I have this image in my head of a quest that requires you meet a bunch of thieves guild members one night. It's dark and raining, a crescent moon hangs in the sky, and all of the Thieves Guild members are sitting silently, awaiting your arrival. Now that you've arrived, it's time for the heist: you follow the leader, jumping over rooftops and running through alleys, slipping past guards carrying torches, and finally arriving at a manor on the edge of town. A contact is already there, a servant that was paid off to help rob his evil employer blind. You all run through the manor, stealing the most valuable things you can find, then you slip out silently and gather at your original meeting place to pool the goods stolen. One of the members tries to hide a bag of gold that he stole, but you notice this and have the option to confront him about not sharing the loot. If you confront him, you can out him to the rest of the group and he will be expelled. Or, you can make an agreement for him to just split it with you, and it can be your secret.

Who else wants thieves guild quests to be more like this? More acrobatic and swift, and involving more members at once, and making the guild members actually appear to do things.

Yeah, they called it "independant thievery" in between missions. Will Thieves Guild missions were still "independant thievery"...

Exactly. Even once I was the Gray Fox, I never felt like I was really part of a brotherhood of thieves.

Sounds good to me. Little choices make all the difference.

I think there are many ways to improve being a thief... but I don't think group outings are one of them.

I want my thievery to be a solotary adventure.

The thieves guild should be able to hire sharks with frickin lasers on their frickin heads as mercenaries. Or maybe jsut cuz I feel like it.

It would be cool if there was a shortlist at the local doyen of things that the thieves guild needed and that they would pay handsomely for. They don't have to be unique items. For example, they could have 10 bottles of some rare wine on the shortlist, which would mean more incentive to rob a tavern. Or pieces of silk clothing and jewelry which you could find at high class houses. Or maybe several pieces of imperial legion armour.

Then the regular missions would be more about stealing unique items, and maybe a mission here and there involving a second or even third thief. But they have to be special circumstances. There's no reason for multiple thieves to go at the same target. It just makes the chance of detection bigger.

Maybe there could be two questlines? One for the group, and another for solo adventures?

Nor in control of the guild. Shoot, I never even got price deals at the fences!

Rival turf battle, being able to task out others in the guild (which would probably screw the AI), deriving an income from a cut in the proffits, MANAGING a guild if I'm the leader of it.

As fore missions...erm, I'd like to put some thought into the heists instead of just follwoing a marker or the pop-ups. IF it's a bank heist, why not let me decide to go to the local gov't agency to see if there are blueprints, or case the place first, then map ou tthe sewers, then break in. I'm a big boy, let me do it myself.

I love the Theives Arsenal mod as it adds so much more flexibility....grease patches, dousing lights, distraction techniques....add in some of that!

I wouldn't mind if the occasional Thieves Guild mission had an ally or two for a major heist. Heck, if the Fighter's Guild can do it, why not the Thieves Guild. Even if your ally takes the lead and you follow. Don't know how viable the whole run over rooftops and thru alleys would be. But maybe a little more stealth around guards getting in or out. Kind of like the sniper mission in Modern Warfare sneaking past the russians. Not every mission though.

I love the way it so eloquently fits into The Elder Scrolls lore as well

Lol, I think you mean "elegantly".

Hmmm, that what you described there is just normal theft, but with buddies (and kinda looks like some Holywood cliché where cool effects are important, but the plot itself is not).
It should be made more interesting.
For example, one of the thieves will distract guards while you slip into the sewers behind them that they were guarding because manor owner (WHO IS NOT EVIL! ONLY BECAUSE HE IS RICH AND WILL GET ROBBED IT DOESN'T MEAN HE'S EVIL! I SAY THAT THAT MANOR OWNER IS ACTUALLY NPC VERSION OF MOTHER THERESA!) payed them since he is paranoid because he has certain item of value (that you are about to steal, hyuk, hyuk) and then you find your way inside the manor where bribed servant will wait (you have to instruct one of the members to bribe the servant, give him sleeping potion that you will provide and instruct servant to put it in food of other manor servants so they don't wake up to have a midnight snack or take a piss and notice something is wrong).
You will also have to talk to members to see who is good for what and will not send someone who is good at sneaking, but bad at persuading to talk to servant since that could ruin the whole mission.
Then you will sneak your way to the treasury, pick the lock, disarm traps, take the item and run.
You will then have to find your way out trough the roof since distraction of the guards will not work anymore.
When you climb to the roof, you will shoot an arrow with rope on it to the location where other Guild member will wait and will help you set up a ticker rope (please don't make me go into details how this should work out) for you to slide down and then you run over the roofs or trough allies (or both if you want) and run away to the arranged location.
Mission complete!
This is just first thing that came to my mind, but I think that it's much better than OP version since it actually requires a teamwork looks more like a real theft where you have to know your surroundings, people and stuff.
Still, maybe there could be an option where you could to a 'team independent thievery' if people want to do it for some reason.

True, I was actually really just focusing on the jumping over rooftops part lol.

I love this idea, it can be the opening quest, it will get you in the mood and involved with some of the characters, I knew about 3 people that was inside the thieves guild.
I don't think everyone is taking this seriously though :/

I want the feudal lord that you steal from to turn over his town and imprison everyone he suspects of thievery. That seems like the most likely outcome of robbing the rich. Then they raise the tax rate and lengthen the working day.

For a thieves guild mission though, I'd like the first mission to be for the purpose of the guild getting clear evidence of a crime you committed, as insurance so you won't piss off the guild or give away their secrets.

How about hiring another member as a lookout? Or to set traps, things like that?

I wouldn't want the entire Thieves Guild to be like this, being a thief is typically a solo job, but it would be cool to have a group mission. A big mansion that 3 or so thieves go into at once, including the player, to steal a few select items, and, in addition to stealing the target item that the player is assigned, the player must also ensure that his/her friends do not get caught and things like that. Sounds like fun.

That is kind of hard to set up for anything other than quests. But I like the idea of using teamwork. It kicks ass compared to vague references of other thieves doing a heist.

I mean, the Grey Fox asks you to pull off the Ultimate Heist and he just sits in a room getting fat while you wade through the sewers (speeking of which, how did the monks believe that nobility would smell like the damn sewers?) and slunk your way through the whole palace to steel an Elder Scroll. When I think about it, I ususally throw my hands up and scream "WTF??"

This, stealing for clients, killing/recruiting/break the arms of freelancers, killing rival gangs, kidnappings, drug smuggling, and making sure crime is kept at reasonable level to not overly piss off the powerful.

This is a criminal organization and gang, not robin hood and his merry men. I prefer how the Thieves Guild was described in the Daggerfall book, Confessions of a Thief, along with how it was shown in MW (willingness to have gang warfare) and DF.

I for one, would love to see lots and lots of these (small and simple quests)in between the important ones that they have already built for the thieves guild questline. Or any guild questline. What im trying to say is that i think the main character progresses too quickly in TES games. It would feel more real if when you actually get a new rank in the guild it wasn after every other quest..