From What I Remember In Oblivion There were 4 guilds, 1 city faction (5 major factions) and 9 minor factions.

Guilds:
Mages Guild
Fighters Guild
Thieves Guild
Dark Brotherhood

"City" faction:
Arena

Minor Factions/Guilds (These have 1 or couple of ranks):
Blackwood Company
The Blades
Knights Of The Nine (KoTN DLC)
Knights Of The Thorn
Knights Of The White Stallion
Mythic Dawn (Yes, you CAN join it)
Nine Divines (KoTN DLC)
Order Of The Dragon
The Order Of The Virtuous Blood

And Shivering Isles Brings in One Major Faction (Guild):
Court Of Madness

Totally 12 Factions No DLC or SI. 14 Factions w/ KoTN. 13 Factions with SI and without KoTN. 15 factions total.

Interesting order of the dragon, I don't know about that one ...

You auto join it when you end the main quest. The Champion Of Cyrodiil = Rank of that guild

hunters Guild vs PETA

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.

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.)

Snip OP

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.