jordanLoL Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 Okay, so I was at the Quakecon Skyrim presentation over the summer. I clearly remember Todd Howard saying the guy that was behind the Dark Brotherhood quests for Oblivion was back for Skyrim. My question is, what the hell happened? Compared to Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood quests these are not even close to as good. I know Bethesda said they were shooting for more quests this time around overall but WOW the guild and major quests really got watered down. I want to blame the "Radiant Story" system they introduced for watering down quests but this almost just comes off as laziness. Does anyone else feel really let down by this? Maybe they spent all of their time designing the world itself. I'm certainly not complaining in that area. The atmosphere for Skyrim is absolutely perfect, much better than Oblivion. But the quests.. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matth85 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 What, you do't enjoy a 2-quest-road-to-Guild Master-system?! It's awesome! No, seriously, it is annoying. There is no feel of progression in ranks. I start the Dark Brotherhood, and become the best assassin in the matter of houres? Or I start the thieves Guild and get to see Nocturnal in a week-game time?Really, nobody can build up trust to a stranger within a day. It would take years upon years to become trusted enough to get a guild master role. Too bad the illusion of that in Skyrim is bad. How many quest are there for the College? 3-4? I remember starting my first quest, and getting ranked up. Then a few more, and I am the Archmage? ..... what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spets21 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 theres no real sense of achievement after finishing these quest :D like what you said lazy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barstow75 Posted December 21, 2011 Share Posted December 21, 2011 I agree with what youre saying, all of the guild questlines are too short. I became the leader of the companions and became arch mage of the college of winterhold very quickly and i wasnt satisfyed at all. And now im starting the dark brotherhood quests and i already dont like it. I mean first off the new dark brotherhood doesnt even follow the 5 tennets! My character from oblivion would be apalled if he was to see what was to become of the brotherhood in 200 years.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dianacat777 Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 Overall, I was really disappointed with Skyrim's DB quests, and slightly less so - but still substantially - with the College. College was just way too fast and didn't explain anything that was going on. It started out promising, making you feel like an apprentice - and after Saarthal, it just went downhill - advancing too fast. It got cool at the climax, and then had a really anticlimactic ending. I'm spoilering my grievances, so if you haven't done the DB questline yet, don't read. I guess the reason things play out in the same way is because Bethesda wants to get across that this isn't a happy fun cuddly guild, but a dangerous and heartless profession that is by no means safe, but... seriously, Bethesda? You did it again. You frigging did it again. The beginning? Great. Much cooler than the whole 'kill-random-shmuck-and-get-stalked-in-your-sleep. I loved the Sanctuary - very natural, dark feel to it. The inhabitants were cool - in particular, I liked Arnbjorn and the old mage - but none of them had the same kindred feeling I had in the last game, with Vicente and Gogron and whatnot. It felt more like a business than a Family. Overall, my first impressions were positive, if not raving. Crazy jester dude, whatever. I'm the Listener, whatever. It's sad how the Dark Brotherhood has fallen so terribly apart, but it's not like I wasn't expecting that, seeing how everything else in this game has over the past 200 years. Cicero annoyed the hell out of me, so I killed him. Good riddance. So... the part where I'm sold out. Where everything falls to hell. I get to the Sanctuary and find one of my two favorite Brothers dead, nailed to a tree by countless arrows. Ffuuuu-. By now, I've guessed what's going to happen. Okay, so I'm not killing them myself this time, but it hardly helps when I watch my other favorite character die a scripted death in front of me after I kill his attackers (For the record, the 'resurrect' console command wouldn't work on any of the fallen, either). I didn't really care much about Nazir before this, but when I found somebody who wasn't dying as soon as I approached them, I was damn relieved. However, it should say something about this questline that I went on anyways instead of restoring a previous save. I always refused to do the Purification in Oblivion. If I'm to analyze this response, I'd say it's because the characters in this Sanctuary, while cool, were not as... I don't want to say deep, because Oblivion's characters were not deep, but I didn't feel enough of a connection to them. That kindred feeling was never really there. So that's done. New sanctuary, only two surviving members of the old guild - I didn't really care for them before, but now they're pretty much the only thing about the Brotherhood I like - and a bunch of nameless, generic new recruits. Seriously? You had to do this again? Was it too hard to write a few lines of dialogue about their backgrounds and come up with some names? Cardboard cutouts like these don't serve to make the Dawnstar sanctuary any less empty. If anything, they make it feel more empty. Damn it, I was hoping they wouldn't do this again... Overall, things played out exactly as they did in Oblivion's quest, except that the absolutely unlovable part happened near the end of the questline, not the middle. I did like the references to the past game like Shadowmere and the Spectral Assassin, and I liked how there was a buildup towards a grand target, not a haphazard 'kill this, kill that'... but even killing the Emperor was not close to filling in the total emptiness and longing for the start of the questline I had when I finished it. The target deaths were not nearly as interesting as they were in Oblivion's. There were very, very few bonuses available, and pretty much everything was just stab-n-run. Several situations were nigh impossible to evade undetected (this might be because of the lack of the chameleon spell, but for the love of god, I swear Invisibility is beyond useless. It doesn't seem to do anything.). I had to go werewolf at the wedding and go unnoticed until they were on the balcony - damn hard with the lack of sneaking. Killing the fake emperor, I couldn't figure out how to evade bounty at all. In Oblivion, having a good enough sneak skill and some chameleon/invisibility spells or potions got me through every quest (up to the Purification) without getting caught. I guess this explains why every frigging guard I talk to seems to know exactly who I am. It's nice you're recognizing my quest completion, but discretion was the whole point! For crying out loud... I can give it this much credit - Astrid was a much more likable leader than Lucien. Including the part where she betrays you. I'll sum it up like this; this is the Dark Brotherhood in its entirety, as Bethesda rolls it out. Dark Brotherhood. Meet some friends, kill people. Rise through the ranks, lose all of your friends in one fell swoop. End up as leader doing repetitive semi-quests in a Sanctuary full of mindless copy-and-pasted NPCs. Miss beginning of questline. The end. Also, the Dawnstar Sanctuary looks terrible, bleak, and haphazard compared to the Falkreath one, which was gorgeous. With winterhold college... Everything was going extremely awesome - the eye, those things in Winterhold, and Labyrinthian was just ohcrapawesome... and then the final 'battle' was ridiculously easy. I carved Ancano in half with a single blow. One. Hit. You'd think a dude that had been soaking up power from an artifact of untold power, enough to cause explosions to cover the entire college and send magical wraith-things all over Winterhold, would be able to withstand more than one blow. Not to mention he completely failed to hurt me at all. Suddenly, 'Oh, by the way, since everyone else applicable to the job either died in the first explosion or offscreen, you're Arch-Mage now. We always knew you could do it. :-) Have fun!' I actually sort of liked Oblivion's Mages' Guild questline more. It was full of tedium at the beginning, and the plot wasn't interesting in itself, but it had its unexpected twists, and the climaxes and difficulty mounted at the right points. The progression from apprentice to arch-mage was as natural as a game could make it, given the timeframe. I was really excited about seeing the Psijic Order, but... it's completely failed to explain their motives, what the hell the Eye of Magnus really was, why they couldn't have just told me to get the hell out of Saarthal in the first place, et cetera. What was so bad about the Eye of Magnus anyway? Okay, so Ancano tried to exploit it (what was he doing anyway? What did he want to achieve? We never knew. I'm guessing it was that Thalmor 'erase mankind' agenda, but that's just an educated guess) News flash. Thalmor do crap with everything. Elf Nazis are the problem here, not the eye. If the Eye of Magnus was inherently evil, corruptive, et cetera, the plot totally failed to explain it. It was just a shiny bauble that allowed you to leap from Apprentice to Arch-Mage with no real understanding of what was going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vangarrett99 Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 That's what Beth said: Open World Exploration Oh, take an arrow to the knee. :wallbash: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaldhore Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 My character from oblivion would be apalled if he was to see what was to become of the brotherhood in 200 years.. Not that I disagree in anyway but dude...What would your ancestors from 200+ years ago say about us now....Change is change and 200 years is a lot of change im suprised there isnt more change. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barstow75 Posted December 22, 2011 Share Posted December 22, 2011 My character from oblivion would be apalled if he was to see what was to become of the brotherhood in 200 years.. Not that I disagree in anyway but dude...What would your ancestors from 200+ years ago say about us now....Change is change and 200 years is a lot of change im suprised there isnt more change. lol I was jus joking, im sure our real life ancestors 200 years ago wouldnt be able to even comprehend the world today in 2011. Its jus when i started skyrim i was hoping the DB would have expanded instead. I mean i hate how cicero(who is the most annoying npc ever) is responsible for transporting the night mother.. And his wagon breaks down.. Not epic at all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunnyDayCloud Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 I could not agree more, which is why we need a mod. Come help support the cause herehttp://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/486858-make-or-break-the-dark-brotherhood/ =) Sunny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roane Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Something along the lines of Oblivion's Choices and Consequences needs to be developed for Skyrim, and will eventually, I'm sure. Just hoping for sooner rather than later. My experience with the mages guild left me less than anxious to even start the others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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