In the podcast Todd said that the factiones will be changed compared to older games. Do anyone have an idea how it might be done?

With the info we got from The Infernal City I'm curious about the status of the Fighters and Mages guild...

I the the Dark Brotherhood will be back though.

How they have changed? Maybe the way you get into them/advance in rank has changed? And that you no longer will be the grand master of everything?

Mages guild has chismed (is that a word?) into the synod, which is based on the old mages guild and the college of whispers which is more free with less rules and allows members to practise necromancy.

I'd like the fighters guild to just have dissolved into a regular mercenary guild (like blackwood company except with less stoned-off-hist-sap crazies). I'd like it better if the fighters guild was just a union of independant mercenary companies with a big union office in skyrims capitol. The questline could be going and working for each of the individual companies before going to work In the head office and maybe stopping some conspiracy for one mercenary company to overthrow the others and become the only mercenary company.

If I were to guess, I'd say Factions have become regional, like in New Vegas. You no longer have a Fighter Guild / Mages guild chapter in every town, but settlements and like minded groups have banded together all around Skyrim. This not allows Bethesda to have many more factions, but they can be more interactive in the way they deal with each other. In Oblivion there was hardly any visible conflict. There are probably faction dynamic sidequests (Radiant Story) to gain reputation, allowing to progress in different ways in your dragon slaying path. At the end, they all tie together in the final chapters.

Again, the game is borrowing alot from Fallout and New Vegas. The Greybeards Faction will be the one steering the main plot, while the other larger ones will open several doors, many of which will be optional. They will probably remove the possibility to become Guildmaster, because I'm willing to guess the designers felt it wasn't distinctive or relevant enough in Oblivion (in terms of gameplay). That seems to be the general approach they're taking with everything else that feels unpolished. I'm willing to bet, however, that this time you'll be able to take your faction members with you as bodyguards and that factions will also offer you the following benefits:

- Learning Special perks
- Unlocking special finishing moves and unique spells
- Faction uniforms (also working like disguises)
- Free bed and food
- Free items daily
- Fame and reputation chart (rising your fame with one faction, lowers your fame with another )

Another guess is that some dungeon dwellers will be members of a variety of evil factions, so this time you may actually be able to join up with a bandits/marauders group and walk freely among them. Vampires will be treated like the ghouls of Fallout, they might have some minor related side quests and a slightly improved faction quests (since it's so popular).

I would love some quests to improve / change the guild and its position in the world, AFTER you reach whatever top rank is attainable. Something like in Dragon Age Awakening, where there were some politics-ish decisions to be made.

And maybe with certain guilds you can decide to go on an all-out rampage, obliterating a competing faction base?

I would hope that each faction has an opposing faction

Olde Mages Guilde-->college of whispers
Thieves Guild--> Imperial guard
Dark Brotherhood-->Morag tong(?)
Fighter's Guild--> Blackwood company equivalent
Merchant Guild-->Bandit guild

And i hope you can only join one of each per character.

EDIT: you know, like if you join the dark brotherhood you can't join the morag tong.

I don't think(or hope) that that will happen.

Why would you say such a thing :shakehead:

idk, I think re-playability. Here's my idea since you asked though.

I like the idea of opposing factions, and i don't think the grandmaster of the dark brotherhood should be able to be the grandmaster of the opposing assassin guild.

For the two mage's guild type factions i would like one to dominate the other in the end of the questline.

I don't know it's kinda like the greathouses in Morrowind, but EVERY guild has another rival guild.

That is a good thing. You sounded like you only wanted one guild for each character. That would be bad.

I like the idea of rival guilds.. I would think the rival guilds would be closer related though.. Thieves guild or assassins guild. Fighters guild or mercenary guild. Guilds that are actually in competition with each other and therefore know each others members. Thieves guild might know who's in the Imperial Guard but the Imperial Guard wouldn't know who's in the thieves guild (otherwise they'd just arrest them.) It would be more likely with opposite guilds you could go up to a certain point in the quest line and then have to make a decision.. Such as you work for the Guard and have to infiltrate the thieves guild... you then get to do most of the thieves guild quest line and guard quest line until it comes down to a decision that would take down one or the other.. so only allowing you a master class in one or the other.

Crimson Scars!

I would like the idea of Rival quilds, it has been talked about a fare bit on the forums and would add a lot to the world.
I also hope that we see the average person in a guild more invalved in the towns they are in.
an example -- Dragons attack the city and members of the mages guild and the fighters guild run out to help the local guards fight the beast.
make them a major part of the town not just a secondary quest giving point.
I would also like to see members of the fighters guild going on regular dungion raids around the town. make the guilds active, a living part of the world.

Of course they're back! Did anyone really doubt it?

That they'd be back was a given. That there'd be some differences was also pretty much a given. So really, we don't actually know anything new about them.

That is why we speculate

Is the College of Whispers confirmed? With necromancy? If it′s not with necromancy, then why bother?

I know. What's the point of anything in life if you can't use death related magic with it? *suicides*

Isn't there a Bard college in Solitude?

I would love to see the Thieves guild return (Without the stupid rules) and the Dark Brotherhood too.

If I had to pick a faction I would love to see in the game a Bounty Hunter faction and with the Radiant AI they can make it random.

I'd like to see a New Vegas-y type faction system and each guild having at least 1 rival guild, all of which you can join. I'd also like to see reputation in cities. I read somewhere that Solitude is a rival of another major city. Maybe you have to side with one of them.

Factions is definitely something we'll be talking about... but it won't be until later.

SUSPENSE!

All I know is my mage won't be joining the Synod. The Nine Divines are uberlame.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO :goodjob:

But for posting an opinion, I think that having one faction and then a rival faction for all of them is really cheap and unoriginal. I want interlocking politics, not good/evil choices. Directed at posters here.

While I agree with _LPS worry that simple rivalries between guilds is a little too cheap and bland, I think the suggestion made in the latter part of this post is a good one. I don't think joining one faction should automatically forbid you from joining a faction with somewhat opposing interests. Rather, if you have sufficiently low notoriety, you should be able to join both, but then, just to borrow your example, as you progress in the Imperial Guard, there comes a point where you can longer get any further in the Thieves Guild - indeed, you might be forced to choose which guild you want to remain in.

The infiltration idea is also a good one. But I suspect that's slightly easier to achieve on a quest-by-quest basis. That is, instead of joining the Guard, and then, in order to infiltrate the Thieves Guild you become a member of that faction, it could just be a quest of the Guard where you need to become friendly with some members of the Thieves guild to gain information or whatever.