Normally, the bigger the better, but I’d rather have quality than quantity. When that’s said, quality and quantity is king. Open fields are not that bad if it is accurate and able to give the crowded areas a rest. But I’m sure the devs are thinking of this as well all the time 
It’s not the size that matters but how you use it. Is the map going to look authentic or modern. Make different qualities of maps based on price. If you had a map back then they were expensive and not always accurate. Maybe as we explore our map becomes more accurate.
I know skyrim has a rather big map but somehow it feels so small and unreal, takes 15 mins to climb the largest mountain and 1 min to cut through a thick forest etc. I know the witcher 2 doesnt have a big map, but i enjoy wandering off in the flotsam forest, its bigger than most other forests ive ever seen in video games, as well as Risen 2 dark water, the mapsize isnt that big, but you can actually get lost in the forest, which is amazing. i dont know why these thing happen tho
As I said, it depends on the type of the game. If you can fly in a plane, then that map is obviously small. If you only travell by foot then that map is obviosuly more than enough
I was just reading some opinions about the map sizes for Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas and even though they were both comparable, Fallout 3 had a map that some felt (maybe rightfully so) was more more conducive to open exploration. Locations were spread out well, while in New Vegas the majority of stuff was centered around the highways and New Vegas itself. On top of that, you could get seriously punished if you wandered too far out of a particular area if you came across deathclaws (much harder in New Vegas, which I actually preferred), cazadors, etc. There were also more mountainous regions that limited how one could move around.
The underlining point is in how you can have two similar map sizes but one could be designed much better than another. At this point I think the Warhorse team sounds like they have a good plan for the map they’re going to use based on the game they’re trying to make.
People were complaining, that our map is too small (approx. 9km2) and that Oblivion is much larger (41km2). So I did a little test… I run from the northernmost part of the map (Cloud ruler temple) to Bravil. It took me 7 minutes on foot. Even if I run 20km/h, thats 2,5 km. So there is no chance that Oblivion has 41 square km of playable area. It could be 15km2. At most. In our game, it takes 7 minutes to run from the city to stables from our live stream (approx 1.5km). The whole map would take approx 20 min. So lets repeat the same thing I said before - our map is about the same size as Oblivion
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Well, you would run with 12,86 km/h in KCD then (1500m in 7min) which is still way too fast for someone wearing a hauberk or other armor and maybe weapons. Especially if you consider that the ground is likely muddy. At that speed the protagonist would most likely be totally exhausted before reaching his goal forcing him to stop or at least slow down. And he would be unable to fight at his destination… 
Walking from the nothern to the southern border of the map of KCD with approx 3km distance should require about 25 minutes at a fast walking speed at 7km/h (5km/h is the average for the human walking speed) which is fast enough for an heavily armed but also well trained soldier who still wants to be able to properly fight for his life after walking a few hundered meters…
The “problem” with the TES games is that they don’t represent realism, neither in design nor in numbers. It’s all “stylized” stuff and of course running speed is WAY overpowered in these games (especially if you have the proper stats for that). It’s one of the artistic freedom when creating a fantasy game instead of a realistic medieval game…
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Yes, unfortunately: map size matters. Of course a wide map with too few POIs isn’t interesting, but I’d rather have a wider map with spread POIs than a smaller condensed map with one attraction next to the other.
This means: if you have ideas or means to implement only a certain number of things into a map I have no problem if they are spread out a little bit for a bigger map.
Or the other way: I wouldn’t want to sacrifice map size for a more “condensed” feel.
Map size “Matters” of course it does. I think a better question is “Is bigger always better?” the answer to that is no. We can see procedural generated maps making very large landscapes that don’t look too bad, but as 213 stated people will simply run right through them. There is no point to them other than to give you somewhere to hunt and move through. If that area could be used for building or settling. If it would change dynamically that would be a different story, unfortunately no game does that yet (I think the new everquest is aiming for it). So that being said with this game keeping it “real” (AKA realistic) I think about myself as a person. I certainly wouldn’t do the traveling my avatar does in Skyrim way too much walking for me I’ll take the next carriage out of town. Also one of my main complaints about Skyrim is you have no connection to the world at all. Sure there are characters you like, but it’s not like “What! Goren’s dead T_T NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” All you hear in the background in skyrim is “another one bites the dust” I want a game that will emotionally touch me. I want a vicarious experience. I believe that in this case the small map will be great for this game.
Our designers did a test and tried to run for 7 minutes in other RPGs. Initially I thought, that some games are much bigger than they actually are. Of course that speed is the most important factor here and its not the best accurate measurement, but Skyrim, Oblivon, Fallout 3 and New Vegas all have map very similar or even smaller than us. I wonder how would RDR do in this test, but I am too lazy to search for the disc We dont want to enter any “whos the biggest” competition, but since some people thought that 9km2 is a disadvantage, its worth saying, that it isnt. Other games are about same and just have misleading info about the size.
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Absolutely. In most RPGs you always want to move faster. Now admittedly that is fun short term (I think Saint’s Row IV you have super human speed, but once you do the map becomes irrelevant holding no meaning) In skyrim you move faster than a human is able (and can kill a dragon “by beating its foot with a rusty sword”) and you use fast travel to bypass the large mass of boring in-between events. I think you guys have the right goal in mind. Keep up the good work bros!
If I have the feeling to be lost in the wood, or can be chased and vanish in the nature, then it is fine for me.
Sometime, big empty areas is good for the immersion, it can give a survival aspect, crossing a wood or a mountain was a challenge and needed to be prepared. Small areas remove this immersion.
One of my best memorie in a video game was a mission in the first operation flashpoint, it was in a big forest, the immersion is in my opinion still unmatched.
I love uncompressed landscape, and yours looks amazing
To put that in perspective, 5:30 in a 1600 meter race (1 mile) for high school varsity track is considered respectable. So yeah, running 7 minutes for a mile in atleast 50 lbs. of armor would be quite alot.
Size is really not the most important factor. The most important is how fast you can travel across the map. That’s what makes the feeling (the FEELING) of how large the map is.
I really like that comparison picture (well, the whole series of those pictures) that is posted in the initial post here and is out there on the web for some time already. For example the size of Just Cause 2 map is really huge. It takes a decent deal of time to get from one corner of the map to another even when you’re flying a jet fighter and those are the fastest machines in the game.
If you had one of those in KCD, then yeah, the map would really feel small.
But hopefully no, you’re not going to have a jet fighter in KCD. You’re gonna have nothing but your own char’s legs and an occasional horse to travel a bit faster, so that the long travels won’t actually take that much long. I’m sure it will be quite sufficient, especially if the movement speeds would be trimmed to approximately the actual speeds of movement (walking, running, sprinting) in reality (unlike games like Skyrim where you have to mod this stuff to work as it should).
And, also, the respective speeds should be the same for NPCs and the PC alike…
A WONDERFUL IDEA 
I hope someone adds a jet fighter mod! That would be soo COOL ^_-!
Look at those maps tho. Anyone noticing that one block from Burnout paradice is the same size as GTA3:s whole map. Seems legit
The problem is that many games don’t use the same sense of scale. Hence, few would agree that the GTA: San Andreas map is so small compared to Oblivion. Stated size is a hard measurement to go by until you’ve actually played.
That said, the Just Cause 2 map is indeed a contender for the most massive non-MMO map.
I appreciate a larger map, but I’m extremely thankful that Warhorse has also said that they will pay attention to the concentration of various places of interest. Something Skyrim failed to do. Every part of that world is civilized by somebody, in some way, at some point in time. It never felt actually open or like you were in the wild. You would run into someone else’s house or camp or temple every 2-5 minutes. They need to have the open countryside actually feel like the countryside sometime.
The largest map size I know of is Battleground Europe with it’s 350.000 km². But that makes A LOT of empty space. I’d rather the map be a bit scaled down and with much content than have a running simulator.
In my opinion what matters is the “density” of the map, not the size. There’s no point having a massive map if everything is very spread out and finding something fun to do takes a long time. Just Cause 2 was one example I thought of a game having a map that was too big. There was loads to do, but the map was just so damn large that getting anywhere was a bit of a chore. GTAV meanwhile felt about right; good size map, but at the same time you could get to something of interest within a couple of minutes. The Elder Scrolls games are also pretty good at getting this balance right. If these guys aim for something along the lines of Skyrim or Oblivion in size and stuff density then that would be perfect.
Tbh TES - and especially Skyrim - is a good example how not to make an open-world game…
The density is high but for the very wrong reasons. Instead of filling the world with meaningful stuff Bethesda filled it with pointless, repetitve stuff like 100 caves all filled with generic enemies…
An immersive game world should offer a realistic density with fewer points of interest but much more interesting ones with actual RPG depth instead of generic places to collect loot and kill enemies. That’s ok for a hacknslay game but pure poison for a story-driven CRPG. So I would be happy if Warhorse was able to make a game world smaller than the TES games but with realistic (slower) walking speed and real points of interest. They said it themselves that there won’t be 100 caves but 10 caves and all filled with interesting stuff connected to the story and the game world in a meaningful way.