User blog comment:The Milkman/To Build a Guild/@comment-3492791-20120904022148

In no particular order, because i'm a bit too out of it to follow linearly atm.


 * Actually now that you mention it, Skyrim has no ranks. Oblivion I remember they had a whole section of the charactor panel just for keeping track of your ranks in all the factions. As you mentioned, it required effort to raise through the ranks. These ranks made you feel as if you were actually progressing through the guild. Skyrim guilds really only have two ranks. Chump and Guild Master. The Civil War questline did have some ranks, but ultimently they are meaningless. And to be quite honest the stormcloak ranks are hardly ranks. Most of Ulfic's little nicknames just annoyed me rather than made me feel imporatant (Why would you call me "Bone Breaker"?! I'm an archer you tit!). The criteria for becoming guildmaster is also, rather sketchy. It seems like in every guild, the current guildmaster dies, so you are suddenly bumped up from your non-rank strait to Guild Leader. The only thing that really makes you more qualified than anyone else is the fact you were actually able to leave the guild hall/grounds. Maybe that's why everyone gives you fetch quests. Because they don't actually know how to leave the area they live in.


 * Perspective is an interesting thing to have. Stories of the epic clashes of good and bad, the righteous and the evil, are a bit cliche. It is my strong belief that, there is no such thing as evil. "Evil" is a moral perspective, and morals are subjective. No one ever does anything because they believe it's a bad thing to do. Everyone believes they are doing what is best. The most common conception of evil is when people do what is best for them, at the cost of everyone else. But I digress. My point is that, since right and wrong are a matter of perspective, one should be able to choose what is right, rather than be told. For example, I personally had nothing against necromancy (other than in skyrim it leaves a lot of litter), but the mage's guild told me necromancy is even and bad and necromancers sacrifice children and eat the hearts of the dead. So you kill them, no questions asked. A change in perspective would manifesting itself as being able to pick between different factions of intertwined story lines. This however is only beneficial when there is actually a shift in perspective. A weak storyline can not be stretched very far. This is quite evident to anyone that did both sides of the civil war. To be quite honest there is only on difference in that entire quest line. The battle for Whiterun. Everything else in that quest line is a palette swap. Dawnguard (I'll try not to spoil anything) did better in this respect, but still failed miserably. The only real difference between the two is what kinds of radiant quests you can get (well that and if you can upgrade vampire powers or the crossbow). The main story points are exactly the same, and worse of all They have the exact same antagonist!

The major problem here is they simply don't write enough story to be evenly split. They take the same storyline and duplicate it. That's why i'm personally against people suggesting two sided DLC stories. I would rather get one good story, than two poorly made half-chopped stories.


 * I didn't really even know that "Destroy the Brotherhood" Quest existed until I saw it on thw wiki. I had thought about attacking Astrid before, but never really decided to do it. I don't really see why anyone would do that unless it was a roleplay thing just to make your charctor ever so more righteous. You get so much more stuff for doing the actual guild. It would have been much better if instead the Penitus Oculatus were a joinable faction. You kill Astrid, then you go inform Maro and blah blah. But instead of them intantly knowing exactly where they live, go on some major quest hunting, capturing, and interigating Dark Brotherhood agents in order to find their hidout. They have got to have more than just the 8-9 people you see. I've already killed 5 Dark Brotherhood assassins sent after me on one charactor. Makes it rather awkward when three of them were Argonian, the Veezara tells you he's the last shadowscale. "Ohhh, ohhh, sorry. That was my bad". Maybe make Naziar take over command of the DB since Astrid is dead. Maybe you finially figure out they are in falkreath, then you break in everyone is gone. There is a mole in the Penitus Oculatus that warned them and they moved to dawnstar. Now you have to start over, and find the mole. Making two completly different storylines revolving around the same groups.


 * lol, yes i've too often thought about who exactly my soul belongs to. It makes me feel like a soul whore. What happens when you cheat the whole system and become a Vampire? Then no one gets your soul.


 * Most of the Guilds were major let downs in general. It's always nice you kill the Emperor, arguably the single most important man in Tameriel, and the largest impact is they take his name out of a sentence. The civil war probably takes the prize for the flatest questline (at least Companions had werewolves!). To me it honestly looked like they were planing to make it the main quest, but half way through making it decided it was apocalyptic enough for the main quest. Only they decided to leave it in, and not add anything else into it after that. Taking Windhelm/Solitude really sucked. The worse thing that I was killing Imperials in the streets of Solitude for like 2-3 minutes trying to push forward, before I realised it was a clowngate. That was the best they could come up with. I might have mistaken it for another fort capture quest if Ulfic wasn't yelling at everyone. Almost all the guilds were rather anti-climantic. The best ending to any questline i've had so far (haven't done main quest yet, but you've said yourself it's the worst perpetrator of this) was Dawnguard (the Dawnguard side). Taking Castle Volkihar felt like something truly epic, and the battle with Harkon was equally impressive.

Uhhg. My brain can't make any more semi-cohesive thought.