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Another thing to mention about these measurements is that it's difficult to say how much water is included in them. If someone considers water segments as exciting as land then it doesn't matter. If someone prefers more land, however, then he could be disappointed when he keeps hearing that TW3 is this or that times bigger than this or that game, and find out that sailing in Skellige or swimming in N+NML are major parts. Which so far seems to be the case (Skyrim doesn't have nearly as much water, and I don't know about DA:I). Add to that the difficulty to calculate under-ground parts in the games and the size comparison becomes even less helpful. So it's not as simple as saying the overview map is a certain number of square kms compared to the other game's.
 
Also DAI cannot be counted as a fully open world game, yes it has more freedom than previous games in the series but it's not a connected world where you can just leave the gates of your castle and go anywhere you like. You have the fast travel option which will take you to different segments, it conveniently avoid all the complex stuff like designing roads between two areas, populating them with stuff like villages, travelers, animals/monster etc so world wise Skyrim, GTA 5 and Batman Arkham Knight can compete with The Witcher 3 but not Dragon Age Inquisition.
 
lol @ this ridiculous post. of course it will be way bigger than dragon age. it's been confirmed to be way bigger than skyrim alone many times over

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n
no it's not and skyrim is smaller than oblivion for instance

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the game has been confirmed to be at least 130 square kilometres just counting skellige area and novigrad+ no man's land. that is 10 x the size of skyrim alone

To the first quote, Im not the one who said that, I quoted what was said in an article..

For the second quote "the game has been confirmed to be at least 130 square kilometres just counting skellige area and novigrad+ no man's land. that is 10 x the size of skyrim alone"

Wheres the proof for that bold claim because I havent sen that anywhere.

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Not trying to compare anything with The Witcher 3 but Dragon Age Inquisition maps are not as big as people are claiming them to be, most of the parts are pretty quick to traverse from one end to the other, not even giving you enough reason to take out your mount and some of them are just straight roads starting from one point to the other with portions in some being locked due to the reasons like broken bridge forcing you to wait for the right time.

Finally the amount of time you spend in dungeons is pretty much a joke (I was expecting serious dungeons from this game). So map wise it's not as impressive as it sounded before release.

You hit it right on the head, excellent post. I agree, also not to mention that DAI has a ton of sectioned off places like narrow walkways and paths. And about the mount, I found it funny that they added the wind effect to give people the illusion of sprinting fast on the horse. The reality is that the devs knew the map was not that big so they had to do tricks like that to make it seem bigger. Almost the same with skyrim, I love skyrim but the thing that makes it feel bigger is the fact that it is jam packed with content so you are constantly stopping to do something. The more time one spends in an area the bigger the map seems when they continue to venture to other places.

"So map wise it's not as impressive as it sounded before release."

This is exactly why I question the size of TW3, yes people can use words like massive and gigantic but thye said that for skyrim and DAI as well. A truly Gigantic game imo is vast lands, lands that although filled with content also has appropriate wide open fields or oceans and huge mountains. The kinds of places that you only see in concept art. I do have faith that TW3 will be the first to truly accomplish this.

Just to clarify, just because a game is not as big as people claim or not big at all doesnt mean it is bad. But in todays open world games if a dev can have a balance of empty vast areas built for scenery alongside with areas clustered with content I think that it will be the perfect formula for the new wave of open world games.
 
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See the comment he made after, and the responses to that, to understand why it was claimed. I think it was just a genuine mistake.

But where are these numbers pulled from? I remember debating with you among others last year smithy about map size and we didnt have a definitive confirmation of these measurements, the last I heard was 8x8km for each main area. So where did Novi+NML = 72.25 km2. Skellige = 64 km2.come from?
 
The 10x is an error. It was mixing square miles and square km. It does appear to be around 3 times as large though.
 
But where are these numbers pulled from? I remember debating with you among others last year smithy about map size and we didnt have a definitive confirmation of these measurements, the last I heard was 8x8km for each main area. So where did Novi+NML = 72.25 km2. Skellige = 64 km2.come from?

They were originally sourced from GDC 2014 slides. There is an entire thread here. Community manager Marcin Momot confirmed the measurements in there.

Was it in that thread we had the discussion? I'm sorry, I can't remember.
 
So last night I spent some time looking at the map under the zoom and took a look at the size of all the settlements in the Novigrad/No Man's Land portion of the map. It's really impressive. I've listed out the settlements, their location and approximate size below.

Areas
There are apparantly 12 main areas that each has a dotted line around it. (1) Novigrad and (2) Gustfields are north of the Pontar River. (3) Oxenfurt, (4) Greyrocks, (5) Mudplough and (6) Grassy Knolls are essentially four Islands in the Pontar River Delta. (7) Crows Perch, ( 8 ) Spitfire Bluff and (9) the Lake Area around Fyke Island make up western No Man's Land. (10) The Descent, (11) Crookback Bog and (12) Bald Mountain are areas in eastern No Man's Land. The settlements and other labeled areas are as follows:

Larger settlements (3)
- Novigrad - It is the largest city on the map in the north western corner. There are between 250-300 buildings (I counted 268, but it's really hard to tell in several places from the aerial view) within the city walls. There are an additional 60 or so buildings immediately outside the city walls to the south, south east and east of the city.
- Oxenfurt - The second largest city on the map on two Islands in the Pontar River towards the eastern edge of the map. There are 50-75 buildings in the city it appears (it's hard to tell because the banner goes directly over part of the city). It looks like the southern most Island probably holds the University of Oxenfurt (the buildings look like dorms and a university) while the northern island holds the town itself.
- Crow's Perch - A walled town in the western portion of the map South of Novigrad. It appears to be in the northwestern section of No Man's Land. It holds around 25 buildings.

Smaller Villages (16)
- Yantra - settlement east of Novigrad (in area labeled Gustfields) with approximately 7 buildings.
- Carsten - settlement northwest of Oxenfurt (in area labeled Gustfields) with approximately 6 buildings on the northern bank of the Pontar River.
- Ursten - settlement south of Novigrad (in area labeled Grassy Knoll) with 5-10 buildings on the northern bank of the Pontar River.
- Stonecutters Settlement - 10-15 buildings west of Oxenfurt. I would really like to hear some NPC humming or whistling the Stonecutters song from the Simpsons while in the village. Just a thought ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZI_aEalijE
Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do, we do!

Who keeps Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the Martians under wraps? We do, we do!

Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star? We do, we do!
Who robs cavefish of their sight? Who rigs every Oscar night? We do, we do!
- Mulbrydale - a settlement in the area of Greyrocks to the west of the Stonecutters Settlement. It contains around 10-15 buildings.
- Heatherton - a settlement to the northwest of Crows Perch. It appears to have around 15 buildings.
- Blackbough - a village to the west of Crow's Perch. It appears to have between 8 and 10 buildings.
- Claywhich - settlement of 5 to 10 buildings that is south of Crows Perch in the very northern section of the lake area surrounding Fyke Island.
- Oreton - a settlement of 5 to 10 buildings south of Claywatch on the northern shore of the lake surrounding Fyke Island.
- Drudge - a small settlement of about 5 buildings to the south east of Oreton on the northern shore of the lake surrounding Fyke Island.
- Spitfire Bluff - a village of about 10 buildings in the Spitfire Bluff area south and west of Blackbough on the western edge.
- Byways - an area south of Spitfire Bluff between the lake and the sea on the western edge of the map. There appears to be two settlements that number about 10 buildings in total.
- Lurch - a village of approximately 10 buildings to the south of Greyrocks in North Eastern No Man's Land.
- Lindenvale - a town of around 15 buildings to the west of Lurch near where the areas of Crows Perch, The Descent, Crookback Bog and Greyrocks all meet.
- Toderas - a village of around 10 buildings to the east of Lurch in the Descent area.
- Downwarren - a village of just a few buildings in Crookback Bog to the south of Lurch. This is the area where the witches are located in the 35 minute video. There are a few other settlements nearby and I am not sure if each of those villages is considered a part of Downwarren or what. The three little settlements together probable add up to about 15 buildings.

Other labled locations ( 8 )
- Honeyhill Meadworks - it appears to be an area connecting what I am assuming is the meadworks itself and then about 5 other buildings to the east of the meadworks in Gustfields. It is to the east of Novigrad.
- Vegelbud Residence - this is an apparent estate to the north of Oxenfurt.
- Drahim Castle - a structure to the south of Novigrad in Grassy Knoll area (north east of Ursten).
- Greyrocks - this could just be the area lable but it looks like its over some sort of large structure or maybe a quarry?
- Inn at the Crossroads - a settlement of about 5 buildings in Mudplough between Crow's Perch and Mulbrydale. One would think there is an inn there.
- Condyle - I think this is a small village, but its really hard to see any buildings. So I don't really know what it is. It's south of Spitfire Bluff.
- Fyke Island - an Island in the middle of the southern lake with what appears to be a ring an maybe a tower in the middle. In the south central portion of the map.
- The Mire - I'm not sure if this is the label for that whole lake area surrounding Fyke Island or just that little swamp location at the far south of the map.

Non-Labeled
- There are several apparant settlements that don't have labels. I'm unsure if they are just abandoned or what. I also believe the Nilfgaardian camp is to the far South Eastern corner of the map (under the clouds).

That is a hugely impressive amount of content and settlements within one map. This doesn't include caves or dungeons, etc. As others have said it is supposed to be just over 72km2 (although I would say between a quarter and a third of that appears to be water) which is bigger than Skyrim on its own. AND IT"S DESCENTLY SCALED. Novigrad is huge compared to the smaller villages. And there are huge unpopulated areas too. And it's just one of the two main maps (Skellidge being the other), a separate prologue area and 5 or so other smaller areas (including Kaer Morhen).

But where are these numbers pulled from? I remember debating with you among others last year smithy about map size and we didn't have a definitive confirmation of these measurements, the last I heard was 8x8km for each main area. So where did Novi+NML = 72.25 km2. Skellige = 64 km2.come from?

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/04...s-by-themselves-3-5-times-larger-than-skyrim/

Edited: Additional Info

There is a link in that dualshockers article labeled "original slides." It leads to a pdf file that shows the information that was given out by Jasin Bushnaief of Umbra Software and Przemysaw Czatrowski of CDPR. The slide relevant to this discussion is on page 46 of the pdf file. It says:

Skellige
•Area size: 8km x 8km
•Amount of geometry: 45000-50000 chunks loaded
•Average amount of visible geometry:~1-5%
City of Novigrad
•Area size: 8.5km x 8.5km
•Amount of geometry: over 100k chunks loaded
•Average amount of visible geometry: ~2-5%

Those of us who have been citing the numbers have been conservatively assuming "City of Novigrad" = "Novigrad+No Man's Land."

I don't believe it is 100% known as to whether "City of Novigrad" means (1) just the areas within the Pontar River and North of the Pontar River (which is a roughly square area) or (2) the entire Novigrod+No Man's Land map. It almost assuredly is not just the City of Novigrad as the videos we have seen do not support the claim that Novigrad alone is 8.5 km x 8.5 km.

I (and I assume others) have decided caution is the better route and therefore choose to believe that the measurements include the entirety of the Novigrad+No Man's Land map. It is better to be pleasantly suprised by the size of the map than disappointed. Either way it is going to be epically huge.
 
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You hit it right on the head, excellent post. I agree, also not to mention that DAI has a ton of sectioned off places like narrow walkways and paths. And about the mount, I found it funny that they added the wind effect to give people the illusion of sprinting fast on the horse. The reality is that the devs knew the map was not that big so they had to do tricks like that to make it seem bigger. Almost the same with skyrim, I love skyrim but the thing that makes it feel bigger is the fact that it is jam packed with content so you are constantly stopping to do something. The more time one spends in an area the bigger the map seems when they continue to venture to other places.

Thanks, yes indeed the sound of horse steps and the wind effect doesn't match with actual speed so it looks funny. In Skyrim horse traveling was more enjoyable than DAI however I think The Witcher 3 is also going in the right direction, horse traveling looks extremely fun in the videos, the beautiful scenery will encourage exploration and the last scene of latest gameplay trailer proves just how much wild life is there so it all looks very alive and epic. As far as content is concerned I think CDPR got it covered, I still find new stuff whenever I play The Witcher 2 so I cannot imagine what kind of secrets and other interesting stuff is waiting in the big map of TW3.

"So map wise it's not as impressive as it sounded before release."

This is exactly why I question the size of TW3, yes people can use words like massive and gigantic but thye said that for skyrim and DAI as well. A truly Gigantic game imo is vast lands, lands that although filled with content also has appropriate wide open fields or oceans and huge mountains. The kinds of places that you only see in concept art. I do have faith that TW3 will be the first to truly accomplish this.

Just to clarify, just because a game is not as big as people claim or not big at all doesnt mean it is bad. But in todays open world games if a dev can have a balance of empty vast areas built for scenery alongside with areas clustered with content I think that it will be the perfect formula for the new wave of open world games.

Well the word gigantic and massive doesn't sound wrong for the map of Witcher 3 because currently it's the only game that claims to have a bigger world than Skyrim, the devs have only shown small portions of it so there is much to explore, there are no concerns on the variety as well, we have seen jungles, swampy areas, cold regions, mountains, small settlements/villages, big cities and water, there will be more for sure. As for content, like I said that the devs claim to have hand crafted everything and that's a big deal for me because the biggest disappoint in any open world game (including Skyrim) is the filler content that kills all the excitement, for example slightly different looking thief appearing all the time to rob you with same set of dialogues, always two or three wolves emerging from the bushes, fetch the parcel quests and so on. This is what makes the world look artificial and this is what Witcher 3 claims to avoid.
 
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I just realised that there is a huge military camp in the southeaster conner. Or at least I think so. Probably Nilfgaardian.
 

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To the first quote, Im not the one who said that, I quoted what was said in an article..

For the second quote "the game has been confirmed to be at least 130 square kilometres just counting skellige area and novigrad+ no man's land. that is 10 x the size of skyrim alone"

Wheres the proof for that bold claim because I havent sen that anywhere.

---------- Updated at 12:42 PM ----------



You hit it right on the head, excellent post. I agree, also not to mention that DAI has a ton of sectioned off places like narrow walkways and paths. And about the mount, I found it funny that they added the wind effect to give people the illusion of sprinting fast on the horse. The reality is that the devs knew the map was not that big so they had to do tricks like that to make it seem bigger. Almost the same with skyrim, I love skyrim but the thing that makes it feel bigger is the fact that it is jam packed with content so you are constantly stopping to do something. The more time one spends in an area the bigger the map seems when they continue to venture to other places.

"So map wise it's not as impressive as it sounded before release."

This is exactly why I question the size of TW3, yes people can use words like massive and gigantic but thye said that for skyrim and DAI as well. A truly Gigantic game imo is vast lands, lands that although filled with content also has appropriate wide open fields or oceans and huge mountains. The kinds of places that you only see in concept art. I do have faith that TW3 will be the first to truly accomplish this.

Just to clarify, just because a game is not as big as people claim or not big at all doesnt mean it is bad. But in todays open world games if a dev can have a balance of empty vast areas built for scenery alongside with areas clustered with content I think that it will be the perfect formula for the new wave of open world games.
map size has already leaked nearly 2 years ago
 
http://www.gamespot.com/videos/exploring-the-vast-world-of-the-witcher-3-wild-hun/2300-6424516/

Answers. MAP SPOILERS and MILD STORY SPOILERS

So it confirms what we have long said. Multi-regional open world areas. Two large open worlds ones - Novigrad/No Man's Land and Skellidge. The smaller prologue open world area of White Orchard. And additional story centric places: i.e. the Palace of Vizima & Kaer Morhen.

One really interesting tidbit is there are some more fantastical areas that CDPR has yet to reveal.

20 minutes from center of map to Novigrad on horseback (probably not by most direct route). Densely packed with content between locations.









So. Much. Hype.
 

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I 'm willing to bet that many of those fantastical places are tied to Ciri's gameplay. Something I don't think has been shown at all yet.
 
What I did not understand from the video - only the lightened areas around Novigrad, No Man's land, etc. are playable or all we see? I guess only the lightened, though it seems pretty big as well

The actual Witcher map from the books etc is a lot bigger. The game is focused on the North; because the North is so big it simply is not possible to make the entire thing playable.

Think of it like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars:

  • Lord of the Rings online for instance is big and sill cannot match the scope it it's world.

  • A game might be set in one region or a few planets, therefore is only a fraction of what the verse contains.
 
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