For those that have been playing The Elder Scrolls series for awhile, you may remember a little glowing mushroom from Morrowind called http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Luminous_Russula. If not, they were in Oblivion as well, only you didn't have the option to harvest them. My suggestion is this: allow them to be harvested again, and give the plucked mushrooms the same glowing quality once you drop them. This would allow the player to have a luminescent source of bread crumbs to mark their path, without having to load half their inventory down with torches.

A small idea, but potentially beneficial and perhaps even easy to implement. What do you think?

i dont see the big point in all this... why not just have some sort of marker... plus i dont wanna pick them all back up later. why dont u just use ur map? or idk. memorize your way around. its prety easy to backtrack in oblivion and morrowind.

What I'm suggesting IS some kind of marker, and you wouldn't have to pick them back up later since they are naturally occurring in the locations you would need them. Also, if you have played a Bethesda game before, you should already know why "u dont just use ur map". Additionally, dungeons shouldn't be so simple in their design that memorizing your way out would be any kind of easy feat. Like I said, it is a simple, common sense addition that would not be difficult to implement, but in the end it is just that...a suggestion.

I like the idea, and even more I love little details. But this is a case of too much in the detail.

IMO this is something better left to the mod community.

You could carry an unlimited amount of torches... they had no weight.

It's just a simple matter of slapping a new texture on the existing harvesting system from Oblivion and then giving the dropped object the same lighting effect. This is the kind of thing I would expect in the game anyway. Not for the sake of a breadcrumb trail but because it's that kind of attention to detail that should be applied to all objects that we can interact with.

I like the idea. I just don't see it happening due to lack of worth of purpose.

omg never thought about it like that YES PLZ

XD it will make huge dungeons easier to navigate

Torches, lamps, lanterns, candles, luminous russula, and crystals should have weight, and different lasting times. Anything with flames should also be possible to turn off (incl. fireplaces at camps and houses, but at inns someone should try to put it back on ). They should illuminate with different colors and strengths, and everything should be possible to put down as a marker or even illuminate your way in a dungeon. Someone else mentioned chalk in another thread - also good. Or quill or pen and ink combined with piece of paper to take notes on? Something needed to lit a flame? Maybe after a swim it won't work for a while? For me it's all about immersion wrt role playing.

Yes! It was great fun in Thief to clear a path for yourself by putting out torches. Seeing this in Skyrim with a better stealth system would really make the assassin/thief archetype the only option for me.

Personal light sources (torches,lamps,etc.) are pointless if the interiors don't have realistic lighting (dungeons,ruins,caes,etc. pitch black dark.)
In vanilla oblivion interiors where to bright and at night was also.

One could think that a harvested, dead/dying mushroom loses its ability to glow, much like any glowing organic form loses when it dies in real life. Otherwise they didn't need any heavy lamps/torches in the first place! That is, if Luminous Russula illuminated well enough...



Believe me, most gamers appreciate rather simple dungeons. Many could feel it's pain in the ass to escape one with many, many cells and layers. Also, how would the dungeons suddenly become even more complex? The longest of them are long enough already. The map could be limited in dungeons though, making exiting these not well mapped areas a bit harder at least.

Realistically dark lighting has been an issue in all the games, which is a shame, having actual pitch black areas would make it much more interesting.

Because its awesome?

Also I would love to actually use that ink, quill, and parchment other than for decoration. Take easy notes or draw a little pictograph.

*Reads OP*

*Realises how badly important this is*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9KyBdPeKHg

This is such an awesome idea.

idk..when i think flora in MW, i picture a small log crowded by luminious russula, bunglers bane and that other shroom

and with some of the mods + MGE, they are even more prominent, and quite pretty on the eyes, in fact i think im gonna go play MW right now

first off, i like the idea
second, i like that this guy is using his imagination
third, i hated the fact that touches weighed nothing
fourth, i miss touches/candles/lanterns staying lit when you sat them down

For you maybe, but IMO there's nothing more irritating than groping my way around a pitch black dungeon!

I loved luminous russula.

Which is why they include torches, lanterns, and night-eye & light spells ingame - which as is serve little purpose since it's almost never dark enough to warrant using them.

Lack of it earlier sounds more like restrictions in the rendering engine. I don't want pitch black dungeons. I want areas that may have bad lighting in them. Just like some dungeons have areas with water. Carry the tools to fight the obstacles you face. Starlight isn't a terribly expensive spell Controlling light is great for stealth, and a superb way to hide the extremely visible trap mechanisms in OB.

Use a tripwire in the dark to set off an alarm (cans making noise right next to you). Whups. Time to hide in the shadows. Except... The guards carry torches. Use a wind or water spell to extinguish their torches for the sole purpose of remaining undetected.

Although dungeons won't be as utterly confusing as they were in DF, using chalk to draw the way to the exit may feel better to the player than constantly having to pause the game while he is looking at the map.

Cool to see so many positive responses! Anyways, one additional benefit of using Luminous Russula as a marker over a torch (in addition to it naturally occurring) is it wouldn't illuminate as much of the dungeon, making it easier to sneak, where using a torch almost always betrayed your position.

Also, someone mentioned the ability to damp torches and lanterns in the Thief series. By picking the mushrooms, you would also be removing a light source, once again boosting the stealth elements of the game. Like I said, it is a very small and seemingly easy change to make, but I think it would add a lot of gameplay potential.

Yes!
Though if they did that in Oblivion, I wouldn't have bothered entering dungeons at all. On the other hand, if combat didn't become tedious/stealth was fun like in thief or just as good and there was a worth wile reward at the end...

Well, while we've got a thread open, anyone else have a suggestion for a small change you feel would add greatly to the gameplay in Skyrim?