Did anyone notice that all of the oblivion "dungeons" and most of the morrowind ones were all built in huge tunnels underground? I mean, ok caves and such need to be, but every single castle i have ever been to and have seen has been probably about 70% above ground. It would be neat to have a ruined castle as a dungeon and be able to look out windows (can be separate rendered windows instead of rendering the whole world) or just getting to the "boss" at the top of the tower instead of always heading down into the abyss of some castle which decided to have 4 sub floors for stability reasons. I just think that this could add a little change up every once in a while, to make things less boring over time.

I would love to explore some ruined castles and generally more stuff above ground.

It just saves space to do other things above ground, pretty much. Dungeons are typically underground and if they all were this time around in Skyrim, I wouldn't have a single problem with it.

Absolutely. I was quite disappointed when I realized that all the ruined forts and Ayleid ruins were basically just an entrance for more underground dungeons. I'd love to have some old towers and ruined castles to explore.

Though the real question is, and don't get me wrong cause I agree. Wouldn't it be more of a ruin and less of a dungeon if it was above ground? . I think it would be awesome if we had ruins that were actually above ground this time around and felt really old, like they have serious power about them. Ruined castles and cities or towns would be really fun to explore.

you had to fight your way to the top of most oblivion towers.

A couple of them would be fine, but there's not enough space to have every dungeon be above ground, or even most, or half. It saves space to have them be underground so that the entrance is a small space-saving area and the bulk of the dungeon is underground, that way it can be as big as it wants to be.

Ah yes? And why were Ayleid ruins mostly underground structures, then? :tongue:

I guess what the OP meant by "dungeons" was "fairly dark, slightly creepy areas with stone walls where you encounter hostile creatures and may find some good loot in a dark corner", with "dungeons" being a much shorter word to decribe it. That's how I understood it, at least. :biggrin:

I don't really care where dungeons are as long as they are more varied than Oblivion. I cringe every time I'm given a fort quest. Thank god for no clip.

We did have Kvatch in Oblivion and that, IMO, was a huge waste of space.

The Kvatch Rebuilt mod was pretty cool.

I have an Xbox... :pinch:

Basically i just want some variety in the dungeons, plus large castle type ruins are quite beautiful to explore, i m not saying that they all should be like this, just some to mix it up. And yes by dungeons i mean ""fairly dark, slightly creepy areas with stone walls where you encounter hostile creatures and may find some good loot in a dark corner"

Yeah, ok I had enough. Enough I tell you! I can't count how many times I seen or heard this complaint and shook my head at the the stupidity of it. It's called 'standardized design' and there's a logistical and engineering reason why they are used, and it simply works. I think it would have been more odd had each and every single dungeon of a certain type (like forts, for example) all looked differently.

well sure there is standard design issues that go into every building, for instance why are most skyscraqers in a square or rectange shape instead of some random shape, well rigidity/cost of building, But they all look slightly different and im not sure if you have ever been to Europe but all the castles look different with similar features, each king had to one up the other in design for bragging rights, but thats not really the point of this thread, the point is to ask why there are no ruins of castles where i can explore more than their subterranean floors, exploring the parts above the ground would be very cool but there never seems to be anything above ground

I'm not saying they have to hand craft every single dungeon but at least make something different. Every for in the game looks like it was designed by the same contractor! My god couldn't the soldiers have changed the wallpaper, carpeted the place, put a slipknot poster up? SOMETHING to change the look and make a place look unique?

soldier 1 - Wow this place is dark and dreary
soldier 2 - Yea...... Time for some fung shui !!!!!!!
Solder 1 - "puts up slipknot poster"
soldier 2 - "face palm"

I think thats why its called dungeon diving.

seriously though, they could do somthing like they did for megaton in FO3, work with it a little more but that sure would turn the tes dungeons up a notch.

ok well if thats why its called dungeon diving, lets have a little more ruin exploring

...you're kidding me, right? There's already things like this depending upon inhabitants of said dungeon/ruin/cave/fort. Though depending upon faction it could be same as another faction. For example, Necromancers/undead/Vampires could all have coffins out in the open and disturbed graves (never understood why Vampires did, since if they were well feed they could live in a city indistinguishable from normal people).

As to the original post, yeah would be nice if there more dungeons that are built above ground. But it's a common design to build dungeons underground in RPGs and I don't think that's going to change any time soon.

Yes, and goblins had the little heads on stick things. Also I've seen coffins pop up so much that I didn't even think they were specific to a faction.

But I think I just wanted to see inherent differences in the caves/ruins themselves, not just differences depending on the faction which, while adding some atmosphere, didn't make any particular ruin unique. If there were goblins infesting a cave, it felt the same as if they were infesting a fort. I had the same issues with many of the vaults in Fallout.

Look if you think that those small differences are enough to make your dungeon diving experience enjoyable, then that's good, I'm glad you enjoy/enjoyed them. However as you've said yourself, a lot of players have complained about this. That means even if there was a logistical and engineering reason behind it, it clearly didn't work.

Now I've hijacked this poor boy's thread. If you want to get the last word in you can.

One of the reasons they looked like they were made by the same contractor was because they were all made by the same contractor, or, more appropriately, designer. Furthermore, I completely agree with you on the fort quests, I hated them, avoided them when I could.

I agree w/ the OP in that it seems strange, if you were to take a layer by layer view of Cyrodil, it would undoubtedly look like an ant farm, tunnels moving all over the place, and, due to the miracles of not-actually-having-to-engineer-in-reality-where-space-exists-physically-in-only-three-dimensions, a designer could literally have two dungeons in the same place if Cyrodil was a physical manifestation.

This being said, if these networks of tunnels were to be suddenly brought above ground, Cyrodil would no longer look like an ant farm, but more like an extremely ruinous labyrinth, take even half of these ruins away and you have a very large and fairly easy ruinous labyrinth, it's just not practical to have them above ground and it's just not realistic to have them below ground. So I say, put them in outer space! Then you can ride your tamed dragon to the orbital wolf den to retrieve some woman's aunt's dog's carcass... IN SPACE!!!

Alternatively- compromise, put as many above ground ruins as feasible, and put the rest below ground. SOLVED.

like i said before not all the ruins would have to be above ground, just some of them to mix it up a little, I have no problem going down into the depths of some castle, just not every time, i want to explore vast entrance halls and chambers that would have been made for an ancient king/noble, run in with my wizard fire blazing everywhere while enemies rush from all sides to protect their leader sitting up on the old deteriorating throne, instead of taking a twisting labyrinth of tunnels that eventually leads to a dead end where i then have to turn around and do it all over again (this is ok some of the time). I like ruins to have a feeling of ancient grandeur and to leave the dark and dankness to the caves of the world.

I'd like to see some ruined cities. At least stone ones that won't degrade easily. I mean are these current ones really the only cities that have ever existed? I doubt it.

First off, Goblins don't really have "races". I think the word you were looking for was "species".

And all humans are the same species. Does that mean that we all decorate our homes the exact same way?