I dunno whether anyone else has already done the math, but if there are ~130 dungeons in Skyrim, thats ~90 fewer dungeons than there were in Oblivion before you add the additional dungeons added by SI. (If you include SI, that's another 25 dungeons.) And FWIW I'm assuming the term "dungeon" includes ruins, forts, mines, and caves.

I didn't count vanilla Morrowind's dungeons, but I believe the number is somewhere between Skyrim's ~130, and Oblivion's 221 (pre-SI).

So keeping this in mind, and assuming those numbers are all accurate, and that the number for Skyrim will remain accurate, I certainly hope each dungeon is given a degree of depth and uniqueness beyond the levels of dungeons in MW and OB. Considering the increased size of the team and improved technology, in conjunction with the dramatically decreased number of dungeons, and I feel it is not unreasonable to expect more detailed, expansive, and unique dungeons in Skyrim.

Did I read that right? If I start the game and go into a cave, everything inside will be scaled to my level. So, if I go back in a few months at a high level, the cave will still be scaled to my level 1 character?

I don't see how they wouldn't. They have a team of over 100 people now (though not all of them are working on the game), and they've been in full development since Fallout 3 was released. If they only have 130 dungeons, surely each one has had a lot of time devoted to it.

At least I hope so...

The Main quest is fine at 20 hours as that's around the same amount of time it takes to do Oblivions main quest.

The one thing though they said there's no level cap does that mean that Jails are back and you can get your stats lowered because if that's not the case you will eventually max out at a certain level probably in the mid 70's.

For some of us TES games are not "first-person experiences", I play in third person except when using ranged weapons and spells. Moving in first person gives me motion sickness, it's been this way since I tried playing Doom and Hexen way back when, and the reason I never play straight FPS. I know I'm not the only person who suffers from this--when FPS first started becoming popular it was widely discussed. It has to do with eye focus and/or inner ear problems and isn't solvable by any of the suggested methods.

I avoid 3-D movies for much the same reason. They just look blurry and give me a thumping headache.

If we cant combine magic effects in spell creation Ill be super disappointed.

With these news that Skyrim has"[...]more than 130 dungeons." which seems to suggest no more than 139, since if it was 140 or over they would say that. It got me curious about how many dungeons were in Morrowind and Oblivion, and after a bit of counting and calculating over at the UESP I have gathered the amount of dungeons in them both. Give or a take one or two.

Morrowind
323 Dungeons in total

• 11 Dunmer Strongholds
  
• 23 Dwemer Ruins
  
• 40 Daedric Shrines
  
• 91 Ancestral Tombs
  
• 12 Velothi Towers
  
• 44 Mines
  
• 91 Caves
  
• 11 Grottos

Oblivion
236 in total

• 54 Ayleid Ruins
  
• 54 Forts
  
• 24 Mines
  
• 91 caves (includes the Sewers and Amelion tomb)
  
• 13 Realms of Oblivion (includes daedric quests ones)

So, Skyrim has roughly 100 less than Oblivion had. As long as they can make them unique and have some static non-leveled unique artifacts and loot hidden in them I'll be happy. I have a bit of hope for the latter, because even though Fallout 3's dungeons were "leveled" to a degree they still had unique non-leveled special loot to be found!

I'm worried about the map size. I hope that magazine guy is just a [censored] who can't tell the difference between "Oblivion size" and "2-3 times Oblivion size". Also, I hope "big" means "Larger than Imperial City big" and not "Leyawiin big".

I was expecting Skyrim to be roughly the same size of Oblivion, which is fine. Skyrim will be much more diverse in terms of the environments than Oblivion was. Also it's nice to know that there will be less dungeons, which also probably means they will be more unique overall (as was stated in the magazine). I'm actually glad this game will be an evolution and not a revolution. The next generation won't be out for another five years, and game developers just seem to find better ways of making more quality experiences on the already existing technology.

You should have put 'nothing' as an answer in the What do you dislike part :tongue:

But i'm loving the marksman improvements and the dagger assassinations, also the weapon uniqueness. Seems i'm gonna have to create several different characters just to try out all the weapons types.

I'm not sure why you'd think that. Those of us that saw the Skyrim map from the video, and counted the cells, figured out that if the cell sizes are the same as they were in Oblivion, then the game would be about the same size. The number of Oblivion and Skyrim cells were about the same.

What do you mean by 'it's a guess by the author'? Is there a possiblility the author is wrong about Skyrim's size?

I assume the 130 dungeons doesn't include smalls towns like the one the author of the Game Informer article saw. I'd assume there would be at least a dozen of those as well, maybe more.

But who says they are? And I thought I remembered them saying it was actually significantly smaller by that measurement.

I'm delighted by these news, though I cannot vote as I didn't really dislike any of it. Stupid poll system.

I love that the Dark Brotherhood is back,
I love the new sneak-kill animations,
and I love the fact that there are going to be even more traps and puzzles. The traps at least really made Oblivion's dungeons a lot more fun.

From the hub update, I also love that daggers are now the primary sneak weapon with a gigantic sneak attack bonus, and that the bow has been made more expensive but powerful.
I also love that the NPC's detection-system has been improved. Here's hoping for that you can actually disappear into the shadows after being spotted.
Love the better combat system as well, with blocking, bashing, and more tactics and less "slash until you've emptied your opponents health bar"-approach.

*reads*
*stops complaining*
*waves flag*

... Of the benefits of talking with a tad bit more information than having heard the expression for the first time five minutes ago.

I'm not sure what you aren't comprehending. We saw the Skyrim map in the video. We counted up the number of cells on the map. We found there were essentially the same number of cells in Oblivion. Simple math tells you that if they used the same cell size as Oblivion, the games would be about the same size.

Now, an article comes along where the reporter reports that the games are the about the same size. There is only one way for them to know this, either they guessed at it from the amount of time they got to play it, or they were told it by Bethesda. Since I doubt they were allowed to run around and check everything out, the logical conclusion was that they were told it.

So, what they were told matches up nearly perfectly with what we were able to figure out on our own.

So how does level scaling, but where it locks to your level, help the issue we had with Oblivion?
Sure, now we can have dungeons that are lower than our level, brining back the occasional feelings of growth we had in Morrowind
"Man, I could have sworn these bandits were harder to kill..."
But now it will still scale completely, unless I visit every dungeon?
What if I visit every dungeon at level 1? Im stuck with level 1 loot forever?

This seems troubling...
But maybe the leveling has some caps, if I see another [censored] bandit in [censored] glass armor I will [censored] slit someones [censored] throat
Im not too sure how this will work out, but maybe its an improvement from Oblivion but still heavily flawed.
Very undecided... :confused:

No level cap, good. Perks, bad. What the hell is this, Call of Duty?


Interesting. Could be good.


Completely, utterly counters the main purpose of an Elder Scrolls game. Simply not using it doesn't cut it. Neither does having a turn off option. Only reasonably way to have fast travel would be a Morrowind-like system.


Wow, really? What a cheap way out of having to come up with some creativity. I don't want to play a fantasy game to see some place that already resembles somewhere on Earth. As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of a "fantasy" game is to be high in fantasy. Otherwise I would go to to Scandinavia.


Uh...Why not? They bloody well should be, and I think most people would agree with me here.


This sounds really quite bad. Less hand-holding please, more realistic game.


Good. Animations are good.


All right, but what about the Imperial Cult, some sort of house factions/clans, or vampire clans?


Really? That's it?


What the hell is this? I can barely fathom how stupid and childish this sounds.

Dear Elder Scrolls, I'm hard on you because I love you

dude i agree with u 100%, but most ppl here will call us 'morrowind fan boys.'

GET UR HEADS OUT OF UR BUTTS BETHESDA, WE WANT A GAME TO SMOKE A BOWL TO AND TRIP OUT ON.

not some run-of-the-mill ish,

-no spell combo? sad, but ultimately i expected this. You'll have to do it one at a time then, which is fine with me--same as Bioshock.


The one thing I am skeptical of------- "dungeons are locked at their level once you go into them?"

Does that mean if you wait until we're level 50 to go into a dungeon---we'll be fighting all level 50 enemies???

This your first gen in gaming? Perk's are classic RPG mechanics and were even in Oblivion.


Also they will help specialize your weapons more-so than Morrowind/Oblivion.

The map is the same size AND the MQ is only 20 hours? This svcks.

I'm personally excited about the info. I am a bit disappointed about Skyrim apparently only being around the size of Oblivion. I like the length of the main quest. The Elder Scrolls has never been about a long and big main quest, and I would prefer it to stay it that way. I would rather Bethesda concentrate on side quests rather than waste time on a storyline that will almost detract from the openness of the game. I would say 20 hours is a good middle ground, neither too long or too short.

I honestly can't believe some of the complaints made in this thread about some of the information.

Why do people act like the inclusion of fast travel is the end of the world? I am not a big fan of fast travel myself, but I think if they make mounts actually useful, then fast travel can be fairly avoidable. Also, it is funny that some people complain about them improving the combat. I find it silly to believe that they are making the game a hack and slash just because they are making a gameplay mechanic more fun and interesting. People will complain no matter what. If Skyrim retained Oblivion's combat, people will complain that they didn't do anything to improve the combat. If Bethesda reverted back to Morrowind's system, people would complain the combat would feel robotic and broken. To me, it sounds like they are implementing things where your skill matters more in combat, such as the description of how blocking works. Stealth skills also actually matter far more, as stealth attacks with a dagger will deal far more. It's also more similar to Morrowind in that you can't just spam magic with your sword and shield equipped. Also "over 130 dungeons" is a bit vague, I mean what do they mean by "dungeons"? Are they including stuff like ruins and forts, or only stuff like caves and grottos? Anyways, I would rather have fewer dungeons but are more unique and higher than quality than Oblivion's couple hundred dungeons that felt more or less the same and pretty much littered the landscape to a ridiculous degree. It does sound like Fallout 3's scaling just as we heard, which never bothered me. Wasn't there also level brackets for areas and dungeons in Fallout 3? If so, I expect that is also included in Skyrim in addition to dungeons locking on your current level.

I think people misinterpret what they mean by "low fantasy" in this context. Using the Todd Howard interviews as evidence, I think what "low fantasy" means is that there will be more believable, "human" characters rather than mindless lords and peasants dotting the city landscape. I also interpreted it as to reflect Skyrim's darker, less "extravagant" atmosphere. I also expect to see politics dealt with in a more real manner rather than just "Lord A wants to take all the power from Lords B, C, and D" to "Lord A wants to manipulate the realms of Lords A, B, C, and D to greater benefit the power of his hold and people". I also expect there to be plausible explanations of the fantastic stuff of the TES games rather than "it's magic lol" to "the magical source comes from this ore and acts as a power generator".

Also, I find it silly to hear people say Oblivion was practically a historic simulator or was practically real life just with magic. I personally don't remember the time when I came across an Oblivion Gate, made a magical healing potion from a whole bunch of random objects or ran into a troll.

People need to wait for clarifications before going up and arms about one sentence of information. For an example, people were concerned about there being only "85 spells", but then Peter Hines clarified that it really meant spell effects. There is still a lot more information about Skyrim that we have no clue about, and a lot of statements we have (especially in this article) are pretty vague and honestly could mean anything. I'm not saying you don't have the right to be disappointed by some of the information. I myself was sad to hear that Skyrim's world probably won't be as big as I wanted it to be, but I will still wait for further information and it won't ruin my excitement for the game. No game is perfect, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion both have their weaknesses and flaws.

Edit: Also, the term "rare" is pretty broad and subjective. Not "rare" in this case could mean around 20-30 dragons of varying strength spread out across the map, rather than just five dragons of extreme power in just a few isolated locations.

I dont know why anyone is complaining about the length of the main quest.



The main quest in Oblivion was pretty short, excluding some travel time. If you skipped the "aid for bruma" missions, then you could be done with the main quest in under 10 hours easily. 20 hours average is pretty damn good---as long as RDR's average quest at least or longer. The time I spent playing OB was mostly exploration, dungeon-diving, and side-quests.... and those are all coming back in full, and even better hopefully.