Hello everyone. It's good to be posting here again.

I've had some time without a computer, but am up and running again.

One thing I've been sort of plotting out recently, is a revamp of some of the guilds. The mages guild is probably the main thing that I've been planning around, and am mostly considering a complete rebuild of the quest line and all. The main thing I'd like to do with this, is to make the quest line more interesting. I never cared much for the, "Go kill the random rogue telvanni wizard in this obscure location," quest. Instead, I felt like, while others are doing research, and expanding on their craft, you're just being sent to kill people.

Not to say that I don't understand the reasoning for it. I just feel like more recent games, Skyrim especially, have done a better job with their quest lines for the guilds.

That said, I feel like there is a lot of untapped potential that goes to waste. Things like Necromancers in the ranks, and the fact that this is so close to the events that take place in Oblivion. These are the things I'd like to expand upon. The idea I'm going for is more quests, and also a possible choice at the end of the story line. Do you help weed the necromancers out of the guild, or do you join them, and work with Trebonius to collect Mannimarco's artifacts? Perhaps you kill Trebonius and take those for yourself. Perhaps you even use the artifacts to increase your own power, and become an undead lich. These are some of the paths I'd like to be available from the mages guild. I also just wanted something to do after you become arch-mage (If you choose to.)

I've already begun work on it. I have a basic outline of how the quests will go, the possible choices you can make, the new structure of the guild, etc.. I've also begun some of the groundwork in the CS.

One question I'd like to pose to the forum, is about guild ranks. The way the base game is set up, the skill requirements are basically a joke. I've never once had any issue making a mage character, and immediately joining the fighters guild and leveling all the way up to the top rank without a second thought being given to my skill progression. That's one of the things I'd like to address. However, I've never really messed with it, and it has been quite a long time since I've even played Morrowind. I want it to be something that your average theif character can't just immediately jump into without working on their magic skills. It is the mages guild afterall. I also want it to be balanced though. Not frustrating to the point that it's difficult for your mage character to play through because they need to level up their skills 10 levels every time they want to advance. Any suggestions on balance would be extremely appreciated.

Welcome back!

I have to say I'm a bit surprised though. I thought the skill requirements for the mage guild were decent and I consider myself very harsh when it comes to these things. To reach the top rank, you have to be nearly a master of one magical skill and competent at two more. Sounds reasonable.

On the other hand, I thought the attribute requirements were just ridiculous. I mean, an Arch-Mage with an intelligence of 35...good lord! That just sounds dangerous.

I'm not sure where you're going to go with your work so will follow the thread. I'm in agreement with Logorouge about the skill requirements, though it seems to me that they follow the same pattern as in the Fighter's Guild and Imperial Cult. In my current game, I used a chargen mod to change my starting stats such that my char has been turned down by both the Mages Guild and House Telvanni

I agree that the quests need revamping for the reason you mentioned. It may be due to that I use the LGNPC mods, but most of the MG NPCs describe the Guild as dedicated to learning and sharing, but few if any of the quests exemplify that philosophy. It'd be nice to see some quests which provide rewards such as skill improvement, books or equipment re: alchemy or enchanting. The Imperial Cult healing quests do that, and ISTR that some of the Telvanni quests also do that. I just don't remember there being much like that in the MG.

It'd be nice to have discussions with MG NPCs that fleshed out more about their discipline and a storyline where the player could 'abdicate' the role of arch-magister to someone else. Thinking about other comments I've seen, I kind of agree that it's very unlikely that a questing hero like the player would really want to settle down and become a deskbound manager. He/she got to where he/she is by doing, not sitting around managing others, unless of course you're going to develop a storyline where it actually is believable that a person of action is willing to settle down

Another thing that bothers me about the Mages Guild is that you get recommendations from the many NPCs you talk with to join the MG for its discounts and services. But in practice they don't seem to be very strong motivations to join. I've found that once my char gets to level 4 or so, both as the gamer and as my char I start to question if there's really any point to joining the Guild. The market prices for spells without discounts are affordable, it is very easy to improve those skills without using a trainer, and you can pay a spellmaker in any faction to customize spells that you already know.

Enchanting services fall into their own league re: prices though there again if your char enchants stuff all char needs to do is to buy the cheapest spell of whatever effect desired with which to embue something. Cynically, I think the one good reason to join is just to have free sleeping accomodations in the chapter houses, Sadrith Mora excepted, but you can accomplish the same thing by way of the Fighter's Guild or Imperial Legion.

If you expand upon the idea of necromancers in the ranks, I hope you include sufficient lore documentation for example books and conversations as background. I suppose I'm in the minority in that I played Oblivion for about an hour before losing interest in it nor have I played Skyrim. Consequently it means that any lore I know about Morrowind comes from within the game itself, not knowledge from having played the TES games set after the time period of Morrowind. I have to confess that I find little interest in the whole idea of necromancy as it's talked about in Morrowind. It doesn't makes much sense (why and what does a lich do once it's become a lich?) and that there would be very, very few liches. Discussion about the philosophy, theology, ethics and morality involved would be interesting, though.

And still you'll be better than Trebonius... He's really dumb.

They are the same for all ranks. And at all vanilla guilds.

This one is particularly interesting. I like concepts when mages become really odd things themselves because of their greed for magical powers.