I've been toying with the idea of a dungeon overhaul for a while now and was interested in hearing what other people thought about the idea.

Would you like a modest extension to every dungeon in vanilla OB or a large extension to only a few?

Do you want a quest/story attached to the dungeon or do you just want a good dungeon crawl?

Do you want to see something completely different from vanilla dungeons (eg. custom textures, meshes, creatures, etc., bearing in mind that that will slow down development significantly) or would it just be nice if the dungeons were a little larger and a little more interesting but using vanilla resources?

Are there some things you don't want touched and other things that need to be touched?

What kind of compatibility issues do you foresee arising from a dungeon overhaul?

Do you like darker dungeons or dungeons with vanilla lighting (and a choice between them)?

What dungeons are most in need of an overhaul?

Please feel free to share your thoughts while I'm still in the early developmental stages of the concept.

1 or 2 really big dungeons - mainly because when I get the urge to dungeon dive, I want to be in there for awhile and feel like it's a real sprawling dungeon area and not some hole in a rock.

Definitely needs some sort of quest that explains why the dungeons are being expanded.

Minimal changes to the vanilla dungeons, expanding further with load doors. Prevents boatloads of compatibility issues with other mods that use the vanilla dungeons.

As much custom stuff as you can squeeze in reasonably. Meshes, retextured pieces, custom creature and loot lists. Not particularly worried about compatibility with CDEP, though I really don't see why this couldn't end up as an unofficial member of the project.

Derelict Mine seems like a good first location. Sideways Cave is already awesome, and Fort Nikel is already pretty unique with the staged fight.

Size: I like variety. Some dungeons can be rather small (as long as there is something to do), others can be very large.

Quests: Well if it's challenging to get through a dungeon, there should be a reason to persevere instead of simply turning back. Getting trapped somewhere and having to figure a way out can also be a quest.

Changes: I say select the most boring and dispassionate dungeons and overhaul them entirely. Adding on, I admit, would enhance compatability, but patches can be made for that. The vanilla dungeons are so repetive that if you were to go through a door and things suddenly got good it would be most noticable and immersion breaking. You would know exactly which part was a mod and which was not.

Additional Features: Compatability with CDEP shouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't worry about too many custom leveled lists either, but the odd interesting item or creature might be nice.

Which dungeons: Fort Nikel, yes. Why is it being raided, anyway? Why can't you interact with enemy NPCs any other way than to kill them? Derelict Mine, definitely. You could make it actually look and feel like an old mine. Let me suggest also Kingscrest Cavern. That one's close to the Morrowind Border and you could reasonably even do some Dwemer theme if you find that interesting.

If you would ever consider anything that's already a quest location I would recommend Echo Cave. It would be tricky to preserve compatability with the various Mannimarco mods so you might not be able to throw out the entire dungeon. I just have to mention it because I HATE Echo Cave.

The biggest priorities to me would be making it look different (example: the clever use of statics to simulate a custom tileset in Adense Epic Dungeon), and adding interesting puzzles (not riddles). One reason I am so fond of Nehrim is they really got the puzzles right. It never really feels like the game is telling you "and now for a puzzle". The puzzles you run into are in fact very easy. Puzzles in a video game don't need to be hard to be fun, and in fact usually making it too hard makes it less fun. What a puzzle should do is make you take your mind off of autopilot and apply a little logic to the situation. Instead of just stepping on the nearest switch and whacking things with a sword, the player should have to pay attention and use a little real-life problem solving. For example "this switch isn't opening the gate. hmmm... the other switch works. How is that mechanism different from this one? Oh, it has a power source plugged into it. Solution: remove the power source or find another one, plug into the switch that's not working, activate." That level of thinking is really all you need. It's fun and immersive to apply real life logic to the game world.

@Arthmoor: I like deep dungeon diving, too. I'm trying to get a feel for what kind of experience other people are looking for, so that helps. I can create a lot of the assets I'll need (like custom tile pieces and whatnot) and I can probably find interesting ways to use other modder resources. The dungeons I listed were just examples. I just picked them because I suspect they're fairly well known. I hadn't really given too much thought to any particular dungeon (though a couple stand out as being particularly lackluster). Is there one in particular you would like to see renovated?

In terms of compatibility, what kinds of things do I need to be especially careful about? I know persistent references are stored in the save game (eg. doors) so I don't want to mess with that, but how would adding or rearranging a couple of tiles affect compatibility? (For example: adding a new hallway and a couple of rooms to an existing level?)

@AngryYoungDunmerSyndrome: Thanks for the feedback; it was great. I agree with pretty much everything you said, which is nice. I will absolutely be preserving variety in dungeon size. I find that more immersive as well. Designing quests to accompany dungeons will, like custom asset creation, require substantial development overhead and change the 'flavor' of the mod somewhat. The way I see it, it can really go two ways: it can be developed as a sort of UL for dungeons, or it can turn each overhauled dungeon into it's own mini quest mod. It will probably end up somewhere in the middle, with small quests associated with each dungeon. I'll have to wait and see what other people have to say about it.

I don't know what CDEP is.

I really like puzzles in dungeons. Traps, a key in four parts hidden in four dungeons that needs to be brought to an altar in the full moon to be joined together, runes that need translating, scripted ghost sequences - that kind of thing.

Personally, I would like to see them all enlarged!

CDEP = Community Dungeon Expansion Project. It was a team of folks who chose a couple dungeons and expanded on them. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13939 simply added more content; http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14036 tied Fanacasecul, Haynote Cave, and Ceyatatar together by adding a third interconnecting level as well as a backstory of sorts (I won't spoil it, but it's kinda cool).

This is what I would love to see - more random stuff like this that makes the dungeons more alive and worth exploring. Too many of them are just "ho-hum, another dungeon". I mean, sure - we don't want every dungeon to be unique, but still...

I'd have to agree with Arthmoor, though - retexturing and minor changes are great, because they're less likely to conflict, but it'd be better to add new levels. You could look at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23384 to see how they did it.

Doors and other persistent references for sure. Any massive rearrangement of pathways is likely to require path grid edits, which a cell can only have one of. Adding extra rooms, halls, etc same thing. If another mod stuck something in a certain passage and you come along later and move it, that generates the need for a patch. It'll likely be unavoidable depending on how far things go.

Certain quest related locations might not be such a good idea to heavily modify either.

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

@gothemasticator: Sorry about the confusion. Fixed now. Puzzles are definitely something I want to expand on in the dungeons. I think the vanilla ones are a little muscle-bound in general, so I'd love to add some cerebral exercise.

@richardrocket009: But if you had to pick one....

@WalkerInShadows: Thanks for the CDEP explanation. I will definitely be adding levels, it's really a question about how extensive changes to existing levels should be. One of the main goals of the project is to give each dungeon a bit of a twist to make it memorable. Basically, to build on what Bethesda started by elaborating on the vanilla content. Why are those bandits hiding out in that cave? What are they up to? Why are there so many treasure chests in Greenmead cave? Where did the rival goblin clan come from? How did they get into the mine? Why are the bandits and marauders having a standoff in a rinky-dink dungeon outside of Weye? Those are the kinds of questions I want to answer. I'm leaning more toward enhancing the vanilla content in a way that enriches the game without breaking anyone's conceptions. There are already some great epic dungeon mods, so I don't really need to duplicate that. Of course, if I get a really great idea, I might go that route as well.

Yeah, I'll probably be avoiding quest-related dungeons for the time being. I don't really plan on changing the basic architecture a lot, more along the lines of adding doors and halls leading to new areas, though I've thought about adding a little bit of clutter in areas that seem a little bare. I'd like to move some of the spawns to keep them from triggering all of the traps but I'm not sure what kinds of problems that might cause. A mod like this is bound to cause compatibility issues in any case, but I'd like to keep them to a minimum. Thanks for the tips. I guess I need to bone up on my compatibility theory.

Ooh, awesome. A few thoughts...

Traps. I was really disappointed in some of the trap design in Oblivion. This is an ayleid ruin, right? People lived here, right? Why the hell is there a corridor full of swinging blades, and a floor that drops into a spike pit? This is not something that most people put in their homes. Now, there are places where it's appropriate: behind a secret door, for instance, all bets are off. Something's being protected. In a passage leading out from a throne room to a treasure cache -- sure, sometimes a thief gets past the guards. Heck, spike pit right in front of the throne could be due to assassin problems. But in an otherwise unremarkable corridor on the first floor of a ruin, not so much. (Welkynd and varla stones might be valuable to us, but they used the damn things as light bulbs.)

Best trap in the game? That trip wire in the newbie dungeon, where the chained boulders fly at you. Why? It makes sense for it to be there. The goblins knew about the catacombs. It would be no surprise if the occasional zombie wandered out. So they instituted an automated anti-zombie defense mechanism.

Speaking of the tutorial dungeon, there was some great non-trap interactive stuff in there too, like the pile of logs (except where'd they come from?) and the fact that opening the rat pen distracts the goblin in the pit. (The pull-rope to do so from outside the pit made less sense. Why did they put that there? Annual festival, the Running of the Rats?)

Totally agree with Dunmer about puzzles. Same deal as traps for a lot of them: who put this here and why? But it's much easier to circumvent. You can only have so many cave-ins and rockslides so most traps have to be clearly built by someone; but puzzles can easily be composed of very old things which were perfectly sensible and served an obvious purpose when built, but now are just plain broken, whether by looters or nesting rats or rust or falling rocks. Portcullis with a broken chain or jammed winch. Dunmer's powered switches (another use for welkynd stones!). Simple locked door, key's on a dead adventurer buried under a pile of rocks three rooms down. Large gap in a walkway, planks below can be carried up to make a bridge. There can be a full range from perplexing to dead simple, but the important part is that it makes you stop and pay attention.

Quests are frankly unnecessary in most cases. A couple maybe, especially for dungeons that are out of the way and might not otherwise be visited (but not always, because there needs to be a good reward for exploration). The story of the dungeon itself is, IMO, usually better told by exploration and observation than by some guy (or book, or pop-up message) just telling you. When a real quest emerges as an obvious result of the actions and/or motives of NPCs, go ahead -- but don't go out of your way to add them otherwise.

What I would love to see more of in general - in dungeons is fine too - is non-killing activities. Whatever one might wish to decide on, for the nature and details of said activities, I'd probably be all over them anyway.

It's just that much of a chronic lack in the game, as it stands. Yes, there are a few "band aid" solutions, courtesy of a mod here and there, but I haven't seen any that truly expand the game in that way, satisfactorily.

But I would also be interested in exploring (much!) larger ruins/caves/dungeons/whatever. Dark, please. Um, except the parts that aren't meant to be.

And hey, some killing is quite OK! Oh, and on that note, some kind of OOO/MMM/FCOM compatibility (options) would be keen.

I liked what Vacuity did in one of her mods...hid treasures, etc, in hard to reach places/corners. Maybe you can add that factor in also.

SSSHHH!!! Dat be's a kulchral secreh! Dinna talk abou' i' ou' ere!This is so full of truthful goodness it should be held by a model with shiny teeth and hair and paraded at a game designer show.

The other thing that I have a strong personal preference for is the necessity for really exploring and looking around: the worst thing about the vanilla dungeons to me is not the sometimes nonsensical traps (I have to confess I always assumed the underground sections of Ayelid ruins weren't the residential quarters anyway), nor the unrealistically high ambient lighting (though I do much prefer darker lighting), but the fact that every treasure chest (except in a very few dungeons) is placed on a pedestal in the middle of a large room under a light source (or so it seems). *Look* for treasure?!? You can't possibly miss it! ALEX went the other way and I made a number of the hidden chests near-impossibly difficult to find/access ('twas a good way of taking out some real-life stress), but ideally follwoing the full range between "middle of the large room" and "jammed out of sight in the crack between the slab in the corner of the dead-end and the wall". Interestingly the tutorial dungeon is also one of the better locations in the game for loot placement too: those barrels in low holes, the coins on the wall ledge, the gemstones on the floor in the corner, some chests that are not actually hidden, but still out of the way of the direct route through... That's probably why I wasted so much time when I first got the game looking for loot that just wasn't there in the regular dungeons.

Vac

I mostly miss unique visuals and riddles/puzzles in vanilla dungeons.

With unique visuals I either mean clever use of existing assets or some new assets. No need for a whole new tileset or a huge amount of new meshes. Just a few things that make one dungeon look different from all the other dungeons of the same type. Bethesda's tilesets look great, but they're extremely limited due to their 'all-in-one' nature. A good example is the withered forest in Kingscrest cavern - looks different from other caves with very little effort. Especially dungeons inhabited by humanoid beings should look a bit more 'alive'. Maybe a few of the lower class shacks or tents could be placed. There are lots of possibilities. Mines could use the mine rails/carts by Da Mage and a good amount of barrels, shovels, pick axes etc added. Maybe also a few buildings build into the mine.

There are almost no puzzles in vanilla dungeons, so if there were a few it would be great. I completely agree with AngryYoungDunmerSyndrome about this. There is no need for puzzles that are super hard to solve - it just becomes annoying if you're stuck and can't figure things out without a walkthrough. But having to think once in a while instead of pushing the left mouse button and the spacebar all the time would increase the fun.

A small backstory is a good idea as well and I don't think it needs to be a full-blown quest. For example maybe a dead guy lying in one of the first rooms with a note on him saying that his girl was captured by a few bandits/goblins/whatever. Later the player finds the girl. She's still alive, but when you approach her she walks into a trap and dies. Bad luck! Not very original and 'awesome', but simple things like that add a bit of life to the dungeons imo. The guy in Morrowind falling from the sky is a good example for a small event that is fun and adds to the atmosphere.

I was making a vanilla dungeon overhaul during some time under the name of Oblivion Dungeon Re-Experience, but I never finished it. Still, I think I had some good ideas for vanila dungeons during development, and thought I'd share them with you:

1. A Dark Brotherhood sanctuary for a dungeon. Fort ruins near major cities appear to the best types of dungeons for these. I considered Fort Nomore for example before I stopped making my mod.

2. Daedric strongholds. Basically dungeons that the Daedra have overrun during the Oblivion crisis as bases of activity. You could choose dungeons located at strategic points near cities or major roads and give each of the dungeons a "Plan for Invasion" or "Plan for Attack", hidden deep within. Dungeons like Fort Rayles have a great view over a neighboring city and could be considered as Daedric strongholds. If you were to do this, best to copy the original dungeon, make changes to the copy, and reroute the main door to the copy instead of editing the original dungeon, as this idea requires more than making a new zone.

3. Crumbling Mine and Fort Carmala outside Chorrol. You could write a note to be put in Crumbling Mine about how and why the bandits are digging into Chorrol's sewer system. Perhaps even make the sewer system accessible, with an entry grate in Chorrol. Knowing this would conflict with Better Cities if done wrong, I suggest the entry is placed in Chorrol's northeast corner - that area is left mostly untouched by BC. Another entry to the sewers could be in Fort Carmala, the fort outside Chorrol. A story could be added inside the fort describing the fort as a sewer waystation. If this was done, any Chorrol sewer system you build could be infested by vampires, as the fort itself is.

4. Not every dungeon needs to contain enemies. You could make a dungeon home to friendly NPC's or even a fence (Oblivion is in dire need of non-Thieve's Guild-afflitiated fences anyways). Small dungeons like Garlas Agea or Quickwater Cave are good starting points. In a mod made by a friend of mine, Beldaburo was changed into a home for some pirates stranded on the coast when their ship crashed onto the beach, and included a story. The pirates were (mostly) friendly, and one was even a fence with which you could barter. The first level was inhabited by pirates; the second was empty and a rat pit.

5. Broken Promises Cave. When I was working on this cave, I envisioned it as a witch coven, using resources from the resource pack CURP to fill it with witch items. The witches don't even need to be evil - in Daggerfall, most covens tolerated you and even gave you short quests. It's isolated location from any other dungeons or areas really makes it perfect for any idea that requires isolation.

6. Outlaw Endre's Cave. Make it really home to an Outlaw Endre and his gang of bandits!

7. The following is stuff written by a friend of mine for a mod he never finished:



Include some dead corpses with the notes on them, and you're complete!

I reccomend checking out the mod Nehrim for ideas on how to treat dungeons. The uniqueness of each dungeon in that mod is outstanding.

Anyways, I've got lots more, but I've got to restrict myself, so this is all for now.

JavaCroc817, your third idea is a great one and was implemented in the mod A Brotherhood Renewed. It can be recommended!

So Brotherhood Renewed had a similar idea in place? Cool.

Anyways, here's a couple more ideas:

1. This idea may seem very minor, but it can have a big effect on making dungeons occupied by NPC's in particular more realistic. Add more clutter. Bedrolls, food items and containers, unwritten notes, etc. They would help give the feeling that people are actually living in the place, not just visiting by chance. Make theamount of bedrolls in a dungeon equal to the amoutn of NPC spawns in a dungeon, with a couple more in place in case an overhaul like OOO adds more enemies into the area.

2. This idea is best done using clutter. Make the vampire dungeons look like vampire clan havens. In Daggerfall and Morrowind, vampires came in named clans with their own bases. Perhaps add furniture to some vampire dungeons to make them look like havens for a particular vampire clan, with bottles of human blood as the main dining fare, of course.

3. Add more plantlife to caves containing mythic creatures or animals to distinguish their homes from other dull caverns. You could even change the chests used for those dungeons into tree trunks or hollow rocks to better the effect: why the heck are there treasure chests in an cavern untouched by man anyways?

4. You could make use of the dozens of stupid camps littered about Cyrodiil with your dungeons. A camp could be a hideout for some rogue dventurers planning to clear out the nearby dungeon.

5. The area of swamp east of Leyawiin is filled with necromancer and vampire dungeons. I thought of a story involving how the Black Worm in this area struggles with the neighboring vampire clan over control of the area, with Wendelbekthe base of the necromancers and Fort Redwater the base of the vampire clan.

6. a Black Horse Courier broadsheet written by that same friend:



Again, that's all for now.

I love Sideways Cave how it is, actually, it's one of my favorite places.

That said! I would love to not see more puzzles that...
--involve trial-and-error guessing of which buttons/blocks/levers to push in which order
--involve going back from a door through ten miles of ruins to find the wayward door switch

I would absolutely love more puzzles that...
--require good timing and/or precision in physical movement, either avoiding damage or setting triggers, or a mix
--have more than one solution, so as to be approached differently by different classes
--need common sense (or even just a layman's understanding of physics) to solve
--have some root in history or culture, either existing in the vanilla game or whatever you work into the mod
--can be done more than one way, with varying degrees of success

I like dark dungeons, to a degree, but I can't seem to not use night-eye if I find myself in complete darkness. Lack of discipline, perhaps.

I love the idea of having a quest that connects a few dungeons somehow.

I am a fan of huge dungeons, but only if you can keep them interesting. Your first poll question was about quantity versus quality -- I definitely prefer quality, and not just in the way you meant. I would rather play through a stunning 1-level dungeon than an 8-level crummy one. Six very particular rooms are better than sixty redundant ones. That sort of thing. Which is, I suspect, part of the reason vanilla ruins lose their luster pretty quickly, long before I've visited them all - in many ways they're quite redundant of one another, so I don't see the point really.

Plus everything Vacuity said.

Okay, I've probably gone over my two cent budget. :happy:

I like the suggestion others have offered as far as multiple solutions to puzzles. This is not usually implemented deliberately, but often puzzles have multiple solutions that the modder didn't even intend. For example, I remember in The Oubliette there was a key you needed to take and a spike trap that started coming down as soon as the player took the key. There were multiple solutions to this I suppose; one could buff up with speed-enhancing potions to be fast enough to run out from under the trap, or maybe hold the item with the grab key and carefully bring it to safety (or just throw it over there). Or maybe grab the key from a safe spot if you had a telekinesis spell. My first instinct when I stopped and thought about it though was "hey, I've got this teleport spell from Supreme Magicka that I never use! I'll just grab the key and teleport my butt on over to safety!" Problem solved. This is a good example of an extremely easy puzzle that only requires you to use one of the abilities granted to you by the game or a mod that doesn't have much practical use in the vanilla game.

Or to go back to my example of the gate-opening mechanisms, let's say you have two gates, one after the other. And let's suppose you can't just take the power source out of one mechanism and use it to power the other, because as soon as you remove it, you find the first gate slams shut again. You have no choice but to look for another power source that is carefully hidden somewhere. But wait, if you have a mark and recall spell, you can just skip all that and create a mark after the first gate, let it close and power the mechanism for the second gate, recall, and voila! Some might be inclined to call this cheating, but what matters is that it is fun and rewarding cheating that doesn't break the logic of the game world.

I also wholehearedly second the comments about vampire dungeons and creature caverns. A vampire dungeon for example should give you a glimpse into the vampires' day-to-day (or night-to-night) existence. It doesn't matter whether they're more the posh type of vampire or the more dirty, undead nosferatu types, or a combination of both. I'm surprised none of the major overhauls have revamped vampires as they very sorely need it. As it is, all you're doing is fighting a variety of regular NPC classes with altered faces. Vampire Witchhunter? Vampire Bard? What a disgrace! Maybe you could stumble onto a party where vampires are tormenting and draining the blood of kidnapped NPCs. Or you could free human cattle who would be ungrateful and angry because they were promised they would be turned into vampires themselves, or you could stumble onto a scared kidnapped NPC who had just become a vampire and you have to make a potentially difficult choice on whether to spare or eliminate. Also, vampire lairs should be scary! You just don't go into a vampire crypt and expect to take them all by surprise. It is the PLAYER who should be stalked, taken by surprise from behind, surrounded by vampires, made to feel like prey. Nothing should be what it seems, appearances should have to be second-guessed. Nobody likes vampires though and they get no love. On the other hand, it’s a great opportunity to do something that hasn’t been done before.

I would just like to see some eye candy added to the dungeons. Nothing particularly new or a modders resource just things to make the dungeons have character compared to one another. For example, forts that have shadowbanish wine in them might have a brewery inside of them and have bar like features in some areas. Acting more as a way point for travelers rather than a strategic outpost. Just different sights to see

Waaah, so many good ideas here! Unbelievable. I really liked what Arthmoor said about puzzles, then what tejon said, then I really liked what Phitt said, then JavaCroc... there's no way I can compete with so many good ideas, so I won't even try.
(Also, while I love everything that has been said, I'll contradict some of it a bit.)

I voted for fairly deep dungeons, which seemed like a good compromise... but actually what I'd like to see are massive dungeons, however with areas that took very little effort. I mean, all the 90s RPGs had basically empty dungeons, save for the monsters! And nobody really minded it. What made the dungeons special was that they were mazes... you got way too excited when you found a new path to criticize its design. Also I find it's relaxing to not always have to search every corner for hidden treasure. Sometimes empty corridors are nice.

Then I voted "Other" concerning the quest, and the reason for this is that I agree with tejon so much - a dungeon should tell its own story with a few well-placed "scenes" / still lives. There doesn't have to be a quest, just a few scenes that depict how the dungeon had been used before it became a dungeon, or how it's currently being used, whatever.

Lastly, I think that Sancre Tor should definitely be made massive. Like, Daggerfall-style massive. And it should be a maze. And it should have puzzles. As far as I can remember the main story, that's basically the typical dungeon-crawl dungeon, so it should look like it. And don't even try to have the design make any sense - if the dungeon can fascinate the player, then he won't ask for logic. He'll stumble across a room with two bunk beds right in the middle of some godforsaken corridor and he'll say "Ooo this must've been the sleeping quarters of some of the soldiers, I'm so immersed right now WAAH THERE'S AN ANCIENT VAMPIRE"

edit: Also liking what AngryYoungDunmerSyndrome said about vampire lairs. I also wouldn't mind messages like "As you enter, it seems as if the echo of your footsteps seems to whisper 'Prey has arrived'", or something like that - of course in combination with the door behind you suddenly being magically closed!

Wow. A lot of fantastic responses. I don't even know where to begin. I'm going to have to read these over a couple of times to digest them.

A special thanks to JavaCroc for sharing so many great ideas. You friend is a great writer, too. Those snippets were really evocative.

All of the ideas regarding traps and puzzles were very rewarding as well. I like things to have a purpose and a history and hate it when things feel like they were just added as filler, so I'm totally in sync with you guys. Your ideas and suggestions have really deepened my understanding of and appreciation for the mechanic.

I think variety is turning into a key factor here, not only in terms of the size of the dungeon, but also in terms of the ease/difficulty of finding treasure, the amount of lighting, the visual style, denizens, number of traps/puzzles, size and scope of associated quests, etc. In other words: you want unique dungeons!

I wanted to thank Tejon for articulating something I have always felt and believed but never really spelled out for myself:



I think that's part of the magic of dungeon exploration. Sure, you've heard a thing or two about it. And maybe you have a reason for visiting it. But you don't really get to know a dungeon until you've spent some time there and got a feeling for its inhabitants and its history.

Keep the great ideas coming, people. I'm going to get started.

Ehh, didn't you read my post, I said I want bland and empty dungeons.

:P Unique dungeons would be great of course, but what currently intrigues me (admittedly, after a marathon of 90s RPGs Let's Play videos) are dungeons that are so large that you simply can't add that many details. Or, oh well, if you actually can, be my guest, but sometimes I think a big, relatively empty dungeon can create its own atmosphere.

There's a similar puzzle in one of the vanilla Ayleid ruins - four gates, each opened with a button... but pressing one button has a chance of closing another gate, so you have to get the combination right to open all four. Or, if you can walk on water, you could simply walk around them. :whistling: It's a good example of a puzzle like Khett mentioned - it requires a little work, but isn't super-annoying and can be bypassed without cheating.


StarX VVR did it. It has vampire clans, overhauled all the vampire dungeons, added vampire hunters, etc. etc.

There are some examples of notes and such in the vanilla dungeons as well - Vilverin, for example: a couple bandits' notes make mention of the undead down below, and you find a couple dead bandits who went scouting.