Though Skyrim is on the northern side of Tamriel, it is not more northern than Morrowind.
There is another continent to the north of it.
I dont think its far north enough for perpetual night or day, but I would like it if days werent always 12 hours long, but got longer and shorter depending on season.

On darkness: I liked what other people wrote about this. You have to have a balance between a gameplay preference for darker dungeons compared to others gameplay need to be able to see.
Not everyone has the best hardware or vision and I abhor games that are just a black screen with bits of grey.
Therefore a slider that lets people adjust gamma and also one for level of ambient light would be perfect.
In the vanilla settings there should be lighting similar to Oblivion, where I and many others absolutely required a lightsource.
And then you can adjust the light levels up, or down, from there.

You forgot trueflame...

Absolutely we need this. Why is it light in places where it's supposed to be pitch black? There were plenty of caves that had no torches either but somehow there was still light - but it had no source.

Someone made a mod called "drop torch" or "drop lit torches" or something like that for OB and if you were holding a torch with your weapon sheathed when you yanked out your sword, staff, or whatever you'd drop the torch STILL LIT so you'd be able to see while you fight. I never understood why a torch would magically go out when you dropped it anyway. This was a great idea and a very well done mod.

Bethesda should do something like that along with making the dungeons and nights much darker. On top of a mountain or in the wilderness the nights are extremely dark - can't see your hand in front of your face on a cloudy night when you can't see the moon or starts. They need that.

I agree with the suggestion. I want it to be pitch black in the dungeons unless there is someone who can emit light or has settled there. I want to be able to light the Dungeons by breathing fire ( ;p )
I wouldn't mind some light in open areas but not all unless there are stars or a satellite in the sky.

I guess I'm in the minority group that thinks dark dungeons are annoying. I don't want to have to change the way I play the game just because I went into a dungeon. Keep the game bright, so I can keep both hands filled with weapons instead of torches

Don't want to spoil the mood but, just take a look at the screenshots. Dungeons are bright and there are torches even in zombie infested ruins. So, yeah, you'll have to grab a mod for darker nights and darker dungeons.

The most recent one that has the Draugr shows point light sources. The two Draugr on the left have shadows going off in two different directions. It looks like that room has a light source in the middle of the room.

I can't remember exactly, but I thought I read something about your characters eyes adjusting to light and dark areas. You could enter a dark dungeon, and if you waited a little while, your eyes would get acclimated and you could see better. If you walked out from the dark dungeon into the daylight, things would be very bright for a while. Or I could have just imagined it due to hopeful anticipation .

So, basically you're saying that because you have poor vision, you need brighter flashlights than other people, whenever you're out walking in the dark?

I got -6.5 vision on both eyes and I've never had a problem with light sources.

You are correct, they did say that but it's not exactly new - Fallout 3 had the same system, although in Skyrim it may have been improved.

Darker in dungeons, caves etc. but outside you have moonlight and starlight. There should be more pronounced light differences for weather changes. Brighter on clear nights, darker when it's cloudy/raining etc. Campfire can light up a small area but can also attract enemies. Regardless, I agree there should be more dynamic lighting and it should affect the world around you and the way enemies or creatures react to you. One thing I would like to see is, when I cast starlight on other, I'd like to light up objects as well as people. I don't think I could cast Starlight Other on objects in Oblivion.

not really unless u like weird black stain like stuff everywhere.

and yes darker dungeons and nights was one of the mods I could NOT live without, so hope we don't need it in skyrim

after playing all the thief games, and now playing Amnesia (the scariest game EVER) I would love for darkness to be ...well... dark

indeed

come on give us scarier dungeons while ur at it

zombie infested cave with weird noises all around and BLACKNESS yesss *shivers*

Learn a Light or Night-Eye spell. Ring with permanent Light spell. No torches necessary. :meh:

hehe I agree 1000% I have been into caves AND dungeons in real life, and yes they are PITCH BLACK u can't see squat, they gave great atmosphere and they will do so in the game as well, in fact torches, light spells/staffs (gandalf ). night eye should be a MUST in any dungeon crawl.

Yep. Some means of seeing, anyway- and it's not like anyone can believably claim overbearing hardship like that "must keep weapon in each hand, thus torches shouldn't be needed" because of the number of ways of lighting things. Light and Night-Eye can be obtained from enchanted items, spells, potions- sorry, but there's no valid hardship claim with all the available options, only "I want Diablo II-style permanent lighting everywhere, and don't wanna have to provide visibility myself!"

Yeah... that seems to be the point; out of some "healthy" arguments, more of them against darker dungeons/nights seems to be about that: "I want to see it all, just hack'n'slash anything everywhere". I think it's all about inmersion and plausibility, as said many times before.

The game has its own ways to counteract this so, why should we avoid it?

of course, there's the overbearing hardship of the non-magical stealth rogue. Can't hold an obvious light source while sneaking, can't cast magic.



Meh, I get that some of you are unaccountably enthusiastic about this concept, but the fact of the matter is that very, very, very few games outside the "survival-horror" game genre inflict Dark Darkness on the player.

No, Im saying that not everyone has the same vision ability nor the same hardware.
Im saying that games wich are just a black screen with grey bits are unplayable.
I never said there shouldnt be the need for a lightsource, but I did say that both in Oblivion and Morrowind a lightsource was absolutely essential.
Therefore to turn the game even darker will make it unplayable.

As was said in previous posts, the best thing would be a slider for ambient light levels. On default its Morrowind/ Oblivion darkness. From there you can turn it darker, or brighter.
That would be a perfect way to accomodate both those who want dark for gameplay and those who need light to actually play.

Just making the game darker is not an option.

This is the one thing I know I'm going to absolutely be unwilling to "try out" in a vanilla playthrough before modding. Once the darker nights and dungeons and real lights mods were released for OB, I could NEVER go back to vanilla lighting. Its literally the second most important mod next to the overhaul to remove level-scaling. I'll even risk spoilers to go in there and mod it myself before playing if I must. I can't put into words how much it adds to the game to have actual darkness and light actually having meaning and pushing it back. It would be amazing if they did it for us this time, but I doubt they will so as to be accommodating to a wider audience...

Whereas, if the game came with "dark darkness" like those annoying OB mods, a mod to fix it would be one of the rare few that I would install during my first playthrough. (I try to play the games unmodded once, before going nuts. Oblivion, I didn't - but only because I got the game awhile after it had already been out, and it was widely documented how bad the scaling was.)

I'd love it if in some dungeons, there wasn't any light at all and your torch didn't light up that far! That way, you'd either have to have a nighteye spell, or be incredibly brave to go through the dungeon

I'm not so sure you can call a mod annoying unless it installed itself against your will But personally I find being able to see perfectly clearly where it should be logically pitch dark to be exceedingly annoying. Glows from nowhere, and even real light sources but in caves where no one has been for centuries just burning happily away are both pretty dumb imo.

Yes, but only slight.

My favourite light source will always be the torch. I love the warm glow it gives off from the natural fire and the sound of the wood crackling and the bits of fire, oil and ash that drop off as it gets used up. Something to be said about skulking through the darkness holding your torch out in front of you and squinting through the dark silence watching to see if anything moves. The best is when the torch goes out and you're left in pitch blackness...poof! That, to me, is awesome and gives you goosebumps, especially if you've run out of torches and have no other light source. You don't know if you're going to set off a trap or bump into some creature while you're stumbling through the dark. My point on this is I agree that certain things should just be dark and require a valid light source to see things properly. I play on console and find myself cheating at times with the brightness slider. The darkness turns into grey and I can totally see everything without a spell or other light source. I really don't think the game was meant to be played that way. I also think they need more video options on consoles instead of just a brightness slider. I know I can control a lot of settings with my TV but the same could be said about a computer monitor.

Anyway, give me truer darkness/light effects and allow me to equip my torch in one hand and use it both as a light source and as a weapon and I'd be a happy camper.

EDIT: Imagine dual-torch wielding, that would be even better. You'd get more light and be able to set your enemies on fire! :flamethrower:

They should add an option for ambient lighting (toggle on/off). I don't think it would be too hard to program something like that.