as long as we can join them all and they quest dont conflict i be happy.

Deal breaker? No. Factions in the Elder Scrolls are really...nothing special. Glorified side quests, that's it. They're nice and fun and all, but there's not a whole hell of a lot that really defines them. Maybe if the factions had a bigger role to play in the main quest, maybe if factions had more of a direct involvement in the game world, maybe if there was more interaction between factions, and/or being a member would have a bigger effect on the game, things would be different. But right now...they could replace them with a bunch of standalone side quests, and I wouldn't notice much of a difference.

Arena was not really a faction, it had a 2 hour playthrough of fighting NPC's and that was it once you killed them all, you never got to meet your fellow blue team members or anything.....

And there are minor semi-factions too, like the Vampire Hunters (I forget their actual name. Something about the Sun?) And can't you join the Mythic Dawn? Plus, you can become a knight of Leyawiin, Bravil, and if you close the Anvil Oblivion gate you get to join the Count's son's little group of "knights". To be honest, I sometimes have trouble keeping up with how many groups I have responsibilities toward. And I agree with Velorien: it's quality, not quantity. What would be cool to see expanded is the harsh feelings of rivalry or disgust that certain factions have toward one another, which was semi-lacking in Oblivion. I feel like it would add to the whole decisions-have-consequences thing if you're "forced" to choose between two warring factions.

Identifying "The Arena" as a faction is cheap and lazy. Sure, it technically qualifies, but it technically qualifies as nothing more than a bullet-point on the back of the box.




Daggerfall had too many factions. Not so much the number, in that, at the end of the day, the game only has so much volume it can occupy, so if you devote your effort to the Area, you lose the Depth. Morrowind, had significantly fewer factions, but each meant something, and acted as pieces in the overall puzzle that was Vvardenfell. Oblivion's Factions felt separate from the entire game though. Like, with a few exceptions, everything was isolated, and designed with their one specific purpose. Nothing fit together to create a bigger picture. So, we got the issue with Daggerfall, but in an area not nearly as impressive.


It's odd too, because Fallout 3 had no actual joinable factions, but the pieces of the factions that existed fit so much better together.

I wonder if, like Fallout New Vegas (yes, before anyone says it, I DO know that Bethesda only published it) they'll introduce factions that you can't join but can influence through doing jobs for them.

That, in some ways, feels like a better fit for Radant Story. For example, if there was a 'Hunters Faction' (just as an example). It wouldn't have a quest line with ranks etc. But you could do jobs for them - hunting bears, clearing out caves, collecting pelts etc. And eventually you would get such a good standing with them, that they'd join up as mercenaries in other larger questlines in the overall story. A bit like the Boomers and the other 'lesser factions' did in New Vegas.

If they went down this path, there might half a dozen 'major' factions (Fighters, DB, Thieves etc) and a whole host of 'lesser' ones that you couldn't join, but could do stuff for and with?

Do we even have any real info on this yet?


Don't jump the gun.

I really enjoyed the factions from Oblivion. The quest lines were memorable and really absorbed you.

That being said, I wish there were more guilds. Like people have said, religious guilds or a vampire guild would be awesome.

The number of joinable factions is not a deal breaker itself, but how much detail, life and coherence is put in each of them could be.

This could make a lot of sense. An adventurer can't really serve in the Imperial Legion or become the head of a religion but he could gain favour with them.

There's no doubt in my mind we need more factions and more things to do in these factions, oblivion came off kinda bare minimium to me with factions and the duties and interactions, and only a hand full of factions were really notice outside of the guild halls, kinda weird how the DB was more noticed than the fighters guild seeing as the DB is suppost to be hush hush, and the fighters guild are basicly heros for hire.

If it were my game, I'd overhaul the guild / faction system in the following ways...

- Ramp up the total number of guild/factions, but pick carefully which ones the character can actually "join" versus build esteem with. Further faction examples include Witch Covens (a la Daggerfall), Twin Lamps, setting specific religions, setting specific political factions, Beggar's Brotherhood, Imperial Civil Service, Merchants & Bankers, Bandits and Highwaymen, etc.

- Those guilds you can't "join" we'll call "factions". You can do quests for them, and get rewards, but you only gain "esteem"

- Build a matrix defining guild relationships with each other. Some are polar opposites (ie. Merchants vs. Bandits), where as some are only suspicious (fighters guild vs mages). Others are purely neutral (Mages and Imperial Civil Service). If you gain in esteem with one faction, you gain suspicion in enemy/suspicious guilds.

- Build enough suspicion towards a guild/faction and you'll be kicked out or not given more quests.

- Design quests to mitigate suspicion thus providing lore satisfying reasons to be in uncooperative guilds. For example, "bribe, coerce, or convince a local bureaucrat to legalize or turn a blind eye to gambling halls... completion of which reduces suspicion and raises faction standing in both the Merchants Faction and the Thieves Guild since they'll share the new revenue stream.

- Introduce moral complexity by interaction with various factions. For example: The fighter's guild wants you to escort a local merchant to the next city - complete quest for raise in Fighter and Merchant faction ratings. But later on the fighter's guild offers a job to shake down a local merchant who's behind on gambling debts - complete for raise in fighter guild and thieves guild standing while losing esteem with the merchants.

- Create several repeatable quests per faction to keep the esteem/suspicion interplay alive (eg. delivery, collection, escort, convice/coerce/bribe, cave-clear).

- Create multiple unique rewards per faction/guild including "perks" as well as items or permanent skill increases or buffs. Examples: "Dibs" (Beggar's Brotherhood) - player may rest in cities when out-of-sight of guards. "Imperial Imperative" (Imperial Civil Service) - player may borrow a 15% faster horse from the postmaster's office.

Not a deal breaker. But it'd be nice. I'd love a morrowind like system. Failing that it can be modded in, like what was done for oblivion. (Pc user)

Thungrim- Your entire post basically just summed up a more refined version of Daggerfall's system. Couldnt've said it better myself - in an ideal world, perhaps this system could be modded in some day.


I loved that in Daggerfall. I remember, this being in the days of separate temple factions for each Divine, one of my characters joined the School of Julianos and thus found themself on unfriendly terms with the Mages Guild. Whilst I didn't interact with the Mages Guild much, I did notice that whenever I needed their services the NPCs generally had less friendly greetings than normal - and most interestingly, the spells vendor seemed to have raised the prices! Conversely, I believe if you joined the Mages Guild you got a slight cut on spell prices. Perhaps I'd simply imagined this, but it really surprised me when I first noticed it and helped to add a certain layer of character and personality to the guild that the later games didn't have, despite the later games having more unique NPCs as far as writing went.

The problem with Daggerfall's factions is that many of them were hardly different from one another. This was due to the randomized quest system, which was a double edged sword where gameplay is concerned. On one hand, you'd get a different quest each time, but on the other hand, most of the quests were basically identical since they were all just randomized templates: basically just "Go to [Location] and retrieve [item] or kill [enemy] within [amount of time] and you'll get [amount of money]"

Morrowind got factions mostly right. The faction rivalries were interesting and so were a lot of the quests. However, Morrowind also fell victim to "template syndrome" once in a while, namely most of the fetch quests like the ones for the Imperial Cult. They weren't randomized, but the objectives still sometimes felt very copypasted.

For me, the draw was the conflicts between the various guilds, and the fact that player choices could determine the outcome of these conflicts. The best example of this was the Fighters/Thieves/Camona Tong deal, where player choices determined whether the current guildmaster's plan to ally with the Tong against the Thieves went forward, or whether that was overturned in favor of opposition to the Tong. There was a bit of this in the Mages Guild, whether you rise to the position of Guildmaster more or less peacefully, or by killing the current guildmaster. The relationship to the Camonna Tong is also a factor in the House Hlallu endgame. The point is that in Morrowind all the guilds were part of a single tapestry, with every guild having some kind of alliance or enmity with another. There are plenty of games with good, cinematic style stories; TES was something special. I hope it may be again.



I'm exactly the opposite on this. I want the hard choices. I actually wouldn't mind for there to be a possibility of successfully joining all guilds... but only by difficult to discover hidden back paths, a bit like Fighters and Thieves, or a careful playing of the Mages and the Telvanni in Morrowind.

In a way, this all just goes back to that classic RPG debate about which is more important: systems or stories. Most RPG fans seem to prefer their games to be like novels or movies, leading them through a clearly defined and well told story. Personally, I prefer a more impressionistic approach to story, with the main focus being on the systems, the sandbox. TES has always been a sandbox game, and I happen to think they perfected the genre with regard to world and systems in Morrowind. With Oblivion, they focused more on story and gameplay, which is fine so long as it was only a temporary deviation from the more labyrinthine style that once typified the series.

And I love labyrinths, always have. I like my dungeons to be labyrinthine, like in Daggerfall (they did okay in Oblivion, too). I like my geography to be labyrinthine, like in Morrowind (again, Oblivion wasn't terrible in this respect; I love all those mountain back-paths and out-of-the-way exploration opportunities). And I also like my stories to be labyrinthine, and they did an awesome job of this in Morrowind's faction system. Daggerfall's faction system wasn't bad from this perspective, since I at least had the option of pretending my choices of factions and quests had some impact. With Oblivion, it was very clear I was just there to push buttons.

Daggerfall, of course, isn't really a great example of anything... but I think most of you don't realize just what it was compared to the games of its day. It was a game that had gameplay comparable to the most advanced first person shooters of the time (Doom, mainly) combined with a complexity that rivaled the best RPGs of the day (Ultima, mainly), and totally blew away the run-of-the-mill, mainly the Japanese contributions (Final Fantasy, etc.). These days, TES kind of looks like everything else on the market; Oblivion's value, to me, is mostly nostalgic. Back then, TES games really stood out, and were practically a genre all their own.

Great post.

Couldn't have put it better myself. In fact its an expanded and much improved version of my post earlier in the thread, and said what I was driving at - but much better :celebration:

Not everyone includes Knights of the Nine, since it's just part of an expansion.

I'll be disappointed if there is a lack of factions in Skyrim, but it won't be a deal breaker for me. There are no deal breakers for me when it comes to this game. I don't care if Skyrim is a total dud and somehow turns out to be the worst game ever made (which obviously isn't gonna happen. it's gonna be the best game of all time), I will still be buying the most expensive collector's version I can get my hands on simply because "The Elder Scrolls" is part of the title.

While the factions were better written and much more enjoyable in Oblivion, there would be no excuse for Skyrim having the same as Oblivion, even less. The main reason I say this is because the BGS team has expanded quite a bit since Oblivion. This expansion allows them to make a more quality game, while also filling it with more content as well.

Personally though, the Imperial Legion was my favorite faction to date and I hope it makes an appearance in Skyrim.

Not a deal breaker, but faction were a lot of fun to play. I did like MW's a lot better than OB, especially including the fact that joining some excluded you from others (can you say replay value?). It made it feel more important that you were in faction X when it prevented you from joining faction Y. Also made you think more about your choice based on whatever roleplay you were doing.

Forgive any bad Ingrish ...


since attributes are not in the game anymore If I remember correctly,

ha !

in Morrowind you needed to do something to get higher in the ranks - not only quests helped with that, you also needed to be good in certain attributes a warrior in morrowind never could get a high rank in the mages guild except by training in the ways of magic and even that taked ages !

now I fully understand kids nowdays don't have time for such things anymore, me just being old and grumphy ...

I wouldn't say Morrowind was perfect but the guilds where pretty much done better than Oblivion

in oblivion you only needed to do quests to get higher in ranks, attributes never did take part in that ... A warrior in Oblivion could become arch-mage in now time ....

I also liked the on going faction wars and rivalaries now by far I understand that Vvardenfell the 'Imperial Guilds' where quit new there, and that is not the case in Cyrodill, I fully understand but still I loved that part ...

Also I loved the houses, but that might be since I am really interested in politics,and love politics in games, the houses certain where politic factions in the game, for so far I can say Vvardenfell was divided between the three political parties, the liberal house of Hlaalu, the Milistratisc house of Redoran and the Conservatieve Magocratic house of Telvanni ...

Well I am affraid the guild system isn't going be better than Morrowind once, havn't played Daggerfall and Arena truly so I leave that games out ...

I atleast hope it's more realistic than Oblivion where a every idiot could be arch mage, guildmaster of the fighters guild, listener of the dark Brotherhood and Gray Fox (guildmaster) of the thieves guild ,not to mention with the expansions being 'knigh commander of some order'. and even including being a mad god ...

I didnt like how every faction playthrough was the same, at least give some options in key points in the missions each faction gives you, to change your standing in the world.
Like say if you didnt want to kill ungolim at the end of the DB quest line, and instead figure out you were given false info, and tried to find the traitor with ungolim and the rest of the DB. Saving Lucien and altering the world.

I would like to see more of that kind of stuff but with all the factions.