I'm kinda curious, because I have only played Morrowind and Oblivion and already I've noticed quite a change in the way the guilds function. I'm curious as to how the guilds functioned in earlier games like Daggerfall (did Arena have guilds?). Did the guilds have different goals/members/way of doing things? Of course, I'm talking about the four big ones of course.. (the Imperial Cult doesn't apply here, for example.) Fighters, Mages, Thieves, and (possibly?) The Dark Brotherhood.. What were they like in Daggerfall?

This should give you an idea of what each guild did and was like http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Quests . There are also some books which can be found here http://imperial-library.info/ that can explain how each guild works by NPC's point of view.

As I understand it, they were a lot more rudimentary in Daggerfall. You did random quests to gain treasure and rank, and gain new services in guild. Morrowind introduced non-linear quest lines instead of randomly generated ones. Oblivion just made them linear quest lines, isolated them from each other, and removed all the skill requirements to advance. Needless to say, Oblivion dropped the ball with the guilds. :shakehead:

A combination of DF and MW is what I would like to see. Once all the quests are done, there's nothing really to do there.

I'd also like skill requirements to return. That was one of the worst design decisions in Oblivion; essentially you could become Archmage with mostly novice magic skills at level 1 or so. :banghead:

There's some mentions of what changed in the mentality of the guilds in the "Best of Guilds" threads.

What changed with the Dark Brotherhood is that Sithis was not present in Daggerfall. Members would not always praise Sithis and say "Go kill him for Sithis". So they seemed to perform their assassinations only for the benefits of the Brotherhood's pockets.

As for missions, they mostly involved assassinating former members of the Brotherhood, noble knights, mages, war veterans and even high-ranked Thieves Guild members.

Interesting to note for the Dark Brotherhood, the contract for involving the assassination of a rogue mage had been given to the Dark Brotherhood by the Mages Guild. So even the noble Mages Guild uses the Dark Brotherhood to kill traitors to their guild.

In Morrowind, I believe that's where Sithis was introduced. They've never changed, really. They are still a guild of professional and not-so-professional (In reference to some of Oblivion's guild members) who kill for Sithis and for gold, wheter it's a contract to assassinate a criminal or a child.


The Thieves' Guild radically changed. In Daggerfall, it's truly an organization of thieves, rogues, ruffiands and prosttutes who control the criminal activities of the cities and regions they are present.
They capture children for ransoms, control the smuggling business and they are not afraid of sending though guys to "dispose" of freelance thieves who dare threaten their business.

In Daggerfall they are a bit more harsh and direct, while in Morrowind they are in-between. On one side, you have the Bal Molagmer quests where you steal from the rich and unjust to give to the needy, while on the other, you get missions to steal precious gems and riches from nobles for the profit of the guild.

In Oblivion, it's the Gray Fox and his band of Robin Hoods. Steal from the rich, give to the poor. They don't seem to really control the criminal activities in Cyrodiil.

Also worth to note is that in Daggerfall and Morrowind, most of the citizens knew that the Thieves Guild existed. Even guards didn't deny it. In Morrowind, some even pointed you to where they were hiding out.
In Oblivion, for some obscure reason, the guards will deny its existence and tell you that you're crazy minded to ask such things. "It's impossible, can you imagine a gang of thieves trying to run a guild!?"
Some of the citizens seem to deny it as well. Which doesn't make much sense since they've been in the history of Tamriel for a very, very long time.


Fighters Guild. In Daggerfall they were simply your usual mercenary guild to call for help when you have monster problems. Rats in your bed, spiders in your cabinet or giants in an old property of yours. Actually, every single quest of the Fighters Guild implies a creature of some sort. So they didn't have a specific point of view on things. Very bland actually.

In Morrowind, it gets interesting because the higher ups were corrupted by the Cammona Tong, Morrowind's equivalent of the Thieves Guild. The guild master, his associate and one or two guild hall leaders were paid by the Cammona Tong to kill certain outlanders who were, I suppose, endangering the Tong's business. Those individuals apparently "had a bounty on their head" and, so, they needed to be slain. By making it a Fighters Guild contract, the Tong could continue their usual activities without having the law knocking at their doors for performing murders.

In Oblivion, the Fighters Guild had a strong and un-corrupted leader. Which is why they were on the good side of the law in every way. They were not in good terms with the Blackwood Company, of course, but only proceeded to go against them when enough proofs were gathered of Blackwood's criminal activities.


Mages Guild, I'm afraid I can't say much. I never played through them in Daggerfall and only barely in Morrowind.
But from what I played and read, the Mages Guild always love to "dispose of" former members who decided to become traitors.

In Oblivion, they had an very poor leader (Arch-Mage Traven) who basicly lead the Mages Guild to hell. Banning Necromancy as his first Arch-Mage decision, which has been legal since the Mages Guild existed, was not a good idea. If half of the Council of Mages resigned, I suppose half of the guild members did as well, preferring to join Mannimarco's Necromancers than being persecuted by their former boss. So it lowered the ranks of the Mages Guild and greatly helped Mannimarco gather forces. Bad idea..

Then Traven restricted access to the University. Taking this decision after having cast out half of the Mages Guild surely didn't help them having full-fledged mages.

Oblivion's Mages Guild spoiler:

Actually, IIRC, the Brotherhood in Morrowind is hinted at being worshipers or at least loose followers of Mehrunes Dagon. At the very least, Mehrunes Dagon worshipers were providing them harbor and aid, as evidence by the Morag Tong questline.

The whole "We worship Sithis, even though Sithis is a non-sentient force" thing didn't come in until Oblivion, I'm pretty sure.

You'd expect them to change a bit from game to game, really, both as a result of regional differences and because they're reacting to different situations. Real life organizations tend to change over time, as well.

Cliffworms nailed it.
I'd just like to add that in TES2 you could actually turn down quests you didn't want to do. You could also fail any quest given to you. One way to fail was to miss the quest deadline. The guilds always had something to do, you never manage to take care of every man's problems in the whole province.
There were about 30 joinable factions. Temples were very similiar, but all had their own quirks. Knightly orders were devout to a city, a noble family, or a temple faction. The quests were always the same (?) but still you got to choose who to serve, and gain reputation with them, and finally a house in the home kingdom of the order. Just to be able to choose between several temples and knightly orders is massive plus for TES2, imo.

I feel there's something to be said for matinee style storylines (the Gray Fox was an awesome line) these should be more of an overarching thing, with more of the daily grind and level/rank appropriate quests to simulate the real activities of a guild. I shouldn't be asked to murder someone in my second day as a mage.

I agree. I also think it would be cool to have the choice to be a freelance thief only to have the Thieves Guild approach you to say 'join up or be on the business end of a swift thrashing'. With multiple tight knit families, orders, gangs, temples stealing from or murdering a high ranking member of one of the affluent families would meanyou'd have the Dark Brotherhood or another myriad of assassin guilds out after you. Like the Talon Company/Regulator facets of FO3. Only I think that unlike FO3 if you infilltrate all known bases of such an organisation and take everyone down then there should be noone left to keep hassling you.

Though not correct, lore-wise, I'd like magic to be illegitimate. Or frowned upon.
I also want male supremacy. Yeah, conterdicting. I guess I'd like a similar series in a different world.
But think about it. You hear from rumors that there's a Mages' Guild in "x" town.
You knock on the door of what you believe is the Mages' Guild. Could be a private club or an abandonned building.
If the former, a little "door" opens, and a man asks you you -- "What's your business 'ere?"/"Private Club"/"Go Away"/What d'ya want?, and so forth.
In other words, he doesn't ask for a password. Interrupt him and say the password, he'll then let you in.
Doesn't it sound coolz?

Arch Mage, Grand Champion of the Arena, Fighter's Guild Master, Dark Brotherhood Listener, Thieves Guild Gray Fox at level 5!

What does level have anything to do with it?
Although I agree becoming head of one should be a life's work.

im gonna keep it simple. requirements, more factions (imperial legion, temple, hunting or lore related stuff if in skyrim like killing werewolves and meeting those yodler guys, house factions etc.), use of npcs as non story driven and thoughtless quests on the side of the dev, and story driven thought out quests.