I recently started playing oblivion to get a taste of TES before skyrim is released. I have a khajiit stealth character since it is my favorite. To get a taste of the whole game i didn't only play the thieves guild or the dark brotherhood - the stealth guilds, but also the fighters guild and the mages guild. I also played the knights of the nine and got my infamy set to 0 after the pilgrimage. since I already was in the middle of the thieves guild and the dark brotherhood my infamy obviously was high. now I have the armor of the cruisader since it is the best one I owe right now but it is impossible for me to proceed the two stealth guilds so I am playing the fighters and the mages guild - with my stealth character who can't gain infamy.....
to get to the point of the topic: we know 4 guilds for 3 major char types in oblivion. 1 for fighters 1 for mages and 2 for stealth. but the problem is that the fighters and the mages guild are "good" and the two stealth guilds are "evil/bad" I'd really like to see maybe 6 guilds in skyrim each a good and an evil for fighter mage and stealth characters.
for example:
the fighters guild vs. something like the blackwood company
the mages guild vs. necromancers
the dark brotherhood and/or the thieves guild vs. a guild of agents that serve the emperor or something like that.

I got this idea because I was tired of being "evil" just because stealth is my favorite of the 3 major categories you can play...

p.s. I wasn't on the forum in a while so please don't mess with me if the topic was already discussed

WHy that? Why 1v1 guilds when we could have intricate guilds sintead of Cookie CUtter good adn bad. Althought that si nto going to happen so your idea is quite an improvement adn many people have this idea and wish.

Is it a Good or Evil guild? Make it both. Multi-layered guilds with internal conflicts > Uni-dimensional guilds.

This topic has been brought up a few times
Personally I think guilds shouldn't be so black and white. The people within the guild should have different morals depending on their character not have it defined by the guild they are in. Although there are certain instances where it may apply like the dark brotherhood, as they are generally considered evil. I wouldn't mind a few more different types of guilds though, like a hunters guild, merchants guild, or whatever. I can't really think of any more lol. Maybe some of the same type with different ideals would be good too like the telvanni and mages guild. They both studied magic but the telvanni ideal encompasses personal persuit of power while the mages guild sought knowledge for it's own sake.

Yes, i want the morag tong back for certain!

But its true, its not about good or evil, guilds need to be larger, and have internal conflict and politics... more guild, the merrier as long as they have depth

Blades. But stealthy Blades. It would be awesome, amirite?

Yerite!

hunters Guild vs PETA

Good news for you, the Mage's Guild has broken up in Skyrim.
Synods and College of Whispers.

Not necessarily good vs. evil but they are rivals from what I've heard.

People should proof read before hitting the post button especially those of us with dyslexia.

:shrug: I like the polarity. Like the Commona Tong and the Thieves Guild in Morrowind. They're not cookie-cutter in the sense that their roles overlap, but they hate each other. Similarly with the Dark Brotherhood and the Morag Tong.

What I wonder is why "I want to play a stealth character" means "I have to join Thieves Guild & Dark Brotherhood"?





(The thing that bugs me about Guilds in Oblivion is how easy it is to become guildmaster. Or even that you can. Becoming Master of a Guild should take decades of experience, along with absolute mastery of the skills the guild focuses on. Not something you can do as a player character. Sure, let the player gain some rank, or even gain a special position as an aide to the Master. But becoming the leader of a Guild is pretty silly.)

What's wrong with Oblivion's guilds?

Well, I remember vividly that in the opening foreword for the game's manual, Bethesda remarks that "there are four guilds for you to join", boasting this number as if it's something to be proud of after how many more they had in Daggerfall and Morrowind.

:stare:

I would think that a Hunters guild would form a symbiotic relationship with the guild of People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.

If you r stealth character is a thief the he is most likely an 'evil' based character. I thought the fighter's guild and the mage's guild were more neutral than good. They looked after their own interests without overtly breaking the law.

Only 4 guilds?

In Morrowind there was:

1. House Hlaalu.

2. House Redoran.

3. House Telvanni.

4. Mages guild.

5. Fighters guild.

6. Thieves guild.

7. Morag Tong.

8. Imperial temple.

9. Imperial legion.

10. The Temple.

It is my opinion that a simple set of 4 guilds is part of the getting the attention of the casual players thing. They are also quite straight-forward: in the mages guild you are extremely good and you hunt the evil necromancers. In Morrowind`s mages guild you get different quests such as helping a fellow guildmate do research on alchemy so that she can advance, exploring the dwemer ruins and discovering the secrets behind the dissapearance of the dwarves, hunting for a few rare books, arranging meetings with ashlanders, trapping ash ghouls in soul gems... You get the idea. It`s not all about the evil necromancers, although you do get to kill one.


By the way you can do your stealth quests. You just need to redo the pilgrimage and you`ll get your 0 infamy back.

yeah i know but maybe the fame - infamy system will be increased what would fix those issues i had: 2 guilds gain fame and everybody likes you and 2 guilds gain infamy and npc's outside those guilds like you less - which "forces" stealth characters to be infamous when they want quest lines that need their specific skills...

IMO Bethesda could do a lot more with the guilds and ruling house system.

I never got the impression that the Thieve's Guild was evil in Oblivion, they just liked to steal stuff and when you steal you get infamy. Whatever. IMO the guild was a joke and their leader a fool.

I'd like to see the number of guilds triple in Skyrim. I'd like some of them to directly oppose others and higher ranking quest lines involving the sabotage/destruction of their rivals. Both members and property would be targets, hard to do business if there's no one minding the store or there is no store at all because I just burned it to the ground. Guilds who get along should compete for business, in that way at least there would still exist a small rivalry. Who says a merchant needs fighters from the guild to guard his caravan? Mages with fireballs and thieves with bows can do the same thing as fighters with swords right?

Why is there no Merchant's Guild for those of us who like to have mountains of cash? People with lots of money(except the pc apparently) have influence, retainers, slaves, soldiers, and property that needs looking after. See the Dren Plantation in Morrowind. Merchant Lord vs Merchant Lord creates tons of potential especially with this new economy system and trade skills. There were no ruling houses/nobles we could support in Oblivion, are you telling me they all got along famously and had no personal guard or spies? Really? I thought the Imperials were based on Romans but apparently not when it comes to politics. I'm hoping this will change in Skyrim since there will be many different Nord factions at war with each other.

I'd also like being the leader of a guild to have meaning. So far it's been "Congrats! You're our new leader! Enjoy!" I'm handed a few rewards, a key to the castle, and my duties come to an abrupt halt. Please give me decisions to make and continue the quest line a bit or don't make me guild master. Honorary titles are meaningless.

Or maybe have another faction like you could be the Imperials Agent and be given special missions that require stealth so the Imperial Legion is not suspected.

how about Dark Brotherhood vs. Thieves Guild....lol

I would love for them to go back to Morrowind's amount of guilds, more then twice the amount of Oblivion and all of them were three times as long as an Oblivion guild (and then there are still those who wonder why we love Morrowind so much...).

But I can understand that quality has increased at the expense of quantity. When games were 2D RPGs usually were 100+ hours, early 3D games were already shorter and around 2001 when Morrowind was released its size and duration were considered exceptional. But Morrowind also lacked quality in terms of gameplay and graphics. Clipping issues, low rez textures, little voicec content, weak combat system, many invironment glitches (incl. gamebreaking ones), etc all ment they could pump out a lot of content in a shorter amount of time. You could easily make a new set of armor or add some unique buildings. And quests were easy as well, they were textbased so there was no animation for the conversations and you didnt need voice actors for them.

So I can understand that Skyrim will feature less guilds. But I hope that there were will more to them. For example if I reach a high level within the mage faction then some other high member should talk to me about accepting necromancy. If I accept, we (in secret) make progress towards that goal then I should end up facing the guild master with my fellow necromancers. We should then kill all those who stand against us. Then when I'm guild master I can allow necromancy and the guild will have a different culture to it. This way you can have a guild fitting to different characters without having to pump out a lot of content that will take years to make.

I also hope that after we've become a high member that we also get responmsibilities and abilities fitting to out station. That way there can be some small things that can be enjoyed when already having completed a guild.

I wouldn't class the Thieves Guild as evil. If anything it was too Robin Hood going around stealing taxes to give back to the poor. I'd replace it with an organised crime syndicate that would provide a fence, supplies etc but have your legs broken if you didn't pay your dues or robbed the wrong person. Also add some quests like collecting protection money, delivering drug shipments etc.

This
Would be nice to see a necromancy guild, maybe blades, perhaps even a a hunting guild (:

If it were my game to design I'd completely rework the guild/faction system in the following manner

1) Increase the number of factions (examples below)
- Political & Religious factions suitable to the setting (like Morrowind's Great Houses)
- Merchants and / or Bankers guild
- Bandits and Highwaymen
- Craftsman's Guild
- Pauper's Guild (aka The Order of the Hobo)
- Witch Covens
- Imperial Civil Service

2) Add a reputation mechanic in place of "rank"
- All factions will have a reputation meter. While you can "join" and gain "rank" in some factions, others won't be "joinable"... you'll just be able to gain reputation with them.

3) Make reputation gain slow moving
- So that (4) makes more sense.

4) Add semi-random repeatable quests (in addition to normal quest content)
- Repeatable content gives you something objective based to do when other quest lines are completed.
- Example 1: Mercantile Guild needs to transport some goods to another city. Meet the caravan outside city walls and escort them to location XYZ. Random bandit encounters along the way leveled according to value of the caravan. Alternatively, you can raid the caravan on behalf of the Bandits faction
- Example 2: The Mages Guild (or whatever it is now) is always in need of alchemical ingredients. You can keep doing fetch quests to gain reputation with the occasional superior potion as reward.
- Example 3: The Fighters Guild (or equivalent) has been contracted to escort a wealthy merchant to ___. Complete the escort for increased reputation with Fighter's Guild AND Mercantile Guild.
- Example 4: (anolog to 3) Fighter's Guild has been contracted to shake down a wealthy merchant for some gambling debts. Get the money for an increase in reputation with Fighters Guild AND Theives Guild (or whoever controls gambling) but decrease with the Mercantile Guild.

5) Create a matrix of guild relationships whereby progression in one creates anti-reputation in another
- Some guilds would be polar opposites (Mercantile vs Bandits)
- Some guilds would be naturally suspicious (Fighters vs. Mages)
- Some guilds would have no relationship linkage (Fighters & Imperial Civil Service)
- Advancing in a guild would increase "anti-reputation" in polar opposite guilds, and also suspicious guilds (but to a lesser extent).
- Gaining too much anti-reputation may get you thrown out of a guild.

6) Build quests to reduce anti-reputation
- In cases of guilds that are not polar opposites, build quests into the game that give lore satisfying reasons why you advance in both
- Example: Mercantile and Thieves guilds are naturally suspicious. If you advance far enough in each you open up quests to broker an agreement between the two. Perhaps bribing local nobility to legalize gambling and bring it out of the underground. Thieves and Merchant guilds would corner the market on the gambling and run it as a joint venture.

7) Add unique rewards / perks to the progression
- Not just material rewards, but perks such as vendor discounts, body guard companions, permanent / semi-permanent buffs, etc.
- Example: Enough reputation with Imperial Civil Service grants you access to a mount that runs X% faster.

((forgot a few))

11.Blades (main quest)

12. East Empire Trading (bloodmoon)

13. Ashlanders (joined in main quest)

14.Tribunal Temple (AKA Dissident priests)

15. Aundae (Vamp clan

16. Berne ( vamp clan

17. Quarra ( vamp clan

And those are ONLY the ones you can join... they dont mention factions that you meet but dont officially join.

Twin lamps
Commona Tong
Talos Cult
Imperial Knights
House Dres
House Dagoth
House Indoril
Dark Brotherhood

If skyrim pulls off guilds and houses like morrowind does... ill be drooling the entire time at its awesomeness