The number (5 or 6) is good news. Morrowind had 6 dungeon types:
Cave / Mine
Ancestral Tomb / Velothi Ruin
Dwemer Ruin
Daedric
Dunmer Fort
Shipwrecks

Oblivion only had 3:
Cave / Mine
Fort
Ayleid Ruin


My speculations for Skyrim:
Caves (including moss, ice, glacier, etc.)
Nordic Tombs
Dwemer Ruins
Ruined Forts (Imperial and Nordic)
Falmer ruins?
Some sort of ancient temple?

cave and mines look different so they should be separate.
Shipwrecks count as dungeons?

Anybody remember how Morrowind had like six/seven different types of caves? They were simply the same meshes with alternate textures based on region, but this seems to be a step in the right direction towards more dungeon variety overall.

Unless you want every single new game to be either 6-12 hours long or with little to no freedom to explore with art assets taking up 80%+ of the budget construction sets with chunks of pieces to use are essential. It's already dangerous how huge art assets eat into a game's budget. They don't need to make it worse, because more powerful graphics hardware is already going to make graphics eat even more disproportionately into game budgets.

As opposed to what, every dungeon being a lovingly hand-crafted individual and totally unique mesh so that only people with modelling skills have any chance at modding their own dungeons into the game? :stare:

5 to 6 different dungeon sets isn't bad, that's about the same amount that Oblivion had. I'm thinking that Beth will fool us by coloring the dungeons in different colors to disguish the differences.

Well, it all depends what is meant by "kits".

Oblivion' CS didn't have it, but if you open Fallout's GECK, you'll find some cells with prefab vaults and building interiors, which could be copied and pasted from cell to cell. If that is what is is meant by a "kit", then chances are you'll be playing the game and have a sense of "deja vu" every time you enter a building. I guess things like office buildings would feel generic anyway..

Now, if by "kits" it is meant the distinctive groups of assets for interiors, that is a different story. Unless the cells contained the prefabs were removed, Oblivion dungeons were entirely "hand-crafted" (don't know if lovingly). Even the Fallout prefabs were only floors, ceilings, and walls: all the details (lights, furniture, pipes, etc etc) were placed by hand. And most of the prefabs weren't one mesh, but a number of meshes put together

In Oblivion, the distinctive groups of assets are pretty large in number, and these aren't broken down like "room1", "room 2", etc. You have a number of different modular corners, a number of different wall chunks, ceiling chucks, floor chunks, which all snap together in every direction, so they can be used to create distinctive dungeons.

And yes, they all are created by hand.

OB had 5 types for dungeons. But they did not mix them nor was there any variation with in them. This could be a huge increase variation, hmmm I hope its true but I will remain skeptical.

Simple things like a color change can make a world of difference, like the yellowish caves in FONV they were just like the grey caves but yellowish and it made for a much different feel. Someone mentioned MW doing the same thing. That along with mixing the types would allow for a vast amounts of looks and feels. Enough to cover 120 dungeons for sure, with out being repetitive.

I think this is a mistranslation. Replace "kits" with "templates".

What about Ayelide ruins there will probly be more right?

1.Nordic Barrow

2. Ice Cave

3. Earth Cave (Inc Mossed over)

4. Dwemer Ruin

5. Imperial Fort

6. Daedric Ruin (I really hope so anyway, I'm not a lorebuff, is there a reason Daedric Ruins wouldn't be in Skyrim?)



I don't think we'll see any Elven ruins (Aylied), Skyrim is the original Nedic lands where the proto-men arrived from Atmora, before the Aldmer had ventured on the mainland of Tamriel, or at least further in than small beachead outposts. I am a little curious as to how the Dwemer Ruins got to Skyrim, Perhaps because the Nords were rarely unified enough to secure the vastness of their province, allowing Dwemer to create cities virtually unopposed.


Compare to Morrowind
[Vanilla]

1. Dwemer

2. Cavern
-(RogueWizard)
-(Smuggler/Outlaw)

3. Daedric

4. Dunmer tomb
-(Rogue Telvanni Base; Ex-Vas)

[Solsthiem]

5. Ice Cave

6. Nordic Barrow



Compared to Oblivion
[Vanilla]

1. Alessian Fort

2. Aylied Ruin

3. Cave

[Shivering Isles]

4. Root Cavern

5. Madgod Ruins.

Dwemer ruins are going to rock. I loved them and this confirmed Centurions and what not. <3'ing Skyrim already.

You missed some. And I don't think adding expansion for compared vanilla to vanilla.
For OB, its cave,mine,fort,Aylied ruin and Oblvion relm.

For MW Cave,Dadric ruin,Dwemer ruin, Dunmer tombs and strongholds.

5 for both iirc. (If we were to add expansions. OB gets 2 more and MW gets 3 more.)

I do hope they have more pieces for each kit. They really only had like one or two for each piece in either Fallout, and it lead to everything looking the same. A little more variation could really help level design!

Ok.

According to the official Beth GECK site, kits are indeed all the single mesh pieces used to create a particular style of dungeon: cave, fort, mine, ruin, etc. Oblivion kits had hundreds of pieces broken down in objects like walls, ceilings, floor tiles, columns, altars, light fixtures, rocks, bricks, etc.

So there will be 5-6 distinctive types of dungeons, and the variation within each type is going to be restricted to the imagination of the world builders.

Yes exactly. I'm not worried about people modding their own dungeons in the game. I'm more concerned with my experience as I roll through the base game.

Actually only missed Oblivion Realm

Aylied Ruin is Elven, Cave and Mine are the same thing(They use the same assets and pieces), and the forts are the Aelessian fortresses, constructed during that Empire.

Same deal in Morrowind, Dunmer Tombs and "Strongholds" use the same assets. Thus, they are the same "Template". Seriously, go into Sarano Tomb, and then go into Vas, they're almost indistunguishable, with exception given to the iconic dome-tower.


I'm actually not sure how the Skyrim dungeons are going to be assembled. Is it "Lego" style, like Oblivion, or more like Morrowind, where they utilize the same assets, but the actual dungeon's layout is hand-crafted?

Your expectations would lead to ever ballooning game design cost increases in combination with ever shrinking game content. No thank you. I'd rather the game content be designed around game play not pretty pretty unique graphics. We have quite enough "graphics are more important than game play" design decisions this generation of games. It doesn't need to infect TES too.

ima guess...

1:cave
2:tomb
but the caves/tombs have different textures!!!

-moss
- ice
- wet
-dry
-mud
-volcanic

3 dwemer
4- human dungeon
5- elven ruin
6- daedric



BUT LETS NOT FORGET the other things!!

the dynamic snow system could be used to add snow/ash/mud//dust/wetness to caves
different amounts of fog/mist/dust in caves
different lighting
different extra props ,shafts,structures,equipment,furniture,decorations etc)

You're talking about Velothi towers. Dunmer Strongholds are the big rectangular ruins with Propylons in them.

This is the attitude that lead to the garbage that is Dragon Age 2 and its 3 "UNIQUE" dungeons that got reused 50 times each, no thanks... or the unbelievable dearth of content (Read -> Unique Areas) that was present in Mass Effect 2, again No Thanks...

Single piece dungeons take months to build and have the habit of looking like steam piled crap overall as these things are hard as hell to navigate while creating them in Max/Maya plus once created you have 1 lousy dungeon as opposed to a TileSet where once created you have the ability to create hundreds of dungeons and alter them in seconds -> the single Tile piece idea is dieing as very few game use these any longer and the games that do tend to be disappointments like the 2 "2's" mentioned above.

They are simply referring to the tile set used.

Meaning... Dungeon A might use moss cave tile set as well as Dungeon B, but Dungeon A is a mere hole in the wall with a bed in a corner and some barrels with crap in them, while Dungeon B is a multi-tiered smorgasbord of traps and different types of enemies with waterfalls... Both use the same construction set but they are vastly different and not the same at all apart from textures.

so everything with independent parts are cookie cutter? like computers guns cars, yeh there is no design in any of those they are just cookie cutter designs

In MW dumer tombs(the yellowish places) and the stronghold are completely different looking. There those huge above ground structions made of stone, but the underground ghost filled places.

And I was just repeating the others not trying to say you miss them. Hmm I alway though mines and caves were different though(been a long time since I played, just going my wiki stuff).

Btw, here is a pic of a stronghold http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:MW-place-Andasreth.jpg

So you missed two. Which is some