Although I have never posted on this forum I have been a loyal TES fan for many years, having played all games but Arena, loved them all, read all in-game books and so forth. Now, to the point. I hate speculating about gameplay aspects that we barely know anything about, but there is this particular piece of information that somewhat bothers me. According to Todd the game is going to feature 130 dungeons which when visited will be locked to your character's level. Radiant Story on the other hand will generate quests based on where you have been and where you still haven't. Does this mean that if you've visited all dungeons no more quests will be generated? In a sense this would really hurt exploration, since plundering a dungeon just for the sake of it means probably one less Radiant Story quest. Can anyone clarify on this, because honestly, it's really bugging me. I mean, the dungeon locking thing sound like a nice idea to stop the mindless grinding, but over the years Bethesda have shown a tendency to see the faults their past games have and think of a solution that messes things up even worse, like the level scaling in OB or the tiny dungeons in Morrowind.

And while on it, just a couple of other questions - Quest markers? The Game Informer article led me to believe they are absent, but I don't think it has been confirmed or denied. I personally don't really have anything against the IDEA of quest markers, but their implementation in OB was a bit... messed up. Actually that's just another example of a good idea gone somewhat wrong.

And one last - main quest will be 20 hours long? Srsly?! I thought Oblivion's man quest was short, but this just hits the bar. Here's hoping at least the writing will be better this time around.

That's it for now, cheers from the not-so-big, but vocal and supportive Bulgarian community (google it and yes, we do have PCs obviously. And TVs. And curtains.)

It's not one less quest. It just changes the quest destination. If you explore every dungeon before doing some quests then that's you're problem

So this STILL means going in a dungeon without a quest is a bad idea?

My interpretation is that when you enter a dungeon it gets set to your level for balance. If you exit this dungeon and come back when you are 10 levels higher it will still be the level you first entered it.

Now, how this will play will cell respawn I do not know. In a sense, once you visit a dungeon once and clear it, no point in going back. So you can in fact be able to finish the entire game after visiting every location and clearing it.

Not to worry though, expect mods that will change all that. When the modding comunity gets a hold of this you will not be able to recognize Skyrim for what it was after a year, just like Oblivion.

First we'll get the nvde mods
Then the texture packs
Then the UIs
Then deadly reflex
then leveled list overhauls
then sixy armor and clothing (maybe should be higher on list)
etc

I think each dungeon is level scaled in the sense that if you go into some dungeon where the level scale is 10-20 at level 12 then it will be level 12 monster type stuff but If you return at level 25 it will be it's cap at 20

I just hope every quest isn't set in dungeon.

*shudders*

That I got, but visitng dungeons also means missing out on random Radiant Story quests, true or not? I actually never visited a dungeon in either OB or Morrowind a second time EVER, so the dungeon locking I will probably not even notice.

As for the mods - I HATE when people start messing up an otherwise stellar game! I hate it! I want to play the game the devs created, a Fallout that's, y'know, a Fallout, no blue sky and green trees for instance. So I'll miss out on many mods, but damn, I simply can't play Morrowind without Connery's textures, Vurt's grass, MGE, better bodies, heads, the mod that lets you know which skills you've increased since your last leveling up and so forth... In the end of the day I can't play the game without 40+ mods, same goes for OB. God, I LOVE the TES mod community!

It was clearly stated, dungeons lock to YOUR level. The LOCK, they don't SCALE.

LOL, I know what you mean.

I think that's kind of the point of the question, and I don't really know what happens if that's the case. Maybe the game will start sending you to dungeons you explored a long time ago, after all, by then the place would likely have respawned, and if you're quest is to kill an enemy there or find someone who went missing there or something, it can still make sense if you justify it as the dungeon having new residents. Or maybe you just won't get any more Radiant Story quests that involve dungeons, that doesn't mean you can't get other kinds, after all, I doubt all Radiant Story quests send you to a dungeon, Bethesda likely used used that as one example of how Radiant Story works.

As to quest markers, I don't know, I don't think it's been said either way. But I suspect it will be in, as it seems to be the trend in games recently, but I don't know, nothing has really been said on the subject.

As to the length of the main quest, I don't see how you can say 20 hours is too short, that's longer than a lot of standalone games you'll play, and we're talking about just ONE questline here in a game that will also have faction quests and side quests, and in past games too the main quest has only been a small part of the overall game. As long as the rest of the game lasts long enough, I won't complain if the main story is "only" 20 hours.



Then maybe don't download the mods that "mess up" the game? It's not that hard to do, in fact, it's easier to not download them than to download them...

You ARE aware that if you only do the main quest, it doesn't take long at all? Morrowind can be beaten in under ten minutes, and Oblivion under 15. It's all the wandering, exploring, and sidequests that balloon the game time.

I would have thought that if you've explores all dungeons it will still set quests in dungeons after you've explored them all, but 1st priority is setting quests in ones you havnt explored. As for setting enemies that match your strenghs, well if you've explored all dungeons you will be fighting enemies that locked to your level when ever you visited that dungeon, i expect enemies to respawn in dungeons or the level locking to stop level grinding wouldnt make sence, sure there will be some dungeons u have to leave and come back to (too hard) but im sure we wont be doing that in all dungeons. Anyway if my speculation is right there should be endless random quests

Thank you, that's all I needed to know. Or rather, at least I know that nobody knows it. Damn...


FPS maybe, but for a RPG it's short. I don't want a DAO or Witcher, but still, 20 hours...


I don't. I was just expressing my opinion about them, since Peter ID was giving such mods as an example.


By cheating. To do it right you needed significantly more time. And I am in for the story and lore, not the "let's see how I can cheat my way through the main quest". Of course there's another side to it - in Morrowind you couldn't just focus on the main story right from the start and do the whole thing since some quests had reqs you had to meet, while in OB sadly things were a bit different. I hope it will be more like Morrowind, but we'll just have to wait and see.

You can't beat Morrowind in under ten minutes unless you know precisely how to do it, and even then I'd say it takes quite a few tries to reach that kind of lunacy It has nothing to do with *playing* the main quest, figuring everything out etc. Playing the game normally and not overfocusing on the main quest, I think two weeks to two months is a pretty good estimate (depending on *how* much extras you do and how well you develop your character).

I think if you've explored every single dungeon on your own, and you then start doing quests, you'll be sent to dungeons you explored a long time ago.

To explore every dungeon will take a huge amount of time, so it's conceivable in game that things might change over this time, and in real life you probably won't remember the layout too well.

It's fairly easy to solve I would think, just a time flag on when your character last explored a dungeon, and a bit of randomness in which one gets picked.

Actually I'm certain this would have been the first concern raised when the idea came up i.e. "What if we run out of dungeons?" So long as the answer wasn't "Lol, who'd be so crazy as to explore every single dungeon before they even do the quests!?" we'll be ok.

True, but like I said sometimes Beth just have no time to solve even such simple things, their games are always to huge to take everything into account. That said, if it isn't the way you put a mod will quickly fix it. Long live mods!

I can't imagine the radiant quests end once you've explored all the dungeons. Seems to defeat their purpose.

I seriously think bethesda has taken this into account, it's like making a shooter game but leaving the reload weapon option away if they havn't. :confused:

They lock so if you return at level 25 it will be level 12, if you first time visited it will be level 20.

Hehe, 2 ways to save the world from disaster:

1 Follow a series of challenging quests, developing your character to legendary ability, and defeat multiple dragons in single combat

2 Quickly run in and out of every dungeon, thereby grinding the developing crisis to a halt

That wasn't the point of my question.

Tiny dungeons, level scaling, I already gave examples how they sometimes forget. Which, honestly, I don't have that much against, just stating the facts. It is a HUGE game, some details can and will be overlooked.

The OP is not asking about locking levels of dungeons but this.

Radiant Story on the other hand will generate quests based on where you have been and where you still haven't. Does this mean that if you've visited all dungeons no more quests will be generated?

Does Radiant Story stop generating Random Quest?

Exploring every dungeon would be worthwhile IF THEY WERE ALL UNIQUE. In OB, after the first 5 dungeons it is more of the same cells arranged in different order. Easy to know what to expect and gets boring.

Thank you for clarifying that. From the replies though it seems nobody has the answer, so I'll just have to wait and see and bombard Beth with questions at every fan interview. I doubt they post often here, do they? I mean, it's just too crowded