The world map seems small, but is the game just as small?

[SparocheeDoom]

The topic states it all. I am only level 5 and I opened half the world map. There are only 2 major cities..? I don't expect this game to be as long and as epic as Baldur's Gate 2, but it does take up 13GB of space and does not have fancy graphics or many videos that usually take up space. That means its 13GB of pure content + audio, but the map doesn't reconcile with that....

[Crucis]

IIRC, there was only one major city in BG1.  And, unless my memory fails me, BG2 only had a single major city.  PoE has 2, though I suppose that one could say that neither is of the same scale as the major cities in BG1&2.  And IWD1&2 didn't have a single major city between them.  So I have a hard time judging the size or quality of a game based on the number of major cities within.

[sivasdahling]

You have to remember that PoE maps are rendered at a much much higher resolution than BG maps!  And every pixel of map data requires more memory since Pillars has things like light maps that BG does not.  In total, the number of distinct levels in PoE is about 3/4 that of BG2, but most levels are significantly smaller and take up significantly more hard drive.

[LadyCrimson]

In terms of drive space, sivas has the idea. Isometric and smaller area in individual maps does not always = small data footprint.

[El Zoido]

Meh, it took me ~60 hours to finish the game, wouldn't call it small in terms of playtime.

[rjshae]

I think the world map for BG had just under 50 area locations; apparently the PoE world map has ~30. So in that sense it's smaller.

[cirdanx]

I would say it´s slightly smaller than BG1. Less open maps to discover. The city is kinda similar in size. (lacking the big sewers though). It´s still very well made and if you explore everything you should play somewhere between 40 to 60+ hours in the game.

 

The disc space doesn´t matter much, that is more of a technical aspect that does not translate very well to playtime. You can have a 8h single player 3D game taking up 8GB and another one twice the size just because of badly compressed audio and visual files. It also depends on the engine and many more factors.

 

Long story short, disc space has nothing to do with playtime.

[SparocheeDoom]

Ah, 60 hours is OK, but I was hoping for me. NO RPG so far can get even close to BG2 size. I spent 3 months playing BG2 1-2 hours per day, using a walkthrough to complete each and every quest. It was such an epic journey! I was hoping this game would top it, especially for $50!

[RevBlue]

Looks like a lot of people were expecting this to be superior BG2 and are unfairly comparing it.

Its not fair to do that to a new IP, with a "new" system and a new world. Even with all the legacy built into it.

 

If anything you should compare it to BG1, and that will be a much more fair comparison.

I just really hope the devs will listen to a lot of the constructive criticism about the game(without blindly following it of course) and then I believe POE2 can be as good as BG2

[Elerond]

Ah, 60 hours is OK, but I was hoping for me. NO RPG so far can get even close to BG2 size. I spent 3 months playing BG2 1-2 hours per day, using a walkthrough to complete each and every quest. It was such an epic journey! I was hoping this game would top it, especially for $50!

 

You can finish BG2 under 60 hours (which you can also do with PoE). PoE offers quite lot of content that you can discovers and there are some content that unlocks when you return maps later in the game. But how long finishing it take depends lots on how you play and how you pace yourself and how much you use things like faster game speed to travel faster.

My first play through took me about 80 hours, but it is probably because I tired to seek everything that there was to be found. BG2 has more content at least in number wise, but my first play through of it took about 75-85 hours. But there is over decade between these two play throughs so that don't actually tell much because I am quite different player than what I was then. 

[Luckmann]

I kinda wish that the map would've been bigger/the map marks smaller, to give a better sense of scope and added potential in terms of expansions and so on (like adding lots of wilderness areas). The sizing gives it a bit of the wrong idea in some ways (but the right one in others, depending).