Once a layout is created and a basic lighting pass is in place, we populate the dungeon with monsters and/or hostile NPCs. Almost all of the dungeon encounters in Oblivion are leveled to the player, which means that as you progress through the game you will encounter tougher and more varied enemies. Note that this doesn't mean that all encounters are your level - not by a long shot. It just means that your level determines what types of creatures and NPCs you're likely to meet in the deepest, darkest places of Cyrodiil. Sometimes you'll run into low-level critters that you can dispatch with a single fireball; other times you won't be so lucky.

You'll also encounter a variety of traps and other obstacles that - like everything else - are tied to the theme of the dungeon. So while bandits will protect their hideouts with hastily assembled log traps and trip wires, the undead lurking in an ancient tomb might have more magical - but equally as deadly - defenses in place. Many of our traps are physics based, which has led to some seriously devious fun during the level design process. Again, when it comes to traps and to monster placement we rely heavily on feedback from the rest of the team to keep us honest. For example, in one cave I built for the Mage's Guild quest line, I put in far, far too many monsters and simply had to delete a bunch after hearing that a seasoned warrior, like Emil, was not quite capable of fending off a mere seven headless zombies (what a wuss). We constantly tweak the creature and trap placement to make the dungeons challenging without being too frustrating.

Each dungeon has a basic theme dictating the lighting scheme and the types of encounters to be found, but we've also added a little extra to individual dungeons wherever possible, to further differentiate them from each other. Most of my level design experience comes from first-person shooters, so I tend to draw a lot of inspiration from games like Call of Duty and Half-Life 2. I have stayed away from heavily-scripted dungeon events whenever possible, but I do like to tweak the environment and the AI to add more atmosphere to a dungeon. For example, I thought it would be fun to walk into a dungeon and stumble into a raging battle between rival factions. So while you won't find bandits, skeletons, and goblins all hanging out together in underground harmony, you may find a band of loot-mongering goblins fighting for their lives against hordes of angry undead. In other locations, you might actually bump into wandering adventurers who are out hunting for the same treasure you planned to take home with you - it's the chance to add subtle touches like this that make dungeon design so much fun.

So you can keep your precious surface world. Give me goblins and grime and grisly traps and I will be content. That is, at least until I have to venture back to the surface to find the next dungeon to explore….