First things first, this thread(if it takes off) should be considered a modder's resource - understand that if you post in it, your ideas can be used freely by any modder with the talent to realise them.

So yeah, this is essentially a place where the community can work together to generate ideas for mechanics and stories which can be used by themselves or others to expand the existing guild questlines to something more befitting the Elder Scrolls name. Many of us aren't yet experienced enough with the mechanics of modding to do anything useful in the various mod teams which are popping up, and will pop up, but we can at least freely give our ideas in the hope that they prove worthwhile until our skills develop.

The various guild questlines in Skyrim are...well, underwhelming. They all appear to have a similar set of problems; too few missions, poor pacing, and a lack of any sense of character advancement. In Morrowind there were skill requirements to advance in the guilds, in Oblivion you had to travel the world doing work for each outpost of the guild before being trusted with the big stuff, but in Skyrim, you're given a quest to induct you, a quest relating to the guild's lore, and then 2-4 quests which cover a storyline culminating in you becoming the guild leader.

The first issue as I see it(having completed Mage, Thief, and part of the Companions), is how to tie additional content into what already exists without completely abandoning it all. Is it feasible to insert new material between the existing quests, or is it better to just "intercept" the player before they begin the existing content, and direct them into a fresh stream of quests which culminate in them doing the existing content? Do you prefer the idea of front-loading the content in that fashion, with an accompanying increase in the difficulty of actually joining and leading each faction, or do you prefer the idea of leaving the existing quests intact and just adding new content on at the end revolving around guild leadership? Do you have ideas on how to combine both methods?

At least in the beginning, the Thieves have an advantage in this regard, because of the gem. Currently, the "mysterious gem" just leads you right to the guild itself in Riften, and launches you into the main quest, but it should be fairly simple mechanically, to my understanding, to change that so that the gem directs you to the mod content first, either by just changing the location to wherever and having the "appraiser" be a new questgiver, or if you wanted more of a challenge, by having the "appraiser" be an actual jewel appraiser, who upon inspecting the gem, finds an inscription -either directions or a riddle of some kind- which can lead the player into the custom content. For players who just stumble into Riften as part of their wanderings, the issue becomes the same as with the Companions and the Mages - the NPCs which "invite" you into the respective guilds are already fully voice acted, and so adding new options would require them to be completely reworked.

In terms of inserting content prior to allowing the player to access existing storylines, the Companions seem like the simplest fix, as they already have a mechanic built into their story which requires the player do do some questing for members before getting to the meat of things, the only issue with that mechanic is that it only requires you to do one mission. Altering the conditions for triggering the more advanced sections of the storyline to force the player to do a couple of Radiant quests for each Companion, and perhaps even achieve a certain level in one of the "warrior" skills, will from my understanding be a simpler undertaking than setting up such a system from scratch for the other guilds, and integrating it seamlessly into the existing world.

The Mages would appear to have ideal questgivers in the form of the Court Wizards, but I'm not sure how one would go about adding new content to them, and not using them in some way feels like a bit of a copout.

Anyway, all thoughts are welcome, have at it.

Mages? Hmmm...well, you could have magic-themed quests from the Court Wizards give you recommendation letters, or they put in a good word for you at the College. The mage quests in-game seem lackluster though; I feel like I'm just a grunt, not a student and potential master of the mystical arts.

Yeah oblivion guild quest> skyrim. God i never become archmage.

I have a few ideas, if you haven't completed the dark brotherhood, Thieves guild, Companions or Mages guild quests yet and don't want spoilers, ignore the sections you haven't completed.

Mage Guild

This place has a massive potential for additional quests ONCE you have become the Arch mage. Whilst Oblivion had you induct yourself and prove yourself to each Hold before going to the university, Skyrim pretty much allows you straight in on a fairly short quest line. The lore of the college though, leaves massive potential for additional quests. It is distrusted and even hated by most people in Skyrim. You could set up quests to bring back the mages guild in skyrim. A nice series of quests for each Hold that once you complete, you Open up a new building which is a kind of out post for the college itself. Quests could include anything from healing a Jarl that was injured in a fight or clearing out a group of necromancers that are terrorising a hold ect. Once you complete a couple of quests for each hold, the Jarl could invite you to purchase or take over a building in the city so they could always be protected by members of the college. At this point you would get a building and a couple of student or initiates from the college would move in and offer supplies and such.

Thieves guild

These quests are a lot longer than the mage guild ones, purely because you have the main questline with Mercer but you also have the side quests to do jobs. Once you complete jobs for each hold you get a special quest for them which then gives you a minor set up in the hold the quest is in. Usually this just adds a fence and that's pretty much it. Each one of these quests also adds a merchant to the flaggon. Whilst I think this is nice, it is way too short and no way near grand enough. You don't really get much except a good place to vendor your junk. It doesn't look impressive and there is no visual changes to show the guild is growing other than these merchants moving in, you are still hiding in a sewer. There are a few ways I can think of improving this. You could do a series of quests that involves ruining the reputations of a few upper class people of riften (by planting stolen goods in their homes, ruining their businesses ect), you could even turn on maven until eventually you are in a position for Brynjolf to become the Jarls assistant and maybe even bringing the Jarl in on the action (could do a split quest where you either bring her in or choose to keep her out of it which could have varying outcomes). After all this you could then use Brynjolfs position of power to get money to have the "sewer system repaired" and that would improve the flaggon visually on a more grand scale or you could syphon money from the town to buy a building in the city thats quite rich and impressive. You could even go as far as something completely shocking such as taking over the temple of mara or taking over the jarls court/palace.

Dark Brotherhood

Overall I was quite happy with this quest line but felt it dropped a bit short. Again the brotherhoods HQ is a bit plain and boring even after purchasing all the upgrades. It's got nothing on the dark but some how impressive look of the one in oblivion. You could set up a few quests from the guy (Can't remember his name, he gives you the jobs in the dark brotherhood) who says that the place they are in feels a bit small and cramped for what the dark brotherhood is growing into. So a set of quests to bring back a secret temple to the Night mother could be good. Also at the end there are very few members of the Dark Brotherhood still alive. There definately needs to be another set of quests that sends you out to recruit new members. A few more jobs other than the repeat quests from the night mother would be nice for this too as they are too generic. They don't have the feel of doing anything really dangerous or impressive to them. Frankly after killing the Emperor, telling you to then go kill a lumberjack for a few hundred gold is massively anticlimactic.

Companions Guild

There isn't really too much I can think of for these guys. They already have a very cool HQ in white run, they have a decent number of members and the repeat quests are pretty cool. Maybe if someone was to make a mod that allows more than one companion someone could come up with some really challenging dungeons that require 2 or 3 companions to complete. So a dungeon with really dangerous monsters in it that require team work to take down or a set of puzzles that require you to do something in the right order or at the same time. Things like that. Maybe you could add in some optional quests depending on if the player is a werewolf or not. So if you have cured the disease, then you get one set of quests but if you didn't then maybe there's a way to make some that you HAVE to be in beast form to complete. This requires a bit more thought as the companions are a completely different dynamic to the other three groups.



Those are just some Ideas I could think up off the top of my head. I hope people agree they could be good ideas and maybe someone will use them I will try and think of some more and some more detail but for now there's something for people to think about.

Edit: It's also 6:22am here and I haven't slept yet so if my typing/spelling/grammar is poor, that's why

Oh also meant to ask, how would people feel about linking the guilds into eachother, not having them as one entity but having certain quests that require direct involvement from another guild. An example of this could be the dark brotherhood needs someone assassinating but cannot get to them due to them being too well guarded or something, so they send you to the thieves guild to find a way of turning the guards against the target by ruining them or doing something that requires the guards attention, leaving the target vulnerable.