is in regards to hammerfell.

I went and consulted my uber-genius father as I often do with problems. He agrees with me in that a larger scale is a neccessity. With the worldspaces we don't have to worry about fitting it to cyrodiil, so we should be making hammerfell as large as we need to.

Morden, Oblivion is bethesda's product, not vision. They've said that they take what their size of the world would really be and scale it down to something they could realistically do in a game.

[Dexter]

Eraser, how the HELL do you presume to know what Bethesda's vision is.