Bethesda, please work hard on creating more interesting dungeon entrances that aren't just doors in the side of some hill.

You could have abandoned temples you basically enter on the outside (open-based inside the world cell) that are abandoned, haunted, creepy, where the dungeon door could be found within under a secret entrance obtained by pulling a candleabra or torchholder. You could have the ruins of an old fort taken over by wild animals where the dungeon entrance was a portcullis beneath the ruins on the 2nd floor down. You could have a dungeon door built deep within the hillside (all of this still in the outdoor worldspace) inside of a long hallway made of stone and various creepy stone heads with eyes that appear to move, or follow you as you go in. You could have a huge pit in the earth that seems to fall forever down in the blackness, whose dimensions are a 1000 meters wide, with a path winding like a screw's threads down the outside edge of the hole built of stone. And at some point further down, you find the cave entrance, or an old city you have to go through to find the door at the bottom quite a ways below. I guess I am asking for SOME of the dungeon to actually be realized outside, in the worldspace, in the exterior cells, PRIOR to going into the dungeon's intererior cells, away from the worldspace. So that the dungeons seem more connected to the outside world, and not these TOTALLY SEPARATE PLACES from the game world.

I was thinking back to how almost every dungeon in Oblivion had this door set in the face of a cliff wall at the bottom where you basically walked up, clicked on the door, and started in staircase going down. Basically the same thing every time. No variety at all in how dungeons were to be approached. But I remember in MW that there were tons of very unique dungeon entrances, including a dwemer ruins that could only be accessed by turning a rusty metallic wheel that groaned when rotated, seeming very ancient and old. Many other games, like the Tomb Raider series, for example, erect this fantastic temple, through which our hero must battle their way forward to even GET to the dungeon entrance at all.

I really don't want to see more than 10 "door in the mountain"s from Oblivion making it back into Skyrim or I am going to feel a terrible sense of non ambition coming from Bethesda. I just want to feel like they are listening to us and growing, moving forward, expanding their abilities, and giving us something more with each new game. The evolution of the RPG industry is about growth, and I firmly believe one day we'll be able to project ourselves into 3D virtual reality worlds that look not only real, but surreal, magical, beautiful ... and play characters that feel like it's really us standing in that world, experiencing it. The only way to ever believe we can bridge the gap between today's games and tomorrows future games in VR, is to see growth happening with each iteration. As each game grows, I believe the Corporation will grow along with it. The bigger one gets, the bigger the other will get. They are tied together.

For that reason, I hope Skyrim's dungeons are buried under far more interesting entrances that you actually have to work to get to. The front alone could be its own challenge, offering a lot of combat, exploration, a sense of wonder, some treasure, or some surprising new way to interact with the environment, etc...

Once we get into the dungeons, please don't just have stairs going down, again, as usual. Why not have some stairs go UP? Or better yet, why not have a large open space, with tons of directions to choose from, some up, some down, all dangerous? Or why not have some bridges, like in Moria, or some old mining operations like in Nehrim, or some exotic place (filled with strange farting mushrooms) these seems like it could have come from Avatar the Movie? Or why not have a dungeon be the inside of an abandoned wizard's tower, with all sorts of summoned creatures running around trying to kill you, and the end of the dungeon is the TOP, so you have to work your way up, and confront the Conjurer whose gone mad, sitting in his huge labaratory laughing into his hands. Why do dungeons always have to go DOWN? An entire videogame was made about a dungeon inside a tower back in 1992 that went UP. It was a totally unique experience to always be going UP in the that dungeon. I loved the change.

Another problem that I had with the OB dungeons is that they never had any monsters outside of them. You could run into a dungeon, be incredibly stupid down there, challenging the most dangerous monsters, and then basically run up to the exit and stand outside thumbing your nose at them while you healed back up for another try. If you tried 20 times, eventually, you'd learn how to kill that monster on the inside using these tactics. Because the outside was a "safe place" .... but why should that be true? Why should it be safe outside of the dangerous dungeons? Why aren't there patrols, guards, or otherwise dangerous monsters left to scare off would-be adventurers who don't have what it takes to go in? And, should you go in, why don't some of those monsters call in reinforcements, so that when you come back out, they are waiting for you? And you can't exactly call being outside the dungeon SAFE anymore. That would make some of us have to rethink our tactics of "strafe and run."

If one should visit the Bethesda website, there are a number of pictures that seem to indicate cool looking entrances to dungeons. But there are only 3 or so pictures with these kinds of clues. One could easily assume that there were the EXCEPTION to the rule, the really COOL dungeons meant for later in the game. I wouldn't want to get my hopes up for there being som awesome dungeon entrances that paint a more visual and beautiful world to explore, only to find out those 3 pictures are only the best 3 dungeons and the rest of the dungeon entrances are just .... as usual ...

... a boring old door in the side of a boring old hill.

Conditional everything, and I think they've learned from FONV. Entrances was more logical. Monsters would occasionally follow you outside "if it made sense" (Oblivion had NPC follow you outside in some cases). I don't want i.e. vampires follow me outside in daytime. Call for backup, with what radio?

I'm pretty sure I heard one guy made all the dungeons in Oblivion, and they now have a full team on it. Hopefully, this can result in dungeons that aren't all identical.

I understand the technical reasons for the door, but I always wondered why every single cave in the world had a door-sized entrance, and someone had come along and installed a door to said cave. Why? Who is this person going around and installing doors on caves? What is his or her motivation? Is it more than one person, maybe? Is there some secret cult that installs and maintains these doors? The Cult of the Doors? Anyway, another thing that bothered me was the level design. I understand that the designers were trying to make an interesting dungeon, but seriously, if I'm going to plumb the depths of a ruin belonging to some ancient and long gone society, I would expect that some of the rooms would have an obvious purpose. I would expect bedrooms and bathrooms and kitchens and stables and rooms that would have had some sort of use to the people who used them so long ago. Instead, as I wander around an Ayleid or Dwemer ruin, all I can think of is, "this would be difficult to live in. It doesn't make any sense. Where is the dining room? Did these people eat? Where did they grow crops? Where did they keep animals? This is just a dungeon!"

Yeah, do you remember in Morrowind, that giant Mushroom City? I remember thinking, what in the heck is THIS? I was floorboarded by that place. I tried to think what kind of drugs they were on when they thought of that, and how something so cool possibly made it into a videogame. Who can now ever forget that place? It was unique. If you went indoors, there were these ropebridges suspended between stagmites, and every room had a function and a reason to exist. Now those were caves with a reason!

I mean, if you were going to go around putting doors in the side of hills, why couldn't you at least make every DOOR unique? Add some ruines, sigils, or some kind of monster picture on it, or have some kind of a riddle you needed to solve ... SOMETHING ... to make the entrances more memorable than just the same cookie-cutter door slapped up over every dungeon in the world. You could have ghosts that live on the doors, that require a special keyword obtained from the far reaches of the worldmap on stone obelisks or something. And you can only get to an obelisk if you can defeat its gaurdian. So many (but not all) of the dungeon doors becomes their own quest, where if you aren't powerful enough to kill the guardian, you can't gain access to that dungeon. That would have made Oblivion's door system at least MYSTICAL or otherworldly, and thus more intriguing than ... just a door in a hill.

Great idea, not surprised it belonged to Skystorm. I honestly hope that dungeons are much, much, more than they were in Oblivion. In addition to what was posted, some other things that some other threads brought up was things like:

• Increased the damage and complexity of traps.
  
• Have NPCs use the shadows to perform Sneak attacks on the player.
  
• Bring more puzzles.

I'm sure others can name more, but the idea is that dungeons should be, like Skystorm posted, more than what they became in Oblivion. For those who are looking for a good fight, the NPC AI should provide a challenge to them in the form of things like coordinated attacks, setting traps off on the player, and much more. For those who are looking for an immersive experience, dungeons should make sense. Ruins of some past civilization should offer rooms that have specific purposes, like military installments should have barracks, and homes should have bedrooms and dining rooms.

I understand this might seem a tad too much, but the idea should be thrown out there. Hopefully this idea will become a reality.

Definite yes for me on the first and third idea listed here. As for NPCs sneaking that is difficult because while there is a formula to tell the game if an NPC sees you sneaking, the opposite is only based on the player. I don't want an enemy to do 4x damage to me even though I knew he was there, just because he is in a shadow. However if you mean just their AI tells them to hide in shadows and surprise you, with no additional damage than I'm all for it.

As for the OP, I didn't read it all but cave entrances should be akin to WoW instance entrances imo. No door but if you walk into it it loads. That would work fine for me.

1 guy did all the dungeons in oblivion and they already said they have 8 people doing the dungeons all the dungeons will be different so don't complain about it they know what they are doing.

http://i.imgur.com/rrYEf.jpg open entrances

That's what it looked like to me, but it seems too good to be true with all the twitter talk talking about how dungeons are seperate from the gameworld as in previous Elder Scrolls games.

Worst case scenario; the dungeon is a seperate cell that leads to an area with light streaming down (an open top cave). In the Draugr fight you can see little openings in the ceiling where light is coming in, I think this is just a bigger version of that.

Back on Topic: In Morrowind the Daedric Temples where 1/3 outside and 2/3 inside with enemies and items for both. In all the dungeons for Oblivion, they were just little portals to almost a different universe, Bigger entrances for important dungeons would help the transition.

Well there can another way make an dungeon entrances in outdoors thats looks like cave from outside and work like entrances hall but when player go trough it at some point will be loaded dungeon cell, so there will be no doors at all caves. thats even can be done with scripting like in this mod for Oblivion
The Underdark: The Realm Of Northdark
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23153
Thats entrance hall can be guarded or have unique look also.

As long as the doors into all the dungeons are different and each feels unique i will be happy.

FONV took a step in the right direction with their cave exits. i say exits because the entrances were just black holes. the exits however, looked like they were gradually leading to the bright outside (didnt notice how it looked at night as i dont usually go adventuring in the dark). it would have been better if they made the entrances also look like they were gradually leading to a dark interior. still, it was a lot better than the doors on every cave in OB.

My opinion about the caves with doors thing is: It's a game, set in a place that doesn't exist.. with MAGIC! that doesn't exist either... neither do most things in the game, save for bears, mountain lions, and some other real things. So why do caves entrances need to be realistic????? Maybe that's how caves are in Tamriel.. people put doors on them so they can find the entrances easier or something..?? I don't understand why you would want so much realism in a fantasy world.

Not realistic just different and fitting to the universe. I don't want to see the same door everytime I entered a place, small differences go a long way to break monotony.
Don't be condescending.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Oblivion had 1 designer creating 89 dungeons. Skyrim has 8 designers creating 130.

I'm excitied to see what they come up with.

I agree, thanks Pie Guy, hahaha.

As to Lighter9's comments, I don't want more realism in my fantasy game, I want more FANTASY in my Fantasy game, that's the problem. I want a better environment and exploration prior to finding the door in the first place. A door in a hill is just plain simple, it's not fantastic enough.

You went on and on about how the game isn't real, and nothing is real, so I guess the reverse could be asked of you: Why do you want so much fantasy is your REAL world? Go do something real and leave the fantasy to the gamers who can appreciate it, I guess.

Should be possible with no doors, this is how outside is handled.
When you enter the opening the dungeon starts to load and is done loading past a switchback.
Yes if you enter it with a xbox without harddrive you will probably has to stop a bit. I don’t know it’s loading time but on my pc it’s 1-2 seconds.

This would require that the map edition had the option do declare a dungeon under a hill as a separate cell from the hill.
This lead us to a second reason for the door, the dungeon is a separate place so the designers can work without having to think about the outside this simplify the work a lot.

They could make loading zones that are invisible to the player that allow enough time to dump the exterior cell and load the interior cells all without having to actually access a door at all.

Just make a long corridor, for example, with some repetitive tiles and patterns, and as we move forward, coming to the middle, the game senses our direction, dumps the exterior world cells and begins to load the interior cells. All of this, as we continue to wind through a fw more corridors, and finally, we emerge into the dungeon within, never having seen any door at all. If the player should stop in the middle of the corridor and try to navigate back to the outside world again, they are far enough in that by the time they see the way out, it's already been re-loaded back in. In this way, there wouldn't always need to be doors to load in through. But they could make the player feel like the game never transitioned at all, even though it did.

I think that kind of technology has been done before, and I think they could make it work, but i don't know how technological it is, or if it would produce the same boring repetition we've just been talking about before. However, I wish I could just see this idea being tried out, because I wonder if it would work for dungeons in Skyrim.

Didn't Morrowind also have those similar doors to all dungeons as well? And I think there are imps outside some of the dungeons in Oblivion. Besides that, I do agree with the OP. It would be awesome with some variety when it came to the dungeons entrances.

I do think that, looking at the various screenshots and the gameplay trailer, this will most certainly be the case. Oblivion was in many respects quite a generic game and lost a lot of the unique flavour that Morrowind brought to the table. It seems that variety will be back again with a vengeance, and I genuinely believe that exploring Skyrim will be a real edge of your seat experience. Dungeon crawling will never be the same again...

I'd like to see some caves without doors. Hopefully the new engine will allow different kinds of entrances, such as an area which you walk into rather than a door which requires activation. So you see a cave opening, dark an ominous. You walk into the shadow and then get teleported to the next cell, rather than having to actually press a button. If this isn't possible, then maybe something like New Vegas, where they had some more natural looking doors, such as a crack in the wall which could be activated as a door.

Having doors in every cave just makes them too unnatural. I mean, at what point in history did someone decide the caves of Cyrodiil were too drafty, and so went round installing doorways?

[censored] YES! i had this topic a while back but go ahead, you made it more colorful XP.

and yeah, most caves do not have tiny wooden doors on them. this is not Hobbiton! THIS! IS! SKYRIM! [kick into pit of death]

im sure that it has been fixed.
but let me throw in my ideas of how they fixed it.

the Zelda way. you walk into the darkness and the camera zooms out while you change cells.
the Assassins creed way, you use the context sensitive command on [something] and your character performs some animated door opening, climbing, move a rock etc. then you change cells. [lots of games do this, im just making a relevant suggestion.]

that way its less annoying and much more visually entertaining.

[edit] im sorry, the camera stays stationary while link walks away into the dark cave.

look at the concept art of the barrow. its exactly this! an exterior area that you have to work your way down into to get to the entrance.

Yes, I agree that dungeon fits my request, it's the reason I started the thread. It's not that that there won't be cool entrances at all, this picture proves that, but what I am worried about is that this is just an example of really important dungeon to the story, and maybe there are only 5 of those, and the rest of the dungeons will all be doors .. in the side of a hill.

I mean even if they did decide to keep the door idea, why not a ROUND door, or a triangular-interlocking-rotating spinning door (Dwemer), or a very small door you have to crawl through (for short people), or large double-doors, or a very very TALL set of double doors with stone heads carved into them who eyes glow, or a door where you pull a switch on the front and the stones actually animate to slide apart in some complex and terrifying way that shakes the screen ... I mean, they don't HAVE to cut'n'paste everything.

The doors could also have sound effects attached to them, so that when you walk close to it, it begins to 1) whisper strange and cryptic ghostlike words, to create mystery .... 2) roar with the voices of a legion of warriors, to scare you away 3) have a personality, and get into a conversation with you about why you intend to come in, who do you think you are, and do you know the secret password, etc .... a comical door meant to throw you for a loop. Maybe it's all a trick, the door will get really upset if you try to open it, but it can't really do anything the first time. But then he also has a brother that, later in the game, is very powerful indeed, and can push you backwards when you try to open it, or shock you, or breathe fire at you, etc.... to again, throw you for a loop (only for real this time, hahaha).

To continue, some doors could have glowing runes on them, sigils, or glowing lines. Some doors could look like big stone boulders you have to roll out of the way with a Strength check. You click on the boulder, you see your guy try to push on it. If successful, you hear the boulder rolling away as you fade to black. If not, your guy just pushes and pushes for nothing and eventually stops groaning and steps back, winded, dusting his hands.

It's a fantasy game, so why not put some more fantasy elements in it this way?

Again, however, I gave a lot of ideas for doors above. So if they have to use doors again, then fine, there you go for some ideas. But so too it would be nice if you found some ways to overcome the door monotony by having a real facade on your dungeons. For example, in the Dragonlance Novels by Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman, there is a place called Xak Tsaroth, an underground home to a black dragon. The way into the place was a huge giant metal pot that you climb into, which is meant to feed the dragon. The pot is hanging over a giant pit, attached to a roasting spit or a wellhouse. The team actually got into the pit and let the pot lower itself into the dungeon. Why not something more unique, like this?

How about elevator-like contraptions like those seein in the old west, a wooden cage with many ropes tied about it. You climb in, flip the switch, and a set of pulleys with tons of sandbags begin to gently lower you (or raise you, depending) to the dungeon's start location. Maybe the actual dungeon door is set up 50 feet in the side of the cliff? And you have to take the elevator up there to the hole, and then explore back into a cave to fine the door? Or what about the ruins of an ancient jungle-based civilization that is now overgrown with trees, with a lot of ancient temples that are filled with vines and leaves, and whose door can only be found by using your fire spell to burn away all of the foilage hiding it. So you literally travel through all of the ruins burning all the greenery away, uncovering the city as you go. Now wouldn't that be awesome?

Again, just asking for some more preparation or exploration prior to finding the door, if you must have a door at all...