By "regions", do you mean cities (inside and out), roads, and the wilderness? If so, this could temporarily sate my distaste for the main quest. Was this a recently added feature in MOO? I don't recall Daedra attacking anything when I last played the main quest. Then again, I didn't really get that far. By which mission does the invasion start?

A region is simply part of a map, like the Nibenay Basin region. If a region contains an Oblivion gate the wilderness and road spawn points in this region will be able to spawn Daedra. Daedra invasions (added in v3.9) start pretty much from the start of the game. This because of the Kvatch gate. Currently these Daedra don't actively move towards/attack cities though. I could add this as an optional feature if people would be interested in this.

What if the main quest—stopping the invasion—proceeded even if the player character did not participate? Surely there are other brave people available—the Blades, particularly. Perhaps there could be a system in which, after the player delivers the amulet, Martin is rescued and brought to the temple by others if the player does not do it. Then reports might come in of other things being taken care of (or not—there could be a random element). The player might choose to volunteer for some of the work as things go on, or he might not. Of course this might mean the player never becomes “Champion of Cyrodiil” but obviously many of us would be perfectly happy not to be. The Black Horse Courier could keep everyone informed of what the status of the invasion is.

On an even larger note, I do not like that if you complete the various organization quests you become Archmage, head of the FG, etc. etc. Eventually you become so loaded with titles and offices that it’s absurd to think you wouldn’t just be chosen Emperor and immured in the palace, and the idea of so important a person still exploring dungeons or harvesting herbs is a little silly.

It would be better, I think, if completing a quest line resulted in some nice title (e.g. Senior Mage) without meaning you were the head of the whole organization. Of course I know you can play the game and simply not do the promotion quests, but I remember fondly Daggerfall, where promotion was slow and at the end you might get a free house (from a knightly order) or the use of a teleporter (I think that was the Mages Guild bonus) without being declared the Big Cheese. And there were more random quests always available.

I agree with this.

Unfortunately, it seems like Bethesda believes that they have to make everyone head cheese in order to keep the new players happy and boost their sales. So, I doubt they will stop making the end of each questline result in the PC becomming guildmaster.

What might work, however, is a short epilog quest for each guild where the guild decides who the next leader will be and the player could have the choice either to sieze the position, or to support another fellow guildmember for the leadership position and remain in a supporting position.

That should satisfy the roleplayers who want to advance the guild questline without becoming the grand poobah, and also satisfy Bethesda's desire to create a game where the PC can easily become the leader of everything.

It's not so much behind the scenes, otherwise people wouldn't know who you are.

You get a bleepin' statue as tribute to your heroic deeds.

But sure, I do appreciate the fact that you earn that status.

Giskard's Kvatch Rising mod does something similar to this. The newly-installed Count of Kvatch lives in fear of assassination. A nice plot line develops that lets the player choose to become Count, support the Count's nephew or leave the Count on the throne. This kind of thing is definitely possible, with a little imagination.

I agree with you and inafog. With a few exceptions (very few) I want to roleplay adventurers, not bureaucrats.

It would serve us right if, in the next game, when we become the boss of a guild, we were to be bombarded with an endless series of administrative decisions to make, personnel problems to solve, bills to pay, broken plumbing in the guild hall, and on and on...

Is it bad that I actually want that sort of thing? One of the reasons I loathed becoming the head of a guild was because you didn't have any responsibilities. It ruined immersion to be left to wander off and leave organizations to fend for themselves, y'know?

No, of course not! What is bad is not being offered the choice to refuse the position.

Some of us want to roleplay the head of a guild, some of us do not. A good roleplaying game, in my opinion, should accommodate both.

Precisely! Once you become the head of any of Cyrodiil's organizations you must spend at least 40 hours per week sitting behind the desk in your office or attending meetings in the guild headquarters. (This may be a fine opportunity for those who make 'total immersion' mods.)

The Champion of Cyrodiil was no special hero, he could close Oblivion gates which was something anyone else could do. No innate powers like Dragonborn, no blessings from any particular deity like Nerevarine.

Like how Bruma was able to defend itself once you showed Burd how to close the gates, how both Alinor and Argonia managed to make Mehrunes Dagon retreat, closing a significant ammount of gates and essentialy "winning" the war on their respective provinces before Martin could sacrifice himself to close all of them at once.

What made him special was being at the right place at the right time in that prison, but other than that, plenty of others could have done what he did. He got more recognition in the end because he was the personal bodyguard of the real hero of the Oblivion Crisis - Martin Septim. But he's still not hailed as the main hero by the people.

He did become special once he met Pelinal and later on Sheogorath, but that was after the main quest.

At time scale 1, of course.

I'm not going to play a game in my free time to do the most boring part of real life... Paperwork... xD Don't expect many people to endorse that idea. But I guess an option to enable that won't hurt in a future game.

But what I really missed was making decisions about the guild. Like..." Do you allow these students to enter an Ayleid Ruin with this senior?" or... "Are we going to repair the roof or save the incomes?"

And that all with consequenses. Some students might die if you let them go, and members that are going to complain about rain leaking through the broken roof.
So that everytime you enter the guild hall again, that there is something to do that requires your attention.

I completely agree with ashan. It would be cool to have some decision making to do if you became head of a guild. Bethesda was on the right track with the Fighter's Guild but they could have added more to it as well as adding the same management decisions to the other guilds. It was also nice that you actually got an income as the guild master. One thing I also don't understand is why are there no paid Mage's Guild jobs? You get paid gold after every single mission in literally every other guild except the Mages one. I understand not getting paid for the recommendation quests, but I wish there were other side jobs you could have taken to get some gold.

Just thought I'd pop back into this thread after beating the main quest. Honestly, it's not as bad as I remembered. Still by no means great, but it's satisfactory enough albeit only so because of mods. Oblivion Gates are now more dangerous due to the insane amount of spawns there, making it truly feel like hell and not an elementary school's playground. Mankar Camoran's intellectual commentary as you walk through his Paradise plus OOO's revamped battle with him makes him a bit more worthy of being the main antagonist (although he's still just an elf with a chip on his shoulders with no worthy lore, unlike Dagoth Ur or even Alduin).

I don't know how many people are interested in it, but I'd certainly appreciate a feature like that. That's the only thing that makes me miss Enhanced Daedric Invasion.

Also, while my previous idea was a bit extreme (the one about hanging corpses and stuff ), I still stand by my meaning. Has anybody ever used http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/41337/? for Morrowind? For a small and rather subtle mod, it did its part to increase immersion. It gave you the feeling that the main antagonizing force was overcoming the land. Graffiti on the walls, Sixth House shrines being set up, etc. I'm not asking you - Maskar - to do anything like this (unless you want to), but I really do think that Daedric presence within cities will enhance lore and, hopefully, overall enjoyment.

The problem with this, which I see no easy way to correct, is that NPCs don't respawn. They would die. You'd be creating ghost towns. I don't see how that would enhance the experience.

I probably worded it badly, so my bad on that.

Like I said in my previous post, while my original idea was extreme, but I still stand by my meaning. By "meaning", I mean passive ways to increase Daedra presence within cities (i.e. the Oblivion symbol sprayed onto various buildings, the sky being hellish even when you're within a city and nowhere near an Oblivion Gate, etc). It doesn't have to be anything gruesome (although I would still like an occasional attack within cities), just something to make me feel like the world is actually in a state of panic and desperation. By every ongoing mission you do, the more the world will deteriorate. This is what I meant.

I bet Masker could solve that problem. One thought that comes to mind is friendly NPC AI tweaks that made them flee at the first sight of trouble.

In fact, that would be a good addition to his overhaul mod, regardless of daedric invasion for both NPCs and horses. It's silly that NPCs, many of whom have little in the way of combat ability, and horses, who by nature are herd animals that should instinctively run from trouble, will instead charge head forward to their death against an obviously superior foe. That is a problem in Oblivion (and an even bigger problem in Skyrim with Dragon and Vampite attacks) and it would be a nice addition to have the ability to make horses and common townfolk run from trouble rather than standing and fighting.

So would I, actually. I would really love the option to have to make a few decisions for the guilds like ashan mentioned if I did decide to run them. As it is now I just retire characters that end up as the heads of guilds, leaving them to run the guild without my "supervision." But mostly I just want to not have to take the title if I don't want it. There's a reason some of my characters took to adventuring. (They don't exactly have any marketable skills outside of killing things)

You don't know how much I would love this.

Well, despite my snarky comment about bureaucrats I think it could be interesting, if it were done right. I think if we were presented with decisions that actually made some difference in the game world it would make an administrative position a lot more interesting than people might realize. We have a small example of this already in Bloodmoon's Raven Rock. Take that to another level and we might have something interesting.

If I were in charge of Bethesda's development *thumps chest* what I would do is offer the player a choice: step in as head of a faction or choose someone else. If we choose someone else the faction would appear subtly different. If we chose, say, a greedy person or an altruistic person the effects would be felt in the faction. And if we choose to occupy the leadership role ourselves a branching quest line would open up, one in which our actions would directly affect the faction.

I'm just tossing out random ideas here. But I think something like this could accommodate both action-oriented gamers (and characters) and gamers (or characters) who are less interested in constant combat. Because one of my consistent gripes with games is being forced either to 1) do administrative work with a character who is not an executive or 2) being forced to be a mass murderer with a character who would rather sit at a desk. I think a good roleplaying game (have I already said this?) should respond to both types of gamers and/or both types of characters.

Skyrim actually does this to some extent. Not these exact things, but becoming head of a guild doesn't mean the quests stop. Of course, a lot of Skyrim's quests are radiant, which some ppl don't like, but this is better than literally nothing.

I played Daggerfall for years. I have yet to do the MQ. I was too busy doing my own quests. I had Morrowind for five years before I did the MQ. My character succeeded, but did not become the Nerevarine. Myths are for children. I have some characters that have done the MQ in Oblivion. First to your own points:

-Kvatch was ravaged by Daedra. The other cities were not as a direct result of your character's actions.

-I have no problem with most villains because I actually develop my character into a hero. I believe that Beth made them all wusses for the players who reload.

-In Morrowind, you're supposed to be someone else reborn. Not very unique.

-So you're the 7th Champion. Is the 44th President no longer unique?

-An epic quest should require you to show some grit. Did it look like Frodo was having a picnic?

-Only a few Oblivion Gates are actually mandatory in the MQ. You don't have to close 60 of them. You either want to save the world or maybe that's just too much to ask.

My wife enjoys watching the action when we play the MQ together. When Martin defeated Dagon in the end, she wept for 15 minutes. I think that the MQ is epic.

Oh, I'll like those things, a break from the constant "Kill all these things!" Which reminds me of WoW's Winterspring, "We are trying to save all these animals! So kill 40 of them!"

Maybe some radiant NPCs showing up as new members,all with different skills, which as a leader, you will decide in what area they should train. You could also send groups to places. The leader of any guild could also chose how much gold to spend on each area of the guild! Should they spend money on weapon and armor repairs? Not spending much gold in repairs can cause members to die during missions.

How much gold to give to their members (Lower amounts cause people to leave). I think I'm rambling, in a nutshell, I do want something other than "Kill this!"

I think the radiant quest are a step in the right direction, while generic they give you something to do.

I do love the "human" element in games, I personally loved the marriage and adoption in Skyrim, while simple, it added, as silly as it sounds, something special into my roleplays. My married characters now had a more stronger reason to survive and come back home. My more general labor type of characters now had a reason to work and earn money instead of the "I need enough to buy food and something to drink." They will save up to buy their kids toys and what not. It's silly I know ^^.

*ignores post and returns to random wanderings*