I just got done finishing the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood on my Assassin / Thief / Archer type of character, I had already completed the College of Winterhold on my Mage and the Companions on my Warrior. With this said, I've determined that I am rather disappointed in them all...


The Length

They were all rather short, the College of Winterhold being the shortest and the Dark Brotherhood being the longest. The Dark Brotherhood was only the longest because it required you to do extra side quests, whilst the other ones didn't have such a requirement. Some may argue that the Thieves Guild and even the Companions have required side quests in order to progress, but not nearly to the extent of the Dark Brotherhood. The College of Winterhold was over within three to four hours, especially if you're playing on a lower difficulty and are fast traveling! The Companions can be completed in anywhere between 4 and 5 hours. The Thieves Guild Main Questline can be completed in about 4 or 5 hours, however, restoring the Thieves Guild can take a good chunk of time, like an extra hour or two. The Dark Brotherhood took around pretty much 7 or 8 hours because of the huge amount of side quests! For the Dark Brotherhood, it's Main Quest > Several Contracts > Main Quest > Several Contracts, etc. Which is what makes it so much longer than the rest. All in all, in comparison to Oblivion, they're each shorter, which disappoints me greatly.

The College of Winterhold

When we're not discussing the length of The College of Winterhold and we're just discussing the gameplay, environment, rewards, etc. it truly is somewhere on top. The rewards are definitely worth while if you're playing a mage archetype. The Arch Mage's Robes are truly the best robes I've seen so far, and I've seen a lot of robes on my journeys. Many vendors and trainers are available, which helps out big time. The companions are rather lacking, however. There are a select few radiant quests given that offer over 1,000 gold each, which is an incredibly generous amount compared to all of the other radiant quests I've completed. Now I know what you're thinking, "Sterlin is a hypocrite! He was just bagging on this guild earlier and now he's praising it!" Well if it weren't for the incredibly short questline, I might actually say that this was the best Quest Line to complete in all of Skyrim! Too bad this isn't so. Also, another issue is that even though you're acknowledged as the Arch-Mage ( aka. Guild Master, which is definitely more than I can say about some of the other guilds ), it doesn't compare to the feeling given from the Mages Guild in Oblivion, where there were tons of apprentices that pretty much worshiped you and even made references amongst other guild members about you.

The Companions

The only good thing I can say about this is that the Companions are actually pretty good, not to mention the leveling exploit. Anyways, upon the completion, when you're the guild master, you're again, not left with the same feeling that you may have had in some of the previous Elder Scrolls games when given such a prestigious title. The Radiant Quests give very very small amounts of gold, at least the ones I've completed so far, in fact, the whole questline gives petty rewards. I think I was given only 150 gold for each quest I did, where as in all of the other guilds, I earned at least double that. I felt that some of the quests were rather pointless, and unneeded.

The Thieves Guild

The main gripe about this one is that, upon completion, you have absolutely no feeling of being the Guild Master. People still talk down to you in the guild and they even call you a new-guy. I have yet to restore the Thieves Guild's wealth, but from what I understand, you're still left with the same empty feeling of not aspiring to what you should. The guild's full of side quests to do, but it feels like the rewards aren't worth it at all. For example, I remember I did a quest where I had to steal 500 coins worth of goods in a certain town, I completed this and they took the items I earned and gave me a mere 250 gold, huge rip off. The Lock Picking training is a joke, there's only 5 chests to open and once they've been opened, that's it. The rewards from all but the Master Chest stink. If it wasn't for being a Nightingale I'd say this is my least favorite Guild to complete thus far!

The Dark Brotherhood


There were too many side quests that had to be completed in order to progress in The Dark Brotherhood, the pattern was easily identified, it even annoyed me. Some of the events that occur felt rather predictable. In terms of being recognized as the superior Guild Master, this guild is definitely on top. Something happens in the questline that causes this to be very apparent. As time goes by, or maybe as you do side quests I can't really determine, you'll find initiates appearing randomly, which is pretty cool, and there's a lot of cool upgrades you can get for the hideout. After you've completed the contracts, the only thing there is left to do, however, is the radiant quests given by the Night Mother, you're sent to kill a certain person and you receive 600 gold upon completion. Sounds fun at first, but gets dull really quick. The rewards in general are okay, the weapons are the best part, but unfortunately of course, they scale to level.

I just felt in general that these quest lines weren't worth doing, if anything it's free achievement points, but I guess everything can't be perfect. What are your opinions on the subject?

The Dark Brotherhood is the longest? Damn, just finished it thinking of how rushed and short it felt.

You might consider the Thieves Guild the longest, due to the fact the guild can be restored to it's glory days through side quests, but in terms of the actual main quests, the Dark Brotherhood is longer.

First off, very nice write up, some spoilers in there for people who haven't touched the guilds yet, so maybe you should warn them.

I agree on everything you just stated, after completing the mages guild (which I had a hard time on) I didn’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything. Just felt like a miscellaneous quest completion. Same with the Dark Brotherhood, even tho it’s my favorite of the game. Without spoiling it, for what you do, you see very little change in the world. People who have completed the DB story will understand that.

I have no gripe with the Companions quest line. It served it’s purpose and leveled me up a good bit.

Thieves guild could have been a lot better. But it’s pretty much what I would expect it to be. Steal this, steal that.

But I was very surprised by the length of each one. I think it’s due to the fact that there are SOOO many more little quests then Oblivion. So instead of giving the Guilds a long quest line they just gave it a short too medium one in the attempt to not bore the player out. My opinion at least.

The game is so quest dense I was actually somewhat relieved that the companion quest line wasn't that long. There's too much still to get too.

I know it's why I believe oblivion was better.

Spoilers alert:

I've completed them all except the companions.

My greatest complain is: People still give you the same lines of dialog when you already are the master of their guild like "hope you don't give us trouble newbie" in both the mages guild and the thieves guild. This completely breaks immersion.............

I believe their questlines are decent in general but there should be something special to do at the end. For example in the thieves guild you got to choose among 3 very interesting abilities. At the college, except the loot and your room, there was nothing.

DB is so far the most satisfying since the questline was very interesting, you get appropriate loot and at the end you get to decorate a base where people actually recognise you for who you are! (Could still use something special like getting an extra ablity or permanent buff)

It would also be interesting if people from the guilds knew that you are a master in other guilds too. But they don't even you are their master in their own guild...
Also being a master should come with certain priviledges throughout the world or a chance to learn unique spells/powers (like in the thieves guild), (or have access to a spellcrafting table if there was one )

I can't understand why the did such a good job with the game in general and overlooked these important parts (and will probably never fix them)...

I completely agree... Its the only one that I've finished and all I could think was

"Well, I guess the Dark Brotherhood wasn't given much attention... at least I have all the other longer, more in-depth main questlines to look forward to!"

They were better than the guilds in Oblivion overall, but I do agree the anti-climatic endings of some of the guild quest lines and the length was an issue. On the face of it I enjoyed them and felt like even with the reduced length compared to Oblivion the quests and characters overall were much more interesting and better done. Mostly the worst part about them was they were so well done in comparison to the main quest line that a lot of us were left wanting more, for me this was especially true with the Dark Brotherhood whose quests I did almost exclusively once I joined up with them as they were just the most enjoyable.

...you're complaining over TOO many thing too do in the guilds? I'm already done with this thread...

Honestly I found the the guilds in Oblivion just flat out boring. The mages guild was horrible. The fighters guild was boring. The thieves guild was OK. The Dark Brotherhood guild was the only one I enjoyed. Although Skyrims faction quests are shorter, I feel the stories are better. The characters are more memorable as well, which is also a plus. In the grand scheme of things, the story telling in both games are not there strong points. Heck, the factions were better written in Morrowind than it's main quest.

In short, it's a Bethesda game. In my opinion they better written, albeit, but shorter factions. Still written by Bethesda, though.

The thieves guild was a huge disappointment. I have restored it to its former glory, and I keep being told that I shouldn't make trouble and that they are too busy and have no time for me. I get treated exactly the same as when I just joined.

You obviously haven't even read the discussion, if you read the normal sized font beneath " The Length " you'll find I'm complaining about how SHORT everything is, sorry.

Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood was infinitely better. Playing through the Mage Guild in Oblivion was worth it for the spellmaking alone.

My problem was less with the length of the questlines but more with the pithy rewards and the lack of dialogue. Being the leader of a faction causes very little new dialogue on their part or that of anyone else. Why, just the other day I was in Dawnstar and the Jarl's mage told me something along the lines of "I sent appeals for aid to the college of Winterhold to no avail." (I'm the damn Arch-Mage.) This is especially bothersome with the Imperials and Stormcloaks, those two factions should be particularly rewarding and change dialogue in the world quite a bit but they don't.

Agreed. The factions are one of the biggest disappointments for me in Skyrim... which is a shame because it's one of the things I look for most from TES games.

I agree to an extent, while going through the Quest lines [I've only done Mage so far] it was extremely entertaining but once it ended it felt like nothing happened, and there really weren't any good perks to being the Arch-mage like in Oblivion.

Not to mention, Winterhold is a crappy place for a home base, it's empty. I'd really like to be able to transform Winterhold through quests as part of "reparations" for the great collapse, whether we were responsible or not, turn it in to a great city. I think it'd be cool to gather recruits to really populate the college [what kind of college has like 6 people in it!?], be able to take recruits on more expeditions to ruins, etc. When the Creation Kit comes out that's one of things I'd love to work on.

Having not read your OP for fear of spoilers, I have heard this mentioned by people various times before and it does worry me.

Just started the DB quests and so far it seems very cool, especially the first quest when you meet Astrid (I think that's her name)

For as huge as the gameworld is. The Faction questlines were short. I finished the mages guild and am bugged on the companions after getting the heads. I understand I close to the end of the companion line anyway. Was very short. Why arent their any guild halls in the towns like past games, to get missions from the towns guild leaders? With all the hype about the game and this new radiant story, I expected huge questlines that would give many many hours of play for each faction. I kind of feel cheated because in the past games they made a big deal about those quests and they were a huge part of the game itself.