the quests feel like they don't matter.. i know i won't get any interesting items as they are leveled.. i know i won't come across over powered enemy's, and after its finished the NPCs won't even treat me any differently, or like me any more.. you don't even get interesting choices to make most of the time. the best you could say about the quests in skyrim is that they are little story's that are sometimes vaguely interesting with no real value to them.

What the hell happened to guild ranks? There doesn't feel like there's ANY progression in the guilds! The quest lines are way too short and you can go from being an apprentice to an arch-mage in a few hours, WITHOUT getting any titles in between. It's not fun. Its boring. And the end of the quest lines are unsatisfying.

I've done the college of winterhold, and that's about it so far.
Honestly, I think it's very high quality for the most part, but it's way too short and abrupt, and the ending isn't really satisfactory. you go straight from lesson 1 to important guild business. That's just too abrupt, and should have taken longer and been more fleshed out. same with joining the companions. That went by way too fast

Yes, they put quality before quantity to the point that it annulled the quality due to low quantity. If that even makes sense.

Also, I remember the day of that post from your signature, the nice and lazy pre-release days... You gotta love them. :violin:

Yeah I agree about the writing, it seems very rushed. It seems to me like they skipped story to just get you to the action, which is something that just wouldn't work in the Thieves guild, which is why people like it so much.

Just in about 15 seconds I've thought of something that would work better for the companions:

The college of winterhold, for example, should have included more mundane quests. I mean, the very first quest is going to explore an ancient ruin? I mean, even that I could deal with, but then right away the main plot device is back at the college, no effort required. It makes you lose immersion, it feels more like Halo where you're just playing out scenes where it skips the boring parts in the middle, where in an RPG those middle bits could/should be an integral part of it. You could have a quest where you have to clear out a secondary sub-dungeon of draugr while casting spells on runes, eventually leading to a climactic scene where the Plot Device teleports to the College.

The trouble with the rebellion plot, I think, is that it doesn't really feel like it's happening. Oh, sure, there are cities with people saying "I hate the Imperials!" Or "I hate the Stormcloaks!", but do you actually see anything happening, outside of quests? So I raid ONE fort and suddenly we own a whole hold? Plus, the soldiers are so evenly matched, I don't even feel necessary. On one of the fort taking quests, i just sat back and watched for a few minutes, and there was no actual chance of failure. Things like that would have been an amazing place for spells like Call to Arms, but they end up being totally unnecessary. Also, you can be wandering in the wilderness and you NEVER see random encounters of stormcloaks fighting imperials. There should be skirmishes happening all over the place, but NOPE, chuck testa.

The Main Quest suffers from the same thing; you slay a dragon, the first one killed in a thousand years, and there is no impact in the main towns. That's a major thing, that's "Hero of Kvatch" level stuff right there, but you get no acknowledgement at all. Another thing that bugs me is that the dragons leave no impact on the environment. If someone dies, their house just sits there, un-owned, forever.

The dragon can go into riverwood and breathe fire on the thatched roof cottages all day long, and nothing is going to happen to them. Sure, It might be difficult to do, but if you have a giant fire-breathing monster, you should at least consider making their breath have an impact on the environment. You could have the actually be able to burn down houses, for example; it would be pretty simple, just make it so the roof becomes all firey, major blaze(kinda like giant camp campfires), and when the player leaves the cell for a few hours it changes the house to a burned wreck.

Then, have a bit of dialogue about "Well, we've lost everything before, but we'll rebuild!" from the owners, along with a building animation with hammers and stuff, and if you wait a few days ingame time you come back and it's back the way it was before. See, not all that hard, and it would really have made for an immersive experience. Heck, you could even make it so the player could put out fires with an ice spell, if you want.




When i look at Skyrim, i see a game chock-full of unfulfilled possibility.

The quests are actually less interesting than Oblivion's, but at least you got enough details in your journal so that if you modded out the compass you could still play the game. Skyrim doesn't even give you that.

I've got mixed feelings about the faction quests, I thought those quests outside of the Dark Brotherhood factions quests were way too short. Companions and College are especially guilty of this, at least The College has two awesome dungeons at the end of that guildline. Other then that I thought the quests were very good in particular I love the Daedric Quests outside of Mephala which was terrible.

I find the side quests of Oblivion more original and surprising than Skyrim's. The factions in Skyrim are more interesting hands down, but their quests are too short, I was expecting much better.

One thing is fact... To quest to enter the mages guild of Oblivion was bigger than the whole WH quest... And at least you would win a good place to live in every city of the game

Skyrim's quest are more epic and beautiful... but to rushed

I cannot be asked to shed so much of my opinion on this subject and get minimal responses because it looks like a wall of text.
So instead I'll just answer the OP's poll questions, to show my opinion in more of a readable light. Hehe.

Did Bethesda do a good job in the faction quest-lines?

Mixed feelings. The questlines are too short but they are more detailed in animation and appearence than Morrowind or Oblivion.
They can also be quite creative in the fashion of Morrowind, but some things can put you in disbelief of the faction as realistic to the universe.
Like how people will recruit you under minimal conditions- like The Companions, who you can be recruited by slashing at some guy for a few seconds.
Or The College of Winterhold or The Bard College, who unsurprising let you join even if you don't know a single thing about magic, philosophy, music or speech.

Did they do a good job on the regular quests overall?

No. Reasons behind quests are lacking greatly. Not enough believability within them, which can make you somewhat do it only for the septim.
Sometimes I feel like my character lacks direction or an understanding background, to which npcs can be flexible around in dialogue.
Instead of just treating me like: the hero, the odd job mercenary, the adventurer, the explorer or some other normal RPG generalization.

In Fallout: New Vegas you have the option to build a character and let them experience the different sides of a story or just let them have a personality of their own.

Do you like quest markers? (little white arrows pointing you to the next quest destination)

Mixed feelings. In Morrowind the npcs I felt gave me very little information on how to get somewhere, but at the same time I think quest markers hold your hand too much.
If I had to make an alternative, I'd suggest not having a compass marker at all, but instead have a map marker with an X and a line for the best optimal route (obtained by npcs). In that way you could either search for what you are looking for by bare information or do the homework, get a good route to the location and use it to get there quicker.

Would you prefer NPCs give you more information about your quests?
Yes. For realism and believability. They should give you a good reason to do it, aspire to your personality (greed, interest, charity etc.) and tell you about the location in detail.

The quests that I'm stumbled upon out in the wild have been enjoyable. They've been unique, and in a variety of locales. In that sense, exploration has been quite fun.

At the same time, however, there are way too many scripted events to make things feel at all organic. I see 3 people standing on a hill by the foot path, so I come to stop. I stand there and observe, and nothing is happening. I get closer, and that kicks off their little scripted dialog. It's like being on the Pirate Ride at Disney World. You see that kind of stuff all over the place, everywhere. There's a lack of mystery? Everything seems hand placed to me, and with the draw distance maxed, you see it coming a mile away... or at least see it waiting for you a mile away. Whatever I'm trying to say.

They've still been fun, even though my suspension of disbelief is not suspending much. :-\

I'm not a big fan of the quest markers. I would gladly turn them off if the quest givers would provide any information at all. Even the journal provides zero information, so you're forced to follow the bouncing ball, and that's stupid, I'm sorry. I would always scoff at the posts about sacrificing voice acting for walls of text, but not anymore. I'm missing the days of actually having to find things on my own, going off of directions and landmarks. There's no sense of adventure following an arrow.

I really enjoy Skyrim, but cant help but to agree with this. The game would be even better if there was more substance associated with the guild quests. It was more work just to become an associate and gain access to Arcane University in Oblivion, than to become Arch Mage in Skyrim. I also agree that completing the guild quest lines should impact other areas of the game. Your status should be recognized when you align yourself in the civil war, or join other factions. If I am the thane of Solitude, as well as the Arch mage, I dont appreciate some lowly guard telling me all I do is fetch mead for the companions when I am in town. It may have been my choice to join companions, and not pursue it further at this time. Your other accomplishments should supersede.

When it comes to quest markers, I think the Treasure Maps were a wonderful start. When i found a treasure at the end of a map, even though the loot wasn't that great, i still had a wonderful sense of accomplishment.

I'd much rather rely on an ingame element to find my way than the omniscient compass. I am constantly finding myself focused on the compass to find where quests are, towns are, and enemies are; if it weren't there, I would get into the game far more. On the other hand, because you NEED the quest arrow to finish most quests, you cannot turn off the compass.

Even if clairvoyance just worked a bit better, it would be better than the current system, I think.

I loved em .

Oblivion did have a few things up on the questing in Skyrim. The Mages guild entry quest in Oblivion has been mentioned, and that is a good example. I can counter that though, with the Dark Brotherhood and Theives guild entry quests for this game. The thieves guild entry quest in Skyrim actually is one of my favorites, because it seems rather believable.

All TES missions I have ever done seem to be rather... "Go here and kill the thing" or "Go here and steal the thing." Truthfully I have the most fun with Thieves guild radiant quests... bedlam and numbers jobs especially.

To answer the OP: I like the quests, but I can see there is room for improvement. I wish we had some more quests that would allow us to use abilities outside of combat. A few do... which is why I put Skyrim over Oblivion in terms of questing (Even the one Oblivion quest I can immediately think of as one of my favorites, the quest when the floating inn in Imperial City is stolen, is still: "Go to exotic place and kill dudes"). The one thing I wish would get applied to more than the thieves guild (Have I mentioned that I freaking love the thieves guild quests enough yet?), would be multiple methods of completing each objective. Dark Brotherhood has this to an extent, but more in terms of approach to the same linear objective: Do I enter there, or there? Do I use Poison or do I stab them? That is partially due to the fact that there is only so much you can do in terms of: Kill a dude, unless you get into double crossing people with other people, or something like that... but that seems like it would be difficult to do with every quest and would need be handled situationally.

Anyhow... Only other thing I have to contribute: The final question in the poll for this post seems a bit too slanted. While the other allow us to have an opinion, your inserting yourself too much there OP.

Far too short. It felt like the guilds/factions were tripping over themselves to elevate me to the level of 'Great Wonderful Leader of Everything'. "Oh, hey, you accidentally stepped on a mudcrab? Promotions for everyone!"

I always thought it was poor hiring standards

"Wow... no one in our guild has been able to do that before!"

"Wow... your all a bunch of idiots"

I enjoyed the faction quests, and I enjoyed the main quest up until the end. The randomly generated quests are boring and pointless, but the hand-placed ones I thought were all pretty well done. Much better than in previous games, at any rate.

But I really think Bethesda nailed it with the side quests that had nothing to do with factions nor the main quest. The Daedric quests for the most part were very interesting, the main missions for each of the five major cities are also very interesting, and the quests you find only by exploring and going into dungeons are pretty cool too. (Like Frostflow Lighthouse as an example.)

I really don't like that the quest markers have become an excuse for NPCs to not give you any info at all about your quest, or why it even matters. I miss when NPCs would talk to you more and give you more info about the quests they want you to take.

Companions and Mage guild quests were complete fluff. What a load of guff.

Too few, too short, not very original.

Man, everyone here has so many complaints. I'm flabbergasted at it all.

The quests are just fine. I'd say they are great even. Some are clever, some are cool, some are simple fetch quests and that's fine too. There is a huge variety of quests that you can possibly do, you just have to tip your hat to Bethesda and say "thank you" for making a game with such a varied amount of things to do! Not complain that some of the quests may lack choices. Big deal! Try and look at the big picture of Skyrim's quests and how the game essentially gives you a simply staggering amount of content to complete, and you should never utter another complaint against the game again because then you would truly feel satisfied.

That said, can certain things be done better? Well duh, of course they can! Beth could have also doubled the amount of NPCs in the game world, tripled the amount of spoken dialog, doubled the world size, and added 500 new quests to the game. Maybe on the XBOX 720 we'll get those things. But for now, I'm extremely pleased with Skyrim and think it's an absolutely fantastic game, quests included.

I haven't even touched on Radiant Quests, which in my opinion are simply revolutionary. In fact the quests are so good, I even found myself clearing out the same area more than once, and I NEVER do that in games! But in Skyrim it feels totally okay to kill bandits in a fort that has repopulated, and then for my reward get skill boosts from a trainer. Great stuff.

Some of the quests are great, some rubbish, some so-so, discounting Radiant ones that are pointless fluff. Pretty much standard for an Elder Scrolls game.

They are all ruined by the journal, just today I did a few quests I picked up a week or two ago and without the quest marker I would of had no idea who the person who gave to me was and where they were. Of course I had absolutely no idea why I was doing those quests. Every quest merged together into one big go to marker and do something go to another marker and hand it in for some reason. it might be expensive to record a load of extra dailogue for every quest, but it's ridiculously easy to type up a short paragraph of text describing the quest and putting it into the journal.

You do realize complaints are what make the next game better? Besides these are all very valid complaints. We expected better of Bethesda in terms of questing as that is pretty much the main feature of the game. It seems many of us share that opinion. When a gaming company takes a step backwards, it is their fans obligation to let them know. To me it feels like they took 2 steps forward, 4 steps to the right, 2 to the left, and 3 backwards. They moved, but not very far and not necessarily in the right direction. Hopefully BGS takes a look at this poll and sees the various responses. They can keep everything as it is but make the quests more believable and give proper directions via quest givers and our Journal. We should not NEED to rely on the quest markers. They are just pure laziness and really detract from the games quality.

The semi-literate 7 years old elementary schooler with ADS that is the lowest common denominator in game design would not really appreciate that little extra bit of work anyway. "Who cares for all that [censored] text and why I do things? Let's just kill things!" He is much more happy with just fallowing the arrow and less likely to be overwhelmed.

The Daedric Quest were AMAZING! And Generally The Side quests were amazing!