[paintedson]

proski35, on 10 March 2012 - 12:39 PM, said:

While it may be too early to tell, D3 does feel smaller than D2 in terms on map space. However, I welcome this change. There was too much of mindless walking around for caves in D2. D3 has them resized, more detailed, and far more organized.

Good to hear.  As much as I liked the feel of the open space in D2 it was a little too much at times.

[TeronF]

I think it is really hard to tell right now.... There is going to be some standard areas (like the cathedral, graveyard and cities) and lots of open random areas (like the dungeons and open wilderness). Just depends how many areas are standardized.

[sirr0]

I think it's a less is more thing, to be honest.  If they are smaller it's really not too blatantly obvious or insulting.  If anything the maps seem to be more focused and interesting from playing the beta.  

A good example of a less is more situation in a game world is Fallout 3 versus Oblivion. Oblivion's map was bigger but Fallout 3 has a much denser map.

I played alot of both games but FO3 made exploration very satisfying just for the fact that in most cases if you ran in any direction you found something interesting.  

Even Fallout NV kind of fell flat in this regard, I would say almost every play session (2 or 3 hours) I would encounter at least 1 useless landmark, whereas in Fallout 3 I would say maybe every 10th or so session I might find a lame area.

[Rattleshirt]

D2 was pretty linear, D3 will likely be the same.

[drzejkob]

proski35, on 10 March 2012 - 12:39 PM, said:

While it may be too early to tell, D3 does feel smaller than D2 in terms on map space. However, I welcome this change. There was too much of mindless walking around for caves in D2. D3 has them resized, more detailed, and far more organized.

In D2 caves and catacombs in normal was small too . In nm and hell were much bigger