Riften to Whiterun is like half the distance from solitude to Riften, walking between either is a chore and 99% of players wouldn’t or don’t do it.

Tho comparing it to Starfield is sorta hilarious because Starfield is absolutely massive and even games like NMS require going into menus to jump between systems.

Do I wish Starfield was more like NMS in that you can relatively seamless take off, fly to another planet, land, do it all over again? Yeah that’d be pretty sweet. Do I also know that the world’s in NMS are way way less interesting and detailed overall and the storyline/NPC interactions are very basic? Yes I do.

Different strengths and different end goals for the games