4821

If nothing else the “dungeons” have an incredible amount of variety and character.

4822

I totally disagree. So far I’ve seen cave, draugr tomb, icy cave, dwemer ruin, and ruined castle. Sometimes these will be mix and matched in the same dungeon. Sometimes the game will SWITCH IT UP and give you vampires when you expected bandits, or spiders when you expected zombies, or felmer when you expected dwemer robots. But it’s always the same tileset, the choice of enemy to fill the placeholder really does not change my tactics one bit, and ultimately I resolve each dungeon exactly the same way.

4823

While I haven’t put much time in to skyrim yet and have only done one dungeon, the first dungeon you get to from a quest in the first town does not show an incredible amount of variety and character. It is overly long and overly repitive. It felt like they presented the dungeon to their bosses and they were told to make it three times as long in 20 minutes.

Very mediocre dungeon.

It is fully possible further dungeons are actually good though, but it is not a great intro to the game.

4824

@Westy: I’ve been a harsh critic of the repetitious nature of Bethesdas games. But give the a break, the Dwemer Ruins are pretty cool.

4825

Yeah, they look really good. And I think it’s one of the places where the Bioshock influence comes through aesthetically in quasi Art-Deco Rapture-inspired stylings (as a counterpart to its clear influence on the casting mechanics) [and who would have thought that Bioshock was going to be the biggest influence on an Elder Scrolls game?]. But as to how the dwemer dungeons play? Identical to every other dungeon.

4826

You make a really good point, this game is really nothing more than Bioshock with ice.

Not to mention that the entire outside world rips off Super Mario Bros, what, with all the blue sky and mushroom-filled caves everywhere.

4827

Errr… isn’t that the quest for the claw, and the barrow that gives you your first power word?

That dungeon was not too long. I think I got through it in half an hour or so, not counting fighting my way in.

4828

Yes, that is the one i am talking about it and it felt overly long to me.

It is actually one of the things keeping me from playing my “new new character,” a standard sword/shield/restoration character (paladin?). I don’t want to do this dungeon again.

4829

I’m not sure what’s taking you so long. You can do it in one run, you don’t have to go back, and it’s purposefully easy to do. Sprint, man, sprint!

4830

It could just be coincidence, but since that stupid DRM patch, this game has gone from surprisingly stable to fucktardedly crashy on me.

4831

It was crashy on me before the patch too.

4832

The only problem with Skyrim is it insists upon itself.

4833

So does your post.

4834

Still only one crash, and I’m pretty sure that was Steam’s fault. I have hit a bit of a wall with the game, though, around 50 hours in. If I force myself to play I get sucked back in for a long session, but I’m not that all motivated to play at the moment. I expect that will pass in a day or two though.

4835

LAA Patch.

4836

Your medications are too strong.

4837

I like the McDungeons this time around.

Sure, if you compare them to a dungeon in say “Realms of Arkania” or “Wizards & Warriors” they fall flat but there you have maybe 6 dungeons and here you have, what, 100?

I see them a little like the dungeons in Diablo 1: Generic, but accentuated with two or three special events to keep it interesting and so far it works for me. Certainly better than in Oblivion.

You really see the design process of Bethesda’s dungeon designers shimmer through. It goes kinda like this, I imagine:

  1. Select dungeon type (cave, dwemer ruin, fortress etc.)
  2. Set environment variety/specials (partly underwater, mixes up dungeon types, is inhabitated by humans so it has living quarters etc.)
  3. Set main enemy types, sometimes mixed up.
  4. Place traps.
  5. Set treasure locations.
  6. Define 2-3 special events (A prisoner you rescue, some light puzzle solving, a special encounter, some in-dungeon lore (written notes etc) etc.)
4838

There’s also a lot of very nice subtle design in many of the dungeons, where you can get a sense of the story of what happened there recently, without actually being presented any text explaining it. It’s told through the locations of enemies, bodies, and day to day items. I honestly think that if the dungeons seem so much the same to anyone, they’re not really soaking up the details.

4839

Agreed. Every single ‘dungeon’ has been distinctive in some way, so far (40 hours in).

I just went through an awesome snowy tomb where there were little harmless willowisps bouncing along with me, until at the end there were like fifteen of them. So eerie.

4840

I really like the “Labyrinthian” dungeon btw. The above surface ruins alone are nice to explore and they ooze atmosphere.

Perhaps this is a new genre RES - ruins exploring simulator.