Ooh, and maybe they could die if they hadn't spent enough time training or something.

It would be neat if you had a young member you had watched rise in ranks and when you felt him ready to send him for a certain job you assign he says, "Really? Do you think i'm ready?" because the guy he has to kill is of a higher rank than his usual kills.

And then another, cockier member might say, "Yeah!! I've been waiting for this!!!". It would give them character and make you feel for them if they were injured or died.

Did you ever play Morrowind? The Morag Tong were most definately a shade of grey.

Vampire hunting is a must.

it was ok in oblivion but there was no real way to hunt vampires, you either stumbled across them or not.

By hunt there should be clues given by the dungeons exterior, perhaps blood spattered walls, or a body with two punture holes in the neck, or a rumour by some shady backsteet skooma dealer (which may or may not be true), from books, journals, from people you interrogate if there would be such an option. Interrogation via chokehold would be awesome.

Expand the thieves guild, give them a home base in each town. In oblivion, If I wanted to be a lowly thief in the IC... I had to fast travel to bruma to sell my goods, and I had no other thief friends. I want to hang out with my thief buddys. The pirates den helped of course.

IN the fighters guild, be able to take other members on quests with you. Companions should be commonplace in guild missions. Noone is a one man army, fantasy or real life.

I haven't read all the post in this thread if this has been said already, my bad. But they really need to add some shades of gray to mages/fighters guild quests or "good guy/accepted" guilds in general. I want to question the quests given to me, If they are morally ambiguous (If I'm playing a character that cares about that sort of thing of course) I might not want to take on that quest.

More than 4 factions.

prerequirements to join them.

exceptional detail in each Faction as well as perks beyond room and board/discounts, outside operating for the faction.

to reach the head of the guild should be extremely difficult, and by then one should FEEL like they are head of the guild and unless specified, EVERYONE should know about it, bringing enemies and allies alike.

and the hopes that we can't / or make it difficult to join every Faction/Guild under the sun, especially with the Factional conflicts mentioned in Skyrim UNLESS they do a flawless morrowind regarding the Major houses/factions.

and should We manage to join every faction, atleast have some interaction with the both/or more of them in image of morrowind were for instance, joining the thieves guild and fighters guild presented an interesting predicament where you had to kill the boss of the thieves guild. because your fighters guild bosses (who were nords) were in cahoots with the Cammona Tong (which were strictly Dunmer >_>)

Agree morag tong wasn't presented in your stereotypical "evil assassin's" way.
Back to the topic, I definately want more factions, I would really want for legion to make a comeback, heh imperial legions in skyrim kinda reminds me of roman legions in brittain, and there's room for cool quests i think.

More factions.

More leadership responsibility.

More power and authority.

More fame and significant consequences.

More for Skyrim!

Not that I'm against the idea... I just want to know how these translate into compelling game mechanics.

How do you design a game for "more leadership responsibility" or "more power and authority".

I completely agree with everything you just said.

Oh, and lets leave the good guild vs. evil guild out of this, and go back to how to was done in MW. Nearly every group was somehow intertwined with each other and had dynamic, instead of FG vs. BWC, or MG vs. Necromancers. There was 0 dynamic and choice inside the guilds in OB. In MW, you could aspire to be a dike, in-between, or a nice guy/gal within the guild and other organizations. Hell, the FG had a side that was completely corrupt, made you shake down people for the lulz, and was deep inside CT pockets. The Mages Guild had you sabotage other members' work, kill members who didn't pay their dues, had a leader who was wholly incompetent, and shake down anyone who taught magic outside the guild/kill the Telvanni (like what a real guild would do, keep its monopoly). The Thieves Guild had you steal from anyone your employer told you too, but also assassinate and blackmail people in the CT and FG. And that's just naming a few organizations, the houses are in even worse shape.

I get the impression that factions in Oblivion where designed with the purpose of having the player actually be able to join and head each and every one of them. Setting aside how unrealistic this is, it leaves you with very little choice regarding what kind of interaction between these guild you can have. They should go with a totally different approach on Skyrim, that would give them a lot more freedom to create more interesting Guilds and meaningful quests.

The more the better I always say. Also, I've been pretty angry that they still have yet to implement a Merchants guild. I mean, if Two Worlds can do it and have it be reasonably fun then I expet Skyrim to follow suit.

I agree wholeheartedly. While it was clear that Bethesda cut down on the number of guilds in Oblivion to maximize their quality, I still found that most of those guilds were not of the necessary quality to satisfy me. Fighters and Mages guilds were pretty light and casual, while the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild were REALLY fun to play.

I'd love to see a lot of the guilds and organizations seen in Morrowind return, as well as several others that are related to the region. I feel that the Imperiall Legion and Imperial Cult would have significant relevance in Skyrim, and the Fighter's and Mage's Guild would be fascinating to see in Skyrim due to competing mercenary bands or general animosity towards magical practices. The Thieves would likely be smaller and splintered, and the Dark Brotherhood would be SO cool because of the Civil War aspect. Then there's different Skyrim factions warring for supremacy, House Redoran fighting on the border... so much potential.

So I'd love to see more guilds, absolutely. So long as Bethesda can maintain the quality. If they can't, then I can accept some cuts.

I think it would be cool to become like a Duke/Earl/Baron/Whatever of a town or small county. Then as ruler, you would be responsible for things like taxes, public development, trade, population happiness, etc. within your town. I would like to see some kind of situation where you could invest money into a rundown shop, and weeks later, it would be fully functional, allowing you to purchase wares, as well as making small profits. There could even be repeatable quests to defend your town (or raid another) from marauding bandits, creatures, or other factions, kind of like what you do at the end of Shivering Isles as Madgod.

Yes and no. I'd like to see a very complex hierarchy tree of groups, or factions.
But I don't like to call every one of these group a faction. Some you join by request.
Some you join by doing stuff. Some you are part of due to race. Some due to where
you are at the time. Some by illnesses you have had. Kind of like social groups,
in most of them you're part of them, but they don't have a ranking system of power.

I really dislike joining and climbing to the top of the mages guild, when I'm a hunter.
Mages guild, thieves guild, and fighters guild should be the only general guilds
available from the start. You should only be able to top one of them, and you should
only be able to join two of them.

I don't like the design about them either. Do a series of preplanned quests, and you
become leader. I mean wtf is that? It takes no time, devotion or dedication to reach
the top at all. Yay, I'm the leader of the mages guild - how the hell did that happen?
There should be more to it. Reputation, fame, infamy (where applicable), time
spent in active duty - not only number of quests. Devotion should be measured, i.e.
if you're only active in the mages guild, maybe time requirements are less than if
you're also active in other guilds.

Expand the concept of factions greatly. Families and clans as well as religious
organizations, guilds, military factions etc.

If played for a couple of hours each day, I would expect it to take at least a month
(real time, not game time) to reach the top of a faction. Maybe some missions may
only occur at certain times of the year, or during a full moon or eclipse or whatever.
Things needs to be slowed down considerably.

I definately want more factions and dislike been able to become leader of all the factions in oblivion but the thing that annoyed me more was that you can, for example, become arch-mage with only needing to cast a spell in one mission (the one with the pillar thing). The thieves guild they got partly right with the blood price but it needs expanding. For example, a theives guild mission could require you to aquire item x without casting a spell. Or mages guild missions that specifically test your skills in a specific area of magic etc. To be ready for advancement, the game should take into account the level of your skills that are relative to the particular faction.

Factions I want to see:
Knightly Orders
A Church or churches
Fighters, Thieves, Mages
Clans (Or Holds, however it works) (These would function similar to the Great Houses of Morrowind)
Dark Brotherhood
Arena or backroom fight club.
and a Huntsman type of thing were the quests are to go out and hunt rare/unique and quite dangerous beasties.

Also, skill requirements for rank must come back.

Agreed. I especially like the backroom fight-club idea. I could do an Argonian Tyler Durden character.

More factions (political factions) and more "complexity" in the motives of all factions and guilds, like in Morrowind, please.

I'd like more underground factions a la Morrowind Thieve's Guild. Meeting in a tavern and discussing business has some appeal. Also the ability to form a mercenary band or something would be nice.

I'd be happier with more depth rather than just factions. I would want a lasting and ongoing benefit for reaching the top of that faction.

I don't care, just give me political factions (at least 3), and religious factions.

Otherwise, the world just feels cheap.

I want the imperial legion as a joinable faction once again. Being that skyrim is an imperial province there should be a large imperial presence in skyrim. Some of the quests should be true to being a legionairre...fighting in major battles, bandit raids, etc, and even sometimes boring patrol

Sorry, but after the events of the book, the Empire is gone.

We don't know when Skyrim is set, but it most likely will be set after the books.

Of course, that shouldn't stop them from figuring out another military force that the player could join or aid.

All they do is slow down the guild questline and encourage you to grind your skills. I want them to give you quests that require you to be competent in the skills they endorse, not some phony number ticker that says level 79 mystics can't be head wizard because only level 80 mystics can cut it.
Just make all the factions political in some way. It solves the politics.

Actually it′s even worse, you don′t have to cast a single spell. There is a chest near the male NPC that you can use that has all the scrolls you need to do the quest, so you just need to use a scroll but cast no spells.