I've been thinking about a way to make Skyrim feel more realistic and I thought it'd be interesting if nighttime and daytime felt significantly different. Rather than just being slightly darker, perhaps night in Skyrim could be dangerous.

There are a few ways this could be implemented:

-Nocturnal creatures: irl, night brings out some dangerous predators. Maybe in Skyrim, giant spiders venture out of the caves at night, or maybe wolves are more prone to hunt.

-Nocturnal NPCs: I'd like to see werewolves and vampires as extremely dangerous foes, coming out only at night. If you travel during the day, you know you're safe, but if you get caught in the wilderness at night, you run a serious risk of getting attacked.

-Fast travel: In order to make getting caught in the wilderness at night feel like an actual danger, you shouldn't be able to click on a magic map and safely transport to a town or inn. It'd be interesting if you had to plan your travels to avoid getting caught in the wilderness at night or run the risk of facing increased danger.

-Criminals: This could be implemented not just in the wilderness, but also in the towns and cities. NIghttime should increase the chances of falling victim to muggings and the like.

-Darkness: If you've ever been out in a forest at night, far away from city light, you know that it can get pitch black: so dark that you'd run into trees without a light source. I think on certain nights, perhaps when the moon isn't out or there's a lot of cloud cover, you should need a torch to see where you're going. Imagine walking through a forest in the dark and being able to hear a creature follow you through the trees, but not be able to see it until it pounces It could add a ton of excitement to otherwise uneventful travel.

What do you think?

I like most of these Suggestions here

Agree to all; sounds pretty good.

Truly dark nights, in mass market video games, died with Everquest. People want to be able to sit on their couch in a fully sunlit room and still play. They always want to be the person that gets the drop on the enemy. They don't like it when enemies get the drop on them, unless that is the whole point of the game.

Good point. I'm not a console gamer, so I didn't think about lighting problems with darkness. On the other hand, I found the caves and forts in Oblivion to be dark enough that I would regularly use a torch. That apparently worked for console gamers. Maybe it was just my settings.


This is too bad. Skyrim is a hostile and dangerous world. It should feel like it. Sometimes you should spot the enemy first and sometimes the enemy should spot you first. I'd love to have to constantly worry about getting stalked through a forest or cave: always listening for footsteps behind me and constantly having to look over my shoulder to see if anyone's there D:

I can't provide a straight quote, but I've read somewhere NPCs have separate day and night schedules and routines.

That's good, but besides shops being closed, I'm not sure how it would really affect the player. I'm hoping they extend that idea to really change the overall atmosphere of night and day.

Great ideas. I hope at least some of these have been discussed by the Bethesda dudes already.



I'd especially like to see these. Undead in particular -- skeleton warriors and whatnot -- might be almost universally nocturnal, perhaps bursting up out of the earth of graveyards and lonely hills once the sun sets.

I like the idea of things being significantly different at night. Although, I don't like having dangerous creatures that only come out at night because it reminds me too much of Minecraft *shudder*.

Yes.jpg

I almost completely agree. What I don't agree on is the pitch dark. This is a game so it doesn't need to be that realistic. That would just frustrate me if I can't see at night even if it's only sometimes.

No. Pitch blackness is good.
I'm tired of every game I play having fully lit nights.
-Atleast- cut the view distance down by 4/5 or something.

Edit: It would also make sneaking at night -much- more natural.

Castlevania!

Ive played games a long time. Does anyone else remember castlevania 1 for nintendo 8 bit?
The music change between day and night, and then the undead came out.
Awesome.

Yes, why not?
Some creatures are nocturnal and would only come out at night.
I think it would be great if nighttime was more dangerous.
In Daggerfall the city of Daggerfall was haunted at night at the start of the game, and those wraiths could kill you.
Inns were a good idea to rest in until dawn.

Id think that in major cities guards and the like would keep things safe, unless quest related as in Daggerfall.
But in the wilds or small villages, more dangerous at night, yes please.

edit: about darkness. You have to account for the fact that not everyone has 20/20 vision or perfect hardware. You have to allow the lowest scale of sight to be able to see in a game.
I bought silent hill: homecoming, its sat on my shelf half a year now. I literally cant play it.
Its too dark, I cant see.
A game is no fun if its just a black and grey screen (to my eyes) and I have to go on sound to tell.. whoops im dead.
In oblivion I absolutely needed a torch or spell in a dungeon. No ifs or buts, without one I simply had to navigate by minimap.
Thats the level of darkness, no more.

Good suggestions, but I'm not sure about disabled fast-travel. Maybe you could have a high chance of being attacked when fast traveling at night instead.

I'd like some different music, or silence at night.

That would require you to use a torch or a lamplight/lantern in one hand. No dual wielding then. Greater tactical variety (or you could drop the light source somewhere in exchange for limited visibility)

Oh yes. I meant to include this. As long as it doesn't negate the risk of getting caught out at night.

Yes.gif

How about like DQVIII?

I agree with all of these ideas, accept blocking fast travel - although I personally hate fast travel and never use it, I think that should be more the players choice. However, changing aspects of the game depending on time is a great idea, and it wouldn't be to hard for devs to implement those changes; even something as small as a change in music depending on the time of day can have huge effects on the general atmosphere of the game.
A change in stats would be a good idea too, for example, night should provide bonuses to skills like pickpocketing and sneaking, while making it harder to do other things. Furthermore, at night, gaurds should be less weary of minor crimes as they'd be less likely to notice them (and too busy dealing with the drunkards and prosttutes roaming the streets in the night, but NPC crime is another topic entirely), unless of course somebody is shouting for help.
That's just my two cents on the matter, but this is definitely a thread that I'll be keeping an eye on.

Bravo! Great idea that totally makes sense and bribgs greater depth to the game.

This idea is great. If not in vanilla, somebody make it a mod asap. Thumbs up to you sir (or lady).

I like these suggestions.

I hope it's in vanilla, though. It's really too good -not- to be.

Hear Hear.
This is a top notch thread. One can but hope Bethesda has already implemented some of these light bulb moments!

:biggrin:

I like a lot of your ideas. Another thng i would like is a variety of sounds in the night. I want it to be scary as i walk thru the forests at night. There are some great mods for Oblivion that adjust the darkness and adds a variety of different sounds at night. It can get quite spooky.