I have no idea how it worked, I just know that it did. How else did a guard with a Bleak Mine Cell Key end up over by Bravil? I just figured that I outran the range of danger or something, making me able to travel, but was still on the guards "hit list."

Bonus points to anyone who can re-create this to add credit to my madness.

With guards it was a little different. If you got to a certain distance from a guard or a bandit or any normal enemy, it would stop the combat between you. But as guards were the mystical know all you do type of guards they would still be in pursue mode, but not. It was kind of like a void between "You can't Fast Travel with enemies nearby." and "You can't Fast Travel with guards pursuing you." I'll take those bonus points thank you

Anyways I think the world will be in itself a reward. You get to see it, and all the little wonders it contains. Hopefully we have a lot more wonders to see this time around, which we should.

Two exceptions that I can think of here: One was for the KOTN DLC, but even then once you got inside and started the quest the ruin still looked similar to many others in the game. the other that I can think of was Veyond cave, the underwater combat was a bit awkward, but at least it was different. I'd like to see more of this type of exploration, not to mention more life underwater as well.

There was a mod for Oblivion that encouraged underwater exploration a while back (shipwrecks, more fish, and plants), although I don't remember the name of it now. I'd like to see something like that again. If Obsidian can take the idea of fallout 3's Weapon Mod Kit and put it into game why couldn't it be done with this one.

It was named AliveWaters.

Rewards for walking:

-Blisters
-Worn soles
-Toned calves

legendary item not tied to quests. I still rememeber the first legendary weapon I found in Morrowind. I saw some creepy ruin I never saw before (daedric) and decided I could handle it, as I fought my way through barely making it alive to the main chamber, not sure if the struggle was worth the bits of armor and weapons I salvaged to sell off later, since I didn't know if I could make my way out. Then I looked up and saw something strange, a chest floating in the air above a pit of lava. Having nabbed a levetation potion in a room or two back I reached the chest and unlocked it to find SkullCrusher, a war hammer that did a good 15 more damage then anything I've seen yet and a feather enchantment that made it weightless. Carving a path of death on my way out kill any stragglers I ran past or snuck by on my way in which I might not have survived with my low health. Moments like this is why I love the TES games.

I also wouldn't mind an achievement for not using fast travel till you beat the main quest. A mile in His Shoes - 100gs

like i have said previously i am happy if all the location are not just ruins and caves/mines. like beautiful waterfalls, that are huge. I also would like some more substantial civilization, maybe high in the mountains that is unique but separated town that runs by itself. Landmarks that i can see for a long way away, where i think ' hmm i want to investigate that.

Blisters?

Edit: Graargh :ph34r:

Its pretty simple, leveled loot should be hidden around the place (like umbra and other weapons were in morrowind) that you wont normally run across if you just fast travel or just follow the main quest.

I am not sure if this fits into being rewarded by walking but ill say anyway. I don’t want to go Dungeon Crawling when the only reward is random generated loot. I would like there to be a few legendary/ unique pieces of armour/ weapons scattered about in different places so that you have decent stuff you can really get. Also make it so you can only access them at higher levels. I don’t see why they can’t implement this; it would be easy to do.



Agreed

This mod fixes the problems with Oblvion's landscapes, so exploring is fun again.
http://www.oblivionmodwiki.com/index.php?title=Unique_Landscapes

The good news is, that Bethesda is making unique landscapes for Skyrim from the start, so modders don't have to.

I agree the landscapes do look better been looking through some of the pictures and the shot of the hunter in a silver birch wood looks stunning. I'd like it if there were some man made details in there too, they don't necessarily have to have a function, just cool things to find. Like old statues, maybe some broken and lying on the ground.

Lots and lots of interesting unmarked locations. For example: a small unmarked cave (not with a separate cell, just kind of an indent into a mountain) that's the home of a bear and her cubs. Stuff like that would provide incentive to explore just as well as extra loot or fighting would.

After stories like this I always have the urge to go and reinstall Morrowind. Great game! I never found this hammer. Perhaps I never enetred that ruin either. And I hope this incentive for exploration will come back in Skyrim.

you have to admit that those locals are extremely rare. the overwhelming majority was boring and repetitive. the DB had a great questline.......doesnt mean that oblivion was known for its great quests. besides the DB quests, the only really interesting quests were painted world, the nightmare world, helping that argonian with her friend who was in a coma and rescuing some deadra worshipers. im sure their are a couple others that im missing but when someone asks you what your favorite quests are in a really great game...........your response should be. "i dont know, there are so many good ones" i could easily list 3 or 4 times as many great quests for fallout new vegas.

Exactly my point though. Things like that were fantastic, you felt like there was a unique world to explore, but things like that were far to few.

I just want Unique scenery EVERYWHERE no just in places.

Agreed. Random encounters in the wilderness would really add to the whole excitement of exploring..not knowing what you might come across. I think Beth did mention somewhere about Giants asking you to help hunt a Mammoth and other random things happen, using the Radiant Story system. I`m hoping they really do implement this kind of thing.

I loved that, in RDR, when you came across violent and sometimes funny encounters in the wilderness.

Agreed some of those moments in RDR were wonderful and brought the world alive a bit more.

I have to join in with others, having a red dead redemption like spawning would be sweet ^.^

You could even have some artefacts that only appear in these random encounters, so if you don't travel around on foot/mounts then you may miss out on certain unique items. E.g. You are travelling throught eh woods and a random encounter starts of a merchant being chased by a couple of bandits you could step in and help the merchant and he might then reward you with a unique item. (or I suppose you could also just kill all of them and then just loot the item if you were so inclined!)

What about quests that can only be started by randomly encountering the npc/quest giver when travelling on foot in the wilderness.

This.