Skyrim's Companions Vs Oblivion's Fighters Guild

[Falkner1992]

Which one did you think was better? I think they both had strengths and weaknesses. I'll outline what I thought they were:

 

Companions:

+ Better and deeper characterization, you got to hang around with all the members of the Companions (or at least the Circle) and learned a little bit about all of them. *1

+ Interesting storyline with deep, dark secret (which gets revealed a little too early imo, but hey).

+ The final quest to free Kodlak Whitemane's soul from Hircine was imo very powerful and touching.

- Questline is waaaay too short, even with the radiant missions serving as filler.

- There's no real antagonist except for the Silver Hand, but they get taken out two-thirds of the way into the quest.

- I know I said they had a better story, and they do, but forcing you to become a werewolf to progress in the questline is just plain stupid.

 

Fighters Guild:

+ Longer and more satisfying questline.

+ Actual, intimidating antagonist in the Blackwood Company (if a bunch of armed-to-teeth half-beast mercenaries on crystal meth won't scare you, I don't know what will).

+ Modreyn Oryen, who became like a brother-in-arms as the questline progressed.

- A leader who is practically useless and could almost be taken out of the quest completely with barely any consequence.

- Lack of characterization of most Guild members, even important ones like Donton, Azzan and Burz gro-Khash. The only one you got to know was Oryen.

 

Overall, I have to say I did enjoy playing the Fighters Guild questline more in Oblivion. Despite their interesting storyline and good characterization, the Companions suffered from two basic flaws:

 

1. Their questline was just too damn short (and, at least in my experience, very, very easy).

 

2. They had no real antagonist. I don't know if this is true, but I read somewhere (can't remember where) that originally the main antagonist and final boss of the Companions questline was supposed to be Skjor in his werewolf form. Can anyone confirm this?

 

Anyway, this is just my opinion what do you think?

[AnkhAscendant]

Not being ever a fighter character myself (so never having actually gone through the Companinos), I can't offer a really in-depth opinion, but it sounds like the Companions suffer from the same flaw as most (I'm not sure about the TG, not having finished it, so maybe all?) guilds in Skyrim... stunted questlines. You never really get to the point where you feel like you're not a newbie/student/initiate/trainee before you become Archmage/Listener/Harbinger/godking of the universe. And you're right, if there's no antagonist it just feels kind of... empty. At least all the other guilds had archenemies still at the end (though the college was a bit weak, at least it was there).

[Falkner1992]

Yeah, for all his 'my power is supreme!' talk, Ancano was pretty weak. I never played a spellcaster, so I never completed the College questline, but I saw a video of someone doing it.

 

The only questline that had a real antagonist was the Thieves Guild's, Mercer Frey was one tough and threatening badass, and to top it all, he was voiced by Garrett from the Thief series, that made him even more awesome.

[McclaudEagle]

I preferred the Fighter's Guild by far...I even miss the legendary "rats" contracts. The Blackwood Company part of the questline certainly added a good lot of interest and I agree, they felt much more dangerous and more powerful than the Silver Hands.

[luzburg]

Thieves Guild is easily the best quest line of the whole game in my opinion. The DB is good but could have been much more impressive. Mages is ridiculous. Companions had potential to be epic but in the end it was indeed short and the radiant quests made them seem like another bunch of hired thugs.