Ok Oblivion is still in my top five favorite games of all time, but a couple of things in the game erked me. On the top of the list was the appearance of the environment when using nighteye. Being able to see in dark caves or just at night in general without carrying a tell-tell torch all the time is an almost definite must for most of us. So, did it really have to deduct do much from the beauty of the game by turning everything blue? I honestly can't even tell you what color the inside of any dungeon was.
The other thing was the underwater view. I know water in most places tends to be murky and difficult to see through, but in Oblivion, it was nearly impossible to see anything until you bumped into it. I really enjoyed exploring underwater in Morrowind and fighting dreugh and slaughterfish while rummaging through chests near sunken ships.

Does anyone know if Bethesda planned on revising these issues? I really hope so because they were the most impertinent flaws which distracted me from better immersion.

Don'y have a clue if they are fixing it, Here's to hoping they do. I would love it if they changed it to a kind of infared night eye. Imagine sneaking thru a dungeon and being able to spot the body heat of people & as a negative drawback to using it, Zombies, Skeletal Warriors, Frost Atronachs & Lich's wouldn't show up cause obviously no body heat. Thats just my 5c.

Good point. Even if it's not about body heat, "Detect Life" would imply that they need to be alive.

Well, I imagine they still have detect life spells so you would still be able to see enemies' "auras." I was just hoping they would just make it a variable strength spell which would allow you to see in darkness as you would in low light, in low light as in bright light, and in bright light it being too bright to see well and cover all spectrum in between; and where higher levels would increase your line of sight.

I like nighteye that way. That's how night vision works in reality, and there needs to be SOME reason to use something like a torch or a light spell over it.

Water should be more natural though, I agree. Why is it blue anyway? Water only looks clear (but makes things blurry) underwater.

If not anything else than definitely this.

I agree. I just want some spell that's exactly like Night-Eye in its principal, yet it makes everything look natural/daylight or torch-like opposed to blue. I'd also like to see water clarity.

Yes! TES V:Skyrim - Dragons vs. Predator Dovahkiin :flamethrower:

As I've said before, the more I can RP a Predator in a TES game, the better. I wonder if I can make a pale Orc with dredlocks in Skyrim..... B)

We can always count on Mods

I kind of liked how night eye worked, especially seeing as I didn't really use it unless I was sneaking around, otherwise I prefer torches.

Water I have no issue with whatsoever.

I didn't have a huge problem with the night eye stuff but I would LOVE to see the water fixed. In Morrowind some of the underwater stuff looked fantastic, in Oblivion everything underwater was extra super murky in every area, I hated it.

And not undead.

That always got on my nerves with detect life. They should call it detect magicka or something and all enchanted weapons, barriers, items and creatures with magicka would be affected.

Or not being dtected by detect life spell would make entering a catacomb of undead who could sneak up on you more frightening!

I like the night eye in Oblivion because it was different the light and torches. I would also like to see the ability for night eye to blind you when its day time.

Considering that this is magic we're talking about, I don't think how real life night vision works has any bearing on it, though I suppose giving players a reason to use lights when they could use nighteye might be one reason to have that effect, still, I think Bethesda could do with a better effect. In Oblivion, I generally just didn't bother with nighteye because the effect pretty much ruined the atmosphere of dungeons, and sometimes actually made it harder to see as it made everything the same color, potentially causing some objects to blend into each other, I'm not sure how nighteye should look, or how it will look, but if Bethesda decides to ditch the blue filter, I won't miss it.

As far as underwater effects, while you certainly shouldn't be able to see perfectly clearly underwater, I'd agree that Oblivion made it too merky, it's kind of nice to be able to see SOMETHING while swimming, on the other hand, some mods water mods, I felt, made water too clear. Of the various Oblivion mods that change this, I personally feltr that the one which strikes the best balance between visibility and merkiness, which incidentally was also my favorite Oblivion water mods, out of the ones I had tried, until the release of the recent Liquid Water, was Enhanced Water, the underwater view distance wasn't absurdly long like some water mods, but it was better than the default water. I'd also say that a modern game could do some nice under water effects beyond just applying appropriately colored fog to the screen, but that's a subject for another discussion, I'm just talking about underwater visibility here, not the quality of the water effects themselves.

Haha, no, things look perfectly clear underwater, just a lil wavy with the current and whatnot. It only begins to blur when you look at things that are far away, it which point it rapidly becomes blue, too.

Um,
The OP perfectly illustrates the hazards of realism in the game

NIghtvision, was, fairly realistic if you think about it, especially with the cats' inate ability. When folks use their eyes at night, they lose their color vision and really only see shades of gray. Most nocturnal animals (I think) see like this as well. So the blue color to me effectivly created a sense of only being able to see contrast, and not the entire visible spectrum. The blue acted like the gray....it was realism...sort of.

The same for water. You're screwed if you try to swim underwater without goggles and still want to be able to see well. It just can't be done. Realism strikes again.

To me? I was perfectly happy on both accounts:
I could still see at night with night vision (actually the blue reminded me of the night vision devices I used to use), and the blurry water made jumping in riskier (although I used me night vision to clear it up

What? Must be something wrong with my eyes, everything looks blurry to me underwater unless I wear goggles. I don't remember any significant blueing effect either. Guess that probably depends on what is in the water.

Ya, I thought the blue tint on the screen when I used night eye as annoying. It actually made it HARDER to see.

I think we'll see massive improvements on this. Rift, an MMO that recently launched, had amazing underwater graphics and realistic light penetration, and is based on the Oblivion GameBryo engine.

Yeah, I'm a scuba diver so I'm kinda used to being underwater but I get what you mean I thought you meant water in general creates a blurring effect, not our eyes. It IS weird that in games things aren't blurry when underwater when we don't have goggles :s I've never even thought of that. But yeah, water is blue underwater usually haha.

Night-Eye (esp. Khajit night eye) should be just about your eyes adjusting to the darkness; the available light gradually increases.

As far as the water in Skyrim goes, the latest round of http://images.vg247.com/current//2011/04/4.jpg released had a beautiful pick of a lake/river that showed a simple but revealing edition.... Viewable weeds underwater. Now these were only shown from the surface, but this may be an indication of what we can expect from water clarity (also, Awesome, notice the sweet reflection of the rock on the surface of the rolling wave).

Modern games are often too dark for me.
Sue me, my eyesight isnt 20/20.
What I loved about Morrowind was that night eye raised the ambient light level. I couldnt see in Morrowind dungeons, so at low levels I used an enchantment, and at high levels I used a longlasting nighteye spell. I loved it.


My first major dissapointment with Oblivion was the night eye. And it was a major one. I also couldnt see in Oblivion dungeons, so the very first thing I did was try to find a night eye spell.
I couldnt believe when I first cast it, it turned out to be some sort of infrared monitor, with everything blue shifted.
Its not just ugly, the irony is that with Oblivion night eye I can see less than without it.
Everything just sort of blends in together and I miss loot chests because I think its floor.

I used it exactly in two dungeons, and have used torches and light on self spells in the other 2k hours I spent on Oblivion.

A way to increase light level is a must for me. There is a simple solution.
Do it like Morrowind did.

No thats just gobbledygook. Youre sticking human quales on an inherently alien method of perception.
There is simply no way to know how a creatures brain translates this input.
Since cats are nocturnal and have excellent night vision, it would in fact make more sense if a cats brain picked up on minute differences in the light that hits its corneas, and translated it into as wide an experience as possible. Making them see colours at night.
Or, maybe slightly brighter objects are louder to a cat. Or smell of purple.

There is simply no way to know, and its a common folly to make a comparison, and then equate the comparison to reality.
The brain is not a computer. Animals with night vision do not experience the world as us looking at an infrared monitor.

There is a simple solution, there always was for nearly every game.
It's called brightness and gamma settings, and if that's not enough, you can set it on your monitor/television.

I hated how it was done in Morrowind, it just removed the shadows, it just looked lazy. It was especially jarring at night outdoors, when the ground was basically glowing and the sky was pitch black.
In Oblivion blue was a weird choice and there could've been something more than just a blue filter on the screen.
Night-eye shouldn't be the ultimate light spell, because it easily outclasses torches and normal light spells, it should have drawbacks. I think it was done the best in Witcher, where night-eye only worked in dark areas, the moment you looked at a light source, the effect would fade out. So night-eye should either blind you or turn itself off whether you're in a bright area.