Feedback required: How dark do you like your dungeons?

[Sdesser]

don't include light sources, love a draugr, especially when he pops into existence at the edge of your torch radius and is sucking on your face.

if it's too dark just make your monsters explode when they die.

 

Exploding Draugur? Somehow I'm not warming to that idea :D

 

The first request I'm more than happy to provide. All I have to do is to remember to backup before I start adding lights :P

Edited February 4, 2013 by Sdesser

[bben46]

I have been 2 miles into a coal mine when there was a power failure. - It doesn't get any darker. There is a very good reason miners wear hats with a light on them. Then carry another light source too.True underground is dark, not the dark you are used to, but the underside of a rock dark. So dark that light is a distant memory. There is NO light seeping in through a crack under the door, No dim starlight showing through clouds - and you really aren't sure if you still have a nose. Putting your hand in front of your face doesn't matter (actually you feel the heat from your hand) Your other senses start to be far more important. Sounds that you never noticed before seem loud. You breathing and heartbeat become noticeable. Every slight breeze is instantly felt. After a while, you will know when someone else is near because you can feel the heat from their body and hear them breathe at 20 feet. Of course, that is reality and there is not yet a way to simulate any of that. :rolleyes:

 

In the vanilla caves you really don't need a torch most of the time - although it does help when searching for chests and stuff. There are plenty of portable light sources in the game - light spells, rings of light, torches, and night vision. And mods that allow lanterns or candles. There may be some luminescent stuff - those glowing jellyfish looking fungus found in Falmer caves, but the light from them is dim on purpose. Maybe you could find a way to have the player take one of those - or even put several in a jar. Or take a torch bug in a jar . :tongue:

 

Go ahead and make it as dark as you want - don't pay any attention to the wimps that are too lazy to carry their own light source. Or, if you want, put in some of the luminescent fungus in some places. Or have the walls glow with a magical light. It's your mod, make it the way you want it. :thumbsup:

[ArtMurder]

I have been 2 miles into a coal mine when there was a power failure. - It doesn't get any darker. There is a very good reason miners wear hats with a light on them. Then carry another light source too.True underground is dark, not the dark you are used to, but the underside of a rock dark. So dark that light is a distant memory. There is NO light seeping in through a crack under the door, No dim starlight showing through clouds - and you really aren't sure if you still have a nose. Putting your hand in front of your face doesn't matter (actually you feel the heat from your hand) Your other senses start to be far more important. Sounds that you never noticed before seem loud. You breathing and heartbeat become noticeable. Every slight breeze is instantly felt. After a while, you will know when someone else is near because you can feel the heat from their body and hear them breathe at 20 feet. Of course, that is reality and there is not yet a way to simulate any of that. :rolleyes:

 

In the vanilla caves you really don't need a torch most of the time - although it does help when searching for chests and stuff. There are plenty of portable light sources in the game - light spells, rings of light, torches, and night vision. And mods that allow lanterns or candles. There may be some luminescent stuff - those glowing jellyfish looking fungus found in Falmer caves, but the light from them is dim on purpose. Maybe you could find a way to have the player take one of those - or even put several in a jar. Or take a torch bug in a jar . :tongue:

 

Go ahead and make it as dark as you want - don't pay any attention to the wimps that are too lazy to carry their own light source. Or, if you want, put in some of the luminescent fungus in some places. Or have the walls glow with a magical light. It's your mod, make it the way you want it. :thumbsup:

There is a mod that already lets you put a torchbug in a jar, though I like the idea of adding glowing mushrooms to that xD

[Sdesser]

I have been 2 miles into a coal mine when there was a power failure. - It doesn't get any darker. There is a very good reason miners wear hats with a light on them. Then carry another light source too.True underground is dark, not the dark you are used to, but the underside of a rock dark. So dark that light is a distant memory. There is NO light seeping in through a crack under the door, No dim starlight showing through clouds - and you really aren't sure if you still have a nose. Putting your hand in front of your face doesn't matter (actually you feel the heat from your hand) Your other senses start to be far more important. Sounds that you never noticed before seem loud. You breathing and heartbeat become noticeable. Every slight breeze is instantly felt. After a while, you will know when someone else is near because you can feel the heat from their body and hear them breathe at 20 feet. Of course, that is reality and there is not yet a way to simulate any of that. :rolleyes:

 

In the vanilla caves you really don't need a torch most of the time - although it does help when searching for chests and stuff. There are plenty of portable light sources in the game - light spells, rings of light, torches, and night vision. And mods that allow lanterns or candles. There may be some luminescent stuff - those glowing jellyfish looking fungus found in Falmer caves, but the light from them is dim on purpose. Maybe you could find a way to have the player take one of those - or even put several in a jar. Or take a torch bug in a jar . :tongue:

 

Go ahead and make it as dark as you want - don't pay any attention to the wimps that are too lazy to carry their own light source. Or, if you want, put in some of the luminescent fungus in some places. Or have the walls glow with a magical light. It's your mod, make it the way you want it. :thumbsup:

 

Hello bben46!

I think this is the first time that I've ever had a Moderator reply to a thread of mine on any forum. :laugh:

 

But yeah, I really like my dungeons to be dark. What's the point of having a dungeon if it's basically a walk in a park, just friends replaced by Draugur and collecting loot instead of... I have no idea what people gather when they take walks. It just gives so much more atmosphere to not actually see what's up ahead. First time I ran through the place with just the layout build, I felt a bit scared walking in there, not seeing in front of me even though I knew that there were no enemies there. A feeling I have never had in any vanilla Skyrim dungeon. Combine the constant threat of enemies and traps... That would create exactly the feeling I'm looking for. I might build some sort of a quest system to work off the quest loq, but the tips would still be in the journals I mentioned before, since knowing the lore of a place does make it that much more interesting to go through it.

 

And for those that use an ENB that's incompatible with actual dark vanilla dungeons, I'll have a brighter version, it's nothing more but a few clicks anyways and could save someone the pain of uninstalling and re-installing their other mods.

 

About the coal mine... I thought that my cousins room was absolute darkness when I was seven years old and was there for a sleep over. Hard to imagine how dark it's been in that mine :sweat:

Edited February 4, 2013 by Sdesser

[bben46]

There is a very good Oblivion mod that the author recommends doing without any magical light sources or night eye. - Dungeons of Ivellon. Most of it is total darkness, but with lights in some(very few) places and only with good reason. He also has torches and lanterns in there that can be lit in many areas. I spammed a low level fireball - if I fired it into an area and there were - say lanterns hanging from the ceiling, if I then hit one of those lanterns, it lit. Same with torches, but you could pick up some of the torches also.

 

Maybe there are some ideas from that mod you can use? http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/13714

[Rooker75]

I've never understood the appeal of not being able to see what you're doing. I know a lot of people seem to prefer it that way, but I'm not one of them. Stumbling around in the dark isn't fun for me.

[Sdesser]

There is a very good Oblivion mod that the author recommends doing without any magical light sources or night eye. - Dungeons of Ivellon. Most of it is total darkness, but with lights in some(very few) places and only with good reason. He also has torches and lanterns in there that can be lit in many areas. I spammed a low level fireball - if I fired it into an area and there were - say lanterns hanging from the ceiling, if I then hit one of those lanterns, it lit. Same with torches, but you could pick up some of the torches also.

 

Maybe there are some ideas from that mod you can use? http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/13714

 

I'll check that mod out, but I'm afraid I don't own Oblivion so testing it would be impossible.

And seems like that mods author had some same ideas. Planning on some light sources but only on places where they are actually needed and where they make sense.

I don't want an old tomb - where only the undead walk - to look like they have a house maid keeping the fires burning and fresh food on the table :P

 

I've never understood the appeal of not being able to see what you're doing. I know a lot of people seem to prefer it that way, but I'm not one of them. Stumbling around in the dark isn't fun for me.

 

It can be frustrating not to see where you are going, that I understand. That's why we have torches in the game. There will be multiple containers in the dungeon where you can resupply for more of those lovely light emitting sticks. :)

There's a few main reasons why I like dark dungeons. First of all, it adds to realism. Like I described above, there's no sense in having braziers burning and lit torches on the walls if nobody has set foot in the dungeon for the last few hundred years. Another reason is that it gives the dungeon more value in terms of time it takes to complete. I'm pretty sure that nobody thinks that a dungeon that you can rush through in 10 minutes can be very much fun. And if the people playing my mod are even slightly the same as me and like to explore every corner of the dungeon and find every little thing there is to find, darkness adds to that in a way that you actually have to go through every corner to find everything that the level designer has put there, including secrets! (^__^)

[Sdesser]

I've made the mod open for anyone to test out. Everything should work just fine. Let me know if something is bugging out.

(For the best experience, get my follower mod too, link in my signature)

 

Have fun!