In one of the latest interviews Todd Howard stated that the guilds will be different from what we have seen in the previus games.

So I wonder how do you think they will work?

NB! This is NOT a thread about what types of faction you would like to have included, but how you think they will be different from the previus ones.

Discuss away

Not too sure myself, but I could imagine that with the weakening of the Empire, some of the guilds might stray a little from how the Imperials organized it. Maybe we will see some "unofficial" or "unsanctioned" guilds to replace the traditional ones.

Another thought that comes to mind is with this brutal environment, there could be some really interesting intro quests forcing the PC to prove his loyalty to the guild.

I would be very surprised if we don't see a very different guild and faction system from Oblivion.

The backdrop of the civil war, plus conflict between racial factions means we are already talking about several factions in conflict. Then there is no more Mage's Guild, but there will be Necromancers (hopefully joinable faction this time) as well as College of Whispers and/or Synod.

What these signs point to is a lot more joinable factions in conflict with one another than we have seen in Oblivion.

I'm hoping this leads to some very difficult decisions about which faction(s) to join, in other words, hopefully in certain cases you must pick one or the other and each side will have some unique quests, artifacts or, for example, some cool unique Necromancy spell you can only get from helping the Necromancers to burn down the College of Whispers, etc.

I'm seriously hoping that they will take the faction in Fallout New Vegas as a template

That's to say that rather than simply providing generic 'rise through the ranks' quest lines, they will offer the opportunity to influence / coerce / persuade the various factions into siding with you on one side or the other of the Skyrim Civil War. The opportunity to try and play both sides would create some awesome quests and choices that make a real difference in the story.

I hope not as the faction system sounded good when they talked about it, but it annoyed me to no end. To influense the factions would be cool, but I hope they come up with a new way of doing it.

I want them to be more involved in bordering storylines...take something we already know for instance. The fighters guild quest line from OB...if you were to have already become a respected thief in the Thief's Guild you could use contacts in that to gather information on the Black Company...Or a powerful mage could call upon allies in the main quest.

I didnt know about there being no more Mages guild (been out of the lore loop for a couple years). But if we really are able to join the Necromancers, then I know who my main will be, hehehe. In all honesty I hope we can, and have that choice become a conflict with the other magick guild. :celebrate:

Agreed...and with all archtypes...instead of a you want to be this character this is your guild...instead you want to be this kind of character, will you choose the light side or the dark side...

I always thought it was strange in Oblivion that there was this "evil" group of Necromancers everyone in the Mages Guild despised, but they were happy to teach me how to summon zombies for 300 gold pieces.

THIS.

I would agree at least in terms of inspiration, but there were some aspects of FNV's faction or reputation system that needed a bit more work. For example, it seemed difficult to become "villified" by one of the factions. And if I RP'ed the Courier as siding with CL, no matter how many NCR camps I massacred, the NCR would continue giving me quests almost up until the very end of the main quest.

The quests will most certainly be attunded to the Nation of Skyrim's style from civilization to nature to wierd

I always thought the exact same thing, it's kinda silly, hopefully they think this time and don't do it again.

Anyway, maybe they're bringing back the requirements as well as saying 'You can't join the Necromancer Cult! You work for the Nine Divines you ninny!" or something along those lines, I think that would probably be the best way to implement factions, and perhaps as they did in NV, faction reputations.

Maybe instead of seeing a guild house in every city, there will be just one in a specific area. I liked how free the thieves guild felt in oblivion as oppose to the rigid structure the other guilds abide by, as in morrowind. I hope they make the others off of the same style

I hope FNV doesnt influence it too much, in OB or MW you actuallly joined the factions and in FNV it felt like you were just passing through for the most part. I wouldnt mind a little of that though. Mainly I just want the quest lines to be awesome and get really in depth and when you rise up and take control of a guild to have the choice to actually lead it... also i think the opposite side of the civil war could be interesting maybe even two of each, one for both opposing sides, E3 should clear alot of this up I just hope ill be able to access the info overseas.

I hope membership actually matters - for good or ill. It would be nice if NPC's treated you differently depending on your memberships, and that quests were actually directly related to important events towards the end.

Sure, simple stuff like altering disposition (and thus, prices) has been done - but I'd like to see more integration of guilds into the game. It goes back to my desire to see real consequences to actions in the game. With a civil war, it shouldn't be hard to have guilds fighting each other, or even in-fighting within a guild.

Solution: Kill Ambassador Crocker.
I think NCR is the only one that's like that though.
Most other factions (including the major power player CL) starts KOSing the player at Vilified.

This is something i'm a little worried about, because I don't want the Guilds to stray too much from how they are in the previous games. What Todd said in the German video interview alleviated some of my concern though.

It would be fun if lots of people recognize you as part of certain faction and well maybe ask for your help from you or be afraid of you and so forth...of course in different places they acknowledge you differently

Hmmm he may just have ment in a story - lore way.
However maybe he means that their is a possibility of guild rivalship.
So you may see different enemies based on guild choices?