Technically speaking, the world of Oblivion is actually larger than Morrowind, but as Howard himself pointed out, Bethesda doesn't want "hundreds of hours of gameplay" to consist of a few minutes of fun punctuated by hours of boring traveling. Instead, the game will include a revised fast travel map that will hopefully eliminate a great deal of the annoying repetitive travel over long distances.
I loved Morrowind, but this is the one factor that really detracted from the gameplay IMO. Particularlyy irritating was the design of the city of Vivec.
Glad to see this was addressed.
