After watching the http://www.gameswelt.tv/19748/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/video-interview-mit-todd-howard.html, which reveals a lot of great new info, I'm concerned about something...

When Todd spoke about the racial faction conflict quests relating to Nord racism against elves, he said these quests were "more to provide flavor than something that will lock you in to one side or the other." :unsure2:

I was really hoping for some quest lines that force the PC to make difficult decisions about which faction to join.

I hope that this lack of "locking you in to one side or the other" will be limited to the race conflict faction quests, and there will be other faction quests where the PC experiences consequences from choosing to join one faction or the other, for example, the PC loses out on some unique quests, spells, items or perks you can only get from joining the other faction.

After watching this interview, however, I'm becoming concerned that that may not be the case.

What do you think, will we see some faction quests that require us to make difficult decisions? I'm talking about consequences for choosing one side over the other, such as which side of the civil war to support, or whether to join a particular guild that is in conflict with another guild, etc.

Or will all these quests be more for "flavor" without serious consequences or being locked in to one side or the other.

Morrowind locks you into one side?

I am hoping he just meant the quests regarding the racial conflicts. I think some of the replay value in oblivion was cut when they made it so you could join every guild. I know you can just choose not to do them but it's kind of hard when it's right in your face telling you to join.

Yes. Fighters Guid vs Thieves Guild

You must also choose a great house. Theres 3.

I also believe the arch mage (Trebonius) asks you to destroy the telvanni arch magisters.

EDIT: Dammit i fell for another one of your questions.

If the world has been designed in such a way that the PC can permanently destroy a particular town's lumbermill and affect their economy and the goods sold there for the rest of the game, it would seem logical to involve these kinds of "world changing" activities in faction quests with long term consequences for your actions.

It's got to be just the Racial Quests that provide Flavour. Skyrim is in the middle of a Civil-War there will obviously be big moments where you must decide if one side is for the better.

Why do you keep saying that?

Would this provide more morally gray quests?

I think Bethesda would want these "difficult decisions" to be informed decisions. It may not be obvious, at character creation, that your Dunmer or Argonian or Nord or whatever is going to be locked out of a tasty series of quests. But with being locked out of some quests because you've joined a certain faction, that's more predictable. Players are in a better position to make an informed decision - after playing the game for a little they will probably have some knowledge of the factions, their agendas, and the interactions between the factions.

That is to say, I think there is an important difference which prevents the slippery slope you're suggesting.

I'm thinking they are doing this with the Empire/Rebel conflict because that will be a layer over the inter-factional relation between the holds. You won't be able to join these factions per say but it won't stop you from helping or hindering any one of them. Now the meat comes in when (and I hope they do this) each archetype guild in exclusionary. If the achievable rank in said faction is directly tied to the mastery of related skills then it would be impossible to be a master in all guilds. You could still belong to all three and ascend to medium or mid high rank if you went the jack of all trades route but you couldn't lead any of them. Also another exclusionary choice they could put on you is choosing between the two magic factions.

Theory, nothing more.

You have a valid point here, and obviously if you choose to play an elf, we know now at this point that there will be some racism against Altmer, Dunmer and Bosmer races, and it might very well be more difficult if you are an elf, to for example, choose to side with the racist Nord faction against other elves.

I think the type of quests that Todd was hinting at in the interview, will probably involve some instance of racism or some sort of racial conflict between Nords and elves where the player must choose which side to help.

If you are not playing one of the elven races, I suppose there must be some sort of benefit to choosing the side of the racists, otherwise it would be a much less interesting decision process. At that point when the player comes across this quest, we should be informed enough about the world to able to make this sort of decision.

Thanks to Sphagne's painstaking work to transcribe the entire German interview, new light has been shed on this quote from Todd:



This is great to hear, especially after going back and watching that part of the interview again.

"a lot of it... [is] flavor," which implies that we are not talking about "all of it" being only flavor - in other words, there could still be at least a few quests where your decisions have far reaching consequences that "lock you off from one thing or another"

I would be amazed - stunned - absolutely floored - to see far-reaching consequences to any decisions in Skyrim. I rank that right up there with winning the lottery - wonderful though it would be, I just don't think there's a chance.

Hang around the Oblvion Cheats, hints and spoilers forum for a while. There's a steady stream of players who are mad because, for instance, they got kicked out of the Mages Guild when all they did was kill everybody in the Skingrad guild hall, and now they're looking for some easy way to get around having to do the quest to get back in (that is, avoid the consequences).

I just don't think that far-reaching consequences are going to happen. I'm not even confident that any consequences are going to happen.

Of course, as always, we'll see....

Race in Morrowind never locked you out of a branch of quests that I ever came across, though I didn't play complete games as every race. The 3 Great houses, and the Thieve's guild were locked out because of faction dynamics, and the Thieve's guild could even be avoided by not advancing through the Codebook section before dealing with the Commona Tong.


Hopefully, at least you'll be able to pledge allegiance to a particular Jarl, or at least the cause of the Rebels or Loyalists, which would lock a player out of the other side, but that's what additional characters are for.

I would not like to be excluded from some guilds or quests because of Character race, I have a couple of races I prefer and tend to play. that said, I don't think the OP said that we should be locked out of guilds because of race but was talking about having the mood of some quests altered based on race (by dialog is what I assume would be the best way) sort of like if some npc's dynamicly treated you like that dark elf in cheydenhall's mages guild depending if you were man or mer. it wouldn't affect quests so much as dialog.

I think if you roll a Bosmer, it would be pretty strange to team up with a Nord racist faction that was anti-Bosmer, for example, in the race faction quests that Todd described in the interview.

However, in general, what I was talking about was more being locked out of certain guilds or factions based on dialogue choices.

If you choose to help the Necromancers, or College of Whispers to destroy the temple of Synod, for example, I would like to see that be a difficult decision. It could be a hard choice because you might receive some unique quests, items, or rewards from the faction you helped but you lose out on possible future quests or unique items from Synod.

Yea....I never chose one of the Morrowind houses...they're all a bunch of thugs, i didnt like any of them

Instead i decided to become a Master Thief and steal from all their House-Treasury's (And wow, they had some worth-while treasures)

Also....i never had a problem with the Fighters Guild while i was in the Thieves Guild.....I even managed to steal this weird holy grail thing for whatshername from the Fighters Guild
(That was a REALLY hard assignment by the way)

I like faction quests....but one way or another, i'll find away around the obstacles and get what i want :hubbahubba: .

NO!!! I hate being locked out of factions because of something stupid. That alone made NV svck..... worse. I think Todd has it right when he said its just for flavor

Couldn't agree more. Nothing more restricting than locking a player out of content.

Amen brother! We should have been able to complete Mr.House's, Caesar's and the NCR's storylines Simultaneously, what was Obsidian thinking?! Locking out factions if you directly oppose them, that's so silly!

Meaningful choices and consequences in game are for the artsy fartsy crowd who demand more than a shiny bauble to play with!

he said that about races not factions

i also agree with that, though i wouldn't mind for a skill threshold requirement for faction recruitment and advancement.

Like it would be fine if a few of the members liked you a bit less or something like that but if you are completely locked out of content it just kills immersion.

So, just out of curiosity, how does it make sense to continue Mr.House's questline if you kill him, as per Caesar's request? Questing for a dead guy requires a bit more suspension of disbelief, than him just being dead and never talking to you again.

:rofl:

I see what you did there!





If you are referring to Todd's comments in the interview, he mentions that there will be some quests relating to racial conflict, most likely relating to a group of Nords vs. a group of elves, where you side with one of the 2 factions in the conflict, but you don't necessarily get "locked" into one side or the other.