There's absolutely 0% chance that Ragna is right about distances GM
Larian has chosen this way of designing the map to offer the best gaming experience according to them but no one has probably ever thought "distances are not litteral"
The most credible explanation is undoubtedly that they didn't want to create a world as large as an open world but that they wanted to offer a different experience from other cRPGs at the same time. The map is really small and that's why it's not really called an "open world" game.
The act 1 surface map is something like 500m² (let's say 1km² if you include the underdark) while the full map of TW3 are something like 130 km² (skyrim = 40km², RDR2 = 72km², GTA5 = 125km²). BG3's full map may probably reach 10km² at best. The map may look bigger and you play HOURS on a "small" map because the content is very condensed.
The fact that the map design is not a "problem" for everyone does not mean that this statement is false and that we have to go into delusions to explain things.
Ah, now I see what the problem is. This isn't an open world game, because you literally won't be able to walk from this map to Baldur's Gate. It will require area transitions, because this isn't the whole world, but one area within the world. Unlike TES or Fallout games, from 3, anyway, where you literally can traverse the whole map, with dungeons and homes requiring an area transition, here, just as in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc., you have to travel to different zones via an area transition. Any argument based on "open world game" will fall flat, because it doesn't apply here.
As to scale, when I look at a map of the US, I can actually see all 50 states. The "distance" between Chicago and Kansas City is most definitely not to scale, because it's literally easily measured in inches, while it's actually hundreds of miles. If maps were "to scale", they would be impossible to use, that's why they include an "X = y miles" scale. So the "delusion" here is that we need use an open world game as a comparison, when that's not the case. What leads me to believe that? Look at the games you listed as a comparison. A more accurate comparison would have been Dragon Age et al, Baldur's Gate et al, Icewind Dale et al, or NWN et al. You know, games that have lots of areas that require area transitions to get to, instead of open world games.
