Them damn dirty rainbows killed my family and framed me for their murder....

I'm already hoping this is the direction they're going in. Just from the teaser trailor and new logo design it seems Bethesda are going down a darker path with Skyrim, though I'd hate for them to over do it. The Beowulf feel is all well and good, but sometimes that "homely" feel adds to the atmosphere of a specific town/place,

I want it to be dark, moody, and foggy, with moody and foreboding music and occasional spooky distant calls from local wild life and other environmental effects like lightning striking a tree and the resulting fire, thunder clouds forming and moving around the sky, devastating tornadoes, avalanches, and the like.

I want to see the outline of something huge on the horizon, above the ground fog, and when going near to investigate, I find out the hard way that it was a dragon or another huge monster, and have to run for my life into a narrow valley or cavern, and so on...

I want to be able to climb trees and wait for my prey to pelt with arrows, so no speed tree please, I miss those huge mushrooms.

I want to feel to the core of my being, that the world that I am inside, is not like anything that I have experienced before, and look around in awe, and be on my toe, and look around for the probable cause of death, as I warily sneak around.

I want to jump out of my trousers as I hear the boom boom of the foot steps of something huge approaching me in the fog, and the epic sound of its hoarse breathing like the rumbling of a volcano, and be forced to look around for a cover.

I want to hear the distant echoes of the sounds of the epic battle between two monstrosities in the mountain range and guess that if I go ahead, I might reach a scene that would not prove to be good for my health.

I want to see the light of my lantern reflected in the eyes of the critters that hang from the tree branches as I pass through the trees of the forest, and the shadow of the trees stretched on the ground and moving as I pass them with that lantern in hand, and the occasional distant calls of wolves or maybe ware-wolves.

I want to be fully submerged into a believable but unfamiliar environment of the alternate world called Skyrim.

Or, better yet, levitation

Maybe one? for me?

Bright happy days, dark gritty nights. Ya'll know that Hannah Montana song... "you get the besssstttt off both worlddsss!" :wink_smile:

I'm going to go eat a bullet now haha

A few happy days would be nice, but having every single day a bright, happy, and wonderful sunny day is just bleh.

keyword: balanced not to dark not to bright,

The reason I loved Oblivion so much is because of the beautifull environments. More dynamic weather would be an improvement. When you enter a dungeon it should feel scary and dark yes. But when you return into the wild to explore the environments it shouldn't be dark, just immersive and beautifull tbh.

That would actually be boring :snoring:
Like when you complete a dangerous dungeon you see a sunlight trough the shadows, you finally crawl out of the darkness and it feels so refreshing. Instead of, ok... i'm out of the dungeon whateveh. :biggrin:

Indeed, I should have specified I didn't want the game to be all dark dark dark dark dark dark. I just want it to be more dark than Oblivion. Oblivion was light light light light light cheery happy bright light more light. I just want Skyrim to be darker than Oblivion. If the could balance light and dark, that'd be great.

Well put. I recall a moment in Fallout 3 where I was trapped in some corner of a dark building, with my back to the wall because some monstrosity closing in on me just wont die. And I had a loaded shotgun and ten grenades.

Events like that, or rounding a corner to catch your first sight of a creature that can literally one-hit kill you (like my first encounter with a deathclaw), have proven to be very memorable. Fallout 3 gave me a reason to be very wary whenever I tread off the beaten path. I don't really recall any of that in Oblivion, because of the level-scaling and the fact that the creatures didn't look that threatening. (The one time I currently remember getting scared was during a Fighter's Guild quest, where I was sent into a cave full of those lightning-fast trolls.)

In other words, I'm hoping that Skyrim will immerse me even more than Fallout 3 did when I first played it.

In addition to darker and more threatening environments, I would also like more threatening creatures (both appearance and damage they do, this means no more level scaling which is a different topic completely). I hope they bring back some of the creatures that were in past TES games that got cut from Oblivion.

Yes the first encounter with a death claw is always a memorable if shocking moment.

And when I wrote about my wishes for those fearsome and huge monsters, I did not mean that I wanted them all over the world, but the world should be divided into different areas with different mood and difficulty level.

So there should be newbie areas that are not moody at all, if a bit dark and wintry, but the more dangerous an area becomes the more it should show in the mood of the place and the epic environmental effect that would happen, so if you hear a really dark and moody music, and see a devastating tornado tearing a country side apart, then you should be aware that you are not here for a picnic and some great dangers are ahead.

You read my mind. This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking

Yeah I'd like a darker tone. To me music is where a settings tone really lies, so a bit darker and more somber music would be great.

Just a bit, not too much.

Dark tone... maybe. But absolutely not everywhere. I think there should be some "darker" areas. Note too dark areas though, although they should give you the notion that this maybe isn't that safe...

It would be nice if at least one city had a "darker" theme. I think it's important to also have lots of nice, beautiful environments. If everything is just dark and critty the game becomes boring.

The keyword is balance.

Cyrodill was bright and cheery to make a more dramatic shift to haunted ruins, plains of Oblivion, other dungeons, etc... I thought the effect was fantastic, it was very eerie and not at all inviting the first time I approached an Oblivion gate. I just loved that feeling I got when the gate effects kicked in. You're walking around a peaceful field with a beautiful view of the countryside, and then from nowhere you hear thunder and realize the world around you is becoming a hellish nightmare. It's good to have a variety of environments and tones to a game like this. bliviongate:

I respectfully disagree, I felt like even near an oblivion gate the game seemed too bright. Sure the colors change and the sky gets red, but the game is bright and cartoony. But that's just me I suppose :shrug:

Just remember...Bethesda is a buisiness (my favorite one!), and wants to make a huge profit, which they will of course, regardless, and will probably want to keep it at PG...even though the majority of us (including me) want it darker and more satanic.

This and more fantasy themed creatures are a must for Skyrim to feel like its own world again. Not only did Oblivion do away with Cyrodiil's supposed jungles, its flora and fauna all felt like it could be found in medieval England.

Why would they keep it PG when it's rated M? o.O

I have to agree that Oblivion didn't feel dark and moody even within Dagon's realm. It was just too bright and colorful.

Now I'm not saying that Skyrim should be nothing but a dreary tundra; I mean, just go to google images and type 'Alaskan tundra', and you'll find some pretty stunning photos. What I'm saying is that there should be a balance: a dreary-looking landscape during a snowstorm may look like something else entirely with a cloudless blue sky. And I'm not talking about that weird super-blue sky they gave us in Fallout: Operation Anchorage.

It was the Bloom. It makes even Dremora look like Teletubbies.

More seriously, yes, I'd vote for the idea.

I love darker themes in games, I voted YES!