EMPTY Dungeons?

Post » Sat May 14, 2011 1:04 am

What bugged me in OB is that every dungeon had to have some kind of critter or bandit.

A completely empty dungeon every now and again would add excellent atmosphere... it would feel 'not right' like something is watching you.

The fear of the unknown..

theres not much to fear with a bunch of bandits in a cave.

but an empty cave would keep the player on their toes as they step curiously though it..
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Taylor Tifany
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 4:31 pm

I wouldnt mind a "Empty" Dungeon, but to maybe have one mysterious creature thats hard to kill stalk you throughout your journey. Give it that horror flick feeling.
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michael danso
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 11:58 pm

I wouldnt mind a "Empty" Dungeon, but to maybe have one mysterious creature thats hard to kill stalk you throughout your journey. Give it that horror flick feeling.

THIS! :)
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FoReVeR_Me_N
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 11:28 am

I think we'll have much more than bandits to fear in caves in Skyrim ;)
So I don't really want empty dungeons the way you say.

Though I wouldn't mind like 2-3 dungeons at max to be empty in the game. Just for variety's sake. If it's a bandit dungeon, then perhaps the bandits could wait for you outside when you come out.


I wouldnt mind a "Empty" Dungeon, but to maybe have one mysterious creature thats hard to kill stalk you throughout your journey. Give it that horror flick feeling.


Excellent idea. Add that huge spider we saw in GI to stalk you... haha darn that would be awesomely scary! :twirl:
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Lifee Mccaslin
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 6:03 pm

Another one of these great hardcoe immersion ideas that they can't implement sadly because lots of people would complain. "Empty dungeon, WTH?!"
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jesse villaneda
 
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Post » Sat May 14, 2011 12:30 am

Yeah, it can't really be truly "empty" because then you could walk in and get items easily. Maybe a dungeon full of extremely dangerous traps or the stalking creature mentioned above.
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roxanna matoorah
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 7:50 pm

This would be interesting. It could add a huge amount of suspense if the sounds and lighting is right. I hate to say this but look at Nazi Zombies. Most people take the game entirely at face value and say "**** yeah lets kill some zombies!" There is actually a ton of hidden stuff if you look in the right place. There is a backstory that is creepy as hell. Plus the demonic little girl makes it just chilling. Some examples:

  • Getting the Teddy Bear in the mystery box will result in either a little girls laugh or a more demonic version, followed by a very creepy "Bye Bye"
  • If you toss the monkey bomb in the furnace in Der Riese, it will start screaming and then explode. After the explosion a girl's voice will say "Why are you so cruel to Mister Monkey? Mister Monkey just wanted to PLAY!!"
  • For more of these check this out: http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Samantha_Maxis


Putting some little things like this can make it feel hundreds of times more real than a cave filled with enemies. I did some cave work in Oblivion where there would be a bunch of gore that would be disabled by default and you would wander down a dead end, triggering a scream and enabling the gore in the room you just went through. I showed it to a friend claiming it was in Vanilla Oblivion and he practically begged me for the location before I told him I made it.
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Czar Kahchi
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 6:07 pm

Culotte in Oblivion was empty until you tripped the zombie trap. It was awesome.

And yes, I want to clean a dungeon and keep it clean so I can set up camp inside.
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Cat Haines
 
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Post » Sat May 14, 2011 1:07 am

Yeah, it can't really be truly "empty" because then you could walk in and get items easily. Maybe a dungeon full of extremely dangerous traps or the stalking creature mentioned above.

Who says it has to have items in it?
The concept that every dungeon has loot is silly to say the least, and breaks the feeling of a living world. It gives you the sense that you are the only person in the world who actually leaves towns.
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Teghan Harris
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 9:31 pm

I never thought Oblivion's dungeons were repetitive, boring and empty. Some were incredibly amazing, full of little interesting things, traps, mechanisms. Hell, I found a whole castle inside one of them.
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Prue
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 1:05 pm

Excellent idea, but let's flesh out the concept:
- Rather than an "empty dungeon" it could have the feel of an "abandoned dungeon", with any ideas that may derive from that.
- Besides, there could be "obliterated dungeons" with many creatures dead and some adventurers or soldiers dead too, lots of blood on the floor, maybe some bodies already rotten, with rusty armors and some destroyed things. But, there should be 1 or 2 creatures still.
- And finally yes, i vote too for the traps dungeons and stalking/ghostly creature dungeons.

All that helps bring details that conclusively build an atmosphere and identity to them. And of course, the keyword for this is occasionally.
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Frank Firefly
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 1:51 pm

I don't like the idea of an empty dungeon. The first time could be frightening but after that... I would preffer if after the first time, the dungeon gets populated. Even better if it gets populated when you are deep inside (the monsters or the bandits return to home, al coffins sudenly oppens, you heard a scrach noise in many walls...).
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CHANONE
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 12:54 pm

Would be great, keeps you on your toes. They shouldn't have any crazy loot though... maybe a few spoils of old battles, corpses to loot. Sad stories written in half-rotted journals.

And some dungeons should feel empty... and then suddenly surprise you.
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sharon
 
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Post » Sat May 14, 2011 12:17 am

In an empty cave, maybe add sound effects like a creature stalking you, but never show it. Let the imagination fill that gap for you. :D
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Rachel Eloise Getoutofmyface
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 8:24 pm

Another one of these great hardcoe immersion ideas that they can't implement sadly because lots of people would complain. "Empty dungeon, WTH?!"


This. New Vegas spawned a huge fight over whether it or Fallout 3 had "better exploration," and once the F3 "better exploration" chanters were talked into explaining what they meant beyond "better," it boiled down to "phat loot in every marked location." So yeah, empty is apparently one of those things like consequences- great on paper, not allowed in game for the howling it causes. :shrug:

Not that it's not a great idea, mind you.
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JERMAINE VIDAURRI
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 3:19 pm

I like all of these ideas. I wouldn't mind also seeing random NPCs show up in the dungeons. Wasn't it kind of odd that in Oblivion, no one would enter any of the dungeons unless they were meant to? Was I seriously to believe that I was the only explorer / dungeon diver in the game? I think not. Perhaps you could bump into an explorer and convince him to help you in exchange for a percentage of the loot. Maybe he tries to rob you. Etc.
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SHAWNNA-KAY
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 2:45 pm

Who says it has to have items in it?
The concept that every dungeon has loot is silly to say the least, and breaks the feeling of a living world. It gives you the sense that you are the only person in the world who actually leaves towns.


You have to realize that most of the races that have disappeared or went extinct left traps to protect their ruins. Just because I'm not the only person in the world exploring ruins, I may be the only person that didn't get owned by a trap.

I never thought Oblivion's dungeons were repetitive, boring and empty. Some were incredibly amazing, full of little interesting things, traps, mechanisms. Hell, I found a whole castle inside one of them.


This.
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Katie Samuel
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 4:06 pm

I guess I prefer caves (at least) with some sort of resident. It's a colder climate and living things like shelter, so I'd expect caves to be occupied. Actual dungeons, not so much perhaps. Especially if they have doors/gates/what-have-you. After all, few animals can open doors easily.
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Nims
 
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Post » Sat May 14, 2011 1:07 am

The empty dungeon concept could contain a quest to turn it into a player home: that way, in a sense, you would be the critter in the dungeon from then on.
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Rachael Williams
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 10:30 pm

Heck no that defeats the purpose of entering a dungeon. That would make getting the items too easy. If it's something like Culotte though then that's a different story.
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brenden casey
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 1:59 pm

I like all of these ideas. I wouldn't mind also seeing random NPCs show up in the dungeons. Wasn't it kind of odd that in Oblivion, no one would enter any of the dungeons unless they were meant to? Was I seriously to believe that I was the only explorer / dungeon diver in the game? I think not. Perhaps you could bump into an explorer and convince him to help you in exchange for a percentage of the loot. Maybe he tries to rob you. Etc.


I've started playing Morrowind for the first time, I'm finding loads of NPC's in dungeons, handing out mini quests or having something interesting to say, I think there were maybe two dungeons in Oblivion where I met someone who didn't want to kill me, Fallout 3 was a big improvement in this regard so I'm hopeful they're on the right track.
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Susan Elizabeth
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 1:39 pm

Frankly, you just can't have empty dungeons willy nilly. There is plenty of opportunities that are realistic that allow for dungeons to have residents and items that are still salvageable. It would be better to have every dungeon in Skyrim to be filled to the top with gold and listen to some of the people that think it's unrealistic than listen to those same people raging about how they hate how when you walk into a a dungeons it is empty and they could've done things with that empty dungeon. Trust me, people would say that.

I've started playing Morrowind for the first time, I'm finding loads of NPC's in dungeons, handing out mini quests or having something interesting to say, I think there were maybe two dungeons in Oblivion where I met someone who didn't want to kill me, Fallout 3 was a big improvement in this regard so I'm hopeful they're on the right track.


Well to be fair, Morrowind's dungeons were full of people researching Dwemer ruins, researching Daedric ruins or just lived there because of the way Vvardenfell is. In Cyrodiil, not that many people would want to wander into a haunted fort or Ayleid ruins seeing as how Ayleid ruins are extremely dangerous with all their traps and the greedy treasure hunters trying to kill you to make sure you don't steal any of their stuff.
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Milad Hajipour
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 10:33 am

Dungeons aren't empty.

Ruins are empty (sometimes). Caves are empty (if you're lucky!) Dungeons are not.
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Tikarma Vodicka-McPherson
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 6:45 pm

It makes me think of Morrowind and the way there were large numbers of boring tombs with uninteresting generic loot and annoying stat-lowering monsters. But then there were those unique places too, some were interesting because they were indeed empty or desolate, or in a remote location.
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Robert Garcia
 
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Post » Fri May 13, 2011 10:38 am

no, loot would be to easy to get, and is there was no loot, it'd be a pointless waste of time which will be a complaint somewhere down the line

good concept, but some things don't work in games
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Queen
 
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