I know Todd Howard said there would be about 130 dungeons. Does that count caves, mines and other things? If it does that is a significantly smaller amount than Oblvion. For instance Oblivion had 50 forts, 50 ruins, roughly 90 caves, 25 mines, 32 camps, 31 settlements, 16 inns and stables and 15 shrines....not to mention the cities.

I am hoping that numbers does not include caves and mines. What do others think?

Probably, but here's the good part. They're all hand made.

remember that after going in a few caves and forts in oblivion you just saw the same thing over and over...quality > quantity.

I doubt the 130 number includes things like camps, settlements, inns, etc. Probably just including things like forts, ruins, caves, mines.

Just speculation of course.

By 8 people as well. Not just one.

Oblivion had a single person working on all ~200 dungeons. Skyrim has eight working on the 130. Todd Howard said that they want dungeons to be unique and not the repetitive copypaste dungeons that were in Oblivion. The number's smaller, but the quality is going to be better.

Also, if you explored all ~200 dungeons in Oblivion, you have WAY too much time on your hands.

I'm just hoping for any dungeon that I haven't found yet, does not appear on my compass. That's all I ask.

Yeah hand made....
So it seems we have a choice a sofia choice:

A reasonalbe number of dull and repetitive dungeons or
A small, insuficuent number of hand made dungeons.

This last statement can be removed if there is some epic dungeons.

BUTTTTTT

on the brighter side, 130 dungeons, real one gives a great headstart for modders to kick in, so all is well.

130 dungeons is a GOOD thing. For two reasons.

1) They are more unique because of it. I'd say very very unique.

2) The world won't feel as cramped up as with Oblivion which had over 200 dungeons. The world feeling cramped up is a horrible feeling. Almost wherever you went in Oblivion, there was a dungeon like 20-30 secs away from you. That svcked very much.
The world size is approximately the same as Oblivion, perhaps even smaller, which is pretty bad I'd say. I'd much much more prefer the world being double the size of Oblivion, and then have locations and such more spread out.
Anyway, not much you can do about that now... so it's a good thing there are only 130 dungeons. A very good thing.

How exactly is 130 dungeons small and insufficient?

I wager that camps, settlement, inns and shrines don't count toward that number.

It probably does include mines and caves though, but I hope they make them make sense, like there was like 1 mine in oblivion where any mining was supposedly taking place (the one with the ogre slaves) and that was it. Why are there so many abandoned mines and why are there no working mines? As long as the caves and mines don't make up a large amount of the dungeons and they are more unique and worthwhile to explore I don't see it as being a problem.

What is the difference between a cave and a mine in Oblivion? I can recognize the difference between a cave, ruin and fort but what differentiates a cave from a mine?

Yeah, it just (seems) like there will be a lot less to do. This is of course just an assumption but if the games tries to make sure you never visit the same dungeon twice and tried to send you to ones you have not been yet it seems like there will be less content then Oblivion.

The mines had the occasional ore node where you could loot gold or silver nuggets, that was about the only difference aside from some very minor tileset changes.

I agree. For a map of the size of Oblivion I think 50 dungeons would have been perfect, so the world doesn't feel cramped. In Oblivion you don't search or discover dungeons, they bump into you.

It's not.

I havent even decided to explore 5 dungouns by myself in Oblivion, and I have spent hours and hours on it.
So for me it doesnt really matter

LOL that is what I was wondering. 130 sounds like a lot to me.

I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a village or inn being called a dungeon. The 130 dungeons refers to caves/mines/tombs/ruins/whathaveyou. There will be plenty of settlements and the like as well.

Just think of all the caves/dungeons that will be spread out in the mountains. This will leave a lot of room on the flat land for some other caves and settlements but more importantly they should be spread out much better.

I can see you point about quality over quantity. My only concern is really content.....I want to be able to sink hundreds of hours into this game. Not that I don't think it will happen but with 130 dungeons......I have a little concern that the game will not occupy as much as my time as I would like it to.

Can some tweet Pete and ask him if the content/time put into Skyrim will be comparable to the other games?

Sure, there were more dungeons in OB then there will be in Skyrim. But the copy and past dungeons in OB made almost every single one the same. You can cut the 200 down to maybe 50.

Keep in mind that a good number of the dungeons will probably be longer too thanks to the larger team working on them. If at least some of the dungeons are as good as the one from the Mehrunes Razor DLC, I'll be happy.

I'd rather have 130 unique, hand crafted "dungeons" over 200 extremely similar dungeons that are nothing but generic duplicates of the ones I've already cleared.
Oblivion had 1 level designer.
Skyrim has 8.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how this turns out ingame.