Ha - I simply meant, with all the choosing and aligning that will inevitably occur, the primary challenge would be one of balance. Making sure that Player A gets roughly the same amount of content as Player B, even if they approach the game in two completely unique ways. Obviously if Player A plays as a "good" character, if he makes mostly morally sound choices, then he may very well have seen different versions (or, even more interestingly, "sides") of certain quests than Player B, based on the decisions he made. And, in those instances, he should be getting about the same amount of "fun" as Player B - even if the actual quests differ in their structure, plot, or other elements.

I should clarify: I'm not totally against limiting a player's experience of a quest to a "Side A" or "Side B". I just feel that, in those situations in which it is necessary to limit a player's experience in that fashion, each side should present roughly the same amount of content, and the player should be completely (or nearly completely) aware of the implications of each option. A decision I make now might be able to change what content I'm about to play, but it should not have the ability to completely remove possibilities in the future. The most it should do is have an effect on how difficult it is to make certain decisions in said future.

For example: I have the choice between killing Good Character A and taking his chest key off of his body, breaking into his house at night and stealing the key from him as he sleeps, or persuading him to give me the information I need without thievery or bloodshed. I, being rather foolhardy and in a rush, opt for the first choice. Turns out, that character was also responsible for offering me a side quest that might have been to my benefit. Now, in my perfect world, killing him does not remove the side quest from the world entirely, but rather makes it so I have to discover the first part of said quest on my own instead of having it handed to me by this NPC. So, by being in a rush and killing this guy, I've just inadvertantly made my future game experience slightly harder than it would have been if I had just been patient. It's a small tradeoff, sure, but it represents exactly what I'm trying to convey: all types of players would get roughly the same amount of "worth" out of these two quests thanks to how they balance each other out, but they're still given the freedom to make their own decisions in terms of how each quest pans out.

No, I want Factions that hate each other.
Join one, Oh you cant join this one. And bring back Skill requirements.

i want interfaaction rivalries its more fun and lets more politics and intrigue that was absent in oblivion

no, that would severely reduce replayability.

Other than the houses you could belong to every faction in Morrowind.

I am not as concerned about that as I am having requirements to advance in guilds which was not in Oblivion. I believe you should have skill level requirements for advancement and it not be just related to how many quests you have completed for the guild. One should not be able to get a new quest as a mage for instance if they have no skills associated with the mage guild.

It was odd, being able to be an orc with minimal magical abilities as Archmage. It hurt me, somewhere deep inside.

This is a nice idea, but it seems like this will need a massive amount of redundancy worked into the game. So suppose that the NPC you kill is the guy who gives you some information about a quest. How do you get that information? Well, it might be something where you needed to give someone an item. But how else would you learn to give that other NPC that item? Perhaps there are other NPCs who knew of the first NPC's desire for that to happen, and you need to ask around.

That's a pretty simple and trite example, but I think it's not too hard to see that as the quests become more sophisticated, then if the game wants to avoid quests getting erased from the game by you performing certain actions, then there'll need to be a lot of redundant information in the game. I'm not sure how technically difficult this would be, but it does seem like the amount of work needed to design a single quest would increase quite a lot, but that increase in the amount of work might not translate to a tangible increase in the number or depth of quests, at least on a single play through.

But that′s what I call a good RPG, are you the assassin that will plunge his dagger into the heart of the city watch captain, or are you the hero of the hour that will draw his blade and in a burst of unmatched fury take down the assassins around you saving the city watch captain ?

You shouldn′t go into an RPG with the mindset of "I want to have the best stats" or "I want to get the best endings" but instead you should go thinking "I am X and because of that I do Y" I′d take lesser stats and fewer possible quest lines to finish over being able to see and do everything any-day if it meant defining my character giving me the kind of RPing that I desire, then I got even more cause to like perhaps make a different kind of character the next time I play, a character with different skills, different mindset and different motives.

My warrior Redguard should not suddenly start to summon the dead, giving Mannimarco hugs, or summon Daedra and go worship at Daedric shrines just after he has gone on a holy crusade and climbed the stairs in the fighters guild, the darker sides of the game should rather be there for my power hungry Dunmer mage, and so he should not go on holy crusades or become a high-up in a guild where people are revered for their skills at swinging swords and shooting arrows.

At least that is what I want, I want to Role-Play, to take upon myself the role of my character, to put myself in his shoe and live out his story.

*Spoiler tag so I don′t take up too much room.

They did the in New Vegas because the 4 main factions were in a great pre-war tension, I don't think this will be the case in Skyrim, atleast with the guilds, they didn't have a problem with eachother in Cyrodiil, I don't know how it worked in Morrowind though.

migck I hoped you would pipe in here. Thought of you when I saw the poll. :foodndrink:

I agree, talk about replay value, race, class, skill, and of course choices could bring a unique play-through from many perspectives.

Exactly what Ellert said.

Look, it may seem too optimistic, but that's because it was written to describe how things ought to be - not necessarily how they are now. Many games do have some level of redundancy, even my favorite ones. TES RPGs are actually already designed with this in mind, because it's usually much cheaper to tack on an extra "win condition" to an existing quest than it is to cut an entire piece of content out of the picture. I'm just saying, I'd like to see it expanded upon - they already have the perfect platform to do so. There's nothing stopping them now except their own design decisions.

In your example, you say a big problem with redundancy is it's not worth the time and energy that would need to be invested by developers - that it's too costly to create content that nobody will see. What's the alternative? Entire quests only half the players will see? Extreme linearity to the point of destroying any concept of choice the RPG might already have? Because those are the only two alternatives, and, to me, those seem more costly than adding loopholes and secondary "ways in/out" of quests. There are many cheap systems that the developers can utilize - and already did utilize in Oblivion - to aid with this sort of thing. Notes, for example. Notes could be found on desks, notes could be found on bodies, you could even find bloody notes but no body around explaining the blood. Notes were a powerful and cheap way to introduce easy alternate ways in - and out of - a quest line in Oblivion, and they also served as tools to help add more depth than the VO could possibly add on its own. These kinds of toolsets are designed by the developers to be easy to utilize in quest design, to aid in fleshing out quests and adding multiple ways to succeed/fail, so things like the "Notes" system could easily be used for adding redundancy in certain areas to ensure each player gets the most out of his or her respective experience in Skyrim.

Sorry, I didn't mean to give the impression that I was opposed to the ideas you were proposing. I just wanted to point out the tradeoff, while reserving judgement on what would be the best way of balancing the the competing constraints.

As for the way of building in redundant information via notes: I thought of this too, but I think in many cases it would seem quite strained. In many cases it would seem implausible that the appropriate NPCs would have written down the required information (sorry, a good example is not coming to mind). So another mechanism is needed. Probably the next best option is giving other NPCs the required dialogue - and, at least with full VO - this is more time-consuming than notes. Apart from that.... well, there's books as the natural extension of the note idea, but they would presumably be less specific. Perhaps a book might mention a lost relic or something like that... But perhaps also just clever design of the game world. Another silly example: perhaps if you notice that a certain area is rife with hostile creatures who don't normally inhabit that region - you might try to find an explanation and a method for getting rid of the creatures.

Sorry, I'm rambling a bit here. I guess, again just to reiterate my first point, I'm not disagreeing with the situation you're proposing, I just want to point out that implementing this idea in the game will involve nontrivial tradeoffs - and, even though it hardly needs to be said, it's really up to BGS to decide how they want to balance those constraints.

Sure, but add in a few quests to make it work. If you are a mages guild member and a fighters guild member, then why not become a battle mage and have a chance to serve in both. If you're a thief, you should be able to a be an assassin because they are so closely tied. However, if your actions while working as an assassin are discovered, it would be realistic to be disavowed.

Don't worry, this is how it all works in the real world anyway! People who are far under-qualified often become managers, so if Bethesda is striving for realism it'll be pretty easy to implement!

Head of the Knights of the Nine, and the Dark Brotherhood right here... and probably everyone else as well...

Anyway, I agree that it shouldn't all be available in one game, but while writing this post I came up with some ideas about how factions might work.

There might be different types of factions:
Quiet Factions like the Thieve's Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Morag Tong, etc. In order to attain membership with one of the quiet factions, you must either be invited into it, or find it yourself. In these factions, there would be no central hub through which a guild master or such resides.

Guild Factions: The Mage's Guild, the Fighter's Guild, the Arena, things like those. These factions act like Mercenaries. Once paid, they get a job done, and they tend to do it well. These factions tend to help those wishing to improve their skills in certain areas. The Arena is included in this because your still paid to get a job done, that is kill someone for entertainment. The Thieve's Guild is not here because they fit much better under Quiet Factions.

Loud Factions like the Imperial Legion, the Imperial Cult, things like that. These ones, you simply have to sign up for to join. These factions differ a little from the Guild Factions in that rather than taking on jobs, then issuing them to their members, their goal is to expand. These factions also hold grudges, these are the ones where if you join an opposing faction they will come after you. These factions however wont know if you are in a opposing faction unless one of their members that sees you consorting with the opposing faction.

Also, I think being in some factions besides having the faction benefits should have alternative practical out of guild benefits as well.

I see this as two separate issues - guilds and factions.

Guild membership and advancement should be purely a function of your stats and abilities. If you a are a good spellcaster, and a good warrior, then I see no technical reason you shouldn't be allowed to join both the mages guild and fighters guild. This would be the classic "battle mage" character.

Factions, on the other hand, are naturally adversarial. In this case, it doesn't make sense that you could join more than one. I believe that making these mutually exclusive is the right way to go. Given that one of the major subtexts of Skyrim is a possible civil war, I'd imagine this would be fairly obvious, but who knows?