There is really a lack of importance to becoming a guild leader... You make no real decisions, customizations, or outcomes for any of the guilds. No additional characters, no decision on what should change in the guild, group raids, or anything like that. It saddens me to see such potential with these guilds yet all of them fall short.

I just went through the Thieves Guild quest line and it was a decent line, however the characters became so static after the quest line... Saying the same things over and over, no change in dialogue after achieving Guild Master title, and no random discussion of the next planned heist or stories of their last act of thievery. Also, it was possible to not do any side missions before gaining the trust of Mercer, which makes no sense because DB was just thrown into the guild and had the trust of everyone despite not making a name of him/herself, which is even more depressing due to the fact that even Oblivion had you doing petty thievery before you were able to meet the leader. Also, no amazing piece of Thieves Guild artifacts? That's pretty saddening, especially because receiving the mask from Oblivion into this game would have been such an incredible nostalgic moment for I think most of us (honestly, I haven't taken the time to understand the lore of TES, so feel free to educate me )

I would really like to see an expansion of this idea in the next TES, or possibly even part of a DLC/Patch.

The guild wasn't exactly prospering when you met them; so they would take anyone in with the potential.

But I agree; being a guild master isn't what its cracked up to be. I would like to be able to do organize crimes and climb up the ladder through hard work rather than being a guild master like, tomorrow. You know, stuff like heists, smuggling operations, evading the law, organizing skooma and gambling den, protection racket. And why the [censored] would I want to be doing small jobs for Vex while I'm a Guild Master? Leave that to the small fries.

And you should be able to build extra infrastructure inside cities (like gambling dens, vaults...), and recruit thieves; the way Hearthfire did to houses.

I'm expecting faction expansion questline in the future. There are still many unanswered questions regarding the factions, especially the open-ended College quest line, and the other character intrigues in Thieves Guild (Like Rune's name).

I do feel like guilds in general are probably Skyrim's absolute weakest aspect.

I pretty much agree 100% with this. I think Skyrim should have had time restraints to an extent, not like oh you have to play the game for 1 year to become a guild master, but There should have been requirements to become higher ranks.

Man, organizing raids and stuff as the guild leader would be so sick. Hopefully in TES 6 it will be far better.

Agreed. The leader before Mercer (Gallum?) had plans for various heists, but as far as I've played haven't run into one major heist besides the quest line one. Also, basically all burglary missions involve DB going sneak mode, picking a lame Novice lock, and walking inside and straight to the item, there is nor eal skill involved. Breaking into the houses through windows, roof tops, etc as alternative easier ways would have been much more exciting.

That and the Civil War... (Bethesda's first Morally Grey Conflict Since 2006 though...)

(No variation between the two sides...)

There should have been a bandit side that kick both factions out and turn Skyrim into bandit controlled territory. But NOOOO.... you have just got to pick one flawed faction over another; even while disliking both of them.

And before you said that it's not lore-friendly... SCREW THAT! I want to see the Thalmors try to take Skyrim from the hands of hardened outlaws that fought the law and beat the [censored] ouf of it; with a leader who literally eat dragon's souls for breakfast. Aren't there a good reason Marauders are MASSIVELY more powerful than Imperials and Stormcloaks?

So I usually ended up choosing Imperials for all the races except Nord; while killing all Imperials and Stormcloaks I see because NO ONE TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!

Try to stay on topic

Yeah, tied with the Civil War. Which really svcks because the Civil War is the one thing that every single NPC likes to talk about, and is really in its own way a secondary main quest. So for it to be as gigantically disappointing as it was is just kind of...disheartening...

Plus for many of us, Guilds are a big focal point for how we build a character and what he spends a large portion of his time doing - an integral part of their identity for when you don't want to do the main quest for the tenth time. So to have such a paltry number guilds, with each being so short and under-realized...

Those two points more than anything else probably encapsulate why I spend a lot of time on these forums feeling steamed about what Skyrim ended up being, whilst wishing it was more like its predecessors. In another thread, someone (I think Albino Dunmer?) said that he considered Skyrim '3 steps forward, 3 steps back, and 24 steps sideways'. That's a really great way to put it, but for me personally the three steps they took back were in the areas absolutely the most important to me (including, and especially guilds).

Exactly, I finished the entire Thieves guild in a day, while taking healthy breaks of Battlefield 3, lunch, time with my girlfriend, and leveling my pickpocket. Now it is just tedious thieving mini quests to unlock contacts for the guild. That being said, the Thieves Guild is probably the most "progressing" guild there is, in the way that it builds areas as you gain contacts.

Yeah that is a little sad, considering how the Thieves Guild is probably the best done guild in Skyrim. Though they really don't steal very much in the course of their non-radiant quests...

You also never see other thieves walking through out like Skyrim like you see with the Companions, they all just keep to themselves.