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I see the recommendations as a part of the Mage's Guild quests, not a means to start them. All of them were distinct and as good as the rest. Besides, the guild's questline would have actually been too short if the recommendations weren't there. They're quests like all the rest, only you don't increase in rank.

It makes perfect sense too. They shouldn't take any Tom, dike or Harry that walks in off the street, they'd need to know you were a worthy candidate first. And a good way of doing that is giving all the guild heads a chance to get to know you first. It was a bit silly that I could head up to Chorrol and automatically be accepted into the Fighter's Guild without anyone knowing a thing about me. Especially with the standards they supposedly maintained. I just escaped from prison for crying out loud, why didn't anyone even bother doing a background check on me?

Actually, the recommendations were my favorite part of the Mages Guild in Oblivion. You actually acted like a mage - using the various schools of magic to solve tests and various problems. The rest of the quests were just killing things. Really the only difference between the majority of the Fighters and Mages Guilds were whether you were fighting people with swords or people with spells.

Besides, it fit the theme of the Mages Guild. They're going to be a bit more exclusive than the Fighters or Thieves Guilds.

I hope whatever magic faction we'll have in Skyrim will have quests that actually involve... you know... the player casting magic. Instead of 'kill enemy with weapon of choice that could be magic but doesn't have to be' kind of quests.

Yes. I hope there are a lot more quests akin to that Aylied quest where I needed to cast certain spells at a pillar. But I don't want such readily available scrolls right next to said pillar... :confused:

Yeah as far as I know that was the only quest that required you to cast a spell, and that one had those scrolls lying conveniently next to it.

I honestly think all the guilds in oblivion were waaaay to short. I was left wanted A lot more.

You got magic items for your character, it was one of the more diverse questlines (containing in city quests, dungeon divers, fetch quests, 2 "rescue me"s, a real puzzle, and even a quest where you command a small unit to assault an enemy base), and you got access to a small number of unrelated quests (That crystal fetch quest for the Khajiit alchemist is one of them). I call shenanigans on your statement sir, and I'm willing to admit that Magic is my least favorite playstyle.

If anything, they need to make ALL guild questlines about 125% the length of Oblivion's Mages Guild chain.

I voted 'yes' but it was a qualified 'yes'. It wasn't a pain on the first play-through, or even the second. But having to do the same recommendation quests again and again to get access to the university every single play-through got tiring. Re-playability is very important in these games. Perhaps if the radiant story system makes the quests different from character to character it won't be so bad.

I found them to be long, boring, and not worth the effort. It made it sound like you weren't a REAL member until you got into the Arcane University, but once you got there you found out it wasn't even a school. It was some vague gathering of people with some manner of magical ability walking around. Really, can you imagine all of those 'students' having gone to all those cities and doing all those recommendation quests?

That would be like having to go to local extensions in London, Winchester, Cornwall, York, Edinburgh, and Perth, and having to run errands for the local headguy before you could get into Cambridge. And you only had a horse to get to all of them. Does that sound reasonable to you, even for an elite school like that?

:yes: On topic, No it wasn't boring. It was realistic, it makes perfect sense if want to join evolve to a high rank in guild to need recommendations. Otherwise there are no standards and every weak mage would be able to join the University :shrug: The quests themselvs were just as interesting as any other quests.

Agreed. If anything the Guild quest-lines were too short

I didn't really mind. Gave me a chance to get to know te people in all the guilds and something about each guildhouse before I "blew up big" and became a living legend. I also got a kick out of knowing that my powers and skills often surpassed the guild heads I was assisting. If only they knew. . . well, soon enough they would find out. I think. Some of them seemed determined to keep going on about the long deceased Hannibal Traven as if I wasn't now the HN . . .I mean, HPIC (Head Person In Charge), and that really pizzed me off. :brokencomputer: Should have demoted their assets.

The length was fine, the problem was the lack of good rewards or any really interesting content.

it could take me days and days to beat the mages guild, as long as each quest is fun.

This

There was something about it that seemed odd to me. It was like, you have to go get the recommendations to get into the guild. However, to get the recommendations, you already had to know magic. That means you had to study outside the guild before you could become a part of the guild. So then why join the guild?

i actually didnt mind them the first couple of playthroughs but they got repetitive after that. its the one part of the game that i routinely cheated on by using movetoqt until someon made a mod that automatically finished it. of course i also stopped doing the main quest after i downloaded the space cheese mod. the only quests i like doing on a consistent basis where the dark brotherhood quests (even though i hated the stupid DB members themselves) some of the daedric quests and that quest with the painter stuck in the painting. there are probably a couple other ones im forgetting but the vast majority of oblivions quests where easily forgettable.

i dont mind long quests at all as long as they are broken up into chunks. morrowind had quests set up like this. you had to get every leader in the game to support you but they were all seperate quests in and of themselves and could be done in pretty much any order at your leisure. the game wasnt painting a big arrow in front of you telling you which guy to talk to next and in what order all the time.

i agree with previous poster that guilds should be difficult to join and climb in rank..........however, im probably going to bypass them after a few playthroughs unless they are really fun to play.

Wow, you really want less content? :facepalm:

I voted "no". The Arcane University (or whatever Skyrim's equivalent is going to be) should be difficult to get into. It should take some time. Who gets a job at Pizza Hut waiting tables and (let's say) within a week is running corporate marketing? Nobody. It takes time to get to higher levels, that's the way it should be. This elongates gameplay. Renee likes elongated gameplay.

Whether or not the MG was too long in Oblivion is not really the issue. The issue is those AU perks. It would be nice if (in Oblivion) we could have some other way to enchant items and write our own spells, other than being in the Arcane University, that is. Like it would be neat if those who want to enchant/create spells could do so via some out-of-the-way-NPC, but these enchantments and spells would be lesser somehow than what the AU can develop.

Perhaps, but I liked the relevance that being pitted against an evil organization provided. While all my characters, like me, have some naughty ways, in the main I am a relatively good guy and like role playing characters of great deeds and consequence. . . I liked that in becoming Archmage I was pitted against an evil that threatened the world ( I will say, I would have RELISHED putting an end to Mannimarco SOOOOOOO much more if he had been represented as a Sload!)

I like that sense of being the Gandalf or Albus Dumbledore of the organization, admired for deep arcane knowledge and lore mastery, but also known to be a kick butt bad asset dude, who has saved the organization from ruin once or twice by putting down a few helluv awful cretins whom few others had the will or wrath to take on, and who would have wreaked havoc on the guild members if not for my intervention. I know not everyone wants to play that way. But I enjoyed it. . . if only the Mages had been a little more respectful of my position. :banghead:

I did think it was a little bit long just to join the guild. Now I think you should have to go on such a journey to reach a high rank, but that is not apprentice.

*prepares shield*
Like in Morrowind, the telvanni had the whole ritual to become a master, building your house. It made your rank that you achieved feel like it meant something. Becomming an apprentice in Oblivion was a feat, but should it have been? Maybe there should have been a series of tasks to accomplish to achieve a high rank such as wizard or master-wizard, but it felt inappropriate for apprentice...

I would like to see some trials to join the guilds, but I think the mages guild took it too far. Maybe 2-3 quests, not 5-6 and so much travelling.

I actually liked the recommendation quests better than the rest of the mage guild quest line. What was more annoying was the lack of conflict between the guild and the necromancers unless you actually did the mage guild quests.

I think it was a bit of a stretch that you needed no experience as a mage to join their guild. The fact that anyone can cast spells should have been reason enough to require a more dedicated caster to join their ranks.

Reading the OP a bit more closely can be helpful:





OP just thought that the "pre quests" were somewhat long. And would have liked to see MORE after joining.

OK so major incongruency with your thread topic and poll. The recommendation quests were anoying as hell but the Mages Guild too long? No, definitly not. It could be much much longer IMO, as long as it's a good and rewarding story. But I definitly agree about the recommendation quests, I have several problems with them. One, I thought it was rediculous that you had to get a recommendation from every single mages guild in the province to gain entrance into the Arcane University. The idea that you need to get some kind of recommendation or to pass a test to gain entrance into the higher echlon of a guild is a good one, but not a recommendation from every single guild maybe one or two and then some kind of test would be better? Also the majority of the time the recommendation quests had nothing to do with proving you can use magic and deserve to go to the Arcane University. It seemed like you were just doing personal favors for the guild hall leaders, almost bribing them to get the recommendation. So in essence, yes recommendation quests were anoying, no the guild story line was not too long, but a prerequisite to gaining entrance to a place of more advanced study is a good idea, if implemented correctly.

The Mages Guild is the reason why I stopped playing Oblivion the first time. The quests were so (well in my opinion) bland and boring... The quests to get in were actually the most fun of the lot (which is not much of a compliment), then it was "fetch me this" and "kill necromancers," etc, not very exciting as I expected quests would become more complex as I rose through the ranks. I ended up being (almost) at the top of the guild with a character that was around level 5 or something ridiculous of the kind. My char was a mage but magic had nothing to do with his progression within the guild. And when the last quest came, I just couldn't be bothered with it and didn't kill Mannimarco (or whatever his name was). I just stopped playing Oblivion and only came back to it to play through the DB quests months later.

It would have so much more fun to be able to betray this generic uninteresting guild by siding with the necromancers (who were also very generic ennemies, but siding with them could have been slightly more interesting). The other mages from the guild also gave me the creeps with their huge smiling grins (so glad they're getting rid of facegen for skyrim).

So yeah, I don't know how they should go about making quests for the mages guild in Skyrim but they can't do worse than with Oblivion. I even prefered the randomly generated quests from Daggerfall, they somehow had more depth...