» Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:32 am In the TES series, we've seen two widely different quest systems. In Daggerfall, we had randomly generated errands. In Oblivion, we had involved, fairly linear storylines. Morrowind was a sort of blend of the two.
I enjoyed the Daggerfall quests because they gave you a sense of actually being a member of the guild. They had jobs that needed to be done, and they needed someone to do them. A lot of your jobs would even be going out an helping other guild members, who had been doing another job and needed a hand. It made the game world seem more real, in a sense. It also allowed them to have higher qualifications for guild advancement because you could never run out of work to do, so you could go a while without getting a promotion and still have plenty to keep you busy. Finally, and most importantly, it meant that failure was an option. If you botched a quest, you didn't have to reload. You could go back and report your failure. You'd lose standing with the guild, but you could still get work from them. On the other hand, the jobs were mundane and could occasionally become very tedious and repetitive (which, I suppose, is true of real work, but isn't the whole point of video games is to escape from real work?).
Oblivion, however, went a completely different route. Most of the factions had their own unique storylines, where you could have a direct and powerful influence on how the guild worked (or at least, in theory). The quests were often involved and had their own branches to them, and typically had a lot more depth than the "Go there, fetch/kill that" variety. A "Go find that ring" quest could easily end with exposing a plot and saving the guild. On the other hand, this approach added to the sense that the entire world revolved around you, as it seemed that each guild was incapable of doing anything on their own, which was very counter-immersive. Adding to this was the considerably low entry and advancement requirements, which made it seem like any average Joe could just walk off the street and rescue the guild from whatever perils it was facing. It also means that you only had about ten quests or so until you were left with nothing to do.
As I said above, Morrowind incorporated elements of both, which can go both ways.
So which of the three do you prefer? Given the choice, which would you rather see in TES V?
Obviously "Both" is the best answer, where you have quest-givers handing out randomly generated tasks for you to do, Daggerfall style, and as you advance in the guild a single, hand-crafted storyline slowly becomes available, a la Oblivion. It'd be nice if there were big problems threatening the guild, but you had to spend enough time in the trenches to prove yourself as a high-ranking member in order to become involved. Even when you reached the top, those quest-givers would still be able to give you randomly generated work, if you were bored or felt like helping out the guild.
But I think that such an obvious answer would defeat the purpose of the poll, so it's been excluded. So which of the three games had the best guild experience?
