One of the things that irked me, one of very few actually, about oblivion was one of atmosphere. Many of my posts have been about this, and its sometimes hard to put into words what feels lacking. Today I realized part of it: The night is gone! While it makes more sense to play the city portions in normal sleep-wake cycles, it means you spend most of your time playing in the sunlight. In Morrowind i'd often purposely wait until night to do my wanderings, because of how wonderous the land looked and the clear sky looked. The weather in game wasnt meaningful for in-game events, but for me it had feeling! I would often rest several days in a row to get rid of overcast and such so I can get a clear night sky as I walk. I even made a mod to remove things like dust storms, but eventually replaced it with one that just makes clear skies more frequent.

So, basically..Id have absolutely no problem if a bit of real-world believability would be put on the side to allow for full day and night play. Or, alternatively, a significantly increased number of 24 hour establishments, not just Inns.

it would be cool if they included an option to switch between in game time and real time...

so if you wanted night to last longer you could.

Far cry 2 had a pretty good day/night cycle.

A real time day/night cycle won't work because some people can only play at night, some can only play at day.

A longer day/night cycle would be fine. As far as 24 hr shops, it doesn't fit as there are no 7-11's in Tamriel. The only thing that should be open 24/7 are inns.

erm.. the night sky in Oblivion is beautiful. Yeah.

This.

I found it to be far too bright at night time in Oblivion. Visibility was just about as good as during the day, albeit it a tad darker.

Perhaps just my PC though.

I like the night sky in Oblivion :wink_smile:

Well, I have to agree with darker nights; after playing New vegas and discovering that 12 at night is brighter than 12 at noon, the first thing I did was search for a mod that made darker nights.

I sort of agree with both of these statements. I did find the nightsky beautiful, as was the lovely clear days. However they didn't feel realistically dark. Beauty seemed more important than realism in this case. The weather itself felt a tad weak on this point. It was a little too rare that the rain actually "felt" wet. A dark forest or road didn't feel scary as you could see rather far away anyway and didn't have to be any more worried about being attacked as you were during the day. I remember moments in both games when I could feel how the rain poured down and you just wanted to find a warm comfy in-game house to get into.

Thunderstorms also felt too one-formed, atleast in Oblivion, it was a while since I last played Morrowind, and I don't remember much about the weatherchanges.

Again, in Oblivion, did anyone else feel like the weather could randomly change rather quickly if you went into a house/dungeon and then outside again? And not just from, for example, a rainfall to just cloudy, but from rain to sunshine.

Yeah, darker nights and dungeons too. Especially the deep ones. Some may have natural openings to the world outside, letting in light causing light bouncing around.
Personally I prefer 100% realistic real time. I could live with partly slowed down, but I have a problem with the super speed of today.
Automated travel (DF), with camping etc, should have a high impact on travel time, and nowhere near what we can get from real time travel.
Travel services (MW), doesn't have camping, so should have less impact on travel time, but harder to use in its very nature.
Be gone with todays fast travel.

I also want seasons. This is far north, so at summer we could enjoy a sun that never sets and at winter very short days. Depending on latitude.
Yeah, season based weather too, depending on season and location.

...and Fences, and Skooma Dealers... it's the nature of those businesses.

Exactly...maybe one or two shady stores, like ones that sell alchemy equipment (with a sideline in necromantic supplies) etc. Or maybe some shady dude you meet at a bar who'd sell you some smuggled weapons or something. In MW, they mention Dwemer items being illegal, but it never affected the game except in for a few quests.

You do realize the game will have a wait feature? If anything people can wait till dawn and play during the day, or wait till night time.

in oblivion you could use console commands to make the time scale closer to real time

I'd like to see dungeons and caves much, much darker (than Oblivion). I had to use a mod on Oblivion to get the game darker. Also, nights were far to bright and often quite boring, as there was nothing going on. There should have been undead wandering around at night (anyone remember Zelda: Ocarina of Time? As a child, skeletons would wander the night)

How can anyone disagree that the night sky in Oblivion was beautiful?

Altough it's only a game, although the sky was just pixels on my tv screen, there was something so mystical and atmospheric about it all. It relaxes you, and especially with Obvlivions excellent soundtrack. It allows you to escape your mortal self , enter the game and experience it first hand.

The title of this thread sounds like a song.

I had no problem with the night in Oblivion. I liked that most ppl were in their homes in the local inn/tavern at night. I think it would be cool to see a little bit more of the underbelly of Skyrim come out to play at night. Whether that means some npc's lurking in ally-ways looking to rob another npc or the player. Or some shady dealings for skooma or other illegal items, that would add some life. I would also like to see some variations in how dark night is, when it's overcast or there is no moon it should be very very dark out. But when the sky is clear an the moon is full it should be brighter, and the land should have a white glow. If you're in a snowy terrain and there's a full moon the landscape should be quite bright, not day time, but you'd be able to see quite well.

I play Oblivion with a darker nights mod. And I use a mod that makes dungeons completely dark, except for where there are actual light sources. When I come across torches, I collect them, because I know I will need them. Torches and light spells in vanilla Oblivion were useful as only decoration it seems, because it was just as easy to see at night as it was during the day, even in the deepest cave.

Well there isn't NOW, but what's wrong with having some?

I found Oblivion to have a beautiful night sky... Shivering Island's sky was even better!

I rarely played at night though, I would always sleep/wait until 4/5 am to wander around. I'm not fond of the night and I guess I used to be scared encountering zombies/ghosts!

I actually like what Bethesda did with Oblivion in this regard and "removed" the night. If it gets late in Oblivion, people go to bed and the store closes and so on, and I feel kinda a need to go to bed too, so I can go shopping in the morning or whatever. Same in Daggerfall, always rented a room in a tavern and slept thru the nights.

In Morrowind there was no such thing, everyone were awake and stood at the same spot 24/7, so there was never any point in sleeping.

That said, the Morrowind night sky is indeed very impressive, and I think it remained to be the prettiest game sky for many years. Which is rather impressive too.

The Shivering Isles were fantastic at night.