Having started the game a dozen times, I am curious about this: I wanna have *immediate* access to mage's guild stuff (spell / item making ). Can I use the onsole command to be admitted immediately; or can I do so, but have to do for each guild recommendation?

I do not want this to later on cause some bug because I may have to talk to some member of the guild and its all messed now... thx!

I'd recommend using the console to speed your way through the quests. Movetoqt is very useful

If you can use the console, you can use mods. There are quite a few house mods that include altars, especially those designed for characters who would not want to join the MG. That approach may suit your character better, too.

The vanilla quests are arranged so that if you haven't done the recommendations, the required character to talk to is in the lobby (public area). I wouldn't use SetStage in the console without tracking down all the side-effects, as you can't undo a SetStage, but all you'd break is the Mages Guild line (probably).

Or you can just use the console to bring up the altars directly, without going anywhere near the Arcane University.

~ showspellmaking

~ showenchantment

If you don't want to use the console at all, you might consider just fast traveling from city to city to do the recommendations. That can make them go by very quickly and you can always explore later.

Some might bring up Frostcrag Spire, but I have found that earning the gold necessary to get it running is as time consuming as getting into the Arcane University. Ymmv.

I tried the console 'setstage' method recently as I wanted to test the COBL altar feature. Although my journal updated appropriately the altar never showed up and Raminus Polus didn't have the correct dialogue options. Admittedly I may have done something wrong. I ended up cheating my way through.

Install Frostspire Craig the magician's tower . It has both spell making and enchanting capability .

i never knew any of these hints - thx!

i cannot pay $0.001 for anything more so i have to skip the tower plug-in (and seeing only crash after crash in my games, sure will be a waste of $).