The Arch-Mage's position svcks. You don't get any interesting perks, except for a Mage Apprentice follower. I want to be able to appropriate contingents of Battlemages for assaults on Ayleid ruins, play a fitting part in the politics of Cyrodiil, have diplomatic relations with the Counts and Countesses. I want to oversee repairs to the Bruma Guild Hall, additional recruitment to the guild, and so on. As with the Fighters' Guild and Thieves Guild leaderships, the leadership of the Mages Guild is too limited. Discuss.

I agree that the perks of the position are poor.

That is why I no longer progress the MG questline far enough to endanger Hanibal Traven. My character is an adventuress, and happy little member of the guild. She has no interest in the headaches and responsibilities of the Arch Mage. She certainly does liaison (ok, spy work) for the Council of Mages regarding the leaders of the Empire and its cities. In fact, her guild often has her doing some pretty interesting things that are not scripted into the game. Of course, she has a very fertile imagination. :dance:

Or the DB which is perhaps the most limited of all.

It would be nice if you could do more as a guild leader. I guess they didn't have the time or resources to build that in.

Its a part of rpg's their story lines have to come to conclusion at some point.
Oblivion went the route of reaching the top rank / becoming a king / god route, which unfortunatly most rpg's do as standard "rewards / trophies".
The point of these is to say well done you've done it, have a :cookie:, not to extend the faction quests further ad infinitum.
What you described would take constant work by the teams that developed Oblivion on a infinite loop to be pulled off correctly.
That however would take up too much money and the system would slowly die off or get dropped due to lack of players.

All that said yes I would dearly love it if Oblivion were to feature what you suggested, but we can only dream or mod something ourselves on pc.

I don't like how the quest flow closes off completely the second you become the leader of a guild. A couple extra quests for the guild leaders would be nice. I don't think quests have to go on forever, but making it to the top of the faction shouldn't have to be the end of it all.

Maybe one day you can have a drink with the head of the fighter's guild and the champion of Cyrodil and all [censored] about the perks of your positions

This is my thought too, although I think there SHOULD be mundane repeatable quests one can perform forever should one choose. (Though not guild related, Povuholo himself makes several of these available -- I'm partial to wine deliveries -- in his excellent Kragenir's Death Quest mod.) There is at least one mod that DOES increase the scope of the Arch Mage position. It is, alas, no longer being updated and not currently supported. I have no personal experience with that mod, since it slightly conflicts with an already-installed mod I'm loath to abandon.

Being Arch-Mage is somewhat contradictory to my avatar's persona, a plate-encased knight-errant who survives by strength of arms and makes minimal use of magic. I can justify his assumption of the Arch-Mage position from a role-play perspective by considering it a purely political appointment. (On the other hand, neither he nor I would ever consider joining either the assassin or thieves guilds.)

-Decrepit-

Mage's Guild kinda svcks after you get into the Arcane University. The apprentices are too busy with their scholarly works and the scholars still treat you like dirt regardless of your position. A lot of the quests are like oh do this I'm too lazy or too depressed to do it myself.

I don't really see a point to becoming arch-mage anymore. Frostcrag for the most part renders it obsolete. I mean the alchemy chest is nice, But I prefer Frostcrags Alchemy garden. It would be nice to have some stuff to do, like sending people off to deal with some magical issue, or investigating ayleid ruins for new types of magic.

So what, exactly, was the previous Arch-mage doing with his time, besides upsetting all the necromancers? :wink_smile:

Delegate, delegate...

That guy (the Arch Mage) dreams up all kinds of crap for my poor character to do. All kinds of missions that aren't even in the game! Investigate Umbaccano's Ayleid research, find out what Meridia knows about necromancy, go get some black soul gems for research, deliver guild condolences to some poor mage that got himself killed, look into (and, um, eliminate) some of these 'sleeper agents' wandering around Cyrodiil, run down some rumor about a wizard's tower up in the snowy mountains, teach some mystic archery classes, help the Count of Skingrad cure his sick wife in exchange for information the guild needs ....

It goes on and on! :dance:

Everyone needs a mentor. Sheogorath's staff whispers to Fortja when she's sleeping.

I agree! Buffy has an old etherial paladin that travels with her in her head.

then you would be sitting in a room talkin to yourself.... :drool:

you can get 2 apprentice followers - if you talk to the right apprentices.

i would at least like to be able to create custom spells for them. after all, the entire point of following the arch mage was to learn magic they'd otherwise not learn. on a related note, customizing all follower inventory without pick pocketing would be nice too.

One nice perk would have been, being able to demand training at any time from another guild member. I get fairly frustrated at times waiting for MG to finish their :swear: 2-3 hour meal.

I made a thread about this ages ago. I don't think rising to become head of a faction is a realistic prospect or ongoing occupation for an adventurer.