While the tilesets used to build the dungeons were a bit obvious and overused, I certainly wouldn't agree with "seen one you'd seen them all" - there was a good amount of variation. Also, dungeon crawling is one of the things you do - get loot, practice skills, find quest items.... yay, dungeon crawls.


Like I said before, "dungeons" (in whatever form they take, from caves to castles to enclosed "open" areas) are a good way to provide a coherent area of enemies / treasure / traps / architecture, in discrete units that have a "start" and an "end". They're very handy that way.

I'm annoyed that we are getting fewer dungeons this time around. With the fun I had with Oblivion's four dungeon types(Aylied Ruin, Reman-era Fort, Mine, Cave), all done by one person, I'd expect 8 people working with even more dungeon types to make them even more enjoyable.

I never got bored of the Aylied Ruins or Reman Empire Forts of Oblivion, despite the repetitive architecture and tilesets. Where others see monotony, I see consistency. They were tied together thematically, and the amount of literature in-game about them was really

Actually, I never had any problems with the Ayleid ruins at all. The Varla and Welkynd stones helped: Though I never used them because they weren't renewable, they were shiny, unique, and fun to collect: Great trophys. The sheer size of them, and the amount of in-game literature and quests involving them kept them unique and fun, even if the loot was rather predictable.

And, there were always slight differences between the dungeons in Oblivion, and the similarities made those differences stand out, and the entire dungeon more fun than had they all been completely different.

Outside encounters, I find, are usually annoying at best. Mostly because of the foes being pointless "wandering Monsters". When I fight, I expect loot. The outdoor encounters always had boring loot.

Yes, I've never understood the fantasy obsession with dungeons
I'd like it if forts, ruins, camps etc got as much above-ground as underground attention

Part of the issue with outdoor areas not getting the same attention as underground areas is space compression: You can uncompress underground/interior areas.

And, dungeons are the most fun place to be in an open world. In linear RPGs, you can have above-ground areas get the same attention as underground areas by limiting the terrain. But in an Open RPG, it needs to be possible to travel outdoors in a relatively straight line.

Dungeons also allow all three dimensions to be used in encounters, as well as controlling encounter size and location. They also give good places for loot, and are harder to progress through than to retreat from.

I second more entrances and exits to individual dungeons. I can't remember the term used, but it's a style of "Opening up" dungeons by having areas have multiple access points, so instead of it being "A goes to B goes to C" it's "A goes to B most obviously, but there's a side passage into F, and a trap can send you do D. Area H is most commonly entered by G, but you can fall through a trapdoor back into B", and stuff like that.

Wandering monsters (Coming from unexplored depths, or from an unsecured entrance) inside massive dungeons should be added as well, so old areas become new again before you even finish. Daggerfall had awesome dungeons of all sizes.