» Wed Jul 21, 2010 11:34 am
Since when have the Guilds ever been mutually exclusive? I know people cite Morrowind's Thieves' Guild and Fighters Guild as being mutually exclusive, but those people have apparently not really played either guild. In fact, in Morrowind, the Thieve's Guild and Fighter's Guild questlines complement each other very well, if your character is not a simple-minded, brutish stooge of the Camonna Tong. In Daggerfall, though there were requirements to join the factions, the only guilds exclusive to another were which temple and knightly order you choose to join, and the guilds were more isolated from each other than Oblivion (Except for the occassional task from the Fighter's Guild to clean some rats or tigers out of the Mage's Guild or Thieves Guild hideou when those buildings are the ones randomly selected to be hit by critter invasion).
Also, prevention from joining all four primary guilds would be extremely restrictive to choice, forcefully shoehorning your character into having to be a Squishy Wizard with no stealth or combat skill, a brutish fighter with no magic or larcenous talent, combat-incapable, magic-inept thief, or a well-rounded but morally detestable assassin.
One of the Strengths of the Elder Scrolls series is the mild consequences for your actions. While it can be disappointing to go through an extensive questline to save someone and have the only long-lasting effect be the person delivers inane rumors with a cheerful smile, it's not as bad as if it actively punished you for going on a killing spree in town just for [censored]'n'giggles. The Elder Scrolls are a fantasy sandbox first and foremost, with more in common with Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto than Dragon Age or Baldur's Gate. In fact, I think your assertion "You can do this with any gaming" is false, because aside from The Elder Scrolls, Fable, inFamous/Prototype, Grand Theft Auto/Saint's Row, and Red Dead Redemption, you don't have the freedom to do what you want outside a very limited range of options. And of those, only The Elder Scrolls and Fable are set in a Sword-and-Sorcery setting (And Fable hardly counts as that anymore). It's called a Sandbox game.
The game has just enough consequences for your actions to be rewarding and mildly meaningful, but not so many that you have to restart/reload. And, the games are designed to actually discourage alt-itis because of the amount of time it takes to do anything. Only in the Elder Scrolls can your character be a stalwart champion of justice and virtue one day, and a drunken hooligan streaking through the streets, jumping from roof to roof, grabbing everything that's not nailed down, and punching random people in the face the next. Your suggestion for arbitrary restrictions that force a character's development down a narrow path really detract from that spirit, for no real benefit. So, yes, TES is, was, and always will be a game about "Choices without real Consequences", because being irresponsible in a game in ways you can't in boring real life is FUN.
And back on the subject of the guilds... By making them mutually exclusive, you'd force the player to conform strictly to that guild, instead of progressing in the guilds as far as he's comfortable with. In fact, unless you're boring and making a One-note character (Solid warrior, solid mage, solid thief, or complete monster), some level of membership in at least the Mage, Fighter, and Theif guilds are required for the resources. If Fighters Guild and Mage's guild were mutually exclusive, Battlemages and Spellswords become nigh-impossible to satisfyingly play: You either commit to the Mage's guild to get access to enchanting, spellmaking, and higher-level spells and miss out on the asskicking opportunities, bonus dungeon locations, discounted training, free lodging, and high pay of the Fighter's Guild, or join the Fighter's guild and have all magical skill truncated because you can't acquire high-level spells or make your own, nor enchant your gear. Not being able to join the thieves guild forces your character to be law-abiding, since there's no way to remove fines without losing all stolen goods.
Also, Some people really do like the challenge of doing all the guild quests and becoming King of the World on one character, because contrary to that one person's way off-base assertion that the "Do everything on one character crowd" is the "We want Everything, We Want it Easy, and We Want it Now" crowd, most 100% Completionists (the "Do Everything on one character" crowd) are the hardcoe challenge seekers. I hope the perks never stop coming in Skyrim, even if it takes hundreds of levels to get them all. If anything, the "We want everything, we want it easy, and we want it NOW" people are those that create multiple characters, because they're "Too lazy" to go through the effort of getting their Currently-a-Warrior's six magic skills from 5 to 100 so they can be Magic Knights, and taking the easier path of starting with the magicky skills at level 25+.
It's not like being a high-ranking member in one guild removes the number of quests you have to do to become leader of another guild. Even if you are Head of the Fighter's Guild, you still have to start with picking mushrooms for the Mage's guild if you want to become Archmage.
And yes, I know the Mage's guild isn't in Skyrim. I'm merely using it as an example because of its significant precedent in every other game.
