One thing that was missing from oblivion which stopped me playing was the lack of surprises.

Going into little caverns and dungeons is an important part of almost any RPG.
Like Morrowind! Bet you all saw that coming. But it's true.
I am hoping they put this into the game.

Oblivions statue thing -- jkhskjdfhaskl;jhsfslkj dumb.

That said, dungeons are of no interest to me unless there's something in there worth getting.
So yesh.

I agree. One of the main things that disappointed me in oblivion was how almost none of the dungeons felt very unique or exciting to me and the loot was random and unsatisfactory. I am really hoping this is something they address with Skyrim and make dungeon diving worth it again.

This. So I can't agree more.

A hybrid of Oblivion and Morrowind.

Though I want it, I have a doubt. If the radiant AI story allows the game to change the inhabitants of a cave/dungeon to fit a particular random story, that might interfere with dropping particular artifacts in dungeons. Guess we can just hope for meaningful dungeon crawling.

Well I always imagined that the dungeons are set with certain leveled creatures that don't change, so that the challenge is always there.

Heeeellll yeah.

And what do you mean by that? Because that's kind of vague. What aspects of Morrowind that weren't in Oblivion do you want to see? And what aspects of Oblivion's approach that Morrowind did not have do you feel the game needs?

But yes, I do hope we get to see unique items in dungeons this time around. I like getting artifacts from Daedric quests and all that, indeed, it just wouldn't feel right for an Elder Scrolls game to NOT have Daedric shrine quests, but I don't want all notable unique items to be quest rewards, only some of them. I want to be able to explore some remote dungeon somewhere and find some unique item I wouldn't find anywhere else. In fact, it doesn't even need to be a unique item, in Morrowind, finding glass or Daedric items (At least the armor, the weapons somewhat less so because at high levels, you're likely to find a lot of them in the hands of Dremora and Golden Saints.) could also be similarly satisfying, because they were rare and weren't found in just any place. This was something that was unfotunately lacking in Oblivion, where with very few exceptions, the only worthwhile loot you could find was random loot from enemies and containers, which isn't so bad for games like Diablo, where a large part of the fun comes from trying to get some of the highly rare items among the absurd amount of items you can potentially find in the game, but in Oblivion just made looting dungeons so much less interesting than it should have been. So, yes, I'd like an approach similar to Morrowind for this in Skyrim.

I greatly preferred the loot/legendary item system in MW compared to OB. I liked having a static world where I knew where certain items where, and also who possessed them. It made the world more real to me and gave it more character.



I would bet that there will be numerous dungeons(locations) that are excluded from the radiant story in order to preserve them for other quests. If my assumption is correct, they could exclude locations that house legendary or unique items.

Who puts legendary items in caves anyway? Do old heroes think "hmm, I'm gonna die soon, I think I'll crawl into a cave and croak and let some adventurer have a nice surprise."?

Forgotten ruins and areas of importance are understandable. But, a cave?

Yeah, I guess it would be better than what Oblivion had...

Though I may add your topic name at first sounded to me like you were talking about Pokemon or something...

Legendary items.... Yes, but also legendary creatures.

This a thousand times. It was kind of disappointing to go off the beaten path of Cyrodiil and disregard my current quest to enter an Ayleid ruin, then spend an hour or so in there only to clear out the entire place with barely anything to show for it but some gold and things to sell for more gold. It's fine if a few dungeons are like that, after all, not every dungeon is going to have great treasure inside, but every non-quest dungeon was like that. It would be nice to find some unique items and treasures in places that aren't quest related and are just waiting there for the exploring adventurer.


Also this. Can't be giving out awesome treasure for free.

Yes, it makes treasure hunting fun, more of a challenge.
Remember having to find the proprylon indexes? One was high on ledge in a cavern, if you didn't explore, you wouldn't find it.
It makes you slow down, observe the area around you more closely, imagine what could be hidden in plain sight, or beyond.

yeah one thing i didn't like about oblivion was that there weren't really any unique or epic items to find in dungeons; you had to either get them from a quest or a daedra. I think having unique items in dungeons adds more desire to explore them on the off chance that you might find something cool like that

i think its safe to say that Skyrim will surprise us more then once...i hope LoL

seeing as how they are putting alot more effort into designing more unique dungeons, i can see unique weapon placement to be part of the process.

in short - yes, most likely there will be uniques

that being said, i dont think it will be 'unique' per-se, like goldbrand is.
more like it had a unique name/effect/story

That was the best part of Morrowind for me, by mere chance i stumbled upon a legendary ring hidden in a jar in a tomb while out scavenging for my low level character (i forget the name of it) but it's one of my best Morrowind memories now.

Some adventurer gets ambushed and tales are told of him crawling into a cave, the ambushers were after his ring but lost sight of him.
Apparently his body and ring are still there in that cave, guarded by his possessive spirit.

There we go see, just thought up a story for it

yes this would probably have more use for a dungeon instead of it being useless once done in a low level.

Legendaries in caves... What, this isnt Pokèmon, is it?

Speaking of being surprised by dungeons. there was this one in Morrowind, it was part ancestral tomb and part cave. I remember going through there and finding this seriously tough Vampire lady with an awesome ring, I defeated her and went on exploring the cave. I found a small out of the way bandit base on a ledge in the cave, there was a note there saying the bandits had chosen this particular cave so that they could use the vampire as protection. I thought that was rather devious but I was pleasantly surprised by how the bandits had chosen this cave for a reason. In Oblivion they just appear to have an inexplicable attraction to caves.