LE Guild Overhaul

[Darksun45230]

What Skyrim has taught us is that events hatching within the guilds need not be disconnected and essentially an endless rung of latter-climbing. Rather, Guilds have evolved into contained stories with their own beginning and end.

 

Sadly these ends are too quickly concluded.

 

It can take two to five hours of straight gameplay to reach Harbinger, a little longer for Arch-Mage, and a little shorter for everyone else. When they (largely) gutted the monotonous fetch quests of yore they also shaved a considerable chunk of gameplay. Now places like the Mage College graduates you soon after admittance, you ascend to Harbinger, and win the rest with little more than

having your predecessor conveniently murdered.

 

 

Are you sensing a pattern?

 

It might not be such a problem to edit this after the fact except we have the additional problem of voice acting. Characters can't be rejiggered to say new lines unless:

 

a) Re-hire said actor.

b) Have a new voice actor.

c) Insert subtitles instead.

 

I doubt anyone has the resources to do (a) and either (b) or © break immersion and sense of flow. Which leads me to my first suggestion:

 

Give us quests to do after we've become guild leaders that don't involve being someone's lackey.

 

Thinking creatively I can think of various ways to extend to the Mage College questline: Mid-terms.

 

* Player hands out a written examine testing player's knowledge of magic; quest ensues when students are accused of cheating. Player must decide whether to turn in the culprit or extort them for gold/equipment/favors.

 

* Player takes a group of students down to the Midden to conjure familiars and atronachs; quest ensues when undead spirit breaks free from Oblivion and you must chase after it.

 

* [NPC Teacher] guides students to Hall of Elements where students must Ward off her magic in order to pass; quest ensues when a student is killed by a overpowered fireball. She is taken into custody eagerly by Winterhold troops. After convincing the player of her innocence it's up to you to locate the true saboteur and clear her name.

 

Now, this isn't concrete and we don't know how much we'll be able to change but I believe it's entirely possible to add various NPCs and view their dialog through subtitles. Yeah, it's immersion bending but hardly breaking.

 

When becoming head of a Guild, we are able to send lackies on Quests to generate revenue.

 

Ever feel like Farkas, Varkas, or Aela The Huntress loiter far too often around Jorrvaskr? What ever happened to all those quests everyone was eager enough to pass onto you? What I suggest is the ability to expand your organization into an empire stretching across Skyrim like the great guilds of Morrowind. Here's an outline of how I think this should work.

 

a) Pick up [Guild Quests] in bars, taverns, or special NPCs working for the Jarl (depending on whether they're lawful or not.)

b) Take that quest back to an NPC, who then leaves shortly after to do said quest.

c) System runs an invisible check (I'm not good with scripting) weighing the NPC's level with the difficulty of the quest.

d1) NPC passes check and returns with reward which he splits with you.

d2) NPC fails check and you get a letter, or note from a courier saying "NPC entered ruins but never returned," or "NPC died while trying to rob/kill mark," and so on.

 

"But wait!" you say. "If I send someone like Farkas to his death, it's only a matter of time before the Companions are empty!"

 

Which brings me to my next point.

 

Able to recruit members and expand the influence of the guild.

 

When you heard an NPC say "One day we'll return the Empire/Dark Brotherhood/Thieves Guild to their former glory!" did you believe it? You ever purchase a piece of real-estate and dreamed of converting it into it's own guild? I sure did. What I propose is simple. The ability to recruit random NPCs just as you were recruited (Companions/Mages = Apply, Thieves = Steal, Brotherhood = Kill) and send them on quests. The applicants can be randomly generated NPCs ranging from grizzled veterans to young whelps. The applicants scale depending on your level and grow to reflect how many quests they've finished.

 

Ranks:

[Novice]

[Apprentice]

[Adept]

[Expert]

[Master]

 

The benefit of sending NPCs like, say, Faralda or Aela [Expert] is that she has a much higher chance of returning alive than a [Novice] Conjurer/Armsman.

 

To sum up it all up:

a) Recruit various random NPCs from random locales like bars, prisons, towns, ect.

b) Send said NPCs on quests for gold and scaled loot.

c) Sell scaled loot and use gold but more property in other cities.

d) Convert property into a Study for Mages, Barracks for Companions, or Tavern for Thieves/Dark Brotherhood.

e) Repeat until all of Skyrim is under your control!

 

Sadly, with all these bonuses we must have one large penalty.

 

We cannot become the leader of more than one Guild.

 

To keep things balanced we can only become the leader of one guild. Why? Because it's a conflict of interest. Being both the Arch-Mage and the Harbinger means I'm eventually going to favor one over the other. This doesn't mean that you won't be able to finish that quests storyline, just denied the rank. Placing a College in Windhelm and a Jorvaskar in Solitude is feasible but generally doesn't sit well with me. To make the player's experience more unique, they should be have sacrifice the prestige of one guild in favor of the other. There are just too many benefits to being the leader of more than one guild should this ever be implemented.

 

Well, those are my thoughts. Tell me what you think. Too ambitious? Too labor intensive? Too much?

Edited November 21, 2011 by Darksun45230