The pillar is said to be about 2000 ft wide and stretches from the floor to the ceiling of the great cavern of Sshamath, about a mile high.
Here is what we have in game now,
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I placed the drow raider there to give a perspective of the total size. Now compare that to a XY plane to scale (2000 ft wide) but only 1/2 Z plane to scale (about 2640, half a mile), the maps have a limited height,
Remember, that is only half as tall as it should be because of toolset limitations. Imagine if you had to walk up that every time you wished to leave the city.
There is a reason why Sshamath is known as the most metropolitan city in the UD, but what you see ingame just can't do it justice. What is in game is only about 1/6 to scale and is not built entirely accurate in some places or just many things are omitted. This is of course for practicality reasons. If you were to build the entire city of Sshamath it would take up 6x8 32x32 areas, that is 48 32x32 areas (the largest ingame areas possible).Another thing to think about is how long it takes you to get from point A to point B ingame. From Baldur's Gate to Beregost is approximately 160 miles in a strait line. If you were to run at 10 miles an hour, a decent jogging speed, it would take you 16 hours to arrive at your location. So we say 5min real time equals 1 hour game time. That is still 80 minutes to run from Baldur's Gate to Beregost in game.
And that is strait line non stop running. Imagine how many areas we would have to build to fill up that much time of running non stop ingame. Just something to think about while you wondering around ingame.
