Daggerfall dungeons are cool because of their size for the first couple of times, but then after playing through a couple of them they get boring, long, and repetitive. I vote for Oblivion sized dungeons but with way more variety.

Who besides me is in for Arena Dungeons? They were real horror-show :chaos:

Here is my two cents: I would prefer unique dungeons rather than large ones, oblivion had about five sorta 'skins' for dungeons (cave, alleyid ruins, sewers, oblivion, and forts), that they just sorta repeated several times, and once you got used to these looks, dungeon delving became a chore. I would like to see every dungeon feel unique, which would of course mean fewer dungeons, which would of course mean larger dungeons. Bethesda did a good job with Oblivion, but some more creativity to a fantasy universe never hurt

I say medium and a few smaller hand crafted dungeons. And 2 or 3 gigantic (Daggerfall size) dungeons which will needed to be visited several different times for different reasons.

I would like to get lost in a dungeon only if I can cast mark at the door so I can recall to it.

Of all the ES games, I liked the dungeons in Daggerfall least. I got so tired of being in the same place for hours on end trying to find one small randomly placed item in a very huge dungeon.

I didnt care for oblivion's dungeons much, mostly cause they were all built from the same stock components and had very little in the way of uniqueness. I still remember finding indy's skeleton in a tomb at Azura's coast in Morrowind. Little easter eggs like that are gold to me.

Oblivion did them right but they needed to add more variety to them, for instance having mordern forts or ruined castles would have been welcome. Ayelid ruins as dungeons made sense as in what else could be a dungeon in a civilized Cyrodiil? Forts also made sense and mines made sense too. Caves didn't make sense all the time, you'd figure that someone would have done something or cleared some of them out before you did after all the centuries and years.

The Ayelid ruins should have had more markers, were they forts, treasuries, cities, houses of the ancient Ayelids? A few more markers would have added that touch of authenticity that makes a great dungeon. I like Zelda dungeons for their excitement but outside of Majora's Mask's dungeons and Water Temple from OOT most of the dungeons in those games don't make much sense. A game like Darksiders was able to balance authenticity and excitement with their dungeons.

Skyrim will have dungeons that make sense in their context, that's the major factor in making dungeons.

My two septims:

Daggerfall had HORRIBLE dungeons. Just awful dungeons. I hated getting lost in some stupid dungeon on my very first quest. Yes I am referring to the Privateer's Hold and even most level 1 guild missions.

The game beat the very soul out of me.....but Oblivion did it right. Mines, Caves, Ayleid Ruins and Forts had at least 2, often 3 or more well-spaced out individual levels that you could dive into when walking from town to town, complete in around half an hour or more and then get back on the road, sell your loot and keep going. Oblivion kept things fresh and I never got dizzy or lost or had to resort to cheats to find things.

Oblivion did it right, so that's my vote.

A few huge dungeons would be cool, but in general they could get quite repetitive.

I agree each dungeon should be a unique for example how often are you going to find two things exactly the same never, I would like to see each place different some with a story exclusive to the cave fort or ruin, I think the dungeons shouild be hand crafted for overall depth instead of a computer program setting up preset tile sets...

While having huge dungeons may seem like a great idea, it was just too big in Daggerfall. I got lost too much. Maybe the problem is that I couldn't find myself to easily on the maps. So to have a huge dungeon, we really need a good map to give us a sense of direction and know where I am. Daggerfall trying to be in 3D was a good idea, but poorly implemented, I got lost too much and could never make heads or tails. I think Morrowind got it done right, been so long I can't rememeber. I didn't care for Oblivions or Fallout 3, because for instance if it was like a stair case, I was saying, I am the [censored] there, why am I staring at a wall. Problem was I was above or below it, so we need a better map to guide us through these dungeons.

While I did love Oblivion, I hated the Forts and Ayleid ruins. They are basically the same things, over and over and over and over and over and over again.
ADD VARIETY, Bethesda! That's all I have to say.

I dont like the options.


A good game has variety. A wide range from very small to very large is good. I dont want too many big dungeons though, because you need to keep going in and out to get all the damn loot and stuff--plus think of all the health potions, repair hammers, etc... it takes to make that kind of venture. I want a few, but not too many.


I would like to see some dungeons with large interiors though--giving a grandiose underground look---Underpall Cave (underground lake), Arkved'sTower (giant chasm), Mehrune's Razor dungeon (huge open areas and "cities" underground.

Also, some more variety. More "puzzle dungeons" like "through a nightmare darkly", and a few just awesome looking ones like Arkved's Tower I already mentioned.


And just to change things up---why not a few ABOVE-GROUND dungeons (i know, a paradox!). Like old castles or secluded forts and such, that would be cool.

I loved the size of Daggerfall's dungeons! They were so big and you could get lost very easily, which is how it would probably happen in real life. It's so fun to get lost in those dungeons! So I hope they hand craft a couple that are like Daggerfall's where they had levers and teleporters and mazes and stuff, or even labyrinth type dungeons. No random generated ones, though.

Areas related to quests should (and probably will) be made by hand. Other than that I would love to see a bunch of randomly generated caves. They could be called plain things like, well, cave or cavern depending on their size. Maybe you could name them yourself, like "grahl treasure cave" or " terrifying chasm of Hell."

But my gold is on hand made places making another appearance. And that isn't a bad thing.

I would love to see a huge abandoned castle somewhere on a valley or on a mountain that it has a huge maze in it

I'd like a mix. Maybe like 10 dungeons that are truly epic, and hand-crafted, with unique atmospheres and histories, maybe even unique creatures, and some VERY powerful bosses. The kind of thing that you have to train hard to clear, and be very tactical, that would require a few hours to explore.

Then I'd like dozens of other dungeons in the mold of Oblivion's. Handcrafted, one to four zones, a bit more standard in general, but each with a somewhat unique vibe if possible.

On top of those, I wouldn't mind some dungeons that were generated randomly or built with procedural tech, but personally that's my least preferable option. I wouldn't mind a slight reduction in content in certain other areas if we got some truly amazing dungeons that begged to be explored time and again.

The minute someone brings up real life is the minute I feel I should bring up that Daggerfall's dungeons were nonsensical labyrinths. For what purpose would those things be built in real life?

1 massive, randomly generated dungeon that goes on for infinity.....

Quest dungeons being hand-made was a good idea

Have a few large and medium size random dungeons too.

Randomly generated dungeons would be horrible, I want the dungeons to make some sort of sense. The dungeons in Daggerfall never did, and I hated the fact that when I went into a castle there would be nothing but corridors.

Out of the TES games I think that Oblivion had the best dungeons, larger than the tiny Morrowind dungeons, had some neat traps and weren't full of of stupid random corridors. That said, more improvements can be done to the Oblivion dungeons as well, so I hope we see better dungeons in Skyrim.

Some above-ground dungeons would certainly be something I hope to see. I feel it's long overdue. I want to find a castle that feels like a castle... or a ruined settlement that feels like a ruined settlement. In Arena and Daggerfall, the dungeons were just mazes, really, in Morrowind, Dwemer ruins felt like factories, and in Oblivion, Ayleid ruins felt like catacombs. Fallout 3, on the other hand...

My conclusion in short:

Fewer, but more unique hand crafted dungeons with much bigger variety of themes.

+ maybe a few randomly generated but with specific themes. Since its random, there could be only one of each type and it'd still give infinite possibilities... although i highly doubt we'll see a random dungeon in this time and age unless they are using the doom engine for skyrim lol. Its near impossible to make something made up of random "puzzlepieces" appealing in a modern 3d engine. So this is just a theoretical discussion.

Who? The Dungeon Dimension births it's children onto unsuspecting realms.
Why? The Dungeon feeds on your terror, your helplessness and your bloody corpse.

Yeah, above ground "dungeons" would be awesome, maybe with multiple entrances so the player can use holes in the wall/ceiling to make a sneaky entrance. Same could be applied to caves, there could be large spaces with a collapsed ceilings flooding the room with light and stuff (provided terrain isn't done the same as in Morrowind and Oblivion).

Edit:

Does that mean they're supposed to svck?

Except I hate the usage of the word "hell" in TES, since hell is a christian thing and Earth religions are non-existent in TES universe. The word "hell" was used in TESII though, when NPCs would say "What the hell do you want, %PC?!" But I don't think much thought was put into that when they were adding that line of text. But that's getting off topic.

Daggerfall's dungeons were awesome. Sure, they made no sense, but they're the only dungeon/cave in any game where I actually felt lost, and where I felt proud of finding my objective and then exiting (I exited using magic anyway). You pansies! I did however dislike the fact that a castle didn't look always like a castle when you enter it etc, but then again it was a 1996 game.