So you don’t even have to create a character specificaly made to do the guild quests , any character with enought sneak and lockpicking will do them all easily ( or open lock spells )

Keep up the good work!

On the whole I disagree that a long central plotline is that bad, because within it – in theory – you can play in a fairly flexible way (although big stompy types did better than waifs like me), and I enjoy developers who put real length and content into their games. The long-form central narrative is what *should* give devs the most opportunity to really say something interesting.

Splitting the game off into guild-sized chunks would either create too much work or less actual story content, per guild, and it would mean playing every guild in order to experience the core story (not everyone actually wants to be a mage or create a mage type character).

But it screams poor design that you have to make a character for the main quest, I find your idea much closer to an ideal solution.

But despite that, I may be in the minority, but I really enjoyed Oblivion’s main quest. And the problem with the ideas above is that you then couldn’t do all the guild quests after the main quest, which is what I mainly ended up doing.

I think that’s the part of a potential redesign like this that most excites me — the opportunity to use your character’s skills in a meaningful way. My time as a kleptomaniac in Morrowind (just couldn’t enjoy Oblivion, sadly) meant most of my thieving was purely for personal benefit, when sneaking skills and the like could have been worked into the storyline in a way that adds another dimension to the profession.

I never did make it far into Oblivion’s main quest, so forgive my ignorance, but did group battle ever factor in at all? The idea of tackling something with your guild mates is a pretty exciting one, which makes me wonder why Bethesda didn’t capitalize on it. Engine limitations, perhaps? Weak AI?

What I’m saying is, you’ve got to make sure the introduction of the demons doesn’t just make everything a big fight. The Thieves Guild should focus on sneaking through a gate undetected and stealing a soul gem or something, rather than fighting a prince.

LaZodiac: “Interesting… I’d dismissed this page, but seeing you fend off that ogre… apparently there’s an artefact, and ancient and powerful Frying Pan of the Nine, deep beneath the forests of Anvil.”

Most of the tasks along the main questline in Morrowind are either intelligence or organizational tasks. The first half is Caius sending you around to find out stuff, while the latter half involves going around and organizing all the political bodies in Vvardenfell into something resembling an effective resistance. And then there’s the endgame, where everyone storms Red Mountain.

Except no one else actually does anything. Even when NPCs specifically talk about how, say, “The Ordinators and the Buyant Armigers are going to stage a massive series of raids inside the Ghostgate to provide a distraction for your attacks,” you don’t ever see any of that being done.

. . .

What I would’ve liked from Oblivion is, well, that. Instead of your quest being to find a way to singlehandedly stop the invasion, all of the Main Quests (and most of the side quests, considering bloodthirsty Daedra pouring out of gates everywhere is sort of the most important thing anyone has to worry about) would involve mobilizing the various disorganized, leaderless, or otherwise ineffectual factions against the threat. The death of the Emperor’s thrown the central Imperial government into disarray, the Mage’s Guild is divided nearly in half by the banning of Necromancy, the Fighter’s Guild’s dealing with a rival mercenary force interfering with their work, and everyone’s got the Radiant Dawn infiltrating and sabataging and generally making things more difficult.

Faction quests would, basically, result in carving out little pockets of safety where your organization’s set itself up. It would remain VERY UNSAFE outside of these pockets. As you do more work for each faction, you start to secure more of the region. Main Quest stuff would be factfinding that greatly helps these efforts: finding ways to predict where gates will open, finding ways to close gates permanently, and eventually finding a way to stop the invasion all together.

. . .

This wouldn’t necessarily have to involve difficult-to-program procedural armies, and lots of AI fights, and whatnot. But things like more of the world changing: villagers huddle behind locked doors and guards on rooftops take potshots at anything moving that comes near would turn to people walking about normally once you’ve finished a quest to secure the area. The number of guard patrols along walls or roads would increase if you did something to finally get them organized. Cities would be cluttered and grimy when they’re under siege, and daedra would randomly spawn in alleys . . . which sufficient guard coverage would stop. Out in the wilderness, you’d start to see distant gates collapsing in a flash of light once soldiering parties start to get the knack of taking them down on their own. Once you figure out how to close gates permanently, they wouldn’t respawn.

Things like that.

I really like the idea in the Fighters’ and Mage Guild quests that you’re just one among your many compatriots, becoming gradually drawn into the overarcing conflict. Showdowns when you’re fighting among allies are awesome.

Anyway, this is an interesting idea. I think it would be a huge improvement over the uninspiring original main quest. I’d really like to see someone more skilled than I mod it in. I finished the Dark Brotherhood and Thieve’s Guild, which were both brilliant and interesting, weaving the main quest into the guilds is an awesome idea. I’d also do away with the starting in a jail cell thing, which was a little too rigid roleplaying-wise in my opinion.

Great Game in all, but I tired of it. Felt like an inverse Deus Ex in almost every resepct e.g – Loads of paths to take, but not that many ways of travelling those paths. I suppose it wasnt really my game.

I think even with this method of intertwining the main quest with the guild quests, you’d still need some form of basic set of introductory missions – though rather than throwing you into the story, it might get you to the main city (assume that the dungeon is in a fairly remote place, have the quests give you a brief tutorial as they guide you to the city) – once at the city, behavior of the right sort will get you introduced to the relevant guild, or in some cases, just flat out turning up and asking at the guild house (fighters and mages).

The only really important bit is that you allow experienced players on further play throughs to turn down the introductory quests and just get on with it, making sure that if any form of bonus xp or equipment from the tutorial is also made available to them if they want to take it.

You could even have a timer going that triggers alternatives to any quest available at a given time. It could depend on level, even, although that’s probably a bad idea.

I’ve never completed Oblivion, despite doing every guild’s quest line. I got bored of the plane of Oblivion, it was too harsh.

Thought about character class shoving you in a specific direction, but decided I’d rather leave that element of the game as is: open. You start in jail, you’re released, your Quest Log says “Find work at one of the guilds”.

Focusing on one questline wouldn’t cause the other invasions to happen unhindered: the three stages of each are triggered by you taking the quests that brings you into contact with them. It should be suggested in background chatter that Daedra are invading all over Tamriel.

…and I just got your name, Jim. Jim Stacey, right?

Could you start in the prison once again, but rather than the whole “Follow the Emperor” shennanigan you have to break out on your own, and your method dictates what guild you’d be guided to? Bludgeon the guard and tank your way out? Fighter. Hide in a dark corner and sneak out when the door is opened/pickpocket the guard for the keys? Thief. Magically open the lock? Mage. Then I don’t know, see a guard asleep leaning next to the bars and strangle them for the Dark Brotherhood? However, I do realise all of these options somewhat preclude a “good” way to do things, and punishes those who build an allround character.

Which reminds me, how easy is it to build a character suitable to do all four guilds in one playthrough?

This is actually a really interesting take on how to present a central story to a player in an open world game, it could even be adapted to games in more modern eras such as GTA4 by allowing you to work through the main quest via individual gangs, rather than visiting each gang / mission giver in turn (which is essentially how it works out in GTA). It’s surely worth something modding the hell out of oblivion to make it happen!