Instead of raising money to repair the damages done, how about repairs occuring as you expand a faction? The thieve's guild allows you to do jobs in each city to bring back a certain level of power as you go, why not repair each city as you assert your power in each location? Though this would apply a lot better to actual "good" factions, you could come up similar results. Imagine the different dialogue you might encounter as you make your way through Skyrim.

Old Hag: " In my day, we didn't rely on scruffians to grease the wheels of economy..."
Young Man: "In your day, you were still inventing the wheel!"

So just allow you to kill them all but still have them in the game, you mean completely rewrite it so its a series of quests? Just allowing you to kill them just takes away content, again some of us like story (which the game already leaves a lot to be desired). Without spoilers, just killing them makes two largish places pointless accept to look at. Maybe steal stuff from them and sell to erm honest merchants much later in the game, would pretty much leave killing the DB as the only option, remove power from Maven and her offspring meaning again without spoilers a generic NPC with no story to fill her shoes later on depending on choices made. Riften becomes just a small town with go kill a dragon quests and merchants to sell you lesser stuff than you can already make by that point.

Add in a story and quests to replace what would be lost I'm all for the option, add in lots of mini quests like meals on hooves deliveries, paint the orphanage, catch the cheating spouse, put A out of business for B, fix broken windows, put out fires, sure. Just set lots of NPC's non-essential and release it as Skyrim: Walk Around and [censored] Edition not so much.

I am aware of what role the Thieve's Guild plays in the story - And breaking those bastard's necks would greatly improve the story all around.

80% of the locations in Skyrim are "Just to look at" - two more wouldn't hurt it. And if you're the type to take out the Thieve's Guild, you're likely also the type to take out the Dark Brotherhood.

I'm not even saying they should be "randomly" killable - Killing them should trigger a quest to "clean up" the loose ends it creates. Skyrim easily has the structure to handle it.

Seriously - I doubt the story would suffer any more for killing the Guild than for ignoring it entirely. Saying Riften would become generic once the Thieve's Guild is gone is like saying Markarth becomes generic onceOr Solitude becomes Generic onceor Windhelm becomes generic after or Whiterun is redundant and generic after
Seriously - Taking out the thieves guild would be a major quest, even if it doesn't end up being listed in the journal and merely consists of swinging Wuthraad or Dawnbreaker around a few times.

Or to look at it from the view of someone who likes things to have purpose and a story only 20% of locations have a point - two less would hurt.
A series of well thought out quests with consequences I'm all for, go kill em and add a small quest to collect wood and burn the bodies while not replacing the lost content with something else no thanks.

No content is lost, though. That's you're mistaken assumption. Does not doing anything for the Thieves' Guild make those places any more important? All making the Thieves' Guild immortal does is break the flow of the game - Every other "significant" power can be taken out and dethroned, up to and including Why are the Thieves' Guild and Maven Blackbriar given arbitrary immunity?

The way I see it, it isn't lost content if you weren't going to join the guild in the first place. Its adding content to a character with a different view. I love joining thieve's guilds in the ES series, but the Riften guild definitely raises the question as to whether it should be around or not depending on the hero's perspective. With such deep connections throughout the city, the outcomes of rivaling the guild should produce an interesting outcome.

The guilds questline itself isn't the only content it provides.


The thieves guild existing player intervention or not gives back story to the whole town, it's reputation throughout the world, it's atmosphere, Mjoll a backstory and reason for being, Maven and her ilk a backstory and a means to power, explains the Jarls weakness and the opinion of her people towards her among other things. Not every Jarl is killable you get rid of some depending on a choice you make, one of those replacements has a backstory and reason to power involving the Thieves Guild. The spoiler you mention involves a quest line (well it wouldn't as you'd have killed the DB) with a replacement lined up with a backstory.

The only was this is going to happen is with a DLC. Remove the guild and the town needs to change, power needs to shift, NPC's attitudes and dialogue need to change all paced and explained with a questline. Considering that doesn't happen now after the Civil war where camp leaders are set essential and everyone likes to talk about the ongoing war after you've taken the other sides leader and seat of power down, I can't see that happening so a DLC would at the very least leave me with a disjointed story, more pointless locations, another guilds questline cut shorter and less options.

Your making the mistake of thinking everyone plays like you and looks for the same as you do in the game. You want to kill them go for it, I not only want you and me to have that option I also want it to mean something and not just remove content and potential content for me and others.

As I say a well thought out option with replacement content and consequences would be great I don't even like the guild but I do like immersion and story, is Obsidian available?

But killing the thieves' guild off doesn't remove content. It's a forceful rejection of an unwanted element in the game. Riften kind of reminds me of Bravil or Leyawinn from Oblivion with its problems - But Oblivion handled those cities much better, because the Thieves Guild, corrupt nobles, and poverty were symptoms of deep-rooted problems within the cities - and even then, the "corrupt authorities" still had redeeming qualities (Countess Alessia Caro was more ignorant and strict than outright malicious, and Bravil had a drug problem, but there was no one person to blame for the city's plight). With Riften, almost every significant problem can be traced back to the Thieves' Guild and/or Maven Blackbriar. And once you actually join it, you find it's overrated. It's on it's last legs... how can it cripple the entire town prior to you joining it, then? They don't even need to change Riften's atmosphere once the thieves' guild gets "cleaned out" - There are signs of deeper problems within Riften that Aerin and Mjoll would continue to fight against once the Thieve's Guild was broken, leaving a would that would take at least a few years to heal.

You say it like it's a problem.
Keep those parasites outta mah Windhelm.

But yes, I noticed this is a problem. One that could be fixed my allowing the Dragonborn to personally kill some vital quest characters (I realize it'd be annoying if a vital character were just killed by some random bear or something, but giving the option to personally kill someone- say, everyone in the Dark Brotherhood- could fix this). I believe there is a "Destroy the Dark Brotherhood" questline if you kill Astrid during the first mission.

I think they could solve this (it might be a lot of work) by introducing different versions of questlines (it would open up a lot of player choice); instead of joining the thieves guild, players could be introduced to some puritanical reformer in Riften and told to lead guards through the Ratway, butcher poor people (... heroic questline?), etc.

IIRC, player has the option of helping the forsworn to kill that corrupt Markarth family? Kill 'em both?

The fact that it can be traced back or just explained to you by random NPC's shows the content provided. Remove them and to justify the same atmosphere you would need to add a way to get to the deeper issues. If the removal is done right the Steward would be the first to go post guild, she needs a replacement, as would the Black-Briars and the power vacuum left behind. To do it properly NPC dialogue would have to change, the replacements would need backstorys and reason to be chosen. To remove them completely NPC's like Enthir and the uppity [censored] in Winterhold need to be dealt with somehow.

Just rushing in and killing them without any consequence would be pointless, immersion breaking and a waste from a story perspective, I think the Civil War already has those possibilities covered. Besides you can already get your Hero Ego stroked by wiping out the rapists, killers, thieves, drug dealers and hostage takers in nearly every random cave in the world.


If only.

You don't need to add a way to get to "The Deeper issues", as Oblivion managed to do excellently with Bravil and Leyawiin. The Thieves' Guild and Maven Black-Briar are swordable problems that Bethesda arbitrarily made non-swordable. What wouldn't be a swordable problem is a more even distribution of the tarnished personalities, so that it's impossible to hurt the people causing the problems without hurting those you're trying to help as well - a city with a few bad-apples, and the rest of the population is starting to turn as well just to get by and survive.

So sword the problem and just remove/strip down all the related NPC's and quests, silence the guild related dialogue and leave a void? Sorry I like a little more depth than go kill and forget about it. Especially when that blood lust has been built up through story, atmosphere and interaction.

Absolutely agree with this, you should have the option to Join the Silverhand and take down the companions, just as the companions try to take them down. So why not join up with Mjoll to take out the theives guild. They added the take down the dark brotherhood, the only one I am not sure of is the Mages College, not sure how that story would go, though I haven't played that questline yet.

For my character, I cleared out Bleak Falls Barrow very early in her story. Many months later, in gameplay terms, I return to the barrow. The barrow has reset, including the dialogue. I am hearing two bandits that I had killed having the very exact conversation they had earlier about their boss who was killed by the Draugr on my first visit. Yet, this site is shown as cleared on the map. Why did Bethsaida decide to include this information when it can be overridden by the reset button? The purpose of such information, in my humble opinion, is to inform the player that they have cleansed a location of nasties, both the living and the undead, and that there's no possiblity of said nasties returning to this location. By resetting a location, I feel this label becomes meaningless. By having two characters who I had killed recite dialogue that is no longer applicable, I feel the game is giving me the one-finger salute.

At a minimum it could be done with perhaps a couple dozen lines of dialogue and that's it. A few random comments from people outside Riften, and then changing some comments from people inside and closely related to it. It's far from impossible.

Frankly, the whole "Radiant Story" thing was billed as being part of the answer to problems like this as I recall. Unfortunately it's actual implementation is pretty lame.

I can't really see it happening with a DLC either. Unless they made Riften the focus of the DLC and lots of complicated stuff involving all relevant parties the focus of the DLC. I guess they could have a wider focus on multiple towns and the factions throughout, but that's even less likely. Still, it's a dang shame they put up these leaders that to many are asking to be removed and then don't let you do ANYTHING. I sort of get the feeling it was originally intended that you could do something. All the components of being able to change things are there...there just aren't any quests or dialogues to cover it.

THIS

This is my one and only true hate, otherwise you see me flying the really devoted fan banner.

I'm sorry to say, but if I don't like the Thiefs Guild and the DB, why should I not be allowed to kill these criminals? You have to admit that a real person in Skyrim with a lot of power could kill the members of the guilds and destroy them. I never played both guilds in TES, because I don't like them, so the actual loss of quests and "flavour" from them for me would be of no meaning at all. And it would not hurt you too, being a SPG. Because criminals have a great reservoir, similar mafia organisations would of course again establish themselves later on, so there would be no lore lost for TES forever.

The one thing I'd like to do has nothing to do with killing or eliminating -- it's building. Specifically, rebuilding Winterhold. I want to lade the Jarl down with money and watch new houses pop up, see newly-hewn stone staircases going down to new docks thriving with seaborne traffic like the docks in Solitude. These poor people had 90% of their town drop into the ocean, I've got all this money and magic, and... I can't help them. It's disheartening. And I can't help but feel it'd be simple to implement.

But you can still leave them be if YOU want to, you can still do their questlines if you want to. But I, for one, only do these questlines on some of my characters and on some of my characters I want to wipe them out but I can't. Would Riften be kind of pointless once the Thieves have been cleared? Yes, but it already is kind of pointless for all of my characters not joining the guild so I don't really lose anything. And neither do you since you're not forced to clear them out, should the option exist.

I was actually head of the Dark Brotherhood when Maven was trying to tell me shes well connected with the DB. Yeah, so well connected you dont even know who runs the show. That storyline AI.. so radiant..

And Maybe she speaks with Sithis himself.

It would be better, because NOT having the people of Riften whining about the Thieves Guild all the time would indicate progress happening in that city.

It doesn't need to be marked to still be a quest.Why would you want to join those bandits and thugs, and find yourself banned from cities for association with murderers and thieves? In case it wasn't clear, despite their allegedly "noble" goal of killing werewolves, they're just a bunch of bandits with the flimsiest veneer of legitimacy.

I want a "like "button. ;'(

-Robin

That's really sad and disappointing, because I won't play the thieve's guild line, or the Dark Brotherhood line; I play pure good characters.

I've heard a lot of people say that those are the only guild quests that are any kind of interesting, and certainly the Mage's Guild svcked. So, I guess Bethesda hates me. ;'(

-Robin

I don't see any way to better the lot of the Dunmer in Windhelm; am I missing something?

-Robin