The quest lines are shorter in this game. I wish they was longer than they are, also I do not rush things I tend to drag things out in these games.

Again, Captain, we're not talking about how many hours it took to do the questlines (heck, I only got around to hitting Solitude for the MQ in the thirties, and only finished it after level 50).

We're talking about number of quests.

As I mentioned, the Companions questline - possibly bugged - didn't make/let me do more than one random filler quest in between the main quests. I was a trusted member of the Circle almost immediately after joining, and the whole questline was done within six or so quests. Doesn't matter if I rushed through them in an hour, or if I spread them out over 60 hours of other stuff - the questline itself was short.

I'm in 100% agreement regarding the Companions and College of Winterhold storylines in Skyrim. In Oblivion, the Mages Guild questline was pretty epic- having to get the approval from each guild location leader, etc. before things really took off. The Fighter's Guild also had some serious meat to it and felt very "warrior-like" in application/context, especially with the whole conflict/competition between the FG and the Blackwood Company.

I've just started the Thieves Guild line and haven't touched the Dark Brotherhood, or the 'civil war stuff' yet (sounds like those are the good ones), but I was pretty bummed out by the others thus far...I really disliked the whole direction the Companions' quest immediately took (no spoilers, but pretty sure EVERYONE knows what I'm referring to). It felt like a gimmick, and I frankly couldn't wait to "get rid of" my associated rewards/abilities. I was literally SHOCKED by the brevity of the College of Winterhold story. At first I enjoyed how the college really emphasized magic learning/practice, but it quickly dissolved into fetch quests. It felt predictable, and Oncano was the most stereotypical "bad guy in the armchair stroking the kitty" I've come across in a long time. Like others mentioned, I wanted to "off" him the moment I met him.

I'd actually have to say that my favorite questline so far (shockingly) has been the main one. Not finished with it yet and enjoying every second. In contrast to Oblivion, I'm enjoying this main questline MUCH more. Go figure!

Hate to disappoint but the "Civil war stuff" is about as short as the college of winterhold, maybe like 10 minutes longer.... maybe... it's a huge disappointment overall. It's nothing like the 3 major factions of Fallout New Vegas, or the option to go it all alone with no allegiance to anybody but yourself.

Some people will just try to explain/excuse anything with the most absurd things.
Like the "spell making was not in-game because nords hate magic" argument. If you can call it like that.
And besides from my point of view, most of these people just want a glorified theme park and virtual world sightseeing to get away from RL and nothing more than that, so they don't find anything wrong with it. Those are the same who tell you there is not problem if you imagine everything and call themselves RPers. If they played PnP they could probably imagine the DM too. But that's beyond role playing it's more like day dreaming.
Don't forget the community has grown a lot with Skyrim and has annexed a wider range audience.

The thieve's guild is longer than Oblivions. You have the MQ of the Thieve's guild which is about as long as Oblivion's, then you also have 5 assignments per city, and the 1 special mission per city. There is 30 quests right there. I guess when you complete them all you gain a foothold in each city. There are also a variety of assignments too.

The thieves' guild in general really felt like they put more time in to it than the other factions. There were 4-5 unique voice actors. The supporting cast all had their own stories (Rune, Thrynn, Vipir, etc). The guild hall changed somewhat as you completed more quests (not really changed, but merchants moved in), and then there were the larceny shelves where curious items that you gave to Delvin were displayed. Even though he bugged out after I turned in 3 of them, and now I can't give him the rest. And a random physics bug caused the few items I managed to give him to fly off the shelves.

Let old and senile people enjoy taking hours on a simple fetch quest.

It's mostly the winterhold mages one that is short. ; My god Labyrinthian was short; its like it shrunk from the time of Arena,

what? no they didn't, releases get pushed back all the time.

main quest and mages were complete disappointments. I finished the main quest and was like... uh that's it?

something I was hoping for was less linearity in the quest lines. There are a ton of places where you are just mashing the dialog button because there are no options, might as well have been a cut scene from metal gear. And even when there were options they have no ramification except to kick you back up a layer in the dialog tree and have to start over.

I think the lack of choice makes the quests seem shorter.


(edit) But yeah, the thieves guild is awesome.

If you do not go around doing other stuff while completing the guild, then yes it's very short. That is the same as saying my current Imperial Crusader have spendt 30 hours working for the Companions, even though I have only joined them and not done any quests.

Winterhold Mages is the only guild that doesn't have any "non-fetch" repeatable jobs however. :laugh:

Aside from some of the basic flaws (lack of level requirements), I kind of wonder if having voice acting isn't the problem. These files eat up a lot of space and you have to pay somebody to do it. The decision to make it largely voice acted may have inadvertently caused the problems we observe.

We might be better off with more text based dialog except for important cut scenes. I suspect that if they made the quests the way I wanted that it would eat up several HD DVD disks, and have cost millions more to produce.

Just a few thoughts, let me know what you think.

Cheers!
Argenthart

If it is a fixed specific day release they almost never get pushed back except when there are serious problems.
Especially for the "catchy" 11/11/11.
Pushing it back while having announced it almost a year earlier would hurt the sales a lot.

very short, a couple hours to do companions and 10-15 mins to kill DB so far, started thieves and mage but saving them till later

so true, the college quest line is only 5 quests i think, and the companians are just as short only filled with filler that does not even advance your rank (which guilds are missing for soem reason)

There are 30 quests there like there are 400 quests in Skyrim: as in not. Fetch quests are not quests. It's ridiculously boring, repetitive padding. The actual TG quest isn't even close to as long as the one in Oblivion.

I'm not even mentioning the lack of sense of having the head of the guild going out doing mundane crap all day as well.

The side quests for the Thieves Guild actually make perfect sense in the context given. I'm really tired of people calling every quest in the game a fetch quest. [censored], damn near every quest in damn near every RPG can be boiled down to fetch/fedex/kill quest.

I don't refer to them as fetch quests. They're randomly generated grind quests. A couple of quests you do over and over again,with absolutely no impact outside of the Theives Guild.

Quoted for truth.

Isn't that any guild quest? In any TES game?

They gave me a place to go...I went there and finished the quest. Went back to the guild and they gave me another place to go.....went there and finished the quest.

There really isn't anything more to it. How exactly am I suppose to enjoy it more if I already love/enjoy the game.

I give it a 9.5/10 but I still think the guild questlines are short.

Am I suppose to walk everywhere and look at the trees?

I've only played the Mage's Guild so far, and that was an utter disappointment. Most players, I think, will agree. It has a lot of unused potential and is very short.

There's plenty of games that operate this way. I don't know why they haven't taken this route. Fallout was largely text with a handful of important characters getting fully voiced lines. Freelancer implemented a system where a character introduces themselves, but the meat of the quest is displayed in text. I would gladly take Morrowind style greetings with text for the vast majority of NPCs rather than give 99 percent of NPCs one line of dialogue.

Sure, but that doesn't make it right.

Also, there's something wrong when you can be asked to plant evidence on the same person twice. And when you go to plant the second stolen item, the first stolen item is still in the chest... Combine that with the repetitive nature of the quests and it's little more than a grindfest. It makes me feel like I'm back in an MMO doing daily quests to grind rep with some faction.