Ive played Arena, Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout NV. I've traversed thousands of wilderness spaces and explored thousands of dungeons and I have to say that Skyrim has some of the most interesting designs and has evoked a Morrowind esque feel from them by adding unique story based touches to each and every one. For all of Oblivion's dungeon design issues I do have to say that I miss some of the old design aspects, okay so maybe 30 forts that all had the same layout is not an ideal way to build a dungeon crawl but several of them were actually pretty unique and those that had 4-5 levels could turn into a 2-3 hour dungeon crawl with certain balancing and creature mods installed. Heck, even back in Vanilla I remember certain Ayleid ruins took me a couple hours and although I knew what I was getting into with every fort, cave, ayleid ruin or Oblivion gate those dungeon crawls were pretty enjoyable because they had a lot in them. What was great was that for every 10 dungeons that looked and felt the same; there were always 5-6 that were actually unique and were pretty enjoyable. Fallout 3 and NV were not really designed as dungeon crawlers and instead featured short, 1-3 floor buildings( yes their were some exceptions) in which too explore but the majority of the in game action took place in the Wastes. Overall I would say that Fallouts dungeon design was incredibly simplistic.I feel that Skyrim has sort of mixed MW's unique and story driven dungeons with Fallout's scarcity and simplicity. Which is certainly not a bad thing, but sometimes I want a dungeon romp to be a long and adventurist ordeal. It seems as though most of Skyrims dungeons were built to allow for the radiant questing system to work.

For all of the artistic beauty of the Skyrim dungeons some are literally 1 room with 3 enemies in them. The only real issue I had with Oblivion's dungeon system was the repetitiveness, the first 3-4 Ayleid ruins were neat, and even the 15th was good enough because it had a different layout or some semblance of a story but it was all of the repetitive ones the middle that bored me. Basically what I'm trying to say is that the tile-set system isn't the root of all evil but it needs to be used rationally. I dont need 34 caves built from the tileset, but give me 20 handcrafted ones and maybe 10 tileset ones that have a decent length to them.

This brings me to my next point/question. How will modded dungeon creation be for Skyrim, I know many of the longer dungeon mods were frequently handbuilt but that was because many of the tools given to us were lacking in originality. This time it doesn't seem as if we were given a specific tile-set so that dungeon features can be pieced together to create a new experience. I know some of these questions can not be answered until the construction kit is release but how do you plan to create your dungeons, and is anyone planning on creating some of those long 2 hour crawls that I loved from the days of MW and OB? or will you follow the Bethesda model and go for a story driven 1-3 room dungeon that can be completed in 25 minutes but has a lot of beautiful little touches. Of course this is a rhetorical question, I know many of you will strive to emulate those long crawls while still balancing the elements of story and level design but I just want to hear your general opinions on current designs and how you prefer your dungeons.

Oblivion had no dungeons that shared the same layout ,tile set yes but that can be understandable.

Maybe not the whole dungeon but there were certainly whole portions if not floors of dungeons that were exact replicas of other areas. Besides, my point was not to bash Oblivion's design, It was to say that utilizing a tile-set to make 4-5 level dungeons as well as having unique hand crafted dungeons that do not have a tile set was a nice mix. For every well crafted, story driven, unique dungeon, I would not a mind a couple of tile-set built, huge dungeons whose sole purpose is to test my fortitude and make dungeon crawling a lasting experience. Most of Skyrims dungeons fall into the former, while many of Oblivions fall into the latter. There are exceptions of course, but this is just my opinion on the design. ( Not saying its a positive or a negative, it just is what it is) My purpose for the thread was to see how others plan to craft their dungeon mods, and hopefully find what sort of dungeons people prefer.

Not sure where you've been exploring, but the vast majority of dungeons I've found have at least two levels and take far more than 25 minutes to clear. I suppose the fact that I play a stealthy character contributes, but so far I've only run into one single-room dungeon (a bear's cave, which makes sense). I've loved all the dungeons, even the smaller ones, and I definitely prefer detail and feeling to length and size.

Anyway, I'm sure that there will be plenty of long dungeons made by modders. The game does still use tilesets, they're just better disguised this time.

I've been exploring around Whiterun, I guess it is usually the dungeons that I am directed to by the dynamic questing, basically a random kill target placed in a dungeon. I know Redorans Retreat took me less than 5 minutes to complete, it had only 3 bandits in it and was a passageway leading into a single room.
Again I am not disagreeing with the design as cited by my first two sentences, Its just most of the areas I've been exploring have do not feel like long adventurous explorations but mere quick jaunts through unpopulated dungeons. Again may just be due to the areas I have explored.

Weird, almost every dungeon i've been in has been perfect if not too large for me (and I love big dungeon crawls). Maybe try to move on from whiterun, but I even remember hitting a few long ones around there so idk. Also, dungeons in faction quests tend to be fairly large so that would help with finding good ones.

Its nice to hear that there are some larger dungeons out there. Lets move the discussion onto aspects of design that we like to see in dungeons that are modded as to not have this thread moved to another section of the forum.

I'm sure we all prefer a balance of size and originality. But what other aspects are important to you, things like having a specific end boss that drops unique loot, perhaps adding puzzles or traps to the mix is important, maybe you prefer fighting an army of baddies as opposed to several high level opponents. One thing I enjoy is a scarcity of loot, usually I mod my game so that high level weapons and armor do not drop off of enemies but are added to shops at a high cost. I then make the dungeon loot consist of things that a group of bandits may actually steal, ie. jewelery, gems, silver and gold items, expensive clothing etc. I am asking this because I will be making a loot/dungeon mod and know that an important aspect of design is looking through the eyes of the consumer, some may like the idea of carrying out an inventory full of silverware, gems, jewelery and maybe a magical item or two but others may prefer getting their weapons from killing high level enemies. I want to know what you like.

I am fairly happy with the dungeon sizes so far (around whiterun) i tend to loot anything and everything so a decent sized 2 level dungeon is enough, i admit some of them are very small but i am happy. I often found it funny in oblivion when i'd enter a mine/cave within spitting distance of a city gate that held more enemies in it than the city's townguard.
On the other hand nothing wrong with more well-made content.

Dungeons are a massive MASSIVE improvement over pretty much every previous TES game IMO. Yes, there's a couple here and there that are short, small, quick. Go barrow hopping. Nothing short, small, or quick about those. The only two really small ones I found were small for a reason and weren't even filled with hostiles. Redoran's Retreat was about the only one with hostiles I found that was nothing more than a lair.

Also, yes, it still uses tilesets, and if you're paying attention, some of the tilesets are even updated versions of what Oblivion had. There's also a huge boost in tileset variety so it should be a lot more fun to try and build dungeon mods. Especially with all the cool new traps and toys they come with.

I haven't found one that was really long. Two were caves with 2-4 low-level critters, and one was a quest cave. It was SLIGHTLY longer but ultimately it only had 8 enemies and you could walk straight through it in about 15-20 seconds (without stopping to fight). I kind of agree with the OP that I enjoyed the "crawlers" of Oblivion for their length (although I was loathe to go in to "yet another ruin" that I could already guess what the layout was going to be and what the enemies were).

It looks like Skyrim had more details put into the stories and the NPCs/town centers themselves this time around and that is definitely a good thing. Overall, it makes the game vastly better.

However, if a modder were to come along and say, add some puzzles, mazes, and a 2-hour+ strategic crawler, I would definitely download it.

One thing that I love a lot are those small lamps hanged on the ceilings of some dungeons. You can fire an arrow at them and then they fall, setting the floor in fire! Very useful against small groups of enemies or even bosses. If I decide to create a dungeon, I'll make sure to provide this kind of environmental hazards/traps.

You haven't been exploring the right dungeons, then. Go after a Barrow, or maybe a Fort or Dwemer Ruin, not just caves and mines. Caves especially aren't supposed to be huge - they aren't dungeons! They're just caves!

I feel like some of the people commenting here haven't done much exploring or spent very much time with the game yet. I've run into a couple dungeons so far that take over an hour to finish.

As for the entire point of this thread i think a good puzzle can make a dungeon amazing. A nice long dungeon with some interesting puzzles. I'm not too interested in the award generally however i think the reward would depend on what i would go through. If it's a bunch of random generic mobs then basic loot is fine. However if you were to add in a boss mob i feel like that mob should drop a decent weapon or armor piece rather than just money and stuff to sell. I will have to pay a bit more attention to specific type of puzzles i suppose to give a more detailed description.

Another idea for a dungeon that i think would be a lot of fun, at least for me, would be a trap ridden dungeon. This dungeon could be a mob-less dungeon or at least fewer mobs. The point of the dungeon would be to get through all the traps. I would like to see the traps pretty much kill you if you run into them so that you have to actually pay attention to what you're doing. When i get more time i could be more specific.

The dungeons in Skyrim are absolutely epic in scale and in uniqueness.

I get the feeling someone has barely played the game.

I am really impressed with the dungeons I have ventured into so far. Every day I load up Skyrim I am delightfully surprised by some ingenious trap or even just the visual candy that some of the dungeons have. Sometimes I intentionally activate traps (Saving beforehand) to see what they will do, my favorite so far has been a pit trap that landed me two floors below in a prison cell of dead bodies and a cackling necromancer on the outside.