Dungeons repopulating - Glitch or supposed to happen?

HA! I had the same thing in mind, but couldn't remember it was from Princess Bride.

That doesn't bother me as much as the crashing did. Thank god for RPGWatch. haven't touched Steam since I found out about their ninja patch and everything is still running fine. No more sudden drops to my desktop = no more immersion breaking. Especially when I'm just walking around enjoying the scenery or running for my dang life from a dungeon. I gave up on another one today. Labyrinthia is no joke when you're at level 33.

I'm currently stuck in the Campanions quest-line because the place I'm "supposed" to next is marked as Cleared due to me already having been there to fetch an item for one of the Jarls.

The wiki entry for this particular quest says either to go back and resurrect the boss character or wait 30 days … so it seems that this particular location respawns every 30 days.

I wouldn't be surprised if the named bandit leaders are level-scaled as well.

@fatty - This is the sort of thing I use the guide for. I check to see if a dungeon is involved in a side quest, and if so skip it until I get the quest. But the game should be more resilient and IMMEDIATELY respawn once you get the quest. Sounds like a design flaw or bug, if you ask me.

Does the "cleared" reset when the dungeon get repopulated?

According to some comment by Pete Hines, all the dungeons eventually respawn. The first time you clear them, there is a "Cleared" status note next to the map icon. If you look at it again and it no longer says "cleared," that means it has respawned.

Well in my experience, the respawned dungeons still said "cleared" next to them, even though they repopulated with enemies. If it's supposed to reset, it hasn't in my game.

Like I said in some other thread: The random quests are random, and might lead you to killing the same person twice or looting the same item twice. I honestly find the random quests a bit annoying, especially since it's hard to notice them until you've done a few.

I've had a few bad cases:
- Pick up the same book twice (described in some other thread). One of them even spawned in a dungeon I had just cleared, so all I had to do was run in, loot a chest that was previously looted, and run back to the quest giver.
- Kill the same person at the same location twice for the Dark Brotherhood.

The whole purpose is to give people a reason to explore dungeons. However, they need a system in place that prevents the same random quests from spawning frequently.

This is what the Official Game Guide (that came bundled with a preorder for me) says about it:

Most dungeons will repopulate over time. This can happen in as little as a week for a location you left midway through, and may not happen for a month or more (if ever) for a dungeon you have cleared. Note that your map will not indicate when a location has repopulated (once cleared, always cleared), so be careful.

Sidenote: Haven't read the guide through, naturally, as it is full of spoilers. I've only read the introductory chapters and they were interesting as they describe all the racial bonuses, skills and their perks, and so on. That info should have been in the manual, IMO.

Originally Posted by Todd Howard
INFINITE DUNGEONS!!!!!

I se the "cleared" flag so I can remember which dungeons I have been to, it would be dissapointing if that reset as well. However, I have not seen that happening in my current game.

Well, another weird glitch happened in my game. Skjor and Ria, 2 Companions who were both killed in my game, magically got revived and placed back in Jorrvaskr as if nothing happened. Skjor still calls me a welp even though I'm harbinger, and Ria just acts like nothing happened. What the hell. This game definitely has a problem with named NPCs respawning.

Quit killing my immersion Bethesda!!! Dammit.