Yeah, I'm hoping that's what Todd meant in one of the interviews about putting back some of the wonder of discovery from Morrowind into Skyrim.

After all these years of playing Morrowind I just found Ibar Dad a few months ago....

Hopefully they will deliver; they got around 8 people (if I recall correctly) working on the dungeon this time. Oblivion's were virtually made by only one guy (so we gotta cut it some slack, I feel. Dude must have totally burned out by the end of development time o___O ).

The nordic ship burial in the ancestral tomb! That was epic!. Very "Indiana Jones".

I never did find that, and I've been playing Morrowind on and off for years. Time to install it on this new PC I think!

It actually had a quest involved with it. Actually, I think the location was a reward if I remember correctly. Start your search in Vivec!

Those would be nice to have in Skyrim. My only problem with that is to get the great armors and weapons; you have to be a certain level. With that said there is a chance of you getting the short end of the stick by getting there early.

Ah that's right, I remember I picked up a clue and a key I think in Vivec city, just never got around to finding the place itself, always got distracted by other things! :biggrin:

The best part about Ibar-Dad was that I had figured out where the key was and how to defeat the deadra to get at the awesome loot long before my first time as a tall Altmer, who then for the first time noticed that beautiful white shield with the rainbow effects.
I had been Dunmer, Bosmer, Nord, Imperial and had gone there and never thought to look up.
I mustve had the game for about a year then, I first found the cave doing the main quest and that didnt happen after I figured out there actually was a main quest and had tracked down the merchant I sold the package to Caius Cossades to.

It was an unbelievable 'Oh, wow!' moment.
It tought me to examine every inch of the map, to levitate up and see if there is something up there, to generally expect the unexpected.
One of the very best gaming moments I have ever had.
I would love Skyrim to provide such great little treasures, such rewards for exploring what in other games is just wallpaper.

Its good that you mentioned that. It had been such a long time that I had forgotten about that. Yes, playing a thief in Oblivion was such a disappointing experience, because the stealth system had been greatly improved...yet their was nothing to steal with it. You would go through several locked doors and chests only to be come out with some pewter forks and bowls and maybe some iron equipment. It CERTAINLY didn't help that the good LOOKING loot, like the equipment under the glass cases in lots of the guild buildings were actually just replicas. What a load of crap.

I missed that too in oblivion. I remember in morrowind i was still level 1 and i was doing a fighters guild quest clearing out necromancers in vas and in the tower i fought some really powerful dremora i think in the tower part and it took a lot of saves to finally kill it but when i did it had on it a dwarven warhammer. I cant remember a time in oblivion where i found a weapon or enemy that was way higher than me or load up saves to keep trying to kill something because i never had too do that since they added level scaling i found it way too easy. In oblivion exploring dungeons and caves got boring way too quick since they all looked very similar, level scaled creatures and randomized loot i also found that in morrowind it felt that there was way more lore behind everything. Also in morrowind finding places for quests was much more fun and adventurous since they mostly just gave you directions such as go out west gate of city, head up the road that goes north, when you reach a fork turn left etc and sometimes gave you a quest marker but with that you still had to find your way their either by walking, taking a silt strider to another town then take from that town to were you want to go or take a boat. In oblivion you got a quest marker and you just fast travelled there or if you hadent explored it yet fast travel to the nearest town and run unreasonably fast there. The run speed in oblivion felt way too fast and it just made the world seem smaller that and fast travel. since alot of fans want a bigger world maybe they could tone down the run speed and it would make the world feel bigger even though its around the same size as oblivion.

sorry for my unreasonably long morrowind is better than oblivion post.
I just think skyrim should be more like morrowind and i believe it would turn out to be a better game

I hadn't heard of Ibar-Dad, but this thread made me check it out. It's a pretty cool place, completely optional to visit, and has some nice loot. I also love the fact that picking up those knives spawned ghosts to kill you. These small things are just so cool.

It reminds me of how I found the sword of white woe in a guard tower, and that was just such a cool weapon to find as a noob. It made my day.

I suppose you could implement something like this through Radiant Story. In every game, there will be at least one cave with awesome loot, and it'll change every time. And maybe, just have a small hint leading to it that you need to find on your own in a major city, such as a journal saying "Hey, I heard that you can get powerful loot in [insert cave name here]. If I wasn't so busy shoveling mud all day and being a peasant, I'd get it myself. Or give a quest to some adventurer or something. Wait a second, I'm a peasant, and this is a journal, but I don't know how to read or write..."

OOO for Oblivion really adds a lot of these things back. Meteoric weapons hidden in alcoves or ledges in Ayleid ruins, named bosses with their own story and unique items, dungeon levels being static, some NPCs actually having hidden items in their houses worth stealing. Oscuro went on to work on world design for Obsidian, and it shows. New Vegas had a lot of hand placed goodies and surprises in optional locations.

Fallout 3 was better at this than Oblivion, too. Looking at *you*, Xualongh Assault Rifle!

Such applies to many many things, so both the players, and bethesda are at fault plain and simple. I just hope this time around Skyrim won't need mods to address this.

:nod: i agree , this is one of my dreams i wish Skyrim to have loot like Morrowind :bowdown:

Yes, Oblivion really lacked this kind of stuff. I think all of the legendary items in TES IV were quest or shrine related, which is alright, but nothing compares to just stumbling into a dark dungeon when you're exploring and accidentily finding one of the best shields in the game.

I sure hope they can mimic that, what with the dozen of people designing dungeons this time around.