This is what a creepy dungeon should look like ZOS!

RSram · January 2015

This is a screen shot from a vanilla Oblivion installation; note that Oblivion came out in 2006 and it still blows away the ESO lighting engine.

Yann · January 2015

ESO's lighting is superior to Oblivion's in every way, IMHO.

Merlin13KAGL · January 2015

I don't know. The Ayleid ruins were pretty awesome, especially the room-sized traps.

Yann · January 2015

No offense to Oblivion, lol. It was my first TES game and I remember being scared as hell while exploring. I'd never played anything similar and the thought of entering a cave full of zombies and whatnot made me *** myself.

But the reason it was so scary is because the game itself was immersive, not because the design or lightning were better than ESO's.

In ESO mobs are just standing around, are stupid as hell and even if they kill you just respawn in like 5 seconds. There's no way you can make a MMORPG scary...

reften · January 2015

Yann wrote: »

No offense to Oblivion, lol. It was my first TES game and I remember being scared as hell while exploring. I'd never played anything similar and the thought of entering a cave full of zombies and whatnot made me *** myself.

But the reason it was so scary is because the game itself was immersive, not because the design or lightning were better than ESO's.

In ESO mobs are just standing around, are stupid as hell and even if they kill you just respawn in like 5 seconds. There's no way you can make a MMORPG scary...

Original Everquest...where dieing meant loosing a days worth of xp and having to run back to your body naked to loot it. Unrest house basement w the hags...scary stuff.

RSram · January 2015

Yann wrote: »

No offense to Oblivion, lol. It was my first TES game and I remember being scared as hell while exploring. I'd never played anything similar and the thought of entering a cave full of zombies and whatnot made me *** myself.

But the reason it was so scary is because the game itself was immersive, not because the design or lightning were better than ESO's.

In ESO mobs are just standing around, are stupid as hell and even if they kill you just respawn in like 5 seconds. There's no way you can make a MMORPG scary...

Your are correct, and I should have explained a bit more in what I was trying to convey. In my opinion the dungeons in Oblivion were much more scarier than even Skyrim, but I think the lighting played a big role in this as well as how the NPC's used sound and line of sight to find you instead of proxy location like in ESO.

And this was eight years ago, or three year old technology before ESO was even started.

daneyulebub17_ESO · January 2015

oren74 wrote: »

Yann wrote: »

No offense to Oblivion, lol. It was my first TES game and I remember being scared as hell while exploring. I'd never played anything similar and the thought of entering a cave full of zombies and whatnot made me *** myself.

But the reason it was so scary is because the game itself was immersive, not because the design or lightning were better than ESO's.

In ESO mobs are just standing around, are stupid as hell and even if they kill you just respawn in like 5 seconds. There's no way you can make a MMORPG scary...

Original Everquest...where dieing meant loosing a days worth of xp and having to run back to your body naked to loot it. Unrest house basement w the hags...scary stuff.

Agreed! Want to make things scary? Give us CONSEQUENCES for dying--not just "resurrect here?" or at the beginning of the dungeon, with some minor damage to your armor.

firstdecan · January 2015

daneyulebub17_ESO wrote: »

oren74 wrote: »

Yann wrote: »

No offense to Oblivion, lol. It was my first TES game and I remember being scared as hell while exploring. I'd never played anything similar and the thought of entering a cave full of zombies and whatnot made me *** myself.

But the reason it was so scary is because the game itself was immersive, not because the design or lightning were better than ESO's.

In ESO mobs are just standing around, are stupid as hell and even if they kill you just respawn in like 5 seconds. There's no way you can make a MMORPG scary...

Original Everquest...where dieing meant loosing a days worth of xp and having to run back to your body naked to loot it. Unrest house basement w the hags...scary stuff.

Agreed! Want to make things scary? Give us CONSEQUENCES for dying--not just "resurrect here?" or at the beginning of the dungeon, with some minor damage to your armor.

The damage armor would take used to be much more significant and costly to repair, ZOS changed that due to player feedback. Many players felt that the consequences of dying prohibited them from experimenting with combat styles \ skills \ methods \ techniques to use against mobs \ bosses. Of course, this was also before the VR nerf.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree, I'm not criticizing your opinion, just summarizing some of the history behind this particular aspect of the game.

Rosveen · January 2015

Yann wrote: »

No offense to Oblivion, lol. It was my first TES game and I remember being scared as hell while exploring. I'd never played anything similar and the thought of entering a cave full of zombies and whatnot made me *** myself.

But the reason it was so scary is because the game itself was immersive, not because the design or lightning were better than ESO's.

In ESO mobs are just standing around, are stupid as hell and even if they kill you just respawn in like 5 seconds. There's no way you can make a MMORPG scary...

I couldn't agree more. ESO will never be as immersive and emotional for me as the single player games because I can't really affect the world. I can't clear out a cozy cave and make it my home. I can't kill an annoying NPC to permanently shut them up. Whenever I look behind, they've already respawned. And I can't blame ESO, it's the way it has to be because there's a hundred of other players lining up to clear that location, but still. Can a dungeon really be creepy when five other people are casting spells left and right and I can run through it in circles forever, mowing down respawning enemies?

NotSo · January 2015

ESO could have a scare factor simply by making the solo delves have mobs that aggro by sound.

Oblivion was scary because you were paranoid about waking up enemies from the other side of the dungeon, not to mention some of those dungeons have a really great mist that hide distant mobs from view.

I think ESO could benefit by having other initial aggro mechanics other than a visual proximity (by "initial aggro" I mean what would start a fight).

PBpsy · January 2015

NotSo wrote: »

ESO could have a scare factor simply by making the solo delves have mobs that aggro by sound.

Oblivion was scary because you were paranoid about waking up enemies from the other side of the dungeon, not to mention some of those dungeons have a really great mist that hide distant mobs from view.

I think ESO could benefit by having other initial aggro mechanics other than a visual proximity (by "initial aggro" I mean what would start a fight).

Yes. The soft agro "pull1" ,"pull2","pull3" ... is what eliminates most sense of danger in most MMOs. The combat is in general reduced to a puzzle or a number problem. This can be indeed be fun the first time especially if the solution takes some time to figure out but what you will see as the game progresses is players trying to bypass each and every possible "pull". In general there is no randomness in combat and most pulls become the same.Unfortunately there are many reasons (good) the devs design these games this way and we wont see a game that strays from the model too much soon. TESO is actually a bit better then most other MMOs in this regard.

The punishment for death doesn't do much of a difference. It is just punishment. Many good single player RPGs maintain the sense of danger in encounters just fine and usually the only punishment is a loading screen. I actually think heavy punishment can hinder the sense of danger in some situation due to overcautious gameplay.

burningcrow · January 2015

I think the absolute best thing they could do to make them even more creepy is turn out the lights in most of the areas and give us torches.

Oh and if you are lucky you could make a night vision potion or be a khajiit.

Elsonso · January 2015

Man, that screen shot reminded me of how bad the Oblivion graphics were. I know you wanted creepy but when I saw it, all I said was, "ewwww".

daneyulebub17_ESO wrote: »

Agreed! Want to make things scary? Give us CONSEQUENCES for dying--not just "resurrect here?" or at the beginning of the dungeon, with some minor damage to your armor.

One early multiplayer adventure game that I knew had loot-corpse system when a character died. This was done for mostly PVP reasons, but in PVE it was not uncommon for players to have to run all the way from the spawn point, or yell to a friend to grab their stuff. Each zone had a spawn point, but often it was a city in a different zone, which made getting back to the corpse, with no equipment, difficult. Many players lost entire inventories and a few of them rage quit. This was the way the game still worked when it was closed down.

I doubt this would work in a new game, today. It was more acceptable in the early days as a way to make death more meaningful. There were a lot of game mechanics back then that have been "improved" over time, mostly by getting rid of them. Today, anything that stands between the player and max level is a reason to unsubscribe and find a game that has no such stupid game play mechanics.

NotSo wrote: »

ESO could have a scare factor simply by making the solo delves have mobs that aggro by sound.

I think ESO could benefit by having other initial aggro mechanics other than a visual proximity (by "initial aggro" I mean what would start a fight).

I agree. It is often silly that I can sneak, if not run, past guards and other monsters in almost all areas of the game. These creatures are specifically placed and always appear at exactly that location, so it is intended that someone will be able to do that. In my mind, the predictable nature of mob placement is horrible. There are no dungeons out there, even the newly redesigned ones, where placement is not precise and planned. As the player or group progresses, the game will challenge in a controlled and manageable way. In the end, the monsters and NPCs are placed there because that is where they need to be to present the next challenge and they are spaced just far enough apart that they can not be alerted by the very loud and raging battle 20 feet away.

"Huh, Bob was just killed by that Atronach that suddenly appeared next to those people I have never seen before. Oh well, back to seeing if flipping this coin is actually random."

ESO is, not unsurprisingly for a modern game, very scripted. Proximity detection other than line of sight would destroy this careful planning.

In the game I mentioned above, monsters would visit the player from outside of visual distance, like the next room, if the player was using a torch or being loud (that included yelling). If there was a battle, adds would come in to help from adjacent areas. Monsters had random movement patterns and no one knew exactly where they were going to be. You never knew what you might encounter, or how many of them.

Sigh.

spryler · January 2015

Leashed mobs make current MMOs much less scary. In EQ I was terrified walking around dungeons because to agro is to die many times...and then there was the corpse run also.

Mordria · January 2015

burningcrow wrote: »

I think the absolute best thing they could do to make them even more creepy is turn out the lights in most of the areas and give us torches.

I would also like this! +1

OrangeTheCat · January 2015

Now I just want to go boot up Oblivion.

Dagoth_Rac · January 2015

They should add some solo instance delves to each zone. Not a delve-that-can-be-soloed, they are already like that. But delves like The Main Story and Mages/Fighters Guild quests where they scale to you and the mobs do not respawn. You cannot repeat The Main Story and Mages/Fighters Guild, though. Add a solo delve to each zone that scales and is repeatable. They could do it in waves, like 1 or 2 each patch. Some could go for creepiness and atmosphere. Some could be about lore and storytelling. Some could be really hard and have people begging for nerfs. And so on. There is a serious lack of repeatable solo content in this game. I group about 90% of the time these days, and I enjoy it a lot, but sometimes not enough friends are online to do a dungeon or I am just in an anti-social mood. It would be nice to have some more solo options now that I am VR14.

Caroloces · January 2015

The first RPG I ever played was Dungeon Master on the Commodore Amiga (check out Grimrock on Steam to see what gameplay was like). I still recall the stark terror of hearing skeletons walk about in a distant hall. There was no other sound except that! And then you'd sneak down a nearby hall and hide in the shadows and the footsteps would get louder, and you'd see the skeleton pass by at a distance.
I believe the only way this type of effect could be conveyed in ESO is through solo instances. It would be nice if ZOS could implement this in some of the new zones they're planning; it would be perfect in the ruins of the Imperial City. Imagine a quest in which you solo a dungeon populated by the undead, but there's no music when you go in, only the drip of water from musty stones and ghostly cries of despair from a distant hall. . . and your own footsteps sounding on rough stone!
Make it stark and scary, ZOS!

Merlin13KAGL · January 2015

lordrichter wrote: »

Man, that screen shot reminded me of how bad the Oblivion graphics were. I know you wanted creepy but when I saw it, all I said was, "ewwww".

Bare in mind the timeframe - that was a decade ago, and it was quite impressive at the time. They were the first with dynamic lighting and built in physics, etc - find another game at that time that had blades of grass move as you did.

They did more with integrating the environmental sounds, too.

For what it's worth, OP, (and to make @lordrichter‌ cringe even more), Morrowind had a very good nervousness factor built in.

There were no leveled zones, dungeons were not simple counterclockwise squares...you approached everything with caution.

Add in things like Speed (and the fact that as a new character you had none), Athletics, etc - you didn't automatically run full tilt.

I distinctly remember the first time I ticked off a clanfear near a daedric ruin and went bailing towards the imperial outpost, bobbing and weaving the entire way.

There was no tethering. I swear I could almost feel that thing nipping at my heals.

Elsonso · January 2015

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Man, that screen shot reminded me of how bad the Oblivion graphics were. I know you wanted creepy but when I saw it, all I said was, "ewwww".

Bare in mind the timeframe - that was a decade ago, and it was quite impressive at the time. They were the first with dynamic lighting and built in physics, etc - find another game at that time that had blades of grass move as you did.

They did more with integrating the environmental sounds, too.

For what it's worth, OP, (and to make @lordrichter‌ cringe even more), Morrowind had a very good nervousness factor built in.

There were no leveled zones, dungeons were not simple counterclockwise squares...you approached everything with caution.

Add in things like Speed (and the fact that as a new character you had none), Athletics, etc - you didn't automatically run full tilt.

I distinctly remember the first time I ticked off a clanfear near a daedric ruin and went bailing towards the imperial outpost, bobbing and weaving the entire way.

There was no tethering. I swear I could almost feel that thing nipping at my heals.

I cringe, but for the reasons you mentioned. Wandering off the path in Morrowind was not to be done lightly by low level characters.

MADshadowman · January 2015

This is a screenshot i made in the beta. Doesn't look all that bad, doesn't it?

Merlin13KAGL · January 2015

MADshadowman wrote: »

This is a screenshot i made in the beta. Doesn't look all that bad, doesn't it?

No, they have plenty of beautiful areas and a few bothersome ones.

I do find myself surprised at the remarkable amount of ambient lighting in the 'darkest corners of Tamriel,' though.

UrQuan · January 2015

RSram wrote: »

note that Oblivion came out in 2006 and it still blows away the ESO lighting engine.

I honestly don't know how you expect people to take you seriously when you say things like that. The lighting in ESO is vastly superior to that of (un-modded) Skyrim, let alone Oblivion. The lighting in Oblivion may have been impressive when it came out, but frankly it looks terrible today.

Korah_Eaglecry · January 2015

daneyulebub17_ESO wrote: »

oren74 wrote: »

Yann wrote: »

No offense to Oblivion, lol. It was my first TES game and I remember being scared as hell while exploring. I'd never played anything similar and the thought of entering a cave full of zombies and whatnot made me *** myself.

But the reason it was so scary is because the game itself was immersive, not because the design or lightning were better than ESO's.

In ESO mobs are just standing around, are stupid as hell and even if they kill you just respawn in like 5 seconds. There's no way you can make a MMORPG scary...

Original Everquest...where dieing meant loosing a days worth of xp and having to run back to your body naked to loot it. Unrest house basement w the hags...scary stuff.

Agreed! Want to make things scary? Give us CONSEQUENCES for dying--not just "resurrect here?" or at the beginning of the dungeon, with some minor damage to your armor.

Theres a reason EQ is no longer the big MMO on the block. And those sort of consequences is one of them.

timidobserver · January 2015

oren74 wrote: »

Yann wrote: »

No offense to Oblivion, lol. It was my first TES game and I remember being scared as hell while exploring. I'd never played anything similar and the thought of entering a cave full of zombies and whatnot made me *** myself.

But the reason it was so scary is because the game itself was immersive, not because the design or lightning were better than ESO's.

In ESO mobs are just standing around, are stupid as hell and even if they kill you just respawn in like 5 seconds. There's no way you can make a MMORPG scary...

Original Everquest...where dieing meant loosing a days worth of xp and having to run back to your body naked to loot it. Unrest house basement w the hags...scary stuff.

This sounds more like annoying than scary.

Selique · January 2015

Yann wrote: »

There's no way you can make a MMORPG scary...

Dathomir, Pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies. The darkness held so many terrors........

Fast forward to today: H1Z1 scares the hell out of me after I've collected a bunch of cool things lol.

Zhoyzu · January 2015

Agreed! Want to make things scary? Give us CONSEQUENCES for dying--not just "resurrect here?" or at the beginning of the dungeon, with some minor damage to your armor.

HELLLLLLLLLLLLLL NOOOOOOOOOO. that *** isnt fun.

RSram · January 2015

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

This is a screenshot i made in the beta. Doesn't look all that bad, doesn't it?

No, they have plenty of beautiful areas and a few bothersome ones.

I do find myself surprised at the remarkable amount of ambient lighting in the 'darkest corners of Tamriel,' though.

The graphics are beautiful, but too cartoonist looking IMO, this my be due to the large amount of ambient lighting as you stated.

RSram · January 2015

MADshadowman wrote: »

This is a screenshot i made in the beta. Doesn't look all that bad, doesn't it?

Excellent screen shot from beta, but I haven't seen any areas with lighting like that. Do you remember where you took it? I'd like to seen if the lighting has changed since beta.

Cody · January 2015

When I first played Oblivion, it scared the heck out of me. My friend had nightmares over the Argonians:D

The Alyeid ruins were very well done. Scary as heck, traps around every corner, creepy, scary, ghostly music, the feeling you were always being watched by something(I had that feeling a lot:)) and the enemies were actually CHALLENGING. Not so hard that they were frustrating, not so easy that one just flew thru them, but CHALLENGING, something ESO severely lacks save for the vet dungeons, and the vet dungeons are only hard because it forces people into AOE specs that they don't want to play(that and people cant learn boss mechanics for some reason)

oh and the vet dungeons have some pretty good boss fights. Some are, in my opinion, a bit overdone, but overall they are the saving grace of vet dungeons.

Elsonso · January 2015

Cody wrote: »

When I first played Oblivion, it scared the heck out of me. My friend had nightmares over the Argonians:D

This is understandable and why they were taken as slaves by the Dunmer.