I didn't know I would ever come back to Cyradiil after Skyrims realese. But I got an urge to kick Mehrune Dagons ass, soo I think this will be my maby 5th playthrough of the game. But before doing the main quest I plan to do the factions first (maby), and of course, get the emperors cloth (by doing, you know, the revive and clone staff thingy).

After being done with 3 factions I thought, "wow, I don't remember most of them would be this boring". Anyway, I just want your point of view on these factions (no DLC). OBS, some spoilers down here!

5. Fighters guild. Worst one of the whole bunch. Didn't know the guild focusing on fighting would be this boring. I don't remember the details, but someone wants some minor help at the begining, rats, weapon delivery etc. Nothing interesting comes up untill near the end with the Blackwood company and there use of drug, whatever. And I don't think there were any sort of good/special reward from this faction. Needless to say, I only finish this faction just to optain all the Achievments on this game.

4. Thieves guild. The build up is sort of great with the whole Gray Fox thing and you get interested on this myth. And you join the guild. The best parts IMO is the beggining part with the whole Thieves and Poor vs Guards and Lex. Ones that is over you meet the Gray Fox. And I'm kinda pissed of he mostely ignore the whole "Thus shall not kill" code you get as a thief. I think the Arrow mission was somewhat funny (and good lord, that "require key door" one took me forever to get around of (hint: don't try to find the key, becous there is none)), the Springheel jack one to becos of the "reward" and mystery it had. But good lord the dark blind monk dungeon was a major pain, and the final one was one of the most boring longest dungeon run in the entire game. Took some loading and maby 1.5h to complete. I hate the sewer, and the guard sneaking after the sewer. And ones you finish, you get a somewhat good reward, but something you will probably not use in the long run. The guards are everywhere.

3. Mages Guild. If it wasn't for the kinda useless reward you get in thieves guild, Mages guild would be 4th instead. Before you can even begin with the main story for mages guild you must do task on the lesser mage guilds spread around on the whole country. I usually start with this guild. Mostely becous of Emperors cloth, but I also think it's a good start for new characters. And I think the quests are somewhat good and different to each other in the beggining. But after joining the Arcane university, the necromancer arc start and it's meh, the story is very uninteresting IMO. Allthough, if you are high leveld, you get some nice rewards on the way (btw, take the finger mountain book after you turn it in to the guild and save the part 2 quest untill you'r at high level). Most quest in the arcane university is filled with "meh" dungeons. Arch mage Tavern must be the most useless mage/wizard there is and the final quest/boss fight is very dissapointing. Though the boss loot has one of my favorite items, also is the key item for optaining the Emperors cloth.

2. The Arena. The Arena is pretty straightforward. Go out to the arena and kill your target. The more I play this one the more I despise the fighters guild. I kinda hoped Fighters guild had, this, but a much more interesting story. The Arena is the most monotonic guild/faction there is. But I won't complain, just tell me when I can get out and kill my next opponent and I will do it.

1. The Dark Brootherhood. If there was a "What faction in Oblivion do you think Bethesda studio focused most on?" money betting, I would go all out and say The Dark Brootherhood. The whole questline was a fun ride, even how you get introduced by it was great. I can't remember some quests after you kill Rufio. But kill your old cell mate from the start of the game, make a fake death scene, Kill a guard captain and put his finger in a legion office desk AND the whole Summatris manor quest (I felt soo sorry for that nord ) are very memorial and funny. And if you do the bonus quests inside these quests that are, IMO, making them more funny, you get very nice rewards. That bow especially. And you arn't done yet, you get summond by Lucien and get sort of a plot twist, kill every member in that sanctuary you just got familliar with. After that it's just strightforward killing targets assinged by Lucien, or is it? The whole plot twist near the end and what happens next was just great. This faction was better in Oblivion then the Dark Brootherhood we got in Skyrim (IMO).

1. Thieves Guild. I don't know. I've tried three times now to get through this damn thing and I just can't do it. I lose interest at about the halfway point. My pal Shelly Mars adores this guild. She tells me it's worth doing the quest line just for the ending alone. Other people adore this guild too. I guess it's me.

2. Arena. Again, a lot of people adore the Arena and want it to come back in every game. I think it's good for filler activity between doing other things but as a faction in its own right it doesn't interest me very much. I've finished this guild exactly once, and that one time required me to go to elaborate lengths modding that game out the wazoo and apply a lot of roleplaying discipline (including starting the game in the Bloodworks and not allowing my character to leave until she'd become Grand Champion) in order to get to the end.

3. Fighters Guild. I liked several of the quests in the Fighters Guild. I appreciated the clever reversal of the rat quest. I thought Lord Rugdumph gro-Shurgak was a hilarious character and I found myself actually caring for Vilena Donton (something I don't often feel in Bethesda's games). But, again, the overall story did not grab me. Still, I've played it a number of times and can enjoy this guild with the right characters.

4. Mages Guild. I love the idea of recommendations. I wish they'd done something similar in Skyrim. But I think the long recommendation process built my expectations up too high. "Wow," I thought, "if the process of just getting into the freaking University is this cool and this elaborate, just imagine how cool and elaborate the University quests are going to be!" Needless to say, I was a bit underwhelmed. But up until just after my character gets the wood and picks her own staff (a great little touch) I like this guild very much.

5. Dark Brotherhood. I'm going to sound like a broken record. Again, I think the parts here are more interesting than the whole. Some of the individual quests in this guild are fantastic, really clever and interesting. But I wasn't engaged by the story. But this guild is my favorite, not for the interesting NPCs or the overall story but for the individual quests. The best way for me to enjoy this guild is to approach it as a series of side quests with a common theme.

In writing this, I realized that I really like a lot of Bethesda's individual guild quests but I am much less enthralled by Bethesda's attempts to fashion guild narratives out of these quests. To be fair, I hold this opinion about many of their other games as well.

I've got thousands of hours in this game, and I've only done the Fighters Guild, Dark Brotherhood, and Thieves Guild quest lines once each.

I've done the Arena all the way through probably three times, and I think I've completed the Mages Guild four times.

This, with hundreds of different characters, so you can see how enamored of the faction quest lines I am.

Having said this, a lot of my characters join the factions, and use them as part of their stories.

In my opinion, Oblivion's factions are good when they operate as guilds (making the new guy go out and do all the annoying stuff that nobody else wants to do.)

My mages do the Recommendations, and then when they get to the Arcane University, they stop doing the quest lines. They are student mages, not errand boys.

My Fighters Guild members do those first few "fetch" quests, and then they are members of the guild, with guild privileges.

New characters, short on money, will enter the Arena, but they are smart enough to get out of that mess alive, when they've put together a small stake.

Thieves act like thieves. They don't get caught up in espionage and daring-do. They steal stuff and sell it to fences.

I don't do murderers very much, so the DB isn't really a factor.

I don't think Bethesda does quest stories very well, so I don't get caught up in them. I play these games for the open world,and as a playground in which I can tell my own stories.

Worst to best?

Dark Brotherhood. I tried to play through this - after the first couple of quests I reverted to a save game and never looked back. I don't care if it's a computer game or not, murdering the innocent is not my idea of fun.

Arena. Pointless slaughter. I have done it on one character up to the final quest, but never chose to challenge the existing Grand Champion. The small cash reward is not worth the effort. Only useful for fame points early, if that's important to you.

Fighters Guild. Too many pleasant and innocent people end up dying as this line progresses. I have finished it once. I usually skip it. I have occasionally joined just for access to guild trainers and some decent starter armor and weapons.

Mages Guild. I like it up until one of the later quests. I like the people in Bruma, so I stop before they are affected. I have finished it once. I usually do it with every character to gain access to the Arcane University and the Mage's Staff, and sometimes stop the questline there.

Thieves Guild. Best of them all. Nobody dies if you play it right, you even get to rescue someone. The plotline is surprising and interesting. Only applicable to a few of my characters, though. I have completed it twice.

I'd rate the mages guild quests at the very bottom, and I don't think there's anything cool or elaborate about any of the recommendation quests. Most of the problems with those are due to the small size of Tamriel, wandering around the guild hall talking to various members who send you to other members then back to the quest starter, wait until Falcar leaves so we can talk about this, find mage to ask what he did with the mages staff he stole from his crush, go to IC to retrieve it, play a joke then wait until 10 to find the lost mage, Yankee Alpha Whiskey November is it over yet?

Anvil is the only straightforward one that doesn't involve a member or former member doing something evil and/or pathetically juvenile, if it was real life I'd resign because it would be embarrassing to belong to the mages guild. The limited size of Tamriel combined with lack of imagination by the quest creators results in a lot of dull needless screwing around to stretch out 2 minutes of lame plot into 30 minutes of poor gameplay on most of the game quests, but the mages guild recommendations are the worst. If it wasn't for mods I would have trashed Oblivion long ago.

I can't really rank them because I don't really like any of the quest lines all that much. I prefer just adventuring to doing Beth's quests.



You know, I like the mages guild, as a guild. And I like the concept that you have to get recommendations before being admitted to the Arcane University. But I kind of agree that the story line of the mages guild questline is kind of lame. And most of what they have you doing with the recommendations is just silly.

So, worst to best:

Arena. Go in, kill, get money. Boring.

Fighters Guild. The only faction I don't think I've ever completed. Or if I did it was so unmemorable that I've completely forgotten it.

Mages Guild. Like the idea of having to get recommendations, hate the fact that spellmaking and enchanting are locked behind them. Not a great story to it either.

Thieves Guild. Loved this questline. Loved that fences were tied into the guild as well.

Dark Brotherhood. I'm not really a fan of the story to it, I'll be honest. But I love the missions, for the early part at least. Once you get to the dead drop quests it loses it's value. I love that you get bonuses for completing the quests in specific ways, and some of those quests are brilliant. And being able to play a proper assassin(after the letdown that was the Morag Tong in Morrowind) was great.

So, worst to best:

Arena. Go in, kill, get money. Boring.

Fighters Guild. The only faction I don't think I've ever completed. Or if I did it was so unmemorable that I've completely forgotten it.

Mages Guild. Like the idea of having to get recommendations, hate the fact that spellmaking and enchanting are locked behind them. Not a great story to it either.

Thieves Guild. Loved this questline. Loved that fences were tied into the guild as well.

Dark Brotherhood. I'm not really a fan of the story to it, I'll be honest. But I love the missions, for the early part at least. Once you get to the dead drop quests it loses it's value. I love that you get bonuses for completing the quests in specific ways, and some of those quests are brilliant. And being able to play a proper assassin(after the letdown that was the Morag Tong in Morrowind) was great.

Dark Brotherhood, almost forgot about that one since I only played it through once - I'm a Holy Warrior on the side of the Nine Divines, working as a paid assassin is a bit out of character. In fact I'd prefer a questline that rewards hunting down and killing assassins and necromancers.

Get right down to it the main quest is rather contrived - regardless of the Emperor's dreams and visions it would have made far more sense for Baurus to take the amulet of kings to Jauffre - "I'll stay here and guard the Emperor's body" against WHAT?! He's DEAD, the survival of the empire depends on this amulet, his corpse is worthless, you know who and where Jauffre is, you know zilch about me other than I'm an escaped prisoner, when you become a member of The Blades do they surgically remove your brain?

Then Jauffre, "Waste no time, you must find Martin before the enemy does." Izzatso? WHOSE enemy is "the" enemy? I was a prisoner of the Empire in a dungeon cell and I had no idea why I was locked up, who exactly is MY "enemy"? You're the boss of The Blades, presumably you have Blades sitting around with nothing to do since there's no longer an emperor to guard, you can't send one of them instead of an admitted escaped prisoner you just met and know nothing about? Or better still a reinforced squad of them, the three who were supposed to be bodyguarding the Emperor apparently weren't enough to do the job. What gives you all this confidence in my ability to save the empire single handed?

How do you know I'm not a member of Mythic Dawn?

Contrived, like too many of the side quests.

I haven′t done all guestlines and I have only finished the Arena.

Coming new to this game I loved it all and didn′t think anything was boring per say, except maybe the FIghters Guild. Like others I thought it was gonna be more fun to do their questline. I loved the Arena and the Mages Guild. The only thing I dislike about the Arena is that you can never again fight NPCs after it′s done. Not even other monsters except Minotaur Lords which are just arrow sponges, and that is crap.