So Ysolda in Whiterun mentions about saving up and buying the Bannered Mare from Hulda, but this never materialize unless Hulda is killed.

Phinis Gestor of the College of Winterhold mentions 4 missing apprentices, he even lectures about "Any information as to the whereabouts of the previous groups of Apprentices would be greatly appreciated." But if you find all 4 dead apprentices and bring their respective named items back to Phinis, there's no option to tell him of their fate.

Birna of Birna's Oddments in Winterhold will sell you a Coral Dragon Claw and says that if you find anything with the claw, let her know. Even if you find something using the claw (Yngol's Helm in Yngol Barrow), she doesn't have the option to inform her.

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The above examples are just a few of the instances where I feel the game seems unfinished. Things that get started, or mentioned in passing, but never really materialize.

Hopefully, Bethesda will tie up these loose ends in a patch or coming DLC (highly unlikely). But in case they don't (I think extremely likely), perhaps we could come up with ideas to tie up these loose ends.

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Please post ideas and feedback on how these things could progress


What I've come up with so far:


A Beneficial Partnership: Help Ysolda buy the Bannered Mare and give Hulda the retirement (nonviolent!) she yearned for.

Requirements:
1) Bring a Mammoth Tusk to Ysolda (part of Vanilla Skyrim)
2) Bring 10 samples of Sleeping Tree Sap to Ysolda (part of Vanilla Skyrim, now with a requirement)
3) Be Thane of Whiterun (to show that Ysolda can trust you, since you're a person of stature within Whiterun)
4) Have at least 15,000 in gold (buying an inn costs money!) to give to Ysolda.

Once you reached the above requirements, Ysolda will have a speech option to ask her about buying the Bannered Mare. She will say that the two of you can be partners: she will run the inn and you can be the investor (hence the 15K gold). She then ask you to go to the Bannered Mare and make a deal with Hulda. Once you meet with Hulda, she will agreed to sell you & Ysolda the inn at varying amounts (15K gold if your Speech is pathetic, or as low as 10K if your Speech is really high). She also mentions that she will continue to stay at the inn as a guest and will look after the inn if Ysolda travels as part of the deal, since she enjoys the atmosphere and banter.

Benefits: You get a daily stipend from Ysolda in gold. Ysolda will be behind the counter in the Bannered Mare and able to sell you inn goods at discount prices.

There are various issues to work out if your character marries Ysolda AND she become the new owner, but I think they're minor and could be solved.



The Tales of Four Apprentices: Inform Phinis Gestor the fate of the four missing apprentices.

Once you have locate the four missing apprentices and bring back their named items, Phinis Gestor will give you better prices on his wares, as well as give you 1 free level in conjuration. He will also stop his Hall of Elements lecture about missing apprentices.



Bad Deal Gone Good: Bring the unique item found with the Coral Dragon Claw to Birna.

Requirements:
1) Purchase the Coral Dragon Claw from Birna
2) Explore Yngol Barrow and obtain Yngol's Helm.

You have the option to keep the helm, or bring it back to Birna. If you bring it back to her, she will give you leveled gold, as well as better prices.


Firir's Fate: Inform Eydis (at Old Hroldan Inn) of her husband's fate in Chillwind's Depths.

If you bring Firir's note to Eydis, she will thank you and gives a leveled enchanted weapon, saying it was her husband's. If you just inform her without giving the note, she will just thank you and gives some gold.


Most of these will probably be unvoiced since I doubt we could get the original voice actors to collaborate .

Anyways, I'm probably missing a few other instances. So feel free to suggest, comment, and give feedback.

While making new characters from scratch is feasible because you can do voice acting from scratch, I am unsure of how will one deal with existing character's dialoguessince, for example- Informing Gestor of the dead apprentices requires some kind of respond of his, and thats when the problem jumps in.

Anyway, I was juts thinking out loud, and if you find a good solution I'd be more than happy to see this. Lots of stuff felt like "hey, I should be able to do this or inform him/her of that if I want to" but I couldn't.

edit:just ignore the voice cover part of the comment, I posted before I read the whole thing trough.

Yeah, it makes the game feels....rushed, unfinished.

I think there is two feasible options:

1) Re-do the voice of these characters using new voice actors (volunteers of course) so the new parts flow better.

2) Unvoiced for the new parts.

That seems like a great idea.

Keeping most things unvoiced is the easiest and best solution. Though it works better if there isn't a whole lot of dialogue.

Personally I think a mod like this is better of staying with small follow ups, like mentioning deaths to family and returning to inform Birna. Something like Ysolda buying the Bannered Mare seems too large to be a loose end.

You can use existing voice files to create new dialogue. It wouldn't have to be extremely complex dialogue for the easy stuff. Even the buying the Bannered Mare scenario mightn't require very complex changes to dialogue because the actress that does Ysolda does so many other characters in the game there may be lines that would work for the scenario. The one good thing about the bad management of the voice actors in Skyrim is that a few voice actors have done a lot of the characters. This means there are a lot of lines available for reuse.

Hmm.... That's a good idea. Gotta find out lines that fit and all that jazz.

purely accidental on Bethesda part im pretty sure.....BUT that is awesoem why have i never thought of that?

Something different. I have a quest mod planned that deals with the loose plot point of the College questline, regarding the Synod mage and the dwemer map at Mzulft. That part of the story was completely ignored after the end of the Mzulft quest for some reason. I intend to bring the Synod and the map back into the picture with a new quest that takes place after you become Archmage.

Yeah, that looks really nice. The College of Winterhold main quest line is painfully short, so anything else added to it would be a bonus.

I was thinking the College questline was a prime candidate for DLC, since it was so short. How likely do you think that would be?

Also, myabe add another loose End would eb finding out info on the Rune guy at TG, they give the option to say if u find anythign ull let him know about info on where he came from etc, but i have yet to find anythign in the game that states anything.

I'll be adding this to the growing list of links in my http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1318920-req-free-form-play/ thread. I'm keeping track of mods that will increase that and this idea looks really good.