Yeah, With two giant moons, and billions of twinkling stars, it should be pitch black damn it!

The spell is called night-eye, yet you don't need it at nights...

You should be able to see stuff near you, but things that are further away and that could be seen in day light, would melt into one very dark blur.

Semi real. When moons are full it could be slightly darker than now, but with no moons it should be *fairly* dark. You'd be surprised how well your eyes adapt, and how well you really see, when there is snow. There isn't much time of "full darkness" in the game, considering the atmospheric glow should also provide ambient lighting. In the shadows of the snowless woods, it should "appear" to be darker (since ground is darker). However, if we got seasons, and game mechanics to advance time every now and then, that atmospheric glow would have much more purpose. At summer, sun pretty much never sets at all. At winter, it is hardly daylight. Both have slow sunsets and sunrises. At autumn and spring, you get equal day and night cycle but with longer sunsets and sunrises.

They should really take a look at how Arma2 Operation Arrowhead handles darkness and moonlight at various phases. Then just add a tad of light (due two moons and to have it slightly less realistic). There shouldn't be much "blue for night" going on, but rather do (semi) proper filtering, so that less illuminated pixels turns to gray, and well illuminated pixels remain their color.

Another *VERY* important aspect, in order to retain your night vision, is to have a dark interface that doesn't blind you. I made a black/red "marker overlay" in Arma2 that is put over the white map, according to the suns elevation, and it helps immensely. But there dark nights are truly dark. Don't think we need that level of realism here, although it should be plenty darker.

Actually now that I think about it, it's probably just because of the city lights. It's probably much darker in more remote areas.

Immersion! The more immersively I can RP my assassin, the better. :ninja:

I think that definitive contrast for nighttime is a definite addition. I mean, the only time in Morrowind and Oblivion that I had to use stuff like light spells or torches was in a cave, and even then it was a hit and miss as to whether I would even need them. Outside it got dark for about two minutes as the change occurred, but then the ground seemed to be bathed in fluorescent moonlight. I reckon nighttime should be a difficult period of time to navigate. You should need the help of light-emitting stuff like spells and torches, and if people don't like it, the brightness option isn't far away, or maybe a separate option to toggle the difference in nighttime changes would be kinda cool too. But if Bethesda is taking Skyrim into a whole new visceral type of gaming, then darker nights, with darker contrasting is a must. And imagine, you're walking along a mountain path, nothing but the faint light from the moon, and a torch to guide you. A shadow moves in front of you, and you draw your weapon for combat. Suddenly shadow gets larger and closer. A tunnel of flame billows toward you. As you cower behind the nearest rock, the embers of flame, and the glow from your torch reveal the blurred image of a massive fecking dragon in front of you. OMG f***ing RUN!!!!!!!! Or fight. Or poo your pants. Hey this is an open world game, there's room for whatever decision you want. XD Either way, fighting in the dark would be epic, awesome, and massively scary if you encounter something big, and fast. ^.^

I want it to be realistic.
I don't want to be able to see anything if there is no moon or any other light source.
I believe this will help enhance the game play by making players cautious during Nightfall.

Hell yeah. But people would just wait through the whole night instead =/ (hopefully we can be interrupted by enemies during the wait now)

Well one can make it really hard to enter towns and cities after nightfall. Make the guards paranoid making you cough up a lot of gold or a special pass or have citizenship or something down that line to enter after night.
This will give player choice to either stay in towns for a very long time or prepare and journey through the darkness.

Oh yes, a reason for torches.
I relly enjoyed bringing the brightness settings down.

Also lighted windows mod was graet atmosphere enhancer.

I wouldn't want it to be pitch black (or relatively close to it) at night (whether it's moonless or not) because:

- It's very very tiresome for the eyes.
- I personally want to enjoy the landscape, even at night. Only seeing a few feet in front of me with a torch or spell is not enjoying the landscape according to me.
- If you don't have a torch or haven't learned a spell (and are in a fight so you can't rest), how will you manage to see?

It may be realistic, but because of the above reasons, I wouldn't want nights almost completely dark. However, I would definitely want them to be darker than Oblivion's, but not as dark as some people say in this thread.

Is there more than one moon?

Dark nights rock.

Needs a longer effective torch radius, though... the torches in Oblivion were obviously not designed to be used outdoors, with a 'darker nights' mod they didn't illuminate very much at all.

If you haven't brought a torch or a spell, you shouldn't have stayed out so late, now should you? Maybe allow for lighting a campfire and making camp for the night, to avoid being eaten.

(Or just fast travel home if you don't find these challenges fun).

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Nirn

Darker nights was one of my favourite Oblivion mods. Such a simple tweak but it added so much to the atmosphere.

In OB I never actually had to use any torches because anywhere I went I could see clearly. Skyrim is in the north and is much like Scandinavia. Here nights are almost like it was day during summer and darker than the ***hole of a wildhog during winter, so in Skyrim it should be pretty much the same way.
Let's put the torches in use guys.

i would rather have the complete absence of light which is what night is. if the moon is out or there are a lot of visible stars light should come from them but at a low level. making torches, light spell, and night eye actually needed at night.

so i went with the darker contrasts because it is the closest to what i would rather and would work fairly nicely.

All for a dark darkenss. Apparently from a different thread, this goes againt what's being taughtto game designers :rolleyes:

Or, I guess I could just put a filter over my screen like the good old B&W movies

I think it should be based on race... Kahjits for example should have excellent night vision (mild contrast, increased brigtness), while Argonians would have poor night vision (harsh contrast, decreased brightness). Humans, Orcs, and Elves would be somewhere in between.

Additionally, it has to depend on the weather. A clear moonless night would be quite dark, but the stars would look amazing... A cloudy night would be very dark, unless you are near a city, then the city light would be reflected back down. Caves, and dungeons must be pitch black though (unless there are patches of illuminecsent fungi, or magic crystals nearby).

what i would like too see is like one of you guys already said is that the moons and the stars should be your light source during the nights.
so whenever its cloudy, u wouldnt be able to see the moonlight, etc.
so basicly during a cloudy night the lights that should be visible are ur light spells/torches or the light from campfires/ cities / etc. .
and this will also have as a result that thunderstorms will be scary as f***.
imagine walking during a storm in middle of nowhere without a single light in sight and then it u see a lighting that lights the whole landscape for a splitsecond and then followed by a terrifying thunder, u continue walking through the storm and another lighting strikes a nearby tree as a result setting it on fire, u get knocked down and when u stand up u see a shadow of some kind of beast near the strucked tree.. u go closer to the tree and suddenly u hear some animals growling behind u , u turn around.. but u cant see anything in the darkness so u continue walking toward the tree. and once again u hear the fiersome growling but this times its really close too you. u turn around once again and this time followed by another lighting and u see a big and hungry werebear infront of u... i know i'll [censored] my pants

Weres the 'other' option....

this is why i voted for darker nights. i once had this experience in OB. While cutting across the woodlands between Skingrad and Chorrol, i spent time in a dungeon and emerged to be met by a very stormy night. i soon got lost and ran frantically about on low health (no potions, no magic - full barbarian) and not using the compass. The relief i felt upon seeing city lights in the distance was a great gaming experience.