I noticed that Oblivion was extremely clean. No spiderwebs, no stains, no dust. Every single place was "high class" in a way. The beat up, run down cheapo taverns were displayed by having tiny rooms with bed rolls, and funiture/debree scattered around haphazardly. I think it would do the game a great service to add something similiar like grime and dirt in the shoddy homes and businesses in smaller towns.

Part of the problem was that Oblivion's interiors were mainly made from a limited number of "canned" sections, and the same limited set had to do for both "upscale" and "ramshackle" places. Other than furnshings, there was nothing the interior builder could do to make one look "slightly different" from the other 40 or so places of the same general type.

Morrowind didn't use "sections" for most of its locations. The interiors were frequently hand-assembled from individual wall pieces, floor tiles, and other basic shapes, with the freedom to tilt them into "ill-fitting" angles or make other small adjustements in each individual item. You could place one step of a staircase at a slight tilt, and the rest "on grid", or lay planks with varying gaps between them. It was far more labor intensive, but gave that magic touch of "tender loving care" and uniqueness to the world.

Using pre-made sections, but being able to superimpose "variant" sub-pieces over it to create things like damaged or loose blocks or boards, might make the game almost as quick to build as OB, but with enough of the varied appearance of MW to look believable. The only other viable answer I can see would be to create a lot more "alternate" sections for each tileset, some worn or dirty, some clean and new.

I see spiderwebs all the time and the grimy bedspread in my waterfront residence by the Imperial City needs a dry cleaner. I was traveling in the IC sewers and popped up in someone's house to exit the sewers and there was blood all over the place, no idea why or what happened there. Clutter is often strewn about when I'm exploring...so I don't think it's all that clean. I think Skyrim will be more realistic in a lot of ways but I don't know about dust.

:tes: