Then you can appreciate how much better the dungeons are in Skyrim, again... cake... fatty!

I mean seriously, can you really say that while in a ruin you dont just run past a bunch of stuff because you've seen it a thousand times before and it looks the same? because if you actualy stop and look at the same stuff you either just started playing the game (which is totaly understandable) or you have the memory of a gold fish... Because all those Urns hold no interest to me, the lil spinny things with the animals on them... yeah, seen that a hundered times... Oh how bout those awesomely dull hall ways that look exactly like the last ones I seen... Maybe the same architact designed all of skyrim at once at the down of time and then the same construction crew built them... like a housing development... seriously?

I think that by now we've all established that the Skyrim dungeons are both better and more well-designed than those of Oblivion, so I guess we can put that discussion to sleep now.

What we should concern ourselves with is what would make the dungeons of Skyrim better and more captivating than they already are?
So far we've established:
- Some bigger and more unique dungeons
- More clearly lore-related stuff in the dungeons?
- More uniqueness to most of the caves (granted, some caves WILL look more or less the same, since they're basically holes in the mountain)
- More darkness, gloom and scaryness
- Player-lightable torches, light stands and fireplaces


What more?

They still seem sub par compaired to what could have been done if some design time was taken to them instead of add hall way, add turn and stairs, add bridge... Which is what happened, all prebuilt... all using the same exact mold, none are really and different from the other which makes them bland

And again thats what this is about, what do YOU think could make YOUR experience better? What would YOU change? How would it effect YOU and YOUR gameplay

Bigger? I am not sure if I would want dungeons to be bigger. Maybe a few massive dungeons you get lost in for a few days (game time or maybe real time?) but sometimes by the time I get to the end of a dungeon I am shouting "About time!" Because it just seemed to be drawing on and on.

As for being unique, I could agree with this. I personally thing most dungeons in the game are unique and tell stories, but they are very subtle. It would of been nicer to of had more dungeons where the story to it wasn't so subtle.

Yes more "in your face, this is different from the rest" type stuff.... Like seeing stone wall carvings depicting stories of that place youre at for example, things to break up the monotony

As for uniqueness - each hold and area of Skyrim has their own "style" both architectural and inhabitant-wise, how about implementing that to a certain degree in the dungeons? Say, you enter an ancient Nord burial tomb near , and you discover that the design of the tomb, the critters and loot there bear resemblance to the hold that has grown from their forefathers, and is slightly different to that other tomb you were in that time you explored the area around .

Also, I think that with a more darkness-oriented dungeon at least some of the critters there should be wary of light, not just rushing in to attack you as soon as you're spotted. Some critters could linger around just outside the edge of your flickering torch, only moving in after a while or as soon as they grow more numerous.. That would also add to the anxiety and feeling of paranoia knowing that there's actually an unknown number of monsters following you around in the cave, just waiting for your torch to go out...

Also good thoughts

Really, they dont have much background. Yes they sometimes have some journals about what somebody was doing there, but i *believe* that the op is asking for ruins/caves that have a larger backstory, not just tiny little fragments of information.

Also, I kida of agree with your other idea, but think that ruins/dungeons/caves should have varying lengths, each should be unique with some reward at the end (or at least in most of them), and there should be more substance to them, even if it means taking out a few to make others better. It is better to have a deep lake than a shallow ocean (Metaphors for the win)

I agree that their could be some more unique dungeons, with unique item's at the end, both useable and decorative. Darker, scarier etc.

Putting in more lore might be easy or hard, most of these places are suposed to be thousands of yr's old... think about the languages we have in real life that we still don't fully understand, from a thousand yr's ago. How much about the life of the Aztec's do we really know? We guess, we theorize, but do we really know? Bit's and pieces.

One things someone posted struck me as "you've really got to be kidding" and that's the how many houses have you been in that look the same. I can tell you that the subdivision that I grew up in ( built in the 50's) had 5... that's FIVE floor plans..... 200 houses. You could say 10 if you account for the flip/flop.

I'm not saying that it's wrong to want more uniqueness, better lore, differing reward's etc. But what make's something unique? The fact that their are only so many of something. Or one. If EVERY dungeon had lore, then it's no longer unique. Same with "the prize".

So basically I'm agreeing that it would be nice to have a few more large unique dungeon's/ruin's, Snow elf inspired. But I'm disageeing with making everything different.... JMO

This and many of them tend to be fairly linear. I'd like to see more looping and intersecting passages.

Most of the dungeons are pretty unique already, with their history and story to tell.

If not entire voiced sequences, there tend to be journal fragments, books that talk about the residents of the dungeon or even named enemies.
Whenever I entered a dungeon I nearly always found something out of the ordinary.


Now if you ran out of these dungeons, and no matter how many are there, you will, then the only answers are mods and DLC.

Compared to Oblivion, Skyrim's dungeons are like a gift from Nocturnal herself.

Although, thats not to say that more history is bad, the richer the dungeon lore is the better

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Amongst_the_Draugr

I agree and I think there is plenty of history behind Skyrim's dungeons and caves. There are abandoned prisons, pirates caves that have collapsed in on themselves, etc. And not every hole in the ground should have a story behind it because, well ... why would it?

You are confusing fact with opinion.

You keep referring to "what could have been done", for your own sake, don't.
You won't get anything good from it by seeing a half empty glass 24/7.

No I'm not saying it for "my sake" I'm saying this because I stood in a line for 6 hours at midnight the day of the release, played through it 4 different times and noticed that going through these dungeons, they all look and feel the same, there are a few exceptions but i was expecting more. These are MY opinions, don't tell me how to think. YOUR opinions are yours about this game. Now you can share them here or leave. And I'm not confusing "Fact with Opinion" either. FACT: In this game, in order to complete most quests, you must enter a dungeon and find something. Thats called a "Fact" because thats exactly what you must do. Now an "Opinion" is when I see the same stuff and get bored with it because it's like looking at the same house over and over again, sure it will keep me entertained with the thought that maybe there's something new or different in the next one for a while until I realize I've seen that same house, that same door or that same wall texture, picture, etc a million times now I'm bored (thats an opinion)

So FACT: You spend 80-85% of the game in a Dungeon. OPINION: I would like to see more unique Dungeons (Not all but some) with actual stories behind the Dungeon it's self.

As difficult as it could be I think it could be a great idea. Places like Saarthal should have had way more impact when you first visit them.

Like I said, I don't mean ALL but some that had signifigance like the Dragon Priest Tombs and stuff... Thay did a great job with Labarynthinia

Many folks like me spend more than half of their time just exploring and wandering the land, gathering ingredients and ores, crafting things from what we have found and selling them, fighting randomn monster and enemy spawns in the open, visiting the caravans, chasing butterflies, admiring the view, pondering the meaning of life, etc.

It is a "do what you want" game and for a lot of folks, questing is only a small part of the package. So it is not a "fact" that you spend 80-85% of your time in Dungeons. That's only true if you spend most of your time doing quests and you fast travel a lot. Typically when I do a quest (and I do do quests), it takes longer getting to the Dungeon than it does exploring it.

To complete the game 80-85% of the things you will need to complete it and quests are found where? In dungeons. Aside from wondering around. If you are playing the game and doing quests to complete the game you will spend most of your time completing them in dungeons. Fact. Now I understand theres other things to do such as "chase butterflies" but to complete the majority of quests you have to enter a dungeon that looks just like allll the others texture and architectuly wise.

But why would you ever want to "complete the game"? That's just a backwards way of thinking.

LOL right? I mean I bought it so I could wonder around aimlessly and do nothing the Devs prepaired for me.

Yes, well, that "backwards thinking" part is just my opinion, not necessarily a fact. The fact is that the game was designed to let you "do whatever you want" or at least that is how they sold it. In practice there are more limitations than I would like, but I digress. You sure could wander aimlessly. Or you could focus your play on completing quests. I rarely do either since there is usually some sort of purpose behind my wanderings and I want to stretch out quest completion so I never feel like I have "completed the game." Once I "complete a game" I don't much feel like playing it anymore and I love TES games too much to ever want to feel that way. That is probably why I have never completed the main quest in Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim.

EDIT: Back to your main point though, my opinion on Skyrim's dungeons are that they are at least more interesting and unique than Oblivion dungeons, but the floor plans for Oblivion's dungeons were less linear with more looping and intersecting passages, so from that respect I liked Oblivion's dungeons better.