I know aside from radiant quests. Am I the only one who thought this quest line was...too short? It just seemed aside from working up magic and learning new spells. You go from lowly mage to arch mage in just a few quests. Weird.

I'm just wondering why Bethesda didn't put more into it than there was. I guess what the radiant quests can make up for it.

Nope, you're not the only one. This observation/complaint has been aired expressed by many and I share it. The PC's rise to mage is not satisfying and very easily achieved.

I believe there are many mods which address this if you can make use of them.

Good luck!

If you're on the PC then 2 remedies exist. The Summerset Isle and winter hold ruins expanded mods

I agree OP, the questline was way too short. But still the CoW is one of my favorite factions.

All Factions felt "short". They were all "urgent" except maybe the Dark Brotherhood. I mean you join CoW and in the first/second Quest you discover an orb and a Psijic monk tells you, that you are THE ONE. I mean get out of here... Oblivion had it soo much better and gave you much more time when you were getting recomendations. In that time you could grow/progress as a mage. Not saying oblivions was the best, but it wasn't ugent from the beggining. The only time i can roleplay is after saarthal and before the books. That's the only sweetspot. It's the only time you can roleplay without being the archmage and that there isn't and urgent matter.

Everyone praises the thieves guild and dark brotherhood to oblivion and back for their questlines.

The college is still my favourite faction because I have reasons to come back later, and do so very often. Shalidor's insight, master ritual quests, spell/soul gem purchasing, training, getting rare ingredients from the archmage quarters and using the atronach forge in some cases.

Yeah, but you can do the same at the end of the Dark Brotherhood line. Go to a city, kill a visiting dignitary. Go to a city, kill a visiting dignitary. Go to a city, kill a visiting dignitary. Go to a city, kill a visiting dignitary. Er ok, I get your point! The CoW extras are more varied. Of course you can continue stealing stuff and fencing it through the TG, but that's not a given task!

Padding out the faction quests with extra is quite possible......but yes, we shouldn't have to. Beth needed to have added more proper quests to make it feel like a vocation instead of a brief vacation job. But oh well, no use crying over spilt mead eh!

Everybody runs through the CoW main quest like their hair is on fire, and then complains of it being too short.

Instead of doing the primary quest line in a linear fashion, do the side quests, the Shalidor's Insights, and the radiant stuff. Work on your main skill(s), and do a Master skill quest or two. Do the Forbidden Legend thing. Do these things in parallel to the CoW quest line, and you'll feel more like an archmage when you get to be one.

Yeah, but you can't Glargg......not if your trying to Role Play the way the quest givers encourage. It's all go go go. Can you really go off and do some non essential side quest when your told the future of the college hinges upon you very urgently doing quest X and they're all relying on you to come through for them. There's just that one break in the middle when your sent to get the books without some urgent imperative.

The point where it gets urgent is when the artifact is brought to the college, and I find it more RP-realistic to assume that takes a fair amount of time. The Psijics may be able to do it rapidly at the end, but they're not doing it the first time. So take your long break when that happens.

If I were re-writing the quest line, that's where I'd add extra quests. More research on what that thing is, before it's moved from it's current location, would be prudent, wouldn't it?

And the things that happen after that point aren't really related to your being a mage, so much as someone who can do something about the crisis. Since retrieving the key implement is actually easier for someone who's not reliant on spell-casting, why worry that you haven't advanced your mage skills?

And that break is all you need. You're actually told that the Archmage didn't care enough about the missing books to do anything about it at the time. So why should you hurry about it?

In any case, it's my experience that if you arrive at the CoW as a low-level character, and try to do the quest line quickly, you'll quickly run into trouble, as the bosses get harder and harder. The difficulty progression should slow you down, even if the quest givers try to whip you into action.

Seriously, I agree that the quest line is paced all wrong. Everything in Skyrim is like that. Everything is more important than everything else, and it all has to be done right now!

not everything is that important in Skyrim. Like Gerdur doesn't start sending Hired Thugs out to make us go to Jarl Ballin to get reinforcements. She says it once and that's that.

Dark Brotherhood is the same, when something big comes along Astrid usually sends you on more smaller, less important, contracts. She's not saying, "hey he wants us to kill the Emporer, quick get the torches and daggers we have a man to kill". No she takes time to figure it out, assess the situation, and figure out wtf is going on.